Dear reader, we left off where our heroes left us, in the lurch as their conveyance, a light rail tram- like shuttle makes its way deep down in the subterranean gloom, beneath the desert sands of Maralinga. 

“Linger in Maralinga?

A little longer to linger, 

Is that the phone to ringa?

if you raise your index finger’ 

Were the poms touched by God on the third day?

So goes the popular dance hall tune by ‘Norm Smith and the Medallists’ in their fabulous 1951 hit, ‘You shine like uranium I’m all aglow over you’, and in a similar quirk of fate, their tram driver Terry has changed track and at long last the tram seemed to be going upwards. To the surface beyond? Who can tell? For Ces and Quent, their search continues, and they philosophise about Christmas, Boxing Day shopping and the eternal message bequeathed by little baby Jesus and his sacrifice so that we should enjoy an unexpected early third day end to the third test. 

The tram continued to rise upwards, for dear reader, and for those attuned to Einsteins theorem of relativity, it seemed to be travelling upwards, 

Ces and Quent continued in their conversation. 

Three wise men

‘So you see Ces, this light up ahead, even though we know were deep down below the surface is a little like the light over Bethlehem, and perhaps were inadvertently the three wise men.  That’s me, and you, and pointing behind Benny-boy. He may be a colossus but he knows how to get a VC and cover himself with glory in shit- hole like Afghanistan. And that’s no mean feat! 

You’re right, but then what does that make Sophie and Terry the tram driver? 

I dunno, functionaries, or perhaps angels’? 

They both looked at Sophie hard. She looked like an angry Christmas pudding or a blue ring octopus on a bad hair day. It was hard to imagine her as anything other tha brutal, tough and Block- like.  But Angel? 

A star over Parliament

‘Even in the dark, the light plays tricks. Weren’t angels heard to sing on that night Mary found out she was up the duff with Jesus?

 I’m not sure.  I think she was up the duff before she got to Bethlehem? I mean even though Joseph was allegedly the dad, he cant have helped but wonder  if Mary hadn’t been out on the town with the lads and got herself into a bit of trouble. I mean if he hadn’t had a go at her how could her condition be explained? And I make this clear, as an un- ordained person with Mary was in the family way. You’d think he’d be a bit sus and wonder if the kid was gonna be a bit different, and perhaps that’s the problem with Mrs Culthorpe?

What do you mean Ces?

Well put it this way you know both sides of the front bench in both parties are now full of religious types?  I mean really god-fearing religious blokes like Barnaby and Tudgey and Christian. Well how could it not be possible that Mrs Culthorpe our tea-lady might not have been immaculately concepted as an Act of God? 

Was Tim Paine’s phone touched by God?

I mean in stands to reason, even Brittany might have been touched by God?

Was Brittany touched by God?

Look she gets magotted, goes to Parliament to recover, (not the best plan) and then wakes up defiled and dishevelled with no bloke within cooee. Even Christian was in WA, and Tudgey and Barnaby were on the job elsewhere.  It stands to reason, that Jesus mightn’t have been a one off? God they say works in mysterious ways, and he could have had a hand in both Mrs Culthorpe and Brittany and whilst he’s at it helped Barnaby get his secretary in the family way also. Aint God meant to be generous?  I mean, if a child is born under a star in Bethlehem and three wise men turn up out of the blue it only stands to reason that the same might happen elsewhere? Remember Quent on the top of Parliament, on that silly tripod thing, hasn’t it got the Australian federation star on it? Looks pretty much lke the one on our chrissy tree?

Could’ve happened to our very own women. Because why else would they be there? Scomo himself who’s in touch with God tells us they’re not really important in the scheme of things, as far as the Coalition is concerned other than to put up an appearance on the floor and look good for the cameras. I mean can you think of an outstanding lady MP on the front bench? Ces was stumped, he was aware of Michaela, and he knew some sheilah was a foreign minister but was confused with the alternating image of Alexander Downer in stilettos and fish nets.

Could the three wise men in our modern era be three wise women? Gina, Sophie and Julie?

He turned the ideas over inside his head, until he felt he needed to nod off. Ces was onto something  it just didn’t stack up and to his thinking there were parallels with their situation, both the role of women in the federal parliament and their fate was inextricably linked. And all roads led back to Sophie. Was she a woman? And with the blue flashing light ahead of them it didn’t make much sense at all. But them, it made a whole lotta sense. This was after all Australia, and that in itself made no sense at all. 

What will happen to our heroes next? Will they unravel this theophysical ball of twine?  Find out in our next episode, “The last gloomy candle in the sepulchre’, or ‘you may illuminate but you may not be enlightened’. 

