Matg Canavan M.P. The very best politician the coal lobby can buy.

Did you know dear reader that Australia’s answer to rising greenhouse gas emissions, (which some 98% of scientists, suggest is a consequence of burning fossil fuels and contributing to the greenhouse effect thus killing off life as we know it in the biosphere) is to build more coal fired power stations? And though the trajectory of renewables, seen the world over, (except in the U.S) as an inevitable and good thing to transform economies, save ecologies and make for a carbon neutral future seems inevitable, we are told that by increasing our use of coal, (the principal contributor to these gases) can only be a good thing.

Someone has crunched the numbers and determined that more coal burning power stations would be an absolute disaster and cost the tax payer some 60 and upward billions of dollars.. To go renewable would be way way cheaper and better for humanity in the long run. But the alternate facts, as proffered by Messrs, Frydenberg and Canavan, the best politicians the coal lobby can buy is to say; ‘burn more coal, and fuck humanity’.

That is an indisputable ‘alternate fact’.

Spose you can’t fool all the people all of the time.

Apparently, an ‘alternate fact’ runs counter to any logical process of evidence, empirical scientific investigation, knowledge, and scientific rationale. It runs counter to objective observation and any other metric you want to use to measure reality.

And that’s why we at pcbycp LOVE EM!!

We can’t get enough of ‘alternate facts’. Evolution is so boring. The cosmos is just too challenging and frightening. Much rather be reassured the ‘we’ are only 6000 years old, and dinosaurs stood hand in hand with Noah, when we were punished by a merciful god, who killed every living thing so that we may be given another opportunity to do it all over again. ‘Alternate facts’ hate women, they want to see them as chattels, and with just enough self determination to choose what type of clothing they wear (provided it’s modest and demure).

The scary reality of “alternate facts”

And the best thing about ‘alternate facts’, is they describe an alternate reality in which everybody is deeply conservative, consumed by fear, hates minorities and want to go to church on a regular basis to acquit the sin of hating everybody and pray for their souls as they rot on Manaus Island, Nauru, or anywhere.

We at pcbycp are an ‘alternate fact’. The fact that we exist at all is alternate.

And you, the reading public are alternate, and should acknowledge Matt and Josh, for allowing via Rupert, from the ‘book of Murdoch’, the ‘Grand Master of ‘alternate facts’ to reconstruct a happier healthier world, in which fear is beamed into our living rooms continuously and the smallness of everything is writ large.

Soon to be on the school syllabus all around Australia. Naplan Approved.

Some have decried ‘alternate facts’ as the descent into a ‘1984’, dystopia, but we disagree. The more ‘alternate facts’ we can believe, the happier we will all be. We’re looking forward to meeting Elvis, and we know the moon-landings were all faked, and 9/11, was put up by the CIA. The Great Barrier Reef is in great shape, and Donald had the biggest turnout ever for his inauguration. Good on Em. ‘Alternate Facts’ gave us the opportunity to anoint Iraq with civilisation and do the same for Afghanistan. It’s gratifying how those people have responded, to the guiding hand of enlightenment though sadly they are Muslim and will burn in hell. The more ‘alternate facts’, the more likely we are to be led, as we were in 1914 into a glorious war for ‘alternate fact’ Civilisation. Cept we wont be clamouring“ gallant little Belgium” we’ll be hip hip hooraying ‘Waltzing Matilda’ as another generation of Anzacs, the cleanest living, most noble people on earth do battle against the forces of evil to save us from the shackles of enslavement, or the thought, (woe betide), we ever, as a species think for ourselves.

Cecil, photographed prior to his ‘treatment’

Dear reader, Cecil sends us this fragment which indicates what he’s been up to. And the reading is very grim indeed. Now we’re not sure if the “Black hole of Calcutta’ is still an expression in common usage in India these days’. Since independence quite a few things have changed. For example, the trains are now pulled by diesels more often than steam trains, and it is alleged that the maharajah of Mysore has sold off all his Rolls Royces to pay for a health resort in which incredibly, people pay for the privelege of having themselves literally , “whipped into shape”. We gather that India still abounds in the surreal and unfathomable mysticism as described by Kipling and Newby, but shopping and ‘standardisation” is transforming the indian cities and turning them into places we would be familiar with. Dull places run by bankers, financiers and developers. Which is the tragedy of “standardisation” which we see before our very eyes as Melbourne transforms into “ Melba-pore”. A sort of hybrid city which bespeaks of anywhere and nothing. But in the country rituals still enforce a deep seated tradition of pain and suffering, and for the unwary, a lifetime of agony.

