The passing of the football magician Pele came as no surprise but is still a saddening event. Not only was Pele a masterful footballer, he was a gentleman of the game, both off and on the field. It is much harder to find such a combination these days, such is the ego-driven, overpaid environment that top-flight professionals play in in the modern game.

Most of what I have been of Pele has been on film or TV. I did watch the live broadcast in 1972 of Australia vs Santos at the Sydney Sports Ground, tickets being impossible to get. He was well marked by midfielder Ray Richards but still showed beautiful touches on the ball. At 32 he was probably just ending the period of his best, having retired from the national team the year before. Shortly he would join the New York Cosmos to ride out into a golden retirement.

He is credited with scoring about 1200 goals in 1300 appearances for Santos and 77 from 92 games for Brazil. He was in three World Cup winning sides. His statistics are just astonishing. For all of us young players back then, he was a legend, his name a byword for genius. Truly, he was the GOAT.

I love this postage stamp commemorating his 1000th goal in 1969.

 Another Christmas. The long trip to my elderly mother's flat in Dee Why. The customary nuts and sweets. The traditional English lunch, followed by plum pudding. Presents exchanged and photos taken. Much talk about family, the past. A realisation of the gradual dimming of the festival, the winnowing of its significance in modern Australia. But still, there is much to be grateful for.

Unlike many families, we don't have any horror stories about Christmas Day. At worst it is occasionally disappointing, but most of the time it hits the mark. Family. Apart from Christ, that is what it is about in the main.

I have made a big u-turn this year. Back to the realm of faith, to a reinstatement of real meaning, genuine hope. Surely the insertion of the Divine into human history is a big talking point? A showstopper? We should be rushing to buy tickets. Alas we live in sceptical times and I suspect, many people are not very happy.

Christina Rosetti, whom I have mentioned quite often recently, wrote a lot of devotional poetry. That is not everyone's cup of tea, I grant you. But she does write other stuff too. It was a hot day in Sydney today, but the title of the poem I am quoting from is In the bleak midwinter. Another hemishere entirely.

"The earth stood hard as iron/Water like a stone" sets the emotional tone in the opening stanza. How could there be joy or life in such a place, "snow on snow on snow." And yet God cannot be held by mere heaven and will break though on Earth, even in a humble stable. Angels are gathered to adore him but the infant will have a "Breastful of milk/and a mangerful of hay." He is worshipped, adored and yet, paradoxically, helpless.

Rosetti concludes,

"What can I give Him, poor as I am?

 If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

 If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

 Yet what I can give Him: give my heart."

Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth.

I am sometimes guilty of dropping or too rough handling my mobile phone and robust as they are, there is such a thing as once too often. So it was yesterday, my two and half year old Samsung A50 gave up the ghost and refused to be rebooted. Thanks to youtube techies, I tried some remarkable techniques, including tapping and slapping and massaging front and back. There was even a stint in the freezer for thirty minutes. Alas, despite repeated attempts over many hours, the black screen remained.

Its a shame really because its the best phone I have ever owned and I would gladly have ridden into the sunset with it. Now it is among the fallen in a drawer full of inferior predecessors. Not having enough money to buy its actual replacement (A53), I bought a discounted budget phone, the Google Pixel 6a. Only time will tell if it can live up to the last to go. But I must really begin treating the phone more kindly and with greater care.

Ann and JJ departed Sydney International this morning on a Thai Airways flight to London via Bangkok. I watched the takeoff in animation on Flightradar 24 and felt very teary as the tiny plane flew over Botany Bay before banking and heading north-west.

I know that they will have a wonderful time and I will pray daily that they are blessed as they go about their travels. It doesn't stop me from feeling sad though and I looked somewhat forlornly on the empty bed last night. The important thing is that the real fullness of love is only apparent in the absence. This experience only reinforces that idea.

So I have five weeks to myself, although Tom will be here for three of them. Best to make good use of them.

About a week ago a freight train going east on the Blue Mountains line partially derailed when one of the carriages came off the track. Unfortunately the train driver was unaware of the incident and so continued on for at least 10 kilometres, the dislodged wheel tearing up sleepers as it went. I am surprised that trains don't have sensors that can alert drivers when such a thing occurs, though maybe they do.

We have had a year of disruptions on the rail network, from strikes to landslides to flooding. The new Mariyung trains, which have been sitting idle for two years now, are due to come into service soon to replace the sturdy and reliable v-sets that have plied the inter-city lines for almost 40 years. I doubt that they'll last the same length of time.

The year is winding down, with Ann and JJ leaving for Europe on Wednesday, leaving Tom and I to our own devices. Maybe I will do a couple of extra shifts at 2RPH to fill in the time.

1. The damaged track looking west from Hazelbrook Station (repair crews in the distance)

2. Closeup of the offending carriage.

The current World Cup in Qatar has been jogging my memory about things Fifa-ish. I should add that a visit to my mum's unit in Dee Why on Thursday last also proved to be a powerful aid to recall. I was sitting on the lounge when she pointed out an old cloth badge that was lying on a sideboard. It was my Manly Warringah Soccer Association Referees badge, an item which I had obviously removed from my uniform some decades earlier in order to preserve the memory.

You see, my teen years were dominated by the sport. I played, coached, managed and officiated it. I also spectated the game from the sideline, the grandstand and on TV. I think I went to every Socceroos Sydney game from 1973 to 1977. It was an obsession that I shared with my best friend, Wayne. We had the full kit and flags to boot.

Our ref's uniform was the classic black and white, the same as for professional games at that time. We were payed a small sum to ref junior soccer matches and as we became better, we graduated to older players. At 16 I think were doing Under 18 games and acting as linesmen in all-age games. Of course, you get to know the rules very well. You get to realise also how flawed that knowledge is amongst players and coaches. And people on the sideline!

I find the current iteration of the hand-ball rules perplexing. Back in the 1970's, a penalty was awarded if the player deliberately handled the ball or brought it under control as a result of an unintentional handling. Thus the referee made the call based on what they saw and there were grounds for reasonable doubt. Today it appears that the ball only has to strike your arm or hand under any circumstances and a penalty results. Players are getting pinged for any old infringement, including one extraordinary decision when the ball was belted at a player as he fell backwards, using his hand to break his fall. The ball struck his hand as he fell. Now that's just dumb, in my estimation.

The rule book.                                                    

The badge.

The arrest of suspects recently who were allegedly planning a coup in Germany is somewhat of surprise, The group, calling themselves Reichburger (which does not come mit pommes frites) is a little hard to pin down ideologically. But one might have thought that many years of stability in politics and sound economic growth in Germany would have headed off any return to the disasterous failed projects of the past. Apparently, you can't please everyone, especially budding right-wingers.

At least one section of the Reichsburger deny that the German Federal Republic exists and harken back romantically to the borders of the Second Reich in 1914, claiming that the Weimar Constitution of 1919 was illegal. That, of course, claws back territory now in the possession of France, Poland, the Czech Republic and even Russia. What are the chances?

While details of the coup are sketchy at this stage, it strikes me that this is likely to be an amateurish plot by a small group of deluded individuals that would make the 1923 Beer-Hall Putsch in Munich look like a full-on revolution. Of course the Nazis started very small but their dreadful cause was aided by a calamitous end to the Great War, a collapsing economy and loads of disgruntled demobilized soldiers. Oh, and a big communist a party too.

Still, best to keep an eye on things even if the game is up.

First Impressions

'Forty years is a stretch,' he said

'A generation passing.' 

Such a length-

Without the milk, the honey,

Promises made,

Or someplace to lay your head

Out of wind and rain

Other than a tent.