For a long time Christmas has been an oportunity to promote healthy productes to kiddies

We return to our saga, Ces and Quent on a conveyance to Who knows Where? But all is not lost! Christmas has arrived and with it hope in a new era, redemption and the promise (at the very least)  with Sophie, as a Fair Work Commissioner of a hearing, perhaps even when pushed a slice of plum pudding. But to this moment no plum pudding is forthcoming. Just the plum-pudding-like silhouette of a Fair Work Commissioner hell-bent on global domination. What could happen next? Can you believe this? Believe it or not it’s a compelling subtext to Australia’s courageous efforts to maintain relevance on the global stage with no clear foreign policy than the thing they call ‘AUKUS’!  We take up here we left off…..……

‘I dunno Ces, perhaps we should pinch ourselves, I mean, we set out to find if it were one of Tudgey’s mates with form perhaps Christian or Barnaby who touched up Mrs Culthorpe and here we are weeks later being slotted for a protracted death by Sophie’. 

‘You’ve got something there Ces,  In a sense, like the shibboleth of the Coalition climate policy, a perpetual manifestation of the dark arts of alchemy, hocus-pocus and ‘clean coal’, presented as an illusory, but very real apparition that occurs at a specific moment in time only to disappear again.  As took pace at Glasgow or on the forecourt of parliament when Brittany Higgins tried to suggest that our pollies were only interested in pork-barrelling and pork swords-manship on an industrial scale’. 

‘I dunno Quent, like trying to find out who came up with Robo-debt, you’ll never know. There are some things the citizenry are not entitled to know and you know? Its better they remain ignorant for their own good. It’s like little baby Jesus and immaculate conception. Better to just believe it than wonder how immaculate conception works.  Is that why the Catholic church still pursues abuse survivors over their medical records’?  

Even in wartime Santa proved that efficacy of a smoke-screen to creep up on the unwary Jap or Hun.

‘You’ve got it on one. Not just to besmirch abuse survivors, but to ensure that their private live are used to shame them. Only through Shame and fear can the church maintain its pivotal position. Without it people might question immaculate conception, clean coal and a gas-led recovery’. 

Our two heroes then took time to reflect on the message of Christmas, Goodwill and fellowship to all, but in the the end decided that Christmas was really about presents, and shopping on Boxing Day. 

Ces continued with his introspective insights into what made Sophie tick…

‘Jeez Quent you’re right on so many levels. Perhaps that’s what gives Sophie her irrepressible desire to win. She just accepts all of the above as her destiny. Yep she’s got a destiny that’s manifest, and in the end we’re just ordinary humans. It aint all bad, to be tasered for jay walking, answering back or just smiling inappropriately. It’s good for law and order, and in the end with only a day till Christmas, I think that’s the message bequeathed by little baby Jesus’. 

Craig declined our offer to be the stand-in Santa as he could not provide “working with Children certification’.

It was eerily apt, to arrive at this philosophical conclusion to a miserable dark journey in which even the white bits were black. Buoyed by the completeness of their situation and the irrefutable logic of ‘clean-coal’ and immaculate conception, our heroes had at last found a measure of peace knowing at precisely that moment where they stood in the greater scheme of things. Mere specks to be compartmentalised and slotted according to the edicts of the system. There’s deep comfort in that, and it reassured them that in the end perhaps nothing really mattered. 

Just then the light which had led our conveyance changed colour and then, as if a switch had been pulled started flashing.  The tram convulsed as we sped through and interchange with the points clacking and squeaking to a new setting. We felt the trolley lurch as we changed track, the light now a  vivid blue. We felt for the first time the sense of upward movement.  We’re on the way up whispered Quent, this could be our chance. 

Clive has expressed some interest provided he keeps whatever is left in the sack.

Is it their chance? The last throw of the dice? Is this the spirit of Christmas? And if it is, is it methylated or Cinq ports?  Find our in the next convulsive episode, “Two tracks to one track mind”, or ‘Sophie’s or Hobson’s choice, is not much of a choice’.  

Dear reader, 

Vic Police Gang- tasering a suspected Jay walker. He was later medically euthanised for other citizen crimes, including walking against the red light, smiling in public, and not wearing a face- mask.