Read on.

The Maharajah of Mysore. Into health farms now. More lucrative than Tiger hunting and Rolls Royces.

‘Good morning, sir. It is time for you to be getting up.’ says the voice on the phone in that clipped Indian accent that only Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers seem to be able to replicate. 5 am. Bloody five am. I slide back in bed. The wife purrs. I think of Pussy Galore, lick my lips and reach out. Then I think of Donald Trump and that is the end of that.  Dressed in the regulation loose clothing, sandals, the wife and I sip green tea with a dash of lemon from tiny glasses, among the other mid early risers. The early risers have already gone to the hall to get the best matts and best positions for the 6 am yoga session. Bleary eyed we join them picking up our yoga mats and pillows as we go.

Cecil (front) and other Australians practising their Yoga routine post ” treatment’.

I look askance at the row upon row of yoga devotee, sitting cross legged on their mats, thumb and forefinger touching, the other three fingers straight out. There is complete silence and stillness. I try to move soundlessly and put my mat down.  The noise is loud, no one moves. I replicate the sitting positions of the experts, and think I blend in, despite my hair and fair complexion. Five seconds pass and I congratulate myself. Ten seconds and I’m still pretty pleased. Fifteen seconds and my left hip starts to grumble. In quick succession my right hip joins in. As does my knee, my other knee and my lower back.  I put my left leg out, I put my left leg in . . . I resist singing, as I doubt the appropriateness of the song that is in my mind. Just then a deeper silence arises, the Teacher enters sits legs crossed, knees flat on the floor, right foot on left knee. We sit for ten minutes, ten pain riddled minutes, before he speaks. I strain to hear, then a great solemn ‘ohmmm’ engulfs the hall – where did that come from I ponder before the next ‘ohmmm’ arises and my memory takes me to comedy sketches on yoga which always include ‘ohmmm’s, so with a smile I join in.

Our Teacher leads us through a series of increasingly impossible moves, each seemingly designed to emphasise the firmness of his buttocks and the suppleness of his limbs. I feel, but don’t see, the women, and a couple of the men, swoon. Let this be over soon I chant soundlessly, and after one last ‘ohmmm’ it is.
Now for some special treatments!
Cecil Poole

Dear reader we are unable to describe the special treatments as suggested by Cecil, Suffice to say we refer you to chapter 69 of the Khama Sutra, and we’ll leave the rest to your imagination. No country attains a population of over one billion by just meditating.

Ira Maine Reprised

Dear Reader,
You may remember that, as publisher, I charged Mr Ira Maine with the task of editing the Poetry section of this blog.  He used his office as a shameless vehicle for self promotion.  Admittedly his poems were ok.  (In fact we have been deluged with appeals for more of him including request for samples of his underwear.  Please do not tell him.)  I asked that he include other poets.  He has chosen to promote only long dead poets thus to limit his competition.  Here is the note he attached to the two poems sent for this week:

Sirrah’
As promised; two Roman rhymes to suit the times and if you read between the lines, well neither is a rhyme of mine, though mine are equally divine, and so you know, I think you’ll find, these Romans all were filthy swine!
IRA
(Blast, he’s done it again!)

Today’s dispatch is  Bought and Sold.  Originally dispatched on 24 November  2015

¿Hola que tal, compañeros?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtj3ayme1Io

To set the scene I’d like you to listen to Kimberley musician Patrick Davies’ ‘Bought & Sold’.
Here are the lyrics:
Chorus:

No I don’t have enough time, in my day,
to be messed around, or led astray,
a drunk out on the street, I would rather be,
at least I wouldn’t have all the pain and misery. 

Seems like more and more people, bought and sold,
the bucket of dreams, that’s just full of holes,
and there’s so many people walkin’ ’round without their soul,
and as for a conscience, all you find is a great big hole,
And they buy up all of your wishes on all of the stars,
the sun and the moon, Jupiter and Mars,
they buy everything, that their greedy eyes can see.
There’ll be a knock on the door, and they’ll be trying to buy you and me!

Chorus

Yes the other night, on the river sand,
I was in a conversation, with an ‘ole black man,
and here is a question, that he put to me,
My boy, how come all my land’s been stole’, withouta askin’ me?

