Ruler of the Free World talks Turkey.

Dear reader, you must admit its getting harder and harder to satirise the level of moronocism, (is there such a word?) in the Australian body politic. We’ve had to sack out humourists, our script writers and even our class-clown just to keep pace with the idiocy. And lastly after the Malcolm Roberts citizenship saga, we had to sack the editor in chief. We now just rely on our typist, Mr Crudgemore (OBE), and our girl Friday, mistress Letisia, to keep us on track. But, after Trump’s outburst at the United Nations, we had to let them go as well.

A Turkey

We might as well say, (as they do in the classics), “were finished”. This folks is our General Gordon moment. Our Scott of the Antarctica moment. Or more fittingly our Billy Snedden moment. We cannot go on.

In the interests of keeping our satirical bent alive, and due to the unforseen financial constraints we suffer as a consequence of us, (with the Guardian) being exluded by the 66 million “give the rest to Rupert legislation”, we’re just going to put the news in as we read it and hope you get a laugh. It’s sort of cheating really, but hey!! So is pretending to employ journalists.

This gem comes to us for the ABC, we reprint it in Full. (no pun intended)

Another Turkey

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has said he was attacked by a same-sex marriage campaigner in Hobart, who he said headbutted him after asking to shake his hand.

Cock Fight

Mr Abbott, who has been campaigning for the no vote in the same-sex marriage postal survey, was in Tasmania to attend a Young Liberal cocktail party this evening when the alleged incident occurred, the ABC understands.
He told Macquarie Radio he was headbutted by a campaigner wearing a Vote Yes badge after the man approached him, he thought to shake hands.
He said his injuries were minor, and that he had a “very slightly swollen lip”.
Mr Abbott said he was walking from the Mercury newspaper offices towards his hotel in the Docks area when he heard a man yell out, “Hey, Tony!”
“I turned around, there was a chap wearing a Vote Yes badge, he says ‘I wanna shake your hand’, I went over to shake his hand and then he headbutted me,” he said on radio.
“He wasn’t very good at it, I’ve got to say, but he did make contact. The only damage was a very, very slightly swollen lip.

“I was with a member of my staff, [who] briefly grappled with this guy and then he ran off swearing his head off, basically.

The prominent opponent of same-sex marriage said it was “a reminder of how ugly this debate is getting”.
“And the ugliness is not coming from the defenders of marriage as it’s always been understood — the ugliness, the intolerance and indeed in this instance, the hint of violence, is coming from those who tell us in the name of decency and fairmindedness and freedom, we’ve got to allow same-sex marriage,” he said.
“The love is love brigade aren’t showing a lot of love.”
Mr Abbott said the attacker told him “you deserve it” as he was running away.
“I think it was pretty clear that this is was, to use the phrase, ‘politically motivated violence’,” Mr Abbott said.
“If the actual debate about same-sex marriage is producing this kind of intolerance and bullying, how much worse would it get if the brave new world of same-sex marriage actually came to be?”

Chicken Little meets Foghorn Leghorn

Please help us defend Tony. He is threatened. And he and coal alone can save Australians from thinking for ourselves

“the ugliness, the intolerance and indeed in this instance, the hint of violence, is coming from those who tell us in the name of decency and fairmindedness and freedom, we’ve got to allow same-sex marriage”.

Anyone for tennis?

Corey, In the act of concentrating on family values whilst visiting Mansfield Public Toilets

Dear reader, following on the successful enterprise of the leader of the Australian Conservatives Party, the Rt Honorable Corey Bernardii M.P, to inject an unparrelleled flourish of funds into a primary school fundraiser, we raise the bar, to divert your attention to matters literal. And we’re talking words, not the stuff you find on the beach. And we might add, there’s nothing literal about the fulminations erupting from that firebrand of the coal furnace, Tony Abbott.

Saint Tone of the Santamaria is fuming that King Coal may be getting the boot. Instead, facing attack from reason, fair mindedness and the objectivity of science on all matters logical he’s done what any pugilist would do. In with the windmill, (though it be coal powered). To ensure that the objectionable froth from the renewable sector is quashed once an for all.

