Curating and hosting an astronomy program on 2RPH as I do, I would never expect to come across theological comments or thinking. Even as a Christian, I understand that, even if they wanted to, physicists, mathematicians and cosmologists would have no practical way of factoring God into an equation. Sure there are mathematical statements of sorts in astronomy that have unknown variables (I'm looking at you, Drake equation!) but as a rule, God is not a part of the thinking, nor could be.

So it surprises me when I hear some prominent cosmologists talking about the 'God of the Gaps', which I assumed was a sarcastic poke at Christianity. It posits that we find God only in the those gaps in our knowledge about the universe, the mysterious bits, if you like. Man can explain the rest. Of course, as those 'gaps' are filled, God grows smaller.

The idea of a God of the Gaps emerged in the late 19th century and was theorized in an epoch when it seemed that science might explain everything, given time. It is certainly not a serious theological position for any church to hold, for it ties God (outside of Biblical revelation) into a system that must surely fail. The Bible holds that God created everything (we don't know how, of course) and he holds the whole shebang together. In this sense science becomes a marvellous tool for understanding, as best we can, how this creation unfolded.

As the Catholic Catechism holds, 'there is no conflict between good science and good theology.' Amen.

Autumn Walk

Coming up another way,

I pause again for breath,

Sit on a wind-shifted stone,

Aware of the trees death.

All around,

Red, yellow and brown,

Such variegated sheets

Flashed and sank

Upon unlit ground.

Here bush and gardens meet 

I, trace back the burn-off,

All the way down

To the tenebrous valley floor.

Where swollen smoke

Sat, crept and wound, and

Impalpably coiled by

Hapless ferns

And crashed gums,

And dragonflies

Stuck in space.

I'd put a face

To my thoughts,

If I could,

But would that help,

Their roiling?

 Anzac Day was first commemorated in 1916 to honour those lost at Gallipoli. The latter was a futile campaign cooked up by British generals in response to the stalemate on the Western Front, one with very little chance of success but with a great chance of being killed. The landscape was impossibly forbidding and the Turks, very good soldiers.

Similar incompetence was on display (yes, British generals again) at many battles on the Western Front, where decent men were sent on impossible missions, most often to their deaths. It doesn't take much of a military brain, not even average intelligence really, to understand that running into fields of machine gun fire with little or no cover is crazy and futile. This happened, doubtless to the surprise of German soldiers, on many occasions. Specifically, it occurred for the Anzacs at Fromelles, where, despite attempted interventions by Australian officers, a massacre occurred where one should not have. It is puzzling to find such  wilful stupidity on display, a callous disregard for one's own soldiers.

Nevertheless, today we remember with sadness and gratitude the sacrifice of these brave souls. The Great war was a baptism of fire, to coin a cliché, for the new nations of Australia and New Zealand. The consequences of that awful conflict were very much taken to heart. Today Anzac Day is as strong as ever and Anzacs include all those who have fought in wars since then.

I hope that in future conflicts, should they occur, that Australian forces are under the command of Australian officers, top to bottom. 

'They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.'

Lest we forget

Now that she is free of her early morning job, Ann has more time for leisure activities. I promised if she quit that shift, we could do a lot more together. And I have been documenting some of that here.

Yesterday, for example, we set out for Mt Wilson, which is on the other side of the Blue Mountains. Mt Wilson is a delightful village comprising show gardens, tree-arched lanes, historic buildings and a gentle leafy ambience. I last went there likely twenty years ago and had only a dim memory of its "winding mossy ways."

We found a popular garden to wander through - Breenhold Gardens - 40 hectares or so of trees, paths, garden beds and feature walls. Later we went to the old Victoria Antiques Café in Blackheath for lunch. I am keeping up my end of the bargain, which is busier and costlier, but well worth it. My wife is a lovely woman.

Ah, the long lines of trees!

Ann and I went to the Australian Museum's Ramses and the Gold of the Pharoahs on Friday last. We decided to go because, while it is best to see these kinds of exhibits in situ, it's unlikely that I will be making a trip Egypt. I have been to a few of these kinds of things before but this was by far the most impressive, given that technology makes it easier set up visual recreations and 'virtual' spaces.

Ramses II is acclaimed as the greatest Pharoah of all time, though it is not that easy to separate the facts from the self-aggrandising fiction of his reign. The Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites was essentially a draw (he did not capture Kadesh) but was broadcast as the greatest triumph of all time on whatever piece of stone was available. Nor did he face the Hittites single-handed at one tumultuous moment, else he would have died on the spot. 

There is also the matter of the placing of his own cartouche on the monuments and buildings of previous kings, lots of them in fact, in a massive credit-claiming exercise. He was a great builder but it seems unlikely that he erected temples and monuments that predate him by 500 years. Some of that was the work of his son Khaemweset, a kind of early Egyptologist, who would have made an interesting pharoah had he lived long enough. 

Anyway, the exhibition, which includes artefacts from other dynasties as well, is well worth seeing. My wife took the photo below of Ramses coffin, his final and only resting place. Alas, his mummified remains did not come with the exhibition to Australia.

During the years I lived in Japan and right up until my departure in 2007, there was much commentary in the Japanese press about tourism. More specifically, the lack of foreign tourists who came to Japan relative to other popular destinations around the world. Japanese themselves travel extensively inside Japan, particularly during festival seasons. There were certainly foreign tourists in Kyoto and Osaka whenever I dropped in, though not in vast numbers. My own town of Sanda was definitely not on the travel circuit. But there was a foreign tourist problem.

However things have changed and recently I have read about Japanese concerns about the 'hordes' of of foreign tourists who have descended upon Japan since the end of covid. They are starting to experience the same problems that 'over-tourism' is presenting elsewhere, particularly in Tokyo and historic centres like Kyoto and Nara. Some shops are even displaying 'Japanese only' signage in their windows, likely from fear of language issues than xenophobia. Though there is that too.

