Derham Groves » Anecdotes

For the Third Grand Final in a Row: Go Cats!

derhamgroves — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:52:27 +0000

Grand Final postscript: How good was that! What a great team Geelong is. Two out of three premierships on the trot. Absolutely fabulous. GO CATS! Let’s make it three out of four in 2010.

Vale John Michell, 1933 – 2009

derhamgroves — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:31:45 +0000

I was very sad to learn of the death of John Michell, the eccentric ‘Dr Who-like’ author of many books on geomancy and sacred geometry. I corresponded with him when I was doing my Masters on building ceremonies in the early 1980s, inviting him to give a lecture at the University of Minnesota in 1984. When I picked John up at the airport, he had a brown paper bag full of clothes and a suitcase full of books. His lecture at the university was the best … and the worst. He needed a heliograph (?), and when I asked him what that was he said after a moment’s thought, ‘A toaster for books’. And he was absolutely right! The spine of the book he was projecting broke, the extreme heat melted the glue, and the in-built fan blew the pages out of the machine one after the other while he was speaking. It was hilarious! But John wasn’t fazed one bit. He stayed in our tiny one-bedroom flat in Minneapolis for a couple of days, and there were stories galore concerning that. For instance, he slept in the nude, blanket-less, on our sofa, waking very late, while we woke early and had to ‘divert our eyes’ as we tip-toed around him! Then in 1992, when I was doing my PhD and flat broke, I stayed with him for a few day in London (his house was just around the corner from the Portobello Road Market) and he was an extremely gracious host. What a colourful character John was!

Go Cats!

derhamgroves — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:41:07 +0000

Grand Final post script: What a disappointing game for Geelong. Where were our forwards? Where were our goal sneaks? What really hurt us was scoring only one goal nine behinds in the second quarter. It should have been nine goals one behind! Oh well, never mind. Gary Ablett, you’re still a star. Tom Harley, you’re still captain courageous. David Wojcinski, you were very unlucky to miss out. But let’s not forget, there’s always NEXT YEAR! Go Cats!

How Sweet It Is!

derhamgroves — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 11:44:53 +0000

Yesterday I arrived home from China at 7.00 in the morning and I went to the AFL Grand Final at 1.30 in the afternoon to see the mighty Cats give the Port Power-less an absolute shellacing, 163 to a miserable 44. I was completely buggered by the China trip, but I wouldn’t have missed Geelong’s premiership for the world! By half-time my voice was completely gone from cheering so much. Sol Traheo, Telstra’s CEO, was on the same flight home as I was, no doubt to attend the Grand Final as well. However, unlike me, he didn’t fly econony and I’m sure he didn’t have a standing room Grand Final ticket either. But I can almost guarantee that I enjoyed the Cats’ record breaking win more than he did. After all, I’ve been supporting them for as long as I can remember. I just wish Dad could have been around to have seen it. At least Mum saw it on TV. The Cats were absolutely magnificent! Let’s make it back-to-back premierships guys! GO CATERS!

You've Got to Laugh … or Cry

derhamgroves — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:07:23 +0000

I’m committed to the notion of everydayness and to recording day-to-day events on this blog. Most things that happen are good, but occasionally you’re served a shit sandwich. My car was stolen in front of our house on Friday night. It is the second car I’ve had stolen in 12 months. I’m not rich, but regardless of that I actually like driving old cars. The first car stolen was Dad’s old Holden. To my surprise I got it back after three weeks when the police caught the drongo who nicked the car driving it in Ascot Vale. In the meantime, though, I’d bought another old Holden, which was the second one stolen. Today I got a call from the police to say that it had been found burned-out in Roxborough Park. It was a nice car. There are some fucking nasty mongrels in the world, let me tell you.

Lewis Vincent Groves

derhamgroves — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 09:19:35 +0000

Dad died two years ago today. He was a lovely bloke and I miss him a lot. He had simple pleasures, like having a bet on the horses. ‘It’s an interest,’ he used to say. When he got sick towards the end and couldn’t go to the TAB, he’d write down his bets on a scap of paper and I’d put them on for him.