Death will smote all who eschew coal.

Progress without Coal is unthinkable.

Corey and Josh, working to make a primary school fundraiser special as a national event.

Only coal can deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, of lord Rupert the Almighty etc, etc,etc..

We at pcbycp, have had enough, and despair for the days of good governance. It makes us Pyne for them olden days. When politicans worried about their electorate rather than the sinecure they are destined to get upon leaving parliament.

But, (‘we hear you say’) all is not lost. Our correspondent for the near north brings us this startling fragment of observation. We daresay a fragment made acute by the turmoil within our body politic.

Corey pretending to read. The book is clearly upside down.

He writes:

On the subject of the written word saying something other than what was intended, I was, as is my wont, hanging about the public lavatories in Mansfield, outside of which is a public notice board. I turned to remark on one of these notices to the other bystanders who, in the rudest fashion, adjusted their dark glasses, hitched up their coat collars and slunk swiftly away. How rude! I thought, adjusting my own collar and specs and bravely holding my ground.

Editor error. This is the Sheffield Pubic Toilets. Not the Mansfield Public Toilets. These toilets were once powered 100 percent by coal. Now closed by the insatiable ideology of  renewables.

Having recovered from this shameful example of unforgivable bad manners, we were invited by this same notice to add a card to the ‘Christmas Tree of Remembrance’ in the local library.
Here’s what it required of us;

WE INVITE YOU TO WRITE A MESSAGE TO A FAMILY MEMBER, FRIEND OR PET WHO HAS DIED ON A CARD OF YOUR CHOICE.
PLEASE HANG YOUR CARD ON THE TREE IN THE LIBRARY.

How on earth do you persuade people or pets to die on a card of your choice? There must be a real skill to it and no mistake.

Unless of course your whole intention is to bump off a few of your more tedious relations, in which case you have the perfect opportunity to place a well aimed card beneath Uncle Charlie before the boring old fart hits the lino…hmmm…

I have been clearing out all sorts of junk which has accumulated in my drawers (sic) and came across the above tale. If I’m doubling up, if i’ve already told this story. I apologise.

And, credit to Corey, raising in excess of 140 k when they only wanted 900.

And then from out correspondent of the Rum Corps comes this;

A classic – apparently true – is:

“This research project will include a survey of participants broken down by age and sex…”

You didn’t mention whether you managed to submit your completed form by the due date.

(And how come “the ravages of the demon drink” didn’t merit its own category?)

The Mansfield Toilet block is powered entirely by Coal. A victory for non ideological energy.

Sir Emo of Atney.

Which just goes to show, there’s coal in both humanity and public toilets. Which demonstrates that Saint Tone can’t be all wrong, or right.

You’ll have to work that one out yourself. Litorally.

same sex marriage, akin to comparing apples with…… onions?

Dear reader, from within the maelstrom of the same sex marriage debate comes this compelling insight from none other than our notary of the near north Sir Atney of Emo. Sir Atney gave thought, and it’s our privelege to share these insights on what he terms the persepective of the, “ultra conservative”. That same group we at pcbycp term, “another fascist ideologue from the far right”. Indeed, and this may be the substance of a future discourse, the same lunatic fringe far right, that talks about any level-headed, measured approach to climate, sexuality, the environment, “anything”, as “ ideological. Funny how the right has captured the rhetoric of the left. “The left you say”? We beg your pardon, the left was officially “extincted”, (along with the CSIRO) way back. So prepare yourself for a Tuesday reflection, and it goes like this:

‘A Christian, ultra-conservative gent sent me a ‘Quadrant’ article arguing against the same sex marriage position.  Written by an ex-Anglican priest, this was full of such ex cathedra pronouncements as ’marriage is defined as…’ (defined by whom, I ask? Well, by scripture – of course!)

This the is the reply I was impelled to circulate’.