With only two days till Christmas we find out heroes Ces and Quent still no further in their quest to find out who defiled our tea-lady Mrs Culthorpe whilst she was working as a parliamentary intern in the nations parliament. With nerves frazzled by a long incarceration under the stewardship of Australia’s most powerful woman (now elected to the board of the Fair Work Commission), Sophie ‘I’ve got your testimonials in both hands’ Mirabella. They are bound on a light rail, deep beneath the desert wastes on a journey to who knows where? If you think this is akin to the Coalitions’ climate policy you’d be wrong, because as we all know like the sanity clause in the Marx brothers ‘Go West’, you’ve gotta believe in Sanity Claus in the first place. 

Old lady being tasered for walking across the road in an area not controlled by zebra crossing or traffic lights.

Imperilled, imprisoned, and disheartened by the fact that all of Victoria’s finest will soon be equipped with tasers to electrocute and stun citizens for jay-walking and language non respecting to the uniform, we know that there is no short fix.  When the police are all equipped to injure, stun and render immobile citizens for processing by the criminal justice system at whim we know that their ordeal may only just be beginning. Hard lines for those determined to seek justice, but comforting still that for those who seek compensation for injustice from august institutions, parliament, the churches and the police should have to fight for their right to be heard. Which is a good thing because it ensures respect for those institutions. And as our old friends Vlad and Xi tell us, ‘you cant have respect without fear’. Its axiomatic, fear keeps the troublemakers in their place. 

So spare  a thought for Tudgey who launched robo-debt and scorn for his former secretary who squealed.  Institutions loathe squealers and troublemakers.  They’re a nuisance and upset  the very foundation of a righteous, and respectable establishment. Without these levers we are doomed to informed conversation and the principles of universal participation and egality. And that’s bad for the triple bottom line, of the three wise men, Jesus, God and gift-bearers who have undeclared assets and the power of tasers. Confused yet? You will be as we return to our saga

Vic Police Children’s crossing supervisory group, (VPCCSG) ready to assess Working with Children certification of Santa.

Ces and Quent, became mesmerised by the shimmering light that glimmered ahead of the conveyance. Quent nudged Ces;  ‘You’d think Ces if it were a firefly it’s  a bit far-fetched down here in a tunnel to who knows where? I mean you’d think there’d be a few more of em, for what would be the point of Fire- flying if there was no other Firefly to Firefly to’?

‘You’ve gotta point there Quent, and if it were a mechanical device, it moves with such singularity, it couldn’t have been invented way back in the fifties when this underground rail network was crafted. Perhaps it’s a drone or even a small pilotless craft? 

New immigration processing facility portal design, (focus groups determined that “arbeit macht frei’ was inappropriate for non german speaking inductees).

Preparations for the St Basils Christmas Party came to a bit of a Dead-End.

Hmmm,  our two heroes reflected upon this astro-physically challenging phenomenon as the little tram they were bound to under the ever watchful eye of Sophie, (MP 40 in hand) and ‘Benny Boy’ Roberts-Smith, arguably Australia’s most noble and decorated soldier sat glumly behind them. Like the brake-man on the Scenic railway at Luna Park, the only difference being, this was not ‘Just for Fun’!

“Whatever it is it just keeps at the same distance, and though we seem to be travelling at a constant speed, were no closer to it! Do you think down here it could be like the proverbial gravitational wave?’, proffered Quent. ‘Suppose’, replied Ces scratching his chin in deep thought, ‘according to Einsteins theorem, down here with no influence of wind, atmospheric disturbance or even tectonic movement it might be just like St Elmos fire, a sort of reflection of ourselves in the shape of charged ions induced to dance upon the rail before us like a ghostly apparition? Like the coalition climate policy, with no rhyme nor reason, but presented to us in the temporal world as something real, when it is just a trick of the eyes and the mind’. 

Is it a trick in the mind? 

Tudgey’s secretary got into huge trouble deservedly for squealing after the Christmas Cocktail function.’ If she’d squealed and jay walked in Victoria she could’ve been tasered’, (Tudgey)

Is it the last trick to be played by our courageous duo? Find out in the next tangentially Yule-tide- ish episode. ‘Santa never made it to the St Basils Christmas party” or….We used to truncheon you and handcuff you, but tasers are much more fun and give zap to any post Christmas Cocktail Party goer who jaywalks without an official exemption”.

First Opium War 1842. locals demonstrate fierce resistance to opening of “Jolly Jack Tar” fast food outlet in Hong Kong. ( ‘Jolly Jacks promised G.F, Bio-dynamic and Vegan sourced foods with traces of Imperialism”

Dear reader we return to the scene of the crime unfolding before our very eyes. No!! It’s not the pork barreling on an Industrial scale into Coalition seats and oily donations greased before the up-coming Federal Election.  It’s back to main game, Ces and Quent, held hostage by Australia’s most powerful woman Sophie, “Is that a knuckleduster in my pocket?” Mirabella. 

