Invention, inventing, inventiveness, inventors, invent

I think of Invention as being the highest expression of Art.

Higher than Sculpture, for it must swallow sculpture.

Higher than Painting, for it must be attractive to the eye.

Higher than Dance, for it must perform elegantly.

Higher than Music, for without Invention, no Music.

Higher than Mime, for it is itself pure mime.

All the others exist only for human pleasure and understanding. Invention creates the conditions which make those luxuries available.

Inventiveness is the inner voice in the head, whispering of ways that might be cleverer than the present ways, a voice which I reckon should always be listened to and never go unconsidered.

To inventors, working prototypes are personal brainchilden.

They don't have to be things that sell. They have to be things that work.

It doesn't matter if someone (or some many) have independently invented something before you; if you genuinely thought of a working principle by yourself and turned it to physical advantage, you are an Inventor.

Great Inventors are truly very great in historic terms, and are very few. Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Edison, Einstein . . .

But to everyone who invents something however minor or even minute, if it works the way you want it to, then you're an Inventor and you've already done something worthwhile.

I know just a few people who have invented something I'd call fairly important, but one I do know is Malcolm Beare who has created a new type of engine which he's patented and is working on making more and more working prototypes. It's called the Beare Sixstroke and you can find it at www.sixstroke.com

Broken Hill and Back

Yes, for 6 days, just got back yesty. Staying with Jonet's gracious sister Kari, to whom, thanks.



'S a Good Town, BH, in many ways - fiercely proud of its history and heritage, which are more than half its raison d'etre. It's still very much a people-run town, well apart from the Mine itself. If the people hadn't hung in the way they have, I supposed the Mine Management would now have very few people in the town and run it more economically . . . But . . . there, there . . .



I revisited a Man I Met There, Todd Murphy, he runs a part-time-only photographic art shop in BH called Outback Images, you can find him I'm sure. Big photos of outback scenes, but artier stuff too. He is a noted poet too, and he likes my work a lot . . . He reckons I should do a big careful version of one of my tessellations, Aussie Rules OK?! , which comprises AFL footballers running in opposite directions (each almost in reach of one of those Magic Footballs I talked about in a previous blog also named Aussie Rules OK?!) Yeah, Todd says I need to do a big classy version of that design, with all the AFL teams' colours represented in the running players. Lots of work if I do try to do it, and anyway, will the AFL or anybody else be interested anyway?



From the train, counting each way, I saw about a dozen Kangaroos, and a score or so of Emus . . . Good to see even them, you wonder how they can survive, the country is so degraded it makes me weep inside. Bare hard sand, stripped even of its former at-the-least saltbush cover, heare and there dead little trees, topsoil gone . . . It's a disgrace, and it makes me ashamed.

The Lightbulb as a Symbol of Invention & Inspiration

Ever since Thomas Alva Edison's invention of the electric light bulb, it has been the perfect visual metaphor for itself and by extension all brilliant ideas: for inspiration, for the spirit of invention.

I am a longterm member of the Inventors Association of Australia, and I designed the logo fo that august body. You may find it on the IAASA website, http://www.inventors.asn.au/

A pair of hands shapes a negative map of Australia around the inside, and enclose a bright lightbulb, universal symbol of a brilliant idea: of inspiration, of invention. Note that the fingers also shape a positive map around the outside. This "double" sort of image is in my experience unique, and it is in itself an obvious symbol of ingenuity. (If I say so myself!)


Now, there are some people who say that as a symbol of invention etc., the light bulb is outdated, and we ought to come up with some other more a la mode image of . . ? . . something . . ? . . to take its place.

Two blogsites with almost identical attitudes are the self-procalimed "Creative Think", (search the posting for 27th April 2007, which presumes to trumpet"Death of An Innovation Metaphor") and the equally self-importantly-titled "Endless Innovation" posting of October 9 2007, which similarly brays"No more innovation light bulbs!"

The funny part is that neither of the geniuses who authored these inspired proclamations has offered any possible alternatives. In fact, one ends up lamely asking readers, (D-uh!), "What are your suggestions for the new creativity metaphor?" The other, uncannily similarly stupidly, asks
"What do you think should become the new symbol of innovation?"

Their dopey respondents come up with a wonderful range of idiotic suggestions: they include daffodil bulbs, lightning flashes, the Wright Flyer, sunrise, Franklin's kite, a (coffee?) percolator, an egg cracking (with, note, a white light emanating from within!); a sapling/budding plant; butterflies, corn kernels; a target; fern spirals; a match; a sneeze!; fireworks; a waterballoon; a human brain, presumably separated from its original owner.

What a crock of crap! Several sensible respondents weigh in with their support for the continuance of the light bulb on the obvious bases that (a) it best epitomises the AHA! response, (b) it is itself the architypal invention and (c) it is universally recognised already. The only respondent who properly takes to task the stupidity of the notion that the light bulb should be replaced is Devil's Advocate, who lampoons it hilariously: s/he proposes that the red light which everywhere symbolises Stop (and Danger) should be replaced, as it has been around so long. Even then there is one respondent who takes him seriously, and one who feels moved to bother to explain to him that Devil's Advocate has his tongue firmly in his cheek. Good on you, D's A!

Long Live the Spirit of Invention! Long Live the Light-Bulb!

