Having watched Federal elections for 50 years now, and knowing how tenuous the hold that Labor has had on being in power is, last nights election result were a serious one off. It was not expected. Even when the polls pointed to a comfortable outcome for the Government, few people thought that the avalanche that occurred could ever take place. Australians are simply too cautious for that, right?

But there you are are. We have a majority Labor Government with a mandate to implement. It has three years of experience being in government, so no excuses about being green. The Opposition is decimated. World events could well prove stumbling blocks but even then, good management can see us through.

A lot of folks are putting much faith in this second Albanese Government. It needs to deliver over the next three years.

The other day I answered a fairly comprehensive survey about my political, economic and social outlook. Vote Compass was looking to best match my outcomes with the most appropriately placed political party. Here are the results represented on a chart. I was surprised just how close I came to the party that I support.

 A Federal election is upon us tomorrow after what most commentators have called a desultory campaign by the major parties. Lacking in any well-founded vision for the nation's future, both the Government and the Opposition have opted for handing out election 'sweeteners.' That is a kind way of saying bribes to vote.

It may have been impossible in the current climate to create an exciting program within the broad parameters of financial restraint, but no-one has really tried. Unfunded handouts are much easier and only the economists can tell you why that's not a good thing. But no one if swing voter land listens to them.

For obvious reasons, this election might have allowed for some daylight to be shed on the US alliance, which currently has a question mark over it. Sure, Trump is gone in a few years and things might right themselves, or they may not. AUKUS, in my opinion, was a mistake. Politicians seem only look at the prestige of taking delivery of nuclear powered subs. Good as they are, I don't see how they are effective for a regional player like Australia, who might have been better served by a modern fleet of diesel-electrics.

As for tomorrow, the polls favour the Government. But they have been wrong both here and overseas in recent years. Can they be trusted this time? We shall see.

Getting On

I had not thought much,

Of the precipice below,

Well, not seriously so,

Just a lightish touch,

A wink and a nod

To bleak nothingness -

Unknowing unbeing

In prose and verse.

It was a mist of

Not sensing or seeing

Where others had trod,

As if turning each sod

Was uniquely just me.

But I am no Adam,

Who at boundaries lip

Was the first to clock it,

Whose ancient slip

Led to this very bluff,

As if free-falling,

Were not enough.

Most days that I go in to town to do a shift with 2RPH, I make a point of dropping into the church at Haymarket, St Peter Julian. It is one of those lovely oases of silence in a sea of urban noise. On the footpath at the front door, crowds ply their way up and down George Street. There is a light rail station less than 5 metres away, with trams every few minutes. One of the busiest spots in the CBD!

But inside is dark, save only for the gorgeous stained glass windows behind the altar, dim lights from the ceiling, and the shimmer of candles from an adjacent Marian chapel. Unlike St Finbars, this church has the old pull-down kneelers (which I love). It is hard for me to sit in a church when I could be kneeling. That is just how I am and my prayers seem much more powerful. I know some prefer to stand and that's okay too.

My Features Forum shift yesterday was quite different. My regular readers were away, so I hosted and read the articles with another kind soul who volunteered to help. Doing the shift by myself (reading news items for 90 minutes whilst handling all the other bells and whistles) is very difficult - not beyond me - but a heavy lift. 

I need to remind myself constantly that this job is about others - others who are often disadvantaged by poor vision, loneliness or lack of resources. We are a window for them. It is all too easy to get caught up in ego, which is the enemy of service.

 Much as I love the Apollo missions, if I had to nominate a NASA program that is my favourite, I would not hesitate to say the Voyagers 1 and 2. Launched in 1977 to coincide with an historic alignment of the four gas giants in our solar system, these intrepid and extraordinary craft not only achieved their primary goals of visiting said giants, but have gone on to possibly even greater things by flying further from Earth than any space probe before or since.

The rare  alignment of Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter meant that both craft could get a fuel-free boost (gravity assist) from each of the planets to fling it onto its next task. The mission would not have been possible if not for this assistance.

Not only was some great science done (for example, we found out that Jupiter's  Io was an active moon with observable vulcanism) but both probes have now breached the heliosphere, the region surrounding our star, the Sun, beyond which interstellar space begins. Just stop and think for a minute what a remarkable thing that is!

I have posted a representation of the heliosphere breach before, but here is another, courtesy of NASA.

The passing of Pope Francis has generated a huge amount of media coverage. I may be wrong, but I can't recall this level of TV and news reporting for any previous pontiff. Local news here in Australia had his death as the lead item for several nights and the funeral was covered live by every network. It was extraordinary.

Doubtless Francis was a much loved man. But something else is at play here. At the heart is the very modern tendency to wring every last drop (and then some) from any noteworthy event, especially one that is a perfect match for cameras. As a Catholic Christian myself, I obviously have an interest in this and what happens next, but please excuse me if I take a more sober view of a journalism that is one moment lauding the church and then putting a knife in its back a week later.

