E BOOK. HARD COVER OR PAPER BACK, WHO CARES?

     The great thing about e books is

1.  They are portable   Instead of spending $50 on a weighty airport novel we can now load an e book with hundreds of titles, some free, many costing less than $1.

2   Readers can change the font size to suit conditions. A lot of expensive airport novels are in small print. Cabin lighting and fading eyesight do not make for easy reading.On an e reader we just press a button and enlarge the print..

3.   Many 99 cent downloads deliver cracking good stories, in many different genres, so with e books our experience of all kinds of literature can broaden at very little cost.

AND THINK OF THE TREES WE ARE SAVING!. 

      When I fly I like to read light escape stories which take my mind off the fact I am miles above the ground, strapped into a small seat, inside a metal tube, surrounded by fuel tanks with the electric cables running through while I breath reconditioned air. 

 

     So before flying overseas I down load a selection of fiction; romantic, historical, thriller and crime to my Kindle reader. I have found a few lemons, but at $0'99 who cares? On the other hand I have found some real gems. I have learned a great deal about story lines, plotting, character conventions from books I would normally not bother buying.

 

     And believe me I have learned a great deal. I wish I had access to the books when my eight sons were growing up. They contain more information about sex than any manual I encountered then.

Sex scenes have certainly changed since I was growing up:-

 

1. I now know exactly what a 'blow job' is,  how and why to administer it in the back of a taxi..
2. the location of at least six unusual erogenous zones ,e.g. the backs of knees.
3. ten new ways to use one's tongue in foreplay.
4. fifty interesting, although physically improbable, positions.

Extremely interesting and infinitely more factual than the maternal advice offered to brides in the nineteen forties: i.e. It's all very unpleasant but don't take any notice. That's what men are like!

 

    

       

A PIECE OF SCIENCE FANTASY

     My neighbour Don, the Philosophy graduate, knocked on my door before 7 a.m. this morning.He had experienced an epiphany. a Eureka! moment and he wanted to pass it on.

     ""They've started already!" he declared, "Those B***** (people with peculiar sexual habits) at Auckland Yacht Club! They've already got billions out of us taxpayers and now they've got their fists out for another 1.3 BILLION to fund the next challenge, because they lost the cup and they won't be getting all the boat building business they were expecting.".

     " Ï've got an idea for a story for you."

     Neighbour Don is an exremely intelligent man, widely read and a great raconteur, but his skills are verbal, he chooses not to slog through hours of writing like I do. This is the story line he gave me:

     "You are a writer. You have been researching and following the crews on Emirates New Zealand and  Oracle. You have spent four years gathering information and have nearly completed THE GREAT NEW ZEALAND NOVEL When it hits the bookstores it will earn millions.. That's from the film rights alone. The final chapter was to have been the triumph in San Francisco.

      "But we lost and your book is down the gurgler. So you send a demand to Trade and Industry for 1.3 billion dollars to reimburse you for all your wasted expenditure and lost revenue." He stomped off , springer spaniel at his heels, heading for the beach.

       He has a point. Yachting is a great sport, but what went on in San Francisco was entertainment not sport. Those who invested in Team New Zealand were taking a gamble. They lost. If I bet $10 on a racehorse and it loses I do not expect the TAB to refund my stake do I?

      But I hope some of our gifted young writers do write something fictional based on Team New Zealand. What about a whodunnit based on the plotting behind the scenes; Nicky Harger please get busy.

     Or a folk tale, Team New Zealand  a crew of divinely handsome heroes, like King Arthu's lot. They train and practice until they sail that yacht with the superb efficiency of a formula one racing car. They counter the mutterings and plottings of the villainous Oracle gang who are all descended from Cinderlla's stepmother

     At the last race the yachts are bow to bow when Oracle, using some dastardly ploy while sniggering into their moustaches, stops Team New Zealand dead in the water. Without hesitation Dean Barker and his merry men leap overboard, settle the yacht on to their superbly muscled shoulders and walk on the waters of  San Francisco Bay to the finish line,  calling a cheery greeting to Oracle as they stroll past.

  Pity Margaret Mahey is no longer with us.

HOLLYWOOD BREAKFAST IN FRISCO

Hollywood café, North Beach

    Hyatt North Beach has no dining room. It does serve expensive room service meals ordered by clicking a cursor on your TV screen .

   There is a Starbucks at one corner,

                BUT ACROSS THE ROAD                 

                                                     HOLLYWOOD CAFE!

is, open from 6.30 to 11.45 a.m. People stand in line even in drenching California fog, waiting to write their name on the waiting list alongside their preference for seating I (inside) O (outside) or E (either).
   The staff wears casual yellow Tshirts and jeans. Some are clearing dishes and wiping tables, others are refilling coffee cups, taking orders and carrying food from the small kitchen. It is remarkably quiet, yet cheerful.

