Syndicate: cockroaches, grenades, and rugby

["Sally Jane Norman" <norman@wanadoo.fr>]

Cockroach crawling back out from the 
floorboards - not a black carapace, damn, entomological error; rather, dark 
brown. Black is the scarab that promenaded the other evening into the grand 
entrance of the Angoulême Saint-Simon hotel premises, holding its pincers 
aloof, pretending to be a scorpion, watched and tracked by a silly French 
kitten. Juvenile pussy.
 
Hey Ted, did you know that the Fijian 
WWII fighters were absolutely terrifying - kind of the WWII equivalent to the 
WWI Maori forces that scared the shit out of "The Enemy" at Gallipoli, 
by suddenly surging forth from the trenches and doing the haka? My grandad used 
to tell me - again and again - about it. He was with infantry underdogs. Anyway, 
the Fijian army in WWIII, when the Pacific was pretty hot, also went down in 
history when the soldiers threw grenades with the intention - and with 
sufficient skill - of literally hitting their adversaries with them. Boing, Tex 
Avery style. Like, "surgical" fire. I remember working in the tobacco 
fields in Motueka a long time ago, plucking flowers (and getting bonus 
beestings) to screw up local lungs and earn some bucks (shortly after the switch 
from British quid), and Fijian seasonal workers used to come to the tobacco 
farms and would work the big harvester machines, and their towering bodies would 
be cramped into ludicrous positions the whole long day to respect 
Massey-Fergusson ergonomics. But in the evening, when we'd go down to the river 
to work out the day's cramps, they'd swim against the current like nobody else. 
Upstream in no time. So exhilarating to watch. All those aches and pains that 
would seep and dissolve into the fast-flowing Motueka waters. Till the next 
morning when we refired the machines. 
 
The 
other day the Tongans beat the French rugby team. Kind of amusing, all those 
black rainbow warriors on the ball, a subtle vengeance for perversely radiant 
Pacific presence for so many years under the reign of the atomic Sun King. The 
King of Tonga has mapped out more celestial territory than anyone else because 
he has a strategic geographical position that warrants a BIG sky claim (he also 
needs at least two chairs to sit down on our earthly planet..). Kind of glad 
about the rugby.
Oops. 
Skip it if you want something serious. Saturday night fever.
 
kia ora, love and kisses
 
SJN
 
 
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