As my last post for the year, I want to reference the past. Specifically, to a photo I found in an essay at the Japan Times, which talked about the many and varied ruins (haikyo) of Japan. Amongst the abandoned theme parks, industrial sites, temples, museums and follies, there are plain old family homes that are empty, abandoned. There are more and more of these as Japanese society ages and the countryside depopulates.

One photo in particular caught my attention, an empty room from a house that has been left, intact, just so, with all its belongings, at a time unknown. When I look at this photo I feel like an intruder, for it is as if the owners just got up one day, walked out and never returned. A low table in the foreground has books, a coffee mug, a bowl, a bedside clock reading 2.30. Stopped or not, I do not know. The wall clock, I notice, shows a different time. In a sense there is no time, in another, a blur of past and present and the near future.

Around the walls of this traditional, tatami-floored space are photos of family members, an ancient TV, knick-knacks and a cabinet full of porcelain. A floor fan sits squarely in the middle of the room, still plugged-in. Was it summer when the last occupant left? I squint to see more detail from the wall calendar, but alas, I cannot make it out. I am still the intruder, remaining in this moment of a life that has not changed within, though the people who lived here have gone, suddenly and perhaps, unexpectedly.



some things are haunting,
the spirits of this once-peopled place-
slowly, sipping tea.

If there is a time for reflection upon the nature of things, surely the unfolding of one year into another is one such moment, and we should grasp, tightly.

Happy New Year

Radio drama was once a staple in many lounge rooms in the pre-TV era. Whole families crowded around the wireless for the latest installment of their favourite series or show. Their popularity was extraordinary, but the advent of the cathode-ray tube sent them into decline. There was just no competing with such a new visually-powerful medium.

But podcasting has rescued and revived the form and I have only just found out, of course. You will know that I am an avid listener to podcasts, but an overdose of American-politics slanted offerings consumed in the lead-up to the US Presidential election last month has left me jaded. I needed a break.

Enter LifeAfter by Panoply. I won't say anymore. You should listen for yourself.

In recent days Ann has has a sore back and thankfully, her hotel did not need workers from her agency during the same period. So we spent more time together, a precious commodity for both of us.

This gave us the opportunity for some modest gadding about. We lunched at the inexpensive Japanese cafe Hana in Leura, rode bikes down to Lake Woodford and visited the Thai temple in Annandale. We went to the small but friendly Mid-Mountains Festival (where Tom was appearing in a flashmob dance routine) and did Christmas shopping in the City and back here in the Mountains.

Now she is back at work and alas, I have only a few photo memories to remind me of this happy time.

As shamelessly noted many times before, Daiso is one of my favourite shops. This is not least because it puts me in mind of the $2 shops in Japan, but also because we used to shop at Daiso whilst living there. These days I have a full set of crockery that I bought bit by bit over about three years, which just happens to be the same pattern. I love Japanese porcelain, even the bottom-end stuff.

Just recently I have taken a shine to a small solar-powered bobbling toy that comes in many varieties, including a sumo wrestler. Here is my collection thus far. Also pictured is the actual Daiso we once frequented, located near Kawayoke on the 176.

The Moo Choir season finished yesterday with a Christmas gig for Meals On Wheels clients at Lawson. It was not exactly a Christmas set, though we did finish with three traditional carols. This has been a big year for the choir and I think that the standard of singing has continued to improve, a process which has been helped by having to do some high-octane shows at Blackheath and Canberra. There is nothing like a big concert in front of a paying audience to sharpen the attention and focus the voice.

The photo below was taken yesterday after our performance and shows a truncated Moo Choir (not all could attend on a weekday) and the inimitable Tom Bridges, helping us out in the basses.

An article I read at the BBC today discussed the more difficult role of native speakers of English in a world of expanding non-native speakers, particularly in the workplace. It found that native speakers, when communicating with non-native speakers, need to speak more slowly, avoid slang and idiomatic expressions and also expand their contractions. In the latter case (obviously), it's becomes it is, don't becomes do not and so forth.