___________________________

Tolerance… libertarian openness… a rejection of self-serving, bible-based definitions… These are some of the reasons why I’ll post ‘Yes!’.

Charles 1, and his horse. Nothing to do whatso-ever with the same sex debate. But a firm believer in himself and another bloke called God.

Christian nay-sayers fail to recognise the distinction between marriage as a Christian sacrament and marriage as a registered declaration recognised in civil law.   

In my view, one can proscribe or prescribe as one wishes with regard to the religious rite; but I see no reason why a sympathetic majority of society should hold back from extending the civil form of marriage to a significant minority of adults.

As for the canard that wedded gays or lesbians would pose a threat to children in their care, I suggest the much greater danger is represented by predatory priests, vicars and rabbis.

With all the talk about unacceptable values being imposed upon religionists, how did it happen that a largely secular society (without consultation) found itself subsidising the brainwashing of unformed minds in scripture classes?

Caligula and his horse, before coal stood on the floor of the parliament, there was a horse. His name Incitatus, that’s Latin for Coal.

And then a reply from none other than that titular tendenciously tragi-comic Tolmodian Lew Skannen;

I absolutely agree. If Caligula could make a senator of his horse and hump his sister (his own, not the horse’s) I see no barrier whatever to my marrying my Crufts winning collection of Red Setters and setting up home in either Barking, Essex or the Isle of Dogs. Naturally all of my canines will take the lead by wearing   appropriate dog collars to ensure the vicar feels at one with the proceedings.

Taking care of business. Good ol Christian values of the cover up and blame shifting.

I do feel somewhat strongly on this matter, so much so that I am seriously considering initiating a campaign calculated to deny the lower orders any opinion at all on matters of such grave importance. They shouldn’t be allowed an opinion, and that is that! Look what happened with Brexit! The arguments involved set upon, overtaken and overwhelmed by an ungovernable rabble who deserve only to be taken out and horsewhipped!  Orf wiv their ‘eads, I say!
 All they do is mill about, fume and talk shite all day. Somebody has to take responsibility for all this! They should all be taken to the rim, the very edge of the world and told to fuck off! That’ s what I think! Fuck off, I say! Git away out of it, and have this crack round the ear for your pains! Go on, then! Piss off!

Impressive, aye? And I have not, as yet, begun to fight…

And so the debate rages on. If you agree try and send us a non binding, non compulsory postal vote, make sure that the bindings are done up good and tightly and don’t forget to find a post. Only a straight, dependable white post will do.

Amber Essau is a New Zealand-born Samoan-Maori-Irish poet.  Here is her poem Horoi.  (Definitions below)

Horoi
We enter like hands
open out
to cleanse
before the gate
water snaps
its fingers
along our side
Mum tells us
to wind up the windows
as we mould ourselves
into the lay of rocks
crunching
with
crisp coercion
summer immersion
leaving behind
the city
& green is new
to me
cows grinding
into grass
mountains
the shrivelling kina roe
on the horizon
water
sizzles
as
we
submerge
dip out
of worries
that follow
the stream
swim out of my hair
Dip in
to way whenua
learn
the ways
blossom
my Samoan father
would say
going up to great
grandpa’s old house
young
refreshed
water
but now
there’s a bridge

horoi: wash, clean, cleanse, wipe.
kina: sea urchin, a delicacy much prized by many Maori
way whenua: stream, creek, river, water

This Dispatch was originally distributed 20 January 2013.  The post has been edited.

Amicos romanos popularium commoda mihi auribus vestris,

Like the owner of Pangur Bán the cat, (google it sometime, you won’t be disappointed) I love words.  (Ed note: See tomorrow’s PCBYCP Poetry Sunday for this poem)

The antonym of ‘benign’ is ‘malignant’ (from the Latin: Mali bad).

‘Malignant’ succinctly describes the 2007 NT Emergency Response that in short order became known as the ‘Intervention’.

The Intervention has rapidly metastasized.

