Saturday, November 14, 2009

3am

Eminem's song 3am deals with the darker side of life. At his very hours I am also dealing some of the more troubling aspects of my personality.

Over the previous three weeks, as I become more adept at freelance work and the inclination to wear a suit and tie in an office job slowly but unquestionably dissipates, my body clock is adopting a new, rigorous and unsocial rhythm, allowing me to think most lucidly and work more productively at hours which are simply, well, wrong.

I hesitate to say this without a medical opinion, but I feel insomnia is becoming a new partner in my life. Since I've always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise-and-consume-lot-of-caffeine kinda guy, the frustration I feel at remaining alert at deeply nocturnal hours is real, disturbing, and hopefully not demonstrable of new life-long habits.

My need to be awake during the same hours the sun's rays hit my side of the planet has been a constant, unmoving feature of my life until now. Apart from a brief stint as thesis-writing student way back before Twitter and non-carbonated energy soft drinks, sleep has always come to me at the same time at the late night news. In fact, it's because of Channel 9 programming that my mother was able to establish my sleep routines as an adolescent.

Where most youth railed against their parents at the thought of getting under the bedsheets when the sun was still on day shift, Australian television programs, and more likely, the personalities fronting them, induce so much rage within me that the safest outcome was to remove me from the living room, out of harm's way and far from the mental pollution emanating from the screen. A Current Affair is like Stilnox, though perhaps a poor analogy as I became exhausted after first shouting insults at the screen.

Eminem likens, or imagines himself a serial killer in his 3am track. I often imagine myself a serial killer when watching Australian television, whether at 3am or not. It's just that is actually is that time at the moment, I'm not watching television, but I still want to main a TV presenter.

Life's funny like that. I can't sleep, not a televsion in sight, and yet I still want to kill a TV presenter. Insomnia is not going to be a benficial addition to my lifestyle.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Guidos: Men who like to groom and preen.




You Tube is both a rich source of information and provider of humour.

Today, after half an hour of diversion surfing, I stumbled across this. The creature in the video is known as a guido, latterly applied to ridiculous, muscle-bound, steroid-munching people with a penchant for tight-fitting clothing and a culture based around the fierce application of artificial tanning solution, hair gel and hair removal cream. Apparently the species predominates in New Jersey, USA.

I've just come back from the beach. I love living at the beach, provided I don't spend too much time there at the weekend. Bad thoughts ensue.

You see, my neighbourhood increasingly attracts an Australian incarnation of the American guido, yet the phenomenon stills lacks a name. If a decade ago this look was found almost exclusively within the confines of the Australian-Lebanese community, today the obsession with deformed musculature, eyebrow tweezers and latent homosexuality is reaching epidemic levels and possesses little in common with it's Middle East heritage, as can now be witnessed after spreading successfully though citizens of Anglo-Celtic and Mediterranean origin. There is a growing number of eyewitness report that suggest we'll soon see this trend emerging in males Australians with East-Asian heritage. The Indian community remains immune to further mutations of this phenomenon since guido-ism appears deeply ingrained in middle class Indian society for a number of decades. Just look at any male Bollywood star.

I have to ask. What is it that makes a heterosexual make devote so much of his time to the pursuit of vanity? Why is it that males have bought into the formerly and specifically female domain of wanton self-adulation? Since the trend of spending hours in front of the mirror with pomades, unguents and ointments has previously been the realm of the stupider of the female species, why is it that males are happily risking the jeers and chiding of people like myself, wallowing in a pool of cleansing mudpacks and exfoliating dermabrasions?

My beach is being ruined by these people; walking themselves, their colossal biceps and stretched-Lycra white singlets up and down the promenade, taking up the space that should rightly be reserved for normal people.

And what is it with these tattoos? I have a theory that, in celebration of his ten and twelfth birthday, every one of the species receives respectively, a hair trimmer set permanently at number one, and a gift voucher redeemable for a hideous ink stain based loosely on 70s wallpaper designs? What is with all those swirls?

Frankly, I'm too old for this. I want the families, the dogs and the elderly people in budgie smugglers back. It's time to reclaim the sand and surf, and ask these people gently to get back into their modified cars and drive out West.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Madness sets in.

The picture to your left has nothing to do with this blog entry. Nevertheless, if you remove the inane smile, replacing it with the expression of a man filled with a special, growing and increasing hatred of celebrities, then you'll form a better image of who I really am.

Nothing special happened today. However, I did spent twelve hours in front of a computer and drink eight cups of percolated coffee.

Since I made the decision to abandon the business world, throw in the suit and tie and lead the adventure-filled life of a footloose, full-time, freelance sub-editor, I've noticed two distinct phenomena develop.

First, due to the increased amounts of proofreading, reading, editing, writing and periods of time spent staring at on-line and hard-copy text, my blog posts have become more numerous, the writing more voluminous, the spelling and grammar more prone to error. My cafeine intake has soared.

The greater the time devoted to reading, writing and other assorted verbs that describe dealing with masses of text, it is with less care and precision that I apply the same collection of verbs to my own work. This may be the opportune moment to score a syndicated blog with the Sydney Morning Herald.

