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This is a little exercise in creative writing.  The brief was to reimagine the Three Pigs from a different perspective.   The original is a parable about the virtues of forward thinking, providence and hard work, so that only the most abstemious pig survives the metaphorical wolf.  I thought it was a bit tough on the middle pig who is just trying to find a balance between work and play.   So here is my version:

 


 

I know it’s a bit alternative but I like my little wooden house.  It took next to no time to build and after all I just need a place to lay my head.  And our forest has lots of nuts to eat. Yes, I got plenty of nut'in; and the nut'ins plenty for me.
So what’s the point of a lock on the door when the things that I prize, like the stars in the skies, are all are free.

 

They call me Porky. My best sow and I have formed a duo: ‘Porky and Best’.  She and I perform/squeal Gersh-swine songs down at the Wallow, our local hangout frequented by the more laid-back porcine-Porsche crowd.

 

I got the sun; I got the moon; I got the shade of a tree.

I’m not like nerd-pig, my pseudo-intellectual brother, who’s got no time to dance and play and sing the night away. 

 “You call that a house,” he said. “It’s more like a pile of sticks.  You don’t need windows.  I can see right through the walls.”

Then he went on to speculate what would happen to it, and me, in a bushfire. “Smoked pork! Tinder ‘n Crackling!” he concluded. 

What a boar, always expecting the worst!  What happened to 'live for today'? 

But we both agreed, it's a palace compared to hippy-pig, our other brother’s place. 

As an alternative lifestyle in-activist he decided on straw-bales.  Some of his friends from the commune even contributed a load but after he smoked a bit, and chilled, it was all too hard. 

So, he just piled the bails in a sort of U and stretched the tarp, that came with the load, as a make-shift roof.  When he gets the munchies, he eats his house.

 

 

“Did you choose this spot deliberately?” asked nerd-pig meaningfully when we both went to see.  “Naw,” hippy-pig grunted: “That’s just where they fell off the truck.”

“As I thought,” said nerd-pig sarcastically, “Right in the watercourse down the hill.  You’ll drown in the first good storm.”

Nerd-pig really gets up my snout sometimes. He can be a real swine. His favourite saying is: “Two legs good, four legs better.”  As if we need to be better than birds.

He’s building a huge brick sty on top of the hill, complete with a fireplace in the kitchen.  He has no time for enjoyment.  But he has invited me around to dinner tonight, so he’s not all work and no play.

Speaking of birds, what did that little bird just say?  “Hippy-pig is gone - in a huff and a puff!”  Well, the puff is not unexpected. What’s that: “Big Bad Wolf blew in, no door, no roof!”     

Wait 'til I tell nerd-pig tonight. I’m longing to see his beady little eyes, when he finds out he was wrong about the drowning.

“Hey bro,” I squeal at his big oak door. “Can I come in?” 

“Yes of course,” he replies.  “You’re just in time for wolf, leek and potato stew.”

Well, that’s a surprise. Wasn’t I supposed to get eaten first? 

Obviously, the electric fence I put around my house worked as planned.  I'm not completely stupid, incompetent or helpless.  

 

 

Consequently, the shocked and disoriented Big Bad staggered up the hill; onto nerd-pig’s roof; and straight down the chimney into his cooking pot.

“What delicious swill bro,” I grunt piggishly, as I get my snout into his trough.  “This puts hairs on my chinny chin chin!”

 

 


 

 

 

 

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Travel

Darwin after Europe

 

 

On our return from Europe we spent a few days in Darwin and its surrounds.  We had a strong sense of re-engagement with Australia and found ourselves saying things like: 'isn't this nice'.

We were also able to catch up with some of our extended family. 

Julia's sister Anneke was there, working on the forthcoming Darwin Festival.  Wendy's cousin Gary and his partner Son live on an off-grid property, collecting their own water and solar electricity, about 120 km out of town. 

We went to the Mindl markets with Anneke and her friend Chris; and drove out to see Gary, in our hire-car, who showed us around Dundee Beach in his more robust vehicle. Son demonstrated her excellent cooking skills.

 

Read more: Darwin after Europe

Fiction, Recollections & News

More on 'herd immunity'

 

 

In my paper Love in the time of Coronavirus I suggested that an option for managing Covid-19 was to sequester the vulnerable in isolation and allow the remainder of the population to achieve 'Natural Herd Immunity'.

Both the UK and Sweden announced that this was the strategy they preferred although the UK was soon equivocal.

The other option I suggested was isolation of every case with comprehensive contact tracing and testing; supported by closed borders to all but essential travellers and strict quarantine.   

New Zealand; South Korea; Taiwan; Vietnam and, with reservations, Australia opted for this course - along with several other countries, including China - accepting the economic and social costs involved in saving tens of thousands of lives as the lesser of two evils.  

Yet this is a gamble as these populations will remain totally vulnerable until a vaccine is available and distributed to sufficient people to confer 'Herd Immunity'.

In the event, every country in which the virus has taken hold has been obliged to implement some degree of social distancing to manage the number of deaths and has thus suffered the corresponding economic costs of jobs lost or suspended; rents unpaid; incomes lost; and as yet unquantified psychological injury.

Read more: More on 'herd immunity'

Opinions and Philosophy

When did people arrive in Australia?

 

 

 

 

 

We recently returned from a brief holiday in Darwin (follow this link).  Interesting questions raised at the Darwin Museum and by the Warradjan Cultural Centre at Kakadu are where the Aboriginal people came from; how they got to Australia; and when. 

Recent anthropology and archaeology seem to present contradictions and it seems to me that all these questions are controversial.

Read more: When did people arrive in Australia?

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