Father John's homily last night touched on the Pope Francis's encyclical letter, Fratelli Tutti. which advocated for a 'an advancing of the ethics of fellowship and friendship, goodwill and dialogue to dispel the dark clouds over a closed world.' I think it (the letter) is certainly worth a read for indeed, the world is darkening and people need to push back against the gloom.

Rest in Peace, Pope Francis.

 Ann and I had a rare day out together yesterday. It being Anzac Day, the city was swarming with servicemen and women, mostly outside venues that dispensed both beer and two-up.

We walked down past the Cenotaph in Martin Place which was rich with floral tributes, then through the Domain and thence onto the Botanical Gardens. The latter is the site of the first walk I did with Ann when we met (by a fountain in Hyde Park). It  formed a gorgeous backdrop to a then eventful day. I confess that I am a lucky man so that day reverberates with me.

Lunch was had at an authentic Thai cafe in Ultimo. Being the only farang in the establishment was an added joy, rather like a garnish to a delicious repast.

I suppose that I shouldn't enjoy myself on such a day of remembrance. I have written about Anzac Day in the past, it's solemnity and significance. Yesterday I looked at it through a slightly different lens and I am none the poorer for having done so.

Lest We Forget. 

 Attempts to find peaceful solutions to hot wars in both the Ukraine and Palestine have proved largely fruitless. It's hard to say whether a competent and sane administration in Washington would have done much better, given the intransigence of the combatants, though surely it could have done little worse.

Before the election of Trump last year, Putin was being squeezed from all sides. But having a man in Washington who is happy to parrot the Russian lines about how to settle has let Russia off the hook. Why make peace when you can continue grinding away, making more and more small gains? Why negotiate sincerely when your opponent is happy to show all his cards?

Did someone, who was a Republican President, once say, 'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.'? Was that a dream?

When I first moved to Hazelbrook in the early nineties of last century, I had a wonderful lemon tree in the top end of the garden. It remained healthy and fruitful for a good decade, but then went into decline and died, largely due to some nasty sucking insects. I had kept them at bay for a long time, but time spent in Japan and tenants meant it didn't get properly looked after.

I planted a hybrid lemon a few years ago and it has looked sickly ever since, despite being in the same sunny spot. Today I potted it again in a moveable pot so I can create better climate control. I have to say that it does not look well and will struggle to survive the move, I think. Here's hoping!

Some spectacular weather for April, with warm to very warm days and cool nights. I don't know, though I suspect, that we are beating the averages for this time of year. Most deciduous trees have shed their leaves in my garden, though a few, like the maple at the front of the garden, have yet to turn. A couple, like a pear and plum, are holding desperately to  an errant leaf or two. They will do so in vain.

There is another autumn that has taken hold of this household, making ordinary life, for me at least, impossible. I feel like I have been putting out fires for years now, though very few of my own making. It is the hard chore for a parent and I would dearly love it if there was a respite.

With the help of God, that may well happen. I pray and pray, and believe.

 A front-page report in today's Sydney Morning Herald confirms what has long been suspected - there is a lot of shoddy building work being done in NSW. Reports of leaking apartments and townhouses, cracking basements and carparks, collapsing balconies and much else besides, all in new or recently constructed buildings, have been in the news for a number of years now.

I cannot imagine being in the situation where many of these poor residents are. Having poured life-savings, or invested in large mortgages, to put a decent roof over their heads, they find themselves sometimes in unliveable dwellings. Redress is difficult, costly and slow, with some builders 'going bankrupt' and others tardy in responding to repair orders.

This is one issue that government needs to crack the whip on. Housing is a fundamental right of all people and making sure that folks get what they paid for - at the most basic level - behoves a special vigilance. Fail at this and everything else is at best, secondary in importance.

My heart goes out to these people. Frankly, it is a scandal that requires a prompt response.

 Untitled autumn #1

I will rise and make the tea,

And unlatch the garden door.

I'll hear the earnest autumn winds

Strip the shedding maple tree

To retrofit an auburn floor.

I'll walk the yard, with wellies on,

The dew still thick upon the grass,

And every bird I light upon,

And every trembling leaf I pass,

Lays testament to what has gone,

The lean is here and summer done.

'We had huddled together a long time in the shed

in the scent of vanished corn and wild bush birds, and then the hammering faltered, and the torn cobwebs ceased their quivering and hung still from the nested rafters. We became uneasy at the silence that grew about us, and came out. The beaded violence had ceased.'

That's the first verse and a bit of Les Murray's magnificent 'Spring Hail' from the collection, 'The Ilex Tree.' We are not even remotely near spring, unlike our northern neighbours and have yet to endure winter's dispossessions. I like the beginning of June, but this old house is poorly set up for mid-winter.