So it all went, 

A bunch of spies -

But ten could confirm

Of the twelve sent:

Giants were afoot.

Oh, the land was ripe

Like the old man said,

But not for our picking,

We'd be bent like ploughs,

Wives and sons bled,

Sweat of the brow,

Never mind, promised land.

Egypt's looking better now.

Three square, a warm bed.

 Christina Rosetti might have had Hamlet in mind when she wrote The Bourne. The Danish Prince, in one famous soliloquay, speaks of "the undiscovered country from whose bourn/no traveller returns." As keen as he was at dispatching Claudius, Hamlet had much time, possibly too much, to reflect upon his condition. Rosetti would surely have known the play and most likely seen it though as for that, she may have come across the title quite by accident.

Underneath the growing grass,

Underneath the living flowers,

Deeper than the sound of showers:

There we shall not count the hours

By the shadows as they pass.

Youth and health will be but vain,

Beauty reckoned of no worth:

There a very little girth

Can hold round what once the earth

Seemed too narrow to contain.

Introspective, maudlin, think you? Rosetti appeals to me for the very reason she may repel others. Reflecting on the levelling effect of death, where wealth, beauty, fame or achievement are rendered meaningless, is a passtime for deeper thought, but one that finds little purchase today. Rosetti was a devout Christian and so would have known that bodily death was but a transitional phase. This didn't stop her dwelling upon it, which she often does in her verse. If you can think with fearless clarity about what is to come, then your present may also become clearer too. 

Just before we went to air on Saturday, (Newcastle Herald, 2RPH), I found out quite by chance that one of the readers for that shift was a alumni of the Theatre Studies Department of the UNSW. She had been through about a decade before me but many of the staff I encountered (my stint was 1977-1979) were the same, Dr Jean Wilhelm, Dr Philip Parsons, Dr Thierse (and a few others whom I cant remember) obviously had quite long careers at the campus.

I had never intended to study theatre when I enrolled with a teaching scholarship at UNSW. I was mentally locked into English, History and Political Science, but was short a couple of units. So on the recommendation of one of the advisors, I included some theatre-based units. It's fair to say that that one decision was both eventful and fateful, having a hand in both my rise as an effective teacher and my subsequent fall.

As it turned out I went on to major in Theatre Studies as an undergrad, then, ten years later completed a Masters degree in the same discipline at the same university. I am really grateful for the excellent teaching I received from these passionate and talented educators. Post-teaching, the skills and outlook that were the combined effort of study and practice have stayed with me and been a boon when both working overseas and in volunteering at home.

The same day the other reader on the program told me a powerful story in response to my question, 'Why do you walk with a limp?' But that is a tale for another day.

It is impossible to overstate the the performance of the Socceroos at the World Cup in Qatar. Including their fighting defeat this morning to Argentina, this team, which was written off before the first ball was kicked two weeks ago, went beyond even the efforts of the group of 2006. This, is spite of having a squad largely composed of journeyman footballers, a manager who was routinely pilloried and legions of armchair critics both at home and abroad. 

Here is another chance to build the game in Australia by learning from the mistakes made in the last two decades. We can produce high calibre players and run of the mill and everything in between should the right reforms be enacted and appropriate funding is found and used wisely. Perhaps in two or three world cups from now, the Socceroos will progress to the quarters and the then the semis. And beyond that.

Congratulations to Arnie and the boys for making this a proud moment for a grateful nation.

Australia arrived in Qatar two weeks ago to low expectations back home. After an underwhelming qualifying period and a last minute escape from the clutches of Peru in a playoff, there were few outside the squad who thought that the team would get out of their group. Moreover, there were doubts about the capacity of the manager to handle big assignments against quality opposition. The feeling was that we were really just making up the numbers and much commentary suggested the team would soon be on the first flight home.

Then there was the opening match against World Champions France, who seemed to rather too easily carve the Socceroos open in their 4-1 win. Pessimists saw that as the final piece of evidence that we would shortly be exiting the tournament. We were just not good enough.

Funny how things can change around in the space of 4 days. Defeating Tunisia first and then Denmark this morning, both by a solitary goal, has changed gloom to euphoria, with former critics falling over themselves to praise the team. Two wins in a row and three goals from open play have set a new benchmark for any future Socceroo side.

The Round of 16 begins shortly and Australia have the daunting task of taking on Messi's Argentina. Having started slowly with a shock defeat to Saudi Arabia (possibly the biggest upset in World Cup history) the South Americans have looked awfully good in their last two games. Messi is in top form. The team oozes talented players.

Yet who knows? Football is one of those games when upsets can occur anywhere at any time. The Socceroos can only get better and with an ounce of good luck, might take their fancied opponents down to the wire.

Who would have thought?

We had storms overnight but the sun emerged from misty cloud late morning, leaving the air humid and full of insects. On my daily ride I encountered thousands of white butterflies that were out and enjoying their brief sojourn on the planet. Everything seasonal is out of kilter this year, so their appearance in November and in such vast numbers surprised me. I was wondering what the collective noun for these insects was, but there were so many and in such darting and weaving forms that I thought 'flurry' was the best. They did indeed put one in mind of snow flurries.

Congratulations are in order to rank-and-filer Abi who won the Emporers Cup yesterday in Fukuoka. The tourney came down to a rare three-way contest between Abi, Ozeki Takakeisho and fellow Maegashira Takayasu, the latter being the sentimental favourite. But the long, long arms of Abi prevailed against his worthy opponents. It is interesting to note that the last three bashou have all been won by rank and file wrestlers, which may well speak to the dearth of talent at the top. In this tournament alone, the ranks of ozeki have thinned to but one wrestler only. And there is only one yokozuna and he, injured.

The World Cup in Qatar has been a wealth of surprises and upsets with only a few top nations performing as expected. This opens up the field considerably and makes the tournament unpredictable, though I do expect to see the likes of Spain or Brazil in the finals. By there are several dark horses who might go far. Many smaller football powers have little to lose. The oddness of the venue tends to play into their hands somewhat. I'd love to see Australia get to the round of 16 as in 2006 but if we fall short, may we fall short gloriously. 

I started reading Dickens Little Dorrit about 18 months ago and got about half way through it before something took me away, though I cannot remember what. Then I began listening to an audio recording, picking up from where I left off. That also fell into abeyance so today I opened my kindle edition again, only to be placed right back where I left off in the first place. It doesn't hurt at all to reread sections, so that is the plan, and to be finished by Christmas, I hope.

Dickens is full of characters that we might regard as 'types', caricatures, and Little Dorrit is no different. Impossibly noble men and women, moustache-twirling villains, pompous matrons, and fly-by-the seat merchants of all kinds are but a few of the colourful array. Most people reading Dickens suspend their disbelief in the reality of such types in the cause of a good story.

But truthfully, if he were writing in the present day, how would he render the current crop of celebrities, sports stars, ego-driven politicians and those who dwell in the slums of social media? They lend themselves readily to caricature. Very little work is needed to transform them into characters that one might reasonably have to suspend disbelief over to get on with the narrative.

One critic of Little Dorrit noted how so many of Dickens middle-class characters, epitomised in this novel by the ghastly Mrs General, seek out 'a cultivation of surfaces.' Everything is in the sheen and nothing runs deep. We could never level such a charge at folks today, could we?

Australia's 4-1 drubbing at the hands of France speaks volumes on the state of things football, particularly if you compare the result with the 2-1 loss 4 years ago. The latter was a tough, competitive and close match in which the French had to work hard to win. Yesterdays result, with the exception of the first 20 minutes, seemed like a bit of a stroll for the world champions.