When I moved up here 30 years ago, I bought a copy of Jim Smith's seminal 'How to see the Blue Mountains', the guide at that time to bushwalking in this neck of the woods. Over a number of years I did most of the walks that Jim had painstakingly recorded (together with his hand-drawn, pull-out maps), sometimes with friends or even a girlfriend now and then. I still have it, though the other day I bought Veechi Stuart's more recent 'Blue Mountains Best Walks.'

Ann wanted to do a particular walk at North Katoomba, the relatively mild and quite short Minnihaha Falls track. Veechi had faithfully mapped and recorded details of the walk, so we set off for about an hours stroll (with some steps and an incline as you descend to the falls). There were a lot of walkers, particularly families, so we had company pretty much the whole way. The falls themselves were splendid, roaring down into a rock pool from about 30 metres, full of recent rainfall. It was such a lovely autumn day that I took this picture. I hope that this is the first of many for us, now that Ann is semi-retired.

I was thinking about a Thomas Hardy poem, a fragment of the poem, yesterday, and decided to try to find it in one or two of my collections of his work. I had recalled buying a copy of one anthology, The Chosen Poems of Thomas Hardy, fairly recently, and set out to find the volume, which I thought was in my bedside table.

How could I be so sure? Because I had originally bought the book having read somewhere in another place that Philip Larkin had kept this very compilation by his bedside for many years, a recommendation if ever there was one. His version was likely the little blue original first published around 1930. These being quite expensive now (about $60 due to their antiquarian nature), I opted for a plain jane paperback from the 1970's, hoping that the contents were in fact the same.

Do you think I can find it? Despite extensive searches in all the usual and expected places I cannot locate this book. It seems to have disappeared, not unlike my wedding band, though that's another story altogether.

Now I am wondering whether I actually bought it, or if I dreamed it all up? Is it possible it was all in the imagination? The transaction seemed so real, the receiving of it, the unpackaging, but there is no record of purchase nor notification by email.

Where is a person from Porlock when you need one?

A week or two ago I was working in the garden, pulling out weeds and long grass for the fortnightly green recycling collection. I enjoy doing it and it gives me a lot of satisfaction to close the lid on a bin brimming with a few hours labour.

But on this occasion, having removed my gloves and come inside to wash my hands, I realised that somehow my wedding band was not on my finger anymore. It is something you detect straight away, the sensation of nakedness, the absence of the gentle pressing of the band. I rushed outside to look in my gloves - the most obvious place - but alas, no.

Then began a three days combing of every inch of the garden I had been in, the emptying of bins, the sifting of materials. Nothing. Vanished off the the face of the earth.

For the time-being I have given in - the ring may reveal itself in the fullness of time - but for now I have pressed into service a gold band with Celtic patterns that I bought from a shop in Scotland way back in 2004. It has been sitting in my sock draw for at least a decade and being a perfectly acceptable wedding band, it is now on the appropriate digit. Sad about the other, of course, but a happy marriage is better than a ring any day of the week.

 According to most people I meet, the world is in a parlous state. It is worse, they usually add, than it has ever been. I can see how this pessimistic outlook has been arrived at, and it is difficulty not to want to jump in an join them in a community of woe.

So why would so many would arrive at this opinion. Well, there are two fairly major and highly destructive wars in progress, earthquakes in odd places, bridges brought down, extreme weather, inflation and the cost of living, bleached coral and much more promised. Media of all stripes who operate in a total time environment (24/7) pump out images and messages of doom and disaster on a daily basis with grim prophecies of what is to come. There are loads of pundits doing the same.

Notwithstanding my faith, I tend towards a pessimistic world-view myself. Were I of the absurd nature of a Pangloss, I might be able to put an optimistic spin on whatever disasters befall us. But I'm not sure that I would convince anyone. least of all myself.

The Christian faith is an eschatological one ultimately, in which 'end times' are predicted and expected to occur. Many Christians see the current malaise and chaos as being symptomatic of just such an 'end time' and it is not hard to see why. While Armageddon has been a lively topic for many centuries, with the faithful believing that 'now' was the time, there is little doubt that we live in a uniquely dangerous period (nuclear war, A1, climate change etc) and so have reason to think that there is not long to wait.

It is always best to cautious of course and not be presumptuous. Everyone who has predicted the end before has been 100% wrong. And only one Person knows the actual timing, anyway.

Daily light saving ended last night. It would be more accurate to say that it ended this morning at 3am, but few people are awake at that time to celebrate the moment. 

The way out of the change is easier than the way in, for at the end, you get an extra hour of sleep. You might think that this is always a good thing, but sometimes that long night can seem to pass very slowly indeed. I usually wake several times at night, so there was a sense that I was in bed for much, much longer than I actually was.

I usually change all the analogue clocks before retiring to avoid being deceived in the morning, though I note that all the new-fangled do it all by themselves. When, I wonder, will shoes tie their own laces?

We had an extraordinary tempest the other night. It was the kind that you read about in novels, where the whole house is shaking under the tyranny of crazed unpredictable wind gusts and pelting rain. The elements always seem on the verge of breaking in and consuming all that is before them. Somehow the leaky lounge-room roof did not leak (a quirk of wind direction, I think) but the garden was inundated and the driveway partly washed away, as usual. Even today there are pools of water amongst the trees and everywhere is wet. The wellies are working overtime.

Added to the excitement of the elements was my getting the coronavirus for the second time. Like last year's visitation, it is not severe in terms of the symptoms. But it means isolating for a period of time, so I had to give up my shift on the Newcastle Herald yesterday, missed church today and will not be able to attend choir tomorrow. I'm sure that there is a lesson in this for me somewhere.

Ann and JJ have gone to Brisbane for a few days, Tom is at his mums, so I am truly isolated. I don't mind being alone though I do enjoy company, for are we not social beings? Perhaps tomorrow I'll record another episode of Writers.

