Summer holiday – day 4
It’s rather an odd feeling to be back in our old home town. Going on holidays normally engenders a spirit of adventure and energy which is lacking here. We’re having a fine time but the partial familiarity of the environment interferes with the holiday spirit in weird ways.
We’ve spent the last couple of days buzzing about town, mostly in Newtown where we’re staying but also in the city and in Darlinghurst. We visited the MCA yesterday and had a jolly outing to Watson’s Bay on a whim. We have been to numerous gay bars and drunk too much draught VB. Yesterday was Brent’s birthday so we had a celebration dinner.
Looking around this old town, some things have changed (Gowing’s is going out of business!) and some things never change (the lads on King Street are as spunky as ever). C’est la vie (en rose).
Tonight is New Year’s Eve, a big date on Sydney’s calendar with the mandatory pyrotechnics from the bridge. Along with Will and Aaron we’ve been invited to join some new friends, Michael and Jason, on a boat in the harbour for the show; we’re very much looking forward to that and to saying goodbye to a difficult year in style. We’ll need to be reasonably restrained tonight as we have to get to Wollongong tomorrow for my Mum’s birthday, but it should be a fun night.
Here’s a photo I took yesterday of Brent’s feet standing over the scale model of the city that’s set into the floor of the Customs House in Circular Quay. I call this one King Kong in Thongs.
Happy new year. Travel safely. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Summer holiday – day 1
Had a good drive today and have stopped just across the border in Albury for the night. Some photos have been uploaded to Flickr. More tomorrow, maybe.
On the road again
In a few hours’ time Brent and I will load up the ute with camping gear and head off for our holiday. We’ll fang it up to Albury today, then take the long way around to arrive in Sydney on Friday. Two nights in Sydney (Brent’s birthday and New Year’s Eve) then to Wollongong on 1 January for my mum’s 80th birthday party. After that, we’ll look for a camping spot to settle for a couple of weeks.
Should be a great journey. I’ll try to post some notes and photos, at least during the first few days. After that we’ll probably be too relaxed and comfortable to bother.
links for 2005-12-27
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The start of the new year is to be delayed by a leap second which will be inserted at 23:59:60 (!) UTC on New Year’s Eve. Bastards.
The goanna is dead
The two certainties in life, so they say, are death and taxes. But Kerry Packer escaped only one.
Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer, Australia’s richest man, is dead, proving that even if you’ve got $7 billion in your savings account you can’t go on buying replacement organs forever.
Much will be said about this giant of a man in the coming days and, as the dead cannot be libelled, I dare say not all of it will be complimentary. He leaves behind a massive media empire, memories of the World Series Cricket palava, a reputation as a bully, questions about the legality of his activities (inter alia, the “Goanna” allegations from the Costigan Royal Commission), and a helicopter pilot one kidney short.
Packer is survived by his wife Ros, son-Tel James and daughter Gretel, who I once sat next to at a dinner party. She seemed nice enough, considering what she came from. She never corrected me when I called her “Rachel” throughout the evening.
Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s a photo of a dead goanna:
Christmas Day
Why bother with words when a picture of a handsome man will more than suffice:
Brent, at our Christmas Day picnic in Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens, reading my Christmas gift. A couple more on Flickr.
Holidaze
As of this afternoon I’m on holidays for a month. Yippee-do-dah. It’s been a long time coming, or at least it feels that way. I’ll be spending most of the month travelling — to Sydney for New Year’s, then to Wollongong for my mum’s 80th birthday, then down to the South Coast for a couple of weeks’ camping.
I guess at this point I should wish all my readers the best for the holiday season and for the new year. I apologise for the fact that posting has been erratic at best over the last little while but I’ve had a lot on and it’s been hard to find things to write about without getting morose. I’ll try to find time in the next few days to write a review of the year just past — it has the working title “A Cunt of a Year” so don’t expect hearts and flowers.