Sophie’s got em where it hurts most, deep down beneath the desert wastes of Maralinga, on a train to who knows where, driven by a bloke called Terry with Australia’s most decorated soldier ‘Benny Boy’ Roberts Smith. Are they slotted for oblivion, or just tossing up who takes the place of their defiled Tea-lady Mrs Culthorpe after her stint as a parliamentary intern? With more twists and turns than the Obeid Family’s real estate interests we anticipate a climax or at the very least a puff of smoke! Whatever happens it’s hold onto everything and keep your wits about you… read on…

Australia will be there! Unofficial detatchment of Australian SAS troops (on leave from Afghanistan) defend Imperial honour against pyjama clad Chinese mercenaries. (‘The Pyjama Game’, AWM Official History).

Sophie wanted even more than Money, Power and EVERYTHING! 

Terry was relaying her ambition for global domination with some bloke called Xi and the fact that China was getting ‘uppity’. As a consequence of getting uppity it posed an existential threat that not even Opium could cure. Whichever way you look at it, Australia was gonna spend big on second rate materiel from our greatest ally the U.S. Rather that than do the unthinkable, develop our own distinctive foreign policy, which at the end of the day would be “ UN-AUSTRALIAN”!

Terry continued with his soliloquy about China and why we should be FEARFUL!

H.M.S Brexit demonstrates efficacy of ‘John Bull’s Bully-Beef extract” upon the untried digestive system of Hong Kong natives.

‘Everything’?  ‘Yeah pretty much and that’s why Sophie, like a blowfly to a carcass is drawn to it. And I suppose that’s what got Angus going about the Murray Darling. If we don’t secure our natural assets for members of Angus’s extended family and the rest for Gina and Clive the Chinese are gong to get their filthy hands on it. And the worst bit is they won’t be spending the profits on the Cayman islands, luxury yachts and bolt-holes in London and Paris, but in a place where there’s not even a trickle down effect for real estate agents and hedge fund managers. And that’s in Beijing. If the capital goes to Beijing we’re buggered. Our Capital might as well close down. No trickle down effect. No High- Flyer gaming lounge at CROWN. No Christmas bonus. Not even a dead cat bounce!! 

Chinese diplomacy no match for imperial tartan leggings and monocle, De-rigeur for Foreign office secretaries.

Just then as Terry explained to Ces the intricacy of global power, economics and strategic assets, the tram, (because for all intents and purposes it was a light rail system) illuminated a cat frozen in the headlights just long enough before it was rolled over by the conveyance. Clearly the weight of the vehicle engineered to carry nuclear devices and other valued defence equipment withstood the shock, and there was barely a murmur. 

‘That was a dead cat bounce’, Terry reassured us….’as far as the Australian economy is concerned that’s about as much give we’re gonna get if China has its way’. 

International union of colonial troops sent to stop Chinese from being ” Uppity” Boxer Bebellion 1901.

For Boxer prisoners, a free hair-cut overseen by Imperial troops

By this stage our concept of time had diminished and in the gloom we had no idea how fast, how far, or to which direction we were going.  It was a real Coalition climate policy vehicle and all awhile we could just see the outline of Sophie sitting behind the driver, and the muzzle of her MP40 cocked and ready. We could see her whispering to the linesman, and as she pointed to the odd protuberance in the gloom we could dimly see ahead a light. ‘Perhaps that’s the way out’? Ces whispered. ‘It’s hard to tell as it doesn’t grow. It just keeps at the same relative illumination, almost as if the light was glowing and moving at the same speed….. with us’…. 

‘Very odd’, Ces murmured, ‘what do you think’?

‘I dunno, it’s either something following us, or leading us on? Could either be a fire-fly or perhaps another tram’? 

Sophie and the linesman had noticed it and from Ben, no reaction. 

Imperial Japanese Army sets up first fast food outlet Nanjing 1937. The locals are desperate to get a franchise.

Is this the fork in the road? Or the turntable to another destiny? Find out in the next rail-ish episode, “ ‘Two tracks to Tango Foxtrot’ or “ A signal box is not all that different to Pandora’s box, and who is Pandora anyway? 

RAAF Taipan Fleet, less than ten years old at only 1.5 billion cheap at twice the price, to be scrapped.

Who was Terry the linesman? 

Enigmatic would be an understatement, Terry was a man of few words. Acting as if by instinct and performing a task that he had under-performed these past seventy years you could tell as he activated the levers, (for this conveyance was all levers and toggle switches) that he had practised the operation of this machine for many years. 

A man of few words, much to Sophie’s liking, we gleaned this much, he liked it down here, and as fragments of his bio from snippets  of dialogue  filled in the blanks we realised the depth of strategic thinking that had taken place deep down almost seventy years ago. Way back to a time when Australia was poised on the cusp of being a ‘Nuclear Super Power’ and the future promised everything from ‘ Nuclear farming” to “ Nuclear families’. 

“Yup” he said phlegmatically, pointing to his long service badge, ‘started this gig in the late summer of 52, been ere ever since’. 

In wet, cloudy, or sunny conditions with a light breeze when the F35’s software package is ‘unstable’, the fighters perform a very valuable function as back-drop to Flag-waving.

‘Unbelievable’ we all sighed, ‘that’s seventy years service, seventy years of doing’?, …. We didn’t like to hurt his feelings, but aside from Sophie we wondered what he’d been doing this last seventy years. 

And even though we thought about it, seventy years it seemed wasn’t long enough. It were as if Ces opined: ‘Like it was yesterday’! And that was eerily true. It was as if the last seventy years had been compressed and we were still fighting or preparing for the same wars, and we’d forgotten about what the last one was really about. 

Terry conversationally filled the gaps in our line of questioning; ‘We think the last one might have been about fascism. About corrupt business and military conglomerates tied to unstoppable State based power over-riding ordinary defenceless nations and democracies and exerting their arbitrary will to plunder and rape them for natural resources’.  

Abrahams tanks at a trifing 1 billion help Queensland farmers clear open forest for cropping.

 “Like East Timor’? Quent enquired of Terry.  

“No,  well,….. yeah sort off, yeah but nah but East Timor was different. That was after we’d let Indonesia rape and plunder  them on our advice and then we thought we’d have a go for saving them. ‘For saving them what’? Quent  enquired. “Well helping take away their oil and gas resources for their own good’. ‘Own good? For the people of East Timor?  No silly, where’ve you been this last seventy years, Terry chuckled, smacking his forehead for emphasis;  ‘For the shareholders of Australian companies’! 

‘You see Quent, we can’t let the Yanks have the gravy all the time, that’s the important part of a strategic alliance. Occasionally as a consequence of paying billions for antiquated second rate materiel from our favourite ally we can help ourselves and deserve to because of the inalienable right’! 

RAN decision to re-float and re-fit AE2 from Sea of Marmara based on sound advice and strategic forward thinking. ‘Cheaper than buidling a new type locally”. ( P. Dutton)

“Inalienable right’? said Quent timorously, (get the joke). Well it’s our inalienable right to do as we please because of the spiritual and unquestioned God- head of Anzackery and the nobility of Gallipoli to never question as a matter of principle either the procurement of weaponry at horrendous cost, or the strategy of minds immeasurably greater than ours who like to dress in khaki, shout orders, and have shiny boots. That’s what civilisation is all about, and that my dear fellow is what China wants to take from us. And that’s why THEY MUST BE STOPPED!

So what… er…. the next war is about is it gonna be all Chinas fault?

In actual fact China is completely responsible for EVERYTHING’! 

‘Everything’? Yup, if there’s another war let’s make one thing perfectly clear. In the final analysis, taking everything into consideration, whichever way you look at it, taking Australia’s national interest if there’s a war beyond all reasonable doubt it’ll be ‘THEY’ who started it. 

And from my analysis of pan-global strategic studies that’s the  only one way you can look at it’! 

Decision by RAN to re-float and retro-fit HMAS Australia 1, is based upon sound advice from the Pentagon. And cheap at only 15 billion

‘Isn’t that a bit presumptive’? Ces enquired tactfully. 

For a taciturn tram-driver Terry had a lot of insights. Perhaps he’d been locked in a think- tank all these years. One thing was true, it proved Australia was wise to  spend up big on tanks that wont work, helicopters that wont fly and submarines that’ll be decades outta date. As a deterrent it gave China the middle finger. And proclaimed we ‘re not scared of your bluster and if you think we don’t care we’ll do a ‘Maginot Line’ on you.  It’s way more emphatic as a signal than diplomacy. And we knew with our leaders that diplomacy with China wouldn’t work and , why? 

A great tradition. RAAF Brewsters ready to defend Malaya from the rampaging Tiger Yamashita.

The truth was in Terry’s reply to Ces about the nub of the problem. 

“China’s in deep trouble for changing the world order! And, (he paused for further emphasis )  for getting  way too UPPITY”!!

The very same aircraft awaiting ‘systems upgrade’ one week later.

