Bună ziua prietenii mei, sper totul merge bine cu tine,

Not long before Christmas 1974 we lived in Darwin.

When Cyclone Tracy struck, an Intervention was launched, headed by Major-General Alan Stretton.

Some years after, on a visit to Darwin, I came to the realisation that considerable damage had been done to the social fabric.

On the 40^th anniversary of Cyclone Tracey, a retrospective was shown on television.

Locals spoke of their resentment and frustration when outside experts had taken over control and sidelined them.

The locals lacked accreditation, and were thus prevented from doing their bit in repairing the damaged social fabric.

In 2007, when a category 5 election loomed , an Intervention was launched, headed by Major-General Dave Chalmers.

Locals spoke of their resentment and frustration when outside experts took over control and sidelined them.

Considerable damage was done to the social fabric of remote communities in the Northern Territory.

The locals lacked accreditation, and were thus prevented from doing their bit in repairing the damaged social fabric.

• What follows is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real events and people is unintended and entirely coincidental.

A man took a wrong turn on a bush track and got lost and his vehicle and trailer became seriously bogged.

It took four days before he was found by someone that was very familiar with local tracks by following the vehicle and trailer tracks.

He tracked him down.

1. A search and rescue expert, arrived from the big smoke and met with a group of locals. The expert praised the local team effort which had only narrowly avoided a tragedy.
   The meeting then proceeded to discuss and work out what had been learned from the incident and the expert generously contributed his expertise. All are now better equipped to in future deal with such an emergency.
2. Constable Plod, in charge of search and rescue, arrived from the big smoke and met with a group of locals.  The expert chastised the locals.  They should have contacted the expert in the first place.  None of the search party had accreditation to embark on such an effort….. Indeed ‘Right can be wrong’

A Rocket To The Moon: Lost And Found…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9fYltbCUCA

Old man on his way back home late from work today
Far out on a dirt road, he couldn’t find his way
With tears in his eyes he knew there’s no one in sight
And tried to tell himself that it’ll be alright

Why’s it always darkest right before the dawn?
If liars can be honest, and right can be wrong

Vă poate lua toate acreditare

Franklin

Amazing Grace…I once was lost but now I’m found…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvYIjFtPQEk

Imagination by Quentin Cockburn

I know the problem with politics.  I understand the problem with business in this country.  I’m uncomfortable when I hear spokesmen from the Business Council, the Australian Chamber of Manufacturing and Industry and the Victorian Chamber of Commerce.

It’s a convulsive sort of laughter, I’m finding myself subject to so many attacks these days.  I call it ‘delerium torpens’.  it’s sort of the opposite of ‘tremens’ or full blown mania, it’s a sort of laughing lassitude, where you just shake in a quiet, controlled sort of way.  The laughter suppressed into a sort of subdued guffaw, a shaking of the body accompanied by the odd snort.

It happened the other day.  I was quietly, and reflectively looking at my tax.  This can take hours, and on this occassion whilst looking at the pile of papers, I overheard an academic talking about ‘futures, moving forward and best practice’.  Just when I was about to turn it off I heard Christopher Pyne talking about ‘best value’.  This bought on another attack.  This one was more convulsive, I think because they interviewed another academic, he was an economist and talked about ‘projections’, ‘metrics’ and ‘growth in the tertiary sector’.  It was only a fear of complete and unyielding collapse that I managed to turn the radio off.

But it’s getting harder and harder to sustain my equilibrium.

For instance yesterday I hear the P.M attacking the Human Rights Commissioner about kiddies being put in detention.  I collapsed again and before I could change channels, the same P.M was talking about security.  He was flanked by more flags than I’d ever seen at Nuremberg, and he was putting his serious face on.  That brought on an attack so severe, I lost track of the rest of the day.

I’m through with General Practitioners, they’re no good.  I’ve consulted iridoligists, acupuncturists, and even went spiritual, seeking the truth to my condition from a Buddhist who just smiled.  But in desperation I came across a Faith Healer, advertised in small print at the lower margin of my local rag.  I talked about my condition at some length, and expected a barium meal diet, perhaps a colonic irrigation as a worst case scenario, and waited for a diagnosis.  I can tell you, with the imminent arrival of the next Federal Budget I was in need of it.

But I cannot describe to you the relief I felt when this scruffy, orientalist smiled after some considerable time, and I puzzled as ever looked blankly across the prayer rug, and natural fibred poof, when he spoke, slowly and with some effect.   And he said these precise words; “The problem my son, (he was paternal in an nice way) is not with you, it is with the stuff you breathe to sustain your soul.’

“My soul’? I quivered, breathing heavily. I queried, ‘Is it in the air’?

He smiled, his godhead nodding in affirmation; ‘No my son, it is not air, nor is it within’.  He patted his over round belly in affirmation.  It is the substance that sustains you body and soul, its what makes you complete’.

