To expatiate on our wares a little, consider the following.

Concerning the recuperative powers of his fabled tar water (vouched for by my exacting neigbour and long devotee of the Lord and his faithful daughter in law Mary, Rosa Rosalino) I can do no better than quote his eminence. He writes in his 1747 paper (Siris):L

….” if the lute be not well tuned, the musician fails in his harmony. And, in our present state, the operations of the mind so far depend on the right tone or good condition of its instrument that anything which greatly contributes to preserve or recover the health of the body is well worth the attention of the mind.

He concludes his recommendation by adding that ‘these considerations (i.e. the harmonious operations of the mind) have moved me to communicate the salutary virtues of tar-water; to which I have thought myself obliged by the duty everyman owes to mankind”.

As I am sure you will agree a more persuasive pitch on behalf of a yet to be popularly embraced commodity is difficult to imagine. What other product can boast – with support from a very satisfied patron – to improve the toneful and good conditioning of that indispensable instrument, the mind.

I leave yu with these reflections.  Recipes for the afore mentioned tar water can be obtained via this site. A small token of appreciation would be appreciated, in proportion to one’s capacity.

In deepest Thornbury where I now reside – except for the late summer months when I and Mayr retreat to the coast – the weather is glorious. A lovely blue canopy stretches over head and and a soft waffing breeze trickles between the Frangipanies. Mayr is currently exploring the ether looking for corporate errors and dysfunctions and the availability of good condition Kyoto furniture, a rare indulgence of hers along with freshly painted surfaces.

A more sustained reading and probing of the Bishop’s Principles of Human Knowledge – a magnificent stimulus to the harmonious operations of the mind – will follow shortly.

I have offered my services free of charge to the wayward colonel love me truely Gadadfi but have yet to receive a reply from him or his representatives.

May you the discerning consumers – collectively known as the market and whether yu are chivering in Taskent or ruminating on current film fables in wellington street – be less churlish.

much love

The remote antipodean ancestor of the former eminent Bishop Berkeley of Cloyne

I have bleated, shrunk but finally moved. I  am now pushing a snitched shopping trolley with troubling wheels bearing the local supermarket’s imprimateur

loaded with water stained copies of the Bishop of Berkeley’s tar water recipe (oh for Cervantes horse whose dear name escapes me) down the front path pass the swollen green yellow grapefuit tree, the glorious white hibiscus and Mayr’s nascent blakean red rose and out on to the peopleless streets of surburbia to resume my crusade.

I being this new season of crusading (shameless but quivering) addressing the mottled bricks, the concreted drive ways, the Libyan date palm opposite. However even they I fear are perplexed. The insensate things I mean. In crusading matters one takes a risk. One travels blind and the world as our patches and scars and embedded slivers of gun shot remind us is full of pot holes, eye gouging birds and the remanence of Colonel Gadaffi’s mercenary vipers.  Let me at least try. My lungs swell barely. This will be a shamefully inadequate account but its the best (I feebly tell myself) I can do. So dear phantom listener. I have taken it upon myself to acquaint the world with the unfamiliar creeds and axioms of my exceptionally distant ancestor – the most distinguished former bishop of county Cloyne Bishop George Berkeley of Ireland. But let me say more (my feelings often get out of hand as yu’ll see). There is prologue to my mission. We have archived the creeds of Comrade Marx (only the exceptionally bright sons and daughters of Parisian bakers study him in any depth) we have arranged the execution of monsieur Trotsky; and the lord has been turned into a virtual salesmen. In South Dakota, they sell God’s miracles to the highest bidder. Such losses and violations are beyond comprehension. Supplies of modest salvation I fear are more meagre than water and breathable air.