The body of remote Aboriginal society has been invaded by numerous rapidly spreading cancerous growths which its cultural immune system is being overwhelmed by.

‘Closing the Gap’, ‘Generation One’, ‘FaFT’ (Families as First Teachers), ‘Stronger Futures’, ‘PAP’(Public Awareness Program), ‘READ’(Read every available day), ‘Every Child, Every Day action plan’ to mention just a few.

A much prescribed range of medicines come under the heading ‘Law and Order’. The most often prescribed of this range is increased policing. The Territorial and Federal Pharmacists have not yet realized that these medicines are  highly ‘incarceragenic’ and should be withdrawn, or at the very least the dosages should be much reduced.

….don’t you send me no doctor, filling me up with all of those pills…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IfEx6p4Ces

Near the end of the 18^th.Century (14^th.Dec.1799) George Washington died after having been bled the previous day. Bloodletting as a cure retained some adherents as late as the 20^th.Century.

The Intervention has reintroduced bloodletting to its ‘client’ (Aboriginal Australia). It also makes copious use of leeches.

Medical practitioners pay very high insurance premiums to cover themselves against being sued for malpractice (there it is again the ‘mal’ Latin root)  and misdiagnosis which on very rare occasions they are found guilty of.

Malpractice and misdiagnosis however are inherent in the Intervention and its plethora of derivatives. Their bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. Misdiagnosis comes as no surprise, whenever the ‘client’ says ‘pillars’ they hear ‘pillows’.

From the ‘Singing Detective’… this clip says it all….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDOe7Npinl4

The Interventionists are answerable to no one but themselves.

The assimilationists are mining the cultural pillows of Aboriginal Australia whose society is in danger of collapsing.

The strength and potency of Aboriginal anti-bodies is evidenced by the fact that despite the sustained multi-pronged attack not all of remote Aboriginal society’s structures have caved in.

Took my body to the doctor
He said son you won’t last the night
Took my body back to mamma
She said Jesus going to make it all right

Always thought of myself as a hunter
Lion out on the night
But I turned all my weapons in to mamma
She said Jesus going to make it all right     

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi8Dau0l4Vs

Usque ad proximam tempus

Franciscus

PS- an omen… the Intervention’s first Surgeon General was called Mal.

Our cub reporter Bert. A gift to pcbycp courtesy of Nick’s 66 mil.

At last in deference to the energy policy leadership vacuum, (this weeks feature article) some encouraging news from the media front. There aint gonna be no rule. That’s it folks, there aint gonna be no rules restricting ownership of media entities. You can have all you want, and more. And that’s just what we at pcbycp want to hear.

Our cub reporter getting to know miss Coltart in the typing pool at pcbycp

We know that we have established a niche in publshing, and thanks to the intercession of Nick Xenephon, there’s some federal funding for small media providers. We have an established readership of six. Our time has come. Up to 66.6 million is on offer to establish allowances to train journalists and cub reporters. We went to the zoo in search of cub reporters and were advised to attend the next meeting of the Parkville district scouting association, only to be told that we needed a police check to verify our bona-fides. This meant we had to provide testimonials. As we only had two each, we deferred our search for a cub reporter, and settled for just a plain old reporter.

And you’ll be delighted to hear, we found one.

Down at the Waterside Hotel. Bert, as he calls himself, one of the last of the old breed journalists was on hand to greet us. Bert, dispatched when the Truth closed down is now an orphan of journalisms early days. Bert was delighted to hear that the old style reporting was being actively encouraged. He was suprised when we told him that ‘Truth’ was gone from the public scene, and before asking the price of a cigarette, mourned the loss of days spent covering the last days of Billy Snedden.

Bert in happier days.