Chorus

In 1971 we did that once in a lifetime trip. We drove from Calgary across Canada and the Northern U.S.A. down to New Orleans and all the way down to Panama City, whence we caught MV Tahitien that took us to Sydney via several French Pacific colonies. It was her last trip (she was subsequently sold and refitted as a cruise ship under another name).

We travelled third class. When the ship anchored off the Marquesas Islands, a large number of ‘natives’ came on board. That was when we became aware of a fourth class (restricted to non-Europeans). The fourth class passengers were headed to Papeete where the South Pacific Games were to be held. That the fourth class consisted of the third class deck and lacked bedding didn’t bother the Marquesans. They sang and danced continuously until Tahiti was reached. According to Wikipedia MV Tahitien travelled at 17 knots/hr thus the 1400Km distance would have been covered in 45 hours. We in la troisieme classe didn’t sleep either, it is all a bit of a blur made blurrier by the plentiful table wine. We shared our table with several of those rare individuals, French teetotallers. All the more for us! The first and second class passengers missed out on the blur, there being no access to the silver tails and vice versa.

On the way to Panama we visited a museum in Managua. A rather modest and underfunded establishment in the Somoza family’s Nicaragua. Dictators tend to prefer to squirrel their fortunes away into Swiss Bank accounts or Cayman Islands based investments, rather than spend it on Museums.

As we walked in, the sole occupant was an old lady (probably no older than what I am now, but at the time she seemed very old) leaning on a walking stick. She was in charge of the Museum that she told us her father had established. She bemoaned the fact that the Government wasn’t forthcoming with the funding needed, inter alia, to prevent national archaeological treasures from being smuggled out of the country to be sold to foreigners. We were deep in conversation with the old dignified and knowledgeable lady, when we were interrupted by a raucous noise similar to that made by a screeching descending flock of kirli-kirlilpa (pink galahs). The old lady immediately recognised the visitors, their photo had been on the front page of the newspaper. They weren’t galahs, they were members of the Florida State Horticultural Society on a field trip. They were staying at the Managua Hilton. They were very chuffed by having been recognised. They were loudly exploring the museum when one of the horticultural gentlemen loudly posed the question to another horticulturalist “WONDER IF YOU CAN BUY ANY OF THIS STUFF?” (they buy everything, that their greedy eyes can see.)

 A year ago the Northern Territory Government sold the insurance assets of the Territory Insurance Office for $236M to the German based Allianz Group.

A month ago the same NT Government announced the granting of a 99-year lease on the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company. The deal is “worth” $506M.

Yuendumu Police Station cost $7.6M

Wadeye Police Station will cost $24M

Arlparra (Utopia) Police Station $7M

The NT’s new Super Prison- is estimated will cost $2B over the next 30 years.

This all is great news for the NT’s Indigenous population, these Police Complexes aim at (and I quote):

“Working in partnership with the community to ensure a safe and resilient Northern Territory”

As for the NT’s new Super Prison- Aborigines stand a far greater chance of being able to enjoy its hospitality, than us kardiya.

No I don’t have enough time, in my day,
to be messed around, or led astray,
a drunk out on the street, I would rather be,
at least I wouldn’t have all the pain and misery.

As for selling, you can’t get past the myth that Robert Johnson’s ability to play guitar was due to him having sold his soul to the Devil (at the Crossroads)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd60nI4sa9A

and there’s so many people walkin’ ’round without their soul,
and as for a conscience, all you find is a great big hole,

And a final flourish from Patrick Davies.

‘Rocky old road’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFAdylvx34c

…no you can’t take all you are given,
oft times it means selling your soul…

 Hasta la proxima vez,

Franklin

What’s in a day?

Great Australians celebrate Australia Day.

Dear reader, we at PCbyCP are flabbergasted at all the kerfuffle about Australia Day. What is all the fuss about? And why does Fremantle, host city to the glorious Americas Cup defence want to get itself involved in such un-patriotic grandstanding?

We’re confused, and we know that you must be as bewildered as we are. So for posterity’s sake we give you this abridged history, courtesy of the IPA and the Blainey Institute of Australian History. The true story…as acknowledged by our most famous Australians, Clive James, Barry Humphries, and Germane Greer who from preference don’t live here.

