Dear reader, 

another one from our scribe from the distant north west frontier, and in this-un Frank is the full- bottle on postage, bureaucracy, the citizenry, common sense and rampant stupidity. It’s a common and recurrent theme. There’s comfort in that. We at pcbycp would like to apologise for the fact that we were unable to use Frank’s supplied image due to a technical glitch. This will be remedied just as soon as we complete our high level debriefing from our temporary office in Birmingham, epi- centre of the global sporting world!

Frank winding up the propeller of the mail plane at Yuendumu, c. 1945.

Frank writes; ….

Vrienden,
A little while ago I received a handwritten letter in the mail. To me this was rather joyous. A quickly typed email doesn’t hold a candle to such a labour of love. To my shame I have not replied in kind, we are all just too busy.
I can recall when my parents would receive a letter in the mail (surface mail, not airmail, to save money) from their family or friends in the Netherlands. Writing desks were an essential furniture item in every household, and a handwritten reply would soon be sent on its way across the sea. From Argentina with love. This would happen once a month. We would avidly steam the postage stamp(s) off the envelope and stick them in an album.
I still recall the “watersnood” stamps. The North Sea Flood (de watersnood) hit the Netherlands and claimed 1836 lives mainly in the southern province of Zeeland, after which Aotearoa was named.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8h7HDZEGj0

Old Australia half crown postage stamp showing a portrait of an ‘Aborigine’ .

If you are wondering what New Zealand’s third language (mentioned in the video) is, it is the New Zealand sign language. If you have the time, I can strongly recommend you check out this link:
Yolŋu Sign Language (YSL)
Some time ago I was privileged to receive in the mail the beautifully illustrated Yolngu sign language book
https://www.yolngusignlanguage.com.au/#:~:text=(Adone%2C%20James%2C%20Kendon),of%20North%20East%20Arnhem%20Land.

in old style postage a woomera wielding native person was de rigeur to prove that the postal service required a native runner in more remote places.

Before ubiquitous biros, Parker pens were a status symbol. In 1957 my father briefly worked for a privately owned export business in Hilversum. One of the items Dad told me they exported were crates full of ersatz Parker fountain pen tops to Nigeria. Following the discovery of petroleum in 1956 there was an emergent middle class in Nigeria. A display of a row of Parker fountain pen tops in their white long sleeved shirt top pocket was an expression of their newly found wealth.

My father also told me the history of the ballpoint pen which replaced the fountain pen. László Biro, the inventor of the ballpoint pen, was a Hungarian Jew who with his brother fled to Argentina in 1943, the year I was born.
When we first arrived in Yuendumu, mail bags could be picked up in Alice Springs by anyone. You’d knock on a side locket at the post office and ask if there was any mail for Yuendumu. Six hours later (which was how long it took back then) you’d knock on the ‘duty officer’ ’s door. At the council office they’d sound a siren and we’d all converge on the office to help sort the mail which had been dumped on the floor. With everyone grabbing their own mail and pigeonholing the remainder it took all of 10 minutes at the most. This was at any time, including week-ends.

I recall one time overhearing two German tourists at the mail slots outside Alice Springs post office: “Nein das ist nicht overseas, das ist oversize” one warned the other.

For a while we had a twice weekly mail plane which reminds of one of the many jokes in the Three Amigos film: A plane zooms overhead, “That is the mail plane” “How do you know?” “Didn’t you see its balls?”
Such is progress. These days we have a licenced Post Office in Yuendumu which runs strict hours. Twice a week our mail arrives by the ‘Bush’ bus but isn’t available until the next day because it has to be sorted by the only person authorized to do so, a non-local. To pick up a parcel we have to show photo ID.

Dag,
Frenk

We’ve had no end of correspondence related to the Rotodyne. And this image comes to us courtesy of Flo Wagglesrim from Buderim Queensland. She writes; I was thrilled to see in the latest edition of pcbycp, ( the thinking man’s Global Times) your piece on the Rotodyne. In late 63 I was one of several hostesses who trained on Rotodynes in anticipation of their service on the ‘ Wombat Run’ between Sydney and Melbourne. We were sent to London to trial the in flight service when the operation was cancelled. A deep source of disappointment to this day’.

Dear reader, we’re back again with another depleting episode of high-stakes Drama, as our heroes struggle with the trifecta that binds a mighty nation, Anzackery, The House of Windsor and whatever resources mogul, be it Gina or Twiggy, decides to do with the cash they can’t siphon off either as philanthropy or just ‘running expenses’. Where a ‘resources rent tax’ is a dirty word, anything can happen and for our heroes, the clock ticks. It’s a tick tick. not a tik tok. But for the moment, they exalt in the simple factor that they are still alive, Brendan, obsessed with finding the remains of both ‘Benny-boy’ and Julian will stop at nothing to confirm to his superiors, Kerry and Gina, that the 500 million promised to the AWM, for its ‘Benny Boy Roberts Smith” exalted hero of Afghanistan light and sound show is guaranteed without hitches, slip-ups or cancellation.

Is Brendan also a prawn to Gina and Nev. Or has Cliffy got the better of them? Find out in the next resources rich episode, in which one way or other the future however implausible is NOW!

Brendan to Benny boy. ” And one day Benny, the War Memorial, the Great legends of ANZAC light and sound extravaganza, the Benny Boy Roberts Smith NOBLE HERO Museum of Australian Bravery and the Benny Roberts Smith Glorious VC Award Extravaganza will be yours to own, and with fully accredited sponsorships and merchandising guaranteed by Kerry and ANZACKERY INC’!!.