Without confidence I offer the Bishop’s thoughts and guidance. It is salvation without guarantees. It offers minimal relief and its curative powers are untested. I am convinced however that a daily reading – the taking in and rumination of – a sentence or two of the Berkeley’s elegant thoughts will have far ranging and significant curative and enlivening effects. Although the global pharamaceutical committee (made up of representatives of all faiths and scientific persuasions) have yet to publish their findings on the efficacy of the Bishop’s nostrums. However many testimonies testify to their inestimable value. Take my My dear neighbour, Rosa Marcello. Ever since she borrowed her daughter’s unread extracts of the Bishop’s works – which she had been given by her one and only protestant and very short lived boy friend, Harold Cain of Northcote South -and began reading them daily at the average rate of two sentences a day , she tells me her gains in virtually all aspects of her life have been exponential. Her weight height ratio has dropped and then remain steady. Her respiratory inhalations and expulsions are likewise. She reports a measurable increase in her powers of retention, her willingness and capacity to listen and interact with her daughter in law and in a refreshing gain in the vividness and novelty of her nightly dreams. And much more.

I am now panting. If yu will excuse me – dear cat or phantom reader – my salvationist energies are fading.  Can I just say. Although not receiving the recognition they deserve, salvationist are amongst the hardest working members of our community. So let me offer a brief reminder, a glimpse perhaps, of what the Bishop has to offer, a reason or two why yu should place yr life’s salvation problems in his hands.

I quote from point 2, The Principles of Human Knowledge, the Cambridge edition based on the original Dublin College text.

“…the mind of man being infinite, when it treats of things which partake of infinity, it is not to be wondered at, if it runs into absurdities and contraditions, out of which it is impossible it should ever extricate it self, it being of the nature of infinite not to be comprehended by that which is infinite’.

This is an extremely useful text. We see examples of such absurdities and contradictions daily. We who are finite attempt to grapple with (penetrate. imagine, dictate to) that which is infinite and fall into ‘absurdities. Take the terrible Mr Gaddafi, a very finite human. As the Bishop goes on to say with his usual perspicacity ‘we who…raise a dust, then complain, we cannot see”.

So refrain from raising dust.

My angina is squelching painfully. I just remind yu two sentences a day – plus a sip or two of the Bishop’s refined Dublin tar water and avoid raising dust – and your salvation I think (I can reassure yu at least of this) will be extended a further day.

your humble salvationist, impersonator and custodian of the wisdom of long expired Bishop of Cloyne.

more scraps and crumbs will follow

the reserve BishopBerkely of Thornbury formerly of Sorrento

I address the mottled bricks, the concreted drive ways, the Libyan date palm opposite. However even they I fear are perplexed. The insensate things I mean. In crusading matters one takes a risk. One travels blind and the world as our patches and scars and embedded slivers of gun shot remind us is full of pot holes, eye gouging birds and the remanence of Colonel Gadaffi’s troops. Let me at least try. My lungs swell barely. This will be a shamefully inadequate account but its the best (I feebly tell myself) I can do. So dear phantom listener. I have taken it upon myself to acquaint the world with the unfamiliar creeds and axioms of my exceptionally distant ancestor – the most distinguished former bishop of county Cloyne Bishop George Berkeley of Ireland. But let me say more (my feelings often get out of hand as yu;ll see. There is prologue to my mission. We have archived the creeds of Comrade Marx (only the exceptionally bright sons and daughters of Parisian bakers study him in any depth) we have arranged the execution of monsieur Trotsky; and the lord has been turned into a virtual salesmen. Such losses are beyond comprehension. Supplies of Salvation are more meagre than water and breathable air.

Without confidence I offer the Bishop’s thoughts and guidance. It is salvation without guarantees. It offers minimal relief and its curative powers are untested. I am convinced however that a daily reading – the taking in and rumination of – of a sentence or two of the Berkeley’s elegant thoughts will have far ranging and significant curative and enlivening effects. Although the global pharamaceutical committee (made up of representatives of all faiths and manner of a scientist) have yet to publish their findings on the efficacy of the Bishop’s nostrums. Mrs Rosa Marcello, my dear neighbour, has been perusing two of the Bishop’s sentences a day for the last twenty years. But many testimonies testfy to their inestimable value. My dear neighbour, Rosa Marcello – ever since she borrowed her daughter’s unread extracts of the Bishop’s works and began reading them daily at the average rate of two sentences a day tells me her gains in virtually all aspects of her life have been exponential. Her weight height ratio has dropped and then remain steady. Her respiratory inhalations and expulsions are likewise. She reports a measurable increase in her powers of retention, her willingness and capacity to listen and interact with her daughter in law and in the vividness and novelty of her nightly dreams. And much more.

