e-Books by Bernie Dowling — a Review

Some new release eBooks are worth having a look at. Thanks to the author, these reviews preserve the rich content that readers obtain when they use eReaders [hyperlinks, YouTube] I have turned off embedded ‘text enhance’ messages which I do not like (sic). All three books are available on Google Books.

7 Shouts is by local Brisbane author, Bernie Dowling.

Bernie’s publishing hut Bent Banana Books published the three books. Bernie is one of 24 local authors in Can You Believe It… ‘ with each story illustrated by a local artist. Bernie wrote none of the five stories of 5 Bricks.

Three books are 7 Shouts, based on Bernie’s newspaper columns plus a lot of new material, “Can You Believe It… ” — 24 illustrated short stories from 24 authors and “5 Strong Bricks in the Wall“, a collection of five illustrated short stories. [If you are interested in purchasing the book click on the titles for the Google Links].

Ian Curr
22 Feb 2012

Here are some excerpts from “7 Shouts” by Bernie Dowling

BOOK Seven

Her story

Australian artist Joy Hester’s Little girl with book on head. That book cannot break the glass ceiling.

Still, you only lose when you give up

Joan Baez, her passion never died between the Then

and the Now

Woman: hear me vote

THE misty season is almost upon us. No, I am not talking autumn. I’m talking elections when the eyes of would-be politicos and their supporters mist up with tears of joy or utter sadness.

The Northern Times will continue with its fine tradition of offering candidates for best food and entertainment at a polling booth.

But that is for another day, another column. Today My Shout looks at how sister power is going to determine the results of the March 15 elections for Moreton Bay Regional Council.

If you are one of the 42 candidates putting your hand up for power, you better be nice to the women around you.

If you are someone whose eyes glaze over at the sight of basic maths, stop reading now. You see, women out-number men in all of the 12 divisions which means they well and truly have the numbers when voting for mayor and 12 other councillors.

Which is kind of funny, seeing only one of the five mayoral candidates is a woman? Blokes outnumber women as candidates for the divisions, as well.

So, you blokes who seem to have most of these council jobs sewn up better run your policies by your wives, mothers, grandmothers and daughters, 18 or over.

Woman invented the metaphor so when she makes a casual comment, you need to know what it will translate to on polling day.

When you come late, a woman in your life might greet you with: “What have you been up to?” That is a good sign she is after accountability in government.

She might say: “have you been wasting our hard-earned money on beer and horses again?” She is giving you the hint on two election issues: good budgeting and keeping rates and service charges under control.

When she says: “you can’t wear that shirt with those trousers”, she is telling you she does not like visual pollution. General dislike of pollution is rendered by: “put that pizza box in the bin.” 22 FEB 2008

Her brother Branwell painted this portrait of Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights. Emily became ill at Branwell’s funeral. She died within three months in December 1848. She was 30-years-old.

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Readers in slanging match

IT seems quite a few readers share my fondness for the Aussie slanguage, judging by the responses to last week’s column.

Following the protocol I long ago established on our interactive exchanges, I start with a correspondent who compliments me.

`Thank you for your column on lingo, I did enjoy it,” Ron Hopkinson writes, apologising for a “muffed email I tried to send”.

Don’t worry about that computer glitch, Ron. Last night’s political meeting of the DLP, Digital Luddite Party, absolved you completely.

Ron sent in a beaut example to describe a mean person: “If he owned the ocean, he wouldn’t give you a wave.”

What about these from Ron as put-downs: “as useful as a glass door on a dunny” or “as useful as a pork chop at a Jewish barbecue”.

Thanks Ron; they are blanky rippers. You are quite right to suggest this family column would never suggest a stingy person was tighter than part of a fish’s anatomy.

Graham West sent us a few pearlers from his private collection: he knows someone who is “not the brightest star in the sky”, and who is “as thick as two planks” and “a sandwich short of a picnic”.

This person is not the sharpest tool in the shed, not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but is a slice short of loaf, a ring short of a phone call and only 99c in the dollar.

Bonza, Graham, mate, your blood’s worth bottlin’, mate.

