Now I will confess…

I am a closet listener to country and western music. Mind you, not all country and western music. But there’s some that is just good honest stuff, so why pretend to look down on it? And this one contains images close to home.

Morrison Plays Schifrin July 19,21 Sydney Opera House

On this cold night I am not there, but as I have fiddled with the Big Archive in my warm Elizabeth Street hovel ABC Classic FM has been bringing this SSO concert to me… 🙂

Sirdan a bit down last night

Some of it is work-related, but some also backwash from the South Africa visit, I suspect, good as that was in most ways, and of course yesterday was just one week on from Lord Malcolm’s memorial service. For the past few years Lord M, Sirdan and I have been a bit like the three musketeers. It is hard, as have been the past six months. Anyway, we plan to have lunch on Sunday, perhaps with Simon H as well, who was also at Lord M’s memorial.

It would appear, by the way, that Simon H was visitor #75,000 to this blog. Not too many of my visitors use Windows 98 still and come via Telstra. Guess I might confirm that on Sunday.

With The Empress, Sirdan, and others, in Chinatown

The first of the month and the traditional day for Yum Cha going back to late last century — the July 2000 Yum Cha comes to mind especially. Sirdan felt the cold on his bald Rhodesian head so bought a red beanie in Chinatown, then DVDs of Happy Feet and The Birdcage. “There’s an empty space today,” he said. I knew what he meant.

Eventually ten of us attended Yum Cha at The Golden Harbour, and excellent it was too. Almost as per tradition we finished with the crispy calimari and mango pancakes — not together, I should add. A bit of reminiscing happened.

Malcolm was “a one-man communist spy ring”

That was The Empress’s summation of our friend Malcolm “Lord Malcolm” Gleeson at yesterday’s memorial service. Needless to say he was not referring to Malcolm’s politics, which in some respects were to the right of Genghis Khan, but never without compassion. He was saying that Malcolm wore many hats, and kept them very much separate: Malcolm the sailor, Malcolm the flyer, Malcolm the ground controller at the Air Shows, Malcolm the flying instructor, Malcolm the reader, thinker and writer, Malcolm the web designer and creator of databases and networks, Malcolm the jazz musician, Malcolm the gay activist, Malcolm the administrator, Malcolm the foodie, Malcolm the HIV activist… And a chance for conversation I have missed just lately: Malcolm the deeply and personally knowledgeable bridge to the Aboriginal and Islander cultures. And possibly more, as yesterday’s service very much revealed a person whose still waters ran very deep indeed.

On Malcolm and his books…

I had admired and marvelled at Malcolm’s collection while he was alive. As I said last week, the almost final act was to send that library of books and CDs to 2MBS-FM, who support some of the music Malcolm loved. Years ago I may have walked off with heaps, but now books are possibly the last thing I need more of; I had my own clear-out a couple of years ago. The Rabbit and Delenio were among the beneficiaries, then also 2MBS-FM.

But I took a handful, one of which is more of a treasure than I had realised: a first British edition (1946) in excellent condition of Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy. It is a wartime economy production, complete with carefully preserved dust jacket, which is on recycled paper — the reverse side of a detailed map (dated 1942) of part of Poland and Hungary, as clear now as it was when Bomber Command, spies, or military planners might have used it!

— Rare footage of Bertrand Russell on clear thinking.