The first anniversary of my program, Writers from the Vault (a literary hurdy-gurdy) is coming up. I am a few months ahead with recordings so it not due for broadcast until July. But there is it - 26 episodes that I would not have dared to even contemplate before I began the show. I allowed myself to get ahead because I was very nervous about the project, which was original from top to bottom, and my capacity to keep it up. Unlike other 2RPH programs, it is not time specific, so I have a lot of leeway in that regard.

Where do I find the material for a broadly-based look at the old literary canon? Well, there are some wonderful archives online (Internet Archive, Trove etc), there are public libraries, there is my own library of books and there are also things that I come across in my daily perusal of newspapers and so forth. I go down an awful lot of rabbit holes and often come up with stuff that I had not been searching for but liked anyway.

And what might a typical program look like? There will always be a couple of poems, a little bio on the authors, an extract from a  novels or short story, a feature article from an old magazine, a letter from a  famous writer, a short review of a book, a monologue from a play, a piece of writing about literature or a writer. Not always of course, since I am constrained by the 30 minutes allotted, but usually all of these are represented.

If you are at all interested in listening to an episode, go to the 2RPH website and find the program guide. We work on a two week cycle.

It is a perfect autumn day. The sun is out and the temperatures will peak in the mid-twenties. There is the gentlest hint of a breeze, just enough to bump the odd yellow or red leaf from it's perch. The contrast of colours in the back garden is spectacular: it's hard to imagine how the grumpiest soul could not be calmed by the warm tapestries woven in the way only the natural world can do.

This being Easter, and the Blue Mountains being a tourist destination, the roads are clogged with travellers, with some places being no-go zones for locals. For most people it is a minor inconvenience, but if you had to work and had no choice but use the roads, it might be a major frustration. Like bushfires, tourism must be lived with.

A few days ago I inexplicably lost my wedding band, probably while gardening. Extensive searches have failed to turn anything up but I will keep looking. It's a mystery how it happened, since I did have gloves on at the time. I will likely keep looking forever, I think.

'Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.'

Emily Bronte

Good Friday once again. Two thousand years have passed since that first Friday on which the innocent Christ was put to death. And while observances of it have declined, a consequence of an increasingly faithless population, the meaning is the same as the first day. It has not lost of a jot of its significance for those who understand the gravity of what occurred.

I leave it to Christina Rossetti to express what I cannot.

Good Friday
 
Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
 
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
 
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.
 
Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

There are good reasons why pride was once seen as perhaps the deadliest of sins. Typically it came before a calamitous fall. Even if you disagree with anything religious, it is almost impossible not to see the out-working of prideful behaviours in public life today. Without mentioning any names, folks swelled by their own high self-regard, disdain for others and general attitude of superiority (or blind belief in their own indominable agency) will invariably come a cropper.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with taking a healthy pride in your work, in your appearance or in what you have achieved in life. The problem occurs when it swells into something much larger and often uglier, ultimately finding a home in arrogance, conceit and vanity. Once you begin to think yourself superior to your neighbour, for whatever reason, then you have strayed into the realm of negative pride. And it can only get worse from there unless you recognise the malady for what it is and take action.

I speak as a fellow sufferer, having my own portion of intellectual arrogance to blame for a multitude of sins. That is because pride is both a problem in itself and the father of many other problem behaviours. It can spawn murderous jealousy, envy, rage, violence, adultery, theft and so forth. It is the very image of atheism, which contends that there is no God and that 'I will go it alone.' I mean no offence to those atheists who have come to the sad conclusion that there is only the material universe and are none the happier for it, but those swelled by pride and ego.

I am guilty of pride and need to fight against it. But beware, it is insidious and has many 'mild disguises'. Ultimately, the only cure is to cultivate actively a sense of humility, a quality openly mocked in modern popular culture. It is a hard road, but, according to those who have trod it, very much worth it.

I don't usually give big shout-outs but this one is very due. I recently had a health scare with a melanoma (detected late) which meant I had to have surgery at the Royal Prince Alfred Melanoma Unit in Camperdown. Melanoma's are scary things because they are very aggressive cancers and kill a lot of people, sometimes within a few months. Understandably I was worried and nervous and planning for the worst, just in case.

But the doctors, nurses and staff at RPA are that good - compassionate, kind, efficient and skilful, that being in their hands brought much relief, as I am sure many others have found too. I cannot express my gratitude more fully which wells up inside me every time I think of them. Truly, I am grateful.

As for my faith, I have found that in throwing myself at the mercy of God, it has only redoubled my ardour. In short, I am much closer to God and for that reason alone, any suffering was well worth it. It's a shame that affliction seems such a booster to faith when we should be growing all the time.

But that, I suppose, is part of the human condition. Meanwhile, let's

Consider the lilies of the field
 
Flowers preach to us if we will hear:--
The rose saith in the dewy morn,
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.
 
But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.

Christina Rossetti

The US Presidential race has settled predicably into a Biden Trump rematch. Only the demise of one or the other, whether through natural causes or imprisonment, can stall this inevitable showdown. It is not unlike four years ago and not hugely unlike four years before that (though Clinton was certainly very able), but it still marks a generally unhealthy trend in the United States. A lack of renewal.

If you dig back into the recent past of Presidential elections, you will find plenty to find encouraging. Obama vs McCain and Romney (all decent men), Bush W vs Gore and Kerry, Clinton vs Bush and Dole, Reagan vs Carter and Mondale, and so forth, it is clear that we are living in times that are producing unwanted outliers.

Biden is a good man and pretty capable but he is well past his prime. Trump is not a good man and may be quite incompetent, if his first term is anything to go by. This should not be the competition that the world's self-proclaimed premier democracy is handing an astonished planet.

We should always have older men and women in positions of prominence in our democracies. They can bring wisdom and insight and are in a better position to recall the mistakes that have not been learnt in the past, lest me make them yet again. 

But the torch needs to be passed onto younger people, something which may happen after this contest is over.

The Prodigal Son is one of the most popular of Jesus stories in Luke's gospel, and little wonder why. There is something for everyone to be found there - the ungrateful child who demands his birth right, leaving home and travelling to a 'far country.' There is the jealous older brother who cannot fathom his father's kindness to his miscreant sibling. Then there is the father, whose one and only concern is the safe return of the one who went away.

Most people at some stage are prodigals and may remain so all their lives. The pull of the material world is very great, particularly today. Money, status, power sex, drugs and the like are formidable sirens, calling on different levels in different time and ways. The promise is great, the experience almost always disappointing in the long run and often becoming disastrous. It strikes me that humans were not really built for unrelenting affluence, rather a struggle to get by that builds character, community and fellow-feeling.

I was a prodigal once, a bit of a wanderer in the desert too. The lure of good times almost always turned sour, leaving only a rising anxiety. Like the father in Jesus story, who ran to meet his son and greeted him with kisses, God accepted this prodigal back with unsurpassing love. What can I say, but thank you.

 I had a longer than usual conversation with an AI Chatbot the other day, having resolved to ask it serious questions about the world with pointed follow up questions. I was surprised by the quality of the answers.

On the Ukraine Russia conflict, AI went through in detail all the possible end-game scenarios, doubtless drawing upon the troves of information online. It baulked repeatedly though at my question about the possible Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons, giving copious caveats as to why this would be dangerous and unwise.

Well, of course it is dangerous and unwise and naturally, every other avenue should be explored first. I knew that already and wasn't trying to goad the poor program into military adventurism. But this chatbot has culled all the sensible answers that any reasonable person might think or say and so had been lead to the proffered conclusion.

Here here! I say too. But the planet is not entirely ruled by reasonable people. Would someone let loose a billion casualties to appease their vanity and pride? History tells us yes. We all hope that it would not be so.

The other night I was scrolling through FB when I came to a science page, one which I am following. That is to say, it purports to be a science page. This post featured a rubbish bin in a hotel room that someone had put a Bible into, with the description, 'Putting out the trash' I couldn't understand such a needless attempt at giving offence or to whom it was directed. But it has nothing to do with science, with professes to have nothing to say about God or Faith.

While I am sure that there are some Christians who post anti-science information on social media (equally silly), most probably live happily with both their faith and what science has to say about the phenomenological universe. For me, these two systems do not need to interact actively, for as the Catholic Catechism says, ' Good theology and good science to not contradict each other.' If I was to draw a Venn diagram, perhaps only a sliver of the two circles would overlap. So I am puzzled by what drives people to pick on the faith of others.

They may have had a bad experience of religion as children or teens. Or they may have an inflated view of the power of science to explain 'everything', which is scientism. Maybe they are just mean-spirited.

Coming back to the Faith after a long absence has equipped me better to handle the usual arguments marshalled against Christianity. Ultimately, faith is faith, a leap in the dark with a view to finding out whether something is true or not. I have found it to be true.

I found it to be true yesterday when I attended the Melanoma Clinic at RPA in Camperdown for surgery. The doctors and staff were fantastic, I cannot praise them enough, but God was there too, reassuring me, calming me, working through processes that I could not see but knew were real and abiding. I cannot prove it but I know it to be true beyond any doubt.

You see, there doesn't need to be any dissonance between God and science. Only thinking makes it so.

'I love the fitful gusts that shakes

 The casement all the day

And from the mossy elm tree takes

 The faded leaf away

Twirling it by the window-pane

With thousand others down the lane'

So goes the first verse of John Clare's 'Autumn'. Clare was the son of a farm labourer, a celebrator and chronicler of the English countryside, which underwent significant changes during his lifetime. Being from 'lowly stock', he was not taken seriously until a major revision of his work in the 20th century. And rightly so as he is a fine poet in every sense!

Autumn usually brings out the melancholy in me but I would prefer to choose another emotional pathway as this season progresses. We have had precious little autumn weather, the days being hot and sticky or even mild and sticky, the nights little different.

But today it is beginning to feel genuinely autumnal, or, at least, the seeds of autumn are planted and growing. Several of the mature trees in the back garden are yellowing and some have falling leaves. They fall crisply and with a perfunctory resignation to the grass which collects them in its vast green sieve.

Last night we had light rain and lingering fog, which left the early morning very much like a 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.' Another Romantic for another time!

March again. Last night was very warm and humid and it was hard to sleep. We ran the fan but that was largely an exercise in moving hot air about. But we were glad to have it anyway.

I have very recently entered a period of what you what call a potential health crisis. In the end it will be a matter of life or death, but of course, I want to choose life. My darling wife Ann said to me today that she would like to donate half of her remaining life to me, which she said prayerfully and with absolute conviction.

What can you say to someone who loves you so much. I was speechless, grateful and crying at the same time. What a blessing she is. I do love her so.

And another blessing is my faith. I pray always and every more intently and hope that it is in the Will of God that I might survive. He knows the end from the beginning and in His goodness and love, he hears me. And I am reminded daily that 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.'

The 'Road to Emmaus' is an incident related by Luke in the Gospel that bears his name, where Jesus appears to two disciples who are travelling from Jerusalem to Emmaus, following the tumultuous events of the the days before. It is a wonderful story, the risen Christ unrecognised by the men until some time later that day, when over dinner, they suddenly realise who he is.

I wanted to write a poem about it but many others, including Denise Levertov, have already done so. In the case of Levertov, she has chosen a remarkable painting by Velazquez as the inspiration for the poem. I had thought to do so too, but there you are, too late! The poem is called 'Servant Girl at Emmaus.' The painting below is a precious moment of recognition, recorded forever.

