I have been a sometime contributor to Quora for a few years now. Quora is a site in which questions are posted (on any topic) and members are invited to answer those that they deem worthy of a response. There are a lot of thoughtful people writing questions and just as many responding, but lately there has been a marked increase in nationalism and partisan commentary. Questions are appearing that inappropriately 'lead the witness' together with answers that are blatantly inflammatory, deliberately misleading or just plain ad hominem attacks. So my visits are fewer and fewer.

Before the internet this kind of thing occurred in pubs or over the back fence and was not taken all that seriously, just 'so-and-so' sounding off. But computers and connectivity and the capacity to say anything anywhere without consequences is a scourge. It drives away the thoughtful and the interesting and drags everything into a mediocre, sometimes poisonous squabble.

I can't see any way it can be fixed except for pulling the plug.

I can now confirm that Hakuho, the 69th and most successful yokozuna of all time, has finally retired. It comes as no great surprise, since speculation of a retirement has been mooted for a few years now.

I saw the young Hakuho way back in 2006 at the spring basho in Osaka. Little did any of us know then that he would make yokozuna the following year. Consider the following stats.

Firstly, he has won 45 Emperor's Cup titles, beating the next best Taiho (33) way back in 2015. He has set records for the most career wins (1187), most makuuchi (top division) wins (1093), most wins as a yokozuna (899), most tournaments at the rank of yokozuna (84), most wins in a calendar year (86) and most titles with a 15-0 record (16).

This spectacular and unlikely to be beaten record may not mean much to those who don't know sumo, but if I said that he was Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth (Don Bradman for Aussies), Pele and Michael Phelps all rolled into one, you might get some idea of his prowess.

He will be sorely missed - though he had his critics - but the like of him will not come again. I think, however, he will make a good oyakata.

'What, another one!'

Courtesy Asahi Shimbun

The autumn Grand Sumo Tourney has just finished. The new Yokozuna, Terunofuji, about whom I have written before, won The Emperor's Cup, 13-2, this being his fifth time. He was consistent and dominant, save for two defeats to determined rikishi.

The only other Yokozuna, Hakuho, was side-lined by a Covid case at his heya (the place he lives and trains). There are rumours which are yet to be confirmed that he will retire in order to become a stable master, or oyataka. If so, it will be the end of a truly remarkable era - the most successful wrestler in sumo history.

And while on the topic of sumo, a slight digression into the wings, if I may. For a number of the basho over the past year I have noticed a lady sitting close to the front row. Sometimes she is there, in pretty much the same place, every day. I don't know why she came to my attention - perhaps its her beautifully upright posture or elegant demeanour. But she is a regular feature, always in camera view, and clearly a big sumo fan.

Far enough away not be be clobbered. Just to the right of the referee (gyoji).

Incidentally, if you are new to sumo, the photo above shows the moment just before the bout begins. For a bout to begin, both wrestlers show their consent to do so by placing both hands on the clay. The wrestler on the right (above) has his hands down, but the bout will not start until the one of the left does so too. From that moment we have the clash (tachiai), a collision of two powerful rikishi. A false start (consent is not clearly shown by both men) is decided by the gyoji. This is called a matta and the bout must be restarted.

What an unholy mess the submarine replacement program has become. In a matter of days, we have managed to alienate the French, cause concern in Jakarta and KL, confirm the worst suspicions in Beijing, and for what? The difference between diesel electric boats and nuclear powered boats is mainly one of distance and capacity (also speed) but I don't think that we are getting markedly better defence by buying 8 from the Americans rather than 12 from the French. After all, the nuclear version really is all about long-distance missions, not the defence of  Australia proper. What I mean to say is, they are serving a more strategic goal and that goal is the containment of China.

It strikes me, yet again, that the Anglo powers are showing the kind of arrogance that gave them a bad rap in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Britain of all nations should realise how sensitive the issue of European power is in East Asia, having subjected the then Qing Dynasty to all manner of humiliations, including a war to sell opium to the Chinese. I have no idea why the UK, having lost its imperial possessions, has any business in Asia. Isn't there enough to do in the Atlantic?

As for Australia, I have been hoping in vain for decades that we would develop into an independent nation with a foreign policy to match. How long are we to be the lapdog of whatever power we see as a potential saviour. Is is asking too much to genuinely engage with our region to create enduring defence and economic ties?

In as much as Trump was a second-rate political leader, for different reasons, we have our own set of arrogant, untalented, know-nothings who should be not be in positions of power and influence. I am not "just saying", by the way. It's what I think and it's a damn shame. This nation deserves better.

Yesterday Ann and JJ officially became Australian citizens. Due to Covid restrictions, the ceremony (twice postponed) was held via zoom at home. It was a pity because the proposed venue at Springwood, a large modern theatre space with plenty of atmosphere, was the original site for the proceedings. As I said to Ann, it would have had more gravitas and pomp had it been held there, something missing from a computer screen. Still, the Blue Mountains City Council did a wonderful job of hosting the event and making people feel welcome.

