Ann and I have spent the better part of the last 12 months making preparations for her permanent residency, together with further preparation for the coming of her daughter JJ. As I have explained before, these are processes that are long and quite difficult. I suspect that some have fallen by the wayside, but we have been both lucky and persistent and not a little diligent too. Ann will leave her housekeeping job next month to focus on bringing JJ to Australia following which she will immerse herself in English-language study at TAFE. So, this year promises to be a challenge on many levels and I pray that we can reach Christmas unscathed.

We took the rare opportunity of a work-free day today to hike-out on the Narrow Neck Peninsula at Katoomba. You really can go on for miles and miles if you desire, descending to valley floor or keeping to the ridge. We did the latter, not having more than a few hours to spare. Here we are inside the first gate, with some way to go.

Funny, my memory playing tricks again! Two posts ago I noted a production of The Winters Tale that I had a small part in back in the 1970's. I was all but certain that the year was 1979 but as it turns out (after reading more carefully through a review from the time) it was actually in August 1978! So it seems my memory impairment has a greater span than I had thought! It's odd really that I can still remember most of my lines and those of some of the other characters who were in the same scenes as I was. As I recall, the show ran for six weeks with a Saturday matinee and we often played to full houses. Though I could be wrong!

On another topic altogether, I have begun to read Boccaccio's The Decameron, another famous referral from The Great Courses. Boccaccio uses the conceit of a group of noble-born young men and women, who, hemmed in by plague, decide to decamp to the countryside. They entertain themselves by telling stories of which there are over a hundred in the book. What has surprised me so far is the ribaldry of some of the tales, remembering that this is the 14th Century. I suppose in this matter that there is a foreshadowing of the soon to come Canterbury Tales. It is a safe bet that Chaucer was familiar with The Decameron and drew significant inspiration from it.

An arcadian view of the storytellers.

There is a tendency for preferences to become rules and for rules to become dogma. This is true for both the religious and the secular as a cursory study of say, communism and Christianity, will demonstrate. We say that a person is set in their ways and we mean that they are beset by personal dogmas that rule their thoughts and actions. Perhaps it is a very human thing, because dogma creates a sense of certainty and people tend to like that. Uncertainty can be very stressful - it entails a lot more thinking, demands for flexibility and greater anxiety.

Below is a photo, first published in Life Magazine in the week following the end of World War 2. It is rather a famous photo, showing a sailor kissing a complete stranger in Times Square, New York City on VJ day. Up until fairly recently, most folks looking at this image would understand its context - the end of the biggest war in history. The mores of the times were different. Men were more powerful socially, economically and politically and the feminist movement was still a generation away. It was a particularly special moment, when both relief and exuberance were abundant.

This is the kind of understanding that we should properly bring to all historical and artistic analysis. What did people believe at that time and how is the painting, play, action, novel etc etc reflective of that period. What tends to happen now, at least in some circles, is that the subject is viewed through a designated lens (eg. Feminist, Marxist, Queer, #MeToo and so forth) and that this reading is somehow construed to be the correct one. Context is lost and so any historical piece can be torn to shreds by whatever dogma engages the critic. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with applying such a lens - in fact, it can be instructive - but there is plenty wrong to critique works solely from this position.

So in the case of the photo below, I have been reading comments in no less a place than The Washington Post, that it represents 'rape culture' and the like. This is a clear example of the irrational at work, thinking it fine to impose a modern notion on a different time. It happens everywhere now and is applied with the same surefooted stupidity. It speaks also to a sense of superiority - we are better than these people of old - as foolish an idea as any I have heard peddled.

Once a week I walk from Central Station to Broadway, then up Glebe Point Road to my volunteer job at 2RPH. It is an easy stroll and mostly flat, but there are some busy intersections to negotiate. This is a very trafficked part of Sydney, with students heading to TAFE or University (Sydney and UTS) and cars going pretty much everywhere. So it pays to be careful.

Glebe Point Road was once a mecca of cafes and restaurants, and to a large extent it still is, with some establishments going back decades. Back in the 1980's it was one of those precincts (not unlike Kings Cross or Crow's Nest) where you could get a good cup of coffee and a slice of cake late into the evening.