Aside from the appearance of inaccuracies in my own writing, the second phenomena I've become acutely aware of is money. I have never had less of it in my life, and quite frankly, I've never slept better. If no money lessens my stress levels, then I hope my landlady is excited about this as I am. She often appears anguished.

On another note, I've thought more about my Death to Celebrities game/variety show. It's coming along well and I think I've just about completed the pitch. Australia alone will be able to supply an almost bottomless pit of talentless garbage for the entire first season. I'm planning on a thematic approach for individual episodes. Something along the lines of 'Episode 1: Pointless, unintelligent over made-up slags on commercial TV','Episode 2: Female celebrities whose voice makes me want to remove their larynx', 'Episode 3: People who either are or remind me of Bert Newton and Daryl Somers', and so forth. I have a funny feeling this is a program that might yet be syndicated across the globe.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens, Blue Mountains

Today the lovely Simone and I drove some way from her town of Lawson in the Blue Mountains to visit the Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens. The site is about 1000m above sea level and was established in 1972 to house cooler climate species that would struggle to survive the the warmer climes of the Royal Botanic Gardens situated just east of the city's central business district.

Mount Tomah is just off the Darling Causeway, that leads from the Great Western Highway and we from each side of the road, between the ever-present eucalyptus, we could peer into magnificent ravines, down sheer cliff faces, perhaps viewing areas of the world where human feet have never yet stood.

Though we spent upwards of three hours among the various themed gardens, we still didn't have enough time to amble about the adjoining Lady Nancy Fairfax Gardens, supposedly one of the most easily accessible rain forest walks in the Blue Mountains. That'll be for next time.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A time to rant

Cheers for that beer...

Yeah, well, anyway, I'm sick of this left wing conspiracy to de-industrialise the first world. All this made-up nonsense about climate change. Nothing. The only rising temperature around here is my own after listening to that glib and smug self-righteous claptrap from the media-mafia that is the ABC. A bunch of namby-pamby eastern-suburb dwellers that wouldn't know a day's hard work if they came across it. I've just about had it up to here with those chardonnay-swilling Gucci sunglass-wearing pack of losers in their Muslim-loving neighbourhoods. Christ, woman. Get me another beer.

Anyway, like I'm saying, the whole country's going down the toilet, and it's not just the towel-heads dragging us down proverbial S-bend. These heathen types with their elephant-headed Gods and cooking that stinks to high heaven. You know, my mate Jacko, he's got a bunch of them living next door, slaughtering sheep all hours of the day and night and rolling about on rugs fifteen times a day, bobbing their heads up and down and wailing some unfathomable drivel. Not only that, there's thirty of them to a single room, sleeping in their own filth, coming and going and all hours and then complaining to the government every time they don't get exactly what they want. Well, I ask you, where's the justice? Max tripped over an uncovered drain hole in the middle of the street last year and the way home from the pub. And d'ya think he got a cent in compo? Nothing. These bloody so-called international students come pouring in through our borders, filling up our schools and universities and keeping our own out, and then whingeing about everything; so much so that Rudd, the gutless pollie that he is, goes begging to India's number one towel-head to be forgiveness.

Still, like the wife says, without them we'd still be on meat and three veg five nights a week. I'm quite ok with them running the odd curry diner, but I'm not happy having a doctor who acts like he knows more about the side-effects of binge-drinking than I do - especially when Ekim, well, that's what he says he's called - has never touched a drop in his life. What kind of man is that, I ask myself?

So, like I was saying, Maz tripped up and injured himself and then smacked his Chinko wife about about a bit when he got home. The ungrateful visa-thief that she is packed her bags and knicked off at the next opportunity. and now Max's in front of some judge who wants him to pay compo to her, plus go on some anger management course for the next three months. no doubt a course sin by some do-gooder homo who's got nothing better to do than sit in a room full of blokes and stare. So, no, I'm not happy about current immigration levels. But what can you do. I don't even bother voting anymore 'cos my candidates got a Greek name and you know what that means. I'm over politics, makes me sick to the pit of my stomach. When my folks arrived in in '45 I can tell you they understood what it meant to do hard work and they knew how to assimilate and learn the language. Not that they needed to 'cos of course English had been imported earlier which was just luck, I suppose. They would've learnt Swahili if they'd needed to - it's not the point of my argument anyway.

Mate. Yeah, I'd love anouther schooner. This country has well and truly gone to the dogs. Me own son Nick's hanging about with mates called Ahmet and Bilal and his girl's called Malika. Why the hell can't he just find a nice type called Narelle or Rachelle or Sharon or something who knows how to cook a lamb roast and whose parents drive around in a Ford Falcon?

Monday, November 09, 2009

I consumed too much coffee today. I feel kinda... anxious


As I often do when the world gets me down and I need to stay inside for fear of taking an axe to humanity, I browsed through some of my photos and came across this little number taken in Uchisar, a natural rock citadel and the highest point in the Cappadocia valley.

However, I'm come to the conclusion that I am defintely lacking in dress sense. I don't care for fashion, and would in fact support the Taliban is they collectively rid the world of Karl Lagerfeld and everyone within his two-degrees of separation sphere - can you just imagine a world without vacuous fashion publications and the stupid people who buy them? - though my problem here is that I simply don't even know how to dress myself.

Red hat, maroon shirt, green shorts and orange trainers. This outfit probably attracts a fine in Milan.

I loved Cappadocia.

On another note, I've thought up a new reality show in which the celebrity contestants are actually not eliminated from the program until they are killed. The public will help eliminate and kill the celebrities. I'm just working through the finer details of the project but am planning to send the pitch off to the larger channels soon. I'm thinking Unspeakable Celebrity Torture (a working title) will fill the timeslot after Rove, which I imagine will soon be removed from our screen as people grow to understand that he's just not funny, even if he does constantly chuckle at his own jokes.

Lots of coffee today. Might lay off it tomorrow.

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Cihangir, Istanbul


“But you only just bought milk yesterday.”

“Yeah, I’m eating a lot of cereal at the moment.”

My neighbour Perihan Hanim was disconcerted. “That’s why you’re so thin. And single. You need to eat a proper Turkish breakfast.”

Now, I shouldn’t read much into my daily neighbourly chatter with the apartment block doyen, who tutted and smiled wryly in equal measure as I wedged open the building’s security door. George, the apartment building’s dominant male feline, lounged languidly on Perihan’s kitchen window ledge, eyeing me with suspicion. No doubt he’d later climb the balconies and terrorise my cats into forgoing a portion of the sustenance I’d dished out for them.

“Eat more sucuk. You’re too thin.” I promised Perihan that I’d increase my mid-morning intake of sausage and even include boiled egg, hopefully easing her concern about my inadequate dietary habits and too-svelte frame.

As I reached the second floor common deck I realised I’d forgotten to call in my cats from the neighbouring mosque garden. Awoken from their afternoon slumber among the graves in the small cemetery, Shish and Kebap sneaked furtively through the gate and made their way from the grounds of Cihangir mosque, distancing themselves from George’s filthy temper and violent claws.

The Cihangir mosque have given its name to one of Istanbul’s most cosmopolitan neighbourhoods, possessing a hazy boundary incorporating all or parts of the Purtelaş Hasan Efendi, Kurtuluş, Gümüşssuyu and Çukurcuma neighbourhoods. The existing building was constructed in the mid-19th century after the original structure went up in flames. Three centuries previously, the area was a forested hunting ground belonging to the Ottoman royalty during the time of Suleiman the Magnificent.

Suleiman, attributed magnificent in the West, he was known to Turks as Suleiman the Lawmaker. Capturing vast swathes of land that increased both the length and breadth of the Ottoman boundaries, the Sultan was responsible for the empire’s golden age, enacting fiscal legislation and instituting social and educational reform. The skyline of minarets and domes visible from Cihangir mosque’s garden is due to Suleiman; a patron of culture and the arts, it was he who gave the architect Sinan a blank slate on which to create the most wondrous of Ottoman edifices.

Twenty-first century women’s’ magazine writers would have loved Suleiman, or more specifically, the sultan’s wife Hurrem Sultan, since by all accounts she was quite taken to spreading malicious, unfounded gossip and thrived on intrigue, stratagem, plots and the peddling of influence, rather similar to the sluttish whores who today riddle the women’s publication industry the world over.

So Suleiman married a girl from the school of hard knocks, some pointless Ruthenian tart who had managed to get herself into the harem and succeeded in capturing the lingering glances of the Ottoman monarch. Like Beckham after him, Suleiman failed to realise his paramour was a nothing more than a talentless wench who looked good in clothes, and he married her. Roxelana, as this devious, treacherous slapper is known to history, became the envy of the social A-set and possibly set the standard for unintelligent women the world over for centuries to come, ensuring that six hundred years later that we live in a society that celebrates back-stabbing and self-pimping on a scale not seen since the mythical times of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Roxelana was not wife numero uno. However, she did give birth to three of the sultan’s four male progeny who managed to survive well into adulthood. This of course fuelled her desire to underwrite her bloodline’s future by placing one of her offspring on the throne. Since succession in the Ottoman Empire was by anyone’s reckoning a tale of bloodlust and stupidity that allows us to see Jackie Collin’s novels in the tradition of Zola, Roxelana had her work cut out.

A wannabe sultan needed to ensure his other brothers died quickly, silently, and in the most barbaric way possible. Daughters of a sultan had no need to fret, since it would be centuries before women counted as anything more than chattels. Any male within a sniff of the royal seat risked garrotte or death by strangulation.

Mustafa was being primed as inheritor to the Empire, and was (unluckily for him) the only son not of Roxelana’s blood. Her lads, Selim, Beyazid and Jihangir, were somewhere in line, living life with the incrementally increasing fear that, sooner or later, Mustafa would send in the eunuchs for a fatal demonstration of knot-tying.

History is replete with tales of deceit and treachery, not unlike conversations in the marquee on race cup day. Roxelana swept into action. Mustafa was not to become sutlan. Centuries-old dirt informs us that she conspired with the Pasha to work her evil, leaving the Sultan festering over a story that Mustafa was looking to become sovereign of the imperial house a little earlier than Suleiman would have liked.

In accordance with tradition, and like so many people so close and yet so far from absolute power, Mustafa managed to get himself strangled by the aforesaid eunuchs at some point in time, clearing the way for a son of Roxelana to become sultan. She must have breathed a massive sigh of well-deserved relief.