‘Look down there’ Quent pointed to something in the wasteland below them.’ It looks like a beacon of sorts’. We gathered round the scratched opalescent window of the rapide and observed a plume of flame belching smoke and sparks into the irradiated blue sky. ‘What’s that’? He patted Brendan on the back, and he answered dully, ‘Just one of Gina’s projects. Out here, there aint any minerals this side of the border, yeah, but there’s gas, a huge basin of untapped gas and Gina has a stake in it! But there are no official gas sites out here, Brendan laughed in an off hand kinda way, well not officially, Gina’s storing up gas Futures for the gas- led recovery. But aint the gas led recovery dead in the water? For the moment Brendan grinned; ‘the feds ‘ll change their tune soon enough when they realise Gina plays the long game. Like you, the long game might be long, or just as long as a piece of string. He chuckled and adjusted the throttles till the Gipsy inline majors changed from a throaty roar to a more harmonious purr. ‘This little old lady is my pride and joy’! We could tell that he was on love with the rapide, ‘it just shows how well they made em in the olden days, and it can takeoff on an airfield the size of a cricket pitch’. We admired the interior of the plane and winced at the door which hung loosely and realised even if Brendan was gonna throw us out it’d be a tight squeeze. Terry passed us another camel and we enthusiastically drew on the ciggies till the interior resembled a night club, in the 80’s before the wowsers banned smoking and dwarf throwing as benchmarks of family-themed entertainment.

‘Cant be far now’? Brendan chuckled and lowering the flaps we began to descend, until we saw in the haze of the distance the familiar terminus of Maralinga, the tarmac, and the black scar where the Centurion met its end.

In ‘Nasho Days’ Ces often had to perform the grim task of extracting barbecued corpses from burnt our tanks at Pucka. The ritual known as ‘Grilled Digger Deluxe” will be featured in the ‘Glorious Anzacs who never went to war annex at the AWM’.

Within minutes, the rapide was rumbling across the airfield, and with precision Brendan cut the engines and pulled up outside the terminal. ‘Well boys here’s your chance, show us the corpses and I’ll set you free’. We bounded out of the aircraft and pointed to the black rimmed crater where the duo of Benny boy and Julian had met their end. ‘Over there Brendan, can’t guarantee corpses, but perhaps the leftovers of a bush barby’. Brendan chuckled at our turn of phrase and unhitching the service revolver he carried above the instrument panel, he motioned us to walk in front, and with steely resolve said; “just show me the corpses, and no slip ups’.

It seemed odd in our trudging across that dry and dusty tarmac, that we were being offered a chance by the CEO of the Australian War Memorial who was determined to use us as mere prawns in confirming the fate of Australia’s most decorated war hero. But after all we’d been through nothing seemed surprising anymore. The fact that the Windsor’s were in on the Cash for peerages scam, and that Gina was sending suitcases of gold via prince Charles Georgian themed failed real estate ventures just seemed common- place. It made us feel quietly ashamed to be involved in such an enterprise, but if it kept us in one piece it was a small price to pay.

‘Over here’! Ces, pointed to the blackened hulk of the tank. ‘And I reckon, you’ll find the bodies inside’ It was a gruesome task, having to peer into the turret of the blackened tank, but Brendan, who’d been doing such in the ‘Hall of Fame Mechanised Glory of ANZAC Exhibition at the AWM’, forgot himself in his zeal to confirm what he craved, and in one quick step he was up on the turret and peering into the inky darkness. ‘There’s something here’, he exclaimed, and leaning into the turret offered Ces an un- missable opportunity.

All he needed to do was nudge the hatch and it clanged, pushing Brendan headfirst onto the darkened interior. We could hear the muffled curse as the CEO of the AWM, now trapped exclaimed, “You bastards, how dare you! Just you wait till Gina finds out!!

The blown up and burnt out Centurion at Maralinga.

LET ME OUTTA HERE! and you’re DEAD’!

But to no avail, Terry said, ‘looks like he’s cooked, and we savoured another camel, and took the time to look around for any evidence of life. ‘That’ll keep him quiet, and I think now’s our chance to start a new beginning. The trio laughed, and Quent solicitously asked; ‘Will Brendan get out’?

‘Well put it this way, there is a hatch release mechanism, but I’m not letting him out till we’re on that rapide and outta here. From thereon Brendan gets what he always wanted, a bit of ANZAC glory, and fame of sorts.

The glorious ” wattle portrait of the Queen’. Painted in the olden days before the House of Windsor was a byword for paper bags, V.C’s for cash and peerages on sale and other small acts of vice and greed committed by chinless wonders.

We walked back to the terminal building and taking one last look at the wattle portrait of the Queen, tinged with irony now we knew about the VC for cash and the gold for peerages scam, we respectfully turned the picture around. And that’s when we got an unpleasant surprise, on the back, written hastily in charcoal a note, “We’re Ok Boys, “ see ya when  the dust settles’! And it was signed ‘Benny Boy’. Was Julian with him? We must assume the worst, and from that a new sense of urgency, to disappear like the Coalition Climate, energy and housing policy and pretend that nothing ever happened.

Will our heroes fly into oblivion, or will they prevail?  Will Brendan get his just desserts in the desert or more? Find out in the next extrapolative episode; ‘Brendan’s missed the bus’, or ‘Three singles to Apocalypse yesterday’.

Dear reader.

Another insightful dispatch from our man on the North West frontier. That enigmatic and mysterious individual  who goes by the epithet ‘ Frank’! This-un offers an insight into policing. How it might be done, or how the citizenry may be treated in a more enlightened era.

‘Enlightenment’?

There’s a pentecostal right- wing conference on how not to govern in a church near you. Donations of over one hundred dollars, (US) will guarantee you a smart baseball cap and badge; ‘Why elected right- wing leaders don’t like government’. 

An olden days bobby on a bike. We couldn’t find an Argentinian policeman on a bike, but was reliably informed that this individual P.C Panchez, late of Sao Paolo P.D, was on secondment to the London Police for the coronation. He then returned to Argentina to prepare security for their 1954 Commonwealth Games Bid. Which was sadly unsuccessful as Argentina had no historical alliance to a criminal organisation of international standing, (The House of Windsor).

Frank writes;

Buenos dias,

In Ciudad Jardin Lomas del Palomar, my childhood home in Argentina, there were two policemen who would patrol our town at night on bicycles. They were armed with whistles, which they blew from time to time to let their colleague on the opposite side of town know that ‘all is well’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTRS4fe9ngs

At around the same time in the early 1950s, Bobbies in London were helping old ladies to cross the road.

The late P.C Stanes, proudly displays the bicycle sent to him from Argentina, courtesy of P.C Sanchez. The bicycle was not suited to conditions in the U.K as it was equipped with a LHD chain guard, with a tendency to drive to the extreme right of the road.