But my first immersion into the Glebe area was back in 1979, when, as a budding drama student at UNSW, I auditioned for a production of The Winters Tale with The Rock's Players. The latter was a highly-regarded amateur theatre company which had the distinction of having quite a number of professional actors within its ranks. The Winter's Tale, which I secured a few bit-parts for(court official, shepherd, guard, chorus) had a number of these highly-experienced though out-of-work actors as cast members. So greenhorns like me had a fantastic opportunity to learn about the craft up close and personal and indeed we did, hanging on every word and paying close attention to technique. I think it was a very successful production, though my brothers tired of my constant Shakespearian rejoinders around the house.

I noticed a few weeks ago that our "playhouse", St James Hall in Bridge Street, has become a series of townhouses, with only the facade remaining. The cafe that I had a working stint in around the same time, Cafe Troppo, which had plastic pink flamingos suspended from the ceiling, has now become a Japanese restaurant. Maybe the food is better now, but it's certainly not as quirky.

I am glad of making the connection again. I am the same person as then, though now I can look back through the long lines of experience, reflecting differently upon that time and my part in it.

You won't be able to read this but this is a theatre review of the production in question that appeared in Honi Soit at the time. I had not seen it before now.

I should have mentioned that Hazelbrook Station is finally getting an upgrade, including a much-coveted elevator. For years people with disabilities or those carrying luggage have either struggled with a long flight of steps to reach the platform, or have had to go to Springwood to access the elevator there.

Work started on the weekend past and I noticed a coterie of workmen on the platform today, no doubt preparing the site for the machinery and tower. Hazelbrook has become a much busier station over the last twenty years and with the new trains coming in a year or two, may get even busier. I like to use the steps of course but I'm sure the lift will get a very good workout.

An artist's impression.

I have started to forget about the past, though in a strangely selective way. I first noticed an apparent 'memory gap' a couple of years ago while attending the 40th anniversary reunion of my KHHS class of 1976. There were a few people whom I recognised at once, those being my inner circle of friends from that time. But as the night wore on and I was introduced again and again to members of my erstwhile cohort, I kept drawing blanks, not just with names, but with faces also. Yet they all knew me immediately. Of course, I tried my best to cover this embarrassing loss with small talk, all the while straining for details that might explain who each person was.

It dawned on me a few months later that I really was forgetting people and events from this period, approximating to a time from the early to the mid-1970s. Not so with the 1960s, where I have a good recollection of many of my friends from primary school, of family holidays and significant events of the time. I remember lying sick in bed with measles as a five year old, watching JFK's funeral on TV. I am clear about most matters since the late 1970's, really since completing high school. So what was going on?

This kind of memory loss does not fit any pattern that one typically associates with dementia or other brain conditions. So I am left thinking that perhaps this forgetting is related to trauma. It is certainly true that the period of 5 or 6 years in question was a traumatic one for my family as my father was sick. The family struggled to make ends meet and much else besides. I am also wondering if it is permanent feature or has been triggered by a related memory or incident.

The mind is fascinating really. I am not so much worried as puzzled. What role does the sub-conscious play in repressing memory in the conscious mind? This seems like a key question to me. Back to Dr Jung, methinks.

Something to consider. I can't vouch for its accuracy though.
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Often as not, I spend my walking time listening to podcasts, most commonly lectures from The Great Courses. They are, unsurprisingly, survey courses which rarely drill down into the minutiae of their subject. You can be very general in your choice of course, such as a series on The Middle Ages, or you can be a little more specialised, choosing say, The Black Death, as a course title. It is just such a course and topic that I am listening to now.

It is not easy taking in 24 lectures on The Black Death without a break here and there, because it can dampen the spirit, so to speak. Our ancestors in the mid-14th century had it very bad indeed, with one in two people losing their lives to the pestilence. When it struck, you were dead a day or two later and likely all the folks around you died too. It had a profound effect upon the structure of society, loosening the grip of the Three-Estates and the influence of the Church. If the priests were dying too and in as great a number, where was God? What good was a church that had no answers?

Actually, there were many theories but nobody had any real answers about the origins or spread of the plague. No-one thought of rats or fleas, the latter proliferating wherever humans were living in numbers. Pilgrimages to holy sites, good for the soul, proved calamitous for pilgrims - all those people moving from place to place in close proximity. What could possibly go wrong? But they didn't know any better and I suspect that come a new pestilence, we will be in the same muddle.

