the ’sham

This is one of those days where I really meander. It’s not that I don’t have an intention to do something specific, it’s just that my lack of forward planning means that it doesn’t work out the way I imagine. Instead, other things happen, the changing of the plan leaves me open to the time being filled with other adventures.

In this case, I wander up to the Metropolitan Community Church, and head off on a digression about the history of the Mastertouch Pianola Roll Factory, which had occupied the site for ages before the MCC took it on.

In this historical vein, Anthony from the Bottlo fills me in on a few snippets of local (New Canterbury Road) history.

Listen in to the podcast here [3mb, 7 min, mp3].

Read the original posting here.

Finally, the moons line up and I’m in the right place at the right time. Manuel only comes in on Tuesdays to the travel agency. The girl at the desk says he’s definitely the right person to talk to if I want to hear a Portuguese story. Manuel is attending to what looks like an old and loyal customer. I wait for a little while, thumbing through the package tours to New Zealand and Tasmania. These tours seems uniquely unappealing to me. Thousands of dollars blown in a fortnight where your every move is circumscribed. And what’s more, you have to pay a “singles supplement” as a punishment for not having a travelling companion!

Manuel waves me over. “So, why me?” he teases. “Why me?” And before I can answer, he launches into a long joke about a famous football player who also asks “Why me?”, when there’s a stadium full of eighty thousand fans, not to mention twenty two footballers and two referees. I wont spoil it by revealing the punchline. If you pass by on a Tuesday you might be able to hear it for yourself.
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A fragmented day.

I went in search of Anthony at the bottle shop. When I first met Anthony (weeks ago now) he recommended I visit this fellow who ran a real estate / immigration agency on New Canterbury Road back in the ’60s. I’m pretty sure, from what Anthony was saying, that this guy was responsible for finding houses for lots of Portuguese folks around Petersham. Hence the large Portuguese population here. But I couldn’t remember where Anthony said I could find him. So I stuck my head in the bottle shop to find out. But Anthony wasn’t in. He was off delivering booze somewhere.
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It’s come to my attention that I am writing too much. I need to cut down, see if I can say what I need to say, but in fewer words. Because of my excessively verbose accounts of some recent events, a lot of great stuff has dropped through the net. Here are a few brief “vignettes” to get us all up to speed…
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