I am having so much fun I have decided to keep the communication channels on slanguage open for another week. 06 JUL 2007

In Australia, “as game as Ned Kelly” is a compliment. Some people are annoyed the murderous bushranger has become a folk hero. He and his family were victims of official injustice and Kelly was betrayed before his capture and hanging. He also quipped “such is life” as they applied the noose. That is all good fodder for folk heroism. The final insult was posthumous, being played by Mick Jagger on film. Despite that cheap shot, I thought Jagger did a good job, especially in Spanish.

Slang on

MUCH of Pine Rivers and Caboolture wants to play in our slanging match and it’s all good.

We are into our third week of exploring Aussie slanguage which we started with the humble request for synonyms for the phrase “not the full quid”.

They are still coming in, along with other personal favourites from the Aussie lingo, the death of which has been greatly exaggerated, according to reader Mark Twain.

(Oh, alright, Mark Twain is not a reader, but I’m sure he would be, except reports on his final death were not exaggerated at all.)

Greg Grundy of Burpengary has a couple of handy additions to our full-quid collection. “The lift doesn’t go to the top floor” with someone who is “not the full packet of Iced Vo Vo’s.”

I liked the Iced Vo Vo’s angle because they are a much loved Aussie treat, even if a health nut might suggest they would kill a brown dog.

Greg offered another Aussie expression which made me laugh out loud: someone was born with a lazy eye and it spread to the rest of their body.

Rob sent in an oldie but a goldie: as flash as a rat with a gold tooth.

He also sent in a couple of others but the censor would not pass them, while I am unsure what correspondent Bully is on about with this “mad thing”, an expression which apparently comes from central Australia where people are sometimes known to be sun-struck.

Glen Hinz added to the “full quid” with “a few quacks short of a duck”.

I do not know if Glen is in the sales game but he came up with a coupla bewdies in that area.

An exceptionally good salesperson could sell pork sausages in Palestine. An exceptionally poor salesperson couldn’t sell rosaries in Rome.

Harold Meston of Beachmere has written a poem The Loss of Strine. Below is an excerpt.

We don’t fight or argue,
We have a stoush or blue;
We had our zacks and tanners
And we had to take a joke,
While many learned their manners

From Dennis’s Sentimental Bloke. S.B.

Well done, one and all of our correspondents.

We need to keep this discussion going another week, at least, because Ron Rainford, of Burpengary, has raised a language issue which has troubled me for many a moon.

It concerns the Queensland Rugby League team: the Maroons. We will be discussing that next week as well as presenting more examples of your Aussie slang. 13 JUL 2007

U.S. President Barack Obama endeared himself Aussies when he dabbled in our slanguage during his November 2011 visit.

How’d he go at the state dinner?

Here is an excerpt. “The alliance between the United States and Australia is deeper and stronger than it has ever been. Spot on. Cracker jack. In top nick.”

He was bonza. Too right. Blood oath. President Obama, not only had the lingo down pat but also the Aussie habit of compounding emphasis with phrases of similar but differently shaded meanings. To the presidential speech writer, “your blood’s worth bottlin’, mate”.

In 2009, then Australian Prime Minster Kevin Rudd had some of us pondering when he used the expression “fair shake of the sauce bottle”. It did not sound quite right but the context was beaut. Mr Rudd continued: “Turn it up. Get your hand off it. I mean, fair suck of the sav.”

Fair suck of the sauce bottle is now in the Urban Dictionary which cites Mr Rudd. I had never heard it before the PM used it. Some thought he meant to say “fair suck of the sav (eloy, sausage)” and corrected himself later. Others contend the “sauce bottle” phrase is authentic.

I think the expression is “fair shake of the sav” and refers to a bloke’s post-urination strategy. An associated phrase is “more than three shakes is a wank (masturbation)”.

I apologise for our discussion of the Presidential state dinner veering off towards the scatological. It is the risk you take when having a captain (cook) at our slanguage.

Anyone with something to offer on savs and sauce bottles, please email bentbananabooks@gmail.com