the day before spring
plum blossoms detonate with bees;
birds dreaming big sky

Sometimes Tom falls asleep on the lounge. Shortly after, I carry him to his room and put him to bed. He is growing heavier and I'm not sure how long I will be able to bear his weight.

These are some of my favourite times though. Pressed tight against me as I carry him to bed, I realise how strong love is that comes when it is less sought after. It is good to be a father. Very good. I don't think that there is any other experience like it and even though I came to fatherhood late, it has been an unconditional blessing.

Tom is a good boy with the potential to have a strong moral compass and a decent life. It is all about the choices he makes. Parents can only do so much.

I have just finished Peter Hessler's Country Driving. As the few readers of this blog will know, I have been immersed in Hessler's writing over the last few months. Articulate, compassionate and witty, Hessler takes three "journeys" inside China, though strictly speaking, not all of them are on-the-road journeys.

After an extensive navigation of the most remote parts of the Great Walls, Hessler settles down in a small remote village, renting a humble cottage with a fellow journalist. The town is called Sancha and lies in the mountains to the north of Beijing. Fluent in Chinese, he is able to become a genuine part (to the extent that any foreigner can) of village life. Uniquely placed as both an observer and an actor, Hessler describes the effects of the 'new capitalism' on old rural life: the decline of population and amenity and the yearning for ways of cashing in on the new economy. It is a sympathetic portrait of a village that will likely survive, if for no other reason than its proximity to Beijing. Affluence creates roads and tourism; Sancha seems destined to get a small slice of the pie.

Hessler's last foray is to the coast in Zhejiang province. The once rural town of Lishui is about to be hit by the tsunmami of economic development. Mountains are raised to provide land for factories. The latter spring up like mushrooms after hot rain. Hessler follows the beginnings and growth of a brand new bra-clip manufacturer, a niche industry that the anxious owners hope will lead to riches. In tracking the fortunes of various factory employees, he is able to demonstrate the extraordinary adaptability of the (mainly) rural Chinese who flock to these shining edifices in search of new dreams.

This is such a great book. Well done Mr Hessler. More please!

We have had a lot of rain - an absurd amount for August really - and today has been a blur of showers and patchy sunshine. I have a small washing line full of clothes dangling hopefully in the still chilly breeze. Tom is at school and I have finished a brief rehearsal for the cafe tomorrow. Now I am chatting to a friend in China on QQ for the first time in months. She is a teacher in Xian, the ancient capital of China.

I would truly like to ignore the news for a while. I thought that it might just be me who was feeling overwhelmed by the sheer freight of bad headlines, but no. The other day the experienced journalist Monica Attard, whilst in the midst of a panel interview, said that she had despaired of the terrible events in the news. She had even stopped looking, for a while. So, it's not just me.

In any event, I fall back on my earlier theory about the way information is created and disseminated in the modern era. It happens at lightning speed and in an environment in which publication is virtually instantaneous and omnipresent. It is everywhere and all the time.

Compare that with, say, how long it took for the First Fleets safe arrival at Sydney Cove to reach London in 1788.

Tom has been playing football for the Hazelbrook Hawks for two seasons now. After looking a little lost for a while, he has started to improve noticeably over the past six weeks or so. I like him to play team games as being an only child is not the clearest path to learning how to co-operate with his peers. I hope that he wants to play next year too as this will consolidate his skills, both personal and physical. Another parent, Tristan, snapped this excellent action shot of Tom two weeks ago, and I reproduce it below.

Confirmation bias is one of the reasons why two people can see the same event in a radically different way. Simply put, it is the process by which each of us filters our environment in such a way that it tends to confirm our world view. Broadly speaking, if you have, say, a pessimistic view of the world around you (that, for example, it's dangerous), then you will quite naturally hone in on information that confirms this view. You will see the headline about the terrorist threat, and 'filter out' the larger headline about good economic growth.

We all do it and the only way to mitigate against it is to monitor yourself and ask questions, constantly. Of course, that is hard work and it is easier to leap straight back into the breach, where well-worn mental threads bind you to a way of thinking and acting. Confirmation bias happens on both a macro and micro level. It is just as relevant to the person who seeks out information about their unpopularity at the office party, in spite of evidence to the contrary, to the person who scans the headlines or the news aggregators. We select data in and select it out to reflect our own biases and to confirm what we already know about ourselves and the world. Trouble is that what we know is often inaccurate or self-defeating.

Being a cautious optimist myself, I remain hopeful of good news in most situations. But I suffer from confirmation bias like everyone else. I try hard to see the good in the world, but the overwhelming narrative of war, atrocity, barbarity, drugs, pornography and human insufficiency is powerful. Yes, there is a media bias towards bad, sensational or disturbing news, undoubtedly, which I factor in. It is hard, in a 24/7 information-saturated climate, to find a reasonable and rational middle path. And yet, it is possible.

a client

for you, this shaking.
outside, sun works the steely earth,
'darkly' inside, you cry

On the subject of live gigs at the Warehouse, a friend took a few shots last Friday. I guess one day I might look back and think that I did what I set out to do.