Whilst I recognise the pointlessness of yearning for those more innocent times, it doesn’t stop me from deploring modern trends.

The escalation of policing of our fragile planet sees no abatement and to me because of its immediacy, is as serious as the climate change cliff and the re-emergence from Cold War hibernation of the nuclear button.
All of this is exacerbated by police/military cross pollination, not to mention the humongous elephant in the room, the Military Industrial Complex that U.S. president Eisenhower warned us against.
The increased enforcement by armed uniformed police of ever more rules and regulations is bad enough, but this paradigm has infected every nook and cranny of our society. For example, public servants can obfuscate, insult and disrespect the public with impunity, more so if their ‘clients’ are ‘ethnic’ or Aboriginal.

local Argentinian police in the Peron Era conducting the annual, ” Find the Dutchy festival”. The festival was popular amongst the locals who were offered prizes for locating individuals of Dutch origin, or either their bicycles or a pair of clogs. All in good humour a feast followed in which the entire community, Argentinian and Dutch alike gave a stirring rendition in Spanish of the popular hit; ‘ Two Little Boys”.

American born author and journalist Lionel Shriver in her 2016 keynote address at the Brisbane Writers Festival mounted an attack on identity politics and the constraints it imposes on authors to write anything on identities other than their own. For this she was savagely censured.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw  (Prejudice-Tim Minchin’s)

At the beginning of her address, she told of the two college students who had thrown a tequila-themed birthday party for a friend at which they’d distributed miniature sombreros. The students were ejected from their dorm and their party hats condemned as an “act of stereotyping” and of “cultural appropriation”.

Argentinian Police, (Peron era) embarking on the annual Sunday School Picnic. Which was held once a year on a Saturday to coincide with the popular football match between the ‘Buenos Aries Barrista’s’ and the ‘Sao Paolo Sangria’s’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuPG4H4S2K4 (Mexican Hat Dance- The Wiggles)

When in 2015 the refurbished Yuendumu Men’s Museum was reopened much of the local population had gone to Alice Springs to the footie grand final which the Yuendumu Magpies won.
A small group of remaining old men accompanied by their clicking boomerangs started to sing traditional songs to reward the invited guests who had come from afar. At one point one of the men asked “what shall we sing next?” Another jocularly suggested “bah bah black sheep” to which I heard one white lady amongst the audience whisper to another “Did you hear that? How disrespectful!”

If the U.S.A. decides to further amend their constitution, I suggest they amend their first amendment to add the right to a sense of humour.

Victoria police have received uniform advice from Hollywood, ( Robocop) and the Geheime Staastpolizei, (The Gestapo) in establishing pure fear and intimidation as a separation between justice and the citizenry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do1EGAs_UNQ

Is a Swedish group singing English songs in Spanish, cultural appropriation? Nah, I don’t think so, its crap music

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a coloured person by the toe.

And this one from Argentina, definitely not culturally appropriated:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYei_BKOOGE

Hasta la vista

An olden days NT copper, sensibly dressed in a non intimidating khaki shirt and bush hat reading (in Argentinian) a draft of Frank’s second volume.

Frank

Benny Boy made the most of his VC by adorning his chest with s SUPER-SIZE V.C just in case any kiddy at the local baths or beach just thought he was a standard ‘sand in your face kicker’!

 Difficult times, are these the hardest of times or just the second best also- ran hardest of times?

Brendan supervises loading up suitcases of gold ingots for export to Buckingham palace, and the smaller ones to Clarence House.

Only Charles Dickens might know and he’s not on Instagram to tell us. Our heroes find themselves in a difficult situation between an oleaginous aquifer and a septic tank, and the yanks this time have nothing to do with it.  It’s the Poms, stitching up titles and peerages for Australians like Gina looking for a bit of class, and a chance for the Windsor’s to put some hard earnt into paper bags from Harrods or Suitcases. Whichever way you look at it it’s all a bit dodgy, but not quite as dodgy as Brendan’s ‘V.C’s for cash’ scheme which is reliant on the principle of dead men tell no tales, and heads or tails you always lose. But there is a chance that Brendan is suggesting a deal may yet be made. And for our heroes anything has gotta be better than just being slotted by Gina, Nev and the faceless man from the Mi6 Clifford.

We return to the transactional state of things…

‘Yes Brendan whispered I agree with all of that, but we’ve got to play our part and pretend they’re above the law’. Ces interrupted with venom; ‘and why’s that’?

The first VC’s were won gloriously in far away lands where wops had not learnt civilizations ways. Nothing’s changed.

Cos in the scheme of things whilst Her Majesty is still the supreme leader, our role is to forelock tug and be subservient. And in a funny way we’re kinda used to it. And most of our pollies even the ones that are a bit pinkish always like to know that they may be presented at court someday. It looks good as a memento on the mantelpiece for the grand kiddies to gawk at. It’s what makes us as Australians proud of our heritage’.

Before gaining a V.C became a ticket to the international speaking circuit and lucrative sponsorship deals it was represented by ordinary men who did what they considered their duty in appalling circumstances.

We knew Nelson was talking absolute bollocks, but for the sake of being spared we went along with it. Quent chipped in for added effect, ‘Yep, you can’t shake the pommy aristocracy for giving us a touch of class, it’s something the Yanks will never understand’. With that Brendan gave us all a hearty slap on the back and even took one of Terry’s camels as a symbol of goodwill. ‘I tell ya’, Brendan said conspiratorially, ‘if we could just take a quick flight over to Maralinga and check that Assange and Benny-boy really blew themselves up you might have a chance of going free. You see, Gina has entrusted me with knocking you off. She really trusts me. It’s because with Kerry in on the cash for V. C’s scam, Gina is only interested in getting troublemakers shit stirrers, ratbags out of the way, to get her peerage and she trusts me to obey unflinchingly. So if I can suggest to her that I’ll toss you out of the rapide at 10,000 feet she’ll be happy. As long as you don’t pull a stunt and offer any surprises. Just show me the bodies and we have a deal’. And then Brendan poised, did another Tony Abbott wink and said ‘Get Me’!