It is said that Jihangir died of grief over the loss of his half-brother, though being in absolute fear of your life probably didn’t do much for his blood pressure and sleep patterns. When Jihangir passed away two months aftr Mustafa's murder, Roxelana probably knew she was in some way directly responsible for her own son’s death too. But just like the senior editors of women’s magazines, the Sultan's worse half also felt she was in no way accountable for the grief and destruction she wreaked upon others. That’s life in the public sphere. Build a bridge. Get over it. Move on. Whatever.

Entirely unsure what Suleiman felt, losing two sons in the times it takes to publish eight editions of New Idea is undoubtedly tragic, so like all good patriarchs possessing the will, the means and the ability to get whatever he wanted under pain of death. he commissioned an edifice. Sinan, the architect whose Armenian heritage seems lost today on the Republic, designed a wooden mosque to sit on a hill slope in the hunting grounds, affording a view over the Bosphorus that takes in from the Prince’s Islands to Seraglio Point.

Today the forest and wooden mosque have been replaced with Istanbul’s love of concrete. Jihangir mosque, no longer among trees, became Cihangir under Ataturk’s language reforms and namesake of the neighbourhood. Cihangir is the heart of Istanbul, and my cats love it.

Me too. Though naturally, all these centuries after Roxelana, I’m still wary of women who appear to know too much. My inner voice tells me that Perihan is acquainted with my comings and goings at every hour of the day and night. It’s not just my milk purchases that capture her attention. Since those who ignore history are bound to repeat it, I tread carefully with my neighbour. You just never know what a Turkish woman might be planning. So I buy her chocolate often, to stay in favour.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Son of a Lion

Somewhere between Peshawar and Gilgit, in the Northwest Frontier Province

I have just watched a very pleasant film.

Son of a Lion is set in the North West Frontier Provinces of Pakistan, principally in the towns of Darra Adam Khel and Peshawar. The former is a town which lives almost completely from the earning of the production and selling of weaponry, a fact mentioned any time the town's name appears.

There is much kudos in the backpacking world for having visited the Darra Adam Khel, though it's about as dangerous as getting on a bus with a lot of hirsute men in Peshawar and then alighting with them an hour or so later. Sure, it has the look and feel of a frontier town, but the Pakistanis are so friendly that it's not really a hair-raising experience.

Regardless of this, the film is a lovely peek into the lives of the Pashtun people in a distinctly beautiful region of the world. What is admirable about this production is that it happened. I cannot fathom the organisational skills needed to produce such a film, so from that perspective I think the film crew achieved a real success.

I imagine that there are few films available to Westerners that allow us insight into the lives of people in this region of the world. For that reason alone the film is worth viewing, its narrative as slow-paced and languid as the daily life of the people it captures. I suppose I watched it more as a documentary than a film; my interest was held by memories that came flooding back of one of the most spectacular parts of my travels in one of the planet’s most misunderstood regions.

The film's worth a look if you have the opportunity.

Friday, November 06, 2009

The Walls of Istanbul

Once, every town-dweller was born and lived and died within city walls. Paris, London, Rome, every historic city of significant importance built and maintained enormous, strong and resilient stone fortifications, which protected its inhabitants and kept the enemy at bay. Soldiers posted at watchtowers perched high above cobbled streets would be on alert for marauding tribes that might be thinking to conquer a richer, more plentiful society. From the fortified towns of Mughal India to the famously impenetrable citadel of Aleppo, the uncertain and ephemeral nature of peace in eras past meant ubiquitous defensive walls and forts, and in particular the main gate, was the first port of call for foreign traders and dignitaries.

Hangin' with my posse in Balat, Istanbul

To protect his new city of Constantinople from attack by both land and sea, Constantine the Great surrounded the entire prized metropolis with massive defences. Less than a century later construction began again further west, as Emperor Theodosius II needed to enclose to a burgeoning population whose dwellings were already forming hamlets and towns outside Nova Roma, as Constantinople was then known. Once seriously damaged by an earthquake that occurred roughly at the same time Attila the Hun approached with his pillaging armies, the defensive walls were swiftly repaired in a matter of months. Attila tried, but failed to make an impact. The walls stood proud as the last great fortifications of Antiquity, and no army ever broke through.

The walls of Constantinople have not guarded the Byzantine Empire for many a century. Last bastion of the Holy Roman Empire, Byzantium gave way to the early Ottomans, who, before finally conquering Istanbul in 1453, were still unable to breach the Theodosian fortifications. Instead, they laid siege to the diminishing Byzantine power, cutting the city off from its supplies, and literally starving the last of its citizens. Still no-one could breach the city’s defence.

However, since the founding of the modern Turkish Republic last century, rapid population growth has forever relegated the walls, towers and gates to an architectural anachronism. And if sections lining the Marmara Sea and the banks of the Golden Horn no longer stand as proud - and indeed have been misused, abused and pulled down in places - they still often serve a function. Where soldiers and Ottoman janissaries replete with ferocious steel armoury may have once hindered your entrance to the city, today you are more likely to encounter an elderly gentleman seated on a small stool, chatting briefly with passers-by and feeding the pigeons. The walls themselves long ago became less a concrete and more an abstract reality, as pragmatic and forward-thinking Ottoman citizens, be it Muslim, Jew, Armenian, Greek or Rom, absorbed the ancient city’s defence system into their own kitchen and bedroom walls.