She listens, listens, holding her breath.
Surely that voice
is his—the one
who had looked at her, once,
across the crowd, as no one ever had looked?
Had seen her?
Had spoken as if to her?
Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now?
Hands he’d laid on the dying and made them well?
Surely that face—?
The man they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumoured now some women had seen this morning,
alive?
Those who had brought this stranger home to their table
don’t recognize yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen,
absently touching the wine jug she’s to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,
swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.

 When I lived and worked in Japan, I encountered lots of strange, incoherent, often mangled English. Most of this was splayed across t-shirts and gift bags, though sometimes on shop signs or giving directions or information. It was fun to collect it and send samples home in newsletters.

Later I discovered the wonderful Engrish.com, where folks can post their tortured or amusing English finds. I include two examples below. There is not a lot of care taken to get these kinds of messages or signage correct and for a a good reason. It doesn't matter. English is present to give cache or prestige to whatever it it adorns. You can argue the toss as to whether this is a good idea or not. 

In cases where a translation is provided as a direction or warning, it's clear that the creator could have asked one of the thousands of English teachers who live and work in East and South-East Asia. But it seems never to have happened. 

This phenomenon has spread to the West with the continued immigration from the region. In Hazelbrook, our local Korean-run patisserie is called 'Sincerely Cake.' Yesterday, I passed a Thai dessert café in the city named 'Sweet Monster.' More power to these cute names!

Readers of this blog (surely no-one: ed.) will know that I have long weighed in against the dangers of pornography. The dangers are not universally applicable but there is sufficient clinical evidence (as well as that garnered in criminal cases) that a sizable minority of men (and perhaps women too) become obsessed, even addicted to using pornography.

A smaller minority again go on to viewing harder and harder pornography, going way beyond what they would possibly imagined they might when they first started their unfortunate journey. And the road gets even worse for yet another subset of this group, who find themselves looking at illegal material, such as bestiality or child abuse pictures and videos. They have truly reached the bottom of the barrel and descended into depravity.

Only today, a world-wide child abuse ring has been exposed in which men, such as described above, actually filmed themselves as they viewed this deplorable content, which they then went on to share with other users. Who could fathom why they would do such a thing? The fact that they have put themselves at such a risk of disclosure and disgrace only goes to show the powerful hold these images have. The drives created seem to override all moral sensibility, no consideration for the poor children abused, no recognition of the consequences.

And you know, there are always consequences, whether you are caught or not, and the fall is very hard indeed. I am not pointing the finger or wringing my hands, for to sit in judgement is foolishness. But if you are reading this and you are somewhere on that journey, the best time to take stock and stop, is now.

In relation to my previous post about online romance scams, I meant no disrespect to those who have found themselves inadvertently involved in one. Generally speaking, scammers come looking for you and may hit up hundreds of potential marks with all manner of clever ways of drawing one in and overcoming scepticism in their kitbags.

The truth is, once someone is falling in love with their online 'date', the capacity for clear thinking and caution is clouded, as emotions become increasingly dominant. If you think someone is genuine then you will think and act as if they were. Very few people are exempt and it behoves us not to ridicule those who fall for the con. There but for the grace of God...

I was reading Proverbs 4 this morning and came across this sage advice:

'Above all, guard your heart,

For everything you do flows from it.' 4:23

It is worth reflecting upon what it means to 'guard your heart' and where not guarding it might lead. The modern world makes this all the more urgent as more and more people are trapped in loneliness with many looking for an easy escape, that right person, that 'if only' situation, a release from weariness. Online scammers prey upon such people and ruthlessly strip them of their dignity and their money. Be careful and guard your heart.

Periodically I get friend requests on FB from unlikely sources. These are not friends of friends or persons somehow related to content or page searches, such as pages that I follow or have liked. They are out-of-the-blue requests and they are exclusively from young, pretty women who just happen to want to be my friend. Occasionally they pop up as unsolicited texts on messenger, sometimes masquerading as 'mistakes', but hey, 'why don't we chat anyway?'

They are all identity frauds and the goal of the people behind these stolen photos and made-up profiles is to make money. They usually target middle-aged men (or older) and doubtless they have some success. I have watched a few expose programs on Youtube in which men and women who should know better throw hundreds and thousands of dollars at beautiful young things who promise love or validation.

When it comes to romantic liaisons online, the old rule applies here too - if it's seems to good to be true then it surely isn't true. But there are a lot of lonely people and some are naïve to the tactics of these scam artists. So here are a few red flags just in case.

1. You are contacted by a beautiful stranger out of the blue.

2. Their photos are all of a type and don't reflect a lived life.

3. They have few friends and their relationships seem very shallow.

4. They quickly fall in love with you.

5. They begin asking for money for urgent bills, sickness in the family etc

6. They cannot do video chats, only text messages or email.

7. There may be inconsistencies in their narrative or their memory of your chat history since they are       probably talking to a number of people.

8. If an actual live meeting is planned, they always have an excuse for not attending.

Most recently, a cryptocurrency scam has emerged. The MO is pretty much the same, but rather than ask for sums of money as in point 5, they will ask you to invest in crypto because an uncle or brother or the like has 'inside information.' The entire thing, including all the websites you are lead to, are completely fake. This scam is colloquially known as 'pig butchering.'

Without intending to give any more oxygen to the frenzy that surrounds one T. Swift's arrival in Australia, I have just begun to listen to her work. I want to find out what its all about - the queues, the stories of ticket heartbreak, the media documenting of her every move.

I'll start with the most recent album and work backwards. Only then can I reasonably offer a critique, should one be needed. There is little point in dismissing something that you are almost entirely ignorant of.

About a decade ago I began an earnest study of Chinese dynastic history. It was so vast a topic that at best I could only undertake a survey. I remember enough to be able to talk generally about trends and significant events, but most of the Emperors and their achievements are forgotten.