‘Excuse me Brendan’, it was Quent who felt there was a chance for reason above the imperative of BRUTE FORCE. ‘If we agree to this, what chance have we got really? We’re still left to rot at Maralinga, and our chance of getting a lift outta there is practically zero, and what hope is there that you’ll keep your end of the bargain? I mean why not just knock us off now’? At this suggestion we almost saw Brendan flinch, his empire depended upon a couple of corpses, the stakes were so high Brendan, was desperate. Funny how a second-rate pollie is always playing for the high stakes, almost as if they try and find a circumstance that elevates them from just being dull, ordinary and boring to being some sort of kingmaker. Quent also knew, that Brendan was out of his depth. After all his years as Liberal leader he still lacked the ‘ticka’. And as CEO of the War Memorial, he’d become overly obsessed with Corpses, spiritual mumbo jumbo and genuflecting to the god ‘ANZACKERY’. He stood before us dumbfounded, wide eyed, and feckless. Ces had had enough of the conflated protocols and slamming his fist into the palm of his left hand with so much force we knew it hurt he exclaimed; ‘All right then Brendan. You’re on, Let’s go’!

Images of the forthcoming ” Unquestionable Glory of ANZACS at War ” Light and Sound Show at the AWM. The Ben Roberts Wing, (reputedly bigger than the MCG) will be devoted entirely to his glorious service in Afghanistan.

The three of the piled into the De Havilland, and Brendan nodded to Gina, Clifford and  Nev before settling into the cockpit. From the scratched and frosted Perspex windows we saw Gina raise here daquiri and give Brendan the thumbs up. Clearly that was Gina’s coded signal for Brendan to do his worst. With a push of the starter and the whirr of the magnetos the twin Gypsy inline majors roared into life the de Havilland began its steady progress across the dusty tarmac of Barnaby Downs. Obeying a signal from Brendan we strapped ourselves into our crude canvas chairs and buckled in for the voyage back to Maralinga. To comfort in our apprehension Brendan thoughtfully put on a recording of ‘Gday Gday” and a couple of Rolf Harris numbers, including his greatest hit; ‘Two Little boys”. We relaxed knowing that Brendan Nelson had our interests at heart and as the manager of Australia’s shrine, Australia’s cathedral sacred to the memory of those who had bled so that John Barilaro and others elevated to the AAT or a bench on the Fair Work Commission could prevail had comforted us.

We looked safe for the moment, a temporary stay of execution. Is it too soon to be optimistic, while hope lingers?

John Barilaro, shortlisted to a lifetime on the AWM Board. ” For services to the sinecure industry’.

Can hope linger? Aint ‘Hope’ the first name of one of Gina’s daughters? Find out in the next Westralian episode, “A Slipped twin-set between D cup and lip” or ‘Gina’s G-Spot aint Geraldton”.

In happier days; ‘Look Benny- Boy, over there is where we’re building the ANZAC LEGENDS Light and Sound Extravaganza!

Dear reader, like the issue of John Barilaro’s non-appointment to the cushy posting in New York, we must return to our saga and find out what might happen next to our anti-heroes, Ces, Quent and Terry. Since being almost blown up in the subterranean city of ‘Uranium Springs’, the episode at the Maralinga Air terminal and their arrival via ‘Cliffy “at Barnaby Downs, things have just got worser and worser.

(we at pcbycp would like to apologise for this inadvertent grammatical error as it is not considered correct English useage. However, we felt after heated debate that such an expression reflected more accurately contemporary idiom. And to replace it with standard English the tenor of the sentiment would be lost. We hope you, (dear reader) accept this slump in correct usage as a reflection of contemporary norms rather than an absence of academic rigor which we are closely associated with. We return to our saga…….

‘Thanks Brennie, if we hadn’t paid for the V.C, the whole shebang would’ve been rooted! I owe you my immortality as an undisputed Christ-like ANZAC LEGEND’!

We let the words sink in. Quent was the first to question Brendan’s strategy. ‘So Gina was in for high stakes, with the House of Windsor being the broker. ‘So I spose that’s why Gina wants us knocked off’? Phlegmatically as ever Nelson replied, ‘Partly’!

‘And that’s why Cliffy is here’? Brendan looked non- plussed. Our grasp of the situation was unexpected.  Clearly he’d been used to the wet tea-towel and soggy marshmallow treatment of Senate Estimates.  ‘I spose you’re gonna tell us next that V.C’s are up for grabs if you can  find the right money? Is that the real story behind Kerry and Benny- Boys V.C? Was it like one of Boris’s or Tony’s Knighthoods for ‘Services to the realm’? (We could see Brendan wince at the memory of Tony Blair who’s major crime was in being a Tory PM who swayed too much to Labor. And we could tell by doing the Windsor’s dirty work he though he’d be a shoe- in for a Knighthood or at the very least an OBE).

‘Well yes, the Benny thing was an inside job more or less.  We needed a few VC’s out of the Afghanistan conflict to raise the profile of Australians in the field. With the Yanks and the Poms using it, (their sacred mission to civilise heathen wops unanointed by the benefits of Sportsbet24/7 and non-stop shopping at Chaddy) for all it was worth there was no room for Australia’s side of the story.  Unless we got a VC or two out of it. And with Kerry putting up the money, and through the right channels, we had one approved from the palace in the nick of time’!

‘Cliffy’, the AWM and V.C go-to Middle-man.

“Nick of time”? Ces was incensed that something so sacred. As sacred as a VC could be just a mere tool to curry favour and not what he’d always passionately believed in as the highest anointment by a Christian God for services to his People, King, and Country in knocking of wops in faraway places.

‘Yeah before the forward budget estimates for the 10-11 year, as you remember we wanted the 500 million for the new ‘ANZAC AGE OF GLORY’ light and sound annexe, and if we weren’t gonna get a VC outta Afghanistan It’d turn out to be a dud like East Timor’!

East Timor’? We could see the veins sticking out of Ces’s head.

‘Pssst Charlie, I put the cash into Aldi bags just like they do at Crown Casino, so as not to arouse suspicion”.

‘Yeah, it was (East Timor) a sort of success as you know, human rights, self-determination freedom and all that shit, but no V.C’s!

