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take his daughter roller-skating.
Out of curiosity I opened the German phrase book at random, and the first phrase
that I saw was ‘Ist hier in der Nähe ein Atomkraftwerk?’ which
translates as, ‘Is there an atomic power station around here?’
A curious question to ask when you come to think about it, and one that might
be inappropriate to ask of any member of the German constabulary on your return
from your pilgrimage to Mecca wearing the national dress of an Arab state. My
first reaction was why would anyone want to know, but then I haven’t lived
in Europe, where it may be a common question at the start of any conversation
rather than ‘which AFL club does one follow’ or ‘how much
is your beach house worth’. I must confess that on the infrequent times
that I have come close to a nuclear power station I have the conditioned reflex
of prickly disquiet most likely generic to any child of the sixties. But I am
also moved by their quiet, industrial, well-manicured stability of design. Massive,
simple geometric shapes, emerging from a river side or otherwise bucolic rural
setting. However I am moved enough to keep on moving rather than to linger,
and so I have always let the train or autobahn waft me on. My logical male engineering
mind says that it would be preferable to live close to a nuclear power station
than adjacent to a coal-fired Yallourn B, but my logical mind also says that
we should manage to do without both if we possible can.
The next page of the phrasebook has, ‘Bist du an etwas Kokain interessiert?’
– ‘are you interested in some cocaine?’ and my next random
dip produced, ‘Gibt es ein Konzentration-slager, das man besuchen kann?’
….’is there a concentration camp that you can visit?’
A Lonely Planet Jungian moment of synchronicity which could sum up the 20th
Century, but not in any way related to this month’s theme. Regrettably
this month’s Toolbox is not about how the British ‘invented’
the concentration camp during the Boer war, nor is it about the beautiful and
brilliant Marquise Emilie de Châtelet, lover of Voltaire and a brilliant
mathematician in her own right. Voltaire wrote “I found in 1733 a young
lady who felt more or less as I did, and who resolved to spend several years
in the country to cultivate her mind far from the tumult of the world”.
She will have to wait for a later time.
Unfortunately this month’s Toolbox isn’t about the late Sir Ewan
Forbes of Craigevar and his three-year dispute to establish his claim to the
baronetcy, which was problematic, as he had been registered at his birth as
a girl by the name of Elizabeth Forbes-Sempill. Nor is it about the making of
the It Comes As No Surprise video clip for the Pigdon Film festival, which did
turn out rather well, but didn’t take out the Golden Gumby Award as it
so richly deserved to do. Mike had written It Comes As No Surprise many years
ago, and although it had never been released, it had always been a favourite
of my wife – ace camerawoman Mary. The other nice thing was being able to use
the family photographs lovingly kept by my late great aunt Phyl, and delivered
to me by my eighty-one year old father on one of his infrequent visits to Australia.
There were many shots that didn’t make the final montage, and one that
didn’t was of Mike and me at rather an early age, the photograph presumably
taken by an Auckland Herald staff photographer, given that our maiden great
aunt Phyl was the photo editor for many a year. She was a remarkable lady, passing
away two years ago only slightly diminished in acuity, though her height had
decreased to the extent that I saw her get into her Mini Minor without stooping.
(Whereupon she drove off at break neck speed smoke pouring from both the tyres
– and the clutch – to go off and look after the ‘old’ people. She
was nearly ninety at the time).
I recognise that it is me in the photograph; the over-sized square head, Buddha
ears, and the same sartorial elegance that I still possess. But I don’t
remember what it was like to be me – being that short and that young. I recollect
fragmentary moments from my grandparents’ house in Auckland, the Richmall
Crompton ‘William’ books, and ‘Biggles in the South Pacific’,
(where he wrestles the giant octopus), but if asked I couldn’t put together
one unified day from dawn until my eyes closed. I remember the formal dinners,
which were torments of anxiety, when my grandfather, generally referred to as
‘The Colonel”, returned from either his legal aerie or from some
hospital or opera committee. A scotch and soda for any males present and a sherry
for the ladies. I remember only that my eyes seemed to be at the level of the
polished mahogany table, and that roast potatoes and creamed cauliflower were
on the menu with unusual frequency.
So this month’s Toolbox isn’t about that, and neither is it about
the death of the diversity of the languages of the world through the gradual
yoking of indigenous peoples into a centralised economic model.
It’s just about advertising and the visual pollution that we now live
in, where every possible surface is covered with the very artful and clever
output of graphic designers and copy writers enjoining us to spend, spend and
spend some more. Which poet said “Getting and spending we lay waste our
powers”?
But as I’ve run out of Newtonian time and space, that will have to wait.