By comparison, Saudi Arabia's astonishing 2-1 defeat of Argentina, and Germany's loss this morning to Japan (less of a surprise) are indicative of those nation's progress. If we don't want to fall further back, then action is required to reform the game locally and make it easier for talented young players to progress. Otherwise we will not see the likes of a Viduka, a Kewell, a Bresciano etc again.

I did not wake up to see England play last night but I was up for the Wales/USA clash. The latter was an interesting game of essentially two halves. The Americans dominated possession and won the midfield in the first 45 minutes, while the Welsh, obviously fired up by a half-time roasting, were in charge for much of the the second half. 1-1 seems like a very fair result, I would say.

I watched the highlights of the other two games that were played while I slept, with England battering a hapless Iran 6-2 and the Dutch getting two late goals to down Sengal. Iran is one the better teams in the Asian Confederation and are very hard to beat, so, either the standard in our region is dropping or the English played a blinder. Or both.

Australia gets started tomorrow morning against France. It is a big ask for the Socceroos - how to contain a team of world class players and make some meaningful impact. Football is a funny game and big teams do get knocked off from time to time by minnows. For Australia, even a draw will seem like a win.

May the legend and spirit of the 1974 World Cup side be on the pitch tomorrow!

On another completely different though still sports-related topic, maegashira wrestler Chiyotairyu has suddenly retired mid-tournament! It is customary, I think, for rikishi to hang up their mawashi after a tourney is finished. Chiyotairyu was not injured but apparently, at 34 years of age and down 2-5, had decided he didn't want to fight anymore. Well, so be it!

Apparently he wants to open and manage a yukiniku restaurant! Still hard work, but at least his body is not on the line. Good luck and thanks for all the bouts!

Today I became a member of the church community at St Finbars, Glenbrook. Yes, I am now a Roman Catholic. This meant I could participate in The Eucharist after months of watching others do so. But that was ultimately a good thing as it gave me the chance to contemplate what I was doing, often deeply. Matters of life and death should not be taken lightly and I have done a lot of thinking, a lot of reading and much praying. So here I am now and the Lord be praised!

I found this short poem by Christina Rosetti amongst her collected works. As I have said before, I tend to read her verse regularly and often as not, it has a devotional quality. This one is particularly apt today.

The Lowest Place

Give me the lowest place: not that I dare

Ask for that lowest place, but Thou hast died

That I might live and share

Thy glory by Thy side.

Give me the lowest place:or if for me

That lowest place too high, make one more low

Where I may sit and see

My God and love Thee so.

Some days I am clutzier than others. Today was one of those days. I dropped a litre of milk (loose lid!) and spent some time on my hands and knees mopping up the shallow sea on the kitchen floor while my cup of tea went cold. Just now I fell from a chair as I was pruning a branch (the chair broke under me!) and came inside for detol and bandages. Nothing serious, just a tumble in the bushes and a few cuts. Something else happened too but I have forgotten what it was. Nevertheless I am claiming it for the round of three unlucky things that can go wrong in one day.

I realise that these are small beer compared to the many people going through very difficult challenges in their lives all over the planet. Even in my hometown of Sydney, I encounter at least a dozen homeless people sleeping rough or begging for a gold coin every time I go into the city. It is impossible to know what got them there - plain bad luck, mental illness or some combination of adverse events and conditions. But it is confronting as it should be.

On another note altogether, the November Grand Sumo Tourney began on Sunday evening, all the way from Fukuoka. Terunofuji is kyujo for the duration, having had knee surgery recently. That leaves a bevy of upstarts and also-rans to contest the Emporers Cup. One or other of the ozeki might decide its time to fire up and win the thing but competition is strong from a few of the younger wrestlers who see their chance to break through. I can't predict a winner at the moment and I think it will go right down to the proverbial. Watch his space!

I wrote about the sad demise of my 11 year old Kindle a few posts back. Nothing I tried could bring it back to life. Moreover, the fact that Amazon had ceased software support for that model meant that even sourcing a new battery, supposing that that was the problem, would be a false economy. So I have retired my dear friend after its wonderful service.

Very kindly, my wife stepped into the breach and bought me a new Kindle Paperwhite for an early Christmas present and I am here now to give a short review. It is different from my old Kindle in that it has no page buttons, is back-lit and has a white paper-style screen appearance, hence the name. The screen size is slightly bigger and the resolution of words is much clearer. All functions are controlled by the touch screen (a little slow to respond in my estimation) and the numerous easily and logically set out menu tabs make it a breeze to navigate.

So far there is nothing to dislike and much to commend it. I'll give an updated report further down the track. It will hard matching the longevity of the old model, but who knows. Much like my old analogue library, one becomes very attached to such a bearer of knowledge.

New on the left, old on the right.

memore

By the flimsiest thread,

Memories are tied

And cast across time,

They stretch to abide.

That reality shreds

And another begins

Renewed in its stead.

Is it just 

Carelessness,

The sun-hot moment

Incrementally dimmed,

That burns to bust and

Seems less urgent?

No, not by design

Cold filaments snap,

Rememberance chills.

A mere hundred years!

Maybe, time is a trap

(a balm to fears)

That does us in,

And all begins again.

Australia got into the World Cup Finals in Qatar through a playoff against Peru. The match went to a penalty shootout which could have gone either way. But we were off to the World Cup for the fifth time in a row, no matter what.

That's the good news. The downside is obvious to everyone. This is the weakest squad we have ever taken. In fact, every squad since 2006 has been weaker than the last. Many reasons are advanced for this apparent fall from grace, though chief among them is the setup for developing young talent since the inception of the A-League. That conversation is for another day.

The squad announced today by Graeme Arnold comprises a solid bunch of experienced footballers and a smaller group of younger players. Glaring omissions in my humble opinion include in-form keeper Mitch Langerak (Nagoya Grampus) and talented midfielder Tom Rogic (WBA). The latter, especially, can change the direction of a match with his deft skills and clever reading of the play.

We have France, Tunisia and Denmark in our group. It will be a very tough ask.

 I was most pleased to read that President Xi has rebuked the Russians over their loose talk about the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict. Bluff or no bluff, threats of using any kind of nuclear device are grossly irresponsible. Apart from the disturbed rantings of the North Korean regime, no other country with nukes has ever suggested that they might be rolled out in a conventional war. Russia deserves the sternest and most universal condemnation in this regard. So well done President Xi.

On a related topic, I have been watching a PBS series on Youtube on American Presidents, specifically Harry Truman. Truman, apart from being one of the most accidental of Presidents, is also the man who authorized the use of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More correctly, I should say, he told the US military that they should go ahead and use them, only withdrawing consent after the second blast. I can't blame Truman - anyone in the office would have done the same - but the awfulness of those two decisions reverberates to this day.

About 20 years ago I drove from Sanda to Hiroshima as part of our summer holiday trip. I still vividly recall the museum at Peace Park - the artifacts left over from the blast - burnt lunch boxes and school uniforms, horrible photos of burns, that shadow on a step of a real person who disintegrated at that moment. 

Truly, these dreadful weapons must be banned and removed from every arsenal, forever.

 I am highly skeptical about the UFO phenomena that has been an abiding craze since WW2. It strikes me that if intelligent beings went to the enormous trouble of travelling (at a very minimum) thousands of years to cross the galaxy to get here (and why here?), then they would have more to do and say than play a strange game of hide and seek. Ditto even if the craft are automated, without biological life forms present. Such a vessel would be programmed to do something other than make brief enigmatic appearances or abduct the locals to perform oddly primitive experiments.

