Am aah done with thinking? Am aah bollocks! Part Three

Part three: the somewhat golden twilight of a well read life:

The office library

See, aah sees meself as a humble follower of tha pointy headed Frenchman Michael Montaigne. Aye, aahm aboot as awld. Boot he, Him that were a big believer in turning yon hoose inta a library. Me hooses ha always contained libraries, books ter trip over. aah've always liked ter consider everyday matter as summat worthy of thought, of pootin' thru big brain pondering' an' consideration, twisting' stoof every which way ter see what makes it tick-all the things we take fer granted as just being 'they are'. Like why is yon sky blue? Wot is blue and why durst it change. Is there owt different between a cold and flu and how de yer tell. Why is it when aah fart it's smelly, boot when Mrs Belgo Geordie lets rip it durst not even when it does? Puzzles see. Do Currawong (an entertaining Australian boord somewhere between a magpie an a crow) have regional accents in how they squark? And why do they fly like a paddle steamer travelling sedately down a calm river? Why are Australian birds (feathers) seen as the most aggressive on the planet? If it is only female mosquito tha bites, wot does the male do all day? Flaps about saying "Ae canna stand sight of blood, or what?" What is the point of that? Then the ultimate conundrum. Wha would yer get if yer crossed Alan Shearer with TinTin? Nae lad, not Gary Lineker, or Julian Assange. aah think aah'll joost doost off a few test tubes and light the bunsen burner in the Belgo laboratory.

See there's no end of stoof with nae answer boot many solutions. Books eh, full ter brim of ideas. Like did yer know it were the Spanish that introduced horses ter the Americas, before that the plains Indians went about on foot. All those Saturday morning pictures and we thought the Red Indians invented the horse- they rode bareback with skill. We wanted to whoop and holler and shoot all the soft southerners full of arrows. John Wayne waddled like a dook when he weren't in saddle. In the saddle he sat like a sack of turnips at the funfair - guns blazing, face like a turnips arse. Nae contest! One lot were braves, the other pale skins led by Mr Wayne. That Russians were descended from Vikings. That Mrs Cook burned all the love letters from her husband James joost before she died in her nineties. Tha the Polynesians explored and populated the South Pacific triangle long before, maybe a thousand years before master Cook was a twinkle in the eye of the dawn of time. Then why is it all them lovely anarchists or feral left green young uns smoke baccy? Putting money inta tobacco companies. Giving profit ter companies they want ter burn down, See no end of matter ter ponder while on nettie.

Like yon Montaigne, our library has blurry miles of books everywhere. Unlike Montaigne, we also have acres of music on CDs, films on DVDs and photographs crowding out every wall. Mrs Belgo Geordie likes ter remind oos there is a lot of doosting required fer the doost gatherers living in our hoose. We might as well be living in municipal library except there is nowt mooch orderly abbot our collection. When aah retire aah cry! Mrs Belgo joost snorts. Mind yew, she's a dab hand fer a good read. When her nose is buried in a book yer don't take any liberties on the air waves in our hoose! Aye, boot doosting, of them objects, that is my fate or if you will, chore. Needless ter say the doost gathers on me shelves, undisturbed except when a tome is pulled oot fer a read.

Boot is it of value in the greater good? Australia, like New Zealand seems a bit suspicious of them that self-identify as thinkers. Yet there were a tradition in the working classes for bettering yourself. Often union led. It has dropped away. Yer are left with a sense, thems with brains should keep quiet in public discourse. Applying thought for the sake of where ideas can take you is seen as a bit pointless and well, as showing off. Yer don't launch inter free thought fall on topics south of reality television, consumables or safe family matters. Nay politics, religion and certainly no philosophy. Good call! Sport? Knock yerself oot on Steve Smith's batting technique. He durst not have one...its why the wee cheat is a genius!

Now Belgo has to admit. Aah like a bit of showing off. Aah do. Aah calls it entertainment. Aah'm niver scared to face dive off the edge of a cracking idea and swim on through joined oop thoughts in me best dog paddling thrash. Mabbe more stand oop comic than a real intellectual. Mind, folk have been known to say "Eee, that's reet clever!" As they stifle a yawn. Aah know me limitations, sometimes. Although on me own ground (the St James's of the brain like) aah can more than hold me viewpoint and have even word wrestled some the 'high and mighty big brains' inter the coal dust and mud while standing on a proposition. Nowt finer thing than telling' a table of psychiatrists and psychologists they are talking bollocks based on voodoo rather than science. Stay away from neuoropsychs! In New Zealand it drove Kiwi folk crackers. It's seen as impolite to labour a point too long. Boot sometimes to reach oonderstanding yer have her break stuff down into bits, nuts and bolts, crisp packets and rivets if yer will. Many a time aah have been the last man standing, friendless in an empty room, still brimming with stoof ter say. Saying it ter no-one boot sometimes reaching a place where aah know what aah'm on about. And sometimes, the light bulb flicks on and yer know yer are dead set ter wrong. Joost aboot every argument, definitive statement set oot in front of Mrs Belgo Geordie - a case in point. She has the unfair advantage of legal training and being a woman and a determined hen at that. She can pin me argument ter cork board, euthanise it with chloroform and label it roobish before the spit is even dry on me lips.