THE MENU,
several pages in a leather folder. reads like a roster of dead film stars.

the James Dean  is bacon, two poached eggs, a bowl of fresh banana, mango, pineapple, oranges. grapes, blueberries; a side plate of fresh toast and as much coffee as you like.

The Clark Gable  is the same but the bacon has been cooked in  some kind of honey sauce.

The Audrey Hepburn is pancakes and syrup with fresh fruit. I did not get around to eating the
Vivien Leigh

The inside pages offer a plethora of sausages, corn cakes, waffles but I was just too busy enjoying James Dean to read any further.

   So if anyone is thinking about returning in 2017 for that billionnaires' shell game on San Francisco Bay, the Hyatt is a nice hotel, clean and hospitable with a swimming pool on the third floor, Fishermans wharf is within walking distance and the Hollywood Café is worth the cost of the trip. Forget about the yachts.

SUNDAY AT CITY LIGHTS

SUNDAY AT CITY LIGHTS

The pretty girl clutching a clipboard approached as I sat in late afternoon sun on Pier 39.

Was I willing to take part in a survey?

What was my main purpose in visiting San Francisco?

 She was about twenty, had attended High School in Berkley and she had never heard of City Lights Bookstore, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg. Jack Kerouac, the Beat poets. Perhaps education is being dumbed down after all.

Next day I rode a number 30 bus up Columbus Avenue from Fishermen’s wharf to Stockton, walked two blocks and there it was - City Lights Bookstore celebrating its sixtieth birthday. People at the traffic lights waited while a Green Street Mortuary Marching Band jazzed by and cafe sitters at sidewalk tables applauded. A jazz ensemble played under a marquee in Jack Kerouac Alley as the world converged on City Lights, which is not a multi storied emporium with sliding doors and regiments of checkout stands. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a champion of people sized communities and City Lights is in the same three level building it started in. Over sixty years it has become one of the most famous bookstores in the world, but there are no branches anywhere else. If anyone wants to shop in a City Lights bookstore they have to come to San Francisco, although I buy books on line from their newsletter and read about events taking place when City Lights authors go on the road to publicise their books.

I walked up the two front steps through the narrow door, past the check out desk where two pretty girls wearing City Lights T shirts and flowers in their hair were busy zapping bar codes, popping books into paper bags and smiling. The windows beside the entrance held photographs of City Lights and staff over the years.  I slithered through the line of waiting book buyers, was careful not to stumble on the two steps up into the main room which is a maze of shelves full of books I am unlikely to find in Barnes and Noble or Waterstones, certainly not at Paper Plus or Whitcoulls. City Lights encourages dissidence and real talent.

This is the store which was charged with indecency for publishing Howl by Allen Ginsberg. It still stocks it. This is the store that nurtured the Beat poets, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs et al. Up the narrow stairs on the third floor is the area dedicated to the Beats. It has a performance area and aging friends who were students in the fifties tell me of sitting on the floor there, in air hazy with ‘California Green’, listening to young Kerouac, and Ginsberg and others. It is one of the famous places of the Literary world, ranking with Dove Cottage and those daffodils, or Westminster Bridge.

But downstairs the aisles are narrow and on this Sunday it was crowded. Every chair, there were not many, was occupied by somebody reading. Lawrence Ferlinghetti himself strolled through the store, greeting and being greeted. A couple of Ferlinghetti lookalikes sauntered about outside.

 I saw several Ginsberg lookalikes from his bushy beard days, and one William S Burroughs.  At least two people were leading ‘The Dog That Trots Down the Street and Sees Reality, ‘one was a small poodle, the other a mutt whose mother was probably courted by several Labradors, airdales, a spaniel and uncounted collies.

 Ferlinghetti’s gifts to us were on a table at the foot of the stairs, beautiful wall charts of poems from City Lights publications of the past sixty years, not just his own. I chose his “Buddha in the Woodpile”.

Outside on Columbus Avenue people strolled about and I heard just about every language on earth, except Maori. Two French girls exclaimed as they identified poets in the early photos. “Voila! Cést Ginsberg! Vraiment!”  An Islamic man, head-scarfed wife two steps behind, made his way through the throng. I heard French, German, Chinese, American. Irish, Queen’s English.

 Suddenly a fire engine, siren hooting, followed by a paddy wagon pulled up outside the store. Two firemen sauntered inside, moments later they came out leading a scruffy type who climbed into the back of the paddy wagon. Street Theatre?  I could not recall a poem about an incident like this. Maybe it was a recreation of Allen Ginsberg charged with indecency because he wrote ‘Howl!’ and set the poetry world alight.