Still in autumn, though nearing a midway point, we have rain and more rain. At this time of the year we usually experience warm sunny days, cool evenings and the gradual turning of the exotics. It is invariably dry too.

Yesterday there was a large earthquake in Myanmar, one which also rattled adjacent Thailand. A building collapsed in Bangkok. Ann has been busily searching the news online for information. Suffice it to say that she is no longer keen on buying a condo in a high-rise complex.

I hope that those buried under the rubble can be found alive and that lessons can be learned.

I quote from 'Spring Hail' above because I love the poem and also because it will open Episode 48 of 'Writers from the Vault'. There is a lot of good Australian writing and I have only just touched the surface.

 I read an article recently in one the Sydney papers which described a relatively new phenomenon. Some folks in the younger (perhaps the youngest) were dispensing with capital letters and grammar in their writing. They claim that it's not only cool, but that it is subversive, flows better, is less authoritarian and better suited to their communication needs.

If this were some Joycean experiment in stream-of-consciousness writing, then I am all for it. But I doubt that neither Joyce nor his narrative techniques have anything do with it. So, could these youthful pens be onto something? Are we missing out on the joie-de-vivre of unfettered free communication by sticking to such arcane rules of writing, all of which were invented by dead, white fuddy-duddies.

No, not all. If this is your schtick, then please don't go into law or medicine or write any report in which word precision is critical. It's fine, of course, for inane texting tasks. Not much else, really.

There are plenty of serious things you might want to be subversive about, though.

I used to talk with my mother once or twice a day on the phone. Her passing has left a gap in my life ( and doubtless my brothers too) that goes beyond an hour or so on the telephone, though the latter was a lifeline for her as she became increasingly housebound.

Amongst her many memories were bibs and bobs about family life decades ago, some of which I had forgotten. I was amazed at how sharp her memory remained even as I regretted how poor mine seemed to be.

As kids, or young adults, we used to watch a lot of BBC produced television, most of it on the local ABC. Once, when talking about the late 70's, I asked if she remembered a bitter sweet comedy called 'Butterflies', and to my surprise she didn't. Well, not at first anyway, but when I added that the star was Wendy Craig and she drove a mini-minor with a union jack painted on the roof, the mists cleared a little. 

It so happened that I came across some used DVDs of the very series on eBay and was in the process of buying them when she passed away. I had intended to give her the first series and see how she enjoyed it, but alas, too late.

 

So instead, I have been watching them again myself. I am just starting the second of four seasons and have been surprised at how much I am enjoying them. The laughs are really quite few, the sad moments and frustrations rather more evident. It strikes me that as concept, it was well ahead of its time, the odd funny moment in a sea of plaintiveness, which speaks rather highly, I think, of the writing, casting and directing.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, though.

 In his poem 'The Flower That Smiles To-day', Shelley wrote,

'The flower that smiles today

      Tomorrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

      Tempts and then flies.

What is this world's delight?

Lightning that mocks in the night,

      Brief even as bright.'

The Romantics knew only too keenly how all things must change, starting with what they saw in the natural world and conflating it with the human condition. This is increasingly apparent today with our heightened knowledge of natural phenomena, though whether we benefit from it or not is open to question. 

There is something to be said too for unchanging truths which stand in defiance of all that is mutable. I don't need to dwell on the point as readers of this blog (surely none - ed.) know what I think already. But change today is not accepted readily - you can see that in climate change deniers - but many others are also inclined to put their fingers in their ears and shout 'la, la, la.'

You can see it in the countless ageing products being touted, the increased use of drugs and alcohol as escapes, the failure to deal with change in relationships that leads to violence. And so forth.

I will be the first to admit that change for me is hard, mostly in the contemplation thereof, but also in the practical world. I fumble the ball a lot, though not through want of trying.

Christina Rossetti, one of my favourite poets, had a penchant for dwelling on the melancholic. A committed Christian, she seemed to ring an equal measure of joy and pain from her faith. I understand this, for  we are always falling short, disappointing or repeating past errors. As Thomas a Kempis notes in his Imitation of Christ, no sooner have we risen from our knees having pledged to be better, stronger or more committed than we are letting God down. Such is the human condition.

Rossetti, like many Victorian poets, was drawn to the topic of death, doubtless by the many life-ending maladies that took lives before their time was due. In Rossetti's case, I cant help but feel that like Keats, she was 'half in love with easeful death.' It is a good topic for poets, after all.

Thou Sleepest Where The Lilies Fade

Thou sleepest where the lilies fade,

    Thou dwellest where the lilies fade not;

Sweet, when thine earthly part decayed

        Thy heavenly part decayed not.

 

Thou dwellest where the roses blow,

    The crimson roses bud and blossom;

While on thine eyes is heaped the snow,

        The snow upon thy bosom.

