Nancy Wake

A chapter of history was underlined yesterday with the death of the White Mouse, nom de guerre of Nancy Wake, born in NZ and raised in Australia.

A leader of 7000 resistance fighters during WWII, she received France's highest military award, the Legion d'honneur, and three Croix de guerre. She was also decorated by the British and, belatedly, by the Australian Government in 2004.

Nancy holds a very special place in my heart. Her story is told by Russell Braddon and the book sat first on my step-mother Sue's bookshelf and later, in triplicate, on mine. When Peter Fitzsimons book arrived, I discovered to my great surprise that Nancy had lived next door to a close childhood friend, Stewart (whose brother had a Heinkel scooter) and she went to the same church in which I'd been confirmed, St Augustines, directly across the road from my house in Wycombe Road, Neutral Bay.

Further information in this 2009 post about Nancy Wake.

More on Nancy Wake's exploits at the SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/memories-of-the-feisty-white-mouse-20110808-1ij8z.html

Paper Nautilus

Some years ago my friend Rob Thompson and I were flying my glider from Tasmania to mainland Australia when the weather closed in as we were approaching Flinders Island. We were forced to land on tiny Cape Baren Island (population about 250) at an airstrip which has a very short cross strip in case there are strong winds. By now it was blowing hard, and it was a very difficult landing.

We stayed overnight with the postmaster and his wife. Their son was in the RAAF (The Royal Australian Air Force) so they were very pleased to host a couple of fellow pilots. The postmaster's wife was a Tasmanian aborigine. The history of the Tasmanian aborigines is a very sad one indeed - the race was almost wiped out by the impact of the Europeans.

The postmaster collects paper nautilus shells which are from a type of squid which sometimes wash up on the beaches of the Bass Strait islands in the thousands after storms. Very few of the delicate shells survive as they are pecked and eaten by birds. I brought several of the rare and beautiful shells back to Sydney in the back of the glider, very carefully packed.

I made a present of one of those shells to Emile for his 18th birthday.

Baccalauréat

Riding in the car with Emile we discussed tomorrows' oral examination, his broken English and my extemely fragile franglais. I worked out that it was to be on a literary figure and suggested Molliere as a for instance. As I cannot yet roll my rrrs I had to explain you know, the writer from the 17th (or 18th) century, humorous plays...

The following day he phoned me and opened the conversation by telling me the subject of his exam. Molliere! Later when we met I asked if he was pulling my leg, mais non, he had it in his mind as he walked into the examination room, hoping it might be him as he knew the subject well. And it was.

...................

And in a similar vein

This year I intended to repeat last year's Alpine motorcycle trip with a friend as pillion passenger, but cancelled much to her disappointment. All was not lost, however, as she got a spot pillioning with the tour leader, Cliff Pop of Ozalps. Some sort of family emergency caused her to cancel too. Her son James returned to the UK after a visit with her in Australia, and there got into conversation with chap in a pub and mentioned that his mum was very disappointed to have missed the adventure. Turned out the chap he was chatting with was going on the very same trip.

Faster Pastor

Paul, aka Revving Rev or The Faster Pastor, has had his fair share of adventures. His latest project is a blog which makes interesting reading particularly for those of the Christian persuasion. He and Marian recently appeared as the vicar and his very cute wife in the movie bearing their names. Paul had asked the director for a cameo and Jay Stern was so taken by the idea that a part was created for them.

http://paulandmariansinclair.wordpress.com/

Uprising

Hamza Ali al-Khateeb was a 13yo boy arrested by Syrian authorities during a demonstration. His body was returned to his parents only when they signed an undertaking to not reveal or comment upon the manner of his death. They refused to keep silent, and have presumeably been arrested to suffer a similar fate.

The family released an horrific video detailing the extent of the boy's injuries which include numerous cigarette burns, bullet holes in his knees, a shattered jaw and a broken neck. The Syrian government thugs then cut off his penis, before killing him.

Hamza on Facebook

Hickups

An item in the SMH today caught my eye when it described the audience at the Sydney Writers' Festival as 900 credulous fools. The speaker was the notorious David Hicks, an Australian incarcerated and tortured at Guantanamo Bay, and he was given a standing ovation.

The Sydney Writer's Festival seems an unlikely gathering point for 900 credulous fools, but that's how the author of the piece, Ted Lapkin, describes them. Ted, bless his cotton socks, works for the authoritative-sounding Institute of Public Affairs, which according to that pinko publication Wikipedia, is an advocate of free market economic policies and by sourcewatch.org (anti-tobacco, so probably another commie front) as "a right-wing, corporate funded think tank based in Melbourne."

Interestingly, the name John Roskam is linked to the IPA, for whom he writes. In an article titled Turning up the heat on climate change alarmists he quotes one Professor Bob Carter numerous times. Turns out Carter is also a member of the IPA.

Corporate-Funded indeed. Listed among its contributors are ExxonMobil, BHP Billiton, Phillip Morris, Murray Irrigation Limited, and Visy Industries.

The IPA has published articles "critical of scientific research on the dangers of passive smoking" and "adopts a position of climate change scepticism".

These are the real climate change tragics.

And as for David Hicks - well, I wasn't at the lecture and I've not read the book, but when the good guys use torture on the ones they call the bad guys...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Public_Affairs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Carter

Postscript Feb 1202
An article in the SMH mentions that sensitive documents unwittingly revealed by US conservative think tank The Heartland Institute list among those it has made payments to include Australian scientist Bob Carter.

Old Farts

For this I'm indebted to Stephen Fry (but then, aren't we all).

Jeanne Louise Calment, born in Arles, France in 1875, attributed her remarkable longevity to the consumption and application to her skin of olive oil. On her 121st birthday she said "I only have one wrinkle
and I'm sitting on it".

Of the notary public, Andre-Francois Raffray, who purchased her apartment, promising to pay $500 per month until Jeanne died, she said "In life, one sometimes makes bad deals" By the time he died in December 1995 he had paid twice the market value of the apartment. Jeanne died in 1997.

Compared to Li Ching-Yuen, however, Jeanne Calmet was but a spring chicken when she shuffled off. Wikipedia writes: "... in 1930, Professor Wu Chung-chieh of the University of Chengdu discovered Imperial Chinese government records from 1827, congratulating one Li Ching-Yuen on his 150th birthday, and further documents later congratulating him on his 200th birthday in 1877. In 1928, a New York Times correspondent wrote that many of the old men in Li's neighborhood asserted that their grandfathers knew him when they were boys, and that he at that time was a grown man."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Ching-Yuen