LET’S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN?

One of the regularly visiting patrons from a town outside the Linton Time Warp told us of a recent experience at his local bank. Lets say the customer went into the NABBED bank to pay a bill with his ANZAC Bank cheque made out to someone called CASH.

He presented the account and the cheque to the Teller. ‘

‘We can’t accept that’ they said.

‘Why not, your a bank aren’t you?’ said our customer.

‘Wrong bank’ said the Teller.

The customer then drove around to the ANZAC Bank, cashed the cheque and proceeding back to the NABBED he again presented the account.

‘You do accept cash don’t you’ he said rather facetiously and paid his account.

‘Any bank does’ said the Teller. ‘Why didn’t you pay it while you were around at your own bank?’

Are we sure it’s Linton in the Time Warp?

THANK (insert your own deity here) FOR ELITE PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Haileybury, Scotch and Presbyterian Ladies are names of Colleges that conjure up thoughts of money, power, and elitism. Old Boys Networks, Corporate Lawyers, Stockbrokers and Bankers, AO's and MBA's, Professors and Politicians.


Private Colleges have been the birthplace of many Captains of Industry, National Party Politicians, Colonel Blimps and Crooks. The upper echelons of society can usually trace their origins back to an elite private school where they may or may not have been drilled in either the Cadet Corps or their Boarders bed.

But where would our Caledonian Society be without our elite schools for they are the only place where young people experience and even take up playing in Pipe Bands. The swirl of the skirt, a bit of deft fingering, strange screams, getting your arms around something you can squeeze, a lot of banging and something hairy hanging between your legs along with much blowing and wailing. All of these things cannot help but make your mind conjour up the images of a Scottish Piper.

Sometimes they are ostracised from society for participating in these noisy gatherings and have to seek out hidden places to do it, beyond the range of inquisitive ears for society insists on them doing whatever they do well beyond earshot of children. Despite the fact that we have a Piper living somewhere in Linton they remain anonymous to the Astonisher but we hear that a lot of blowing goes on down around the Recreation Reserve.

Imagine if you will a world without Bagpipes. Hallelujah I hear someone cry. However good that might be to some it would also spell the end for Highland Dancing, Parades, Funerals and Caber Tossing.

Students from the elite schools go on to play their Pipes and Drums in the Ballarat University Pipe Bands or those in Bendigo and Warrnambool, Watsonia and Hawthorn, Frankston and Moorabbin. Even the band in Daylesford, where the wearing of skirts is almost compulsory for all genders, would be no longer if the Pipes disappeared from the Quadrangle.

But Pipe Bands do persist. We are stuck with them forever. They are part of our Australian culture now as evidenced by the names. Saul, Semple, Mak, Sylviris, Brandt, Wong and Canaan, Bates, Maxwell, Ng and Page. Many good Sasanach names ripple through the ranks. But Australian culture is evident in the fact that almost half the members of Pipe Bands are now women and there is more than a sprinkling of our Asian family there as well. We are well attuned to the faces of Indians, Pakistanis and the Gurghas wielding Claymore and Dirk but it is still somewhat unusual, even to me, to see Vietnamese lips on the blow-stick or banging on a snare drum.

It doesn't even seem to matter what size you are either. You can be a Super-Magda or Dwarf. I've seen players of the Field Drum with only about 10cm clearance from the ground as they heft the skins half their size down the street.

Over the years the Bass Drum seems to have moved up the chest to lay on top of the stomach rather than in front of it due, I expect, that some players have developed a paunch and their arms are not long enough anymore. As a result skins and even the drum themselves have become see-through.

Yes, we still enjoy the painful wail of a bagpipe. Where would we be without them? Then again, maybe that all that squeeling down at the Reserve might be very tight sphincters on very tight Kangaroos and not a Piper after all.