It was a lovely afternoon. I decided to walk back to my hotel. Columbus Avenue led straight to Fishermen’s Wharf. What could go wrong?

 My stupid sense of direction could. Two hours later I was outside the Bank of America on Montgomery, it was raining, my feet hurt, the light was fading and I could barely decipher the street names on my map.

“You lost?”asked a concerned voice, and there stood one of those angels I keep meeting; tall, tanned, immaculate, he could feature in my next romantic novel, but meantime my next blog should be about the kind teacher of English who had lived in Christchurch for three years, who organised a taxi when there were none around, fed me chocolate and waved goodbye as my taxi sped off. 

JULY FOURTH 2007

 

 

          Plymouth, Massachusetts, population 55,000, calls itself ‘America’s Home Town.’ The pilgrims landed herein 1649, stepping ashore on to Plymouth Rock which lies enshrined under pillars and a cupola in Greek revival style. A replica of the Mayflower is moored in the harbour. Plimouth Plantation is a re-creation of the original settlement where actors play the roles of actual pilgrims, demonstrating the way they lived, what they grew in their gardens, how they dressed and spoke. Plimouth Plantation makes and sells beautiful furniture made with seventeenth century tools. In the restaurant visitors can eat traditional food, lobster, turkey, pumpkin pie, cooked to seventeenth century recipes. There is an active conservation programme gathering and breeding antique plants and animals. New Zealand sent cows and rabbits when we culled them from Enderby Island.

          July 4^th, 2007 began with clear skies. About 9:30 we strolled down to find a shady spot where we could set our folding chairs. Mothers pushed strollers, fathers carried toddlers on their shoulders, families of three or four generations converged on the parade route and by 10.00 a.m. it was lined with people in chairs, children, picnic hampers and American flags. Soft drink vendors pushed carts, souvenir sellers did a brisk trade in flags and balloons.

This was no Hollywood production parade with seventy six trombones and choreographed marchers. It began with sirens and horns as down the road came fifty engines from Plymouth and a dozen adjacent towns; towering behemoths which could hoist firemen to blazes in high places; smaller, specialised vehicles and  finally vintage fire trucks with hoses and running boards. Sirens sounded, bells clanged and firemen tossed candy to the children while spectators cheered and clapped. After the Plymouth parade these fire engines would travel to other nearby towns and lead their parades. 

Next Indian and Harley Davidson motor bikes roared by followed by quieter Yamahas and Hondas, all flying the stars and stripes.  The riders were middle aged with paunches and grizzled beards but their bikes were pristine. Vintage cars followed, from gas guzzling Chryslers and Pontiacs to Model T Fords.

Only then did we see and hear a marching band, trumpets, trombones, sousaphones and drums from Plymouth High School giving the beat for U.S veterans headed by John Talcott 99 years old. As well as being the oldest veteran he was the marshal who through the year had planned and organised this parade. He marched part of the way then rode in a vintage open topped automobile and his sailor uniform still fitted him..

For the next hour we clapped and cheered and laughed as a wonderful parade of American life and history passed, exuberant as a Sousa March. High School marching bands led floats decorated by local firms, trade unions, service clubs, churches and individuals. One truck was hung with saucepans, skillets, pot hole covers, metal gates. A percussionist belted out music on them as he hung in safety harness above the road. Unicyclists tossed candy to children. Beauty Queens sprayed water over spectators to relieve the muggy heat. It was all very informal but great fun. Children dashed about collecting the candies tossed from the floats.  Most of them grabbed and gobbled on the spot but I saw one boy who would dash out, collect brimming handfuls then carefully stow them in a shopping bag on his grand mother’s wheel chair. Over the hour I estimate he collected enough to keep his family in candy until the next July 4^th.

Although the town was bedecked with American flags a lot of flag wavers were also wearing ‘Bring our boys home from Iraq NOW’ badges and nobody seemed to mind.

BRUNCH AT STARBUCKS

 

I had set my glasses on the bedside table beside my Kindle reader and  overnight they vanished. I hunted everywhere, felt through every drawer, every corner, every crevice, they must have fallen down behind the bed and I could not reach my fat hands down far enough to search. Without them I could not see the numbers on the phone or read a menu.

 Julinda at the lobby desk suggested I buy a replacement at Walgreens and the concierge wrote directions in very big writing,

EXIT LEFT

FIRST TURN RIGHT

WALK TWO BLOCKS

WALGREENS ON LEFT

            I followed the directions and found Wallgreens, an enormous market which seemed to sell everything, bananas at $1 each baby goods, toiletries, souvenirs, and every kind of eye glass known to man, rimless, horn rimmed, coloured frame,  sunglasses, driving glasses, ski goggles,. I tried on reading glasses and for $32 bought a pair that put my world into focus.