***
There are just a few* certain other extra-specially-wonderful icons in the world that should or at best even could be replaced. One is the His Master's Voice logo: Nipper (so called because he allegedly used to nip people's ankles) is a Jack Russell Terrier, forever looking, cock-eared and puzzled, down the horn of an old-fashioned Edison Phonograph. The older that image gets, the more out-of-date, the wonderfuller it gets! Then there's the superb Rosella (as in Tomato Sauce): how could that logo ever be bettered, or go out of date?

* . . . SO few, in fact, that I am already scratching to think of any more - except for the one I was thinking of already. . ! . . And that is my best-beloved image of all time, since I was a little boy of just 5, in Grade One when a Big Boy in Grade Two looked hard at my bright new Bus Fare Penny, and then he said "That's a Very New Penny, it's this very year's, see it says 1949?" I did! Ever since then I have adored Kangaroos in every way for their grace and strength (and all their other lovely attributes) but in particular I love that Penny Kangaroo, drawn by a Pommie(!) named George Kruger Gray, whose initials KG appear on all the Penny Kangaroos, 1939-196?
That best-of-all design appears truly on one brand of Aussie Rules Football (see my earlier comments on the Alpha Male's Game!), and on RAAF Aircraft, and in variously buggerized versions on certain commercial aircraft, and on all sorts of other stuff and services - but wherever it appears, it says louder than any words ever could, it says, Australia!

That's why I think that a Proper KG Kangaroo should take the place of Britain's flag on ours.

Kevin08 must be reading this!

Our Fearless Leader, Kevin Rudd, has been teaching the Chinese to suck eggs, but just as importantly, he has put The Republic firmly back on the agenda, presumably after reading my posting of 21/3/08. Any time, be my guest, Kev! Need any other hints on policy direction?

An interview with Raphael Sabu from Friendly Street Poets

Here is a link with an interview about my work from the Friendly Street Poets Newsletter Editor Raphael Sabu.

I am on Page 3.

Hope you enjoy!

http://friendlystreetpoets.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/fsnewsvolume2issue3.pdf

Bruce.

Circus Adventures

Once upon a time, in 1975 in fact, I took a job as the Teacher and Ringmeister (sic) with a travelling circus, I'll call it the Austrian Regal Circus. There were six kids belonging to the circus owners, and the Law demanded that they be taught curricular subjects as ordinary kids get at school. The kids themselves hated anything to do with anything except circus, they were all performers on slack wire or juggling or various other acts, and they would do anything to get out of sitting with me in the smallish caravan which served as the schoolroom.

When I mention that I travelled with a circus, people always say Wow, that must have been great! Think again. I'm not given to writing bad words, but it was a shitty circus, with pretty shitty acts and extremely shitty conditions for all the hired hands. The circus owners, a family of three brothers and their wives and children, were genuine Fascists, ex-supporters of the Third Reich, who had come to Australia because it was still White-Supremacist, where they could treat their hirelings like serfs, paying them a pittance, providing them with no insurance, no accommodation except a filthy pigsty of a dead bus, and demanding the most outrageous workloads from them. These circus folk were driven people, absolutely obsessive about their lifestyle which they had imported direct from Europe. They regarded the Labor Party as Communists, and Gough whitlam, then Prime Minister of Australia, as being worse than Stalin. Labor Unions were their bete noir, and their attitude was made plain at every opportunity. I had the sense never to let them know I was a committed member of the ALP.

My best friend with the circus was Paul, a Gypsy from Hungary, who was alternatively Bobby the Clown, or an Aerialist, or a shitkicker like the rest of us. When I say "'us", I do include myself, for although I had a relatively privileged position in the circus hierarchy, (since without a teacher the circus could be grounded), I still had to help with pulling down the Big Top, and still had to dress up in a sparkly suit every night and act as the Ringmeister, (sic), introducing the acts, compering the clowns, covering for foulups, and teaching as much of the day as I could manage. The kids nearly always had excuses for getting to my caravan late, leaving early, or not coming at all. Still even Heinrich Snagger, the boss, acknowledged that I'd got more interest from them and taught the kids better than any of the previous teachers they'd ever had (and plainly I was one of a long line of teachers.)

Here's a rundown of the dramatis personae in this story:

The Snagger Circus First Family : Heinrich: Owner, Boss, Aerialist, Juggler, the busiest man I ever met: Margarethe, wife, and mother to Louie (11), Ronaldo (9), both training in acrobatics

More Snaggers: Marcel, younger, very handsome brother to Heinrich; Aerialist; Zelda, his beautiful blonde wife, High-Wire Acrobat, and mother of Celine, 12, accomplished Slack-Wire and Jacques, 9, training to be a Juggler and High-Wire Acrobat.

More Snaggers: Stanny, eldest Snagger brother, Chi-Chi the Clown, almost no English, Svetlana his seldom-seen wife, and one young child Sol, 4, doted on by related adults and a pain in the caravan.

All the Snaggers lived in big, I mean BIG caravans, with all mod cons, and drove BIG American cars, not new though by any means.

Then there was Ehrich the Cameleer, a "Sewth Effrikahn", and his unobtrusive wife Pat, with their 2 very blonde daughters, Cherie, 8 and Celia, nearly 10; these two, billed as the Keller Twins (though very obviously not twins!) performed a not-very-breathtaking acrobatics act.

Rod was a fat, grubby, nasty Australian, hired by Heinrich to keep the disgraceful fleet of trucks and assorted other vehicles mobile. He drove his own run-down Datsun ute and lived in his own small grubby trailer-mounted tent. He was a protegee of Heinrich, being as he was so very valuable to the Circus, both as mechanic and spy. I was afraid of him, he was very devious and far from stupid, and he didn't like me one bit.