But there is a possibility that intelligent species have evolved elsewhere in the galaxy or wider universe, either in the past or in our present. It is possible that many civilisations have come and gone. Equally, in my estimation, that we are alone. Completely.

Assuming that the former is true, it would also be reasonable to suppose that intelligent life forms who have come to master the resources of their planet would also have passed through similar technological and scientific pathways as we have. They would all, at some point, have learnt how to split the atom and manufacture nuclear weapons. Futurists posit nuclear war as one of the potential 'great filters' that civilisations must pass through to survive. Others include, for example, meteor strikes, gamma ray bursts, ageing stars and catastrophic climate change.

We are on the cusp of two of those filters it would seem. How humans handle these matters is critical to whether we continue as a species or hand on a dead planet for cosmic visitors to puzzle over.

I found this old poem amongst some stored notes today. I guess it was written in the late 1990's, yes, last century. It shows the abiding influence of Larkin. And old technology. In its own way, it is a love poem.

interstices

The phone rang, interrupting the 

cathode chatter of TV, sending me

wordless to your voice,

and momentarily, the choice of a forty-five

cent call or nothing reverberated, leaving me

hopeful and somewhat dangling.

So out across the night, a conversation

strung like banners, invading dark suburbs,

pulsing harmlessly in long high-slung wires, past

neat lawns, skewed bins, shouts, dogs, hovering

until the last lamp post.

There, our voices gathered, like

wintering leaves, each unravelling

the other in continual succession,

mending with silences the

confessions of absence; your coins

unused, jangling.

Too much sadness, I think. Young people, out for an innocent night's fun, crushed to death in crowds. All by accident. Too many parents today, mourning the loss. Mourning again and again, for years. Sometimes life seems harder than other times, imposssibly so, when it's the young who suffer.

Because it is hard for to us understand the why, we are left in shock and disbelief. Even despair. I have no pat answers, no-one does really does. But for me personally, solace can only be found in faith.

'Trust in the Lord will all your heart,

and lean not on your own understanding.' Proverbs 3:5

My understanding at these times is limited and confused. I cannot 'lean' upon it. Only by trusting wholeheartedly in God can I gain any hope. I don't have to make sense of things. Hope is an enabler that drives action to help others by whatever means I can.

This is will not satisfy everyone of course. Perhaps very few. But it does bring comfort.

I have used the same Kindle pretty much every night for about 11 years now and have accumulated a large library of books on it. Last night I reached for my trusty e-reader only to find a strange power symbol on the front cover where a diagram or picture would normally be. It would not boot nor would it charge. I fiddled around with it again today but to no avail. I fear that I must accept that the battery has finally died or has become corrupted. I guess 11 years is a good run, given Amazon suggest that 5 or 6 years in the average battery life.

Losing the device is a little like seeing your library burn down. I haven't thought what to do now. A new kindle device will connect to my purchased collection at Amazon but I feel like I need to mourn this little machine first. The books I have read on it! From Dante to Dickens, Basho to Bryson - and so many topics and forms! 

Not everything need to be in such a hurry.

It is thirty years now since I first joined a community choir. As probably related elsewhere (so I will be brief), I had taken some singing workshops in Katoomba, run by Janet Swain. She decided shortly after that she wanted to form a choir and a few weeks later a large band of relative strangers were gathered in her loungroom in Bullaburra for an inaugural night of singing. Thus Crowd Around was formed.

I have also related elsewhere my huge debt of gratitude to Janet for kindling the singing fire in me, for while I had played around with a guitar and sung the odd ditty in private, I had never taken it all that seriously. I still think back with great fondness on that time, which seems so idealistic, naive and energetic to me now.

So it was with some joy that I found a copy of Janet's 'Sing Out', one of the first songs Crowd Around ever performed, and gave it to our MD Suzanne at Moo Choir on Monday night. After thirty years, we will be revisiting the song that got the ball rolling in 1992, an anniversary of sorts, a memory kept alive by the pure exulation that singing can be, when sung together.

I was presenting my fortnightly edition of the Newcastle Herald on Saturday at 2RPH (a broadcast beset by strange technical difficulties) when I came across the face of an old friend amongst its pages.

We had just completed the big end of the paper (news, editorials, sport, opinion pieces) and were about to head into the features section of the 'Weekender', when I stumbled upon a full-page splash about her. I don't want to print her full name - just that she is Lisa - but the article paid homage to her Newcastle origins before launching into an impressive resume of her achievements in the art world.

I often think back to the long conversations we had on the way to work in the 1990's, how much I admired her brilliance and energy and really just close we became. That fell apart as our fortunes took markedly different turns and 'way lead onto way' in a manner that I could not have predicted. I take the blame wholly for the falling away that occurred. It has been a source of deep remorse for me ever since.

When I think of Lisa, everything she has done, it might have been reasonably predicted back then, when she plied her trade in a high school art classroom. She was made for bigger things than that small space could hold and who knows what will come next.

It used to be that the political order in Britain was pretty unshakeable. A crisis did not necessarily mean the end of a government nor the demise of a prime minister. There was a kind of continuity between governments, even if they had distinct policy differences.

That seems to have changed with Brexit. That sharp and somewhat bewildering break with normality ushered in political instability, for though the Labour opposition was already hamstrung by an unelectable leader (one can like Corbyn but still doubt his fitness for Number 10), it was the Conservatives who appeared to lose their minds.

Sure, the unravelling of thousands and thousands of  EU laws and obligations was bound to cause many troubles, as it still is, but the ineptitude, buffoonery and double-thinking that has characterised Tory public discussion and legislative action has been astonishing. When the people who claim to be the establishment drop the ball, or pretend the ball is somewhere else in another game, or on another playing field, well, all bets seem to be off.

The revolving door of Prime Ministers that once plagued Australia appears to have become a part of British political architecture. And that is not a good thing.

I bought the complete poetical works of Christina Rossetti about a month ago for my kindle and most nights I read a few poems. Rossetti is a very interesting person and poet, for though many might baulk at the devotional themes that often characterize her writing, she is really very skillful at her craft. 

Writing in the 19th Century as she did presents some mild challenges for a modern reader, who might find her expression old fashioned and her topic matter outdated. It will come as no surprise to you that I think no such thing. Here is one of her sonnets which illustrates the point I am making. If you would like to know the origins of  her topic, then have a look at Ecclesiastes 1 in the Old Testament.

Vanity of Vanities

Ah, woe is me for pleasure that is vain,
Ah, woe is me for glory that is past.

Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last,

Glory that at the last bringeth no gain!

So saith the sinking heart; and so again

It shall say till the mighty angel-blast

Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast

And showering down the stars like sudden rain.

And evermore men shall go fearfully

Bending beneath their weight of heaviness;

And ancient men shall lie down wearily,

And strong men shall rise up in weariness,

Yes, even the young shall answer sighingly

Saying one to another: How vain it is!

The music of the 1960's was an unintended though essential soundtrack to the space race between the USA and the former USSR. The kernel of that race can be seen in the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 and the first man in space(orbit) in 1961, both Russian achievements. The race heated up when the Americans set their sights on sending a man to the moon, following the Kennedy speech in May 1961. That event, famously completed by Apollo 11, forms the other book end to the decade in 1969.

I am not really a nostalgic person. I find that we tend to filter in those moments that are pleasant and memorable and filter out the opposite, leaving us rather vulnerable to being harsher in our opinions about the now. I understand it though, particularly since boomers can access so much of the past in the present thanks to technology. It is always a temptation to look back with longing and probably not so bad so long as a perspective is kept.

