Coincidences on a Windy Day

Friday was windy. It was also the day I got a Radio Listening Diary.

In the morning I walked down Magill Road on my way into town to attend a concert. Naturally I was on the footpath. Ahead of me was a tree. Up in the tree a man was cutting down branches and dropping them onto the path. I decided to cross the road to avoid danger, but found it impossible due to the traffic, of which there was a lot. The man up in the tree stopped cutting branches. I proceeded along the footpath under a shower of white sawdust and a gust of wind.

The concert was performed by the Wind Ensemble.

When, hours later, I was at home, the doorbell rang. It was a lady called Margaret, whom I did not know. She was dressed in a red crocheted hat, a large multistriped jumper, beige pants and a lanyard, and carried a yellow envelope. Do you know there is a koala in the tree outside your house? she said. No. We went to have a look, and there was.

But this was not why Margaret was here. She worked for Nielsen Polling and was seeking someone to take part in a Radio Listening Poll. Due to my recent birthday, the someone would be me.

She showed me how to fill in an immensely complex form marking off the times I listen to the radio over the next 8 days. I don't listen to the radio much, I said. Then it will be easy, she replied.

So far it has been. But I am already beginning to notice little skewing things I am being tempted to do, like fix the radio in the kitchen by placing 6 heavy books on top of it. It still doesn't work though. Nielsen would be glad, if they knew.

As for the koala, it was gone by the morning. Perhaps it was the wrong sort of tree.

( not okay )

It's last Friday. Pliny is at a Lunch Hour Concert with her mum. The Wind Ensemble is going to play American band music, finishing with a medley of tunes from Oklahoma!

Pliny isn't looking forward to that.

The finale begins and Pliny has no choice but to listen. She detests this music. I detest this music, she thinks. Then she wonders why.

Perhaps it is because she half knows the words to most of the tunes, and can't help allowing them to run through her head. O what a beautiful morning. I'm just a girl who cain't say no. The surrey with the fringe on top. These tunes remind her of the 1950s, even though they were written earlier than that. They remind her of wirelesses and next door neighbours, and frothy skirts.

Pliny drags up some old anti American feelings, about country folks and red necks and hypocrisy, and even the war in Iraq.

She pulls herself up. They're just playing the music after all, not singing the detestable words. It is Pliny who is guilty of that. I'm being unreasonable, she decides. She listens to the bitter end.

Everyone claps loudly, including Pliny and her mum. Pliny claps in that way she has of clapping when she hasn't really liked something. Her wrists flop and her hands paddle wildly. She is glad to see that some of the young musicians look slightly embarrassed.

I found myself singing all those tunes in my head, says Pliny's mum. I don't know how I knew them all. Me too, says Pliny.