Autumn Waking

I thought I had it

figured out,

Summer's late tail;

Like sleep-walking

at midday

under a huge sky,

along, yes, a familiar trail.

Hours spent about

the slackening sun,

it's ancient flattening

slow in all that unyielding green.

But judgments are frail,

The rout that came,

Was camera-flash quick.

I might have seen

The liminal margin,

The fibril of gold where

the flourishing had been,

that ever promises the same,

yet always disappoints

missing the in-between,

Just as I did.

What instant moment,

What prompts in time,

Is it, that creation appoints?

 Autumn has entered the scene suddenly, as if summoned urgently by the stage director. I had wondered where all the turning leaves might been but today I see that they have burst upon us, as if by stealth, with a palette comprising, yellows, red and oranges (see next post).

Having a garden that is a little like a park, I am conscious of all the movement in the trees and bushes, the subtle and sudden changes, that occur over the four seasons. Being at a higher altitude than Sydney we do experience a greater clarity as one time of change blends into another.

Autumn, as I have said before, is my favourite season - one of richness and then decline, a prelude to the appearance of ever-thieving winter. It is a sweet yet mournful harmony to my own slight melancholy, but unlike the season, there is no chance of Spring's revival in me.

Never mind, winter is not yet upon me.

That Christmas

That Christmas, 

One like none before,

I found the Christmas stick,

Mulling in the yard, I saw it

Lifeless in the dawn.

That Christmas - 

There was no scowling traffic,

No early rise, hasty packing,

Nor the usual yuletide bother,

No piling of gifts, 

Trails of shining paper,

Nor any shifts put in -

To tend the roast,

Turn the potatoes, or

Top up the nuts.

Absent too,

The pressed linen,

Cruets and odd paraphernalia

That only Christmas annually

Brings in an Australian summer,

For a declining English home.

But there is was,

Embedded from its night-fall,

Rudely upright,

Built of a common tea-tree,

Really nothing at all,

Yet strangely alluring,

Honouring, in a foolish

Humble way

The Absentee.

Mutability

All that changes is unchanging,

What is seen and unseen too

Much the churn of green, of lively

Flecks that spin, and rearrange,

In the soundless dawn of days,

A universe of subtle aging,

In endless secret reconnections,

Sub-atomic struggles raging,

By a shrouded spirit blithely.

And so it comes to pass -

(I write this with a sigh),

Our days on earth are like the grass;

like wildflowers we bloom and die,

And ever darkly through the glass

The wind blows, and we are gone - 

The wind blows, and we are gone,

Absenting all once stood upon.

 In his poem, September 1st 1939, Auden wrote,

'Uncertain and afraid,

As the clever hopes expire

Of a low dishonest decade:

Waves of anger and fear

Circulate over the bright

And darkened lands of the earth,

Obsessing our private lives;'

Auden was writing of the very day of the German invasion of Poland, the event that triggered WW2. The 'dishonesty' of the decade, the 1930's, stemmed from his view that little had been done to stand up to fascism, save hand-wringing, appeasement and wishful thinking, a failure that has led to this terrible moment in time.

I wonder if Auden's assessment might similarly be applied to the current decade, the 2020's, in which we find ourselves in a not dissimilar situation. A great power, Russia, in the thrall of an 'elected' dictatorship, has invaded a smaller neighbour, Ukraine. After years of supporting the underdog, the world's preeminent superpower, the United States, seemed to have switched sides. It's President is a man for whom the truth is whatever he desires, never mind the facts. In this sense he is more aligned with the dictator than his actual allies.

I can't see this ending well.

On Sunday evening Ann and I went down to the Nepean River for a stroll. It had been a warm, humid day and the the dusk still wore the heavy air of the day, though the sting of the sun was gone.

A lot of work has been done along the riverbank to transform the area into a vibrant and picturesque community resource and the pathways, shelters and grassy slopes were still busy with families.

We crossed the pedestrian bridge at the northern end and I took this photo of the ebbing sun on the river. It came our better then I thought it would. Life is full of such small blessings.

 I used to travel quite a lot but in recent years have shied away from it somewhat. There is no doubt I have less energy than once I did (just reading my European diary from 1979 exhausts me!) and I am leary of flying at the best of times.

But today Ann booked for us to go to Thailand to visit her family - a seven year gap for me. I have felt guilty for some time now; after all, my mother-in-law lives there, so this is more a duty than a holiday. I do like Thailand but it is so hot and the country town we will be residing in is big and dusty and not noteworthy in any way. I guess that means it is off the tourist trail, the one took myself in the earlier trips to Thailand. So that's a plus, surely.

Still we will have a few days in Bangkok, where I'd like to visit museums and explore a khlong or two. I don't need to see the Royal Palace and all the famous temples again, something quieter, please.

We are not going until December so more on this journey, later.