‘Complete’? I stuttered, wondering where this will end.

“Yes it is is a spiritual thing you so lack. Once it was all around you, but now’, he motioned in an expansive way with his hands and eyes, it has gone “ Poof”!!

‘Poof’? I opined, ‘Yes’!, he said meditatively, ‘Poof’!!

‘What you lack, is the spirit of imagination.  It is not to be found in this country’!

“But were should I go, exiled in my own imagination’.   He paused again, clasped his hands, and said one word.  I shall never forget it.

‘Greece’!

Quentin Cockburn caught up with one of his mates and they talked of Australia. 

I ‘ran into’ David at the corner of Smith and Johnston Street.  “Got time for a coffee?’

We all have friends like this.  I call it ‘The Narnia Effect’, where the past five year interval is extinguished, and we return to where we’d let off.  Proof in Einsteins theory of relativity.  Time is warped compressed, truncated, and stretched entirely dependent on your subjective viewpoint.

‘Great idea.’  A brief fifteen minutes to indulge in an acquittal of ‘what we’d done, where we’d been and the where we may be headed’.

David, a New Zealander, has a French wife.  Early in the nineties they left Australia to work in France.  They returned a decade or so later with two daughters, and have since been busy working.  In the fifteen minutes of catching up, we reflected upon why we found work hollow, perfunctory and uninspiring.  Had we become cynical, middle aged, dulled? Or was there something else.

‘When I first arrived in the eighties,’ said David, ‘I loved this country, there was this physical pulse about what people and this society could achieve, a carefree disposition, and a sense of boundless optimism.  It was palpable.  When I returned from France all that had changed’.

‘How’? I asked.

David paused to reflect, ‘The atmosphere of enthusiasm, the exchange of ideas, potential and imagination has been stilled.  I get this feeling that this artifice of business management has killed improvisation, risk taking, and the ‘fun of it.’  He sipped his coffee, and paused, the street-life swirling around us.

‘The fun of it?’

‘When I returned, there were two things missing.  The imagination in the body politic, the enthusiasm, and the sense that we could make ourselves better had gone.  The intangible sense of feeling positive, engaged, and spirited, the soul of the people I meet in work, and the nature of the work itself has become empty.

‘Oh,’ I mused,’the spirit flame had dimmed?’

‘Precisely, it is dead now’.

I wryly remarked, “Gone for ever?’

‘Yes, the spirit of this country is defeatist, insular, second rate, shallow, introspective, risk averse, it is crushed by the fear of change, fear of itself and the diminution of its potential by big business, politicians, and paranoia.  I am ashamed of this country, and we don’t plan on coming back’.

I pictured a twenty first century version of William Lane off to find a new Australia in Paraguay.  ‘Our profession is dulled and run by developers with the principle of the lowest common denominator.  From Governance no leadership.  Thinkers are spurned as irrelevant, our academic institutions stilled.  The only talking comes from the rich and powerful telling us how it’s done, and politicians chirruping their chorus.  We have lost a sense of ourselves, and somewhere we have also lost our laconic easy going equanimity.

Consequently there are only two things left in this country, real estate, and digging holes. Just a hole where a soul had been and a for sale sign proclaiming, out of the hollowness , Australia, we’re open for business’.

And shopping.

we humbly apologise for our desultory postings over the past couple of months.  That is not to say that our postings have been desultory, just that we have been desultory in posting per se.  Seneca has overwhelmed us with his pious portunings.  Just read a few of his quotes and see what we mean.  On the other hand do not read a single one, they are dangerous in the extreme and are likely to lead to death – that is you will want to kill yourself.  Actually I’m feeling quite stoic.

So our aim is to provide just a few posts each week, maybe five. Poetry Sunday and Musical Dispatches from the Front will form a constant part of our repertoire.  We hope that we will be able to give a further three original pieces each week.  We know there is enough material.

Fortunately Stephen Danks has agreed to assist us with our performance.

Kind regards

Cecil Poole

PS We could, of course, be wrong about Seneca.  That is E&OE

Cricket.  Don’t you just love it?  Playing the Poms, that is.  Two wonderful shellackings in just their first two World Cup games, a loss by more than 100 runs to Australia, the second in what has been called “the worst English cricket performance in 150 years”, and of which Fairfax journalist Rohan Connelly tweeted “See, these are the sort of mismatches you end up with when you let the cricket minnows play against the best.” New Zealand routed the English for a paltry 123 in just 33 overs, whilst exceeding that target in 12.2 overs of brutal batting, 49 runs coming from the 2 overs bowled by Steve Finn.