We came outta that stoush and if we’d won a V.C it’d put the Indonesians off side. No one’s gonna complain about a VC won in Afghanistan cos after we’d done our bit and the Russians had done their bit, and the Poms had done their bit in 1848 and 1842, it’s a fully furnished shit- hole, and that’s the kinda place where a VC really stands out!

It was even suggested we cancel the whole Afghanistan thing. And that would lead to bad blood between us and the Poms and besides, it was timed to coincide with Prince Harry’s appearance at the Fat Lady’s Arms. So as you can see there was quite a bit at stake, and that’s why Gina wants you knocked off. You not only know too much, but you know the real Benny, and when he’s anointed as a kind of saint, the last thing both Kerry, and Gina want is you lot spilling the beans. It’d be worse than Rolf’s order of Australia, or worse even still than Jimmy Saville’s knight-hood.  Right across the board, for ‘the FIRM’, the war industry, Anzackery, you name it, it’d be a fucken disaster. And you’d find out that Gina, like Kerry when she’s really fucken angry makes your former nemesis Sophie look like a flamin fairy. Get me’?

The EMPIRE STRIKES BACK! Cash for V.C’s , peerages, knighthoods OBE’s in the BAG!

We got him, Quent, then asked dispassionately in spite of their imminent execution, ‘So why go along with this Brendan? Surely, you’re a man of integrity. As former leader of the Liberal party you must have some humanity’? Brendan just stared at us in a blank kinda way.

‘But why this Cliffy business’?

That’s just to put Mi6 off our backs, you know how snotty the Poms are about protocol. They only need a whiff of impropriety, and they could call the whole thing off!

IMPROPRIETY!!! Ces was beside himself. ‘They’re rotten with corruption, the whole house of Windsor stinks, and their pollies make ours look green’!

‘Axe the Tax” How an ordinary Australian became ROYALTY!

Are Australian pollies really green??

Or is Ces referring to a naivety at work in the Australian body politic? Only John Barilaro might know and he’s not answering the phone. Find out in our next integrity dripping episode, ‘The price of peace might be war’? or “keeping the bastards honest is a blatant LIE’!

Dear reader,

We of the editorial department would like to make a formal apology for leaving these exciting cover images out of our previous dispatch.

We can only say that we were taken aback by the recent IBAC report into systemic corruption in the Victorian Labor party that we lost our mojo. We were hoping for more nuanced corruption in the tradition of Eddie Obeid and disappointed that it was only the old hoary chestnut of branch stacking and nepotism. Which begs the question when will the state government get into the real high- end corruption of the previous Liberal State Government on Fisherman’s bend, toll roads and insider mates land deals? One hopes that with the explosion of managerial; high salary senior bureaucrat positions in the department of justice, police and planning that they are ” On the Move” and can demonstrate as in the Tories gift 0f contracts during the Covid Crisis a more direct form of corruption than just branch stacking, knocking off native forests and the mates- rates for hotel quarantine security services. We say ‘ LIFT YOUR GAME’!

So it is with some pride we send you these advanced, hot off the press images of both Frank and Kate’s book. Frank is having his second print run, and that’s because people actually liked reading it and the word has spread. We look forward to Franks next book which promises to be a bigger seller than the forthcoming Donald Trump bio; “Why don’t I put a plug in my mouth and give my arse a go’?, or the much anticipated Scott Morrison Bio; ‘Don’t trust in Government, trust in God, dog whistles mates-rates and punishment for poor people, cos they’re lazy’!

Frank writes….

Je suis désolé,

I forgot to append the following bookends:

I also forgot to mention our unforgettable voyage on Messageries Maritimes’ Le Tahitien in 1971 from Panama to Sydney.
It was on board I learned much about Corsica (the waiters were Corcicans) and the pied-noirs, a contingent of which were en route to Nouvelle Calédonie (Bon chance au les Kanaks)

Le Tahitien

A large group of Marquesans came aboard and played music, sang and danced all the way to Papeete.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKQ1A8GgLwg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOTd46_BDA8

Frank indulges in conversation with the captain of the Tahitian

This one I think is in Maori but the style is the same as the Marquesans.

Au revoir

François

Clifford, un-flappable as ever!

Dear reader, we’d like to say things were looking up for our heroes, but as fate would have it, they’re doing about as well at the UK post Brexit, or maybe a bit better as with their death sentence they at least know they’ll die a fast death rather than an agonisingly protracted slow one. And besides with an official Death Warrant, signed and authorised by Her Majesty the Queen, they knew that at last they were ‘people of significance’ and in that they were almost as famous as Julian and ‘Benny Boy’. This gave them a source of some reassurance, that in years to come, their unmarked grave sites will become an object of pilgrimage for those who wanted to pay homage to the last of the ‘ old Australians’ who still believed in equity, tax reform, a fair go, and a ciggy and beer during the footy. We return to our heroes, briefly soliloquising on life as Gina, Clifford and their side-kick Nev watch on from the shade of the verandah at Barnaby Downs.

For Valor… and a bit of vanity helps..

It was when Clifford returned to instruct them on their imminent execution that the reverie was broken.

‘Well then Cliffy you’ve done your work, I spose you’ll piss of back to Pommy-land, get a promotion and sort out some other poor bastard who’s gonna get slotted for making the ‘FIRM’ look shonky. You’d think after Prince Andrew you’d pretty well hit rock bottom, why can’t you go and chase real bad people, like Jimmy Saville of Rolf Harris or Boris or his side-kick Chris Arse- Pincher’?

Nev and Twig, ‘Mateship uber alles’!

‘And you!! Ces turned his invective to Nev, ‘look at you? You’ve been skewing energy policy for your rich mates for decades and now you’ve got your filthy mits on our execution. How does that make your feel? What dignity is there in that? Have you any moral fibre apart from naked self interest’?

Jamie proves that no matter how shonky the business is you can always prove the regulator WRONG!