But I digress. I have submitted a prerecorded show application with 2RPH on the theme of 'space'. There is no shortage of material either from magazines to the daily press to specialized internet sites such as NASA to draw upon for a thousand half hour episodes. But leaping ahead as I do to fill in the big picture, I have been pondering over what short music interludes might fill the space between items. Queue the Sixties.

That may account for the middle paragraph, music being one of the most talked about nostalgic elements. Sometimes I forget the steps of the mental flips I take. I will keep you up to speed on the project and should it come to fruition, the times when you can listen in, if you have a mind to.

My son Tom has been doing his HSC exams this week, which are split over Years 11 and 12. As part of his revision of English, he wanted to watch again the Australian movie 'The Castle' which is a part of the curriculum he has been studying.

I hadn't seen this movie in 20 years at least and retained a very fond memory or it, particularly since it was the brain child of some of my favourite comedians. I had forgotten just how funny it was, not merely in the witty script, but the clever sight gags and many incongruous juxtapositions. A non-Australian audience might find it completely bamboozling and some of a post-modern ilk may find it offensive. Well, dream on. 

I remember when I first saw 'The Castle' at Glenbrook cinema way back in 1997. The audience laughed their way through it and cheered the 'little man' on as he took on the establishment. At the end they rose to their feet and applauded, a rare sight these days.

Funny and with heart. Five stars.

billet

My body is a tent,

Fine to bivouac in

By campgrounds of desire,

In lattitudes of longing,

It is a short-term thing,

Just for temporary hire,

For the stitching is undoing

And the floor is prone to rending,

And the door lets water in-

Which is poor for those aspiring,

To a permanance beyond,

To a sturdier building.

Far past the forests dimming,

Liminal, receding,

Is a fainter chorus singing,

They are walking in the gloaming,

And the ranks are thinning, thinning.

Chatting to my mother just now brought back a wealth of memories of my late school career. As noted in previous posts, I am forgetful of a lot of things, but it seems my mum is still sharp as a razer when it comes to books and learning.

The conversation was prompted by the fact that my son Tom is doing his HSC English exams tomorrow and Thursday. It is interesting to compare notes on what was studied then and what is studied now, which necessarily must change. 

There are many more novels, poems and plays about than when I sat the HSC in 1976, though some titles will continue to defy the winnowing. Orwell, Shakespeare, Slessor, Shaw, Miller, Donne, Keats and Plath, for example, have survived the cut. Many other fine authors, or composers in the jargon, are represented. I was delighted to see Lawler's Summer of the 17th Doll, included. A blast from the (recent) past, indeed.

I recall answering questions on Hamlet, Coleridge, Keats and 1984. There must have been a couple of others, though I have forgot! I might dig down in my notes from the time, wherever they are, and find out what I actually did study for.

Looking over the English syllabus, there is much to like. If you get past the trendy reworking of key terms, the teaching of the subject looks a whole lot more interesting, and challenging, than it did when I studied it and then subsequently taught it. It is more imaginative and open-ended, whilst at the same time being somewhat more challenging. You have to be able to deal with multiple texts at the same time. That takes practice.

We all have difficult people in our lives, whether they be family, workmates or neighbours. It is easy to fall into an accusative frame of mind when one has been treated badly or unjustly. It is natural, I suppose, to want to lash out - give them a stern telling off - but ultimately such an approach is self-defeating. The difficult person is none the wiser, unlikely to change and you are left stewing in an emotional chaos.

I found a prayer the other day that is made for just such a person - for the two people really - and I reprint it below, which is attributed to St Therese of Lisieux. I find it helps. I understand if you are not at all religious you will find this hard to pray. There are many other affirmation-style ways of doing the same thing that I hope will bring some peace to you.

Dear Heavenly Father

I pray that you show me the way,

for I do not know how to deal

with this difficult person in my life.

I know that you have placed them

here for a reason and I am grateful

for that.

Grant me your Godly Wisdom

so that I may uplift your name!

Give me strength and courage so 

that I can forgive them as

you have forgiven me.

Please guide my thoughts and actions

as I deal with them.

Amen

It is not my idea of fun to write about the parlous times that we seem to be living through. Contrary to previous posts in which I thought that the awfulness was largely a factor of the explosion of information sources, I do honestly think, upon relfection, that there is something to worry about.

As a child of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, Mutually Assured Destruction and the constant background of a great power war breaking out (even by accident), I had some quiet confidence that things might get better. After all, the 1990's promised a new order of sorts and for a while, the Russians and Americans were getting along. China was rising but fairly quiet.

I cannot rate how serious one V. Putin is about the use of battlefield nuclear weapons, politely called tactical, as if it were a game of chess, nor can I measure the capacity for the West to overestimate or underestimate the threat. I cannot tell whether the Ukrainians will stop at nothing to regain all of their homeland (Crimea?) thus potentially triggering a cataclysmic Russian response.

That is only the half of it, for China will certainly be charting a pathway to regaining Taiwan, by peaceful or other means. Because Australia is tethered to the United States, any conflict in that arena is likely to drag us in. Our political class is simply too scared to defy Washington.

Then there is North Korea. Of all the threats I take this the least seriously, for the wierd and insular regime that governs certainly does not want a war in which it will lose, nuclear weapons or not. Belligerent posturing is its forte.

After the awful football stadium disasters of the past, where large numbers of supporters were either killed or injured in a stampede, one would think that the lessons were well learnt. Don't exceed ground capacity, separate fans of rival sides where necessary, avoid the use of tear gas by police, and so forth.

In the most recent and truly terrible calamity yesterday in Indonesia, some of these fundamentals were broken. One hundred and ninety people are dead, many more injured. Sure, fans from the home side (who lost) invaded the pitch when they shouldn't and it seems that some rioting took place too. Football is a passionate game and when you have a strong rivalry with another club, emotions can boil over. Those emotions must get channelled somewhere.

But many people who did not invade the pitch were caught up in a panicked rush to an exit where they were crushed. What is there to say to the families of the dead, who only a few hours earlier where heading off cheerfully for the big game? There is nothing really, nothing but tears.

Hemisheres

'Three days warm, four cold,' she said.

And I laughed, for April being Spring,

I thought of September instead,

With fire teams gearing up,

And early talk of 'tinder dry',

And first signs of tinselling

Absurd in the magpie air.

That's another thing-

They swoop, that's why 

I prefer the sakura,

The looming translucence

That moves and moves

Under a milky sky.

The blossoms descend

Upon a thousand o-hanami,

Cups of sake, dry,

At an eternal evening's end.

Last month was the 100th anniversary of the birth of poet Philip Larkin. I have written about Larkin elsewhere, especially the manner in which his verse seemed to exactly chime with my mood in the 1980's. Rather an old head on young shoulders, even in my twenties I identified with a certain sense of loss, of impermanence, of the wistful glance over the shoulder at unsatisfactory years passing.

I owe much of that, I think, to my drifting from Christianity about the same time - a roaming that to this day I cannot put my finger clearly upon. Returning to the faith after almost 40 years was a prodigal act indeed, for which I thank a loving, patient and forgiving God.

Now, Larkin had no expressed religious views that I know of - he writes in a kind of agnostic way - but his verse often had me dwelling on God and the way religion might once again work in the lives of people. I mean, the loss of faith that was apparent in his world view seemed to present some stark choices which had yet to be worked through.

In "Church Going", for example, he wonders what might become of churches once belief has ended. He stands in an empty church, "bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt/dispersed". And yet, in the final verse, he ponders the individual who,

'will forever be surprising

A hunger in himself to be more serious,

And gravitating with it to this ground,

Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,

If only that so many dead lie round." 