Sue was a Sydney-sider, in her late 20's, plump, not-bad-looking; she was supposed to cook for the hired hands, but more often than not had been provided with nothing worthwhile cooking. She earned her keep though by screwing Heinrich, often, it was an open secret, Lord knows what Zelda thought about it. She was probably one of Heinrich's spies too, but played a double game, sometimes defending Heinrich from the Hired Hands' mumbled grumbles, sometimes at least claiming she would intercede with Heinrich on their, or our, behalf.

[I say "our behalf" because like Rod I was only half-way seen as a Hired Hand. My exalted position as Teacher meant that I was indispensable, the Circus would have been grounded if I'd left and the Education Department found out that the Circus was teacherless. I was also the only person who could act as Ringmeister (sic), so I too was a protegee, even though Heinrich really didn't like me. So that made some of the Hired Hands envious of me, and distanced me from them. I still had a good relationship with a couple of them.]

Then there were the Hired Hands themselves. They were all Aussies except for one, a Hungarian Gypsy named Paul, who became my only real friend, as I became his. He was an accomplished Aerialist and Acrobat, a very competent Clown and generally useful bloke, but he was always overworked, and always in physical pain. He had his own transit-truck, a big ex-biscuit-van, which in his rare spare moments he spent making into a mobile home. The circus would have been crippled without him. He told me, "Even in Europe, circus life is more different than anything, even more different than Gypsy life", and he should know, he had lived all his life in both camps. And when I'd been with the circus a few months, I too knew it must be true.

Les was honest, open and pleasant, barely-literate, in his early 30's, with club foot; he was enormously strong and was all-up the most useful of the Hands, notwithstanding his bad limp. I liked him a lot, we shared jokes and labour too, but I had little in common with him. He became very important near the end of this story.

Ron was a strongly-built man of 27, with a cleft palate, so that "Adelaide" sounded like "Agellaig" and "bottle of beer" like "ghokkhl of geer". Until I told him what his condition was called, he'd never heard its name, nor did he know what caused his speech impediment! He was completely illiterate, he couldn't write more than his name and couldn't read; he had longish greasy black hair and wore dark clothes, he was harmless mostly but got drunk a few times, then you had to tread around him carefully. He looked like a great ape, and with his brutish voice it was enough to frighten most people. He was alright though, not a spy anyway.

There was Cookie, a small wiry bloke who had been kicked in the head by a horse at a rodeo; he was brain-damaged, but physically capable. He kept mostly to himself, but was handy with the Animals. (We'll come to them later.)

Mick was one of the filthiest humans I've ever met. About 35, he smelt, and didn't care. His dentures were obvious, and caked with yellow cheesy plaque, I don't think he ever cleaned them. He was even thought of as low by the rest of the Hands, but as long as he did his job (albeit reluctantly), he stayed. He too became important, though inadvertently, near the end.

Jeff, a Midget, (that's not his real name, I think he's still alive and he'd be identifiable), was a sneak, a spy, a very unpleasant little fellow indeed. He was I believe a Polio victim, which inhim had manifested as arrested-development, so that he was not exactly classically-proportioned, get my drift. He was known to crawl under caravans at night, listen to the conversations, and report back to Heinrich, with whom he was a favourite. I tried to befriend him but he was really bent out of shape. Years later it turned out that he was next-door-neighbour to a close friend, and she had stories of her own about the little creep. [But that's another story.] He too played a part in my adventures later on, in Geraldton WA.

That's all the people - but then there were the Animals.

We had 3 big Camels, with one calf; they were made by Ehrich to run around the circus ring several times, always looking a bit panicked and certainly confused.

Heinrich did something similar with a nondescript collection of several Shetland Ponies, a couple of which were just as mean as they had good right to be. They would bite and kick you if they had a chance. There were also two or three Donkeys, which were called on to walk up and down with hypnotized-looking little kids on their backs.

Then there were the Lions. We had three poor Lionesses, and two Lions, none of which was ever allowed out of the tiny cages in which they were transported. Two of these mobile prisons were about (5 x 2) m, each housing two beasts, and one smaller still with one Lion in perpetual splendid solitude. Their roaring kept me awake for a while, not from fear but from pity. The cages reeked of piss and shit and rotting meat and ammonia from the whole mess putrescing, and the cages were only emptied when the build-up of stinking muck and weeks of layers of straw was so high, no pun intended, that the public couldn't see them properly. Two of them had the good sense to die in the four months I was with the circus. No wonder.