By the way, the English have from time to time enjoyed their cricket, very much a social game for many, including J.M. Barrie the author of Peter Pan. In Kevin Telfer’s “Peter Pan’s First XI” I came across two poems. The first by Arthur Conan Doyle, the oft times member of Barrie’s social cricket team the ‘Allahakbarries’, and sometime first class cricketer, who wrote this of his one and only first class wicket. It came in August 1900, with Doyle’s team the MCC playing London County, in which he took the wicket of none other than WG Grace, (who had already scored his century). His poem is ‘A Reminiscence of Cricket’. Oh, the first first is by P.G. Wodehouse, who also played for Barrie’s ‘Allahakbarries’ from time to time, however he may not have been the cricketer Doyle was.

P. G. Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse “Missed”

The sun in the heavens was beaming

The breeze bore an odour of hay,

My flannels were spotless and gleaming,

My heart was unclouded and gay;

The ladies, all gaily apparelled,

Sat round looking on at the match,

In the tree-tops the dicky-birds carolled,

All was peace till I bungled that catch.

and now
‘A Reminiscence of Cricket’ by Arthur Conan Doyle

Once in my heyday of cricket,
One day I shall ever recall!
I captured that glorious wicket,
The greatest, the grandest of all.

WGGrace

Before me he stands like a vision,
Bearded and burly and brown,
A smile of good humoured derision
As he waits for the first to come down.

A statue from Thebes or Knossos,
A Hercules shrouded in white,
Assyrian bull-like colossus,
He stand there in all his might.

With the beard of a Goth or a Vandal,
His bat hanging ready and free,
His great hairy hands on the handle
And his menacing eyes upon me.

And I – I had tricks for the rabbits,
The feeble of mind or eye,
I could see all the duffer’s bad habits
And where his ruin might lie.

The capture of such might elate one,
But it seemed like one horrible jest
That I should serve tosh to the great one,
Who had broken the hearts of the best.

Well, here goes! Good Lord, what a rotter!
Such a sitter as never was dreamt;
It was clay in the hands of the potter,
But he tapped it with quiet contempt.

The second was better – a leetle;
It was low, but was nearly long-hop;
As the housemaid comes down on the beetle
So down came the bat with a chop.

He was sizing me up with some wonder,
My broken-kneed action and ways;
I could see the grim menace from under
The striped peak that shaded his gaze.

The third was a gift or it looked it-
A foot off the wicket or so;
His huge figure swooped as he hooked it,
His great body swung to the blow.

Still when my dreams are night-marish,
I picture that terrible smite,
It was meant for a neighboring parish,
Or any place out of sight.

But – yes, there’s a but to the story –
The blade swished a trifle too low;
Oh wonder, and vision of glory!
It was up like a shaft from a bow.

Up, up like a towering game bird,
Up, up to a speck in the blue,
And then coming down like the same bird,
Dead straight on the line that it flew.

Good Lord, it was mine! Such a soarer
Would call for a safe pair of hands;
None safer than Derbyshire Storer
,
And there, face uplifted, he stands

Wicket keep Storer, the knowing,
Wary and steady of nerve,
Watching it falling and growing
Marking the pace and curve.

I stood with my two eyes fixed on it,
Paralysed, helpless, inert;
There was ‘plunk’ as the gloves shut upon it,
And he cuddled it up to his shirt.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Out – beyond question or wrangle!
Homeward he lurched to his lunch!
His bat was tucked up at an angle,
His great shoulders curved to a hunch.

Walking he rumbled and grumbled,
Scolding himself and not me;
One glove was off, and he fumbled,
Twisting the other hand free

Did I give Storer the credit
The thanks he so splendidly earned?
It was mere empty talk if I said it,
For Grace had already returned.
THE END

Buenos dias compañeros,

In Alice Springs last week half a dozen armed police charged into a residence to arrest a murder suspect. The teenage suspect was in a room with a privacy door lock (easily opened with a spread knife). Three doors were kicked in. One of the rooms contained a couple of terrified toddlers watching a video. The lady whose house this was, complained to the police about the unnecessary damage to the doors and the violent behaviour in front of her grandchildren. “Housing will fix that” she was told “No they won’t, this is a privately owned home”

“OK, we will fix it then” Have they? Not yet (will keep you posted). “And by the way, we’re sorry about the kids” (no they didn’t say this, it was just a thought).

Were these Afghani Muslims in Afghanistan? Or Armenian Dissidents in Turkey? Or German environmental campaigners in Germany? No, they were Australian Aborigines, in Australia.

They got Special Treatment.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2008/04/08/how-to-break-down-a-door/  From Art of Manliness: “Alright, let’s get this out of the way first: kicking down a door is not the best option for opening a locked door. It will damage the door and cost you lots of money to fix it. It is better to call a locksmith, pick the lock, or attempt to crawl in a window….. How to break down a door If you have watched enough movies, your next move is a no brainer….run at the door shoulder first, right? Wrong. This technique may be über-manly, but it will probably dislocate your shoulder. It is better to employ a more forceful and well placed kick.”

