Jesus Christ Superstar
Well,
for one thing he’s usurped a traditional Rudd family name. My great-grandfather
on my father’s side was named Minchin Rudd and my father still carries
Minchin as his middle name.
OK. In fact, I couldn’t give a fig about happenstance like that. It’s
his talent I resent.
M couldn’t have been absolutely riveted to the screen because she jumped
up at one point and exclaimed ‘There’s the rat again, running down
the tree! Do you see him?’
In fact we’ve seen a lot more of the rat, if that’s what it actually
is, than Tim Minchin over the past year, but in any case I was glad to drag
my eyes away from Tim’s trademark unkempt dreadlocks for a minute or two
to catch a glimpse of ‘Ratty’.
Probably every evening at about the same time, (we don’t go out of our
way to look out for him), the alleged rat makes a break for the bottom of the
tree outside the living-room window, most of which is visible from our TV couch,
when the blinds are up anyway. We’ve never found out where he goes precisely,
but I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a bolt-hole with a little green
door and a welcome mat hidden in the undergrowth that we like to call ’the
garden’. I imagine that his family gathers around him after their evening
meal while he relates the strange goings-on in the neighbourhood, which naturally
includes our living room, while drawing on his favourite clay pipe.
We’re blessed with lots of views of nature from our living-room. The Wattle
birds provide us with plenty of entertainment trying to extract nectar from
the tiniest of flowers on the hebe bush, for instance. They’re quite big
birds as honey-eaters go but also very territorial. We had an unexpected visit
from a couple of lorikeets a few days ago and our Wattle bird mate gave them
very short shrift, dive bombing them a couple of times just to let them know
they weren’t at all welcome, even if the loquats are starting to look
a bit tempting.
The loquat trees, (we have three of them – I call them a plague of loquats)
also attract fruit bats. Well, not fruit bats in general, just the same family
group that have been trying to keep their stash secret from the other legions
of fruit bats flying to various orchards from their home in or near the Botanic
Gardens. As we lie in bed we can hear them chewing and chatting (with their
mouths full!) for hour after hour until we pass out from boredom. The saying
‘boring as bat-shit’ probably derives from this very activity.
By now, dear reader, you’ll have tumbled that there’s not much else
on the horizon topic-wise. We’ve paused Jesus Christ Superstar
short of half way to be resumed when we get back from Canberra. I’ll have
to trim the content waiting to be viewed on IQ before we leave. Jesus might
get terminated before his time – or Judas might do something equally unMinchinable..