Sunday, February 7, 2010

Leatherjackets and medical plumbing

The Perishers (the cartoon series starring Wellington and his owner Boot, the Old English sheepdog - sniff miss my Roly) was probably secretly born on Flinders. I base this latest crazy theory on strong evidence, namely Marlon - the character who wants to be a ‘Brane' Surgeon - or one of those blokes that go down sewers in big rubber boots... or maybe that's just all plumbers, seeing as my plumber mate Craig back in SA has a donkey called Eddie that drinks beer.

Noel the Plumber - to his mate "Looks like it needs surgery."
Mate (on knees with arm down the fat-trap) sticks out a lordly (or sugeonly) hand "Screwdriver nurse."
Water is pumped in behind the sealing device. Mate has ear to ground. "C'n you hear anything?"
Noel "No. Reckon it's stopped breathing mate. Yer better give it mouth-to-mouth."
(Mate looks at scummy drain. "Not without anasthetic. From Doctor Boag*"

So we've affected a cure of sorts - Admittedly with an open hole which is fairly niffy, the surgeons have a bit more patching to do. Other headaches... B's computer problems proved to be Windows, and miricle of miricles the TV was pretty close to plug-and-play. My manuscript (current book) has a slew of undesireable formatting to be manually cleaned out from its transfer from the Eee, but it is there and working.

We went to Lady Barron today but it was so cold and miserable - and the water just on the edge was salty rotten seaweed tea at Badger corner and I decided not to dive and came back to work instead. Yeah I know. When I was young I'd have got into water so vile you'd have beat it with a stick first. But tomorrow is supposed to be better weather, and we're nearly out of seafood. We ate the Leatherjacket (trigger fish) tonight, and I was pleasantly surprised. I grilled it (my big grill from SA has died - obviously didn't like the trip or something. I'm glad I won't be doing that again) and I really need a more intense heat than the stove grill produces - but it was still surprisingly good (for a fish that I was told was barely edible). It's firm-textured - ideal for something like green Thai curry or a fish satay, but not dry. I reckon they're keepers.
*the local beer. Boags.

3 comments:

  1. Yuck! I hate trigger fish, or humuhumu nukunuku a'pua'a. Hawaii state fish. Tough, chewy fish (at least every time I ate one!).

    basset

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  2. This was OK - probably because it has a shorter name ;-)

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  3. I never thought of that! You, sir, are undoubtedly correct. The longer name packs more toughness into the fish. Egads! I should have stuck to just eating Trigger Fish instead...
    Do you have the white Goatfish there? The Squirrel Fish? Those are really good!

    basset

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