Well, good to get that learnt! I look forward to more in the vein of, Studies Show That Water Quenches Thirst, and similar space-fillers.

As one of the myriad parts of the process of applying for a Permanent Residency Visa to live in Australia, Ann has to complete a police check in both her home country, Thailand, and here in Australia. She applied for and received her AFP check in almost record time, the document arriving today. Not so myself, for being a citizen of a country obviously puts you at a disadvantage by virtue of the fact that your residency clearly gives you the time and means to commit crimes. But today I received an email saying that I was clear and would likewise receive a certificate in the mail shortly.

Success at these kind of clearances (I have twice passed the NSW Police Crimcheck) nevertheless gives me the heebeejeebees. Past injustices at the hands of authorities have made me suspicious of law enforcement in general and the manner in which they collect and store information in particular. Citizens are right to be vigilant against the intrusions of the State, lawful though it might be. Liberty should not be taken for granted nor is its continuance a given. The kind of freedoms we enjoy today are likely to be a high watermark of sorts; history suggests that authoritarianism can re-emerge as easily as it was vanquished, and the notion that liberal democracy is the end-point is just another kind of utopianism. Actually, it's just plain silly.

Meanwhile, on an entirely different topic, here is a picture from Greg's wedding in Springwood in September. It's hot off the cold press, as they say. Ann and I are both in it, though not together, if you can spot us.

Hazelbrook, like many towns, has developed over the past 120 years, though the changes have often been small and incremental. Occasionally large projects come along which substantially alter the appearance of significant swathes of the village, such as the highway widening and the railway pedestrian bridge. These are invariably controversial with some older residents, though matters do tend to settle down. Many people don't like change or feel threatened by it, which is perfectly understandable.

I came across this photo of the newly-minted Hazelbrook shops the other day, whose development lead eventually to the complete relocation of shops from the southern side. I would place it at around 1966, judging by the HD or HR Holden in the foreground. Curiously the photo appears to have been taken from the embankment of the railway line or on the line itself, and the people in the photo are clearly aware that it's being snapped.

2016 on Tatami Twist has been rather prolific, though previous years have set a fairly low bar. So perhaps it is better to say that the year has been one of moderate penmanship. I don't cover much of a range of subjects, for my purvey largely rests on cultural, historical and political issues, with the odd haiku thrown in.

I suppose that this gives the impression that the people around me matter less, but this is certainly not the case. I don't want to labor the point with family and personal relationships in what is, after all, a public space. That kind of thing is done to death elsewhere, notably on Facebook. I won't pretend that other people, outside of a very small subset, are at all interested in my son Tom or my love for Ann. I think it is rather sad that anyone thinks that the minutiae of their lives is worthy of a public airing, and usually, over and over again.

I guess that my productivity at TT is the outworking of a rather happy year. I am happily married, not in debt and healthy. Tom seems to be doing fairly well. Yes, I really need more work but I know that will come if I really want it.

Meanwhile, here is doge.

The popular vote in the US has now passed the 2 million mark in favour of the vanquished Hillary Clinton but it counts for nothing, for the Electoral College is the critical and only factor in choosing a President. That such a plurality exists for the loser in the contest is curious to say the least and raises the issue of legitimacy for the new regime. If it does not bother the President-Elect (and surely it does, given his ludicrous tweets) then it may sit at the back of voters' minds.

I have spoken of Trump as being more approximate to a medieval Pope than a modern President and I suspect that this will play out in various ways over the next four years. The allusion extends to the notion of a monarch in general, with courtiers and layers of yes-people waiting on the new King, with all the intrigues and shifting for influence that that entails. Traditionally courts have been hotbeds of favour and disfavour and the jostling for the ear of the King will be interesting, and the outcomes, hugely important.

Meanwhile, here is a great article from Slate's Will Saletan on how to manipulate Trump once he is President for the purposes of ameliorating the potential worst excesses.