Today, within the stones that once demarcated the world’s richest and most powerful city between Portugal and China, lay historic Byzantine and Ottoman remnants. For tourists, Aya Sofia, Sultanahmet Camii (aka the Blue Mosque), the Grand Bazaar and the famous Cirağaoğlu Baths are old leftovers and ancient miscellany, along with tombs, Topkapı Palace, and wooden Ottoman houses that range from the dangerously decrepit to those operating as chic, boutique hotels.

Divan Yolu, once a wide, colonnaded thoroughfare dividing public squares and decorated with Greco-Roman statuary, now hosts the light-rail transporting thousands daily in each direction. International visitors pass near-invisible sections of the ancient city walls as they head towards the old Ottoman palace, guidebook in hand. Dowdy women from working class neighbourhoods descend on Eminönü, Istanbul’s largest, most atmospheric and ramshackle market, to purchase Turkish dietary staples, and though they’ve probably lived in the city their entire lives, they remain unaware of the scattered wall fragments protruding here and there.

Within the easternmost portion of the Theodosian walls, probably the most impressive, and certainly among the best-restored portions of their entire length, sprawl two of this city’s most fascinating neighbourhoods: Sulukule and Balat. Unlike Istanbul’s other inner city regions and far removed from the cosmopolitan feel and shopping precincts on the opposite bank of the Golden Horn, these two neighbourhoods make for a stroll quite unlike any other in this town. ‘Belle époque’ facades of the buildings on İstiklal Caddesi, photos taken by almost every tourist, are absent from an area inhabited strictly by traditional Turkish families and one of the world’s oldest Rom communities.

As you pass through an enormous gate in the walls, you leave behind the roaring, unrelenting traffic of the modern city and enter a quieter, calmer way of life. In Sulukule - Water Tower in English - an impromptu assembly of gypsy children will instantly appear, grinning confidently. Everyone is younger than ten. Each girl carries a smaller sibling, each boy a plastic toy gun. Shoddily constructed abodes of vivid, garish colours stretch higgledy -piggledy up and around narrow, twisted lanes that are unsuitable for motorised traffic. Many homes have ingeniously incorporated the old city walls into their structure. Why build anew when the tried-and-tested product sits unused? Sulukule contains an endangered way of life that is disappearing; with plans to rehouse the Rom in generic and unforgiving and unsightly tower blocks already underway, the gentle character of the area is about to change forever.

A little further north and you arrive in Balat, another old world contained completely within the walls. The smell of fresh bread and sickly baklava dominate, and entire streets overflow with children playing football or simply chatting in the middle of the road. In front of the barbershop sits the stereotypical, moustachioed male, idling away the days over tea and simit, the pretzel-like bread ring smothered in sesame seeds. Balat is poor as Sulukule is forgotten, and within these 1500 year-old walls are protected a way of life that will probably not endure.

Whether you favour official government statistics or taxi drivers as your source of information, Istanbul counts among its inhabitants either ten or twenty millions souls. Balat and Sulukule would have once been the outermost district of a prosperous, medieval Byzantium, at a time when it was indeed ‘City of the World’s Desire’. Today, these former outer districts could not be any further inner-city, and the desire of both government and private developers will soon bring in architects of the banal and characterless, as bulldozers reduce the area to a blank slate. The famous walls of Antiquity can no longer protect all within its bounds. However, they will naturally continue to stand, long after the inhabitants of Balat and Sulukule move into their new tower blocks, and are forgotten.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Living alone

It’s a guaranteed behaviour pattern to permanently engrave counterproductive habits.

I haven’t lived alone for an extended period since 1993, when I was completing my Bachelors degree and spending untold hours in front of a blank off-white wall containing three hairline cracks, searching for motivation to finish any number of essays on French language and literature. If I thought I’d won the battle way back then of talking to myself, then I need to think again. Just shy of a six month solo stint in my apartment at the seaside suburb of Coogee, the outcome on the war against my relentless mono-conversational habit is far from clear.

In fact, along with a plethora of undesirable character traits, I am under siege in my abode against the my most malevolent customs; of verbalising the logic of my own fatuous arguments, chastising myself when displeased about my inability to advance in my career, and habitually giving myself a very hard time indeed about procrastinating. Living alone brings out my deepest anxiety, that of going quietly, incrementally, irreversibly non compos mentis. Just like people of faith.

Staring fixedly at my secretly blinking laptop screen for the greater part of the day assures me that all is not well. At times My Dell delivers indeciperable dispatches from the technological ether. It communicates in a language of blips and frozen browsers I fail to understand, try as I might. My phone might ring once, perhaps twice in a space of 24 hours, hardly enough to keep my faltering space within the kingdom of the social animal. I leave the house for a my first coffee sometime before midday, stroll along the beach in search of inspiration to write, then return to the house where I trawl online news services to obtain that sinking feeling that can only come from second-hand eye witness reports and rehashed releases of press agency hacks. I search the entire world to remain up-to-date on current affairs, and yet my physical existence plays out in a space of 15 square metres. Hardly verysensible.com.

I’ve given carte blanche to my unconscious, to nurture and grow my feelings of inadequacy, impotence and sense of underachievement. The resistance to the 9-to-5 workathon is admirable in principle, but the rent is due three days hence and I am sorely lacking in ammunition with which to hold back the landlady.