Not to harp, but tomorrow is the last calendar day of summer. February is a short month and so robs us of a few final lingering days. March follows keenly on it's tail, ushering in the long, somewhat melancholic and inevitable slide towards winter.

We feel the seasons in the Blue Mountains, each has it's own distinctions. Autumn is probably the most pronounced, for the mixture of natives and exotics can make for a strangely disparate yet spectacular display. It doesn't seem right to feel sad at the fall of leaves and the clashes of colour as we approach the onset of the colder, darker season. Aching beauty and disconsolation don't well together, do they?

For now, we will have to wait for 'the fitful gusts that shakes / the casement all the day' that 'from the mossy elm tree / takes the faded leaf away'. Actually I don't have any casements nor elm trees handy, but John Clare would know.

 Yes, summer is fading, but on the whole, it hasn't been much of a summer. We have had a lot of rain (good for keeping the bushfires at bay), we had no Christmas (for we were in mourning) and the new year kicked off with much the same feel of the last (it is often thus). There have been summery days now and then and a lot of too-warm nights, but it has not been a time of blessed dog-days, food and rest.

Not to complain though. The blue skies are still deeply cheering, the clouds high-builded and even the frequent showers and misty drizzle have their own special charm. On any given day I might wander in the garden to a different experience, one informed by the weather surely, but in which trees and birds seem to have a secret understanding of this liminal time, one which has confounded the mere mortal, I.

The sun is rich
And gladly pays
In golden hours,
Silver days,

And long green weeks
That never end.
School’s out.
The time Is ours to spend.

There’s Little League,
Hopscotch, the creek,
And, after supper,
Hide-and-seek.

The live-long light
Is like a dream,
and freckles come
Like flies to cream.

John Updike

I had once thought that each decade of my life involved at least major upheaval, something which throws me completely, threatens my health or well-being, not just a unfortunate turn of events. A bad breakup in  a long-term relationship is a good example, or chronic anxiety, another. Yes, I know, that is not a proper sentence but this is my blog.

But last year took the cake (if baking is the right metaphor), because three or four decades was rolled into one year. I was sick, my wife was sick, my son was sick, my mother passed away and much more besides. When I say sick, I mean in a potentially life-threatening way, not just a bout of the flu or a broken leg.

When I look back on 2024, I can hardly fathom the relentless awfulness of it, though there was a brief respite in the winter months. By the grace of God I am still here, somewhat calmer and stronger in key ways, and it is nearly March, so that is promising. Ann is still having tests but so far they have all come out well.

I feel a little like I am walking on egg-shells, but time is passing. No, one cannot predict whether good or bad is just around the corner, so really, as Jesus said, it is prudent just to take each day at a time. Faith is a mighty blessing, and who can say if I would be here or not without it.

 Rumours have it that the Trump administration is about to flick the switch to Mars, bypassing the Moon as the next best settlement option. NASA has seen a critical change of personnel in recent days which suggest that something is afoot. But the science suggest that a move from the Moon to Mars will end in failure or disaster.

By every metric, the Moon is a simpler settlement option. I do not mean mass settlement, but rather the establishment of Moon bases for research, the latter of which will give us more information about pioneering further afield. The Moon is very close, we have been there before, has water ice and is in range if a rescue or resupply operation is needed.

Mars is a long way away, requires 8 or 9 months to reach at the best possible window and is simply too far for rescue or emergency resupply. Getting there requires exposure to radiation and isolation for months on end. The atmosphere is deadly, the soil poisonous and the weather subject to massive dust storms.

The only thing getting in the way of human settlement on the Moon is the massive egos of tech bros and their mates in politics. But it is profitable to explore Mars into the future robotically until such a time as the technology (rocket propulsion and so forth) makes it a plausible option for spending timeon.

Occasionally I read or hear something that I almost completely agree with. Sometimes the views are so well put that I have to take my hat off - I could never have written so well or succinctly. Yesterday I read a piece by an American psychologist, Erica Komisar, which surveys the rise in psychological disorders in young people.

She posits that a combination of factors have produced a dangerous narcissism - an obsession with self - that have as their inevitable outworking consequences beyond what we might have imagined. She sets this within an historical framework - the feminist movement, materialism and consumerism and the appearance of social media as a substitute for family and a successful launch into the world.

This kind of thinking likely upsets a lot of people. I don't need to say who they are. Any revolution will have unintended consequences. It is not clear to me that we can predict what they might be at, say, the beginning of whatever huge change is being ushered in, nor whether that would make any difference at all.

But freedom, you know, is everything, even if it isn't freedom at all.

 It's funny how memories flip out of nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere, but often through links likely established long ago in the brain. My son wanted a Mountain Dew flavouring for  the Soda Stream and this set me off to thinking about a cold drink machine outside a small set of shops at the top end of Old South Head Rd in Vaucluse. This was a drop off point for the school bus when I was attending Rose Bay Public.