A few days ago a fight broke out in Yuendumu. At 5 a.m. the next day Police Special Forces flew in and carried out raids and arrested 7 people.

The Flying Doctor and Police planes are identical. The RFDS plane has a silver belly. The Police plane’s bottom is painted black.

I see a red door and I want it painted black….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6d8eKvegLI

The Police Special Forces specialize in Forceful Special Treatment.

Having just penned this special sentence, I find out that no Special Forces per se were involved. A group of police was quickly assembled (including some that came by plane) with various skills and from various places. Some were armed with sten guns. They’d brought a door rammer. I’m also told that local police had a moderating influence on some of the more gung-ho visitors and no doors were rammed or kicked in. The police subsequently sang lullabies to all terrified children woken by these events (no they didn’t, it was just a thought).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asEP6olraAc …. Papa is going to buy you… (no he won’t he’s in Alice Springs Gaol)

Hush little baby, don’t you cry….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iLiwycXQoA

Go to sleep You Little baby….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1wZVVMKojw   

Grandfather walked this land in chains
A land he called his own
He was given another name
And taken into town

He got special treatment
Special treatment
Very special treatment

My father worked a twelve-hour day
As a stockman on the station
The very same work but not the same pay
As his white companions

He got special treatment
Special treatment
Very special treatment

Mother and father loved each other well
But together they could not stay
They were split up against their will
Until their dying day

They got special treatment
Special treatment
Very special treatment

Mama gave birth to a stranger’s child
A child she called her own
Strangers came and took away that child
To a stranger’s home

She got special treatment
Special treatment
Very special treatment

I never spoke my mother’s tongue
I never knew my name
I never learnt the songs she sung
I was raised in shame

I got special treatment
Special treatment
Very special treatment
We got special treatment
Special treatment
Very special treatment

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

Construction of the $7.6M Police Complex in Yuendumu proceeds apace. We are getting Special Treatment.

Hasta la proxima,

Franklin

Said Hanrahan by P.J. Hartigan (“John O’Brien”)

“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan
In accents most forlorn
Outside the church ere Mass began
One frosty Sunday morn.

The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock and crops and drought
As it had done for years.

“It’s lookin’ crook,” said Daniel Croke;
“Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad.”

“It’s dry, all right,” said young O’Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.

And so around the chorus ran
“It’s keepin’ dry, no doubt.”
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.

“The crops are done; ye’ll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-O’-Bourke
They’re singin’ out for rain.

“They’re singin’ out for rain,” he said,
“And all the tanks are dry.”
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.

“There won’t be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There’s not a blade on Casey’s place
As I came down to Mass.”

“If rain don’t come this month,” said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak –
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, ”
If rain don’t come this week.”

A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.

“We want an inch of rain, we do,”
O’Neil observed at last;
But Croke “maintained” we wanted two
To put the danger past.

“If we don’t get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”

In God’s good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.

And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.

It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-O’-Bourke.

And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain doesn’t stop.”

And stop it did, in God’s good time:
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o’er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.

And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o’er the fence.

And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place
Went riding down to Mass.

While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.

“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”

Comments by Ira Maine, Ferguson Tractor.

Go on! Wallow in it!

Yesterday we reported the following comment from Mr Eames:

Apart from the RAF bombing raids that killed many French civilians in Northern France*, there was his decision to destroy the French Fleet while it was peacefully at anchor in French Algeria. This was despite the solemn, treaty-backed assurances of the Vichy government that its ships would remain uninvolved in the war with either of the protagonists, Germany or Britain.  Throughout, Germany respected this agreement, which was a key part of their peace terms with France.

Quentin Cockburn disputes this analysis thus

But I don’t think you understand I was at Mers El Kebir when the bombardment of the fleet took place. It was revenge for the attack of crabs Admiral Cunningham acquired after a night at the El Morocco….it had nothing to do with the alleged German respect for a treaty perhaps the same respect they felt was due to the treaty of Brest Litovsk, the ‘agreement’ at Munich and the Molotov Ribbentrop pact, which was discarded not through German territorial ambitions, Lebensraum and all that, but an attack of scabies sufferred by Ribbentrop after a night out with Stalin at the Tartaric Sauce, a very popular restaurant on the left bank of the Dniepr… I was also there, perhaps you should read my unpublished autobiography, “Dobies itch”, banned by the Abbott Govermment for lifting the lid on personal hygiene disasters suffered during and before the outbreak of WW2.. ( rrp. $12.95)

Yesterday saw a piece questioning Churchill’s legacy.  Today we feature some responses

•  Ira Maine writes: