Humour in the Face of Death, Part 5

It looks like yesterday's Everest climb (the 70 stairs up to the 'treehouse') was the last climb, since my father took a huge slide today after the effort. I forgot to mention that yesterday was even more 'draining', since the community nurse who dropped by in the morning was precisely the sort of person he can't stand: a woman who takes no bullshit (of which he has ample) from him and tells it like it is. What a strain that must have been!

Still, my mother thought that if he had climbed the stairs once, he could do it again. She planned to send him tottering down the stairs and desperately struggling up them again today, all in order to take him off the doctor for a blood test to see whether he is also suffering from liver failure and kidney failure - 'so that I know what to feed him', she observed.

But you can't avoid the funny side of things. Aparently, the morphine has blocked up his bowels for the last five days, but today at last he had a crap. The effort was so great that he almost collapsed, my mother told me. Wow: some crap, I thought. I pictured a 10cm turd and a 3 cm pipe.

Here he is, a week ago, when he was looking positively healthy compared to now:

But the stern old bugger can still fix me with a disapproving gaze:

Now that takes me back to my childhood!

Try arguing Calvin with him.

French cycling mafia warns Green Jersey in the Tour

Gotta love this. The world's fastest sprinter, Englishman Mark Cavendish, has won four stages of the Tour de France and is a contender for the coveted Green Jersey (for sprinters). But in doing so, he has pissed off a number of French riders due to his dishing out racial abuse. It's the old channel rivalry: the pommies complain about the smell of garlic wafting across the channel and the Frenchies can't believe how barbaric the pommies are.

So an anonymous French rider had this warning for Cavendish:

'He should be careful. We're not going to put up with his attitude much longer'.

Makes you wonder precisely what they have in mind for Cavendish. It's a pretty safe bet he won't quite finish the race.

Humour in the Face of Death, Part 4

I've arrived back after an exhausting afternoon at my parents' place. My father is a stubborn old fart, so much so that even a mule would have turned tail ages ago. He had been told by the palliative care team that he is too frail and that the cancer is too far gone for him to make it up and down the 70 or so rough-cut stairs to the 'tree-house' where they live. Of course, that was just the reason he needed to show them how wrong they were. So up he stood, clothes hanging off a skeleton, red beenie in place, walking stick prodding along and post-polio foot folding at right angles to the ground. On each of the 70 steps he tottered as though about to plunge into an abyss ... but he made it down. Waiting at the bottom of the stairs, mum confided in me that she had brought a rope to tie around him and haul him up should he not be able to make the climb.

One more sexy man from the Bible and Critical Theory Seminar

One of my female readers was disappointed that only one sexy man appeared in my initial collection of pictures from the Bible and Critical Theory Seminar, so here is another (James):

Humour in the Face of Death, Part 3

My father is pretty weak these days, but the old bugger is lingering on. He's doped up on morphine for the pain, which has him insisting that since the cancer is in his abdomen, there's little point in taking tablets through his mouth. But a few days ago he expressed a wish for a cigar and cognac, or at least cognac. So I thought I'd get him some. Soon enough I found out that cognac is the most expensive alcohol in Australia, but I gritted my teeth and purchased a bottle.

When I turned up with the bottle and gave it to him, he said, 'I've never had cognac ... oh, maybe once'. Being the hyper-stinge that he is, this comment had a ring of truth about it. Dad is known to receive a bottle of whisky for Christmas and ration it out so that it lasts until the next Christmas, when of course he receives another one. So I told him not to hold back (since he won't make Christmas) and that he should drink the whole bottle before he died. I'm happy to say he's doing his best, getting plastered most evenings since the morphine enhances the effects of the cognac.

The Bible and Critical Theory Rocks!

Great papers, lively discussion, fiery debates, moments of discovery, and a stunning location - the Bible and Critical Theory Seminar this year anounced a new phase. A couple of years ago it seemed moribund and stuck. How things can change!

They came from the USA, New Zealand, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and even Newcastle. The venue - the Grand Hotel:

Darren Jorgensen started us off with a great paper on Ted Strehlow, Aboriginal songs and poetry and Bible translation, and we were off:


From there we ranged over vulnerable bodies, Job's body in pain, orthodoxy and communism, secularism and sovereignty, David and Jonathan, Sodomy, Andrea Dworkin, pornography, the Song of Songs, Carpenters Gothic, Nietzsche, Foucault, Negri and kairos - a glorious range that lies at the heart of the seminar.

By lunch on the first day the taps at the pub were flowing and glasses soon festooned our tables:

Beer o'clock came around at last and we went upstairs to the bar. I had a chance to photograph a sexy young man or two:

And a few of the 'happy' women out for a good time:



With a bit of sleuthing I discovered the following: couples became smitten with romance; there were two women pregnant with three babies (this had, I have on good authority, taken place before the seminar); one person heard that one has a reasonably good chance of finding sex at the seminar so s/he vowed to return next time; there were many singles present; we have a growing reputation for always having conferences like this in Australia - in pubs.

And then, as we drank, talked, and drank some more, some of us found out that a nightclub had started up in our seminar room. The room was grinding with a hundred sleek bodies and an incredibly sexy singer in the band. So the young at heart took themselves off the the club. The more responsible among us, at least those with creaking bones, got an early night.

A few felt slightly under the weather by the following morning, ready for another burst of papers. That probably explains why I sold about 50 of my books.

Next year the seminar will take place in Dunedin, since the kiwis have been coming over from some years now. See you there!

The best Bible and Critical Theory Seminar ever

Out of some 15 seminars over 12 years this one was arguably the best one ever. It's late now, so a full report tomorrow, but it will include:

* the fabulous Grand Hotel

* antics of the party animals who hit the nightclubs

* the quality of the alcohol

* someone who heard of the fact that sex happens at the seminar and the desire to return

* a fiery argument or two

* swooning over sexy singers

* some hopeless and love-stricken romantics

* above all, fantastic papers, generous discussion and no intellectual flexing