Somehow the rampant, inextinguishable resource of common sense among the female members of my family is almost absent in the males. I have the beginnings of common sense but I lack practicality and pragmatism. I can’t seem work out how to do what I love and make a living from it.

Still, perhaps it’s therapeutically beneficial to work through these issues on the laptop. I’ve no doubt that is cuts down on shaving time since I definitely spent fewer minute in front of the mirror this morning, barely argued with my reflection, and splashed my chin clean of shaving foam without once doing a Taxi Driver-inspired rant.

I undoubtedly need a solid, interactive social experience. And I’m well-pleased my mates have invited to join them at Quiz Night this evening.

I may just briefly return to the shaving mirror to go over my opening lines of conversation for this evening.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Crucifixes are not a symbol of history, culture and secularism.

The European Court of Human Rights today ruled against the presence of crucifixes in Italian classrooms, stating that such displays violate religious and education freedoms, rejecting Italy’s arguments that the crucifix was a symbol of culture, history and secularism. Nice one.

The facts in Lautsi v. Italy were thus: Referring to a Court of Cassation judgement of 2000 which found the presence of crucifixes in polling stations contrary to the principles of secularism of the State, Ms Lautsi had written to her sons’ school on the matter of the display of crucifixes in classroom. In response, The Ministry of State Education issued a directive to all head teachers recommending that the crucifixes remain where they were.

Following a number of previous decisions regarding religious garments and symbols in the public area of secular nations, the Court unanimously ruled against the Italian state, failing to understand how a symbol associated with Catholicism could serve the educational pluralism that was essential to the preservation of a ‘democratic society’ as that was conceived by the Convention. Further, the Court recommended the State refrain from imposing beliefs in premises where individuals were dependent on it.

Director of the Holy See Press Office, Rev Federico Lombardi, naturally, as only a theologian can, claimed that the cross and crucifix are not solely religious symbols, but additionally represent European humanist values, and that the Court has no jurisdiction to proclaim on such a profoundly Italian matter.

Well, the act of torture that is nailing a living a human to a cross and leaving him there until such time that he expires has never been a symbol of humanism, but rather of humanity at it most brutally cruel, ignorant and intolerant. The Christian deity so loved that the world that He gave us His only son. And did nothing to save him from a violent death.

To remain impassive while His child was murdered in the most barbaric and reprehensible manner is an act that only the unquestioningly idiotic could interpret as paternal, tender loving care. Try that very same act today and see where it lands you. I’d suggest a life-time of reflection in a psychiatric correctional institution. We’ve moved on from Middle East schlock-horror tales as a system of moral guidance.

Secondly, the Reverend is wrong to think this an Italian matter. The ongoing parliamentary inquiry in France on the burqa and, more importantly, the off-again, on-again debate in Turkey about the headscarf in public office show to what point secular values need to be reiterated and be given legal weight against the insidious creep of religious indoctrination. State and religion were long ago forcefully separated so that humanity could drag itself from the ideologies of fear disseminated equally during sermons from pulpit to minbar.

The rhetoric of delusion has not yet been silenced, however, the European Court of Human Rights offers hope that students of Italian state schools might benefit from a little more effective insulation and protection against the ill-wind that hosts the unstoppable, constantly-mutating bacteria of religion.

The Italian State plans to appeal.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

I'm hot.

If you need to discover anything at all regarding time, calculations of time, dates, the movement of planetary objects, calendars, or simply the current weather conditions at Kingsford-Smith Airport in Sydney, http://www.timeanddate.com/ is the place to look.


I only had to step outside this morning to feel the heat, but the website confirmed that it's just hit 38 degrees this afternoon.
So I'm posting this photograph to remind me of a time I really felt rather cool. And relaxed.

After two days in Gilgit, a town in the far northwest of Pakistan, for the umpteenth time I had squeezed into a minivan for an uncomfortable journey to the Kalash Valley, home to a non-Muslim culture with polytheistic beliefs.

The accumulated dust and grime that built up in every possible crevice of my achingly tired body was soon washed away in the torrent of water that came direct from the Hindu Kush, a miniature waterfall among the gentle fields of corn and sunflowers, its waters so bitingly cold that I suffered cramp when I eventually decided to stand up again.

My smile is genuine. The northern districts of Pakistan boast the some of the most spectacular and dramatic scenery I'll ever witness.

However, it doesn't resemble other dramatic scenes instigated in murderous fashion by the forces of evil that exist within Pakistan. The almost-daily tragedies now visiting this beautiful region are making their insidious way closer and closer to the capital, Islamabad.

Yesterday's bombing of the Shalimar hotel and shopping complex in Rawalpindi that claimed 35 lives is a stark reminder to the military forces, both Pakistani and international, that there must be a solid and continued undertaking to rid the world of the scourge of terrorism.

There is no longer a need instill fear in a other-worldly inferno of fire and brimstone when certain groups of militant religious extremists have created a highly successful version of Hell here on Earth, terrorising and killing innocent civilians with absolutely no respect for human life.