A whole art and literature emerged around a meditation upon death. Memento Mori, 'remember, you must die', became a kind of mantra around which one might reflect on the brevity of life and the inevitable levelling of all classes of people, no matter who. Today death is screened off from us, the deceased hidden away or altered cosmetically to soften the blow. But back then, death was right in your face all the time. Surely it was wise then to reflect - all we strive for is lost, at the last.

Which brings me to this cheery piece from Danse Macabre by Hans Holbein(1549). It looks grim to us now, but is no less truthful for all that.

"Not so fast!"

That Opportunity, the robotic Mars Rover has finally succumbed to a massive dust storm is a little sad. No longer responding after nearly a thousand prompts from NASA engineers on Earth, the harsh environment of Mars has proven too much for the veteran explorer at the last. Operating on Mars since January 2004, the mission was originally intended to span 90 days, yet the machine crawled more than the distance of a marathon (42.1 kilometers) between its landing day and when the rover was last heard from on Mars, on June 10, 2018.

One of Opportunity's greatest scientific discoveries was confirming the presence of standing water on Mars over long periods. The rover uncovered the presence of minerals and other rocks on Mars that tend to form in water on Earth, and also found evidence of ancient hydro-thermal systems. Opportunity demonstrated it was possible to operate a rover for more than a decade on another planet, overcoming engineering and driving issues as it continued to perform scientific work. Its longevity was truly remarkable.

The achievements of Opportunity and her sister Spirit seem to point to a way forward for human exploration of the solar system, a necessarily robotic one. Despite the excited talk of a colony for humans on Mars or the Moon, neither of these places are really suitable for life as it has evolved on Earth - in fact - they are positively hostile to it. Mars has a thin, lethal atmosphere, a significantly lower gravity, poisonous soil, very limited protection from radiation, massive dust storms and so on. Anyone planning to be on a mission there in the next twenty years is more than likely to die within weeks or months of arriving. Rescue ships are a long way off and can only leave the Earth during a narrow two year window. Robots are not flesh and blood and will have an increased capacity as they are improved to perform whatever task is required. Yet I know very well that humans will decide to go themselves. It seems inevitable. Finding out the hard way might be the only way forward.

Meanwhile, Oppy sleeps in the Martian sands.

Today being St Valentines Day, my thoughts bend towards love and all matters amorous. Since meeting Ann, this day has taken on a new meaning for me, because it is important to her. Thai's seems mercifully free of the the kind of weary cynicism that Westerners bring to festivals. With the exception of Anzac Day, which is almost religious in its reverence, few celebrations escape the withering analysis that Australians bring to events that have been hijacked by consumer capitalism. St Valentines Day is one such event on the calendar.

The person after whom the day is named was a Christian martyr, a priest in the Roman Empire who ministered to persecuted Christians before meeting his own demise on the 14th February 269 AD. He became a Saint in the Latin Church and has had his own Feast Day since 496. His relationship with love in the modern sense is obscure at best, though sources suggest he came to be associated with the tradition of courtly love in the Middle Ages. What he would make of all the frippery of hearts, roses, chocolates and dinner reservations is anybodies guess, but I suspect, not much at all.

But for Ann this is a significant day, because she takes love, commitment and relationship very seriously and so do I. Today we will have a Valentines lunch at Finn and Co in Springwood and tomorrow, a post-Valentines dinner in the city. Here she is in the midst of the day, as beautiful as ever.

Humans have come along at a rather propitious time in the life-cycle of the Universe. Earth has a moderate climate, we are free of major bombardments from large rocks in the Solar System, the Sun is nicely situated in a mid-life calm, and so on. We appear to have missed gamma ray sterilisation from exploding stars too. It's a real Goldilocks time, though I suppose, could they have critically reflected upon it, dinosaurs might have thought the same thing. Their reign was impressive, only ended by one of those nasty collision events that we have mercifully been spared. There is a big rock with our name on it somewhere, though not in the foreseeable future.

It's also a great time to be looking out into the Universe at large. We can see its origins in the ancient light that we receive, information that has often travelled billions of years. Imagine being a photon bridging such an expanse and over such a time, now a part of scientific observations by sentient beings! Sure, one is conscious and the other is not, but there is something beautiful and inexplicable in this exotic embrace.