Not so the first Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who unified (by force) the Chinese heartland into a state that is recognisable today. He was ruthless and ambitious and somewhat paranoid, burning books and burying scholars alive. He was also keen on living forever and combed the Empire for potions that would give him a longer, perhaps eternal life. He even dispatched an expedition in search of the fabled Penglai Mountain. It never returned, perhaps fearing the wrath that failure would incur. As an ironic post-script to this, Qin Shi Huang died at age 49, possibly from mercury poisoning ingested in elixirs created by court alchemists.

The desire for eternal life is embedded in numerous myths in the Greek world and also stories in the modern, notably Wilde's Dorian Gray. We live in an age in which youth is lionised and growing old to be avoided assiduously by all manner of techniques. I think that the decline of faith has lead to an increasing fear of death and an obsession with putting off the evil moment.

I don't blame anyone for this, for if you don't believe in an afterlife, then you are going to cling to every breath. But things can be taken too far. I read today about a tech millionaire (what a surprise!) who is employing a huge range of lifestyle and medicinal interventions (such as blood transfusions from his son and monthly colonoscopies) in an attempt to hold off the inevitable. Apart from the self-importance and narcissism that are key aspects of this audacious folly, there is a cold, hard failure to live life as it is and not as a fairy-tale might have it be.

The tech millionaire has the money and doubtless some time on his side. But we are dust ultimately, and to that we shall return.

'What's in Space?', the program I curate and present with K.McCarron for 2RPH, had its first anniversary last week. That is 26 episodes, one each fortnight, over the course of the last 12 months. It's a bit of an achievement because you have to keep at it, the initial enthusiasm does wear off and then the considerable slog begins. But I think we turn out a good program and we are now heard Australia-wide.

This was just the beginning for Keith and me, because, in addition to the space show, we both went on to host 'The New Statesman.' Later, I surrendered the latter to create a brand new program, 'Writers from the Vault', which being original, takes up a lot of time. I am always on the look out for material for future episodes. But I feel at home with a literary show, more than anything else.

I often think about how far the radio waves from our programs might have travelled. Notwithstanding the fact that such waves degrade over distance, a gigantic and supersensitive receiver might just be able to hear our first space show somewhere between the Kuyper Belt and the Oort Cloud - about one light year away. That means that the waves have passed Pluto, all the known objects in the Kuyper Belt and are being 'received' in that mysterious icy cloud that is thought to exist between 2,000 and 5,000 AUs from the Sun.

I find that very humbling, no matter that no-one is listening. Here is a simple chart courtesy of NASA that shows some of these distances, beyond the first light year. Next stop Proxima Centauri!

Lost in Space

'If you look hard in that bed,
You'll see some idle strands of hair, '

She smiled drily then, for

I said this more in jest,

Or as a foolish dare.

We were deep in talk,

About endings and thus, this

Being a walk to universe end,

Was an obscure speculation -

Ramblings on star death,

Plotting the final photon,

The kind of thing where,

You have to catch your breath

For fear you lose your mind.

My clumsy segue was the kind

That often distracted me,

Equating that final heat death

With another demise,

That being mine,

And the limp heredity

Discarded in the grass

A paling memento mori, for

As the fleeing cosmos goes,

All should be fine,

All should be well,

Given enough space and time.

On a half-distant line,

the dull gamelan of

A forty-truck train,

Brings me back to now,

With its sharp disquiet,

Again.

 If I am honest, I would have to say that I was not astonished to read an item in the SMH today, that argues for the inclusion of Taylor Swift's lyrics in courses alongside such greats as Shakespeare, Aristotle and other persons of the literary canon. To quote a paragraph from the article,

'The study of Swift's great works, alongside those of Shakespeare and Aristotle, is becoming a fixture of courses at Australia's top universities, as academics challenge entrenched ideas about what constitutes worthy art.'

I don't have any problems challenging such ideas myself, but I would likely use far worthier, more talented wordsmiths that Swift to do so. It's apples and oranges really. Swift writes pop lyrics - repetitive, cliched, often banal - which is absolutely fine as she is a pop musician. That is her world and she does very well at it. More power to Miss Swift.

But Sydney University, apparently, is getting its students to compare The Bard's sonnet with Tay Tay's output in the hope of, what? Surely the latter suffers terribly by comparison with one of the best writers in the language. I assume that this is a serious project and that no satire is intended, so what can we make of it? Shameless band-waggoning? A victory for theory over reality? Loss of marbles? Who is to say?

There is a loss of faith in the West, not just religious, but also in the way the West was built and by whom. There are shameful episodes and glaring omissions, of course. They can, in part, be made up for and supplemented. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that Pop, delightful as it can be, is anything other than Pop.

I was reading an article the other day by an academic who was discussing the changes between the political Left and Right over the past 40 years. They are stark indeed and make for sober reading. 

While the Right appears to have gone stark-raving mad, the Left has departed its traditional home of economic fairness for something quite different. I can readily identify with government programs that set out to offer better opportunities for the disadvantaged, ways of helping those who fall through the cracks, policies that improve health outcomes, and so forth. Lifting people up and giving them hope is fundamental.

I am interested in climate change and ways it might be managed (since the prevention horse has now bolted), I don't like discrimination against people for any reason and I certainly see consumer capitalism in its current phase as dangerous, but I can't buy into much of the Left's remaining project. Whether intended to be or not, it is needlessly divisive and caught up far too readily into the manufactured narcissism of our time.

By all means, try to level the playing field as much as possible, legislate against discrimination, but keep the focus on that which we have in common. The central thing is our humanity and everything else pales by comparison. That won't please everyone, I know.

Sometime during the Covid pandemic people began shifting from cash sales to digital transfers. It's understandable that such a change would occur in the circumstances, but the trend has only hastened since. There are even banks now that do not dispense cash through their tellers!