When journalism was “Truth”

Still, he expressed his enthusiasm in no uncertain terms, stating that there needs to be new life put into journalism. The police rounds, the tip off, on the turf, and the race to find the latest scoop were regaled to us. Berts eyes glazed over with pure nostalgia; “and they used to employ carrier pidgeons to get the leaks out before budget papers were released, and you’ve got no idea what used to go on in the glory days of six oclock closing’. Sadly, we had to interrupt his reverie, when we informed him that ‘ol style journalism’ was dead. Replaced by reality television and info-tainment. Bert was confused, till we rationalised his dillemma. ‘You’ve gotta understand Bert, it’s like this, you know when the adverts were just the fluff around the features. Well nowadays its just adverts. There is no investigative journalism, just adverts and product endorsement from the owners. And on the ABC it’s just Qand A’. He cried, looking up to us; ‘Who are they? These owners you speak of? Fairfax, Issacson, Packer’

WE tried not to laugh; “Nah mate, its all Murdoch”?

“So Keith is alive”, he queried,

“Nup, it’s his son”.

Bert ghasped, ashen faced he cried over his Craven A. Empathy overtook us, “Bit hard for you Bert. It’s a bit Darth Vader for you. Rupert is sole ruler of ALL media’.

Bert piped up; “But he’ll never own the wireless”.

“Nup Bert, he owns that too”.

Bert was flummoxed. ‘Well then I spose at least you’ve got the ABC’?

We laughed.. ‘Oh.. I get it’ Bert sighed; “so Rupert’s got that too?

Happier days at pcbycp

‘Yep’, we replied; “all owned by Rupert”

A quiet historical narrative ensued. At the end of it Bert soliliquised

“We used to be family in them ol days. And now the family is gorne. No family, but you tell me now I’ve got a brother. And you told me before I was ‘journalism’s orphan’?

‘Yes you have Bert. We all have.

Welcome to your family Bert.

We call him Rupert.

He’s your Big Brother.

Bert, before despair and alcohol set in.

We all call him Big Brother’.

Designed by someone from anywhere else than Australia, bought to you by autocad, Massive Public Sculpure is what Sydney really needs.

Inheritors and custodians of the Cultural cringe. To thwart Philistinism and ensure sinecures for really really dull public Art installations.

We at pcbycp are not Philistines. Indeed, our journalists, acting on an initiative due to the unforseen outbreak of philistinism, during the term of the Abbott government, drew the ‘Dunstan line’ across the central half of the continent. When asked by a forum of artists, curators, and dubiously nominated “Arts professionals”, our curator, Lord Clarke, (No relation to Sir Kenny), described the Dunstan Line as “epithetic of our time”. He said; “Art is like a micro-climate, and it requires a whole range of specific environmental conditions in order to survive. Without nurturing, it perishes. Therefore in recognition of this, we’ve drawn this line, and as you can see, bit like the Goyder line, it’s in retreat. Not due to global warming, but to the virulent and excessive growth of Phiistinism, aided, by a strange and unforseen vector, the Arts administration middle manager. This species, the middle manager is the Crown of Thorns Starfish to the Australian art scene, and it’s not, and I make this fact clear, not an index of global warming or climate change. We fear it is a direct conesquence of media ownership. With the latest concessions to media owership we see artistsic thought, imagination and culture, under threat of EXTINCTION’.

More Bad Art. It must be DOCKLANDS!

As a consequence, we at Pcbycp who regard ourselves as the virtual school of Athens in the media world, applaud the controversial cloud sculpture for Sydney. WE believe the cost of this object is immaterial. Great art should not have a price tag, (unless it is owned as collateral by a hedge fund manager). Futhermore we would go as far as to say without great art, a species is unable to replenish itself. True, some great art is the spirit of the city itself. Take Venice for example, there is not so much public art, but just a profusion of architecture, art, sculpture and topography which all constitutes a superb vibrant organism of art. Which incidentally is being destroyed by mass tourism.

But Sydney has none of this connectivity. It is a city founded on the principles of greed, short termism, and corruption. What other vehicle to express this new age of “bugger you jack”, than a very expensive sculpture. The homeless will wonder at it, the plutocrats will admire its shininess, and ordinary folk will stand in stupified wonder. To wonder, like the energy policy vaccum, how it came to this. And the final question. Is it fun?