Said bus, a old double-decker, would wheeze up the hill from Rose Bay before depositing its cargo at this spot, actually the intersection of New and Old South Head Roads. Walking home meant passing these shops and the drink machine was a source of fascination. Apart from the usual brands were the relatively new Mountain Dew and a beer-substitute, ASA Horehound. It was rare that we ever were able to spend the few cents in our pockets on these delights, but we did have enough to buy some sweets at the shop directly behind.

An elderly man, wearing a white shop apron and supporting himself with a walking stick (for he walked with a limp), was the proprietor. His name might have been Joffe or something similar, for he had a strong accent (I guess German or Eastern European), one which I can still hear to this day. He had no patience for children and would sometimes chase us from his shop, his cane waggling defiantly like a giant exclamation mark. I don't know why - its possible that he was taunted - or he might just have been ill-tempered.

I wonder today, where he got the limp. He was old enough to be a WW1 veteran - he could also have served in WW2, but he might also have been a Holocaust survivor. I have no way of finding out, though I wish I could.

Today, the door of his shop remains exactly where it was, though it is now a part of a larger establishment. But ajar, as if to welcome him back.

I have been in the garden this morning 'deadheading' the agapanthus. The latter is the rabbit of the plant kingdom, multiplying as if by magic from season to season. They will take over if not attended to, for their rhizomic root system and prolific seed production give them advantages over the natives, except perhaps in a bushfire.

Today was more autumnal than can be imagined, this being only the middle of February, and a cool breeze, reminding me of April, is blowing from the south. Ann and I will shortly go out for a belated Valentines lunch somewhere down the mountain. In this case, it pays to be late.

We have had some hot days recently and we have had big storm days too, when the thunder claps like a bomb above the the peak of the house. But we are still heading into autumn, my favourite time, with an inevitability that cannot be gainsaid.

A poet writes that the 'late summer sun speaks softly.....whispering into the speed of summer's slipping'(Carolyn Riker) which is a lovely way of putting the transition. Yes, it does slip, especially here in the Mountains, and before you know it, autumn is here in full livery.

I think we are on the cusp of a few trees beginning to turn. Then the rush, the rush to the earth.

When I was in my teens we had many distractions from the main game of living. There were radios and stereo players, television and the land-line phone. Actually that is about it, and even those distractions weren't all that serious. Listening to a whole album through, for example, and having to flip sides at the midway point, could be a highly reflective activity.

But we lived in a kind of balance, for these diversions, such as they were, were more than supplemented and likely overtaken by physical activity - sport of all stripes - cricket, soccer, rugby, forcings back - together with the riding of bikes, walking to and from friend's houses, the list does go on. We even used to hike down through the bush to Middle Harbour for no particularly good reason at all.

It strikes me also, though this could partly be poor memory, that young people were far more alert and actually paid attention, even if somewhat laconically, to what was being said or even what was going on.

I don't think the same can be said today. So extreme are the distractions and so omnipresent and easily accessed, that many teens appear to look straight through you when in conversation. Conversation, as such, is not even the right word, because only one of the parties is actually engaged fully.

Now there are good and wonderful things about technology. There are bad and unhelpful things too. Once upon a time we used to guide kids through the minefield of early life challenges, the latter of which were identifiable and comprehensible. But that is changing and the adult world has abrogated its nurturing duty in the face of relentless change. Any fool knows that it can't end well.

 Yesterday I watched a couple of documentaries about South Korea. The first examined the disappearance of five kids, the 'Frog Boys', who went out to play one evening in 1991 and were never seen alive again. Their bodies turned up in a shallow grave on a nearby mountainside ten years later. The murderer is yet to be found and likely will not be, given the poor performance of the police to date.

The second was about the sinking of the ferry MV Sewol in 2014, which unaccountably capsized on calm seas with the loss of 300 souls, mostly high school students. The repercussions of this event are still being felt today.

One common factor in both of these cases was the incomprehensibly inept conduct of officials, police, politicians and people in authority, such as the ship's captain. It was hard to work out what was sheer cowardice, or laziness, corrupt conduct or plain hopelessness. No one needed to die but somehow hundreds did.

I won't go into the details because folks on YT have done that for me already and very competently too. I am sure South Korea is now the better for the scandals that ensued and the heads that rolled. But what a cost in human life and the suffering of loved-ones! That cannot be measured and is unlikely to be forgotten.

When I lived in Japan in the 2000's, I saw an NHK English language program on the phenomenon know as 'hikikomori', social situations where young people withdraw from society - their schools, jobs and so forth, and hide in their parent's homes. Their isolation can go on for months and even years and can have a disastrous impact on the family.

It is a cause of deep shame for Japanese families and often as not, they simply don't talk about it. The young person stays in their house or bedroom and never goes outside, so the secret can be kept, or be seen to be kept. Case in point was my next door neighbour, whose teenage daughter I never knew about - never knew existed- until one day shortly before leaving Japan, he told me about her. 