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/how_to_manipulate_donald_trump.html

My chance encounter with the Onishi's yesterday got me thinking, once again, about things Japanese. It is hard for me to state in any rational way just how much I loved my time in Japan and how most of my life since returning seems like treading water. It is a postscript in a dull book. There have been smallish summits here and there (Ann is one exceptional high spot) but nothing to match the quality of that period. I suppose this is what is meant by peak experience.

By coincidence today, I stumbled on a song that I liked from my immersion in the J-POP scene on my first working trip to Sanda in 2001. It was approaching Christmas that year and becoming genuinely cold outside. My time out from classes sometimes gave me the chance to watch a cable music channel, such as Viewsic. Amongst the many ordinary pop servings was a Christmas song by Keisuke Kuwata, White Lover(Shiroi Koibito tachi). The artist sits outdoors at a piano as the snows falls, the black and white photography highlighting the isolation of various individuals whose lives are shown in sharp relief to the presumed spirit of the season. But the gentle insinuation of the snow is an irresistible force in finding new connections - it is the white lover. The song is one of those pretty ballads that, with time, grows on you. Finding it again today was quite a blessing and I include a couple of stills from the video which unfortunately, is not available online.

Today I popped down to Coles at Winmalee to do a shop before meeting Tom after school. This is something that I do regularly and, often as not, it passes without any event out of the ordinary.

But today was different, for as I navigated the crisps aisle, I ran into two people I haven't seen in almost 10 years. Mr and Mrs Onishi, who lived in a house in the street behind us in Sanda, and whose family had a very close connection with Yes English School, were trolleying up the same aisle, collecting souvenirs for their return to Japan. I think that I was well, astonished, but also terribly pleased to see them. We had a short conversation about the family - small talk really - for their English is rudimentary and my Japanese quite forgotten.

Members of the Onishi family, principally Setsuko and Makiko, but also Keiko, had studied with our English school for years. They were also friends and showed us many kindnesses during our time in Japan. So to run into the heads of this special household was an unalloyed joy.

Incidentally, I have it on good authority that the Earth is really the only place to be. I cite Dr Zachary Smith, he of the Lost in Space saga who found that there was simply no substitute for the original, and this, having reluctantly traveled to many dismal planets. In fact, Dr Smith was willing to do almost anything, commit any treachery, just to get back to the Earth. That was not to be. The good Doctor was far too avaricious to get the ride home. And he didn't much like aliens, to boot!

Eminent physicist Stephen Hawking warned recently that humanity needed to colonize other worlds in order to avoid the risk of being made extinct as a result of a catastrophe on Earth. It comes amidst much talk about manned missions to Mars; expeditions that plan to set up new settlements with a no return to the mother planet policy, permanent habitats.

I get the idea that humans are destined to explore and that the boundaries of the Earth have nearly been breached in all directions, save perhaps the ocean floors. By all means, let's explore because it is inspirational, collaborative and may, for a period at least, focus all people on a single project. I remember the excitement of being present in my Grade 5 classroom as Armstrong placed his foot on the lunar surface. I remember the following year, as Apollo 13 ran into trouble, mulling over all the engineering options with friends in the school quad. Imaginations ran amok about events at what seemed to us, an impossible distance.

But if we really want to avoid extinction on the planet we evolved on, why not start at home. You don't need to run away into the cosmos at huge expense and risk if you do the hard yards of eliminating nuclear weapons entirely here. Likewise, money will buy the technology to survey Near Earth Objects more closely, and to put platforms into space that can launch probes and weapons to divert pesky asteroids that might do us harm. Across the range of potential catastrophe's there are few that sheer determination and serious financial backing can't ameliorate to some extent. The odds will lengthen on our extinction.

By all means let's go to Mars. But let's not throw out the baby while we are doing it.

For a few months now I have been doing a short crossword each day. They are not long and not difficult though now and then, quite simple words fail to emerge from the vault of my mind. But yesterday I finished the last crossword and today I publish the final totals chart. Each little box with a star inside is an individual crossword. Quite a lot, if you count them all up!

