Posts by Islander
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Kia ora - well, I can certainly say that I can smell it in any urine(even after the loo's been flushed) - and on my own (I ate asparagus twice)& others' skin. V. interesting link, thanks Joe.
For those folk who dont appreciate single malts - each to their own. For me, they are one of life's treasures - but the genetically prolier-that-thou (I may steal this The Groke - but always with acknowledgement!) may prefer - whatever they prefer. Cheers! Slainthe! And, as we say in the OFR, Slurp!
-
Kia ora Joe - note I didnt actually say asparagus was a fern! (I was hopping from statement to fact as does occaisionally happen here.)
We used to have - what we kids called - an asparagus spread at Leaver Terrace. I liked the foliage (you could find mantis babies amongst it) and the berries, but have never been able to stomach the
vegetable- er, whatever. And since it runs out that I'm susceptible to gout...some kind of genetic protective thingy was at work.And o, re graves. do I empathise! One of the best mushroom patches I know of is similarly located...
-
Kyle,Joe, it's just the same as all youse asparagus freaks who actually claim to like the stuff (even thought it is a wellknown scientifically established fact that fern shoots are carcinogenic!) I bet you were forcefed the tips as tiny unsuspecting infants so you grew up suppressing the rotten odour & taste, right?
-
steven crawford -what I wrote, stands. However, the deliberate introduction of alcohol (or cheap opium, or toads - um, probably not them!) into populations that havent used them before, is another matter altogether as Hilary Stace has indicated...other Polynesians used/use kava. And the use of cacti/vines/fungi/leaves as hallucinogens/entheogens/or to get stoned
by 'Native Americans' in both North and South America is extremely widespread. Not to mention the extensive brewing that went/goes on
from fruit, honey and grains... -
Sidelight: Anika Moa (way upthread there was a mention) came to
Big O and left a copy of "In Swings The Tide" (I really like her work) and a note "There are no pubs here!"Thus are places judged...also people, by such other important matters as their language. Crudities cease to be cute - or cutting. You see a name, roll your eyes, cease to read.
Or at least I do, now.
-
This has been a truely engaging thread...
Random observations: loxodonts seek out over-ripe fruits (of several kinds) because they appreciate both the taste & the effects. Asian elephants will raid villages that have breweries.
Small children within my whanau will sip light beer and smack their lips with gusto. My neighbour's children love olives (and have done so since being 2 yr olds.) I cant stand the smell or taste of asparagus.
I love alcoholic drinks - but my primary reason for ingesting them is NOT to get drunk (that can come as a welcome by-product.) I love the very complex sensory pleasures - smell, taste, colour (the same way I really enjoy smoking the occaisional cigar, or drinking coffee) and the interaction between those senses.
And the additional pleasures when you drink (or eat) with other people - conversation about single malts, or seafood, or especial wines associated with especial people & places.
BenWilson, I'm not buying an argument (& wont reply to any you raise) but your constant emphasis on "nasty", "yukky", "toxic" for things that have given humans - and other animals - pleasure & ease for uncounted millennia is a little less than insightful on your part - and a truly interesting insight to you as a person...
the first inebriants may have actually have been fungi & honey, just incidentally.
It's stopped raining in the OFR. The night is cool. The sunset boded well for fine weather apopo. I'm drinking a dram of Finlaggin before heading to bed after an 8-hour drive. Slainthe!
-
Oooo, Mark 2 Zephyr - first car I did a ton in (& that's 100 Mph.)
It was the car my mother bought after she sold the Snipe. Also the Zephyr was the vehicle that got me my first speeding ticket. Nah, the ton wasnt involved...it was a bizarre round-the-city rally organised by the Aranui Former Pupils' Association (which died soon afterwards.) I was a law student at the time & was discharged without conviction (I ceased to be a law student shortly afterwards but advanced to being a very good fishnchip cook.) -
The Snipe got big points with my mother's brothers - hoo, thing's got a Commer truck engine! & I mentioned that in the short story - it literally did dig itself after running out of thick mud-
I loved that car.
I loved driving it.
I loved driving that road.
Siobhan Harvey - know I actually loathe you?
And know I've had Snipe fans buy "Stonefiah" *just* for that story.
-
"Sometimes I Dream I'm Driving" is a lovestory to a Humber Super Snipe (what really got up my nose apropos Harvey's review was that she called it 'violent' - geeeez!!) The first time my mother adjudged me sufficiently capable of driving the entire family in the Snipe was when I was 14 (ok ok it was the v. early 60's.) We were going nicely until the Dunsandel railway turn? Somebody veered towards me and I turned to the left & hit the brakes. And...it was freshly shingled. The Snipe spun right round and hit the grass side...missing oncoming vehicle.
It was very quiet in the back, where my erstwhile sleeping sibs had come abruptly awake-
my warrior Mother, bless her, let me drive to Rakaia until she took over the wheel.
There was another near miss while I was young, but nothing like Emma's dark drive!
-
My mother comes from Oamaru, and very basically, we are a south South family.
My father was born in New Brighton, and a *lot* of my childhood was spent driving between North Beach (I was born in Burwood/Otautahi)
and Oamaru. My first real driving experiences were from there to there. (In "Stonefish", that experience is encapsulated in a short story called: "Some Times, I Dream I'm Driving" (which a really bad critic, Siobhan Harvey, mananged to twist into "Sometimes I Dream I'm Dying" with an equivalently stupid review - she'd obviously never read the story - or the book.)In it- that story- you'll come across the Rakaia Bridge. You wont come across "The Teapot" in Temuka which later, after my father died, became the family's waystop.
I travel that route at least 70 times a year- know it as well as the ingress road to the beach here-