Really BAD ART. It has to be DOCKLANDS!

It must be, cos the curator, says so.

PAMS. Public Art Mortality Syndrome. Unfetterd Public Art will cause Sudden DEATH.

In Melbourne there is no such issue with public art. It has Docklands. An elephant’s graveyard for public art. Public Sculpture. Massively over-sized public sculpture is used to offset the depletion of humanity. Art is not a link to an inner aesthetic being, but a corporate statement. And for a while it seemed to work. Whilst people baulked, financial institutions flocked there. The sterility of everything, and the Stalinesque voidism of Public Art gave them certainty. But now a new debilitating condition threatens the micro climate’s very existence. Another Crown of Thorns Starfish, the curse of the middle manager you may wonder? No! Something Much worse. It is a conditon describes as PAMS. A four letter word, ‘Public Art Mortality Syndrome’.

Yes, folks, Public Art, most of it bad, Is killing people. The incidents of suicide were non existent at Docklands before 2000. Now they have skyrocketed. There is no other viable explanation. Public Art, like renewable policy , (according to Craig Kelly) is killing people.

Sydney, you have been warned. Public Art will kill you.

Joel and Josh make the Carbon Policy Vacuum entertainment.

Dear reader, it’s encouraging to know that whilst the context of leadership is a known unknown in the Australian political context, we have so many amusing opportunities to make fun of what passes for informed comment. Where is policy you may ask?

Indeed as metrics for education are an undisputed part of our intellectual framework, so to speak, it’s comforting to know that by the time they get to politics, our elite eschew all rational thinking for the one hit wonder, the cheap shot and the last word.

Whilst Josh and Joel spat, at least one light remains on. Thanks to the Policy Vacuum

So focus now, (we beg you) on the vexed question of carbon. luckilly Australia has been kicking goals in pretending carbon actually exists as an issue. There is no issue with climate change.

We stand united, on the environment, marriage equality, carbon,everything, in being dis-united.

Yes indeed it’s all one big policy vacuum.

The policy vacuum is really really big. They reckon, just to keep it going requires the full-scale equivalent of fifteen coal powered electricity stations. That’s fifteen, just to get the policy vacuum started. And to keep it cranked, just to keep the bugger going, it requires another ten. That’s ten folks. Ten major coal fired power stations , working, flat-chat. providing BASE LOAD POWER.

This was the prototype Policy Vacuum before testing.

Without that Base load, Policy Vacuum, she no work.

It’s all very well to talk of renewables. All very sanctimonious to talk of renewables as some bloody saviour, but they just wont work. Yes, we admit they’re cheaper, they’re possibly more reliable, and we admit they are the way of the future. But, and this is the most telling part, even Elon Musk, can’t counter this. The Policy Vacuum can run only on coal.

Yes indeed, good ol reliable coal.

The New Policy Vacuum is much bigger and incorporates a Space- Age Design principle of concealed chimney and coal conveyor.

And you can fume all you like about policy moving forward and any other brain dead oxymoronic platitude designed to keep your lobbyists happy, but the truth is there for all to see. There’s no point in moving forward. Looking forwards is being backwards, and the 1960’s policy direction is the here and now. Back coal. It’s safe, and stupid, though it does have a voice in Parliament. These are the fundamentals the policy vacuum was designed for in 1965. The Liddell power plant was built in 1972, It’s clapped out, a worthless piece of junk. But to the energy provider shareholders, it’s GOLD. Cos with the Policy Vacuum at work the taxpayer will pay squillions against the advice of the bean-counters themeselves, just to keep it going.

And the PM will thank them for screwing the taxpayer just that bit harder. That’s how the policy vacuum works, It’s an ideas free zone. It’ll just suck , suck suck. And it’s “Super Suction”.
So next time Josh and Joel do battle in the corridors of power, thank them that there’s any power at all, cos with the policy vacuum at work, It’ll require this world, the next world and any world just to keep it going.