Yesterday I took Tom and his friend Sean to Haymarket to play Laser Tag, though really I just wanted to get him out of the house and away from the dreaded screen. On the top floor of the shopping complex that hovers above Paddy's Markets there is a games arcade of sorts that accommodates the aforementioned laser game, but also boasts a dodgem cars rink and a great many video and mechanically-augmented games. The journey from Hazelbrook was long and the train was crowded with cheap ticket day-trippers, amongst whom I guess we should have counted ourselves.

At some point we strolled through Haymarket, for the boys wanted slushies, and on the way back down Dixon Street, which we would call the epicentre of Sydney's China Town, there was a hoola-hooping clown. I have often seen him there, elevated on a box, hips gyrating to Chinese electronic folk music. He is the kind of performer who would induce passing adults to describe a small but discernible semi-circular buffer zone, lest they be summoned by his fantastical self. Children have no such compunctions and so, of course, we found ourselves entering the world of the clown.

Turns out that this interesting man is an 84 year old Korean War veteran, whose central hoola-hooping purpose is religious. He was proselytizing for a Korean Church and he asked me to read a passage from a Good News Bible, which I was only too happy to do. And he insisted on taking this photo with Tom, bless him!

Last Tuesday I started a new volunteer job, teaching ESL at the Thai Welfare Association in Sydney. I have been becoming increasingly desperate to get out of the house and do something useful for a while now, for I find my other volunteer work not especially challenging.

Just being in the space with the freshly-arranged tables and expectant white board and students arriving was exciting enough for me, and would have been sufficient. But the lesson (only two students could attend) was a delight and I hope that I can continue with classes into the future.

Searching for and adapting resources for this level of student has also been surprisingly interesting - not a chore all! I have been amazed and gratified by the sheer volume of ESL-based worksheets of all stripes. Not all are up to scratch but the fact that other teachers have gone to the trouble to create and publish their work shows a generosity that I hope to repay in the near future.

Without labouring the point about things Trump (the point is definitely laboured -ed.) it occurred to me that Trump is less like a modern dictator, though he is undoubtedly demagogic, and somewhat more like a corrupt Pope.

Consider Rodrigo Borgia, who became Alexander V1 in 1492. An outsider (from Spain), he had a number of illegitimate children whom he later promoted shamelessly. His reign is associated with gross nepotism, deceit, immorality and quite possibly the assassination of rivals. Trump doesn't have the latitude in the modern era to emulate Alexander, but he has qualities and opportunities that might be Borgia-like. Trump is a kind of outsider himself and is fulsome in promoting his children and close associates; he will wield significant power over appointments and can veto any legislation that comes to him from the Congress.

A Borgia he may well be.

Though Trump has won the Electoral College handily, he did not win the popular vote. Clinton won a plurality of the vote with 47.7 to 47.3% at the most recent count, which amounts to about 400,000 voters in round terms. Before you shout we wuz robbed this situation has happened a number of time before in American history, most recently and notoriously, in 2000 with Bush/Gore. Below is a little graphic got up by The Guardian, demonstrating this very fact.

Let's consider the proposition that Trump is a performance artist. The past 18 months have been so outlandish, so genuinely befitting of the moniker surreal, that one is led to wonder whether the offensive, contradictory, racist and misogynistic personage put forward as a serious candidate is real at all. What if this Trump, or, this iteration of Trump at least, is a clever role-play by a man who has accurately read the electorate and gambled that such a characterization would maximize his chances of winning the White House? Or, if not the White House, then a new career in media or suchlike as a consolation prize? Is it that implausible?

There are already some indications that Trump may be backing away from some of the key policies on which he campaigned, this in spite of having a majority in the Republican Congress. If Trump is principally a performance then we cannot know how he will govern or what he will do, since all that preceded was essentially provisional, purely a means to an end.

The coming months will test this thesis, so please watch this space.

Jacob Weisberg. the host of the podcast Trumpcast, thought that his broadcast would would end with the US election this week. After dozens and dozens of programs analysing the odd and oftentimes outrageous candidacy of the man Trump, Mr Weisberg was clearly looking forward to a return to something more appetizing. Trump was to be cast out into the business world from which he had unreasonably emerged, a kind of return to the black lagoon.