On another occasion that I think I have related before, I had some dental work done in exchange for an English class. But that was actually a ruse on the part of the dentist who really wanted us to meet her son, yet another hikikomori. We did and I hope that he was the better for it. He was a personable young man.

Today I watched a CNA program on 'johatsu' - literally 'evaporated' people, those who choose to disappear completely, often with the help of professional 'movers', or even on their own using manuals such as (I kid you not) 'The Complete Manual of Disappearance'. The program was sad, especially for those left behind, who get no warning. A loved-one leaves for work or some routine activity one day and never returns. 

People have lots of reasons to disappear I guess. Women in terrible domestic abuse marriages, men who feel that they are trapped in the wrong place and the wrong job, doubtless folks with debts or facing legal troubles, so many ways one might feel so desperate that they have to get out.

Just imagine someone you love walking out without warning, without a hint that anything was wrong. Imagine.

Yesterday, 80 years ago, the extermination camp, Auschwitz, was liberated by the Red Army. The horrors that attended this awful site, perhaps amongst the worst in all of human history, gradually unfolded to a shocked world, then just emerging from the Second World War. While some in the West suspected that Jewish people were being interned and possibly murdered, very few could have guessed at the stupendous industrial scale of it.

I learnt about the death camps in the 1960's. It was something that had permeated the consciousness of all institutions in the West and while some did not fully realise the extent of the killing (how does one process the idea of 4 million planned murders?), everybody knew it was evil and that it was real. Hitler and Nazism became bi-words for the most wicked degradations that humans can descend to.

So it comes as a surprise to me and doubtless a shock to others that antisemitism, the seed that lead to the poisonous plant cultivated by National Socialism, is alive and well and on the march. I understand that many young people are upset at the war in Gaza and the policies of the Netanyahu Government, some of which I find unpalatable too.

But these are separate issues - one can criticize a government for its short-sightedness or plain bad policy and still be vigilant against antisemitism. You don't have to conflate the two. The antidote to such muddled thinking is a day spent reading about and reflecting on Auschwitz. One cannot but emerge a wiser, if sadder, person.

 As a postscript to my previous comment, I would urge vandals to stop attacking statues of James Cook. A brilliant seaman and commander, Cook cannot be held accountable for how things transpired in the decades that followed. He was dead even before the First Fleet was conceived of. 

Apart from the Endeavour's central stated mission of observing the transit of Venus in the Pacific, Cook had secret orders from the British Government to look for a south land, which he duly did, bumping into New Zealand before his fateful rendezvous with Australia and subsequent charting of the east coast.

Much as it is absurd to impose modern 'standards' on writers from the past (also arrogant and plain foolish) it behoves us to become aware of the social and cultural milieu of the time when assessing historical figures such as Cook. Maybe its a youthful thing, to be so full of self-righteous anger and to be so prone to confirmation bias, but not understanding people in their own time as a prerequisite to assessing their worthiness is so obviously wrong as to be incontestable.

It seems that retaining January 26th as Australia Day has become popular again, with 69% of people asked in a recent survey that they wanted no change. I don't know the small print of the question nor the reasons respondents gave, but it strikes me that a reaction against progressism, such as we see elsewhere, is well and truly underway.

I don't think that its because Australians aren't fair-minded because I think, for the most part, they don't like to see injustice being done to others nor people being oppressed. Aboriginal activism against the 26th goes back a long way. I found a publication from the 1930's (amazingly called 'The Abo Call') which was organising alternate gatherings against the day even back then.

It could be that Aboriginal Australians are caught up in the general reaction against ceaseless change on the fringes of society (I won't say what). Some people likely think moving the day is in the too hard basket, given there are many days that might be objected to for one reason or another.

It seems probably that the date of Australia Day will be ever contentious and so, might have to accommodate simultaneously, two opposing views - the notion of the disastrous 'invasion' and the idea of celebrating a successful nation. I think we can do it. After all, cognitive dissonance is widespread and largely embraced, albeit unconsciously.

Happy Australia Day!

Thinking about how relationships are these days - with much talk of toxic masculinity - I recalled how I thought about and approached the the potential relationships I had yet to enter when I was but a lad. It was a different world, largely free of pornography, entirely free of social media (except the telephone and the local milk bar) and less mediated by non-binary complications.

It's not that there weren't men with prediluvian attitudes to women - there were, though they were a small minority. It is that relationships were approached differently and nice blokes, like yours truly, had space to work in, even if there remained amongst many women, the desire for an alpha male. I am not sure about the latter phenomenon, whether biological, cultural, or both, but it always surprised me how many nice girls would date boys who were likely to let them down repeatedly.