And in the end it’s not about climate change, the environment or people’s Livelihoods. It’s all about entertaintment. As Lord Rupert says’ Beyond the Policy Vacuum, it’s beer and circuses”.

Housewives, untarnished by same sex marriage, thrill to the efficiency of the Energy Policy Vacuum.

And it’d be Un-Australian to disagree.

This is the fourth and final of four parts revisiting Oliver Goldsmith’s  The Deserted Village which, with commentary from our Poetry Editor Ira Maine give insight on our social condition.

Goldsmith, friend of fellow Irishman, the statesman Edmond Burke, (the father of modern conservative politics) and  dinner companion to most of the London literati of the period; James Boswell and Dr Samuel Johnson who hardly need introduction. David Garrick, the greatest actor of his day, of whom it was said that his interpretation of the Bard was so intelligent that it was like watching Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.  The Irishman Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who owned the Drury Lane Theatre in London and wrote ‘The Rivals’ and ‘The School for Scandal’, plays which are still essential to a modern English education. Incidentally, people were aghast to discover Sheridan calmly drinking wine in Drury Lane as his much loved theatre burnt to the ground.

“Surely a man can take a glass of claret by his own fireside?’ he asked of his critics.

It was the influence of Sheridan amongst others which finally gained for Samuel Johnson a permanent pension of 300 pounds a year from George the Third.  Prior to this the great man had been confined to the debtor’s prison on at least two occasions.

Dr Johnson first launched his London dining and literary group ‘The Club’ in 1764 at the prompting of the major English painter,  Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the Royal Academy.   Before it was wound up, long after Johnson’s death Johnson’s ‘Club’ had numbered amongst its members Edward Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) Joseph Banks of Darwin and the Beagle, and Charles James Fox, one of the most influential Whig politicians of the period.

What companions Goldsmith had! How splendid their dinner tables must have been! Still, it is a very well established fact that if you put half-a-dozen bright Irishmen together, or even two or three… or just one…

Incidentally (and I have this on good authority) the dinner table was provided by yet another Irishman, Henry, the Duke of Rathcoole (west of Dublin) at de Burgh House in the Strand, and presided over by his step daughter, the renowned beauty, the Lady Juanita Gilles-Beaux,who, fluent in both Gaelic and French, was a not inconsiderable poet herself. Her portrait, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

But enough of this frivolity.

Now that the horror of enclosure has happened, the familiar made desolate, even Auburn’s pub;  ‘… Where nut brown draughts inspired, 

And grey beard mirth and smiling toil retired…’ is no more.

The school,‘Where many a time he triumphed…’ has ceased to exist.  The church, houses, barns, stables, the forge, all that went to make up the rhythm and pace of Auburn’s country life has been levelled, razed, brushed aside and hidden, as if the magnitude of the sin committed were too great to bear the light of day.

Goldsmith addresses the ruined village;

‘…One only master grasps thy whole domain.
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
No more the glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works it’s weary way.
Sunk are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all.
And the long grass o’er tops the mouldering wall.
And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler’s hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave the land.

These vast new fabulously profitable farms grew wheat almost exclusively during the Napoleonic Wars.  Europe, devastated by its wars with the French could produce little food and looked to England to feed its troops.  Monoculture, as we all know, provides only briefly intense seasonal work.  This cropping, on a scale never seen before, was hugely profitable for the landholder but, to a peasantry denied access to their traditional lands and way of life, it was a death sentence.  This system, designed without regard for a centuries old way of life, was calculated to utterly break the spirit of the people.  It did precisely that.

Now Goldsmith addresses the country itself and informs its government that, by their actions they have sown the seeds of their own destruction;

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
Princes, Lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made.
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

Princes and Lords are ten a penny, not worth tuppence, and are easily bought with thirty pieces of silver.  Destroy your own peasantry however, and the spiritual coinage of the realm is utterly and irretrievably debased.