There are unintended consequences for changes in behaviour like this, not obvious at first. In the past many of the  gold coins ($1 and $2) I had on me found their way into the buckets of buskers or the cups of the homeless. Now when I approach someone, I realise that I don't have the change I used to, resorting instead to an unwieldy pile of 10 cent pieces from a collection at home.

One day that will run out too. I am wondering what all the 'spare change' folks are going to do in the medium term, not to mention the many boxes and donation stands that call for a small contribution in actual money? Card readers are likely expensive and impractical. I am troubled just thinking about it.

 After my shift at 2RPH yesterday, I took Ann and JJ to a Thai café they had stumbled upon in Temperance Lane, a a narrow alley that comes off the Wynyard end of George St. They had been to Tom Yum from Hell once before and had highly recommended the extra spicy bowl of noodles served there. Naturally I opted for the coolest available, a heat that was still considerably hotter than that available at your average suburban Thai. Yes, it was delicious.

But it was Temperance Lane that I was thinking about during the meal, for I must have passed the narrow entrance dozens of times and not once acknowledged its existence. Melbourne has lots of these alleys, all set up with cafes and cute shops, something that Sydney has failed at miserably. So many of those lanes are gone, replaced by the most monstrous edifices jammed together without regard for those on the street, a planning failure on every level.

But back to Temperance Lane. Someone sometime ago had given it this stern moral reproof as a moniker and it had stuck all these years. Apart from the Thai shop at one end, a Mexican cocktail bar sat at the other, displaying a wide range of alcoholic drinks. I wonder if anyone else had pondered this deep paradox.

Two days from now is Australia Day, nominally the 26th January. The date commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet on that day in 1788, essentially the day that Australia was settled by white colonists (and convicts) from the UK.

As such, it has always been contentious for the First Nation peoples, who justifiably label it 'invasion day.' From their perspective, there is no other way of looking at it, since it was the day that dispossession began.

Australia Day has been celebrated on other days in the past and was only settled on permanently by all the states in 1935. Yes, more than three decades after Federation!

Prior to that there had been a gaggle of state-based days that variously commemorated local foundation days, such as Proclamation Day in South Australia (December 28), Foundation Day in Western Australia (1st June), the original Australia Day (1915) which fell on July 30th and yet another Australia Day date in 1916, which fell on the 28th July. Hardly consistent, don't you think?

So changing the date to a nationally agreed upon alternative already has a number of precedents in our recent past and should not be an occasion for bitterness or hand-wringing. If it means that the First Nations people's can be included in, or at least not repelled by, a brand new Australia Day, then who loses out? 

I don't have a particular date in mind (though best to avoid Cook's arrival in Botany Bay on April 29), but sometime in the spring or the autumn. Mild weather, mild attitudes.

Coming back from a ride the other day I encountered a Telstra technician digging around the telegraph pole in front of my house. He was examining the hidden section of the pole, or part of it, in search of rot or deterioration. So it was just a routine maintenance job, though I had never seen the procedure before.

He said that the pole dated from 1967 and was in very good order given its age and the location on a hillside, where it would be prone to lots of moving water. I guess that area must drain very well indeed.

Though my memory is not what it used to be (see previous posts), 1967 is not so bad in that respect. I was in third grade at Rose Bay Public, my final year there before moving to the other side of the harbour. There were at least 40 students in 3A and my recollection is that I finished in the bottom half when the reports came out. 

A privilege of being in the primary school, as opposed to the infants (K-2) was that we could go to the local shops on a Friday to buy lunch, with a parental note, of course. I remember buying fish and chips at an establishment in Old South Head Road, one doubtless closed years ago. It's not something I could imagine happening today, with schools being fenced and often locked during the day, to guard against real or imagined persons of ill-intent. As for getting out the gate without a parent - well, forget it!

I also have fond memories of a cake shop in the same street called, Marie's Cakes and Pies, likely closed long ago. A meat pie or sultana cake from there was a much sought after pleasure. In those days such treats were only occasional (even the word 'treat' has a quaint, out-moded quality) and take-away food was at best once a week or fortnight.

Well, times do change, as they always have. I'm not one for nostalgia or beating up the present in favour of a Panglossian past. There was plenty to not like about 1967 I'm sure, though I was a little young at the time to truly understand it.

 'The woods decay, the woods decay and fall / Me only cruel immortality consumes' writes Tennyson in Tithonus. The poem's namesake learns, not unlike Dorian Gray, that living forever is not all that it is made out to be. 

We live in a time when the desire to remain young, to hold onto whatever vestige of youth that we can, is centre stage. There is talk in popular science that ageing will increasingly be halted, with a view to extending life indefinitely. I don't doubt that science has the capacity to greatly diminish fatal illness and greatly extend lifespans.

But what can work for the body may not work for the mind. Already, depressed or desperate people, some only in their teens, are taking their own lives. They will certainly not leap at the offer of another two hundred years of that which they dread.

I have said many times that modern Western economic systems are making people sick in body and mind - not intentionally, mind you, - but as a by-product of their all-consuming drive for profit. It is a marvel to me that conservatives so love a system that undermines their very values, monetising anything it can, no matter how sacred.

'It's about freedom', one opined when asked. Is it really, all about freedom, or is that just another lazy slogan that sounds good whenever it's trotted out?

On Friday my wife and step-daughter get back from their month-long sojourn in Thailand. I have kept in touch daily though most of our posts via Line have been of the perfunctory 'good morning' and 'good night' variety.

I am surprised at how much I have missed Ann. I knew that I would but I didn't know it would be so achingly difficult. It's not that she cooks and cleans for me - I have long pulled my weight domestically - but that the absence of loved ones can be sorely felt. 

I will meet them at Kingsford-Smith with great gladness, though I know that they will be tired.

Here is one last shot she took before boarding a bus to Bangkok for the flight back home.