Civilisation

It all began aeons ago, way back in 1770. Captain Cook landed on the east coast of Australia at Botany Bay and proclaimed this land for Britain and the Empire. He made the observation that no one else lived here. Or if there were people they didn’t realise the value of “ Real Estate”, which by inference means they weren’t really people anyway. Six years later America proclaimed its independence from the Empire and in 1788, with no alternate place to send their convicts, Australia was chosen as the perfect place. On January 26 1788, the first fleet arrived, and from the stinking bowels of those rancid, fetid hulls, came the convicts. And in that instant Australia was civilised!!

Since that glorious day in 1788, when the convicts were whipped into action and started clearing the wilderness, we have seen great cities rise from the scrub, and this grim, remote inhospitable land has been tamed with daytime television, shopping malls and the bounty of Real Estate. For a while there were some industrious people who developed manufacturing and had some pretty bright ideas, but successive governments showed them the errors of their ways. Consequently, Australia in 2017 is very firmly all about Real Estate, some mining and lots of jobs involving not thinking too much at all about the future.

‘Civilising’, and teaching respect for “Real Estate” as the underlying principle of a great nation.

This is what makes Australia the “Lucky Country” there’s ‘wealth of soil and bounty for toil’. However, the best thing is, if you don’t want to toil, you can just sit on a piece of real estate for years and years and make tons of money without having to do anything. That’s why our politicians love real estate, and they’re so terribly keen on it. Ironically, ordinary folk can’t ever afford any. But they’re losers. And Australians who love sport, can’t stand losers, unless of course they’re Anzacs.

Who are Anzac’s you may ask?. They are the engine room of the Australian soul. They nobly kill themselves in other people’s wars and for all the waste and loss of life, they celebrate in a curious ritual every year the day that marks the anniversary of a particularly stupid fragment of imperial history. Australia loves it’s past, it proves that we’re still profoundly colonial and don’t like to think for ourselves. It’s called the ‘cultural cringe’.

There are rewards for enforcing the cultural cringe.

We have very little faith in ourselves and because of the insecurity, we implore other people in the world community to take us seriously and try and pretend we’re not shallow, insecure, smug little property owners who are terribly interested in interest rates, superannuation and share portfolios rather the thinking beyond the square. And that’s a good policy, because thinking within the square is safe and reassuring. That’s why out current PM talks of innovation and ideas booms, all safely contained within the square.

Once there were other Australians, they occupied this land for fifty thousand years and kept it intact by observing the ecology and diversity of its landscapes, but happily they are just a footnote in the glorious history of Australia. Since settlement we have systematically erased them as people, and we’re still at it ensuring they are pilloried, imprisoned and impoverished. And it makes us proud, Such is the burden of civilising. There is no day to commemorate their defeat as they weren’t really a country in the first place. And besides they were savages. And some of them, ‘trouble makers’ can’t get over it. That’s because they’re underserving, and wont be in line for Australia Day Honours, which recognises truly great Australians for just doing their jobs. They’re anointed by Her Majesty the Queen. Who doesn’t live here either.

Dear reader, if the light pouring out from the ‘P.M for Innovation’ is not bright enough, we give you another installment from Tales of Derring Do, when nothing was impossible and folk dreamed of the potentiality to do anything. And with pluck, perserverence and intestinal fortitude made it happen. Now we just use focus groups to guide middle management.

Wapiti’s over Williamstown Oil on Canvas signed 1940

Baden and his ” boys”

The Westland Wapiti was absolutely the “greatest thing” in land based light bomber and torpedo aircraft when it was first trialled in 1928. With an upgraded Bristol Perseus sleeve-valve engine it developed upwards of 620 horsepower. It could fly at a sustained level at some fifteen thousand feet for up to eight hours, had a range of over 800 miles and could be re-fuelled and back in the air within minutes. It was also easy to service, partly constructed from surplus DH9A parts. The Wapiti held an irresistible appeal for a country short on manufacturing and technological expertise. It could be repaired or serviced by any qualified bush mechanic. In fact it was so versatile and the parts so interchangeable that a troop of boy scouts could be trained to service the aircraft. And in the dire days of the Great Depression two entire squadrons were requisitioned, repaired and serviced by none other than dedicated troops of boy scouts who were nicknamed ‘Baden’s, Fly Boys’, or the simple acronym, BPBB, or ‘Baden Powell’s Bum Boys’. ‘Bum-Boy’ being slang for refueller and general Technician.

Smudge Gudgeon proudly displays his prized Racing Vulture “Damocles” at the Intercolonial scouts Jamboree. Somers 1934.