Is China too uppity? Where’s Opium as a diplomatic tool when you need it? Is AUKUS all A and not a lot of UKUS? Find out in our next compelling episode, “Materiel well-being aint diplomacy” or ‘Diplomatic Tools can go KRudd!!! very quickly’!  

Scomo knows that the next election will be fought on ‘Family Values’

Dear reader, once again our heroes find themselves just seconds from oblivion.

On blokes ‘YOU CAN TRUST’

 ‘Oblivion’, you say? Is that the Coalitions’ carbon policy? Or just Dutto and his mate Mike talking up “Drums of War” with China? Who’s’ who’s China Plate? And is Barnaby’s stop-over in Washington gonna be the proverbial bull from the China Shop? Who’s gonna run the cheese-shop when Barnaby’s not there? Will it be Matt or perhaps the most articulate of all Billy Bunter’s sidekicks George ‘the member for Manilla’, Christensen? With George on board it’s gonna be a rollicking laugh a minute as conspiracy theorists go into overdrive on what’s afoot. Afoot? Who’s foot? And who’s mouth? If you’re not confused yet it’s just the beginning and whatever our heroes do, they’re in a hard place, with a hard nut.  Either way they’re sweet-talking to the toughest nut on the front bench of the Fair Work Commission. And it’s got em nowhere. Yes folks Sophie, ‘Is that your testimonials in my hand’ Mirabella. We return to our saga, stuck in tunnel way below the desert wastes of Maralinga with Sophie and ‘Benny-Boy’ Roberts Smith. 

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s getting closer? Is this the new nuclear dawn for Australia? Or just the coal lobby going deeper than the usual rorts of kickbacks, deals and mateship clauses underwritten by Angus and his mates in the Cayman islands. Read on….

On Blokes who stand on PRINCIPLE!

Whatever it was we could hear  the sound of steel wheels screeching and grinding to a track long left unused. Seventy  years it had lain dormant till this moment. We could literally feel the layers of dust and rust being ground upon bogies left to reside in a siding.   And now, with new impetus, re-tracing a path that had been unused for over seventy years. Like Lenin on his train back from Berlin, this train, this conveyance, this machinery was bound to a victims future, and the victim was well and truly us!

‘Closer now, it seems like Santa had come to visit us at last’!  Ces whispered;  ‘only 12 days now and I’ll be buggered if we can get out of this scrape I’ll believe in  not Just in Santa Claus but the Easter Bunny! From now on I’ll even believe in the Tooth Fairy if we can get outta this jam”. 

On Blokes who look after their ‘little lady’, even though he might dump her after the ball.

“Jam are you talking? There’ll be  your raspberry jam spread all across these walls if you don’t shut the fuck up’! Sophie snarled as she waved the MP 40 at us, and you could see here every nerve tense with anticipation as to who or what might be driving this steel-wheeled conveyance. Could it be one of Dutto’s operatives looking for unexploded ordinance, to re-direct to a rampaging China? Or just Scomo looking for a photo opp? Not knowing made Sophie even more dangerous. 

Nervous and thinking the worst we took stock of the fact that Sophie, had stopped pointing the machine pistol at  us and had started waving towards the shimmering disc of light. It was as if she were catching a tram, and yet miles from Melbourne, we felt a new wave of anxiety. If it were a tram would it accept Myki, and as we didn’t have an up to date card, could this result in another round of fines and inevitable incarceration?  As citizenry we knew that we were on the wrong side of history and unless we were being fined, corralled and fed to the prison system, we were just an annoyance in which big business had to try and make a profit on. ‘That’s purpose is the business of government these days’ Ces mused. However, there was reassurance in Sophie’s stance, and comfort in knowing that the source of this light, and the sound that reverberated down the ‘rockish’ chamber was a known force and perhaps , not a portent of evil after all. 

‘Family Values’!

Closer still , and beyond the shimmer, we espied the outline of a human form.  So there was life down here? Perhaps the phone call had got through? Deliver us from evil? Couldn’t tell but we hoped to come off one better than Christine Holgate, and if we could do that, we held a glimmer of hope that our postage stamp wouldn’t be marked : ‘return to sender”. 

The little train stopped, and out of it a man dressed in biological warfare suit and PMG emblazoned over his breast pocket in grey overalls said: ‘Hi I’m Terry the linesman, looks like you might need my help’?. The operative was clearly not a figure of consequence, but just a flunkey, who for countless years had waited for his calling. Sophie looked at us with a sneer, ‘Allright then, take us to the end of the line, and I’ll cover all of you with this’. She waved the MP40. Meekly, we obliged her and clambered onto a little trolly with bench seats. The light lit up the gloom all around us, and silently he released the handbrake and enveloped in darkness from behind and light to the forefront we sped on wheels long dormant into the gloom ahead. 