What Pro Hart Told Me About Ants

derhamgroves — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:54:04 +0000

‘That’s only a subject. People think I’ve got something about ants and dragonflies. I haven’t. I couldn’t care less about the damn things. Except that it’s a subject to paint, and there’s plenty of the coots around the place. I had one in my studio the other day, a bulldog ant, a big one, about an inch-and-a-half, nearly two inches. You know, they send a scout out looking for a new place. The thing wanders in me door. Massive big thing it was! And the worst part of it, they watch you. Oh ho, the head goes around and they follow you around, mongrel things! Fancy having an ant watching you! Keeping an eye on you! And they watch the dogs and the cats. Terrible things! Ever seen one, a bulldog ant? You wait until one bites you mate! Eight of them will kill you! I tell you what; we get them. That one ant, you know, if I hadn’t seen him, they could have set up a nest somewhere around my studio, because he’s a scout, they send out a scout, you know, he watches you. Fancy having an ant watching you! Oh ho, yeah. And if a dog walks past, you see all the [ants’] heads turn [to] watch the dog, for goodness sakes! It’s very dangerous for babies and kids, because if they lay on a lawn one bite could kill a kid. You know, bulldogs are very…well they’re around here. They’ve got them down town. There’s a bus stop down here, had a seat outside the bus stop, and they’re all crawling around the seat. Some ladies jumped around there when they sat down on the seat, because they come up in your clothes and bite chunks out of you, you know! Oh, it’s the worst bite you can get. Very, very deadly blooming bite, you know. Green heads are the same, little green heads, the mongrel things. Anyway, I don’t like bulldog ants. And we’ve had a few nests in our yard too. Awful things they are.’

Harry’s Bow Ties

derhamgroves — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:31:16 +0000

While architect Harry Seidler’s impressive body of work cannot be denied, I must confess to having been more interested in his trademark bow ties than his buildings. I own about 250 vintage clip-on bow ties, and in 1999 I wrote him a letter asking if he would donate one of his to my collection. ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ he indignantly replied. ‘I have never worn, nor will I ever wear, a “clip-on” bow tie! I only ever use “tie yourself” ties exclusively.’

Dangerous Art History

derhamgroves — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:42:27 +0000

There are lots of great Karal Ann Marling stories. All of them true. One of my favourites happened when Karal Ann was Chairman of the Art History Department, which at the time was housed in an old science building, so nearly every room had a sink. Mary, the department’s beloved slide librarian, had complained about a foul smell in one of the rooms. Karal Ann suspected it was due to a certain male member of staff urinating in that room’s sink after a late-night class. At a staff meeting she confronted the poor chap and threatened to ‘cut off his pecker’. Miraculously the offending smell vanished soon afterwards. [Photograph: Robert Tinytwig.]

Mexican Stand-Off

derhamgroves — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:50:15 +0000

After leaving University in the early 1980s, I worked for a short time as a storeman and packer at David Wang’s warehouse in Melbourne. David Wang imported cane ware from China. The warehouse had an international workforce. Roger Yap, a Filipino in his early 30s, was the foreman. Nevertheless, he loved toilet humour (as many of us who worked there also did) and playing practical jokes. For example, out of the blue, he would rush up to Tony Amhad, a Lebanese worker, and fart on him. Then, in a fit of laughter, he would loudly declare that Tony had ‘felt the pressure’. Despite how this may sound, Roger wasn’t putting Tony down (in fact, they were the best of mates). His antics simply helped to ease the boredom of filling countless orders for, say, kitsch cane chickens. Bizarre! Con Berkan, a wiry little Dutchman in his 60s, would single-handedly drag big heavy boxes across the warehouse floor. Because of this, we used to call him ‘the human ant’. However, Con didn’t have Roger’s sense of humour – in fact, quite the opposite. One day Roger was searching for something (probably a cane chicken) in the bottom of a box, and making a terrible mess. Straw was flying everywhere. This greatly amused him, and he began saying in his heavy Filipino accent, ‘I’m a messy cunt, I’m a messy cunt,’ over and over. Con and I were watching this from the sidelines. But Con wasn’t amused by Roger’s antics. He turned to me and said in his heavy Dutch accent in a disgusted tone, ‘If he’s a Mexican, then I’m a Turk.’