Such was the success of the servicing of the Wapiti squadrons, and such the utilitarian nature of parts, that many boy scouts graduated to flying corps stage after having completed pervious training in gliders or fruit boxes converted to Wapiti scale. Boys were able to dis-assemble a Wapiti engine blind-folded within minutes and incredibly, with the aid of a pocket compass and a water diviner, were able to adjust the highly advanced instrumentation to the finest degree. In less than a few years the scouts had made refinements to the original air ministry specification and developed a series of hybrid Wapiti’s. The first the ‘Wapiti Watusi’, possessed through modified ailerons, a short take off and landing capability. In one highly publicised encounter a Wapiti Watusi piloted by Sixer, Smudge Gudgeon landed on a cricket pitch, alighted just in time to hit a six over the covers and win a match. In another celebrated occasion another Wapiti Watusi flew low enough against a strong headwind, to rescue the entire crew of an “Head of the River “ racing eight that had been sucked out the heads and into Bass Strait. And in another occasion, a highly modified Wapiti, nicknamed the ‘Tahiti Wapiti’, due to the raffia anti dust curtains adjacent the wheel spats delivered the first ever “Scouting for Boys” compendium to an isolated and ice bound scout troop stranded on a glacier on Mount Cook in New Zealand. Tragically, the majority of the scouts succumbed to exhaustion and perished. The sole remaining scout, appearing, well fed, used the compendium for cooking purposes and as a Queen’s Scout was elevated to the position of Chief Scout.

Scouts Patrol leader Lance ‘Spuddo’ Cornstalk and his companions hamming it up before the Williamstown excercise. Port Melbourne 1940.

This scene illustrates the fly-over of No 3 Wapiti squadron over Williamstown in the early months of World War Two. During the so called ‘Phoney War’, the Wapitis were modified to carry practise bombs. And in a so called mock attack on shipping at the Williamstown Dockyard, released their bombs upon the assembled vessels. Due to wartime austerity, the bombs were indeed surplus footballs donated by T.W Sherrin, manufacturers of league footballs. Unknown to the Wapiti crews, who filled them with nitro glycerine for effect, it was an unexpected surprise when the glycerine filled footballs bounced back from the decks of the surface ships. In what became the first ever reverse “Bounce bomb” fatality , all three aircraft were destroyed, and the Wapiti was retired form frontline service.

Only one remains and is kept by the Victorian Scouting movement as a courier plane to deliver new editions of ‘Scouting for Boys’ to new recruits in New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga and Thursday Island where top quality paper is still prized for its cooking potential and utility.

Huge crowds gather for Donald’s inauguration

Dear reader, these are complex and exciting times. The general consensus is that this is as bad as it can get. The sense of deep doom is not mitigated in any shape, manner or form by the brilliance of Malcolm Turnbull master of innovation, the ideas boom and thought bubbles. The nadir is nigh, and try as we might, the news from the U.S is worse than you could ever believe. In the words of the grand master, Rupert himself, ‘with FAKE NEWS it’s only gonna get a lot worser’.

‘Best Prime Minister EVER’, Sky News

But do not despair, we implore you not to despair because a new presidency takes a while to settle in. Give Donald a go! And please understand that the cogs of government move very slowly indeed. You may have felt that Trump was an ignorant bellicose pompous egomaniacal bastard with a messianic tendency to believe his own rot, but this is entirely wrong. The press and elites would have you believe this. And though he blames the CIA, the FBI and just about everyone else in big bad government, they’re doing their darnedest to keep a lid on Donald’s off-hand remarks and restore a semblance of decency. A decency that us clean living folks can appreciate. Are you confused? Don’t be.

Take his inaugural speech for instance. What we heard, and via carefully edited texts were leaked to us by the untrustworthy other media, (all media not currently owned by Rupert) is that Donald said he’d make America great. He said that if people didn’t see his vision they were all a bunch of sissies. And those Mexicans lucky enough to take a peek will soon be doing it beyond a big bold fence. He also had a bold initiative to make workers happy and via the ‘trickle down effect’ give workers now unemployed and disposed of as the detritus, rust buckets and rustbelts hope. Donald speaks of a new era. And you’d better believe it…

Alleged photgraph of empty mall during that other Presidents inauguration.

