You saw that we completely skipped over Male Parent’s Day last weekend.
This was a decision taken on the advice of the US-based SheKnows magazine that told us: “Father’s Day can elicit a wide range of emotions, from nostalgia to grief to longing to just plain annoyance at the continuation of the white, male patriarchy even in 2020. Oh, and it perpetuates hetero relationships and capitalist culture, too.”
SheKnows is our Pythia. Some of you wouldn’t remember good old Pythia, but she hung out in a cave at Delphi and ancient punters would travel for hundreds of kilometres to ask her questions, about love and marriage.
Alexandra George at King College tells me she (Pythia not Alex) “would go into a sort of trance and spew out rhymes and riddles for the traveller to ponder. These riddles were supposedly the words of Apollo himself. She would also receive prophecies from dreams. Science has revealed that a possibility for the trances that Pythia would enter was caused by inhalation of large amounts of carbon dioxide, which would produce hallucinations”.
We know this caper.
Travellers from as far away as Norwood flock to the contemporary Corner Bar at the Kensi on a Thursday night to sit at the feet of the oracle of Adelaide, the seer of Stepney, the sibyl of Salisbury, Michaelus McMatsouka, who chosen by the gods of South Australia speaks divine advice after 300 Coopers’ Sparkling.
Michaelus spewed out to me this morning over the physic internet just before he took off in the WART BMW for the one-day Gorge Rallysprint. Side notes here for followers of our team: 1) Mick and his new co-driver, Biddy, trained for the event on Thursday night at the same temple of wisdom by watching videos of Australian Rally Champion and God, Molly Taylor, on the reality TV show SAS Australia where she actually never gets in a car; 2) Yesterday morning all the electrics in the Beemer caught fire and were put out with buckets of West End Draught.
Biddy tells me the wiring loom was still on the floor of Global HQ a few hours ago; and 3) Mick’s work with the Texta, you remember, the large black R with an arrow pointing to the right on the driver’s side of the windscreen, is still there so they should be fine as long as none of the corners go left.
Anyway, Michaelus seemed to be saying that the most common question he got on Thursday night, following the day celebrating the continuation of the white, male patriarchy, was “how do I know who is my parents’ favourite sibling?” No riddle for an answer here. “I told them, enter your parents house, preferably by the front door and count the photos of you and your siblings.
Whichever one has the most photos is the most loved. If you’re an only child this approach has a few flaws.”
Talking of a few flaws: guess who owns SheKnows magazine?
Yes it’s the Penske Media Corporation, owned and controlled by Jay Penske (race team owner and son of Roger, who is continuing the white, male patriarchy through his four sons with daughter Blair fighting the good fight against perpetuating the same patriarchy and capitalist culture) and publisher of top titles like Dirt, a voyeuristic, tongue-in-cheek peek into the oft-clandestine real estate transactions of high-profile and high-net-worth people across a broad spectrum of industries and professions.
Don’t worry, I’ve been on the Al Capone to our own Turi Condon at Mansion magazine to put her in touch with Dirt.
OK, back to the Gorge Rallysprint, a one-day tarmac rally event centred around the steep, winding and challenging roads in and around the Torrens Gorge. I asked Michaelus if he could foresee the results.
“Of course,” he spewed. “It won’t be a rerun of the Italian Grand Prix where Pierre Gasly became the second-ever winner for AlphaTauri, the team once known as Toro Rosso and, before that, Minardi.
We have two things going for us. One, you’re not here and, two, someone else will break down or crash or both. So, I see a fine second last for the Weekend Australian Rally Team, a vast improvement on when you are anywhere near the car.”
Enough of that mystical BS and back to the old country for more auction BS.
Dave Gooding’s first sale outside Trumpland was last week at his Passion of a Lifetime auction at the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace (the Kensi of the mother country). He had 15 cars up and 14 sold. Everything brought more than a million quid, which is the price of a beer at most pubs in London. Dave set six records, including the most valuable Bugatti and Vauxhall sold at auction.
The 1934 Bugatti Type 59 Sports became the most valuable Bugatti ever sold at auction, bringing $17m, the Type 35C Grand Prix sold for $6.8m and the 1937 Bugatti Type 57S achieved $14m.
The 1971 Lamborghini Miura P400 SV Speciale we featured here a few weeks ago went for $5.6m to a continental person who couldn’t afford a Ferrari. Dave tells me “viewers from over 73 nations tuned in via the company’s live HD webcast to watch spirited bidding overseen by renowned auctioneer Charlie Ross”.
A 1955 Aston Martin DB3S got $5m, the impeccable 1924 Vauxhall 30-98 OE-Type Wensum reached a world record price of $2m and the 1919 Rolls Royce 40/50 HP Silver Ghost Alpine Eagle Tourer, one of the finest restored examples ever to come to auction, got about $1.5m.
Talking of tractors, reader (No 12) David McDonald emailed me excitedly to say that the internal combustion tractor built in 1912 that sold in the US at auction in June this year for $390k was built by his grandad (thus continuing the white, male patriarchy).
“A.H. McDonald’s history of pioneering heavy engineering in Melbourne from 1907 to 1963 (approximately) is a joy to read! My father spent his entire life working in the business (in Richmond, Melbourne).
Two books have been written about the story, one on the entire history, the other specifically on tractors perhaps because they are collectors items, but there were other amazing products as well, specifically — ‘Steam Rollers’ (now called diesel rollers) the first in Australia, again.”
There you, go two perfect male parent gifts for next year.
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