My friend Da who lives across the road asked me, last night, to pray for a man who was in critical condition in a hospital in the UK. Scant were the details but pray I did. Alas, he passed away in the night, having given his life to save another's.

I have prayed before for God to spare the life of a person in similar circumstances, one just as desperate really, though in this case, someone much younger. Doctors were about to turn off the life support, the family had been readied for the worst. But she recovered remarkably and with her memory intact. The hospital was dumbfounded. There was no rational explanation.

I cannot know the ways that God answers prayer, nor how its fits in with his all-knowingness. If you know the end from the beginning, then the causes and effects of everything can be discerned in advance and with it, supreme clarity.

We stumble in the fog, but hold on to the light of  faith. In as much as some critics call belief a crutch, they are sorely wrong. It takes far more courage to believe, than not.

For now, at least, we see only, 'through a glass, darkly.'

 Australia has a referendum, the date of which will be shortly announced for a First Nation's Voice to parliament. It recognises Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples as being the first folks here, then establishes a body that will advise the parliament on relevant. matters. The latter has no power to legislate, hold up legislation or interfere in the parliamentary process. Here is the unabridged text of the proposed change to the Australian constitution. (Chapter 9, 129)

Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

1. there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
2. the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
3. the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.”

It should be fairly straight forward, and a matter of simple justice, that the vote is passed comfortably. Alas, the debate has fallen amongst the worst of voices, the hectoring, the foolish and dare I say it, a residual racist rump. I fear that it will go down and be yet another scar on this nation's attempt to come to terms with its past.

I hope that I am wrong and that the better angels prevail.

Landing a craft safely on the Moon is much harder than one might expect. There have been a number of crash landings recently, with the Russian Lunar 25 being the most recent example - only yesterday. India, Israel and Japan have also had landers that suffered similar fates over the past few years.

Space is difficult. It is dangerous and uncompromising. Despite leaps in technology since the Apollo missions, we are learning just how much a tiny miscalculation can affect an entire project. Voyager 2, which has pushed out to edge of our solar system since its launch in the 1970's, may be lost to us as a result of a faulty command signal from Earth. NASA is scrambling efforts to repair the bungle.

Of course, none of these missions are manned. Space is especially toxic to biological life forms, so robotic expeditions are de rigueur for the time being. It's romantic and exciting to think of humans aboard vessels to the Moon and Mars, but the risks are great and the payoff not necessarily worth it. AI is coming along rapidly and most of the decisions astronauts make will be replicated by machines.

 Lately I have been reading a few articles that deal with the potential for the collapse of human civilisation. Such speculation, based upon the methodical collection of data and computer modelling, goes back to the 1970's. It is not based upon any one event (such a climate change), but the confluence of a series of events that have predictable though likely unforeseen consequences too.

In the most optimistic evaluation, humans adapt to the warming climate, get a handle on population growth, are able to increase the yield of food production and throw technological advances at sundry and other problems. We avoid nuclear and biological war, overly fatal pestilences and an AI takeover. This is indeed optimistic.

All other potential outcomes are downhill from there, from complete extinction to a return to a kind of stone age existence. Most writers think, as I do too, that the gravity of the situation is not understood and may never be understood, even when the writing is plainly on the wall. Denial is a powerful psychological phenomena and we are very good at self-deception.

I don't talk about this with the teenagers because I don't want them to fall into a torpor of 'why botherism.' Why crush them just when they are getting started?

As for me, I can see no solution to what is ultimately a problem of the human condition, except in God alone. Religion is declining at a time when a powerful spiritual awakening is needed, but very few believe that anyway. For my family, I take up this burden as best I can.

Today is a day of high winds. I cut short my ride but not before dodging fallen garbage bins and gusts that felt like the shove of an invisible giant. Even my daily walk was challenging, with dust. leaves and stray papers assaulting me from all angles. 

There are things about windy days that I really like though. There is a constant jostling of things, rattling of windows, pell-mell of funnel and rush. Robert Frost, in Now Close The Windows, wrote,

'Now close the windows and hush all the fields:

If the trees must let them silently toss;

No bird is singing now, and if there is,

Be it my loss'

for Frost craves a silence and yet, wants to 'see all wind-stirred.'

I can hear the caterwauling through my windows, never mind them being closed.

Further to matters of poetry, I read today at the BBC the Belarus is banning some poems from the 19th Century because they are extremist. In the spite of the fragility of that nation's dictator, Heinrich Comb-Over (surely Alexander Lukashenko) I will publish the details. Just so anyone who wants to can read them.

Vincent Dunin-Martsinkevich's,  'The Winds are Floating' and 'Conversation of an Elderly Man'

Pass them on.

 Further to my previous post, and to clarify, not all banks are as greedy and incompetent as the one in my last post. Smaller banks tend to have better service and are less obsessed with the entitlements of the CEO or how large the annual profit increase is.

The Teachers Mutual Bank(TMB) is one such example - my bank for the past 40 years. Loans have never been a problem, service levels are high, things can be fixed, people know what they are talking about.