And guess what, some people got upset about that! Worse still, some doubted that more people than ever before turned up to see Donald crowned. Some kill-joys used photos to try and prove that more people turned up to see Obama. But they’re all wrong. Donald, they call him ‘The Don’ always plays a straight bat and though he never had an average of 99,.9 there is one thing he does know and all you Springsteens’, Madonna’s and Clinton’s have got it wrong. Donald is a straight talker, and the CIA and FBI god bless em, saved Don a heap of trouble by coding his speech. That’s right, a double presented at the inauguration, and Donald had him lip sync every word. And more than that, the original Donald speech was edited and re-voiced by a CIA operative…Not since Hillary ‘mis- spoke’ have we seen such subterfuge at work.

This is what really happened.

Last time a leader with real conviction got a city all to HIMSELF!

Donald opened his inauguration with, and this is the real speech; ‘My penis is HUGE. they didn’t call me the Graf Zeppelin at school for nothing. And I’ve gotta tell you bill Clintons’ was just a weener. And there’s a lot of women out there can vouchsafe that I’m the biggest pork swordsman that ever strode the Capitol. My balls are the size of footballs, and sometimes Melania needs a wheelbarrow just to get me off her. Yep I’m satisfied and i know the Chinese weakness, they’re not big like me, and Obama couldn’t shine a candle to me. That’s why I’m the president, the numero uno and you better believe it’.

And this was re-coded by the CIA to read thus:, ‘I’m telling you that there are more people at my inauguration than ever went and saw Moses part the red sea, as a matter of fact more than ever saw anyfing in Washington, and the crowd of my inauguration makes Nuremberg look like a picnic. My god my inauguration is big, and all those photos of the other presidents are fakes. My press secretary will tell you that what you see in front of you is one goddam lie. Only Rupert and his cronies tell us how it really is. And he should know cos Wendy and Jerry can tell you it takes a big man to lead a big country. And I’m BIG!!! I’ve got what it takes, I’m really something…

That’s what the kerfuffle is really about. Proof perfect that the CIA are looking after Donald. And Donald, imperious and impenetrable won the day.

Progress at the ABC.

Michelle, demonstrates benefits of cuts to leftist Bolshevist Arts programming at World Economic Forum.

Dear reader we are delighted with the recent axing of all but one of the music shows on Radio National. To be quite fair they were all rotten. And in case you hadn’t noticed most of the music played on the “ Inside Sleeve”, ‘The Planet’ and the other shows which were too banal to remember were all a bit left-leaning.

Little Richard. Clear evidence of “Gay- psycho-kinetic thought transference impulse waves’ in conditioning susceptible Australians to evil.

‘They were encouraging, by stealth the inculcation of leftist tendencies in the impressionable youth of Australia’. Though it has been recorded that the mean listening age of ABC Listeners is 95, there is a tendency (proven by the Windshuttle institute’s recent finding), that even radicalised nonagenarians can have a deleterious effect upon the ‘established order of things’. The established order as defined by senator Malcolm Roberts is the sum particles of acoustic aural sound waves and their effect upon the human soul. These waves (though undetected by NASA , CSIRO and other defunded agencies) “really do exist” and as proof Professor Roberts cited that left- leaning kineto-psychic-transeference – impulse waves had impacted also upon sexual preferences of Radio National listeners. “Thus’, (his own words) ‘creating a pronounced and remarkable Blip in those surveyed in nursing homes across Australia, of increased and palpable LGBTI tendencies’.

The CEO of the ABC Michelle Guthrie rationalised the impact of the cuts to contemporary music as ‘intuitive’ and based upon ‘worlds best practice’. Asked what would be programmed to fill the gap left by leftist Bolshevist music thought propaganda? Michelle replied enthusiastically, ‘there’s folk music, elevator music and Musak!. And as further evidence of the innovation revolution these music genres, would be programmed on constant rotation’. Michelle also remarked; ‘that at last something would be done to demonstrate balance’, in keeping with the decision to hand over all programming news, and reportage to Murdoch executives.

Lucky Oceans dumped. He’ll have to leave the ” lucky country” and go back to where he came from.

‘It has long been felt that the ABC neglected significant music of true value. The full song cycle of anything ever written by Andrew Lloyd Weber, Benjamin Britten, Percy Grainger and Mike Brady, ( of “Up Yours Cazaly’ fame) will be at the forefront of our desire to assert traditional values. With this transition music will be accountable and demonstrate progressive thought in moulding the impressionable and open minds of young Australians, and thus truly reflect the integrity of the Innovation revolution.