In this wasteland, down here, it would have been like seeing Father Christmas jump over the  moon, but we had got used to anything, and this un just another trick in the puzzle? Or a brand new stratagem from above, from powers unknown and immeasurable designed to lure us in and crack us? Crack us or just leave us for DEAD? 

Blokes you can TRUST who are into ‘Blind Trusts’! (when a surgical truss was all he was after).

Find out in our next nut-cracking suite, “if you see the jaws of life you’re most probably dead’, or ‘most times what goes around comes around except when it doesn’t’. 

The patriachy is full of Noble Men and Noble causes!

Dear reader, another pearl from Frank.

Normally, we’d pad this dispatch with breathlessly irrelevant asides, but as this one hits the mark, we’ll dispense with the preliminaries and let Frank open the proceedings.   He writes….

The Northern Territory has just recorded its first Covid-19 related death.
Great fears are held for NT Aboriginal Communities with low vaccination rates, should the currently fairly contained virus get loose.

In the olden days the Boers had “Unky Kruger”! He knew a way through sticky situations!

In Yuendumu about half the eligible population have had the first vaccination and a quarter have received two doses.
So I had a long conversation with an Indigenous man in Alice Springs. This man just lost his job because he refuses to be vaccinated. Vaccination in the NT is now a mandatory requirement for some job-types. The fact that currently there are no known cases of Covid-19 in Alice Springs makes no difference. Rules are rules and must be obeyed and applied, which axiom pre-dates the pandemic.

The man is highly intelligent and has a sharp understanding of what goes on around him, so I found it hard to reconcile this with his accepting conspiracy theories and social media mis-information re Covid-19. The microchip nonsense and genocidal agendas, the use of Indigenous Australians as guinea pigs and so on. Forced vaccinations of Aboriginal children and armed confinement. Compulsory vaccinations as a “power grab”, as if there is much power left to be grabbed. All stuff fact checked and debunked by such reputable sources as Reuters.

So as my conversation progressed, I came to understand why this man came to such different conclusions to mine. He’d spent a lifetime being lied to and patronized by bureaucrats and politicians and other people from the dominant society. A litany of broken promises and falsehoods had signposted this man’s life. So many times, he’d had to swallow the bitter pill of being told how to live his life “for his own good”, that he isn’t buying the message to get vaccinated “for his own good”.  He’s lived his life with a continuous risk of debilitating illness anyway, so adding one more disease to the list is no big deal. He prefers to have his breadwinning capacity seriously curtailed to once again giving in to pressures to be told what to do.

Barnaby’s Father in law is standing for Parliament! Old Patrician values to keep us PURE from the taint of thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXKu6kForKI

If you believe, pray for us, if you don’t, please cross your fingers and knock on wood for us.

Veel bedankt

Frank

Bob represents the entire top end who get the symbolism behind a ‘bottle o Coke’ and a’Pie n Sauce’! Australian Values’!”The AUSTRALIAN WAY’!

”

PS- 60 copies of My Yuendumu Story left. No.6 bestseller at Red Kangaroo Books.
Volume 2, half written, give it half a year or more to get into print. Might aim for my next birthday in August.’

Dear reader we return to our saga, a train approaches and for our heroes, a last chance, on a platform with no name, to a destination unknown, and no ticket in their hand. Will this be the end?  Or the beginning of the end?  Or the end of the beginning?  Or the preface to the beginning and a footnote directed towards the end? Like the Coalition’s Climate Policy it’s open ended and plausibly meaningless, which ensures its status as a document of our time. Read on…..

Indeed the light was growing from a pallid incandescence to a deeper throbbing glow. Within a moment Sophies Sobrani wasn’t the only object illuminating the gloom. 

‘Yes!!  It’s a fuckin light allright Sophie affirmed, it a train. A fucken train  and this is what I’ve been waiting for. The phone call must have registered without anyone answering, and here, (she pointed towards the light) evidence of just how advanced Australian know-how was in the 50’s. All by itself, valve technology, and seamlessly running as it was designed. A train to take us out of the past and into the Future! But Im afraid for you boys, you’re gonna have to wait behind’. 

With that statement we could hear the click of the safety catch, and the gleaming gun metal of the MP 40 as she pointed squarely at us. 

‘Ah Sophie, if it’s a train might there be people on it? 

Christian as a top debater at St Custards College for Boys. Unaware the he would be promoted from Attorney General to the status of Blind Trust. The highest tier for any Australian politician.Even higher than Cinq Ports!