It is speculated by cosmologists that, because of the increasing rate of expansion of the Universe, there will come a time (in about 150 billion years) when future observers in the now-merged Andromeda/Milky Way Galaxy will only be able to see the light from the stars of their own galaxy. What they mean is this - the light from other galaxies will never reach us again, since they are racing away at faster than the speed of light. Entirely new civilisations, should they emerge, will have no record of what happened in the beginning, that information being beyond reach. In effect, the Universe will be their own galaxy with its stars and nebula and black holes.

So we are very lucky indeed. It is a good time to be around.

I am fortunate that one of my best friend's, Dr John Hawkins, now of Canberra, sends me his old Private Eye and Economist magazines. I could not afford a subscription to either and they are great travelling companions on my weekly sojourn to the city. I have been reading his kindly-sent packages for years now, in fact, going back to my time in Japan. Because of the cost of postage, John would sometimes bowdlerise the contents of the magazines to get the weight down, but they were still a delight to read.

There was an occasion in 2002 when I was sitting on a local train one evening on the return journey from Kaibara to Sanda, having just finished teaching English to classes at a nearby juku. I was thumbing through a Private Eye when I came to the section devoted to mocked-up headlines and stories, satirical pieces. I won't explain the details, but one of the articles centred on a plea by the Greek Government to the British Government not to gift them The Thatcher Marble, a bust-likeness of the lady herself. The story is referencing The Elgin Marbles and their rightful ownership but you can research that for yourself. Suffice to say, that I burst out laughing and found it very difficult to contain myself for the next ten minutes, not until the change of trains at Sasayama. The point is, people don't burst out laughing on Japanese trains and I was acutely conscious of the disproving glances. The magazine was quietly slipped back into my bag and a serious demeanour was worn for the remainder of the trip.

A couple of days ago I was reading a far more recent Private Eye on my trip to Central. I did not burst out laughing this time, but I think the following cartoon is very witty.

I like coffee and have been drinking it since I was a little boy. In the early days it was milk coffee made with, yes, instant coffee. I remember pouring the hot milk from the saucepan into a mug and the childish satisfaction of dipping a biscuit into the steaming java. Often as not only half a biscuit would emerge, the remainder to be scooped out by teaspoon at a later time. In my teens I graduated to the espresso-machine made cappuccino which became my staple for decades. When I bought my own machine and grinder about 10 years ago, I began making more of a latte, though still with a slightly bitter palate.

Making your own coffee with fresh beans can turn you into a bit of a snob, where every shop-bought beverage is compared to the lovingly-prepared home-made one. It is not a fair fight really and few coffees I buy come near to those that I make myself, though sometimes they do and I can only salute the barista. In fact, I often go back and tell them what a great cup of coffee they just made. Yes, I must get a life, truly I must!

Which brings me to the photo I reprint below. Set in Boston in 1964, the ultra-stylish St Claires' Coffee Shop (hmm, interesting placement of the apostrophe) is exactly the place I would loved to have walked into, had I been older than six, at the time. Consider the decor, the gorgeous pendant lamps, low screens, curtains, modish plastic chairs, pot plants and hat stands, the shopfront as an integrated statement, then tell me you don't want to step out of that Cadillac and find a seat somewhere in the midst of the coffee and strawberry shortcake.

Driving home from the pool this morning, a piece I had not heard before came on the radio. "Elegy For Rupert Brooke" by Frederick Septimus Kelly composed on the Western Front in 1916, is a lament for the death of Brooke, Kelly's friend, who had died the previous year on his way to Gallipoli. Brooke is best known for his idealistic war poems and particularly "The Soldier", a sonnet which appeals to sentimental notions of war. I think most people will have heard the opening lines:

"If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England."

Brooke was clearly a prewar poet - you can see this if you read any verse by Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon - though there were many who thought the same way, until they got into the trenches. Then the truth became clear as day. Kelly composed the elegy as bullets flew over his head and he died at the Somme later that year.

The composition itself is as beautiful as anything I have heard, putting me in mind of Ralph Vaughn Williams. Sometimes something lovely emerges from human folly, but at such a price!

Kelly and Brooke