So yer have ter take yer hat off ter them that do it all a the time, the pooblic pointy heads like. Aah raised meself on books that included Germaine Greer, Simone de Beauvoir, Primo Levi, and Mr Orwell - or the blessed George. If ever I joost want ter read for pleasure of the written word, it is ter the essays of Mr Orwell (or Blair if yer prefer) I dip. Then in later life I've been taken by tomes writ by Christopher Hitchens,  Tariq Ali, John Pilger, Alan Bennet, Ms Roy and that Chomsky. All of em, yer can dip in and oot off fer a bit of an idea. Jean-Paul, Amis junior,  nae as mooch, boot still. A read is a read and Amis junior's book on the two towers were grand. Other Amis stoof has me frothing, gnashing and moaning. Sooo mooch talent boot he can be a tosser second ter none.

In New Zealand there were books that inspired such as Dick Scott's book on Parihaka introducing oos ter ideas and life of Te Whiti. The master of civil disobedience campaigns that ended in cruel imprisonment and banishment boot the ideas of the people do not die and Maori are stronger today fer the likes of Te Whiti and Tohu Kakahi. As always, yer left asking would aah risk my life fer a joost cause. Te Witi recognised not taking a stand would enslave his people, as prophets he and Tohu led by example. That meant, imprisonment, sent in chains into exile away from their land and to live with poor health in poverty. Likewise Jock Barnes memoir "Never a White Flag." Union solidarity and the fierce fires of wharfies fighting for safe and permanent work against the odds. If yer really have a need fer the blood ter drop ter yer toes Helen Clark's "Women, equality, Power." From one who knows and has a frightening intellect.

In Australia, Ms Greer and Mr Pilger have consistently challenged me grey matter., even Robert Hughes. The new wave is hit and miss; Tim Flannery, Robert Dessaix, Helen Garner and Robert Manne. In politics yon Paul Keating can sharpen a razor on a five cent piece. Boot more of pooblic discourse terday in the land down under is commentary like yon admirable Waleed Aly, Peter Fitzsimons, Stan Grant, Annabel Crabb, the delectable school marmy Ms Tingle or Clive James. Worth a read. Very often funny. Thought provoking intermediate but not the kind of stoof tha' has yer reaching fer dictionary while scratching' a nut an licking the nib of a pencil while creased in what passes fer deep thought in oos over sixty.

Young Bri Lee is showing form - dissecting Queensland's legal conundrums in "Eggshell Skull" and what female beauty, feminism, and Marcus Aurelius (Roman philosopher) have in common. Fiona McGregor had me perspiring and howling at the moon like a dingo with a razor blade attached ter me snout for "Strange Museums." Blood, more than you ever needed ter know about blood, performance activist art, cutting and the ongoing tremor of the holocaust in Eastern Europe. Bruce Pascoe - yup - Dark Emu kicked legs and asked fer consideration around the historical mythologising around the first European encounters with indigenous folk in what was to become Australia. Would we look on this continent differently if we considered folk living here before we were even wet farts existed in a complex engagement with the hostile environment we all love. Sally McManus for union and political thinking. Clear and concise about where we came from, how we got here, where we are going and where we should go, The Quaterly Essay published by Black inc can hit a mark. Richard Denniss's "Dead Right" for example. The annual Australian essays are allus worth a gander*. 2012's Kim Mahood's "Kartiya are like Toyotas: White Workers on Australia's Cultural Frontier." Terrific for those of oos who might think we know it all or better than indigenous folk. Ideas the germinate and sprout and enrich tha flat line between me lugs that tell oos a' breathe and live. Is it me brain durst thinking or summat else? And if me grey matter is slowly turning ter mush lined with rind - what happens if aah push the boat out inter unchartered watta? There are great whites with pointy teeth beneath these waves. Burning brain cells in the big red is not pastoral, or reflective of cucumber sandwiches with high tea. Put the vicar in a longboat and push bugger oot ter sea.
Medical ethics, death and dying has also given oos stoof ter ponder. We all die, before that we live and things go wrong. Atul Gawande is a rare sort. A medical ethicist. His book on ageing "Being Mortal" was considered aboot all of us end top facing death at some time. Siddhartha Mukherjee's "The Emperor of Maladies were a ripping yarn aboot cancer. Always been around. Allus will be. All stoof on mortality is summit ter ponder in the last ashes of life.