But the saddest of all of us was poor Tania, (her real name), our sweet Indian Elephant. She was not a big girl as Elephants go, in fact she was literally a teenager, so no more than three-quarters grown, but she was big enough to make us humans look Lilliputian. She was so-o-o pathetic, she couldn't understand why she was so alone, or why she was so much bigger than every other living thing she ever got to see. I quickly learned to love Tania, as did Paul, who was her special friend. She was never given a bath or even a spray, there were never any convenient water-points, and anyway the circus people were always too busy, and too uncaring of any lesser creatures, animals and hired hands alike. She was kept tied by her left foot to a stake in the ground, but did get an act in the circus: she always did her job perfectly except when she had diarrhoea, which understandably was quite often. Paul loved taking her for twice-daily walks to get a drink, when she would walk obediently alongside him holding his hand in her trunk. If she was lucky there would be a 44-gallon drum of water waiting for her, but more oftten she had to suck water out of a hose. Poor Tania, she used to take the hose in her mouth, Paul would turn the tap on full, and Tania would stand there wearing the most bored-looking expression, it would have been funny except it was so pathetic. She would drink like that for ten or fifteen minutes, but when she had had enough, you had to look out for her occasional bit of devilry if you didn't want to get a mucousy spray all over you. (Mostly she was an angel though.) When she was not, though, she could be naughty in Spades: once she got away and ran through the Elizabeth Mall and shopping centre, that of course was very dangerous for people but much more so for her, I was terrified that some hero in the Police Force might seize the unique opportunity to shoot a rampaging (hardly!) Elephant. She calmed down after an hour or so though, and came meekly back to the circus, led as usual by Paul, but I am sure she had a wonderful wicked twinkle in her eye and a unusually jaunty sway to her trunk . . . Anybody who has really met an Elephant is going to back me up here, that an Elephant has unmistakeable facial and body-language expressions, and whether or no Elephants never forget, no-one ever forgets meeting an Elephant.

My caravan, which as I said served daily as the schoolroom, doubled after pull-a-down as the repository for the Potato Crisps and other suckies and munchies which were sold to the circus patrons. Each morning, before the kids could get into the caravan, I had to empty two dozen or so cartons of crisps out of it and stack them alongside it on the ground. One morning Paul came past my van taking Tania for her drink. She kept on walking innocently on the outward trip, but when Paul made the mistake of bringing her back the same way, she seized the moment, propped immovably by the cartons of crisps, and began cramming them into her mouth. She had a big armload of boxes tightly encircled in her trunk, Paul and I laughing so hard as we tried to get her to move on that we were barely capable of yelling at her, "#*&% You Tania!" Heinrich was furious but Paul and Tania and I were all delighted. She rarely got anything nice to eat, but she did that time.

Tania used to be transported (nearly every day) on the big flat-bed Elephant Truck, which she shared with dozens of trestles which were part of the seating arrangements in the Big Top. As the circus went from town to town, my job was to follow behind the truck, which to me was the most or rather the only enjoyable part of the day. Most of the time Tania too seemed happy as the miles went by, she would stand there swaying rhythmically, always following the same pattern of movement; she would start rocking from right hind leg to left shoulder, and gradually working her way around to every point of the compass, so then bum-to-head, left hind to right shoulder, left side to right, eventually coming back to the motion she started with. Why do Elephants sway? - Reason is that they have relatively very small hearts, (where e.g. Hares have relatively huge ones), and they augment the work of the heart by sloshing blood to every part of their body in turn. Not only sway, they also bob their great heads in time, so exaggerating the sloshing effect, and I suppose providing their big brains with oxygen. The whole motion is graceful and not especially strenuous-looking, and I watched her with pleasure for hours each time. In the outback of Western Australia we travelled an average of more than 100 km daily, and every now and again Tania would get bored and pick up a trestle, waving it around in her trunk for mile after mile, until - Wheee! - She would throw it up carelessly, it would go anywhere, I had to look sharp or it would have windscreened me several times. I lived in some concern that one day she would score a passing car, that never happened while I was there, but I always retrieved the trestle and caught up to my original spot behind the truck. The people in passing cars were hilarious in their responses, you'd see them gobsmacked, open mouthed and delighted. Cars going in the opposite direction, the people would nearly screw their heads off as they went by, and in the cars coming up behind us you'd see the people scrambling for cameras to record this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. At one petrol-stop in a little town a woman was so amazed, she begged us to let her go home and get her camera, she said "I've lived here for thirty years, this is the most exciting thing that's ever happened here!"

Tania was the best. Paul would go and talk with her, resting his head against her great nose, and telling her of his aches and pains. He taught me how you stroke an Elephant - I bet you don't know? - You place your left hand palm-up under her nose, a foot or so in front of her mouth, then she would always respond by lifting her trunk in the "Lucky Elephant" position, when you would stretch your right arm right down her throat and stroke her tongue! She would just go ga-ga, eyes closed in ecstasy, I can't tell you how good it makes you feel to give her such pleasure. She could of course have snipped your arm off with one nip, but Elephants don't do that, they are genuine gentle giants. They tread with such care, they step around chickens and never on them. I felt ennobled by meeting Tania, and to this day I am gladdened by her memory.

Circus life is very very very hard, and especially when you show at each town for just one night, the Hands call it Pull-a-dup-Pull-a-down, and everybody is almost perpetually weary and sometimes sick. This was winter in the S-W corner of Western Australia, cold, wet, with short days and long freezing nights; with damp or sodden canvases weighing 2-3 tons to unroll each morning and roll up each night (often until after midnight), it was also very dangerous, for if one of those canvases should have slipped from our control as we strained to lift them onto the flat-bed trucks, and if it had landed on someone, it would have crushed the life out of him instantly. Occasionally we had the luxury of a forklift or a mobile crane to lift the canvases, but often we had to do this gut-busting job by main exertion. That was OK when we had volunteers from the local community to help us, we really needed at least ten or twelve men, but often, especially when it was raining, the locals had the good sense to scurry home. Then there would sometimes be as few as five people to roll the unforgiving dead weights up over the side of the truck, it sounds and looks impossible and it nearly is, but it had to be done, and the obsessive Heinrich would get furious if we wanted a breather. Folding the canvases before loading them was exhausting in itself: first the canvases measuring (I-don't-know, but bloody BIG) were laid out flat, and all the men we could muster spaced themselves along one end and seized the hem of the tarp. Then Heinrich would yell: HOP-La! and we would all run towards the other end, trying to keep a belly of air in the canvas, which got heavier and heavier as we raced for the other end. We would plonk the hem down at the other end, so now it was doubled, and then we would go to the fold, pick it up and repeat the process, so quadrupling the thickness. Then it had to be folded in the other plane, so it became 8 layers thick, then at last 16, by which time it was a dead lump as high as your chest and nearly as big as a Mini-Minor. Some said it weighed over 3 tons when wet - as much as Tania!