If yu will excuse me – dear cat or phantom reader – my salvationist energies are fading. Although not receiving the recognition they deserve, salvationist are amongst the hardest working members of our community. So let me offer a brief reading, glimpse perhaps, of what the Bishop has to offer, a reason or two why yu should place yr life’s salvation problems in his hands.

I quote from point 2, The Principles of Human Knowledge, the Cambridge edition based on the original Dublin College text.

“…the mind of man being infinite, when it treats of things which partake of infinity, it is not to be wondered at, if it runs into absurdities and contraditions, out of which it is impossible it should ever extricate it self, it being of the nature of infinite not to be comprehended by that which is infinite’.

This is an extremely useful text. We see examples of such absurdities and contradictions daily. We who are finite attempt to grapple with (penetrate. imagine, dictate to) that which is infinite and fall into ‘absurdities. Take the terrible Mr Gaddafi, a very finite human. As the Bishop goes on to say with his usual perspicacity :we have first raised a dust, then complain, we cannot see”.

Beware raising dust.

My angina is rumbling. I just remind yu two sentences a day – plus a sip or two of refined Dublin tar water and avoid raising dust – and your salvation will be extended a further day.

‘

a                                    Unlike the Lord  - who miraculously emerged as we know after three days and thereafter strode the earth disseminating the Lord’s message –  I gave up on my mission to disperse the word and thoughts of Bishop Berkeley and their relevance to the salvation of the dire and multitudinous threats now facing God’s creatures and creations. Instead (I have to abjectly confess) I retired  to bed with brief barely active upright intervals spent washing up, oven cleaning, toilet cleaning, lawn mowing, manure making, tossing of sheep’s ordure round our tender Peruvian cabbage plants  and ( most abject of all) indiscriminate and extended periods watching sport.  I developed an unnatural and exaggerated  appetite for ball watching. This appetite overwhelmed me. I had eyes only for the ball. The ball stroked, punted, drilled, dribbled, passed, grasped, intercepted, threaded. punched, thrown, looped, bent,kicked, smashed, looped etc. Mayr  complained of neglect. I forgot the Bishop. Only now and very falteringly have I retrieve my earlier passions or rather they have been retrieved for me.  Forcibly. So why the reappearance of the Bishop in my thoughts yu might ask? It is not let me be clear that my faith in the Bishop’s relevance  have revived; but rather that the Bishop has refused to go away or to be more accurate his ghost or his ghost of his ghost has visited me repeatedly in my noctural hours. Over and over. Faintly. Prodding me. Coughing in ear. Lightly kicking me in the shins. Even lightly this is painful for a man of my vintage and fleshless femurs.  Murmuring in his soft firm Irish voice.  He refuses to decease. Mayr has woken and complained – demanded explanations – got serious –  made it robustly clear that without regular sleep she is unable to continue with her causes and and that these are in need of urgent and on going attention.

See. The Bishop or rather his ghost of a ghost has asked me – exhorted me even – to read him, to do him justice. To attend to him. I am mortified. I am driven by divided passions – the ball sailing over bodies,disappearing beneath and betwixt  bodies, rolling over and over across immaculately green turfs – and the bishops opaque words. I mean – I find that – to move from the ball in its glorious repeatingmotions to the words of the Bishop is not easy.

To illustrate, the Bishop writes:

‘ If…we consider the difference there is betwixt natural philosophers and other men regard to their knowledge of the phenomena, we shall find nit consists, not in an exacter knowledge of the efficient causes that produces them, for that can be no other than the will of a spirit, but only in a greater largeness of comprehension whereby analogies, harmonies and agreements are discovered in the works of nature, and the particular effects explained, that is, reduced to general rules, which rules grounded on the analogy and uniformness observed in the production of natural effects, are most agreeable and sought after by the mind…

And yet. And naggingly. The Bishop or the ghost of the Bishop persists. He tramps across my consciousness. He wags his finger in my face. He kicks balls out of sight

So.

Betwixt ball watching and smallness of comprehension, what do you advise?

God Bless and do not allow yourself at this moment when the temptation is so great and persistent to be deflected or seduced by rolling balls.

Bishop Berkeley’s most distant ancestor.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.