This just about ends most of my dealings with Australian Governments concerning residency and citizenship. It has been one of those long roads which I sometimes drove blind, not being sure if I was doing the right thing, whether I had the proper form, the right answers or even the best and most correct information. Since it is in my nature to second guess most situations in life, I found the route perplexing at times, especially when what was asked for was unclear or seemingly contradictory. Choosing not to use an immigration agent saved money, but if I added up the number of hours I put in and did an hourly rate estimate, I would have been paying myself pennies. It was an experience though, not be forgotten.

The new Aussies. I'm very proud of both of them.

Chatter

slow this going,
like water through sand,
deathly flowing,
finding
the browning bloom,
and always, just over,
another crowded room
of thought
that's stuck and thick
with cause.
why always so-
that unthinking's
a fantastic trick?
and me? curator
of such a space,
a mind without pause!
i'd like to know,
for a moment's death,
how to still the shebang,
if only,
(the dim boat approaching)
to catch my breath.

I made no special note of the anniversary of the downing of the Twin Towers in New York because it was well and truly covered elsewhere, for better or worse. I do, of course, recall where I was and what I was doing at the time and even though I am a critic of American foreign policy, this act was wicked in the extreme.

I had just finished teaching an evening class in Sanda and had sat down to watch the news. Sure enough, CNN already had their cameras trained on one burning tower (though they did not know why as yet) when a plane hove into view and hit the other. Just like that. It was an awful event, hatched in the minds of religious lunatics, and the repercussions are with us to this day. US foreign policy continues to be a seemingly incompetent mess and the whole region of the Middle East is much the worse off for it.

September 11 is also the day that my friend Robert Mumford went missing in 2007. It was no coincidence timing wise - Robert was a fan of the US military and the shemozzle that was the Iraq conflict would have weighed heavily upon him. He had other issues too and perhaps his life had hit an impossibly downward spiral. I wish I had been there for him, something I regret to this day.

Robert would have been overjoyed, had he lived, because The Beach Boys catalogue of music keeps expanding. Most of this is arcana for fans - out-takes, backing vocals, conversations in the studio, alternate endings, live recordings etc, and he would have revelled in it. Truly, I can hear his voice full of a teenage enthusiasm even now, for no detail, no matter how obscure, was beyond his purvey, when it came to The Beach Boys.

Rest in Peace, my friend.

Tom (and I) having been studying Land Art as a part of his Visual Arts at-home course work. One of the most recent projects involved doing a Land Art installation in the garden - something simple that would come from the raw materials of yard.

We have an abundance of pink camelia flowers at the moment, many of which have dropped to the ground in strong winds. Some were still pink whilst others were brown, having dried out rather quickly. Tom's assemblage used the flowers and an old sewerage pipe to create a piece of land art, the meaning of which is in the eye of the beholder. A few days later I added the signature to the terracotta pipe. Cheeky!

Yesterday was our 5th wedding anniversary. Being a time of restricted movement and choice, we decided to wait until today before ordering takeaway pho from Pho Moi in Katoomba. That was Ann's choice and I was only too happy to go along with it. It's not the same as sitting down to a meal somewhere but we are still lucky - many people are too sick to do the same.

Today I finally received my celtic cross in the mail. All the way from Ireland, it is fashioned out of turf and carved with ancient Christian motifs. It is of the style of a Muidedach High Cross, common in Ireland in the 9th and 10th centuries. It is not a decoration but something to ground me during prayer times. Lately I have been rereading The Cloud of Unknowing and hard as it is, would like to put into practise some of its ideas.

Two magpies in different locations swooped on me this morning. I was on one of my usual rides and was wondering when one or the other of our black feathered friends would decide to look up a calendar and resolve that the time was ripe for a spot of aerial assault.

It's funny. All the local magpies know me and would never attack, even in the nesting season. Such attacks can be quite unnerving if you are unprepared, coming from behind, as they do, so most years I either make a careful note of the location or try to find an alternate route. You can also confront the bird but this means dismounting. I am quite happy to have a frank contretemps though usually I am left gazing up at a tree or a telephone line. We never get to meet face to face.

But this is only for a short period anyway and the magpie is only defending what it perceives to be a threat to its young. Any parent can understand that.

A magnificent first day of Spring is upon us. The mercury is in the mid-twenties, jasmine is beginning to flower, birds are swooping and dodging each other, yet I am contemplating the idea of free will. It came up again in my reading over breakfast and I followed articles and links doggedly. It is a difficult subject and fraught with abstruse equations of the mind.

Now, it seems obvious to us that we possess free will - "the capacity to choose between different possible courses of action, unimpeded." I like that Wikipedia definition quite a lot and the final word is a key to the question. Everyday we appear to make unimpeded choices about hundreds of different things - we might even say to ourselves , 'I can do this or this or this and I choose to do this' and thus seem to be making a very deliberate decision when faced with a range of options. But it is not as simple as that.

There are lots of factors that go into making us who are we are today. Our parents, our teachers, our upbringing, our enculturation, friendships, television and media, how we develop our minds. Then there is our genetic makeup and that whole area of subconscious drives that Freud first described. And the brain - how does that work? I could go on.

So free will is far more complicated, one might say, constrained, than is 'obvious' or 'natural' to us in the present. There are those on the deterministic end of the spectrum who claim that we do not have free will at all - that it is an illusion. I don't hold to that view, for I think that we are much more than a mere sum of the parts, no matter how well they might have been described or explained.

Think about that, next time to decide to have a short black over your regular latte.