I sometimes feel like that individual, as I am sure many others have too. Perhaps it's the walls, the images, the furniture and the knowledge that countless others have sung, prayed and been blessed in the same space over decades or centuries. And if there is a graveyard about the church, then surely that will be a prompt to thoughts of the mortal self. To run away from such as these is to miss out on something that makes life more precious.

I was sitting at my computer just now when I heard a strange whooshing sound in the distance. It was not unlike a freight or coal train but somehow different. It grew steadily louder, but this was even more perplexing, for the sound became diffuse, as if it was across a broad front. 

Glancing outside and seeing that there was no rain apparent, I went out on the back porch and listened. From the general front of sound could now be distinguished individual notes, characteristic (I soon realised) of heavy rain approaching. Within a minute it began to hail and all became clear to me.

I don't ever recall hearing the approach of a hail shower in that way before. The distant but closing clatter of ice on tiles and tin was a one-off. Of course, no two events are identical and you have to be present (in every sense) to make the connection.

Henka is a Japanese noun that has a group of possible meanings including 'change, variation, variety and inflection.' Where it applies to sumo it takes an even more specific meaning, "sidestepping."

A henka is a much frowned upon manoeuvre that occurs at the tachi-ai, the initial charge at the very beginning of a bout. Anyone who has watched any sumo will know that the two wrestlers typically clash head-on. When a henka occurs, one of the wrestlers deliberately steps to one side. This usually means that the other wrestler charges into thin air and is generally defeated either through a katakikomi (push on the shoulder or back) or by simply falling flat on his face. It is not illegal but you can see how it is unsporting.

Henka usually occur amongst lower ranked rikishi who are either desperate to break a losing streak or who are on the brink of achieving their kachi-koshi (more wins than loses) and just want to get over the line. Lately though more senior ranked wrestlers have been indulging, notably the ozeki Takakeisho. During his bout with Hokutofuji, when he pulled the henka, the audience was notably silent at the end, signalling its disapproval.

Things do tend come around though and the following day he ended up on his stomach after Wakatakakage (for it was he) did the same thing to him. I am wondering if one day the henka becomes illegal, given the fact that it so often is considered below the belt in what is upheld as a noble sport.

Night Class

"Look up there", he said,
Settling on his swag,

"Look up and learn"

The tufts beneath his bed

Rustled like a snake,

And all above,

A brilliant cosmos

Seemed to burn

And shake in its vault.

Between silences of breath,

Cones of steam ascending,

Hurtling points of light

Came on and on,

Some, 

Strange envoys of a death,

A core extinguished

In the flight, perhaps.

"Betelgeuse is

toast." he said.

"A supernova. That'll 

Be a sight!"

From 600 years past

The frail ruby

Shimmered in the night.

Through a glass darkly

As I suppose,

I too saw the giant,

Bloat with a bright

Consuming fire.

 Acres of print has been spilled on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and the subsequent state funeral on Monday. Like countless others I watched until I grew too sleepy, then caught up with most of what I missed the following morning. No matter what your sentiments on monarchy, it was a magnificent occasion, something which the British seem to pull off effortlessly. I especially liked the service at Westminster Abbey, the hymns, music, prayers and homily often achieving a heartfelt and genuine beauty that transcended even the occasion itself.

Australia, for those who don't know, is a constitutional monarchy, with the powers of the distant King or Queen devolved to an appointed Governor-General. The GG is largely a figurehead. It is understood that the elected government in Canberra calls all the shots, though the GG does in theory have considerable power. The system has worked well with the exception of the constitutional crisis in 1975, when a wiser and cooler head than Kerr would have led to a better outcome.

I am not a monarchist and at best, I am a coy republican. I can see the value of an appointed head of state though I would prefer that constitutional issues were entirely the purvey of the High Court. A republic is currently off the table in Australia, given the groundswell of feeling for the late Queen. The time may come one day but there is no need to be in a hurry. 

Sumo wrestlers have ring names or shikona which mask their real identity. Shikona are often associated with a particular stable or may reflect a wrestlers origins, especially if they are non-Japanese.

Being a person who likes words, I often find shikona to be amusing by virtue of their length or capacity to be pronounced. Remembering that names are quickly alluded to multiple times in a sumo bout, tongue twisters can sometimes get chewed up in the heat of the contest.

Consider Wakatakakage for instance. The talented sekiwake, who has the making of an ozeki if I am not mistaken, is a difficult name to say in  the moment. That is Waka-taka-kage with syllables unaccented. Commentators and fans alike get marble-mouthed when forced to utter his name.

I intend to make it a practice exercise prior to going on air.

Image courtesy Tsubame98

The Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo got under way last Sunday. At day five, a small group of wrestlers remain unbeaten, though not a single ozeki is amongst them. In fact, all of the frontrunners are rank and file maegashira. That may change in coming days, especially as Takakeisho and Mitakeumi are showing some promising sumo.

Where is the yokozuna, I hear you ask? At 3-2 Terunofuji is off to his shakiest start in a while, doubtless brought on by ongoing injuries. His knees and ankles are bandaged up and he is lacking the standing power that he customarily displays. But that may change too as the tourney continues.

Yesterday he was defeated by veteran Tamawashi, who at 5-0 is powering along. He has beaten the yokozuna a number of times before so it was not a huge upset, in my estimation. The photo I snapped below shows  the two in desperate combat, Terunofuji suffering a thrust to the neck (nodowa) from his opponent. But he will surely live to avenge himself on his fellow Mongolian. Note also the lady in white to the right of Tamawashi's mawashi. She is a regular feature at almost all sumo tournaments.

Few go looking for trouble and still fewer seek sorrow as their lot. Life being what it is, there will always be conflicts and afflictions, bad luck or loss, that usually mean we will encounter sadness.

The writer of Ecclesiastes had this down pat, it being one of the wisdom books, he necessarily takes a forlorn view of life and human nature. It doesn't make for a cheery read, though his final conclusions are sound enough.

Ecclesiastes 7:3 says "Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us" (Living Bible). Most people would opt for laughter any day of the week in preference to feeling down, but the writer is nevertheless correct.

It is only in moments of sorrow that we can see through the fluff and chatter of life down to the core of what really matters - relationships like friends and family, food and shelter, love, God. Not everyone will agree with me on that, but the winnowing down of the extraneous will almost always lead to deeper thoughts about what is really important in life.

I don't wish it on anyone, but when it comes - the looming darkness for a week or a month or a year - look for whatever lessons may come along too. And don't give up hope.

Yesterday my dear friends Da and Rom got married in a little church down in Castlereagh. Both being Thai, they wore traditional wedding attire, as did the wedding party. I was dragooned into a variety of roles, including MC, photo-gopher, setter upper and so forth. I am only too happy to help such kind and loving people and the day, though long, was very satisfying for all.

The day before the wedding a group of us had spent a few hours setting up the church and reception hall, it being a kind of do-it-yourself arrangement. It was just before the sun fell below the lowest eastern ridge of the Blue Mountains that I took this photo, looking out from the church grounds.

Queen Elizabeth passed away last night and today, many nations around the world have a new monarch. It seemed to many, including me, that the Queen might go on forever, determined to continue in that faithful duty that she had vowed to fulfil seven decades earlier. Consider that she had first become Queen during the (second) Prime Ministership of Winston Churchill, at a time when Britain still had something of an empire, and now, when the boundaries have shrunk to the heartland of the UK, consider, that she spans this huge and troubled divide, and you will better understand the nature of her reign.