My real problem, at least very early on, was to place a girlfriend on a pedestal, confident that no wrong could be done by doing so. Au contraire, but it could. It is a foolish mistake to imagine that your love is without any personality defect or that her every word or deed is without blemish.

The pendulum eventually swung somewhere closer to the middle, the Goldilocks zone of moderate contentment and reasonable co-existence. What more can you ask if you are seeking mutual satisfaction and a shot at longevity.

Thunderstorms and blackouts have taken their toll on the internet here. While I dutifully disconnect the power during storms, the gargantuan and rolling nature of yesterday afternoon and evening's tempests seem to have overwhelmed the system. The NBN box is flashing an ominous red and will not respond to any of the suggested troubleshooting tips. Either the box or the outside lines or both are clearly faulty.

I was awakened in the middle of the night when everything went black - street lights, night lights, anything-charging-lights, and awoke this morning to a continuing blackout. My first thought was  - how do I make a pot of tea? - a desperate thought, I grant you. I am usually thirsty in the morning and hankering for the quenching liquid ( and a ginger nut). That is a far more pressing matter than an internet connection, for me anyway.

I think that I'll invest again in the one of those inexpensive gas camping cookers, if for no other reason that I can guarantee a cup of tea in the morning, should the plug be pulled again.

In amongst all the bad news that the first two weeks of 2025 has generated, there are stories that uplift the spirit. I think we all need these stories to balance out the drip drip drip of negativity that comes from the news media, who are only trying to turn a dollar, I understand.

Last night I found a story from fire-ravaged Los Angeles about a family who returned to their home of 37 years only to find it totally destroyed, as all the neighbouring homes were too. There was nothing standing, nothing preserved except one solitary object  - a statue of the Virgin Mary, without blemish or burn, completely intact.

The family gathered in a wide circle around the statue and began to sing Regina Coeli by Antonio Lotti, beautifully and in harmony. You will have to watch the video to appreciate the sadness and joy of the moment, people of faith singing amidst the ruins of their home, grateful for this one miracle. I challenge you not to be brought to tears and yet also, to marvel at the wonder of it.

The emergence of the 'Tech Bros' over the last two decades is a phenomenon that only goes to show that shallowness can lead to great riches. The platforms that they preside over offer very little value in terms of genuine human development. But they do offer a wealth of exploitation, misinformation and Janus-faced dissembling, the like of which has rarely been seen in such a public context before.

And yet it all pays a lot of money. And power, apparently. A cadre of the bros recently went to Mar-a-Lago to tug the forelock to the incoming President. Having trashed him somewhat in the past, they went in fear that their fortunes might be compromised lest they pay due homage.

One of their number, he who claims he is 100% certain that we are living in a simulation (and also that nuking Mars would be a good terraforming option) is apparently amongst the most senior courtly advisers to the new King. I doubt that two such gargantuan egos can co-exist in the same room, but we shall see.

I would prefer that 2025 were not characterised by providing us with 'interesting times' to live in, but the signs do not look promising.

The horrendous bushfires in California are a reminder, if one were needed, that the climate is changing and we are more vulnerable to extreme weather events. It is awful to see the burnt homes and cars and such utter destruction. But no quantity of disasters will convince climate sceptics that the threat is real and upon us now, for they have already laid all the groundwork for their cognitive dissonance via their peer bubbles and entrenched pridefulness

Unlike California, we are in official bushfire season but very fortunately we are experiencing a wet patch which may see us through to February or March. But a spell of hot; dry weather and days of strong winds could see everything go pear-shaped very quickly. Those who live in the Mountains understand the risks - or they should - and we are ready.

No one wants to lose their home - everything they have worked for and built - but factoring in that possibility has its own calming rationale. We hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Grace

In the fancy basement food hall,

I slide by well-healed women

And men in anxious suits,

Lose myself in bespoke aisles

Of pickles and plum pudding,

Marzipan, maraschino cherries,

Slabs of date and fig,

Walnuts and dried fruit and

Stashes of exotic chocolate,

Searching for that one,

White-iced rarity of

An English Christmas fruit cake,

And realize, astonished,

That I am looking for 

my Mother.

There is no use pretending that the new year is a jot different from the old, save we add a '25' at the end. Never mind the fireworks, the back-slapping, kisses and firm resolutions, the day after the last day of December is exactly the same, a continuance of the human condition without respite.

I don't need to glance again at the daily news for confirmation, for the perfidy of the species will continue unabated. Even now, there are multiple sirens on the highway, a sign that drivers remain careless and impervious to change.

Of course, we experience days in quite different ways, depending on our outlook and what is going right or wrong. Nobody desires suffering and affliction, though most don't feel the need to crash their cars into innocent people just because they hurt. Some, of course, do.

Days

What are days for?

Days are where we live,

They come , they wake us

Time and time over,

They are to be happy in:

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor

In their long coats

Running over the fields

Philip Larkin