The Pavlova

So, 21st September we talked here about Carlos Brito, the CEO of AB-Inbev. Brito just succeeded in his bid for SABMiller, making them now the world's largest beer company.

He doesn't own Westvleteren, of course, the world's best beer - this is owned by some Trappist monks! And this morning, Sir Christopher Passarides on Bloomberg was asked by the ever-stylish Tom Keene what his favourite beer was, to which the 2010 Nobel Laureate for Economics replied: 'something Mid-European, something with a bit more punch than the American brands.'

AB-Inbev is in fact one of these genuinely global corporations - for although it largely owns American beer brands, it is also the owner of a lot of beers made just about everywhere else, and, the company itself is headquartered in Belgium.

Does Brito drink Westvleteren...?

It's not particularly expensive so maybe he doesn't. That's often what happens to people with vast personal sums of disposable money, they buy up to what they can afford, because this seems a logical place (the expensive place) to go to get 'the best.'

The Pavlova

This morning I also had to listen to some 'nuther history researcher tell me on National Radio where the iconic Australian race-track, afternoon tea dessert - the Pavlova - came from originally. It wouldn't have mattered to her that my grandfather (his cousins owned it before, and after he did, and still do now) for a while owned the Florian Cafe... THE Florian in Venice, mind you. And so it would not be worthwhile me getting onto the radio station and apprising them of any single thing about this dessert. They already know it all.

A few hours earlier, the same Australian National Broadcaster opened the phones on the subject of a visa having been granted to Geert Wilders. On this subject of course, I would certainly not have phoned in under any circumstances to expand on the few Wiki entries here and there about how Wilders had once been in the Israeli 'voluntary brigades.' That's of course, not the whole nor even the real and accurate story of who Wilders is and where he really comes from. But to cut a story short that involves privileged information... Anyway, put it this way, Wilders is not exactly a Dutch Right Wing politician like the way he presents and like the way the media and many captive Western governments say that he is. After all, Jorg Haider, a supposedly similar political figure, strangely enough, died, after he said the sorts of things he said, as a genuine Right Wing politician.

Also a Pavlova too, but
this one is in the Restaurant Tchaikovsky
in Tallinn, Estonia

Ah the Dutch! They are about to produce today, some report about what took down MH17. I think, several years from now, you could easily read in the Wiki, that that particular plane was a long way from home, on an out-of-the-way and lonely track, and with very very drunk pilots in charge - a bit like the driver of Di's car, as a matter of fact - who had been making most indiscreet conversation on unsecure phones to um, Mel Gibson about er, certain people of a particular ethnic origin, and then... WHAM! BAM! Just as luck would have it, god struck the plane down via a missile from that old Uncle Vanya again, who just does these things in order, particularly to earn the wrath of the Western media about how baa-a-a-a-ad they are.

What a confused tale.

Anyway, this person on the National Radio, actually managed to say, that lost in time somewhere - but that however she was nevertheless able to locate the actual 'evidence' and 'proof' about it - the Pavlova, was invented by an Austrian Jew in New York, and that it is in fact a torte cake, called various other things that Jewish people, in particular, have been making for years. Oh my ******g god.

What is the idea of all of this current era iconoclasm over living folklore, even if does happen to be untrue in some cases? The folklore is what people actually believe right now. Why are there people seeking to upturn current folklore as if merely by them saying so, somehow everyone is going to change their folkloric opinions?

I mean seriously, I was waiting for the part where she was going to say that Anne Frank invented the ******g Pavlova up in the ******g Dutch attic!

Herbert Sachse from the Esplanade Hotel in Perth, Western Australia, invented the Pavlova, and there is no torte cake in it at all. The very wealthy Paxton Family, hoteliers and racehorse owners, employed chefs from all over Europe back in the 20's and 30's, and I think one of the things that need to be added, is that the Moscow Circus from way back even then, had connections to Western Australia and one of the daughters of the owner of the circus married into the other extremely wealthy, Edgley Family, who were one half of Eric Edgley and Dawe, the international theatrical agents. Anna Pavlova was brought on tour around the world by Eric Edgley and Dawe, and all of these people are known to each other. To this day, the Kremlin maintains relations with these people - Edgley's is one of the largest commercial gold traders in the Southern Hemisphere.