The traditional Christian world view is not that difficult to grasp. The Earth is a broken place - a cataclysmic break between God the Creator and man the created occurred at some time in the distant past - and Jesus came into the world, literally as the God Man, to set things right. It doesn't matter whether you see Old Testament stories as literal or figurative - they contain fundamental truths in any event. What does count is that you take the matter of you and God seriously.

Sin is an unfashionable word and concept, but it too is seminal to any discussion of how to bridge the chasm. The Bible is fairly clear on what is sinful behaviour and thinking - Jesus made a point of talking about it - and there is no getting around it. Of course, this will seem like utter nonsense to the sophisticated Modern, for whom faith and sin and God are all outmoded ideas that spring from ancient human thinking, 'crutches' for the weak. And yet, large numbers of people continue to believe.

I find sin the single most challenging aspect of life. Our society is saturated by sensuality - anything that pleases the senses is pretty much okay - and kids are bombarded from an early age by images and ideas that encourage selfishness and hedonism. I speak generally of course, but the evidence of decline is daily in the newspapers and on social media. If you think I am being too hard, just ask any school teacher who has taught across two or three decades to the present day.    

Let me say that I am first amongst sinners. Like Augustan and so many others since, pleasures of the flesh are powerful attractors and hard to deal with. They can be addictive. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul says 'No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind'. It is reassuring to know that we are all in the same boat when it comes to sin and temptation. Our minds tend to make us believe we are unique in this respect. And very fortunately too, God 'will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.' That is even more reassuring, though we have to pay attention come the time of temptation. There is often a 'still, small voice' that can be drowned out. Ours is a time of noise and distraction.

The sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) is one of the many birds that populate the Blue Mountains. They live in large gangs, are very noisy, often funny and occasionally irritating, the latter especially when I am trying to record a radio program.

They do take their chances with cars though and now and then misjudge distance or speed and collide with one, with usually tragic circumstances for the bird. This morning one was splayed out on the road like a miniature feathered industrial site. Someone kindly placed it on the verge.

I know that birds do notice when one of their kind is in trouble or has passed away. A little while ago a fleet of Cacatua galerita was flying round and round their dead fellow, as if to awaken it. They dived, circled and shrieked with such gusto in the hope, perhaps, that a resurrection might be possible. Or maybe it was just a farewell salute.

I don't remember watching an awful lot of TV in the 1980's, possibly because I got a full-time teaching post in 1982, one which meant that many evenings were taken up with marking and preparation. I remember being so tired just from the daytime slog that if I dared to lie down for minute or two after getting home, I would invariably fall asleep and not wake until it was dark. Not a good idea at all!

And so, as a kind of consolation for what I might have missed (which probably wasn't much) I have been trawling through English crime dramas from that period and a little beyond, courtesy of a Britbox subscription. Cue Miss Marple, Morse, Lewis and half a dozen others which, despite their occasionally dated production values, have been most entertaining.

It coincides with the reading I have been doing for Writers from the Vault for 2RPH. If I find a good story on the TV, then I can go hunting for the book. An extract from that volume might find its way into a program and sometimes this is a catalyst for curating other material (on say, a similar theme) for the same program. It doesn't always dove tail but when it does, well, that is most satisfying.

 It's 20 years now since I parted company with the Department of Education. That separation came under very difficult and stressful circumstances, which had been ongoing for some years. In the end, rather than resign, I had almost miraculously been medically retired, something that I thought was reserved only for those in the most dire health conditions. Still, my assessment, which was a series of interviews and diagnosis's by health professionals such as psychologists and doctors, deemed me no longer fit to go back into an Australian classroom.

This meant that I could draw on my super pension earlier than my usual retirement age - not a large sum of money but sufficient to keep my head above water. It also meant I could return to Japan for another couple of years, pay off my mortgage and do volunteer work when I returned. Much of the latter drew on skills that came out of my teaching experience over almost two decades, experiences that ran the gamut of wonderful to awful. Despite the way things ended, I have some very happy memories of those days.

Gratitude is one of the most important attitudes that we should daily practice. I am very grateful for how things turned out in the end, despite everything. Whenever the tendency to bemoan what should have happened or not happened arises, counting blessings instead is a sure way of developing better mental health.

Back in September and October last year, the grass was dry and turning yellow. It crunched underfoot. Rain was infrequent and the talk was very much of the potential for a bad fire season. 

Living in a National Park has its benefits which are apparent to both visitors and residents alike. But the downside is that when bushfires strike they can do so with devastating speed and vast impact. Back in the 2013, the string of towns that comprise the Blue Mountains were besieged by huge fires on many fronts. Ten years later we feared a resumption of hostilities.

But then came the rains. Aside from the summer storms and accompanying drenching's, there has just been a lot of damp weather. We are no longer 'tinder dry', as they say, though  the fire season can extend into late February. So we are not out of the woods yet.

The new growth that will result from the rains will present its own untimely threat come the next fire season in about 10 months from now. One cannot escape it forever - it is only a matter of when the fires strike - but this breather is more than a blessing, which we gratefully accept.

Well it's the first day of the new year and all seems very much the same. I am still alone in my house, my wife and step-daughter being overseas and my son Tom, busy elsewhere. It's drizzly and cool outside as it was yesterday. The fireworks at 9pm on the TV from the harbour remind me of every other year and commentators continue talking about revellers. That's a word that only seems to come out once a year.

I was looking over some vintage Christmas and New Year's card covers online and found quite a lot that would be best be described as bizarre. The Victorians were especially good at the portraying the macabre, or hinting at it. I suppose it gave them a good laugh and likely only people with money could afford to buy and send cards anyway. 

The one below (which I think I may have published before as part of a series) sends a cautionary message to the receiver about imbibing too much in the festive season. It's a shame to see a poor robin belly up in a bowl of punch and yet another stonking drunk, even as a cat watches in glee.

But Happy New Year anyway!