Not so. The man-baby has won and the show goes on, one of the few sources of solace in this ghastly mess.

Just finished listening to the FiveThirtyEight day-after podcast with Nate and the team. As usual, and despite their obvious exhaustion, there was a balanced and erudite discussion of what just happened. Its seems that Trump tapped into a discontent, comprised of fear or anger, that many blue collar Americans felt about their plight in a global economy. Conversely, Clinton could not completely put together the same coalition of groups that propelled Obama to victory twice, though she came very close. There was only a one point difference in three critical states which, had the reverse been true, would have made her President and changed today's narrative.

Of course, it's much more complex than that. So now, the Republican Party controls the whole game in Washington. The party that spent years obstructing the governance of the country must now govern. Democracy is a strange thing, and a messy thing but in spite of results that we may or may not like, it's still the best thing going.

Oops! I didn't see that coming! On the other hand, I did have an uneasy feeling these past two weeks.

I'll dissect this all later.

You will know by now that I closely follow American politics at the national level. Today, after months of campaigning in the nastiest and perhaps most controversial election process in living memory, I am watching the results come in on TV. Clinton is favoured to win by most pundits though the ones I give most credence to are the guys at FiveThirtyEight.

More later on this exciting and perhaps seminal vote.

Tom went on his first-ever way from home school camp last week. Ann and I picked him up yesterday. Waiting in the bleaching late afternoon sun as the buses snaked into the school bus area, disgorging crowds of tired students and equally tired teachers, the homecoming threatened to become a melee over bags and space. In the restricted space betwixt school wall and bus, it was a very tight fit and a disorderly end to what must have been a highly organised week.

The Sport and Recreation Camp, Myuna Bay, gave the kids the chance to do all the outdoorsy thing that they often don't do these days - canoeing and sailing, rock climbing and obstacle coursing, bush-walking and setting campfires. There was archery but also all the cooking and cleaning-up chores, great good fun no doubt and instructive too. Below I post two initial photos of Tom at play with his friends, though he is but a small figure in the broader scheme of things.

heels quicken, high

coils of hattery totter-

all for a horse race

Last Saturday Ann and I made the long journey out to Bondi to attend Sculpture By The Sea. In case you are unaware, this is an outdoor exhibition of sculptures that are set amongst the landscape between South Bondi and Tamarama. They fairly approximately follow the line of the public walkway between those two beaches, though the sculptural objects themselves are set high and low and betwixt the the natural formations. This part of the Sydney coastline is quite dramatic, with rocky ledges and outcrops falling to small inlets and beachlets. Viewers of the works vied with regular morning joggers for the very limited space on the path. I found the whole thing both refreshing and amusing and very Bondi. Later we headed back to Bondi Junction for lunch at Pochana.

Amongst the knitted stupas-

This world of dew
is only a world of dew -
and yet

Issa


A world in just two words, really.

I have finally finished the lengthy tome on Kang Sheng, which proved a challenge at times. The authors, who obviously spent long hours on researching their subject, held the narrative line together moderately well, but the sheer volume of information and seemingly arcane lists of names and relationships made the going tough, now and then. But the picture of Kang was clear enough, a man of vast ambition and no conscience, for whom no treachery or distortion was too great.

It is a wonder how such people can live with themselves, for though we all harbor secrets, some darker than others, and while most of us reserve a part of ourselves for only ourselves, it is the scale of things that matters. There is a difference between telling a white lie, exaggerating a tax claim by a few dollars, possessing some workplace stationary, making the odd disparaging remark or insult, even throwing a punch out of jealousy or fear, there is a difference between these and many similar everyday foibles and the act of stepping over the still-warm corpses of others in pursuit of power.

Then again, maybe these people do not live with themselves after all. Perhaps, like Kang in old age and sickness, they ramble out of fear of being discovered, of being exposed by the sub-conscious.

The times suited Machiavellian ideologues such as Kang. Below, two photos from the chaotic Cultural Revolution, a period that privileged chaos and Mao worship.