I cannot say whether the monarchy and the constitutional government that springs from it will survive. Republican governments seem to do quite well on the whole, notwithstanding some glaring exceptions. Australia may well tip in the next decade or so, or it may not. The example of Queen Elizabeth will be difficult to follow, for will such self-sacrifice not be a challenge for generations accustomed to adoring their own image? I hope not.

My mother is doubtless very upset today and I feel very sad too. The loss is palpable. But the late Queen was a Christian and in this there is profound hope. But for now this is a peace that is well earned.

Said to be the last photo taken of the Queen, receiving the new British Prime Minister at Balmoral. Copyright The Independent

Last night I started Adult Faith Formation classes at St Finbars Glenbrook. This is the next part of my journey with confirmation, all going well, in November. My last encounter fizzled out 40 years ago, much to my shame. But the intervening decades have given me a maturity that I could not hope to have had as a twenty year old. Instead, immaturity and lack of self-esteem led me astray, though not at the first post. It took a few knocks before I fell into worldly ways again.

In Acts 20:22, Paul says,

"And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there."

He had good reason to say it, for having been transformed so dramatically from a Pharisee to an apostle of the very faith he had persecuted, he had enemies. I do not have enemies as such and while I do not know what the future holds or where it may lead, I do not fear it on account of faith.

I managed to complete a session of Features Forum at 2RPH yesterday without error. For some reason, every shift I have done since taking up the program as presenter a few months ago has been plagued by a technical glitch - only small, mind you - but not to my standards. This rarely happens on other shifts I have done, despite there being no real differences in the operation. It may be that I have been trying too hard to be perfect, putting too much pressure on myself. Note to self in future!

I have to rush at the end of the program to make my train back to the mountains. This can be tricky as buses, groaning with passengers, negotiated the traffic of the inner city in peak hour. I made my train easily this time only to find that it was delayed, as the announcement went, 'by an object on the tracks at Glenbrook.' 'If it's only an object, why not remove it?' I thought to myself.

It seemed likely we would be stuck for some time at Central so I hightailed it across to another platform where a local train that would get me where I wanted to go was shortly to arrive, only more slowly. Checking the Sydney Trains site again, I read that the object on the tracks was actually a train! Who would have thought?

My wife and her daughter often engage in an animated conversation, in Thai, of course. I thought that it was likely they were talking about the day's events, or odd Western cultural quirks, or even a movie or show they had seen and liked.

But no, every time I have asked, the answer is always the same. Food. They talk about food - recipes they have seen on the internet, things they would like to eat, restaurants they would like to visit.

I thought at first I might be the butt of a mutually-shared joke, or a kind of mind-your-own-business diversion. But no, they really are just talking about food. Every time.

I find the topic of food something that might be worthy of five minutes discussion, rarely to be repeated. I guess that I'm missing something!

You know Spring is upon us when magpies begin to dive bomb. Today was my first of the season, along a route that I often ride, without previous incident. Despite being at a distinct disadvantage - the attacks are always from behind - it is possible to discern that something sinister is afoot. There are fleeting shadows and the fluster of wings. Occasionally the tell-take snap of a beak.

I don't blame the bird, of course. The nesting instinct is strong and I must look like an odd and potentially dangerous stranger in its midst. Ah, if only birds could measure the good intentions, but even they cannot read minds!

It's funny. After having completed a diploma in counselling and even run my own counselling business, albeit 10 years ago, I still fall into some very basic thinking errors. You have probably seen the lists or diagrams of cognitive distortions at some stage. They tend to be sorted into ten or twelve categories, depending upon the therapist or training, and each has its own particular way of hooking you in. They become habitual and like a drug, especially addictive. But they are poor ways of thinking and responding in life and cause no end of trouble.

For me it is doubly troubling. because thinking errors undermine faith and subsequent actions without one being aware of them. The counsellor in me should have been far more alert to the fact that without constant revision, lifelong patterns of thinking will return. It was only when I was reading a devotional by the late Rev. Selwyn Hughes, himself a trained counsellor. that I realised that the tools that I applied in secular circumstances equally applied in the realm of faith. Of course.

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then to pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far that you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Rossetti

Written at the age of 19, this beautiful sonnet is perhaps Rossetti's best known poem. Thematically, it doesn't require deep investigation, remembrance for love lost in death. The poet wants to be remembered by her suitor ("Only remember me") but then again, feels it might be better if he forgets, if only to save him the sense of enduring sadness that comes with memory.

But it is not only this melancholic subject that appeals to me. The young Rossetti was so accomplished in her use of structure. She keeps to the rhyme pattern of the Petrarchan sonnet but lines often as not run onto the next line - in a sense - undermining that structure, to great effect.

She has a turn of phrase too, a simple economy of language, that renders me mute.

'Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay'

Just splendid!

The Great War may seem like generations ago, something awful that is well in the past, but remembered annually on the 11th November. But its repercussions are with us to this day. Moreover, it is a clear watershed moment in modern history, one that utterly changed what had gone before.

The carnage and scale has already been well-documented - the industrial slaughter of soldiers, the reorganisation of whole economies and populations for the 'war effort', the trialling of new technologies, no matter how immoral.

But World War 1 was the catalyst for everything that has followed - World War 2, the reigniting of ethnic conflicts, the atomic bomb, the search for more and more lethal means to kill. In as much as people argue that humanity is becoming more morally fair and sensitive, and there is evidence for that on a personal level, the relations between nations have not. At best there is a veneer of civility, one which could be abandoned to murderous conflict at any moment.

Do I sound overly pessimistic? I have been a life-long student of history and I find little to shake this view. Of course I hope and I pray for peace - the latter is especially powerful - but I fear that things will only get worse before they ever get better. And only God can make them so.

St Finbar's Father Joe has just returned from visiting family in Germany. Part of his sermon today reflected on his journey to Dachau concentration camp, of the sheer awfulness of what happened there. Nevertheless, he noted how God's love and sacrifice shone through, even in such a place. 

It may be hard to understand a thing like love in the midst of evil - the actions of the Nazis call for revenge and swift justice in most people's eyes - but a longer view might reveal a Divine hand at work. Not that God in any way was an agent in such events, but that we might derive some peace and comfort for taking  a longer view and wondering how it looks in the broader scheme of things. How might sheer wickedness have some kind of redemptive quality?

This reminded me of my own pilgrimage to Dachau over forty years ago. Like the Father I was shocked and horrified by what I encountered but I can't recall, except for anger, what I thought of God's purposes in such a hell. It was winter, very cold and I well remember simmering on the train back to Munich. But modern Germans, of course, know only too well about their recent past and are certainly contrite. Dachau is a warning about unrestrained or misdirected human nature - a salutary warning about negative human capacity.

The Dachau Camp was relatively benign when compared to places like Auschwitz or Buchenwald, where slaughter was on a mass scale. 41,000 people died here - bad enough - sure, but far less than at the other killing grounds. May such a thing never happen again. Only constant reminders will keep it in our race memory.

Because I am about to start training for admission to another church, I have been hunting around for proof of my baptism. I came late to that event, being 21 at the time. The venue was the church I had begun going to, St Albans, Frenchs Forest, and the minister, the kindly Rev. Len Straw. But I was unable to find the correct certificate and the thought of combing boxes of old documents filled me with a kind of dread.

So I asked the same church if they could email me proof of some kind and they duly did, though they spelt the venerable Straw's name incorrectly. Never mind I thought. I have what I need.

