Outrespective

It came to me first when I was in the backseat of Baz's car.  Ben put Tarantulla on as an interlude to the tomfoolery.  We were on a wildman weekend in Scotland.  We climbed a 900 metro peak in Cairn Gorm national park, had a swim in Loch Ness in the raw, and drank deeply of the whisky flagon.

But it was in the backseat of the Ford Focus that I realized that Faithless' Outrespective was a classic,  especially Tarantulla and We come one.  My fist listening of these was in a living room in London.  Before I moved to London I thought that dance music was for junkies and poofs.  In London dance music emanates from every car and every open window.  But this isn't dance music per se: there's something more destabilised about it.  Like the photo on the front cover the album echoes the riots in Göteborg and the civil disobedience and terror of a new century.

These songs, like great dramatic opera, meld into biting and comings of one.  Like the fado sung in Gerd Nygaardshaug's Mengeles Zoo, or any fado sung for that matter, a 'hyllning', that remarkable Swedish word that encompasses both tribute and glorifying song, to things that make you want to cry because for the few minutes that they last, you live.

Then I took over as navigator from Ben and found myself in the front seat and trying to steer the music choices on a wildman weekend towards Outrespective and these two songs.  A navigators life is never easy.

Meatballs in Tomata sauce a la Anna L (and Markus Aujalay)

On one of our many very long drives to work Anna L told me this recipe, well, more of a concept than a recipe. She had a hard time of frying meat, so Håkan and she would cook meatballs in a diced tomato sauce. It's fantastic, but don't be tempted to cook for too long. Only give them 10 minutes maximum in the boiling tomato stew.

Markus Aujalay provides a recipe similar to the one below in his book rigtig mat för familjen, [real food for the family], but there is really a lot of leeway when it comes to ingredients. I've put an asterisk beside the essentials.

meatballs:
500 grams minced meat*
2 eggs*
beef/mutton stock*
pressed garlic
thyme (half a teaspoon)
curry (same again)
saffran (same again)
salt and peppar

mix together and roll into balls to drop into the boiling tomato stew.

Tomato stew:
Garlic*
olive oil*
two cans of diced tomatos*
2 bay leaves
thyme
a glass of apple juice or white wine
sugar, salt and peppar
diced parsley*

Fry the garlic in a large casserole dish for a few minutes. Then add everything else. And great for lunches the day after as well!

Liam Viney: a Lion pianist

If anyone needs some inspirational music go to Liam Viney's homepage and check out the musical offerings available. This celebrated pianist is worth listening to and you can check him out playing classical, North American and Australian repertoire (yes you Scando/Europhile motherfucka's; Australians do have their own music!). Liam has studied with Boris Berman and won the inaugural Lev Vlassenko piano competition.

I remember Liam at about 13 or 14 years of age. He was a few years younger than I was and already precociously talented. As younger boys are want to do, we often ended up punching each other, always harmlessly in the shoulder. Liam had an eminently punchable shoulder, and he was always cheeky enough to land a few of his own on the bigger blokes. In those days he talked really fast, the words exploding out of him.

Some of us were part of a composition circle that met at Stephen Leake's place on Saturday afternoons. Liam's musical ideas were fresh and he picked up on subtleties that most of us didn't.

Enough nostalgia - nostalgia isn't what it used to be. For any of you that might have doubted the power of instrumental music listen to the first part of Hallelujah Junction - a joyous and monumental truckstop.

Play it again Liam!

Ein Mann ohne Bauch ist ein Krüppel

[A man without a stomach is a cripple]. Classic, thank you Ulrike!

Flaggermusmannen

This is the (I repeat THE) best book about Australia written by a foreigner. I first got to know the central character Harry Hole through 'Panserhjerte' and 'Frelseren'. These are wonderfully dark detective thrillers.

Although reading in the original Norwegian I am perpetually pole-axed by the depth of Nesbø's understanding of Australiana. He has obviously spent time in Sydney, Brisbane and Nimbin, and rubbed a wet towel all over these places and then wrung that towel out into Flaggermusmannen. For instance, when Harry meets the boxer Toowoomba just after he knocked out a hustler in a provincial boxing bout.

-absolutely magnificent, cobber - how are you yourself.

Ocker stride and even the syntax is Australian! There is even more poetry in the character of Andrew Kensington - Sydney cop, aboriginal, junkie, story-teller. My favourite passage is when Kensington tells the legend of Walla and Bubbur to Harry and the doey eyed, pale Birgitta at the Albury. Birgitta asks,

-and the moral is?

Kensington replies

-That love is a greater mystery than death, and be careful of snakes.

Another other good thing is that Nesbø doesn't compromise on the big picture to accomodate the details. This is fine (but Jo, p. 92 we drink 'flat whites' not 'white flats'; p. 117, it's the Bourbon and Beefsteak; p, 57, should be either Sydsvenskan or Skånska Dagbladet as there is no such paper as Sydsvenska Dagbladet; Robertson probably wouldn't have been keeping a Tasmanian devil in suburban Australia, though we can let this go under poetic licence)

If there is any downside to Flaggermusmannen, it is that those of us that have read further into Nesbø's opus know that Hole becomes more one-dimensional in later books. His relationships become more dysfunctional, the dialogue that is attributed to him becomes even more terse and the settings ever more bleak. In the cold dark Oslo winter it is heartening that Hole first emerged out of Sydney airport from a marmalade sky.

Night after Bertil's funeral 14/11/09

It's the night after Bertil's funeral,
we eat fish,
the bones make one of us choke,
but it's flounder and good fish.

Last night we drove through the snow,
and saw a fox on the road.
I almost couldn't brake in time,

the difference between life and death is just a fishbone away

Conversation with my daughter

I took my daughter to the sea where I grew up
It was dusk and shades of grey rolled in to us
She screamed

I explained to her that Deus ins nobis est
and because of that she shouldn't be scared
She still screamed


Hob.XVI:37,1