Famine, the result of denying the peasantry access to land, meant that millions of people literally starved to death throughout the British Isles in the slump following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. When relief in the way of grain arrived by ship from America, British authorities would not allow it to land because they thought it would cause the price of home grown grain to tumble. People went on starving to death. They called this abomination ‘Laissez Faire Capitalism’.

As he walks about the seashore, the poet observes the crowds on the strand, queueing to get on board emigrant ships.  Goldsmith is aware that he is observing the veins and arteries, the life blood of the British Isles being lost forever to the sea.  An entire way of life being contemptuously thrown on the mercies of the ocean.

‘…and thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid;
Still first to fly when sensual joys invade,
Unfit to these degenerate times of shame
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame.
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,
That found’st me poor at first, and keep’st me so;
Thou guide by which the noble arts excell,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well.

The Muse, that ‘loveliest maid’ the great creative force, cannot exist in either this ‘degenerate’ time or this ‘degenerate’ country. Neither can the ’nurse of every virtue’ stay behind when its people depart. The gift of the Muse, the Muse itself, the capacity for joy, for laughter, for originality is inseparable from the people and must sail away with them.

This conceit of Goldsmith’s; that the muse, out of shame, would wholly abandon ‘degenerate’ England and instead offer her favours to the New Wortld, was quietly prescient, it also demonstrates Goldsmith’s belief that a peasantry, by recreating itself in these new locations proves;
‘…self dependent power can time defy..’
and that countries in possession of a people;
‘…that states of native strength possesr
though very poor, may still be very blest…’

Nowadays some of the most creative people on the planet are products of these new worlds.

Nevertheless, Goldsmith hopes that as time passes and people learn, the Muse might;

This truth, this inevitability, this abandonment of  ‘degenerate’ England by the Muse has Goldsmith hope that as time passes and people learn, the Muse might;

‘Still let thy voice prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
And slighted truth, with thy persuasive strain,
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain.
Teach him that states of native strength possest,
Though very poor, may still be very blest.
That trades proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As oceans sweep the labour’d mole away.
While self dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.

Essentially, this is a poem about the destructive force of greed, of ‘trades proud empire’, and its devastating effect on the vast majority of a country’s population.  It also suggests that a country’s long term stable future can only be guaranteed if the ‘self dependent power’ of the peasantry is firmly established.  That is, a non-aspirational, well grounded, self-sufficient people who are absolutely independent of the deliberately manufactured ‘aspirational’ blandishments of our corrosive consumer society.

We still have some way to go.

Ira Maine, Poetry Editor.

Bon Soir,

Back in the black and white television days (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask an old person) I recall some very funny comedy sketches.

Red Skelton marching through the middle of an American Civil War battle field bearing a flag which had the Confederate flag sewn onto the Union flag. Both sides held their fire whilst cheering him on. Until the wind changed and all hell broke loose.

In another sketch big burly Raymond Burr bearing a full black beard and a fur cap is sitting at a table in a log cabin manacled to little Flip Wilson in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform. Outside a blizzard is raging. Flip is holding up a poster featuring a full black bearded fur cap bearing Raymond and proclaiming the latter is “Wanted dead or alive”. Both the poster and the manacled Raymond are staring menacingly at Flip who keeps switching from looking at one then the other whilst shaking his head and muttering “Ahhh don’t know” “Ahhh don’t know”. In the end he blurts out “They’s all look tha sayme to me”

The last Dispatch which dealt inter alia with difficulties experienced by Aboriginal Australians in obtaining ID, elicited several anecdotes.

My favourite:

“ …..there was another occasion when a troupe of Maningrida blokes were off to Japan for an opening.  One of the guy’s mother died the night before their departure. Without batting an eyelid they recruited a replacement didgeridoo player who effortlessly travelled to Japan and back on the original bloke’s passport….”

Grace Slick THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME…..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOAM7LrdW-E

And this one… (Pourquoi pas?)

Jimmy and Mama Yancey – How Long Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw9tMRhKEak

A bientot,

François