When all the tarps were folded and on the trucks, we would hope that Sue had some cocoa for us, but that was only sometimes; then we would fall into bed exhausted, only to be up by dawn, (Cookie and Les would be up feeding the animals long before daylight), getting the vehicles loaded and off to the next town by 8 AM at latest.

One beautiful sunny Saturday we rolled into Geraldton, already a big and upmarket coastal town, with big yachts and expensive clubs and a busy main street. I was not following the Elephant Truck that day for some reason, but as I entered the town a young Hippie-looking bloke on a bike caught my attention, so I pulled over to talk to him. He was blown away by the thought of a Circus in town, so I invited him to come to my caravan, no school that day and we were booked for 3 days, so for once there was a bit of spare time. He came to the fairground a couple of hours later, invited me to his place to meet his mates, but as he exited my caravan he he saw Tania for the first time. "An ELEPHANT!" he shrieked, "WOW! - Can I touch her?" Mostly that wasn't allowed, but Tania was a gentle girl, and I said OK, and while he started to pat her I went to pull up some tussocky grass to feed to her. I was only gone half a minute, but as I turned back I saw to my dismay that Tania had his bright Hawaiian shirt in her mouth, with the now-bare-chested young bloke trying desperately to pull it away from her. So I'm screaming "Tania, #*&% You!" and offering her the tussocks of grass instead. Tania was looking from shirt to grass, trying to decide which was the more desirable, and after a little while we retrieved the shirt, which was only chewed in the pocket, with little round puncture marks right through it. In the pocket was a chomped match-box, and in the matchbox, broken but salvageable, were 3 neatly-rolled spliffs! Tania must have liked the smell, for she never did anything like taht in all the time I was with the circus. The young man was absolutely gobsmacked, he was surveying his punctured shirt, he said "I only bought this shirt yesterday!" I was prepared to be sorry about it, but instantly he brightened, put the shirt back on, stuck out his chest, "This is my Elephant Shirt! Wow!!! Wait till I show my friends!" He was dancing for joy and delight. It was a great moment.

Having the entire afternoon off, in a buzzy town, I went with him to The Pub, and I'd hardly had my first swig when into the bar came the tiniest adult I'd ever seen. A Little Person, as they say. [I'm going to name her first real name even though it will identify her to thousands of people, (because everybody will remember her!). I choose to do so because she was also one of the loveliest people I ever met, in temperament and appearance and I hope she is well and happy to this day.]

Margaret was a fiery redhead, with splendid shining Titian curls well below her shoulders, glorifying a crown well below my pelvis! She was very pretty, and dainty too, with her tiny frame in perfect proportion, and there was this extraordinary person, climbing the bar stool right to my left! (- and I do mean climbing, and nimbly, hand over hand on the bar stool top and the bar bar, as a Big Person would climb 2 metres ). It all happened in a flash but it was riveting. She wasted no time in starting a conversation, and immediately we became friends friends. I bid my other friend goodbye (Sorry Cobber I don't recall your name, hope you are well) and left the pub with Margaret so she could show me her super-cute Mini-Minor, one week new, and completely engineered so she could operate everything. The pedals had Wily-Coyote-Acme-type concertinaed criss-cross devices that raised them half-way up from the floor, the steering wheel was the size of a bread-and-butter plate, the whole box and dice were power-operated . . . It was wonderful, and she was so proud! She drove to the local salt-pan broggie place where she put the little car and herself through her paces, what fun. She was a class act, and absolutely confident.

Anyway, in conversation I let her know that we had a midget with us, ("Jeff"), . . . and then . . . a strange wondering expression came over little Margaret's face . . . She seemed all of a twitter, distrait, how do I say . . . She seemed unable to contain herself with curiosity and excitement . . . She told me that she was to her certain knowledge the only Little Person north of Perth. She asked if I could arrange to meet him, and I agreed, it was likely to happen anyway since she was about to drive me back to the circus.

OK when we got there she wouldn't go right to the tent but sat back some thirty metres to watch, and pretty soon Jeff appeared, just walking about . . . She went like effervescent, I mean literally, wriggling in her skin like a puppy, it was wonderful to watch. So . . . I went over to Jeff . . . and I said there's someone would like to meet you . . . and he came nearly over to the car . . . took one look at Margaret, and turned on his heel, and disappeared, fast. I don't suppose I have the right to blame him, but he might have had the courtesy at least to say hello.

Poor Margaret! She was utterly crestfallen, nearly in tears, and it was mostly my fault. She didn't, I am sure, hold it against me, but I felt awful. I would love to meet her again someday.

Paul, my good friend, was all the time overworked and in pain, as I said before. He often talked of jumping circus, and one night after Pull-a-down he went out to bid his beloved Tania farewell. He rested his head on her nose, and began to weep. Would you believe, Tania knew exactly what was going on, and for only the second time I had heard her, - (the first was when Stanny lost his temper at her and began hitting her face with an Elephant Hook, you might have seen one) - she too began to weep. Don't believe me? It's all true. When an Elephant cries, she makes a tiny little whimpering squeak, "ee! ee!" They wept together for a long time, I crept off sadly to bed, and in the morning Paul was gone. Wherever he may be, I wish him well and may he have an Elephant in his life.

The beginning of my end with the circus came in a town I can't remember, but it had a proper hospital, opposite the fairground and very close. For some days before this, poor Les, the club-footed Hand, had been limping so badly that he was almost unable to walk, let alone work, though he still did - Heinrich insisted! It transpired that a horse had trodden on his good foot, and he had very badly bruised toes, possibly broken, but too swollen and painful to be sure. The filthy Mick was also almost unable to walk, for reasons I did not know. I insisted that Les come with me across the road to the hospital, after Pull-a-dup, and Les decided he wanted to come too. Over we went, and two lovely young nurses came to meet us. I explained the situation, they said Look, there's no doctor in attendance, he'll be here tonight. I said, Well can you have a look at their feet so we know, and we'll come back here tonight after Pull-a-down?

They agreed. First they saw to Les, who at least had cleanish sox. They immediately decided that he would need expert attention, and X-rays, which they could not give. They washed his feet and dressed them with clean bandages. They wanted him to stay, but that was not possible, they were needed at the circus, so I promised to bring him back to see the doctor about midnight.

Then they turned their attention to Mick. Holy shit! As soon as he took off his boots we all recoiled. For he had not removed them, nor his sox, for more than a year. In all dirty conditions, often dampness, Bllluuuurrrkkkk! They were once black socks, but had greyed with age, and they had become as one with the leprous skin of his filthy feet. The stink was indescribable. Vomitatious, overwhelmingly disgusting.

The look on the nurses' faces may be guessed at. They sprayed aerosol deodorant on gauze pads, and held them to their noses with one hand, while with forceps they peeled the putrefied sox, weak as toilet paper, away in strips from his feet. The skin carrried a perfect imprint of the fabric, which was reluctant to part from him. He almost seemed to enjoy their revulsion, or at least to think it a joke. What was no joke was what was revealed. As they progressed from his ankles down to his instep and sole, more and more ulcers appeared, no wonder he could hardly walk. He didn't even know they were there, how could he, he never took off his boots! It took the smile of his face, and bloody serve him right. Anyway they washed his feet with disinfectant, that served him right even more, because it stung him something fierce. I think it was the nurses' turn to enjoy what they were inflicting on him, I certainly didn't have much sympathy with him, considering his smugness, his filth and his attitude. Then they put antifungal ointment on the ulcers and dressed his feet with gauze bandage, apologising for not being allowed to use antibiotics which he plainly needed: again only a doctor was authorised to prescribe them.

So OK, now I was committed to bringing both the blokes back after Pull-a-down. When the blokes had hobbled back the circus, I went to see Heinrich to make the arrangements. He seemed nettled that we had done all this, but said OK, after Pull-a-down.

When Pull-a-down was finished, though, the rotten bastard wouldn't let the fellers go back to the hospital. I know why: even back then there would have been repercussions if the Authorities had got onto the conditions for the Hands in the circus. I pleaded with Heinrich, but to no avail. I told him: Let me take them, or you're gunna be sorry. That was a gutsy and equally foolhardy thing for me to say, let me tell you, because I had seen Heinrich when he lost his temper; he broke the jaws of three Aborigines in Port Augusta when they had tried to get into the circus for free, Wham! Zap! Kapowie! in less time than it takes to tell. He was smallish in stature, but the hardest whipcordiest man I ever met. Even his brothers were afraid of his rages.

I never forgave Heinrich for not letting the blokes go over the road to the doctor. I despised him for it, and he in turn despised me for caring about mere Hands. So from then on there was no love lost between us.

Weeks went by, Pull-a-dup-Pull-a-down, and eventually we wound up in Perth, where we were to spend three weeks. Leisure! Luxury! No driving, no hard work, just we had to show twice a day and three times Saturday. The West Australian News came to visit us and take photos, and I made it to the full front page, in a fine photo with the kids sitting around a table outside in the sun, butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, looking so studious, Ha! Show Business!

One day when there was nothing doing, the big top was empty, I decided to give the high trapeze a go. I climbed up to the dizzy heights, took the bar in hand, and let myself swing. WOW! It felt great! - but it's not like a swing, you can't swing up to land on the opposite landing or the one you left, so I simply let go so I would fall into the safety net. Wheeeee! It was fine on the way down, I landed on my back in the net just where I had aimed, it was secure and comforting in taking my fall - Until an instant later, when I suddenly found myself catapulted forward, almost the entire length of the net, nearly off the end, where I would probably have broken my idiotic neck. As it was I was flung forward on my face on the coarse hemp mesh, giving myself a very fat lip and a cut on my nose whose scar I still wear. No-one had told me I had to grab the net as I landed, but then, I hadn't asked. The kids looked at me very curiously, they didn't say anything but I am sure they had a pretty shrewd idea of what had happened.

