The last day of a very soggy summer. Only two years ago, the grass cracked underfoot - it being so dry - and talk was all of the tinder box ahead. Bushfires are common in Australia and especially in bushy areas such as the Blue Mountains. There's no mistaking, if you live here, it is the risk you take. Buyer beware!

News from Europe continues to be bleak and the cloistered dictator is making noises about his nuclear arsenal. Bluff or not, it takes a particularly nasty kind of person to make such a threat, veiled or otherwise. Even the suggestion of extinguishing hundreds of millions of lives is totally despicable in any circumstance.

I hope that the Chinese begin to wonder seriously about their ally to the north and perhaps decide to have a quiet chat. Or a tap on the shoulder. They are, after all, the other superpower.

We have had more rain than I can remember, perhaps the most recorded in a decade. Things are turning mouldy - my new suede shoes for example - and mosses are growing vigorously on the ground on the shaded upper side of the house. At night the sound of beating showers is a constant background to dreams, the pelt at the window and the sibilant murmur of moving water. The back yard is impassable, save in a pair of wellington boots. Even those sink below the level of the grass. I leave dark muddy prints wherever I step.

My mind always turns to poetry at such times. And often as not I look for a classic Chinese poem to express my feelings. I found the following translation of a Li Shangyin poem at the blog of Andrew Wong from Hong Kong, done by the gentleman himself. Li Shangyin lived in the late Tang period, a time of great flourishing in the arts in China.

Written on a Rainy Night: A Letter Sent North

You asked of my day of return - alas, I have none to tell:
In Bashan, night rains, in autumn, cause ponds and pools to swell.

How I long to be with you, your west wing candles to trim and,

To talk of the times and hours, when in Bashan night rains fell.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine brings more clearly into focus the multi-polar world be now inhabit, following decades of bipolarity between the then Soviet Union and the United States. During that time everything was seen though the lens of this superpower conflict, and while there were non-aligned countries, almost every conflict was grounded in this stifling duality. It was a kind of war by proxy in which Moscow and Washington vied for interest.

Opportunities arose after the fall of the USSR to establish a new security order in the world. But the West chose to consolidate NATO and Russia took the cheap road to a new autocracy. This is where we are today. Nothing justifies the invasion of a sovereign state but there is much that can explain it.

If I was to guess at what V. Putin has in mind for the Russian Federation after the Ukraine is dismembered or neutralized, one could do worse than look at a map of Europe in 1914. Putin has been harking back in recent speeches to a pre-Bolshevik Russia - which can really only mean Tsarist Russia - in support of his claims for 'security.' What might that look like?

Well, for a start, Ukraine is a part of Russia. So is Poland. So too Finland. Add to that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Perhaps a sliver of Northern Romania.

All of the those now independent nations are members of NATO, except Finland and Ukraine. It is too late now for the latter, but I think the Finns might want to reconsider their position. Seriously!

The Australian climate does nothing by half measures or tidy averages. Droughts last for years and just when everyone is talking about building new dams or desal plants, it will bucket down for a week, flooding the landscape. Then the talk will be of extending the height of dam walls or designing new flood mitigation schemes. Everyone, particularly politicians, forget about the next to last episode and so, things don't usually get done in the right order or even at all. 

Global warming will likely only worsen the chances of extreme weather and most likely, the responses in Canberra and the state capitals. We already bear the stultifying complacency that came with being a lucky country, never mind what might come next. The Federal Government is full of placeholders and visionless backslapping mediocrities, led by a arch gas lighter. 

We could do much better.

The Doll

'She's all I got,' he said,

'Since Maggie passed.'

There, propped on the bed,

She sat,

A playful smile and

Massed hair, a hat 

Gently perched

And eyes that spoke of

Nothing,

For a while I gazed-

From politeness,

A gingham smock

And impossible breasts,

A single missing nail,

'She's hard to dress,

Weighs a ton'

For a moment, he

Seemed distressed, 

As if she'd mind

His clumsiness.

'Nothing dirty, understand.'

I winked and took one

Smooth silicon hand.

'Beautiful,' I said,

And left to make the tea,

His voice continued,

Faintly, seeming tender,

I poured a second cup,

Bronze and steaming,

Though not for me.

I first went to Europe in 1979, in the summer gap between my Bachelor degree and a proposed Grad. Dip.Ed. at Sydney Teachers College. Having been raised by a very English mother, nothing spoke more energetically to me, in my unformed state, than a trip to Britain and the Continent. Where else would a young man, steeped in the prescribed literature, go?

After I got back, a friend asked me if he could peruse my diary, which I had written in daily. He was duly surprised (as was I, upon reflection) that it read more like a shopping list of costs incurred than a record of experiences, beyond the perfunctory arrivals and departures. At the time I put it down to the sheer pressure of staying within a very tight budget, though perhaps the cause goes deeper. I did write a lot of 'aerogrammes' home and those reflected more accurately my thoughts about my travels. Still no excuse. If I have written a diary since (this blog is an example), I have tried to stay away from balance sheets.

But what I did discover was that I had recorded many events on maps, in guide books and other traveller's paraphernalia, such as drink coasters. The A2Z of London and AA Road Guide UK, which I bought after hiring a car (sometimes trains don't go everywhere) were a treasure, with highlighted routes I had travelled and places I has walked in the Capital. So all was not lost.

Recently, I have begun watching youtube videos by posters who walk, ride or take buses about London. Sometimes they take a similar route to that which I took 40 years ago. Despite all the changes that have occurred since then, they are priceless reminders.

History, as has often been noted, is a good teacher, while humans, are poor learners. It is an unfortunate pairing really, for the broad perspectives and deep immersion required to be a good pupil are usually lost on folks after a generation or two. What is learnt and understood in the moment is diluted across time, so that important lessons just do not sink in.

Few could have predicted the First World War - certainly not its timing - and fewer still could have foreseen its awful consequences. Who would have thought that the assassination of an Austrian Royal would have unleashed the pent-up forces and craven ambitions that would topple a whole continent into murderous conflict?

Today we face a similar though not identical situation. The tinder is dry for two potential conflagrations - over Taiwan in Asia and the Ukraine in Europe. The latter is particularly galling, for who cannot fail to see the outworking of hubris that emerged after the Cold War, or the manner in which Russia has found itself surrounded by NATO countries on its borders.

I remember at the time thinking how stupid it was to expand NATO, rather then disband it, and a create a new inclusive security system in Europe. What could possibly go wrong with building an alliance up to the very border of a former adversary?

The West is both complacent and foolish. Putin is not a good guy, but that is no reason why democracies should behave as if their skulls are empty. Time now for a comprehensive peace in Europe, or else.

I am not sure that there is enough wonder in the world. Perhaps humans have become so inured to the incrementally accumulated living we call reality that nothing really surprises, when really it should.

Our existence for starters. The fine balance of events, systems, coincidences and calamities made possible the rise of living organisms. A meteorite that spelled doom to the dinosaurs was a boon to the mammals. 

I remember saying to a child once that a particular red point of light in the sky - the star Betelgeuse - was something that we were seeing 640 years in the past. The light had left that star at beginning of the reign of Elizabeth 1. He was astonished.

Let's stop and think at the wonder of it all.

School in NSW returned yesterday with more than the usual fanfare. The first day invariably makes the evening news - all those kindies are just too cute - but the current climate made its reporting an almost incendiary event.

Rather than just let schools get on with managing their cohorts in the best way they can and as well resourced as possible, the coverage (hand-wringing parents, concerned teachers) has done little but create yet another tsunami of panic. Its what the news media does so well these days. Laying it on thick, over and over again. So many angles but exactly the same view.

Tom and JJ, who are in Years 11 and 12 respectively, reported that everything appeared to run smoothly with little or no disquiet. What a surprise!