Tonight is the 40th anniversary reunion of the Class of 1976 for Killarney Heights High School. I could not attend the 20th and 30th iterations and I suspect this might be the last chance to catch up with folks I haven't seen in decades. I am not a great one for reunions (eschewing, as I do, the need to nostalgia) but I feel I should make the effort, even if it means a long journey to North Sydney. Having met up again with old school buddy Wayne Parrott at my wedding, I do have at least one person I can talk to. But there will be others too and I feel that I should try to open to surprises.

Amongst the trove of memorabelia that has been appearing the the reunion Facebook site have been old school photos. The one below is my old Year 11 (5th Form) English class. I am at bottom left.

I have been reading (in an on and off fashion) a book by John Pack and Robert Byron, The Claws of the Dragon about Kang Sheng.'Kang who?' I hear you ask. Readers of this obscure blog will know that I have a deep interest in Chinese history, and Kang comes in very recently indeed in that chronology, almost in the last 5 minutes, if we think in terms of the millennia involved.

Kang is not well known because he was a behind the scenes operator, a bright, cultured but cynical opportunist who exploited his relationships with his superiors to enhance his own power. Most importantly, he made himself indispensable to Mao as both an ideologue and head of the secret police, a master of creating something out of nothing. He was ruthless in stabbing friends or colleagues in the back to enhance his own position, and that period between the the end of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution and beyond was to prove very fruitful for a man of Kang's persuasion and dark talents. Kang saw substance where there was shadow and could fabricate conspiracy from whatever facts lay before him, regardless of their logic.

Two interesting pics of Kang, firstly with Mao in Yannan in the 1940's (where he cut his teeth as a key operator in the Rectification Program) and next with Jiang Qing and Zhou En-Lai during the Cultural Revolution.

Now and then I listen to the BBC podcast, In Our Time, moderated by Melvyn Bragg. I like to lose myself in the long lines of history, philosophy, culture and science that background the topics under discussion, as I walk the streets of Hazelbrook. Today the panel of academics inveighed upon Thucydides, the Greek historian who chronicled the Peloponnesian War. I didn't study Ancient History at school so I have a lot of making up to do!

On another topic less grand, today is my 58th birthday. Google opened today with scenes of cake and a nice greeting, computer-generated I know, but pleasant all the same. Birthday's really are for children, for they are the ones for whom the phenomenon of each passing year is still fresh, and therefore more exciting. Presents are nice to receive, though I prefer giving them. Truly I would rather such events could slide by unnoticed and I suppose for some people, they do. So really, I should count my blessings.

Changing tack again, here is a photo of Ann and I from a wedding a week before ours, one in which I had Best Man and MC duties. The photographer kindly ushered us outside for the shot, his gift for our impending nuptials.

Ann woke me up early the other morning. She had just checked the news on her phone. "My King is dead" she said, before lying down again. I spent the next hour or two nestling in to her and though she said nothing, I knew that she was terribly sad.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej reigned as a constitutional monarch for 70 years, a record for our time. By all accounts he was a decent King, committed to the Thai people, a man of many talents. On the occasions in the 1990's when I traveled to Thailand, portraits of the King and Queen were omnipresent as was the sense of reverence that ordinary Thai's felt. In a country with fractious politics, the King was a stabilizing influence and a constant source of reassurance. I hope that the next King proves to be as good as this fine man was.

I found this great shot of two monarchs side by side, a picture taken in Bangkok in 1972. Queen Sirikit is in the rear, with Prince Philip on her left.

dawn's strange frost
mica sheets on startled spring grass,
and somewhere, a king dead

The latest revelations about Donald Trump come as no surprise, though one might have expected them to emerge earlier, such as during the Republican Primaries. Trump's imprudent (surely sexist, vile, borderline-criminal -ed.) remarks in a hot-mike moment some 11 years ago reveal nothing new about the character of the man. He has been touting his flawed credentials for decades now and thus far he has blustered his way through a Presidential campaign.

