Month: January 2020

The popularity of Popular Penguins considered

January 27, 2020

Are Popular Penguins popular because they are half the price of other paperbacks?  Or is it because they look like a cream-filled orange pastry?  I once painted a room Penguin orange, so you don’t have to.  Trust me: it works on a book, but orange walls make you feel like you are living in a bottle of Fanta.

During World War II, British soldiers had a large patch pocket on their trousers that precisely fitted a Penguin paperback.  They called it ‘the Penguin pocket’.  I would like one added to all my trousers.   I find a paperback will fit in most suit jacket pockets, but does make the wearer bulge interestingly.

Some old Penguins stacked up behind a paperweight.  Does anyone actually use a paperweight to weigh down paper?  Did anyone ever?

Paperweight and books

Pomegranate molasses

January 26, 2020

The best before date on this bottle of pomegranate molasses is April 2015.  It was bought for a long-ago, long-forgotten Middle Eastern recipe and never used.  Has a strong, complex flavour, but maybe it has simply fermented in the bottle.  I may use it to feed the starving ants in our backyard.

The bottle looked like you could rub it and a genie would pop out.  To my disappointment none did.

Pomegranate final

Cat bells and a cat’s eye

January 18, 2020

The cat is too old to chase birds anymore.  Last time we replaced her collar she gave a sidelong glance, imploring us not to hang a bell around her neck.  No dignity in a tinkle tinkle announcing your every step.  We gave her a reprieve: no more bells this lifetime.

Her intended new bell, and her old ones, are now on my worktable, along with an old cat’s eye marble.  Do not see so many cat’s eye marbles anymore.

Cat BellsCats eye

Plainly we owe Nature an apology

January 4, 2020

Walking across the Melbourne CBD feels like smoking a pack of cigarettes, as much of East Gippsland swirls on the light breeze from the east in vaporised form.

59,000 square kilometres torched, 2,500 buildings destroyed, 22 people killed and more than that missing, and an estimated half a billion (yes half a BILLION) animals burned to death.  The current Australian wildfires are creating sadness on an industrial scale, sadness beyond the telling.  Plainly we owe Nature an apology.

Shell

Abstract #34472z

January 1, 2020

Happy New Year!  To begin: this is an abstract painting.  Actually, it is a fairly accurate rendering of the reflections thrown by a savagely dented hub cap.  If you look closely, you can see me in it.

As I may have mentioned before, I am a keen prospector for road produce, and I found this sparkly gem buried deep in the grass on the nature strip next to Heidelberg Road, down among the dried up dog turds and faded cigarette butts.  Searching for buried treasure is not for the squeamish.

Abstract #34472z