Season’s greetings/merry Christmas/cheers and here’s hoping 2006 sees the pendulum swing back in the direction of peace, brotherhood and justice.
links for 2005-12-21
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“Drunken Santas on a rampage in New Zealand, armed German robbers in Santa disguises, a British St Nick wanted for flashing, and a Swedish vandal in a Santa outfit are giving the big man in red a bad name this year.” (and who said the silly season hadn’t
“Unbeatable. Amazing. Must see. Wow.”
Yesterday morning I happened upon this somewhat breathless movie review from Mr Tom Coates of plasticbag.org:
And then the ground falls out from underneath your feet and the next time you breathe it’s about an hour later and you’re so hooked and consumed by the whole experience that you don’t want the film to ever end. I’ve never seen a movie that so comprehensively crapped on any and all opposition, that so savagely went for your throat and held you by it until you begged for mercy.
Naturally, I couldn’t help being swallowed up by his enthusiasm and within minutes I had secured tickets to see the giant gorilla movie in question.
links for 2005-12-14
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Beer For Dogs! Share a beer with your best friend!
Are we relaxed and comfortable yet?
The man in this picture is not under arrest. He is being protected by the police officer (who is carrying what I assume is a bottle of capsicum spray) from the mob behind.
The man is being pursued by the mob, part of a 5000-strong rabble that converged on Cronulla Beach in Sydney yesterday, because he is (or at least looks like) a “leb”.
“Leb” is a derogatory term, short for “Lebanese” but referring to anyone of Middle Eastern origin.
Here’s a couple more pictures of the same man, before the police came to protect him:
Yesterday’s riots in Cronulla have left most Australians shocked and have shown in harsh and unforgiving light what a desperately divided, confused and fearful nation we have become under the stewardship of John Howard and his gang.
When Howard became Prime Minister in 1996 he promised that Australia would be more “relaxed and comfortable” under his leadership. Today he has condemned the riots but he has refused to describe the rioters as racist.
Last night on television I witnessed the spectacle of thousands of drunken people waving Australian flags and chanting “Fuck off Lebs! Fuck off Lebs! Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Fuck off Lebs!”
If that isn’t racist then what the fuck is?
(Pictures from the SMH photo gallery of the riot.)
A Singaporean Victorian Hangman Tells His Love
Dear one, forgive my appearing before you like this,
in a two-piece track-suit, welder’s goggles
and a green cloth cap like some gross bee—this is the State’s idea…
I would have come
arrayed like a bridegroom for these nuptials
knowing how often you have dreamed about this
moment of consummation in your cell.
If I must bind your arms now to your sides
with a leather strap and ask if you have anything to say
—these too are formalities I would dispense with:
I know your heart is too full at this moment
to say much and that the tranquilizer which I trust
you did not reject out of a stubborn pride
should by this time have eased your ache for speech, breath
and the other incidentals which distract us from our end.
Let us now walk a step. This noose
with which we’re wed is something of an heirloom, the last three
members of our holy family were wed with it, the softwood beam
it hangs from like a lover’s tree notched with their weight.
See now I slip it over your neck, the knot
under the left jaw, with a slip ring
to hold the knot in place . . . There. Perfect.
Allow me to adjust the canvas hood
which will enable you to anticipate the officially prescribed darkness
by some seconds.
The journalists are ready with the flash-bulbs of their eyes
raised to the simple altar, the doctor twitches like a stethoscope
—you have been given a clean bill of health, like any
modern bride.
With this spring of mine
from the trap, hitting the door lever, you will go forth
into a new life which I, alas, am not yet fit to share.
Be assured, you will sink into the generous pool of public feeling
as gently as a leaf—accept your role, feel chosen.
You are this evening’s headlines. Come, my love.
‘A Victorian Hangman Tells His Love,’ Bruce Dawe, 1967. Written in response to the execution of Ronald Ryan, the last man to be hanged in Australia.