The trauma inflicted upon the people of Pakistan is something beyond the imagination of most of us, a perpetual series of terrible and horrific events that will leave the nation in a state of shock. That the Pakistani offensive has been able to gain a reputed Taliban stronghold of Kaniguram in South Waziristan yesterday is perhaps a welcome piece of news.

I don't want extremism, I reject fundamentalism, I condemn proselytising and I think it's time to abandon religion - it has no place in this world. If only an ideology could wash over on the planet and clean away the poisonous filth we have created in our own minds. I think there's a double-action cleaning agent that will admirably to the job. It's the combination of science and atheism.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Sculpture by the Sea 2009

Scuplture by the Sea is in it's 13th season this year and runs to 15 November.

Against the gorgeous backdrop Sydney's eastern seaboard, sculptures large and small crowd the cragged landscape with form, texture, light and colour.

With over a hundred creations lurking in crevices, under and over precipices, standing on concrete, stone and sands, the outdoor gallery invites the imagination and brings together works from scultpors of diverse backgrounds and cultures.

However, I've had to post the photographs on to my flickr account, since for some reason blogspot allows me only one image per post before it decides to completely spit the dummy.

heliocidaris tuberculata, by Kelly Ann Lees

Halal. In praise of religious slaughter.

I think I might like this woman.


According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Princess Alia bint al-Hussein of Jordan, sister of the current monarch, has written to Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, questioning the validity of standards employed in the abattoirs to provide halal meat for the Middle East export markets.

Notably, she states that "killing without stunning is unnecessary under Islamic principles," and that her opinion is based on extensive talks with Islamic authorities, which I'll assume here are theologian or scholars rather than imams, mad clerics or those claiming to be in some way closer to a non-existent supernatural force because of retarded adherence to a book of captivating, murderous myths.

I'm not quite sure whether, given 21st century technology, the Old Testament deity would have supplied Abraham with a stun gun so Isaac might have suffered a more humane sacrifice at the hands of his other father. but hey, this isn't the the pre-EnlightenmentMiddle East: So what is the Australian government doing by allowing exemptions to federal animal slaughter guidelines to fulfil export contracts?

I commend Her Highness for bringing the Australian public's attention to the plight of such animals, though I reject the necessity to quote any religious authority in order to put forward a logical argument.

Mr Burke, Minister for Agriculture fearlessly affirms: "It is not for [the] Government to adjudicate over these differences, but it is our role within the spectrum of faiths in Australia to promote the most humane practices."

That appears to be the case unless in conflict with fantastical demands of worthless religious garbage. I demand that my government provide the most 'humane' death to all animals slaughtered for human consumption, and assert that religion has no say whatsoever in how these practises are determined.

It is the government's responsibility to ensure this. Religious expertise is not required here because religion has no role to play.

If the majority of Muslim countries accept the practice of stunning animals before slaughter, who exactly are we catering to here? The Saudis? I'd love to know more about these contracts.

Ministry of Agriculture, how would I like my steak? Atheist thanks - and hold the double standards.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Montara Oil Spill and the Kimberley

This photo unsettles me.

Is was taken today, 1 November, over seventy days since the oil began to spew forth. And now the rig uncontollably belches fire and flame.

I possess scant knowledge of the oil and gas industries. I fail to appreciate the differences between sweet light crude and refined black viscous goo. I have know idea why unleaded petrol is better for engines than other fuels, though environmentally aware enough to comprehend humankind's need to move away from our polluting oil-based economies to something remarkably and radically different, before we make the planet unable to support us as a species.

It disturbs me that an oil leak has been belching an estimated 400 to 500 barrels of oil and gas into the Timor Sea. Each and every day since the 21 August this year, when the well head accident occurred on the West Atlas Rig owned by PTTEP Australasia. The thing is, no-one seems too concerned.

Since a barrel holds approximately 160 litres, my reckoning is that about four and a half million litres of crude oil are now failing to mix with the waters off the Kimberley coast, already having entered Indonesian waters. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) most updated release as of 26 October states that, to date, roughly 350,000 litres of oil and gas has been recovered.

PTTEP Australasia has acknowledged that the leak is going to be difficult to plug. A fire on the rig would - I'm guessing - in all likelihood make the undertaking somewhat more troublesome.

I just finished subediting a magazine last night for which one the this editions featured stories is about the Kimberley, one of Australia's last great wildernesses. As to be expected, the photography is mindboggling; of vast, untamed landscape ravaged by water and air over eons. It's remoteness from Industrial Age humankind has kept it pristine even into the 21st century.

Two months ago the oil slick was reported by the AMSA as being 170 kilometres from the coast of Western Australia, and moving closer. How far from shore it is now is impossible to say, since neither the Ministry for the Enviroment, Water, Hertiage and the Arts nor the AMSA has provided recent updates on this issue.

While I have good faith in the serious undertakings by Australian government departments and agencies to bring the leak under control, clean-up the spilled product, care for injured wildlife and monitor the environmental damage in the long-term, I cannot see how this story has failed to attract more media attention.

I worry equally about the apathy of my fellow citizens, the discriminate nature of the media, and the fact that that the story about the Kimberley might need some addenda before the print layout is sent to the press.