Nev wouldn’t have a bar of it, as leader of the gas led recovery he just sneered, “Loser’ and followed Gina back into the shade of the veranda. We could hear the three of them Cliffy, Nev and Gina laughing about our fate over a daiquiri, and it seemed to us that we were just entertainment. ‘I spose’, said Terry; ‘if you’ve got that much money even execution gets to be a bit of a bore. This is probably the best time they’ve had in ages, like Jamie Packer fronting the Crown enquiry, they know that no matter what happens they’ll always emerge richer, unscathed and with power reinforced by suck- holes like’,…. Terry searched for a focus to his short soliloquy and sure enough he stood barely six feet in front of us; ‘Suck holes like you’!!

Brendan Nelson give a nervous flinch. He pretended not to hear as he was admiring the de Havilland dragon rapide and the Focker triplane, (on loan from the ‘AWM’s Glorious Demonstration of Valor in the Air Exhibition‘) and pretending to be dis-connected from the other rogues. ‘Well Brendan, is this all part of your sanitized version of Anzackery’?

‘Did Kerry have a hand in this as well?

Brendan turned to us, and with a conspiratorial wink, not a Tony Abbot wink, He smiled and said; ‘I’ve got it all sorted, Gina was just keeping up appearances, she wants a peerage and a seat in the Houser of Lords’.

‘Why would she want that’?

Well it’ll help her, she’s offered to help Prince Charles pay off his debt from one of his failed neo- Georgian housing estate projects and unlike the Saudi Prince who paid in Aldi bags he’ll accept Gina’s largesse with the ordination of ‘Lady Gina of Hampstead’ with just a suitcase of gold ingots’.

‘How many gold ingots does it take to get that much largesse?

Oh about fifty. Each one worth about half a million, and it  way cheaper than going through Fergie, who has lost some of her cachet recently as the informal go- to for Windsor Inc. money laundering’

Too BIG to FAIL! Fer Chrissakes! He’s bigger a legend than Zach Rolfe!

‘But why you telling us this’?  All of us felt tarnished , tainted by this admission that the Royals were in on ‘ the Game”! Windsor Inc just  sounded cheap and low- rent. Almost as if the glorious house of Windsor was nothing more than a sham pawnbroker in Chapel Street. Nelson looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I’m telling you this because you’re more valuable to me alive, I need you to tell me what happened to Benny. I need to be sure he’s absolutely dead so I can proceed with one of my greatest projects.’

‘Greatest? So there’s more for you at the AWM’?

At that Brendan’s eyes lit up. ‘More, there’s a project bigger than Gallipoli, bigger than  Singapore, Vietnam, even bigger than  Afghanistan as another chapter of victory and valor, it’s the ‘Ben Roberts Smith interactive tour of duty exhibition’. It’ll tour across Australia, with a hologram of Ben recounting all his famous victories so that school kiddies and grown- ups alike will understand how war is always more important in the long run than diplomacy. And with Gina putting up the cash it’ll be bigger than Star Wars! But I’ve gotta prove that Benny is really dead, cos if he turns up out of the blue the entire project, my stake in it, and Gina’s peerage is rooted’.

The Windsor’s, always an eye to the main game!

Will this be the seventeenth chance, or will they still be ‘Harold Holted’? Find out in the next Royal Command episode, “A tiara in the sand’ or, ‘I was Prince Charles bag-man till I got the sack’.

Franks First edition was eagerly snapped up by an adoring crowd.

Another fascinating insight from Frank of the North West Frontier.

In  this-un Frank gives an engaging insight into French influence and literature. Although we are allegedly a not for profit organisation, (As in most Australian not for profit organisations our CEO allegedly is on a paltry 500k salary and enduring a European fact-finding tour)  we urge you to dig deep and endorse the publishing renaissance from Yuendumu. He also gives some salutary pointers on French Literature and rest assured although he inadvertently left out the ‘ Count of Monte Christo’ we know he is ghost writing Julian Assange’s upcoming classic, “the Kant of Monte Belmarsh” in which Julian philosophises the true meaning of Crime and Punishment.

A must read.

Frank writes…..

Bonjour mes amis,

The printing presses started to smoulder with the intensity of getting the first edition into the book-stalls.

Two days ago was France’s National Day, better known to us as Bastille Day.
It was also my mother’s birthday (she would have been 103 years old).
And it was the publication date of the second edition of My Yuendumu Story.

A delegation of Warlpiri men installed a massive traditional ground painting at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. I recall that on their return to Yuendumu they were proudly wearing bright red berets. It was just as bizarre (to use a French word) as Old Darby’s Gucci t-shirt.
Apart from two brief visits to France, most of what I learnt about France and its history is from two memorable books:

Isabel Allende’s novel ‘La Isla Bajo el Mar’ (Island Beneath the Sea) which deals with slavery in Haiti and Louisiana.
Haiti gained its independence as a consequence of the 1791 slave rebellion. The impudence of the rebels has been severely punished. Political and economic turmoil and interference has wreaked the Island of Hispaniola ever since, and Haiti remains one of the world’s poorest nations. Not only have they been subjected to such as the occupation by U.S. Marines (1915-1934) but have suffered tempests and earthquakes and disease. But look on the bright side- they own some amazing music!

Unhappy with the draft first edition, the public demanded a more colourful and sentimental ‘happy ending’ to Frank’s first edition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-4XtWut3S0

The Louisiana purchase (1803) was to prove a real bargain 827,000 square miles for $15 million.
Some amazing music was thrown in for free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa8vyTfugcI

Stephen Clarke’s ‘1000 Years of Annoying the French’ taught me inter alia that la guillotine and les croissants did not originate in France.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH5V2uqiSXc

Then there are the en passant French speaking volunteers and workers at Warlukurlangu Arts Centre not to mention Little Sisters of Jesus Claire and Magali who spent many years in Yuendumu.

Did you know that Edith Piaf picked up the song La Foule on a visit to Argentina where it had been composed in 1936?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgn8gZHJZzA

Que nadie sepa mi sufrir (Amor de mis amores)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOSZ2rg2-I

The first edition of My Yuendumu Story had a print run of 600 copies all of which were sold or spoken for. Most sales were to recipients of these Musical Dispatches and many were sold by Red Kangaroo Book shop in Alice Springs that I expect will soon have copies of the second edition in stock.
From the feedback I’ve had, I am fairly confident that if you don’t yet have a copy, you won’t regret buying one.