It's amazing really that there are still 40% of voting Americans who are prepared to stay with him to this point and beyond, a fact that speaks volumes to the kind of anger, disillusionment, and perhaps plain wrong-headedness of some folks. The story of Trump has the sense of Greek Tragedy about it, with the central character striving for illusory greatness despite a massive character flaw. As the protagonist rants before the audience, the Chorus chants darkly about the approach of news that will strike him down. Or maybe it would make a better musical, with big numbers and a chorus of dancing girls. I can see Trump emerging down a marble staircase in a spangly jacket singing Grab That Pussy.


Today's 538 Podcast was just hilarious, Trump being the inevitable topic du jour. The aforementioned foursome are some of the brightest and wittiest folks I have encountered in the world of podcasting, a much-needed tonic to the sorry exploits of one of their countrymen.

through this curtain crack
I see cloud chasing horn of moon
again, and again

Last night was very windy, so much so, that when I awoke to an other-worldly crashing sound at 1.30, the house was in pitch-blackness. There was a power outage and the street lights were out and the small table lamp we often leave on in the front room was extinguished.

Stumbling through the dense inkiness of a light-less house, I glanced out a window. Trees were bending in impossible poses, then whipping back the other way. Nameless objects bounced and shot across grass and street, helpless in the sheer pummeling of the gale.

Back in bed, with Ann's steady breathing to settle me, Ted Hughes Wind popped into my head, whole verses intact over twenty years. Such is the power of suggestion and the connections we make between our lived past and the very moment we are in.

Wind

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up -
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

It seems remarkable really - perhaps even astonishing - that with only six weeks until the US Presidential election, Trump and Clinton are neck and neck in the polls. Sure, Clinton is nominally up a couple of points since the first debate, but that in itself must be cause for concern. Even if you don't like or trust Mrs Clinton, there is so much that is disqualifying about Donald Trump that those few percentage points that separate him from his opponent are simply head-scratching.

I get the conservative view point, or a version of it at least. Government is better off smaller, individuals should be empowered, marriage and many other traditional institutions shouldn't be tampered with, taxes should be lower, business unshackled from regulation, and so forth. I may not agree with these and the raft of other choices that are usually offered, but I still think that these are defensible positions.

Trump is incoherent, childish, inconsistent, rude, dangerously populist and (please insert a string of negative qualities here). He may well be inept. I cannot understand how a serious Republican could make such a choice, even if they loath the alternative.

Charming. Would even John Falstaff drink with this man?

I bought Ann a second hand Giant mountain bike last week and today we cycled together down to Woodford Lake. I have walked this track many times in the past but surprisingly, our jaunt this afternoon was the first time I have tried it on a bike. It was a genuine pleasure to get back on the saddle and scoot along at what was really only a leisurely pace at best, supplemented by even more sedate moments when we were pushing our machines up steep grades, of which there were many. It was also a great pleasure to be cycling with Ann, who is starting to get the hang of the 18 speed gears.

Unfortunately we didn't take a camera - next time we will - but below I reproduce a stock photo of the lake in all its glory.

Ann and I went to Canberra the week after our wedding, ostensibly for a short honeymoon. I've been to the capital city many times but I was only too happy to see things for the 5th, 6th or 7th time, since I was with the bride. We stayed at the charming Hotel Mercure and met up with my old school friend Hawk (and his wife Elo) for dinner once, though otherwise we were alone for the duration. I am not one for gratuitously dumping photos at this blog, but perhaps this single time I might indulge the reader. Honeymoons don't happen everyday.

I rarely weigh in on forums online. The sheer volume of personal vitriol that accompanies perfectly reasonable commentary makes it an unpleasant chore, no matter how weighty the issue. Even responding to a mild Facebook provocation can cue fanatical responses, which begs the question really. The middle ground from which I usually reply is an increasingly diminishing space in the cyber-world and it is the relatively covert nature of the latter that guarantees that anyone with an opinion can sally forth. That is not necessarily a good thing - democratic or not - there is surely some obligation on the correspondent to make an effort to be informed. More often than that, it is not the case.