They were able to cancel my stolen card (see previous post) and issue a new card within days as well as provide any backup I needed. They surmised the problems with the ATM that took my card and the poor level of service I got when trying to get help. I think they had heard the same story a few times before.

That's my shout out for the TMB. Please don't change.

It is a pillar of orthodoxy that banks, being an essential part of the capitalist economy, cannot be allowed to fail. No matter what level of mendacity or risky behaviour a bank might indulge in, no matter who else is hurt in the process, banks must be protected from themselves with large wads of public money should the occasion call for it. It is not hard to see where this might lead, such as if a parent were to continue to buy one new car after another, only for their teenage son or daughter to write each one off and then ask for just one more.

Last week one of Australia's leading banks announced a massive profit. I think the word used in some quarters was 'obscene'. The CEO was dutifully wheeled out to make conciliatory noises about helping the needy or those at risk of losing their homes, no doubt to gales of laughter from board members.

Yesterday this same bank seized my ATM card as I was trying to make a withdrawal. I inserted the card, the machine took it, then decided to go 'Out of Service.' The theft complete I dialled the help line on the ATM screen only to find that this bank had a different concept of help, that being 'no help at all.' The young man who took my call could not answer any of my perfectly reasonable questions (eg. 'If the machine comes online again, will it spit out my card.') He didn't know this and he didn't know that and neither did his supervisors. The help line did not know how to help, under any circumstances. The bank with the massively bloated profits could not even run a phone assistance line about its own machines.

Next time, let's just let them fail, and see what happens. Maybe what rises from the ashes will actually provide a genuine service.

Today I find myself in the enviable, or unenviable, position of having two pre-recorded programs running on the same day at 2RPH. My final episode of The New Statesman airs at 9.30pm, while my new show, Writers from the Vault gets its first outing at the earlier time of 3pm.

This is purely a coincidence as a result of the new programming schedule which came out on Monday and nothing at all to do with my competence or otherwise. As I said earlier, creating and presenting a new show such as Writers from the Vault can be a challenge and is certainly time-consuming. It remains to be seen whether a I have the stamina for the long haul, though I hope that I do.

Ultimately, it not about me, but the listeners who rely on the station for their daily news and entertainment. That is always worth remembering.

 A couple of years ago, Venice banned giant cruise ships from docking inside the city. I had no idea of the problem ( I don't recall any cruise ships in the Grand Canal on visits there) but having seen a few photos, I can only applaud the decision. They are totally out of scale with the architecture and completely inappropriate in any circumstance. Gone are the days of the elegant liner, alas.

This is but one of the many symptoms of the over-tourism which threatens to engulf famous or desirable destinations. Many more people are now well enough off to travel, which is both right and fair, but with it has come a problem of overcrowding that turns a joy or nascent discovery into a series of long queues, over and over again. If you start with an airport wait, you can continue in a seeming endless number of lines - through another queue in customs, then at the Louvre, then at the Eiffel Tower and everything inside and in between. It can't be fun seeing the backs of people's heads most of your trip.

There is a problem though. As a citizen of a Western country, it has been my privilege to be able to travel largely as a result of the affluence of my country. My twin self in a developing had no such opportunity. So I am beholden to say, for all who can travel, please do, it is your right to do so, as it was mine.

But what to do about over-tourism, I have no idea.

(Photo courtesy, Ken Fong)

In my meanderings through old books, magazines and newspapers, in search of material for the new program, I occasionally (no, actually quite often) encounter what would, by today's standards, be offensive material. I mean, stuff that is racist, sexist or generally just off. 

It can pull you up quite short even when you are half expecting it. I won't be repeating anything I have found here, nor laying blame for its existence. I am not even prepared to condemn the authors. They wrote in a different era, when attitudes were very different and most people would not have blinked to hear them said or written. That is the context. Full stop.

I know that there is a small, tediously vocal group who want to stamp on the grave of these long-dead folk. They appear to have no understanding of history or social context, but they do have big mouths and like shouting.

Leave people from the past alone please. Try to get past your first thought to a greater understanding (after all, you would probably have held the same views yourself if you were born then), stop typing, talking, shouting, just for a while. Enough.

Putting together an entirely new show for 2RPH has proved to be a far more challenging task than I had thought it would be. I knew it was likely to be hard. Almost all of the other pre-recorded programs are based on readings from existing magazines or news sources - Time Magazine, The Economist, Women's Day, Frankie and so forth, are essentially straight reading tasks. Sure, there is a selection involved, but you could, if you wanted to, turn to the first article, begin reading and just keep going until the allotted time was up.

My new show, Writers from the Vault (a literary hurdy-gurdy), is based upon no just single source, but runs the gamut of the Western literary canon (and beyond!), archived magazines and newspapers and any books I deem relevant. So I choose the whole lot from a vast and seemingly endless trove of information.

Easy, you might say. But it isn't. I am spoilt for choice to such an extent that the curating becomes almost a nightmare. Where to start, where to end, what thematic links, how much prose to poetry and so forth. Just writing about the process is making my head spin.

I think the principle I will follow is this - keep it simple stupid! Some longer readings from fiction, some poems here and there, the odd review and letter, something quirky, a spot of bio. 

As always, only time will tell.