Edith Piaff, told the reporters to ‘Pee-off’ as she sang the entire first chapter in French whilst smoking a Gitane..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88

If you deposit $40 in my account: F. Baarda ANZ A/Springs
BSB 015881 A/C 550272713 (Reference your name)

And supply a postal address, I’ll arrange for a copy to be mailed to you.

For $30 I’ll arrange for a copy of Kate Thompson’s Provenance to be mailed to you.
(also available at Red Kangaroo Books)

Kate wrote her book while house-sitting in Yuendumu. It is a work of fiction that deals with exploitation of Aboriginal art but so much more. It is one of only a few cross-cultural books written by a whitefellow that didn’t make me cringe.

I consider the two books complement each other, like bookends.

A bientot,

The philosopher who most influenced Assange gave it all up to focus on confectionary.

François

Dear reader.

We return to our saga, with the high probability that their protector ‘Benny-Boy’ and his comrade in arms Julian Assange may have blown themselves to bits our heroes contemplate a future of freedom. Even the death sentence inflicted upon them via Gina in service to MI6 and Her Majesty the Queen seemed to have left them in a state of composure. Almost as if nothing really mattered now, and the end, whenever it came would just be another footnote to un-remarkable lives unanointed by Clean Coal or the Gas Led Recovery.

But shaken by recent events they are cautious as to which direction fate may take them. Hold onto this next fate-ful episode, “A fistful of Bit-coin”, or “For a few petro-dollars more”

Anything to avoid making sense.

It dawned upon then slowly at first. Almost as if the consciousness of being free and then imprisoned again was immaterial. Almost as if the entire saga of finding the evil oppressor who so heinously defiled our tea-lady never happened. It was a ‘Johnson-esque’ moment. (We, the editors of passive complicity would like to apologise for this inadvertent reference to the former British PM as his conduct is considered ‘unbecoming’, but nonetheless speaks of a new future for the UK, a bright and glittering post Brexit for the UK and  a  trajectory from here on that  can only be down.)

It was that moment of incalculable peace that follows a particularly destructive moment in global affairs. The moment when the dust truly settles, and the realisation flows that everything may actually turn out all right. And then the consequent fear of rationality kicking in, which tells the subconscious like a death-rattle that the pause is brief, enjoy it whilst we can, for the next moment may be downward. But there they were. Looking reflectively at what they’d been through. The smoke and the wreckage of the Centurion tank, and the  the arrival of Clifford and  the Rotodyne They acknowledged that ‘Benny-boy’ and Julian had gone, and the potential that they alone, and unshackled may have once again walked free, unpursued and disengaged from evil.

It was Terry who first punctuated the silence.

‘Anyone for another Camel’? He handed the pack around and it returned to him untouched, with the realisation of freedom the core heroes Ces and Quent had decided not to smoke themselves to death. They had chosen to just live themselves to death. Even if it were one last moment to be savoured.  ‘You know’, Ces opined,’ it’s been a rocky road, but from hereon, I’ve made a resolution of sorts’.

“What’s that’? Quent enquired disengagedly. ‘I dunno, I’m not gonna try and be helpful anymore.  If someone is in deep shit, I’ll just sigh, say TOUGH aint it!! And just walk away. People can just go and have their crisis and I’ll be left in peace’.

A capitulation to moral cowardice or self interest?

‘But’, Quent enquired, won’t that just be a capitulation to moral cowardice and self-interest’?

‘Yeah, but Nah, but It’d all keep us all outta trouble’. Look where it got us trying to find out who did it to Ms Culthorpe. We’ve had everyone in the Coalition trying to knock us off, and now we’ve got a new government we can only hope we don’t get ‘Witness K’d’. With that the expression ‘Witness K’d, we all felt a chill. No one wanted to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives for doing the right thing. It would be an act of sheer ‘Assangen-ment’!

‘ Assangement’? Enquired Terry.

Another capitulation to moral cowardice and self- interest

‘Yeah’, Ces replied., ‘It’s a case of whatever you’ve done the cogs have whirred for so long the reason why no longer matters, you just get screwed cos it’s the orthodoxy for being a clever little prick in the first place.  Lest face it unless you’re rich like Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk you can be a clever little prick, but if you’re poor like Julian you are slotted. The public, states, even Vladimir and Xi, the one thing they cannot stand is a clever little prick who’s not rich or not preoccupied with screwing the public. It’s not right. Only rich people can screw the public and get away with it.  And Boris’s problem, he just wasn’t rich enough.

Terry and Quent thought about what Ces had said and it made them reflective. With the burnt-out tank still smouldering, Dutto and Sophie trapped down below and the prospect of death by execution, hunger, exhaustion or just neglect not fully ripened, they drew on another Camel and practised the art of blowing smoke- rings. Anything was paradise compared to what they’d faced, and for the moment, like Witness K, they were just happy to go with the flow.

‘Well then’, Ces phlegmatically said, ‘how are we gonna get outta this one. Gina means business and like the resource rent tax, she always gets her way’?

Forgotten people exchange treats outside Aldi

‘I dunno’, Terry replied nonchalantly, in the olden days the only way out of a place like this was either in a Bristol transport or one of the old Land Rovers they had lying about.  But’, he paused and surveyed the dry, weed encrusted apron of tarmac, ‘I spose all that’s gone now. And ya know, no one will ever come back to Barnaby Downs just like no one will come to Maralinga cos there’s nothing to see, and bugger all to do unless you want to let off a few more nukes….. and I think the Poms took the lot of the unused ones back home’. The three of them stared into the horizon, Cos they were now ‘forgotten people’ it was a ‘lost horizon”. Worse than Burke and Wills, their purpose for being there in the first place was long forgotten, and they also sadly knew, that they themselves were now forgotten. ‘Just sand in the hourglass’? Ces reflected. ‘Yeah or flocculated terrigenous sedimentary clasts in the great river of life, or’?