Recently it has been a rash of books on animals that have got me thinking. Helen Macdonald's "H is for Hawk." Philosophy, birds and grieving and another fierce intelligence. "The Great Soul of Siberia made me blood pound and roar for the dedication of an old world scientist prepared to put in time ter learn while being trampolined on by Siberian tigers. Not the most forgiving of cats. He, Sooyong Park, were in an underground shelter at the time. He lived ter write the tale. James Woodford's dog fence and wombats books were also great companions on the Australian continent as was Tim Low's "Where Song Began" - summary? All Australian birds are nutters who would give Millwall boot boys a run fer their money. But the birds (not Millwall boot boys) are complex and smart characters. As fer "The Philosopher and the Wolf." Mark Rowlands. Exceptional 'the dog ate my homework sort of stuff' and I wasn't about to argue unless I could sleep with both eyes open.

Christina Thompson's "Sea People - The Puzzle of Polynesia" looks at how Polynesians settled the remotest parts of the Pacific as we Europeans were still looking for our loin cloths in caves before hunting. Well ok, the big noses looking for fleas to add to our horse blankets before setting off to invade England. But it is a book full of mystery and adventure that with Ann Salmond's books puts a different light onto Polynesian settlement. I had never heard of the Lapita civilisation of seafarers and navigators.

Aye, thought joost dae nae seem ter have the statoos it did once when intellectuals were paid in brass to hoort our brains with a wurk oot at mental gymnasium in what were the purpose of thought, ter think. Oh aye, here he goes - the philosophers! Nay man, aah'm na gonna bang on aboot the mental torturers that can take a shite on the head of a grain of rice and tell yer it don't smell unless it does and then again. Wael, mabbe one, Michael Montaigne and the Greeks, the odd Roman- boot not the likes of the modernists - any of those passed 1066 (other than Mr Montaigne or owt by Alan Shearer). They (philosophers are oos) are too canny fer the likes of oos (me). Aah canna (or Kant) make tails or heads of owt mooch they say. Neitzsche? Too itchy. Break words down inter plankton of thought - why aye, boot them together and nee sense seems ter rise oop an' oot. Aye, I read Alain De Botton's 'The Consolations of Philosophy'. He were having a laugh! Consolation? Constipations of trying ter make sense of insensible stoof. Never trust anyone who leads a sentence "Two great thinkers of antiquity..." And then rains down on yer head a whole lot of Hegel, Nietzsche and their cohort of mournful pin head dancers and engravers. As fer Foucault, Derrida an' the post modernists...aah'm as deaf as a post ter what it is that makes their bells or balls swing. Art telling life what it should be imitating. Except fer the wonderfully inspiring"Strange Museums" by Fiona McGregor mentioned before - tha crosses collective amnesia with installation art of the artists blood and is post modernist ter its core.

Aye, aah can slowly amble me way through some political stoof such as Marx, Trotsky and the very readable Che Guevara or Tony Benn. Boot many a time I have sat in a heap, admitting defeat on some polemics, worthy aah sure boot thinking mabbe the nuns were right, I'm as thick as an average plank and joost don't get it. Structuralism and don't get oos stared on art wank Dr Laird! Aye nowt as queer as folk when it comes ter the explanation being longer and grander than the art wurk. Aah left oot biographies and autobiographies - another blog boot I have joost finished reading aboot Rewi Alley. That were a man! Likewise aah have read across the holocaust, again summat fer another blog boot stuff that makes oos think and wurk ter be better an try ter understand a world and folk who treat others like shite, the other and casual evil of actions which too many are never held ter account.

In summary, Belgo is comfortable with being seen as someone who thinks rather than an intellectual who might squeeze sweat oot of a brain cell. Aah like a good argument, debate or in depth conversation. Boot they are as rare as a vicar with hen's teeth. Thinking adds to and underlines me decision making. Thinking allows me ter gather oop ideas and scatter them aboot. It inspires, it invigorates and at times, it gives oos a headache. Aah open me gob an me brain doos the talking. A good crack keeps the blood flowing. A former manager, now a marra can thread five conversations at once and woe betide if yer canna keep oop like. A New Zealander mind, tellum summat and they takes that long ter give yer a reply yer can do the washing, get it dry and read half of War and Peace...Boot I am grateful fer the rich world books and thought have created for us. If it were me ma who set me on the path of reading then - thanks ma, it were not wasted.

Nae more!!!

* Aye, what der yer mean they stooped publishing it!...Many a happy scratch has gone on between man and book reading stoof tha is seven pages long called an essay.