Ces, ready for such an ultimatum was quick off the mark. Though not as sharp as a fully accredited Fair Work Commissioner, he had done a bit of debating in distant schooldays and with the same precise logic that propelled Christian Porter from Federal Attorney General into the heights of a blind trust, he threw his all in to assuage the gun-happy Sophie. If this was a card game, the pack had been dealt and the roll of the dice was immaterial. But as a last chance, everything rode on the next move and rather than play the victim which would mean certain death, he tried to appeal to what mattered most to Sophie, her image. 

’Ah Sophie, if it’s a train might there be people on it? People who might think it was un-sporting of you to just shoot us here in the spot. Now I know that you work for people high up like Angus and Xi, but if you graduate from your position of Fair Work Commissioner and want to run  the United Nations as Mathias does, or go onto bigger things, you might need to think about your public image.  Even in Australia, people don’t associate, he paused, ‘yet, knocking off opposition just cos they disagree with you. I mean it’s very non-woke, but you’ve gotta think of your image long-term. Is killing us worth it’? 

Sophie was up all night designing these placards. A proud moment in her public life.

We could see Sophie mulling this over, a chance to be rid of the three wise men, and the perhaps if word got out, the consequences. If there were passengers some of them might go soft- cock and dob her in or worse, claim our deaths for themselves and thus get promotion over the top of Sophie. That was the thing that really worried Sophie about getting enough credit for doing things HER own way! That’s why it still rankled her that in years past when Julia tried to carbon tax, Sophie didn’t get credit for her Ditch the Witch placard. She’s been up all night doing it, and felt that it as he most important piece of public service she’d done to date. 

Rather than give a direct reply (she was cunning we could tell) she changed the subject, ‘See that train up there? Quent replied; ‘Might it be a tram or another light rail conveyance’? 

‘Shut up!  Of course its a bloody train’! Sophie replied, ‘but not one you’d be familiar with.  Australian rail, this one is unique, it always comes on time, and we don’t have trouble with the rail unions and you wanna know why?

Why?

Because it’s all entirely automated. 

‘Ditch the Witch’ was a 3.am inspired flash of genius!

And controlled by its driver, a fully automated 1950’s cybernetics industry robot, one we affectionately call…..’Bjelke’!. 

Sophie rightfully claims credit for both poster designs, (now on display at the National Portrait Gallery) as her own.

Yes he’s had a few overhauls but in the end, for this environment nothing beats valves and oiled components for durability and reliability. 1950’s Australian tech, never surpassed. And when they take out the satellites, this valve technology will still perform flawlessly, and keep performing for the next thousand years

‘Charlotte’, who promoted leadership roles for women in Public transports heyday.

A thousand years that sounded eerily familiar.  In her tight leather jacket and knee high jack-boots, the belt and the rake of the officers cap she either looked like a dwarf rendition of ‘Night Porter’, or just a size challenged member of Victoria Police. For those readers not old enough before Christian Porter and his bags of cash, there was a starlet called Charlotte who performed a very sexy S&M routine as a night porter on a train in the olden days where people liked to go to rally’s, salute and generally dress up in uniform and march eastwards. A. Bit like the state of  Victoria, but with more theatre. That’s cos they weren’t, (having fun in public places) banned as in Victoria. 

The dim, dark dungeon like cavern became suffused with a glow.  The glow that only an incandescent bulb could give, like the fog lamps on an old Bentley or the sulphurous glow that French cars used to have before the euro squashed the colour of national characteristics under the dun- coloured miasma of standardisation. It was warm, and redolent of hope, whatever it was. A train, a conveyance, a monorail, an articulated trolley-bus, its warmth and shimmering progress was redolent of hope, and with all the despair of Sophies monologues we had reason to hope. For without hope, (akin to the Coalitions Australian Way climate policy”) we mere mere chattels.

‘What is this light from yonder’? Sophie ghasped. (Quent saw his opportunity in celebration of AUKUS) ‘Oh  say….. Can you see? By the dawns early light”? 

Charlotte talks to Mike Paluzzo (Border Force)  about maintaining punctuality and character checks on enemy aliens and untrustworthy citizens who are caught travelling without a valid Myki

‘Is Dawn Fraser with us’? Quent quipped, ‘I had no idea there was a swimming carnival on’? 

Are Ces and Quent off for a swim? Hard to find a public pool in the outback but is that all on Sophie’s mind? Find out in the next absorbing episode, ‘Sophie’s train might have blood on the tracks’, or ‘Choo Choo and it’ll make life easier to swallow’.