Would you believe I am really a great fan of the Pipes. So

COME OUT , COME OUT


WHOEVER YOU ARE

DAWG GAWN - III

Last month we got as far as the ‘Whippets’ first swim. I promise that this is the third and last episode. It is getting close to becoming pedantic and repetitive and that’s something I am rather good at.


Anyway it has gone now. To a new ‘Master’ who I feel will treat it far better than its former. But while it was still with me we had a few further adventures. As a dog that had been confined to a small house with a miniature back garden, ‘Dog’ had not really experienced the wide world as you or I might have done.

A month after entering my dubious care he began to develop some hair on his chinny chin-chin. He was also daring to go outside more too.

One splendid day he was following me around the property while I was doing something or other called exercise and natural instinct kicked in. I knew that every time the sheep bolted he got a bit agitated. This time however out of the long grass hopped .......... A wabbit.

Before it had a chance to ask if anything was up with Doc the waskally wabbit wan qwickly off and so did the Whippet. The pursuit was so fast that both disappeared over the horizon within seconds. Then I waited, for over that very same horizon were to be found nine sheep and two alpacas.

First came the nine sheep like a herd of unstoppable Buffalo with Max inevitably in the lead. Then after them came the two ‘Lords-a-leaping’ the Alpacas. What they must have thought they’d seen was a ‘Scud Missile’ undoubtedly fast but also incredibly inaccurate. What else to expect from a Socialist Country or an Australian Politician.

Oooops.....pull my head in.

Needless to say his inexperience meant that the wabbit won and he returned empty handed after about five minutes. With that the rest of the tribe took off rather quickly back over the horizon, with Dumb and Dumber making those Cockatoo-like noises again.

I rather began to take to the thing. He was lazier than me. Lay here, lay there, eat here and sleep there. He made me look like Robert de Castella by comparison. The thought of someone being lazier than me is a bit off-putting actually. I think that even looking at the sky is a chin up but this dog can even relax his bones to the point where he can lay flatter than unleavened bread.

In fact on one occasion I went to the bathroom and stepped onto what I thought was the toilet mat. To my surprised it yelped, whinged and whined until I apologised to it with a bloody bone.

It was almost the last day when I was standing in the carport. Dog raced around the corner of the house, tail wagging, eyes all aglow, acting very pleased with himself. He presented to me a mouthful of blue fluff. While I examined it he ran away again returning with another mouthful of blue fluff.

I had to find out where it was coming from. At the back of the house I came across him worrying the blue feather duster that I had left in the kitchen and he was eagerly tearing out it’s hair. Perhaps it thought it was a Smurf Rabbit and he was keen for me to see what a clever boy he was. One would ask why a dog would think I was dusting the television with the carcass of a dead rabbit in the first place.

Unlike the Astonisher which appears as though it will go on for a little while yet, this story which had a start and a middle must now have an end.

Reluctantly I had to part with dog who now lives at Tarnagulla but I have done it in a way that makes it possible for ‘dog’ to come for short visits to keep the rabbits on their toes.

But he did not go to his new home before a last final adventure with Maxine. The day before he left I was standing in the sheep yard at mealtime with the dog by my side filling the feed trough with their supplementary diet. By now Max had just about had it with this ‘thing’, enough was enough, the dog was definitely not permitted to be near her dinner. Maxine marched through the gate full of confidence and literally ran the dog out of the yard and away from her beloved food.

So that’s it then. The end of my dog yarn. Oh! Except for the Vet. The only time I saw an astonished face on him was when a thermometer was inserter apparently somewhere he thought was private.

Of course this column has always been more of a case of ‘self-indulgence’ than an organ of interest to everybody in town. Although I have heard that even the ‘Only Gay In The Village’ has had a giggle or two from it.

If I can write this diatribe so can anyone else, and, unlike some other rag I could mention we don’t pick and choose who we publish and rarely do we look at drawing lines anywhere except in the interest of taste.

So if you feel that you’d like to engage yourself in writing rubbish like this then we welcome you with open arms.

This story was sponsored by:


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