            Wirh my restored vision I walked out and saw a Starbucks sign next door. I got into line behind three slender young women in breast hugging sweat shirts and jeans with sequins all over the back pockets.  Their main expression to each other was ‘Oh my Gahd, He/she or they didn’t!!!” as we moved slowly towards the counter.

I ordered latte with a breakfast bun, a large cinnamon pin wheel. Simple? No, what size latte did I want;, l, what kind of milk; full cream, fat free or soy?. Did I want my bun warmed, butter or margarine? The young Latino man at the counter could give the police lessons in interrogation.. He wrote my name on a cardboard coffee cup, whizzed my bun through the microwave and waved me on to the coffee area.

 I joined the crowd watching a Scandinavian goddess, high priestess of the coffee machine. Her performance would have looked good on stage with the Bolshoi as she ,ground  coffee, transferred the grounds into a tiny wire basket so gracefully that not a grain was lost. She tamped down the grounds, swung the basket under the appropriate spout on the machine, As the coffee gurgles into a cup with someone’s name on it the ballerina/high priestess poured milk into a jug, offe3red it to the frother, then united coffee  and froth in the paper cup, anointed it with a plastic lid and called the name written on the cup. I was strongly tempted to applaud, shout bravo. Instead I studied the advertising around the walls. with my Walgreen’s glasses.; frappochino showed a gondolier in Venice, a neatly chalked blackboard invited us to a free tasting of brewed clover next Thursday between 2 and 3 p.m.

 The high priestess called my name, I collected my coffee sipped it as I ate my bun sitting at a tiny table in the sun.

Back at the hotel, room maid Peggy had located my glasses. They had fallen into a gap behind the bedhead.

 

 

LUNCH AT FLEUR'S PLACE

Getting there is not easy. Turn seaward from SH1, cross the railway line and drive down the cliff on a winding lane as narrow as the road to salvation. In winter be careful in the car park, it is full of puddles so step carefully. And the wind off the sea tastes of Antrctica. There are no signs or hoarding, everybody knows it is Fleur's place.

She bought an abandoned fish plant on the jetty at Moeraki, added what looks like an old schoolroom from post WW1 days, corrugated iron with sash windows,  and built a restaurant. She had some battles. Bureaucracy did not like her buying her fresh fish from boats coming to her jetty. She fought them because her idea of a harbour side restaurant did not include serving fish that had been packaged and frozen weeks before then transported the length of the South Island. Fleur won., she buys her fish from fishermen who bring it to her jetty.

The abandoned fish plant is now her kitchen, The restaurant has an understated 'Beach combers' theme.with  none of the clanging metal furniture and ersatz decorations rife in tourist spots. Winter sunlight pours through the windows and reflects from scrubbed wooden tables, a variety of very old, sturdy wooden chairs, A wooden staircase that might have been salvaged from a Victorian homestead winds above the bar to a mezzanine floor which opens on to a deck, complete with authentic ship's wheel, and a panorama no billionaire could afford to buy. We sat in the warm and stared through  French doors to Moeraki Bay, North to a hazy outline of Banks Peninsular and East to the Great Southern Ocean.

Fleur brought us that day's menu, freshly written every day. She had only two soles left, but there was plenty of blue cod, caught that morning. Joe decided on scollops, Kim and I had blue cod. While we waited for the main course we nibbled fresh, fresh bread dipping it into a dishes of olive oil with a bay leaf at the bottom, a pesto that had never seen the inside of a jar, and a fish spread.

Our cod fillets were so fresh I could taste the brine. They were wrapped in bacon and served on a bed of very fresh vegetable, broccoli, silver beet, potato. It came with a spoon so we could sup every drop of the mornay sauce. And our cutlery included bone handled desert knives; not plastic, real bone, ivory yellow and warm to the touch.

We did not really need desert, but Kim wanted crème brulee so Joe had chocolate sponge with ice cream and I had cheese, an assortment of tasty blue veins that I could not afford to buy in any supermarket. What we could not finish was packed into a clip top box for me to take home.

The atmosphere was leisurely and quiet, no banging trays, no crashing plates, no shouted orders. The restaurant was busy, but the staff served everybody cheerfully and efficiently. After our superb lunch we drank tea. Tea that was brewed in a china teapot and we poured it into lovely antique bone china teacups. The kind that have 'Royal Worcester' or 'Spode'  on the bottom and my mother's generation kept in a glass fronted cabinet in the sitting room and only used when we had company.

As we were leaving Fleur introduced us to the fisherman who had caught our cod that morning.

I could go on for pages talking about Fleur, whom I respect and admire tremendously. Fleur's Place is a superb little restaurant with genuine character. Fleur herself does not put on an act, she has earned a place in the world by being supremely good at what she does, and by being her own person.




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