A few days ago I sent a response to an article that appeared in local Sydney daily which, while certainly dressed up as entertainment, was nevertheless a poorly thought through attack on a popular TV comedy. So I wrote this short note. My apologies for the quality of the screenshot.

I may have mentioned that NHK World on my cable network has started broadcasting the highlights of the Grand Sumo Tournament. Such contests last 15 days and the current one is being held in Tokyo. Sumo is an acquired taste but once the spark is ignited, it starts a fire. When I lived in Japan, sumo was a constant late afternoon companion, with the top division (Makuuchi) being an especial treat.

Since that time many wrestlers (rikishi) have retired and a new crop are on the scene, though I recognised Hakuho and Harumafuji as two standouts from the past, who are still dominating in the present. But this tournament has gone, somewhat surprisingly, to Osaka native and ozeki Goeido, who is at 14-0 after defeating Tamawashi today. His first Emperor's Cup!

This being the 100th blog of the year (some congratulations surely being in order) I will revert to type and address the man of the moment, Donald Trump. I do not mean this in any laudatory manner, for the oafish Don is not a person whom I respect. But Trump brought to mind one other great liar of the past, Joseph Goebbels. I do not mean to conflate the American with Nazism or with any Nazi type, because I think that regime is in a category of its own. But Goebbels and Trump understand at least one tactic with which crowds might be swayed - the big lie. "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." the venomous Nazi once said, before proceeeding to do just that, over and over again.

Trump tells a lot of lies but few bigger than his assertion last week that Clinton had invented the (President Obama) Birther Issue back in 2008 and that he, Trump, had finished it. As brazen as lies get, this is quite near top of the charts. As the words came out of his mouth, mine was hanging open in disbelief. I have followed this story for years now, with Trump leading the charge, demanding birth certificates, casting doubt on their authenticity, reveling in his role as the champion of the cause. As coded racism it does not get much murkier and unethical.

But the big lie can work and it has worked for Trump and others in the past. Whether he pays a price remains to be seen, but he has proved thus far to be the orange-flecked teflon man.

Once upon a time though, this one was the real deal.....

I don't want to indulge in much more post-wedding celebratory photography, but a couple of photos more won't hurt, or so posterity tells me. Firstly, my son Tom, for whom this might have been an awkward day, held the ring that I placed on Ann's finger. He acquitted himself admirably on the occasion and won a lot of praise, not least from the Thai women who wanted to line him up for marriage with their future daughters.

Secondly my mum - for whom my numerous romances post high school have have held a special terror and who I know wishes me only happiness - this day was a kind of triumph. She is very happy with Ann and has earned a new daughter along the way. At the very least, she knows that I am sorted out for the future and likely to stay that way. And truly, that is the plan.

There are lots of things I could talk about if I was write up a summary of our wedding day on September 10th. But an interesting historical note seems apt here, because on this day, two my oldest friends from high school were present as guests. Wayne and John had not seen each other in 30 years, and we had not been together as a group(of three) for at least that period of time. Wayne and I went our separate ways, almost by accident, not too long after high school. Hawk and I kept up through the common ground of our political outlooks, which stood at odds with our school cohort. So the following photo, which includes my gorgeous bride and Hawk's lovely wife Elo, is kind of a remarkable document.

Sometimes I am walking along, as is my near-daily wont, and I burst into laughter. Occasionally I am in proximity of other people, so the matter is a little embarrassing, though really it shouldn't be. There is nothing wrong with laughing out loud, even on a lonely bush track, or in the midst of suburbia, or whilst queuing at a checkout, though laughter out of a specific social context can be seen as awkward, or even dangerous.

It is not a sign of madness, per se, though it might be in some cases. In my circumstances, it is almost always occasioned by a podcast I am listening to, that podcast generally being political. I could narrow the field even further to a few particular podcasts but I won't bore you further. Today's FiveThirtyEight podcast was hilarious. Below, Silver, Malone, Enten, and Avirgan. Thanks guys.