‘And besides, the music shows were boring, and though i only listen to the odd bit of opera there was never enough recognition paid to Andrew Lloyd Webber. And never once did i hear anything from ‘Cats’.

Indeed the silence will be profound, and dear reader, just in case you are depressed by deletion of the happiness index from ABC programming we give you this snippet from Cecil who en route, (no pun intended) suggests where the synthesis of music comfort and travel are as one.

A gem. From Cecil’s Travel Diary

Ira Maine Reprised

Stormy weather.

Honouring the dead season,
Lilies bow, unbroken,
Flashlit in the glass.
The wind in the windows
Of the harp-strung house
Violas of sound.

Awkward with ceremony,
Thunder, club-foot, stumbles,
Heart hammering the house.
A wild, abandoned God
Conducting old grievance
Down the trombone gutters.

Inchoate, atavistic,
Old blood keens the senses,
The buckshot panes jump.
We, in the heartstrung house,
The orchestral house,
Hold hands against Eternity.

IRA MAINE. May 2013

Today’s dispatch is Yurntumu.  Originally dispatched on 10 November  2015

Hi friends,

Often when asked how long I’ve lived in Yuendumu and I answer 43 years, I get a surprised reaction. I detect thought bubbles “he must be fucking mad”, or occasionally “how interesting”.

The fact that all several hundred people over 44 years old that have lived here all their lives can beat that, isn’t part of the thought process. The ‘them and us’ paradigm kicks in and indeed there are no white-fellows (other than Wendy) that have been here that long.

The comment “you must like it here” crops up fairly frequently, to which I invariably answer “Yes I do” and depending on who asks it and how it is asked and what mood I’m in, I may expand on that.

One of Yuendumu’s main attractions to Wendy and I is that you get to meet and interact with many interesting and worthwhile people, not least the Warlpiri locals.

One such interesting and worthwhile person was Japanangka Langdon whose funeral is being held in Yuendumu next Saturday. Perry died in Darwin hours after being locked up under the

NT’s “paperless” arrest laws. In 1975 Japanangka worked at Yuendumu School, in the heady optimistic days when so called ‘bilingual education’ had been first introduced to Yuendumu. An example of his work :

Ngangkayikirli

Story by Robin Japanangka Granites.

Illustrated by Perry Japanangka Langdon.

On request I’ll send you a copy of the 18 page booklet from CDU’s ‘Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages’ which includes 9 remarkable drawings by the then 18 year old Perry (2MB)

Other such interesting and worthwhile persons were Richard and Carolyn Green. Richard, Carolyn and their filmmaker friend John Davis died in a helicopter crash in the Watagans National Park (NSW) last Saturday.

Richard and Carolyn first refuelled their helicopter in Yuendumu in 2002. There were to be twelve subsequent visits (one by road). On all occasions Richard and Carolyn showed that admirable quality which is expressed in colloquial Australian as “they had no tickets on themselves”. Curious children and others that came to look at their helicopter were greeted with warmth and friendship. Richard and Carolyn were both interesting and interested.

On one occasion Carolyn fell in love with a small dog at Yuendumu airstrip. Subsequently through Warlukurlangu Artists adoption of Millie was arranged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6AZNywvF-s

Richard and Carolyn were Dispatchees and provided feedback on several occasions. Their commitment to the environment prompted Richard to extract and comment on a paragraph from a Dispatch that he found to his liking:

“When those in authority can convincingly assert that we definitely should do nothing to try and save the planet lest it “hurt the economy”, and large section of the public fail to see that the Emperor has no clothes and lives in a house of cards, the inmates are in charge of the asylum. Like MH370, the plot is lost, but unlike MH370 there is no serious effort to find it.

The cart is firmly placed in front of the horse, and the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions”

Richard and Carolyn never lost the plot.

Richard and Carolyn quickly grasped the extent of the grave injustice that is the forced assimilation and denial of rights affecting Aboriginal Australia.

They were good people, and will be missed by the many people they ‘touched’ on their epic journeys through remote and wild Australia.

Their legacy is an incredibly beautiful collection of photographs. http://www.richardgreen.net.au/pages/text_spread/ and the book “Remote and Wild”

Attached an example of his work. A photo taken in the Yarunganyi Hills just out of Yuendumu in 2010.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
Sin’ auld lang syne.

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

See ya’s

Frank