Along king’s rd Sorrento the temperature is corrosive and arctic.. The sea scooters are silent. The train of out of town ooglers who only a month or two were trooping along the cliff top to catch a glimpse of the successful bourgeoise (not the Queen or the pope or the 6th Aytollah of Quum but a well fed coarse faced rich man and his sharp wife and his sleek guard dog. The antipodes do terrible things to tradition!) (but don’t forget the high praise Marx gave the bourgoise. More worthy than the pharoahs he avered) through the slits in the expensive hard wood fences have vanished. And the branches of the foreign pines and the native flowering gums are swaying menacingly. And I have foresaken the deck as Mayr calls it for the bed. I’ve taken off my Bishop Berkeley outfit for the moment. Removed my wig. Considered erasing all signs (is this possible. I believe traces can still be traced of all declarations especially the foolish and regretful kind) of my imposturing. And stopped practicing my Irish anglican accent. Mayr is delighted at this turn of events (she is a hardline platonist and is intolerant of most forms of fancy) though her own mission for the redemption of blind humanity continues apace. She is right now taking minutes of the all voluntary self help groups of the Southern Pennisula annual conference at Dromana on the sea. They are all there all 1003 of them. So wonderul cacophony of democratic voices I can’t imagine it. Ah but I hestitate to return to my less salubrious mission. Exercising choice is easy: the difficult part is renouncing as the Lord reminds us sin and excess. The taste gets inside one.The Bishop in any case is a generous tease. Beside as much as I try can’t renounce the conviction that he offers a way out or at least a diversion from the lawn mowing, bat hitting, club swinging, wine swigging. dog pampering, share calculating, motor boat churning, johonsian complacency and bad art indulgence of the well padded denizens of Sorrento. The poor have always attracted their saviours. I wish to follow in Jesus’s path and harrass the rich (see Mark Chapter 9 verse 21). I am further persuaded of the potential justice (potential but as yet not confirmed) of the justice of this sense by the salutary warning in Alyosha Berkeley’s observations on the dire state of film criticism in today’s broadsheet. He rightly worries that the multitudes (a reference I note regularly used in the gospel of St Mark) will set themselves up as critics; that each will regard his or her whinge or random speculation as good as the next person’s. Imagine how this will affect the throng of weekend doctors and dentists, successful recorder players and wondrous life coaches – and most especially – the financial advisors of Sorrento. Guidance I agree is needed in film, just as it is in dentistry and in the business of tracking pains and aches to their source. The same is true too in the field of salvation. But it is a strain. Alyosha I assume lives and breathes film and endures cinematic pain so he can offer us guidance on what not to see just as he tells what might be uplifting or diverting or faintly amusing. Can I do likewise for the denizens of Sorrento in regard of salvation and entry into eternal bliss? The thought is severely troubling. I am attacked by multiple doubts at this very instance. My monitor is recording elevated levels of stress. The searing alarm is more than I can bear. I must leave the field once again. The game these days is getting rougher and faster. But I am in training…. fellow bloggers. So rest ass…….ured (though I am finding it dfifficult rig…ght no…w to reassure myself) you phantom fans of Bishop Berkeley’s most southern crusade I will be back. Ye….s….An amubulance ple…as….urg…ent….

God be with you all. even the well paddeed denizens of sorrento

Bishop Berkeley’s double in his russian pyjamas from the Pennisula hospital. room 2a. rosebud.

Apologies to my to my readers, all one of them. I have been out of commission of late: spending rather too time admiring my wounds and weighing my aches and just gazing seaward.You might say that I’ve been having a bout of Bermuda blues. Is this obscure? I mean the feeling Dr George Berkeley ( My passport lists me as Graham Berkeley, I am afraid) must have felt on returning on a sailing ship with his wife Anne from America having achieved nothing. No college built either on Bermuda or Rhode island sites. But during my despondency (if you allow a some heavy handed pedantry) I have been entranced by the container ships, in their greens and blues and reds passing offshore from our verandra. They pass like the camels of the past but now squared up and made immeasurably bulkier. There is a daily procession of them. They zig zag across the bay from left to right or vice versa if they are going out to open sea. They seem to me like the carriers of a new civilisation: one already made up, cut to order, only needing to assembled. A complete civilisation in dashingly coloured metal boxes. Just place your orders now. There is probably a wide choice of colours to choose from? And perhaps also some choices. If a vanila slice shop is not to your liking you can order a Albania pork bar. If only I liked either! Marj is about to the head a delegation to see the minister about what do with the the old army base on the pennisula. My dearest Marj, that unceasing fount of precisely directed energy. She is dripping with ideas. I hear the methodical even tap of Marj’s PC for hours on end. She is preparing her submission to the Premier. Does he know what is in store? A beautiful reasoned, immaculately spelt, crisply paragraphed dissertion on the rehabiltation of an ex practice war zone for peacable purposes. Marj has an awesome faith in the powers of the submission and in the minutae of the democratic process. I fear however that the periously endangered local soft nosed possum for the time being will have to make do it on its own. And in between all of the above which is very little I acknowledge I have also been reading intermittently A.A. Luce’s 1949 biography, published by Thomas Nelson and Sons, on the Life of George Berkely Bishop of Cloyne. I have been trying too to extract some advice or instruction, some guidance – and I admit it- some encouragement for my Sorrento mission from the Bishop of Cloyne’s life story. But the Bermuda College debacle and the bishop’s other failure namely to ascend from the lowly station of Bishop of Cloyne to an Arcbishopric near Dublin are distressing.

I am still considering however the value of reviving the Bishops’ tar water recipe. His work in the episcopate of Cloyne was worthy but hardly inspiring. But I also sense I need to hold on the words of the Bishop longer, savour them more deeply. Maybe I should increase my consumption of tar water.

For the time being I am contemplating the Bishop’s query number 146, first series.

‘ whether the view of the precipice be not sufficient, or whether we must tumpled headlong before we are roused?

I am wondering if this has any application to myself. If others have considered the precipice with positive results they might share their thoughts with with me. Does tumbling headlong into the precipice always or ever lead to arousal? I myself am doubtful. Expiry seems a more likely outcome.

My request to the Ballieu library for help in tracing the obscure ephemera of the polemical writings of the Bishops has tuned up zilch, as younger persons might put it. But Marj has suggested I try one of the theological libraries. Maybe. To enter one – the scene of my still sore bannishment – would indeed be to risk tumbling down a precipice.

God bless all

Bishop Berkeley the very late modernist impersonator

A reply to sceptics of BB’s plans to raise the cultural interests of Sorrento.

I welcome Berkeley jr comments on my vision for civilising and stimulating the affluent Victorian burg of Sorrento. I detect however a suggestion of scepticism, a well educated smirk, that the lawn covered, propertied stamped, car carpeted, golf coursed, fenced in ‘clay’ of Sorrento could in fact and be realistically be ‘animate(d)…”. This may well be true as sceptics are inclined to be right whatever the topic. Success is indeed elusive and most attempts to fly – or establish a college in Bermuda or a genuinely excellent dog improvement home – end in humiliation or even physical and cognitive impairment. But even sleep alas eventually leads to expiration. Nonetheless and in the face of the inevitable sneers and twitters and police inquiries and blank faces at Stringers – the BishopBerkeley party for the aesthetic and moral rehabilitation of Sorrento plans in the near future to raise its flag and announce its plains for contesting the next local election. We may well add to the humour of Sorrento but this would itself be no mean achievement. Marj reports that in her perambulations down the lanes and around edgings and across the golf courses (she is a militant trespasser) of Sorrento in search of signatures for her petitions – the latest a request for a church service to ask the Lord for mercy at the devastation precipitated by the landing of Lieutenant Murray on the Lady Nelson on March 1802- she has noticed a sombreness in the voices. In her inimitable way she says parts of their larynxes have not been sufficiently exercised.

But to return to our essential business.

The essential task of reading further into the works of my most illustrious precedessor in search of tips and hints for the salvation of our under stimulated age, this has been sadly stymied for the moment by the Baillieu library at the University of Melbourne. A request to the chief librarian to peruse all nine volumes of the Bishop of Cloyne has drawn a blank. A search uncovered AA. Luce’s biography which I shall collect tomorrow: but otherwise zilch. I am dumbfounded that such an illustrious University should have not have these invaluable works on the open shelves of their library, works of such high relevance to our current multiple dilemmas. As you would expect, I have written a very brisk letter of complaint corrected and parsed by Marj to the Vice Chancellor.

Other means will have to be urgently pursued to obtain access to the celestial treasures of the original Bishop. For the moment however let me direct all interested parties – and I hope I can say with confidence that you are all interested – to the Bishop of Cloyne’s Queries. There are in excess of 500 of these, and they are all readily accessible on the global network. They record the Bishop’s emotional response to the situation of Ireland’s Catholic peasantry and the collapse of the South sea bubble, a collapse very like our own.

Here is an offering, most pertinent to the tennis playing burghers of Sorrento

‘ Whether, on the other hand, a handsome seat amidst well-improved lands, fair villages, and a thriving neighbourhood may not invite a man to dwell on his estate, and quite the life of an insignificant saunterer about town for that of a useful country-gentleman”.

For all my reverence of the foundation Bishop of Cloyne, I would like to amend his query. I think the last section should read: ” …quit the life of useful country gentleman for that of an insignificant saunterer about town…”.

More sauntering says I. Though with me it has been of late pure sedentary indolence which I don’t recommend nor does Marj. We spent Sunday on our deck overlooking the glorious bay while the visiting suburban throng trekked past along the tree lined path which runs along the cliff top past Marj’s Aunt Hilda’ estate (this is an anomaly I may explain at another time). I was reading the Bishop’s queries with growing disappointment while Marj was counting her signatures. The throng would look up from between the leaves at us unsure whether to smile or flee. I try to reassure them by smiling back. They come to see the rich.

A sad pageant. It occurred to me that I should set up a Bishop Berkeley stall for the visitors and invite them in and offer them Irish tea. I could hand out copies of the Queries and we could redesign the world with their aid. A relief from the football and exercise statistics and illness worries I overhear them nattering about.

Ah, I can feel the inner agitation surfacing again: the throng is not only thronging on the outside but inside as well: and the beeper is becoming unbearable; beside Marj is beginning to shout which is not a healthy sign, so adieu, fellow sufferers.

May more amelioration and enlightenment come your way.

God bless

The unanointed Bishop Berkeley of Sorrento.

Apologies, postponements and dubious mutterings

I must apologise unreservedly to his excellency Lieutenant Colonel Wittengstein of the Empire’s 23rd Austrian Hussar regiment for doubting his outstanding military record in the south western theatre during the last and previous war. I unreservedly acknowledge my oversight as an unacceptable breech of good bourgeoise manners. I had consulted the Norton-Davidson military almanac, published by the late Bloomsbury-Winsdor press, of outstanding war services but its entry on matters Germanic was scant. Sadly British chauvinism still flourishes in some pockets. In any case, some key pages were missing. I fear some of my near relatives have used them for unsavoury purposes; a practise I have been unable to terminate.

But alas, my unforgivable slur on Herr Wittgenstein’s distinguished bellicose reputation was just one of the blunders I committed or had a hand in this week. The meeting for the launch of Bishop Berkeley’s mission to recivilised the district of Sorrento (it is an awkward term I acknowledge but I can’t think of any other) to be held at Stringer’s Cafe at the table immediately to the left to the entry on Portsea rd (with free tar water provided made up according to the most estimable and distant Bishop’s secret American formula) had to be cancelled. Miss Racing the most virtuoso recorder player on the pennisula who had agreed to attend was called away to a competing inaugural meeting of save the habitat of the soft nosed kangaroo rodent. Mr Hardy our mathematician and stats man – he counts cars, lawn areas, fence types and heights and the influx of summer visitors – was laid up in bed with the gout. Mr Horace our third member, a geographer by trade, was as eager as ever but I suggested a postponement was in order. We didn’t have a quorum and in any case the collected works from The Ballieu library depository had not yet been retrieved. I suggested to him we could use the time to read more closely, and again, and for textural delicacies, two of the works of the first glorious BIshop of Cloyne from volume 6 of his collected works:namely: an essay towards preventing the ruine of Great Britain and Advice to Tories who have not taken the oath. Interested bloggers are encouraged to use the inter library service to get the said texts.I impressed on Mr Horace and later mss Racing and Mr Hardy that I had no doubt that a close reading of these two works would strengthened,stiffen, reinforced and concretise our resolve to met the overwhelming challenges that are likely to face us in the immediate future as well as in the long haul. They agreed.

In the hiatus between now and the next meeting which I suspect will be some time off (but of which I assure you you will all receive advance notice of) let met apprise you of some of the still dazzlingly germane thoughts of the Bishop of Cloyne.

According to his biographer, E.E Luce, he was convinced of the decadence of the Europe and looked with hope to America.

Of Freethinkers (those heinous god deniers it pains me to say) he said: they being a sort of sect which diminish all the most valuable things, the thought, views, and hopes of men: all knowledge, notions, and theories of the mind they reduce to sense; human nature they contract and degrade to the narrow low standard of animal life, and assign us only a small pittance of time instead of immortality…”

Finally, in his rarely read text Alciphorn, the good Bishop, delivered himself of the following sentiment: …if philosophy be, as we take it, the study of happiness, must not every one, in some manner or other, either skilfully or unskilfully philosophise…?

As I am sure you will agree, there is much to ponder here so I will pause until next time. Or will there be a next time or has my allotment of tolerance run out? I apologise for this weezy outbreak. I am prone to maudlin excesses as Marj reminds me, a sign of certain still evident plebian ancestry and a most unmanly and disagreeable tendency.

But I hope you will forgive me for adding two other brief observations.

First, Irish philosophy of which Bishop of Cloyne is its most distinguished exponent, developed out of the so named blind man dilemma. The question posed by this conundrum is: Is our knowledge of say an orange different from the orange itself? This ramifies into other questions. If the blind man were to regain his sight would be able to distinguish the ‘orange’ from say an apple.
I will return to this most essential of dlimmas at a later date ( it has a bearing on the difference between perceiving Sorrento, Victoria, Australia and Sorrento, Victoria,itself, as distinct from Sorrento, Italy).

To finish let add my opinion – a pleasure definitely overvalued by Archbishops (the voicing of an opinion I mean. I said to Marj not 10 minutes ago I had an opinion. She replied in her firm Countess of Orlean voice keep it to yourself. Ah, the expense needed to produce such a voice. She was working on the minutes of the preservation of the soft nosed Kangaroo rodent’s inaugural meeting and didn’t wish to be interrupted. Fair is Fair) But to the task and the budget. This is a lowly task and one I would ordinarily refrain from.
But I am intrigued by how the PM uses the word stimulus. He is sending us a stimulus package (have you dear phantom bloggers received yours) and wanting (so I hear) to stimulate the economy and spending. God and the most estimable Archbishop of Cloyne will not forgive me for saying this. I think the PM is exceptionally brave. But I am puzzled also. What would the overwhelming God and the almost overwhelming original Bishop of Cloyne make of it? I lack a celestial ruling on the rights and acceptability of stimulus packages. Can anyone provide guidance in this grey area? Does Colonel Wittgenstein’s legal expertise and experience possibly extend into such celestial areas?

To blog out, and should anyone have wondered, I can tell them that my Schezuan imported by pass is now running smoothly so long as I don’t over stimulate the demands I make on it. And I have now reached that point as the flickering amber light on my state of the art Bulgarian monitor indicates. I must now retire after prayers so I can live another day.

So may God lavish his infinite mercy on you all

regards

the less than reliable narrator of BishopBerkeley of Sorrento.

There was a request I think for an outline of the matters to be discussed at the inaugural meeting of the Bishop Berkeley’s Sorrento Renaissance league at Stringer’s coffee cum grocery shop on the corner of Sorrento High Street and Portsea rd next wednesday at 11 sharp. Carafes of the best quality imported Irish tar water (Berkeley’s Coyne tonic ) will be served to soothe the excitement of the occasion in keeping with the estimable Bishop of Cloyne directive that “it is a great maxim for health that the juices of the body be kept fluid in due proportion…(an outcome guaranteed he goes on to say by the daily intake of) the acid volatile spirit in the tar water at once attenuating and cooling…’

Dare I say, this could be a momentuous meeting with historical implications for the future – and also the understanding of the past – of Sorrento and beyond. But to lay claims before the event is of course hazardous. While the Lord High God is all seeing, it is extreme hubris to claim such a trait for us mere mortals, even in jest.

So items to be discussed. We take our in initial guidance from the original estimable bishop of Cloyne. Our meeting, as you’ll appreciate, takes place against a background of widespread depressed and receding confidence, a winding back of activity and the exhaustion of certain longstanding and highly corrosive practices. For too long the short sighted interests of sheet metal magnets, happiness pill barons and fast salvation tycoons have prevailed. The high fences and unused tennis courts and jetties, the needlessley tidy hedges, and pointless swimming pools (within ten yards of the sea) symbolised this squalid state of inequity. A change is long overdue. Wealth needs to be socialised. Ah I said it. Whether the bishop would approve or recognise the sentiment I can’t be sure.

In any case, and as a matter of urgency, we look for a change of direction for Sorrento, a God inspired rejuvenation but with certain amendments and caveats included and with a recognition of the need to take account of local conditions and the myriad wasted hopes and promises of the just expired century. Sorrento is neither Clyne or Berkeley but it could be the site of a new beginning. We dare to hope.

But I have said enough. Mary agrees. You are waffling I hear her mutter. Get to the point man. The point. I’ll now lay out the matters to be discussed and if you care to comment or add suggestions I will be most grateful. Desirable change must need be collaborative and attract the Lord’s blessings.

Items for discussion.

(1) a discussion of the time and manner by which the indigenous people of the lands of Sorrento were dispossessed with a view to correcting their unforgivable erasure from our history and providing them with their just recompense.

(2) setting up of film fund to allow a modest local renewal of the great Dicken, Griffith and Film today tradition of early modernist cinema ( a promise sadly that the local Sorrento cinema has failed to promote)

(3) the creation of a seed fund to provide stimulus capital for such ventures as Mrs Berkeley junior’s strictly all fun ( and anti Leninist) make up for street vampires and recession tap dancers.

(4) a revolutionary revamping of local planning laws to foster the creation of a distinctive no fence, no lawn, only communal tennis courts ethos and the development of a new local distinctive tar water Sorrento architecture. This last could be promoted through a local architecture competition for a cathedral built out of containers.

(5) the development of a local cuisine and culinary laws strictly restricting food consumption within the Burg of Sorrento to local produce. Consumption itself will only be permitted in conformity with the slow food dietary advice. This will require practice.

(6) Communal dancing will be held on the Sorrento football field once a field, weather pending. Discussion of what dances to encouraged will be discussed. Compulsory and free tango lessons has been suggested by the retired school teacher cum devoted recorder player.

(8) an inventory to be compilied with help from the Melbourne University History department of all local fauna and flora and a new code of conduct to be drawn up for their protection.

(7) making the speaking of the local indigenous language mandatory but we appreciate this will take time.

(8) except for ambulances, bread and food delivery vans, rubbish trucks and public buses no cars or other motorised vehicles will be permitted to drive within the confines of Sorrento.

I could say more. But my coronary by pass alarm … i…s flashing and besssss….ide I wish to..ooo invite sugg ..estions from all. This is an open meeting and I ho…pe the numbers will sw…ell. I am sad…den that some have indicated that will not be able to come. Nonetheless their suggestions will be greatly received. As for Lieutenant General, Wittgenstein – I have established there was a sub Lieutenant Wittgenstein in the El Salvador Army in 1998 of highly reputable character – his martial expertise may be required if we are not able to make headway with our programme by peaceful means. I ask him to stand by in case of an emergency.

A sound of grinding metal is e…ma….nating from my heart region. Sorry must go. I hear Marj. Push the button Man. The button. On the left. No right…where

life is not always easy my dears

The bishop is temporarily indisposed. Another case of verbal intoxication. I advise economy but he won’t listen. But he’ll live.

Sweet dreams, my dears

Marj, the bishop’s grammar and spelling advisor. Beside much else.

Invitations, theories of the will, common sense and Bishop Berkeley’s tar water recipe.

As for Lieutenant Colonel Wittgenstein’s request to join our apparently very selective confabulation he is of course most welcome. How does he like his milk and is he at all partial to stale rye biscuits made from the very best of marinated Woomera rye. Are we incidentally to hear of the Colonel Lieutenant’s service record? His name so far as I can ascertained does does not appear on any of the national and empire service records I have scanned. In what theatre did he distinguish himself? Nor do the family records of the extended Wittgenstein family held in University of California record a lieutenant Wittgenstein. But we welcome him none the less. We are committed to the very early church’s egalitarian, non judgmental, pre pauline principles. On the question of will the Lieutenant raises, I think we should defer to Herr Freud. Whether Marj’s belches or other soundings are involuntary or willed – or sly hints of things I should do but haven’t or just the musical accompaniment accompanying her compilation of the minutes and the news letter for the Sorrento right to dream society – is uncertain. The Doctor as you’ll remember said the will was a frail and leaf like organ, easily diverted or even crushed by our inner tsunamis. I am inclined to agree.

On the intimation from Alyosha fairwater (the illustrious local guide and corrector of cinematic fancies and serious dinner party adornment) that Sorrento, the penultimately most southern burg of Victoria, now sadly more accessible than ever via tax funded extension of the streamlined macadamised seal, is a mere figment of the imagination. This cannot be allowed to pass. I am aware of course that my most distinguished namesake, the glorious original Bishop of Clyne otherwise known as Bishop Berkeley and George to his first cousin had difficulty with related issues. But there is a very straightforward solution on page 2 of the Bishop’s great work, The Principles of knowledge. He speaks there of the ‘…illiterate bulk of mankind that walk the high road of plain, commonsense, and are governed by the dictates of nature, for most part easily and undisturbed…nothing familiar appears unaccountable or difficult to comprehend’. Alyosha should stick to the high road as the Bishop recommends of ‘plain common sense”. I myself departed from it in my now very remote youth with dire and life long consequences – a very troubling diversion I may outline later. In short: Sorrento can be easily sighted, collided with, traversed, fished from, sailed past, even tasted and with discretion eaten from so long as one sticks to the high road of commonsense. I can vouch that its johnsonian pain inducing capacities are indisputable. But it is true, I acknowledge, that so far as questions of ethnicity, culture, gender, toilet provision, infra structure spending, job creation and much else, there is a low level fracas whistling and muttering across across the flag flying, lawn pampered tree clustered backyards of Sorrento. In fact to stick to the Bishops high road, nothing short of the culture of Sorrento is at stake. I am locked in myriad skirmishes – currently just contained within a whispering war but likely to turn nasty in the near future – over the culture, the history, borough planning laws, the opening hours of the library, the adequacy of local toilet facilities, incoming refugee quotas, the council budget allocations, our indigenous heritage and their land claims, job creation schemes and whether to grant Joshua Truffaut permission to film a politically questionable scene along the Pt King beach frontage. For those interested in defending Sorrento’s Berkeleyian heritage – and having their say about the cultural future of Sorrento – a meeting will be held next Thursday at Stringers from 11.30 on. Percy Dunlop’s grandson Albert is coming and three retired school teachers, including a recorder playing mistress, to create a war committee to plan our future strategy.

However for all those unimpressed with the mutterings and heavings above, and who have waited patiently for the illustrious Bishop’s tar water recipe, here it is. He writes: put a quart (the old imperial measures) of cold water to a quart of tar, and stirring them well together in a vessel…(leave) standing till the tar sinks to the bottom. A glass water is then poured off for a draught.

The Bishop writes that the…’acid volatile spirit in tar-water, at once attentuating and cooling in moderate degrees, must greatly conduce to health…quickening the circulation of fluids without wounding the solids…removing..obstructions which are… (the) great and general causes of most chronical disease.

You may be enthused to hear that tar water will be served at the war cabinet to be held at Stringer’s next Thursday. Look forward to seeing you there. The manager of Stringer’s has kindly agreed to provide thoroughly clean glasses.

God Bless.

Sunday God induced reflections

It being Sunday, I am moved to reflect a little in the empty, sea moping, hedgehog crawling, possum snuffling surrounds of early winter in Sorrento – before taking my last mug of warm milk and a stale baked rye biscuit – on my distant and very indirect namesake of Irish Protestant and Trinity College notoriety reflections on God. I take my cue from The Bishop’s sadly under read work “The minute philosopher. He intones that “the thought of anarchy in nature is to me more shocking than in civil life, inasmuch as natural concerns are more important than civil and the basis of all others”

Later the good Bishop has his mouthpiece, Alciphon, say that …’the confused notion of deity, or some invisible power, to be of all prejudices the most unconquerable”

Before commenting let me indicate that
I prefer my reflections to be concrete; indeed if they aren’t they make me giddy. My good wife marj agrees. She goes one step further and falls asleep as soon I get abstracted. She calls it a disease. Economy man she screechs. You see, she prefers Jeremy Bentham to the somewhat abstracted Bishop.

So the anarchy of nature and its shocking state are more important than civil concerns?

I ask myself do I agree. Marj yawns and her false teeth fall out. This act I venture is an act of natural anarchy. It is not entirely willed, I suspect, though my understanding of Marj’s nature is probably prejudiced. In the wider sphere, I concede acts of natural anarchy are relatively common, as you all know. Terrifying fires, unforgiving tidal waves, explosive volcanoes, and devastating floods. But in the insulated and at this time of year almost empty surrounds of Sorrento, nature is overwhelmingly orderly. Nature has been severely subdued here. The over numerous offspring of the aluminium magnet and the happiness pill billionaire no doubt continue to fart and belch. But these are minor excursions into the deafening silence of the southern tip of the peninsula at this time of year. Sadly it is not nature but machines which now rule here. Scooters which scoot like motorised wasps across the foreshore; the honking hourly ferries; the gangster’s son Teddy Burl’s souped up car as it screams pass our place while Marj is enjoying one of her very long dreams.

Marj has set up a Sorrento protest group on the right to dream peaceably. All are welcome to join.
Meetings I gather are on Tuesdays in the Museum at the far end of Sorrento High street.

So Nature here is fine, at least the little of it which remains. Marj is defending that too and good on her. She runs and takes immaculate minutes and compiles an immaculately spelt newsletter for all 78 local Sorrento community groups. As for the unconquerable prejudice of God, I agree with the Bishop’s sentiment absolutely, and love his inimitable way of putting it. An unconquerable prejudice. A fine phrase and a fine sentiment. Thank God for it. It is my doona, my insulation, my disposable can, my for ever reliable reassurance. With Ralph gone back to the wild and Percy Dunlop blowing fish bubbles in a Canterbury Old People’s hospice with his medals for service clanging on his chest each time he tries to pee, God is indispensable. Only God is free I tell Marj while she searches for her dentures. But not for long she huffs. Not for long.

If any out there in the infinite wilderness presided over by our Lord wishes to contributes his thoughts to this to confabulation they would be most welcomed. A meeting could even be arranged at Stringers on a Wednesday mid afternoon for the eager. I will bring my tin of stale rye biscuits for supper.

But my milk is getting cold. Before I go I remember some one asking about about Ralph’s multi cultural grandmother. Granny Ruby was a northern beach dog – a wonderful attractive genetic amalgam of a Moluccas bush hound, a Portuguese wolf hound and an English mastiff abandoned by Cook on his first voyage. Anyhow, Just as the Lord is an unconquerable prejudice so is my nightly routine. I have now crunched my biscuit and quaffed my quart of warm full cream milk. So good night and god bless. Copies of the Minute Philosopher can be obtained from the Ginger sharp nosed haired lady at Readings on a Friday from the front counter in the Lygon Street shop or I believe from any disrespectful on line web site for a fee. I recommend it.

God Bless

Bishop Berkeley impostor of Sorrento

There seems to be a wit amongst the respondents. I was aware of rumours that some still exist although the last one heard or sighted in Sorrento, was rear admiral Percy Dunlop. Percy lost a right foot in the almost entirely unknown second Gallipoli campaign. I mean the second world war Gallipoi not the horrendously farcially first. It happened very near the end of the  war. Percy was a late entry to the war. He had spent the previous four years waiting for the Japanese to arrive in Canberra. He use to get up at five because he believed for some undisclosed reason that the Japs would arrive at five fifteen in the morning on mules in Dinner suits and straw helmets. He had the idea the Japs liked to dress up for their victory parades in the uniforms of the enemy. On the off chance that his deranged visions might come to fruition, he use to nervously peer between the plastic venetian blinds at 4.10 to see if they’d come. He had a regular dream  – which continues to this day – that  if the Japs arrived they would all be lined up with their gleaming baynets and polished jack boots with a pink proteus flower protruding from a button hole outside the PM’s resident. Chifley had asked to be wokened if they should come. Otherwise, Percy was mostly employed making warm chocolate drinks for  Chifley, the then PM, occassionally rereading The Uncle Toby sequence of Tristram Shandy to Chifley which Chifley was very fond of,  and reading the grossly  obscene but not very inventive cables from the bible bashing Americans on the Pacific Fleet moored in Tahiti. But this is a digression. Although unreported as far as I know in the government archives, Percy was asked by Chifley out of the blue one day in the last month or so of the war to take a proteus wreath – Chifley was very attached to Proteus. He had pots of them all round his office – all the way to Gallipoli. Chifley apparently apparently couldn’t bear the thought that Anzac day would go uncommemorated at Gallipoli, the sacred welling ground of our nation’s manhood. It was a very haphazadous, eventful, frustrating, near fatal and barely credible undertaking. But somehow Percy  with a great deal of help from lady luck and three very black Arabs and a secular Israeli grandmother  got to Rhodes Island at the back end of the Mediterranean. From there a fishing boat took him to within 100 yards of the beach at Gallipoli. Percy could barely swim, had drunk far too much chocolate and had been a compulsive smoker since beginning from the age of 15 behind the bicycle sheds at Melbourne Grammar.  In any case he had to carry Chifley’s Proteus wreath through giant, ice cold breakers and remember the words of the national anthem.  Yet he succeeded or did as far as getting to the beach went. He was drenched, something slimy was stuck to his cheek, a fish or crab was nibbling at his tender parts , his ticker was heaving and he was suffering from severe cramp. He also had no idea of what to do or where to lie the wreath or even where he was. It was pitch black. The sand felt gravelly. And a cruel whipping wind lashed his cheeks. Anyhow he placed the wreath down, taking his clue from  the almighty, clapped his hand over his heart and began to sing as best he could the national anthem. It is a truely moving scene A saturated minor Australian rear admiral standing in middle of  bitterly night with a high whistling wind blowing alone on a beach in Turkey in 1945. Only the  sqawks of erotically absorbed goats could be heard above the cacophony and the crashing surf. He had just taken a big breathe and had launched into Advance Australia fair…when. Well, when his right foot was blown clean off.  He began screaming for help and after a time which seemed eternity to Percy but before too much blood had been lost some Turkish peasants turned up. Percy was barely concious but managed to waved his rear admiral badge at them and kept saying Ustra…li….a, Or…stral….ia and trying in between the extraordinary grinding pain to imitate a kangaroo. They must have been impressed or just compassionate because from that moment on they treated Percy like a true mate. For months they fed Percy on goats yohurt and holumi cheese and Zuni favoured octopus and daily poured boiling hot water on his gruesome truncated leg. Eventually Menzies who had replaced Chifley as MP sent the one and only government flying boat to Gallipoli to bring Percy back. When I next saw him in the Sorrento Hotel – he had by then become a permanent resident and was the de facto partner of Nancy the cocktail maker and champion one eyed Sorrento croquet queen – I noticed after a time that he lacked a right foot.  Beware Anzac he would say ruefully in between quaffing down his daily intake of scotch. Menzies had arranged to pay him a generous pension to keep quiet. Look at what it cost me. And  all for a bloody labour MP.

But Percy refused to be bitter. He would say with an malevolent glint in his eye that a missing right foot had many uses. Apparently Nancy enthusiatically agreed.

In the Shrine however there is not a single mention of Percy’s deed or of the second and uncommemorated Gallipoli campaign or of Percy Dunlop’s heroic, singular and literally truncated commemoration of Anzac on the beach of Gallipoli, on a bitterly cold night, on the 25th April, 1945.

A pity,  I think. And a stain on our nationhood. Anyway, Questions and responses will be answered in the next blog. My ticker… is playing up once more. I fear the excitement of all this narration is getting out of hand. A break is needed. Only a few exceptional scribes are able to match Trollope and survive. 5000 words before breakfast and a full day at the post office. What is it with high bourgoise Englishmen?

As for Ralph he was released into the wild soon after the afore mentioned – but doggedly speaking perfectly natural – incident. The council decided he had failed the Sorrento civilisation test, a test I am confident my illustrious high Anglican and distinguished graduate of Trinity College Dublin ancestor would not have endorsed. Marjorie Wolfenson, the wife of the aluminium sheet magnet, Jack Wolfenson, moved the motion that he be removed at an extraordinary meeting of the council. I sometimes wonder if Marjorie wasn’t suffering at the time from some kind of aluminium poison. Nor have I exempted Jack whose solid aluminium corpse has lain undisturbed and perfectly preserved in the Sorrento graveyard for the last 20 years. In any case, it was tearful departure. I watched with my eyes moistening while Ralph slunk off into the undergrowth on the east side of Arthur’s Seat, threading his way through the potato chip and stale cheese cake eaters and coke swigging drinkers. I last glimpsed Ralph’s sleek red coat bobbing up and down heading towards the grape vineyards on the unnaturally manicured slopes below. It was a moment I can’t forget. I have never forgiven Marjorie Wolfenson. And there isn’t a day when I don’t feel a heart flutter at the memory of Ralph my former dear hybrid canine companion, a true Australian who brings together a profusion of genetic inheritances including his great grandmother’s many local and ancient talents.

You’ll excuse me if I stop now so I can compose myself.

Apologies to my many blog readers, especially the 3 or 2 real ones, for the delay in adding further ruminations. I’ve just been reading some jottings on my illustrious Irish predecessor. His many achievements are momentous but also depressing, at least to me. What can a second, mixed race, multi national, Orstralia based, disparately read suspiciously titled, suburban domiciled Bishop Berkeley possibly add to the great man’s collected tomes? The blunt answer is of course only specks. For all functionally legged readers, an undoubtedly better option is to make a leisurely trip to the Melbourne University Baillieu library where all the tomes penned by his excellency lie gathering dust. There are still no guards patrolling the doors but it’s only a matter of time. For non students library cards can be purchased for a small fee. I recommend it.

What I can say however – and will repeat on other occasions – is that the state of Sorrento, Melbourne, continues to cause me extreme concern, just as the state of Derry once did to my dazzling ancestor. I am choked with this concern and find it difficult to articulate. Besides my coronary by pass still has not settled. And my knees from my rugger days continue to ache painfully. I played flanker but in the wet was sometimes forced to play no 8. For the moment just let me say a little. As my undigested anger eases I will say more on other ocassions. I’ll just say this then. The recent architecture on the point King rd is shameful. It is an example of utilitarian antipodean modernism at its shallowess and grossest; worse, the cakes at Stringers are barely eatable; and worse multiplied, the vanilla slices sold in the high street are a stain on the local cuisine, though its existence admittedly has always been somewhat speculative; what’s more the cinema last showed a decent film, La strada, which I watched at an 11 oclock session in an empty cinema with my dog Ralph on July 11 1961. The eminent Melbourne film critic Jake Aloysius Lightfinger was alas not then with us. His work in correcting horrendous misjudgements and alerting us to the occasional watchable film is thoroughly commendable. But back to Ralph. He left a small but very discreet deposit which sadly led to canine companions being banned from our cinema. Very sad. But I have to stop. The red light on my coronary is flashing.

All feed in or out – is that the phrase – will be closely attended to. And did you know that Bishop Berkeley the original believed that all we can know are ideas and that ideas come perception or reflections? Obviously the honourable gentleman did not ever walk round the sandy, leafy environs of Sorrento. Here ideas I regret to say are almost entirely unknown. As for knowledge I heard Mr F say last week at Stringers that it was an excretion of the oesophagus.His wife Meredith said her knowledge was just fine: it had jumped 10 basis points yesterday…

OO..ah..ambulance…B..B ishop…Me….rcy.

Prayers… grat…e..fully…received.