On the Monday, it was school holidays, so I had time entirely to myself, and I went for a long walk in the city. I happened to find myself looking at a building with a sign out the front, Miscellaneous Workers Union. In I went, and soon I was telling my story to an overweight man in a blue suit and middle age. He was incredulous when I told him that the Hands were being paid $30 per week, (I was paid $55, which also didn't endear me to the Hands, but the proper rate of pay at the time would have been close to $200 for a teacher, and $130 or so for a laborer.) I told the Union Man there was no insurance, no agreed conditions, no proper toilet or shower facilities . . . He really didn't believe me! So I said, OK, come and check it out for yourself, but don't tell them who spilt the beans, my life depends on it.

Next morning earlyish, I went into a pub with the express intention of finding someone who would be prepared to help me jump circus. Simply to ask to leave at any time would have been regarded as treachery, you don't just openly leave a circus, it leaves them short-handed and in my case potentially would ground the circus completely. If you want to leave, you must jump, and be sure you don't get caught, or you're in for a bad beating at least. Amazingly, when I look back, I did so meet a group of three people who listened with full attention and sympathy, and I begged them to come to the circus at 2AM that night. They agreed, and I made them promise ever so faithfully.

Later that same day, sure enough, there was the Union Man, talking to Heinrich, inspecting the pigsty dead bus, walking about checking everything out. . . I saw him, but kept my head well down. And No, he didn't tell the Boss that it was I who had blown the whistle, but he did give him the information that his informant was one of the circus employes, as I ascertained a day or so later from the Union Man himself when I had the chance to do that. Thanks a lot, Union Man! The fat was well-and-truly in the fire now!

Let me be quite clear here, I have good reason to believe that personae non gratiae have disappeared from circuses in Australia; Paul told me stories I have no reason to doubt, that Lions had been the beneficiary of one or two, and anyway there were vast spaces in the countryside where bodies were almost certain never to be found. The circus owner and his agent made sure that we never knew where we would be next, it could be hundreds of klicks away in a couple of days. Even though we were right then not in the countryside, I was scared as never before.

But I soon got even scared-er: Rod, the sleazy Mechanic who disliked me, came to me next day and said: (these are his very words) : "That was YOU, wasn't it!" It wasn't a question, it was a full-on accusation, and full of menace. I had no idea of what he meant, and in acting like my life depended on it, I never acted better in my life. He faltered, and I pulled off my bluff. For the moment. I was packing death that any moment Heinrich might accuse me himself, and I was not at all confident that I could fool him. (I hadn't fooled Rod anyway, it was just that he had not enough proof to be certain it was indeed me.)

That night was the scariest in my life. I waited in my caravan in the dark, silent as a rat, hoping beyond hope that the people who had so faithfully promised me would show. Minutes seemed hours, hours seemed like whole long nights. All was quiet. (The hair is rising on my neck as I recall it!) I kept imagining what next day would bring: I was not very sanguine about surviving another 24 hours.

At 2 AM, on the dot, I heard a car coming across the fairground. It was Them! I had my swag and effects all ready, I was into that little car (it was a Mini too) like the frightened rat I was, in seconds, and we were off! And I was free, and safe! How I loved those people, I didn't even know their names and still don't, but Thank You, People, I really think I might not have survived my Circus Adventure had it not been for you.

Days later, after going to see the stupid Union Man and telling him what I thought of him, I was back on a train across the Nullarbor, I never thought Adelaide could look so good.

There is an Epilogue: 7 years later, I was teaching at a school in Whyalla, and a circus came to town. The school had arranged for all the kids to visit it, and I was included in the trip. To my surprise it was none other than the "Austrian Regal Circus", and there was my old nemesis, Heinrich himself! He recognised me at once, and hissed at me, "That WAS you, wasn't it!" (Of course he was sure by then, I had proved it by jumping.) But now I was out of his control, and though he would have loved to break my neck on the spot, he was too much in the public eye. I told him: "I told you you would be sorry for not letting me take Les and Mick back to the hospital." He was incandescent with fury, his eyes seemed almost to be smoking, fists and jaw clenching, but I had him where he could do nothing to me without much worse consequences for himself - and his precious circus. It felt good.

Then more years later, I heard anABC radio report that the Austrian Regal Circus had been ordered off the road somewhere in outback NSW, and forced to fix some two-hundred-and-then-some defects in their vehicles before they were permitted to leave. Right whack, Har, Har.

Only about eight years ago, I went with a friend to see a differently-named circus here in Adelaide. The star of the show was a splendidly-muscled dark handsome man who performed death-defying acts in, and upon, a huge spinning barred wheel like a 15-metre Mouse Wheel - It really looked very dangerous indeed, and everyone had their hearts in their mouths lest he make one wrong move. The man was none other than Louie, whom I taught as an 11-year-old.

Two years later it was reported that he had indeed suffered a serious fall and was very badly hurt - Spinal injuries suspected . . . I heard nothing more. I do hope he recovered fully.

Then just last week, driving back from Victor Harbour, I saw a circus tent in Strathalbyn. It was the "Austrian Circus"! The word "Regal" had been dropped but it was my circus just the same. I pulled in and asked the two women in the box office about Tania and Heinrich . Neither was with the circus any longer, but one of the women said, "I know Tania! She was my father's Elephant, I am an Ashton (the oldest circus family in Australia), and we lent Heinrich Tania from Dad's circus!" She didn't know of Tania's whereabouts, but Elephants live human years, and there is a very good chance the old dear is still alive. I hope she has a better life, and that she got the chance to raise a family of her own. Elephants are so very special, and I finish this account with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. True.