Today I was fiddling around in my garage library (there is no room in the house, sob!) when a small book fell from the shelf. From that small book, my baptism certificate fell also.

The Rev. Straw, name correctly rendered now, can rest in peace.

I sent a text message to my ex this morning that read, " Tom sick. RAT negative. PCR to come." Reflecting on it as I walked to and from the shops a little later, it struck me that such a message would have made no sense only a few years ago. The Coronavirus has changed my vocabulary and added some new acronyms, not necessarily for the better.

It may be that it is in the nature of texting (to use a noun as a verb), that truncations occur. After all, early text messaging was a gabble of thumbs to get the words onto the tiny screen. Little wonder that U became You and R became Are. I don't use them, boring sod that I am. Old habits die hard, especially for English teachers.

But I did read the other day that the kinds of words that have emerged from messaging, abbreviations and acronyms and so forth, should be embraced as valuable contributions to our evolving language. Well, I think that is what I read, because I think that, with the exception of a few examples, it is a thoroughly bad idea. They are fine, if annoying, in their current context. But if people began using them as part of an ordinary conversation, then I feel that my eyes may glaze over.

There are some things worth defending.

Australia changed Federal Governments a few months ago and the workings of the old one are just beginning to unravel. It is not a pretty sight, for in as much as being in government is a complicated and difficult task, incompetence will out. Always.

Only a few days ago, it was revealed that the former PM, Scott Morrison, had secretly had himself sworn in to half a dozen other ministries, including Home Affairs, Treasury and Health, that already had serving ministers. It is an extraordinary revelation that has the Opposition in pirouettes, some condemning the former PM, others keeping a low profile. You can imagine how you might feel if you were the minister in charge of a portfolio, only to find much later that your PM had secretly usurped your authority.

I am not that surprised at Morrison's behaviour. He came across as a one-man-band during Covid, omnipresent before the cameras and demanding attention be paid. He had an impossibly inflated opinion of his own ability, impossible by the standards of any human being, one that seems, sadly, to have inevitably fallen short. I don't doubt his sincerity in the midst of a crisis, but five ministries and the Prime Ministership is beyond anyone.

 Christina Rosetti is best remembered as a devotional or religious poet, something that would ordinarily condemn her to a minor status. It is entirely unfair, of course, since Hopkins could have a blazing career in the same genre of writing. Being a man in the 19th Century made his far more likely, for women struggled to be heard or taken seriously.

Rosetti's brother, Dante Gabriel Rosetti (yes, the very same who gained fame as a poet and artist in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) thought her verse the best since Elizabeth Barret Browning. He meant women's verse, of course. In any event, she is highly regarded today and underwent a kind of renaissance late last century.

I have a volume of her poetry on my kindle and have been reading a few poems very night. It's true that if you are not of a religious persuasion. then you might find her subject matter a stumbling block. For me, it is all joy. 

from Uphill

Does the road wind uphill all the way?

Yes, to the very end,

Will the day's journey take the whole long day?

From morn to night, my friend.

from The One Certainty 

Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith,

All things are vanity. The eye and ear

Cannot be filled with what they see and hear,

Like early dew or like the sudden breath

Of wind, or like the grass that withereth,

Is man tossed to and fro by hope and fear,

So little joy hath he, so little cheer....

I seems odd to me that I am forgetting more and more, that things that should be better retained within short-term memory are not. I have two shifts at 2RPH. The one on Tuesday starts at 3pm and the one on Saturday starts at 1pm. I have been doing these new shifts for about three months now.

Yesterday I left at about 10am to drive to Penrith, there to catch whatever train took my fancy. I was thinking, of course, that I was starting work at 1pm. The penny didn't drop until much later, when, coming into Star City station on the light rail, I looked at my watch and realised I had an extra two hours on my hands. I promptly alighted and, shaking my head, went back in the other direction.

It is sobering thing to come to grips with. The aging of the body is one thing, but the aging of the brain is a lot sadder. You can have a laugh about it, of course, but there is likely only one direction  possible in this kind of scenario. Fortunately, I still have my faith.

Prayer is a funny thing. It can seem so perfunctory at times - this is something that should be avoided - but because we are creatures given overly to feelings, it is not unusual to find ourselves experiencing what the medievals called spiritual dryness. We cannot live on feelings alone and they is usually a very poor judge of reality. Just because we don't feel something doesn't mean our circumstances are any different to when we did feel something.

Prayer is about persistence and about listening. We tend to do a lot of the talking. Imagine a conversation that is entirely one-way, which, of course, is not a conversation at all. Not very fair is it?

Prayer is also one of those things, one of those important things, that can be answered quite emphatically. I won't go into my own recent case of answered prayer. It was not a coincidence and not a fluke, but genuinely amazing. I am still tingling from it. God doesn't always answer our prayers in such a way. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be earnest and believing when we ask. There will be an answer, one way or or another.

The Morning Bird is a bird I hear every day at first light, but I do not know yet which bird it is. When I look outside it is till too dark to discern any kind of small thing aloft and soon enough the magpies and cockatoos add to the chorus and the search is fruitless.

Still on the theme of birds in poetry, Larkin wrote the following piece, Coming, a recollection about childhood. But of course, there is a bird.

Coming

On longer evenings,
Light, chill and yellow

Bathes the serene

Foreheads of houses.

A thrush sings

Laurel-surrounded

In the deep bare garden,

It's fresh-peeled voice

Astonishing the brickwork.

It will be spring soon,

It will be spring soon-

And I, whose childhood

Is a forgotten boredom,

Feel like a child

Who comes on a scene

Of adult reconciling

And can understand nothing

But the unusual laughter

And starts to be happy.

The poem says far more about the poet's somewhat gloomy outlook than the voice of the thrush, however much the latter is 'astonishing the brickwork.' That the spring is coming soon seems more a forlorn hope for change than anything truly joyful. Well, such is Mr Larkin.

Morning Bird

When the sun is almost up-
You are, already, emphatic bird-

Your tweets on some kind of

exclamatory repeat:

You have my attention!

Though not for me-

You sing for the startling morn,

Less a feat of strength

More one of prayer,

For deep hours borne

And the conjuring of light,

For possum and foxes lair,

The sly tripping wind and

Eternal flightless night.

Riding between the villages of Hazelbrook and Woodford this morning, I was afforded a magnificent view to the north. Wooded hills and mountains lay like a smooth carpet, the dark greens of the gums almost silver in the winter sun. Australian trees do not lose their leaves in autumn - the dry climate would make their replenishment untenable - though we have enough introduced exotics to throw some colour into the mix.

There was also apparent a calamity of bird sound; anything that could get up a tweet was in full song, doubtless rejoicing in the splendid morn. And thus Shelley's Skylark came to mind, and the bird that inspired the hymn of praise that is To A Skylark. 

'What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plains?'

Shelley was writing in the first two decades of the 19th Century. More than half a century later, Thomas Hardy would pen a tribute to Shelley by way of eulogising (the now long dead) skylark in Shelley's Skylark.

'The dust of the skylark Shelley heard

And made immortal through times to be;

Though it only lived like another bird.

And knew not its immortality.'

Birds often feature in poetry and seem to be somewhat of an inspiration. The poet whose poetry got me hooked as a 16 year old was John Keats. Ode To A Nightingale was one of the first things I knew by heart, as gloomy an encomium as one is likely to read, for Keats is very preoccupied with thoughts of death. The bird song is almost an intrusion into his introspection. And yet it is a beautiful poem, teetering on fracturing and conflicting emotions.

'Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;'

I love that allusion, echoing, as it does, over millennia.

I wonder what appeals to thinking teens nowadays?