Sisters

I've really been enjoying Jem Shaw's blog about his trip with his brother, Martin and friend, Adrian. The trio descend not once but three times into deepest darkest France to repatriate (de-patriate?) to England, a very nice looking, little, yellow aeroplane.

Some of Jem's comments remind me of the vicissitudes of being the eldest sibling, in my case, to a sister, five years my younger. [Don't tell her I said that because according to said sibling, she is "twenty-nine" and I am "twenty-nine and some months" (cough)].

Of course the main thing, with respect to the relationship, is that if your little sister is a barrister with an LLM hons, then, no matter what, you never, ever, win an argument, ever. However, Naughtiness (not, said sibling's real name) has over the years caused her older sister some not insubstantial degree of consternation.

Like any brave young Aussie, she followed in the footsteps of the great Northern adventurer, Clive James, by moving to London for two and a half years. She took the usual slow, upwardly mobile course of living in a cheap B&B in Earls Court, then a bedsit in Wembley and then, when a brick came through the window, a share house in Battersea.

It was not the 'falling towards England' that was the problem but the crackly reverse-charge international phone calls landing like scud missiles at un-godly hours of the morning. The calls tended to come in three main types.

The most worrying type always started with "Dude, I'm sick," in a teary, high-pitched tone. Most people have probably experienced similar calls but how many of them are expected to put FRACP level medical knowledge into action at a distance of 16000 km at two in the morning?

You start listening, intently, for subtle signs of delirium, dyspnoea and sometimes dysentery and then you stop listening and start trying to remember if you have ever heard anybody mention the English emergency number: not 911, that's American, not 000, that's here, not 666, it wouldn't be that. Perhaps the international operator would help?

The next type of call always started I-just-wanted-to-let-someone-know-where
-I-was-going-but-please-don't-tell-Mum-and-Dad." This was followed by, for example, the taking down of a complex series of Aeroflot flight numbers, a shared and semi-accurate recital of the Cyrillic alphabet and the rote learning of the address and telephone number of an obscure Moscow youth hostel.

The third type was certainly less vexing but just as perplexing. On answering the phone, one would hear the cacophony of a pub on quiz night and then the following: "Dude, what is the name of the body of water between China and Taiwan?" um, Formosa Strait, "Ta Dude, see ya!" or, "Dude, what was the name of the base in Hawaii Five-0?" um, Iolani Palace, "Are you sure?" um, Yes. You get the picture.

Still, where would I be without someone to tilt their head to one side, examine mine as though it were an aubergine and say with some gentle exasperation, "You didn't put any product in your hair today, did you?"