Murty Man That I Am…

Once again I’ve neglected this rusty old site for another week *sigh*…

Anyway, if you travel bang out into the middle of outback Australia, in to the Flinders Ranges, you may well encounter this crazy Dutchman who goes by the name of Talc Alf (pictured below), who has been resident in the middle of nowhere for a good twenty years.



He is a truly eccentric chap who makes a living as a sculptor, making all manner of bizarre constructions from the soft stone that talcum powder is made. Such as Murty Johny above, whom I am imitating wearing a rather fetching fly net if I don’t say so myself (damn those bush flies in January are nasty).

Not only is Talc Alf a man who has spent twenty odd years in the outback carving letters into talc stone, but he also has an interesting theory about how the letters of the alphabet had a direct link with those carvings done tens of thousands of years ago by our distant ancestors. For example, his explanation for the letter 'B' is that it is the symbol for women, because when you lay a 'B' on its side is a visual depiction of a women's breasts, obviously. An ‘E’ has three equal strokes on it and so that's obviously where you get the words ‘equal’ and ‘equivalent’. In the Letter F the top stroke is a bit further forward and that's where you obviously get ‘fast’ and ‘faster’ etc…

I think perhaps Mr Alf has been subjected to a bit too much of the hot bush sunshine over the years, but nevertheless we spent an enjoyable albeit quite bizarre hour in his company. Good on ya Talc!