***

As an afterthought, I realise that I shouldn't finish without saying something of the reverse side of all this experience. Circus life is amazing, even if the circus I was with was amazingly horrid. It's like Paul (Aka Bobby the Clown) used to say:"Even in Europe, Circus life is more different than anything - More different even than Gypsies." Hell, I was Ringmeister (sic), five thousand pairs of eyes fixed on me, and the whole moment depended on me, whenever I introduced the acts or played the straight man interceding between 2 naughty clowns (who were really anything but frivolous in the rest of the time.) It's not really a very demanding part but it's a sort of buzz just the same. Often the lousy mike used to fail on me, circus couldn't or didn't anyway afford decent equipment, but then I had to project my voice to the whole damn Big Top, for the Ringmeister (sic) must get spoken word messages to the audience, e.g., there's 2 Clowns in the ring pretending to be about to do acrobatics, I have to come in, as an officious Postman, yell out "Special Delivery! Parcel for Mr. Chi-Chi!" and the audience has to hear that to set up the action for the Clowns. Luckily I have a Very Loud Mouth out of proportion to my frame, and I was always able to make the distance. Remember, some of the time it was windy and rainy, your voice just gets suck up in the huge canvas expanse, it takes more volume than most people can produce, especially since you have to be sound like you're talking, (but really loud), rather than yelling, which would have sounded ridiculous. Even the circus people were happy with my voice, and even though some of them were not people I liked, I had to respect them for their own work ethic, their obsession and singlemindedness, toughness and self-certainty. Marcel Snagger, a dashingly handsome figure in his Trapeze tights and outfit, brave as a lion in his own way, he was really quite decent, his wife too. Heinrich was so driven, but I really respected him most of all, the weight of the entire venture was on him, but he was a bloody fascist anyway, so I've never felt I shouldn't have blown the whistle in the sense that I did: he treated the hands like shit, that was the point.

As to my friend Paul, Bobby the Clown, he was such a trouper! He had spent his life mostly in European circuses, better than ours, with Circus People who had been Circus People for many, not just several, generations. Circus tradition in Europe goes back to the Medicis at least, the families too, and clowning as a profession has a continous link to the Ancient Greeks! There has never not been Clowns all that time, (you can see why, even martinets need to laugh sometimes, and often in the Middle Ages only the Fool could do satire . . .)

It's a very noble profession, Circus, my problem was that ours was a shitty circus running on nearly empty, every day was a pain to all of us, Snaggers included. But in their comfy caravans, They had it a lot better than Us.

So, Yes: looking back, I have to say it was all pretty amazing, even if amazingly shitty.

More about an Aussie Flag . . . and Vexillology

Vexillology is the study of flags. There are heraldic protocols which are normally strictly obeyed in the design of new national flags, and there are quite good reasons for this, mainly visibility at distance.

One of the most important of these protocols relates to the colours which may be used, and the way in which they may be used. The word "colour" on flags has specific meanings, and there are only six: Bleu Celeste (sky blue), Azure (blue), Gules (red), Vert (green), Sable (black), and Purpure (purple, not in use on any national flag in the world presently).

Then there are 3 "stains", Murrey (mulberry), Sanguine (blood red), and Tenne (tawny orange.)

There are also 2 "metals", Or (gold, actually yellow), and Argent (silver, actually white).

In British (and Australian) heraldry, and for most of the world too, the only "respectable" departure from those above is described by the term "proper", which means that a featured object such as the Cedar on the Lebanese flag is in its natural colour. Few flags have such proper colours, mainly because so few have a natural feature such as that tree, or Papua-New Guinea's Bird of Paradise, but the relative rarity of such flags in no way detracts from their respectability: in fact such flags may be amongst the most disinctive and elegant of all.

All of the above - colours, metals and stains - are referred to as tinctures.

The rules relating to tincture placement are very specific. Ideally, no more than 3 are used. A colour, in the strict sense as explained above, may not be placed on top of another colour, so, e.g., red may not be placed on blue, nor vice versa; likewise, one metal may not be placed on top of the other. The reason is that, at a distance, red and blue and the other colours are of similar reflectivity, (even though they may be far apart on the spectrum), so they are always separated by a stain or metal very different in reflectivity from themselves. So, red and blue are kept apart by yellow or white. However, where stains are employed, they may be superimposed on colours provided that they are very different in brightness: so, for example, tenne may be satisfyingly placed on azure, since they contrast both in reflectivity and in their positions in the spectrum.

I'm glad of this last possibility, because my preferred flag design places a "Red Kangaroo" on an azure background, along with Crux, the stars of the Southern Cross. The funny thing is that, of course, "Red Kangaroos" are not red! They are russet, or nankeen, or orangey, but obviously not scarlet nor crimson. So, a Red Kangaroo "proper" may be tenne on an azure ground, and it shows up splendidly.

One more heraldic demand is that any animal/s featured on flags must face the flagpole.

I love Kangaroos with a passion, and the original Penny Kangaroo as featured on our superseded coinage is to me the most iconic of all Australian designs. In real life, Kangaroos in motion are the most graceful of all land animals, no argument. So that's what I want on our flag:

"On an azure ground, a Red Kangaroo proper (alternatively, tenne) courant ('running'), surrounded by the stars of Crux in their natural proportions."

Now that's a Flag!