As I have tediously alluded to before (8.10.15) one of my ichiban sukina programs on NHK is Document 72 Hours, in which a film crew choose a location and sit it out for three days, interviewing whoever comes along. Most of these interviews are just fragments but sometimes, the encounter will go longer and deeper. I have rarely emerged from one of these 25 minute programs without feeling changed in some way.

Today's 72 Hours was set at the most northerly point in Japan in the depths of winter. Cape Soya lies at the very tip of Hokkaido and faces across from Sakhalin Island, a Russian territory. In summer it is probably a booming little tourist town, but in December it is nearly deserted, except for a small band of mostly bikers who annually journey to this frigid spot to see in the new year.

So this was a little window into how strangers can form shoals of friendship in adverse conditions (camping in tents, no less) for reasons that many of them found hard to articulate. "I read about it in a textbook" one young man said. "I came here on a whim" said another. "I'm running away from my family and job" added yet another young man. All seemed to be searching for something that had eluded them in their work-a-day lives, and coming to this remote spot was part of that seeking journey. I think it is this sense of yearning, but not being exactly sure what for, or why, that most challenges me. Maybe I yearn for the unknowable, the unreachable, or maybe just for Japan.

Though it could also be the


cotton-wool sky dear
and a moon that's chasing through it
and me, so missing you



The monument at Cape Soya in better weather.

lambent dog-day moon
burning kanji on my curtains,
plumb-leaf traveller

Today I drove Ann to the airport for her short vacation in Thailand. In ten days she is hoping to catch up with her two children, Jam and JJ, her sister Noy, her mother, her dentist nephew and doubtless many others. She is also planning to divorce her husband. A full card indeed!

On the way home through traffic-drenched Sydney, I decided to pop into Roselands. Roselands was the original big shopping mall in Australia, dating from 1965. It was such a novel place that people would take day trips there, for never were so many shops and facilities housed under one vast roof before. My family too would make school holiday trips to Roselands, the whole day spent hunting up and down the escalators, running through Grace Brothers (now Myer) and being treated to a lunch at the stupendous Four Corners food court.

The Centre also boasted a raindrop fountain and various sculptures, which were, I think, an attempt to usher Australians into a new cultural awakening. Today, some 40 years after my last visit, I noticed that the fountain and sculptures were gone and that, in spite of some modernization, there was a slightly run-down feel to parts of the building. That's no problem for me - Roselands needs to wear some of the marks of age and a little shabbiness is an antidote to the numbing similitude of so much of the Westfield's project.

Considering how ubiquitous the shopping mall is now, it strikes me as both quaint and remarkable just how much this place was loved, and apparently still is.

turned away from me
my wife's slim shoulder raised,
a night-long question mark

Ann and I have been dating almost 12 months now. She moved in with me in November last year and things have been pretty smooth overall. There is the occasional cultural misunderstanding, but because her language skills have improved and because I make an effort to be culturally aware, these are really few and far between.

We had a late Valentines Day because we both had commitments on the actual day. She chose Rashays restaurant in Penrith as a tribute to the our early dating experience last year. On that Easter Sunday, we walked for a long while in Parramatta, before I finally found a place open in Merrylands. It was a Rashays. It was hot noisy and full but we were together.

Upon returning home, Ann noticed that her charming boyfriend had procured chocolates and flowers to top off the day. Which is when he took this photo.

empty evening
whirl and whoop of light
her quickening step

I think I have already mentioned that I take an interest in American politics as a kind of proxy for the Australian variety. I suppose that I don't like to be disappointed, having had my adolescent ideals shot down by the realities of the political process. Democracy is messy and is, often as not, about limited, incremental reform, restructure and doing deals. Ideological politicians who are not pragmatists will probably not last the distance or may be limited to throwing incendiary bombs now and then.

The New Hampshire primaries threw up two of the most unlikeliest winners in recent political history. Even though both Sanders and Trump were well ahead in their respective party polls, there isn't really any meaningful historical comparison to explain why things are so out of whack. They are both outsiders. One talks a kind of extreme gibberish and the other has policies that cannot be implemented in the real Washington world.

Back in Oz, we have swung into a season of moderate politics and moderate talk about politics. The art of the compromise is very much in play, with governments working out what they can reasonably get under the circumstances. If you throw away your passion and idealism, that is pretty much as good as it gets.

New Hampshire looks a little a slice of pizza. Last Tuesday baked a pie that the political class could not stomach, though they have little choice in the matter, for now.

I have more than enough time on my hands in my semi-retirement. Thinking about what I can do, apart from more volunteer work, I was reminded of a paragraph I read during undergrad days whilst reading up on Baudelaire. It refers to the flaneur, that bourgeois observer of the urban landscape.

"The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flaneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world - impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define." (The Painter of Modern Life)

A more modern and less flowery rending of the flaneur locates him as one who:

"ambles through a city on foot, observing its life without losing himself in it. The flaneur wanders not quite at random, but by following, at each juncture, the path of greatest interest. Perhaps he has a general direction, but no destination is so important as to distract from the distraction of the moment" (Jarrett Walker)

It's an appealing notion, don't you think? So I am thinking of donning the cape of the flaneur (though I've an idea that I have been doing this already) and heading out amongst the crowds of Sydney, a city in many respects suited to flaneury.

Tom is back at school and now in 5th grade. Hazelbrook PS organises most of its classes as composites, so his class is a 5/6 mix. With 3 or 4 years of practice now, he has become accustomed to it and while I am not sure of the educational or social benefits, I remain open-minded. Streamed age-specific classes can be a wonder to teach, especially at the top, but these combinations seem rarer nowadays.

By coincidence, the last streamed class in primary that I was ever a student in was 5A at Killarney Hts PS. Our youngish teacher was a gentleman named Mr Morley who was competent and well-liked. At the year's end I remember the awkward class party where he pulled out an ancient record player and played 45's of Come Together and Something by The Beatles, and Jumping Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones. To my juvenile self these seemed like very radical choices!

That year I also recall being reluctantly seated next to Gaby Barfield and getting into some trouble as a result! Gaby's birthday is the day after mine so whenever October 19 rolls around, I wonder what she is doing and silently wish her a happy birthday.