The last plane outta Maralinga

Terry was more reflective, ‘or just the quietly dissipating smoke-ring from the last puff of a camel’. They nodded approvingly at Terry’s use of metaphor and sat glumly considering their chance of survival. Can they survive  Gina’s edict and the arid interior? Can they prevail and find and exit strategy? Will it hurt more than Brexit? Be sillier than Meg-cit? And worse ever than the funding for carparks outside train stations where no one needed car parks in the first place? Find out in the next contentious episode; A funded car- park needs a whiteboard’, or ‘No need for funded car parks in Maralinga cos it aint a safe seat and if it were it’d be funded a funda-mentalist’.

Dear reader,

Due to popular demand we include this previously published image of the Rotodyne seen above the Battersea power Station. After some consultation between pcbycp and our correspondent from the North West Frontier it was determined that this image was taken adjacent the Yallourn W Power Station in the early 60’s

We regret to say that once again we find our heroes, Ces, Quent and Terry in some trouble. Flown in an Rotodyne, to a mysterious destination they find themselves at ‘Barnaby Springs’ a remote and till hitherto abandoned cattle station. Led by the impenetrable Clifford from Mi5 they encounter (arguably) Australia’s most powerful woman, Gina Rinehart. What is Gina up to? What has Clifford got to do with it? And why are our heroes summoned by such arcane agency. Is this another throw of the dice, another devilish plot, another taste of prawn in the game of pan global strategy? Or just the consequence of a clerical error we may never know, but the next five minutes may be crucial and dare we say it, a turning point in the global order. We return to the reception party and the fate that awaits.

Gina stood there flicking the riding crop and with the other hand holding the horse whip nodded a greeting. “Delivered as per your instruction M’Lady’; Clifford offered a salute and stood back for the formal introduction. To the side of Clifford, Ces noticed a familiar face, it was Nev, Nev Power of the ‘Gas- led recovery”, clearly whatever it was we were in powerful company. We stood together and nodded a greeting, but before we could utter a word Gina leapt in and in a commanding voice made us know exactly why we were at Barnaby Downs.

The verandah and welcoming signs at Barnaby Downs Station

‘Took ya time! Been waiting for you lot for weeks. Cliffy here was for knocking you off. Nev here was for incinerating you on the spot, and Brendan’.  From the shade of the verandah stepped Brendan Nelson, former liberal leader and architect of the AWM 500 million “ANZAC light and sound extravaganza’. We nodded to Brendan for keeping the immortal spirit, the ANZAC legend inviolate. “Seems you’ve done us a bit of a favour, by allowing those fools ‘Benny Boy’ and Julian to blow themselves up. You’ve saved us a bit of an embarrassment. Gotta message from Kerry who is delighted he’s off the hook.  Don’t get me wrong, he would’ve stuck his neck out half a mile for Benny Boy, but in the end, he’s very happy with how it turned out. You boys have cleared up a mess, and for all intents and purposes I should be happy. But you’ve embarrassed some powerful people. And you know what boys? Powerful people don’t like to be embarrassed. As a matter of fact it makes em edgy. With power comes responsibility. A responsibility to keep image intact. You boys jeopardise image and that’s’, Gina paused for the right word, ‘a problem’.

Terry seized the moment and with a breathtaking air of braggadocio pulled from his breast pocket another Camel, “Fancy a fag Gina’? And with an action faster than lightning Gina cracked the horse-whip and the cigarette proffered by Terry’s nicotine stained fingers was rent in two. We watched the fragments fall to the ground, split perfectly as if a razor had surgically severed the proffered ciggie. ‘I’ll have none of that’!

‘But Gina’, Ces tried another more conciliatory approach, “I think Gina, you’ll find we never wanted to be in this unenviable position either, we were just circumstantially thrown into the mix, and we’ve been chased and pilloried by evil doers who pretend to be as powerful as you and have designs upon your status, and because of that were prepared to do things’…… Ces searched for the right word to undercut the gravity of the situation with understatement;  ‘they were prepared to do things unbecoming, and you see, that’s why we’re here. We are mere prawns, and just want to be left alone, and begging your pardon, have just as much interest as you in fading back into our obscure and inconsequential lives’.

Ces donated to pcbycp this shot of him in ‘Nasho” days taking a lift with other servicemen on a Centurion to a pub crawl in Seymour. ” Pub to Pucka” was a popular diversion when the services outdoor cinema was not filming Chip’s Rafferty Classics. (AWM)

We could see this had an impact on Gina. She nodded to Clifford. Clifford nodded to Gina, and then, as we admired the gleaming fuselage of the De Havilland dragon rapide and the Focker triplane, Clifford opened his briefcase, and with barely a pause removed a paper of sorts. With another nod from Gina, he unfurled the document and cleared his throat. Gina clutched the parchment with her stubby little fingers after passing the stock-whip to Clifford.

‘By order of Her Majesty the Queen, Sacred monarch of the United Kingdom, Sovereign to the Commonwealth of Nations, anointed  by sacred duty as the undisputed head of the Church of England, those bits of the world still coloured pink and former Empress of India, and other places ear-marked for future conquest you are to be held by authority of AUKUS’.  There was a pause as Gina cleared here throat, and with expert precision in keeping with her stock-whip skills we heard the ping as a fragment of tobacco juice pinged into the spittoon at her feet.

‘You’, she paused and with here stubby pudgy fingers pointed to the three of us are to be tried in a criminal court, and then to be taken to a place of execution, and from there to be HANGED by the neck until you are dead. Your bodies to be buried in un-consecrated ground and un-marked by gravestone, placard, or interpretive facility. Under the charge of High Treason’.

Clifford gave Gina a self-satisfied wink, which we were inclined to think was a little over- familiar and putting the parchment back into his suitcase stood as rigid as before.

Nev Power of the Gas- led Recovery! Now working on the ‘Drains to Effluent Futures’. as CEO of the  Murray Darling Authority

‘So boys, as Boris is fond of saying; ‘Them’s the breaks’. I’d like to help you, but as you can see the power lies with Her Majesty, and as she’s getting close to one hundred, and frail, you might appeal. But getting your case to appeal might be stretching it. For the rest of your stay, enjoy the hospitality of Barnaby Downs’.

Will this really be the end? Can Brendan step in? Will Nev recover a ‘Gas Led recovery? Can Gina show compassion just once? Find out in our next executional episode, ‘For whom the noose tightens’, or “a slow death of an evening”.