Let's hope the leak is plugged and the oil recovered quickly, rather than it being used to lubricate the machine of spin and recrimination, should the spill ever deface Kimberley wilderness.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

The burqa debate continues in France

Several months ago a number of French députés called on Sarkozy’s government to launch a parliamentary enquiry, with a goal to determine the place, if any, that the burqa has in French society. Not so long earlier a Moroccan-born female had been denied French citizenship, on the basis that wearing the head-to-toe all-encompassing Islamic garment put her at severe odds with the values of a fiercely secular society.

The debate on the burqa continues to fan public outcry in the French republic, as the parliamentary enquiry around a subject that hits the core of the French republic: secularism, or laïcité.

France outlawed the wearing of any conspicuous item in the public schooling system in 2004. Education should be secular, and as atheists and humanists have already stated, there is simply no such thing as a Muslim child, a Christian toddler or a Jewish teenager.

Children are indoctrinated first by their parents, and later by official religious teaching. The argument runs: I am a child of Christian parents and I am too young to have made any decision governing my convictions. The argument is without flaw and the lawmakers were judicious in banning religious garment and symbols from the school ground.

Nevertheless, if we put aside woman who are coerced into donning the burqa, which present an altogether alternate set of issues, what about the woman who chooses to do so? Is the French republic so scared of a backwards-looking minority sect that it would introduce legislation to ban it altogether?

There is no place for fear and ignorance in the legislation of the world’s greatest democracies. Prohibition rarely works.

Still, France does have a minority of Salafists, those who follows the pure ways of the earliest descendants of Mohammed. Salafism is the uglier face of ‘them and us’ religion; reactionary, exclusivist and degrading to women. Sects are by name unable to integrate and indeed reject society as a whole. Salafism equates with obscurantism and its spread should be arduously watched for by other nations.

France should not ban the burqa. It should simply take a step back and think about who it is letting into the country. The country with Europe’s largest population of Muslims should acknowledge clearly that the majority of that population are peaceable and originating from northern Africa, where the burqa is equally seen as a sectarian anachronism.

Banning the burqa puts all Muslims in the same pot, when they are clearly as varied as any other faith.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Peshawar

Peshawar is a frontier town, capital of the North West Frontier Provinces (NWFP). The NWFP share much of its western border with the even more syllabic-challengingly named Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a thin strip of terrain nestled among gnarled mountains, and an area over which the Pakistan government holds only nominal control. Peshawar lies close to the fabled Khyber Pass, and the borders of Afghanistan can be reached by car in about one hour.

For readers of newspapers who can no longer follow the almost-daily explosions and attacks ripping apart this part of the world, the latest car bomb three days ago in Peshawar just seems but another event in a long string of lawlessness that undermines Pakistan.

The bomb was shockingly effective. While the dust floats back down onto the street and pavements of Meena Bazaar, there are now over one hundred confirmed casualties and two hundred injured. After a string of attacks in recent weeks as the Pakistani army leads an assault against Taliban militants in the FATA South Waziristan Agency, this city of three million must be living in constant fear.

According to the BBC, Hakimullah Meshud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, the car bomb was the work of US and foreign security agencies. Hilary Clinton, in a speech delivered in Lahore, mentioned the women and child victims of the horrific blast. Regardless of age or gender of the dead, and irrespective of the Meshud’s words, the Taliban has to be removed. No serious secularist, here or in Pakistan, can trust the insane fundamentalist ideology of a savage bunch of cowardly murders.

The Taliban must be eradicated. With or without hard evidence to find the instigators of the Peshawar car bomb, the terror has got to stop. It’s going to be a long haul, and that the American Secretary of State pledging US$ 45 million towards higher education in Pakistan, it’s a very small step in the right direction.

Obama has iterated his desire to strengthen relations with a nation that, strategically, remains of vital importance in the region. Let’s just hope not a rupee of that foreign aid goes into the hand of religious teachers, but to secular learning based on humanist principles. The Taliban must be defeated and in the long struggle to do so it’s important that the opposing side worries less about being on the right side of some supernatural god and more about preserving values common to all of humankind.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

'Cos it's true... I do, I do, I do, I do, I do...

ABBA’s lyrics have resonated in another way since I attended Keysar Trad’s talk on polygamy last month at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas here in Sydney. Arriving sodden at the steps of the Opera House one languid and drizzly Saturday morning, I collected my delegate pass and wandered over to the Studio theatre to hear Mr Trad; first speaker of the festival, former interpreter for the outrageously divisive Sheik Taj El-Din Hilaly, and founder of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia.

Entitled Polygamy and other Islamic values are good for Australia, it is not within the realm of common sense that Mr Trad felt he would gain acolytes on this occasion. Indeed, the Festival’s organisers might have just been cunning in placing him as the first speaker on the first day, since almost anything with Islam in the title is sure to hasten disparagement and denigration in our irreligious, secular and promiscuous society. With the amount of media vitriol previously directed at Mr Trad, he must also have known he’d walk onto that stage a marked man. Unlikely as it was that a middle-class crowd of Sydneysiders would become openly hostile, question time assured a few heated exchanges.

The premise was as follows: In a society that protects all forms of intimate relations amongst consenting adults (excepting incest), why do we criminalise a branch of those legal relations when a person seeks to make a formal commitment? Such relations are only criminalised if one seeks to formalise them, if not, they are perfectly legal whether as boyfriend(s)/girlfriend(s) or de facto or as casual intimacy, they are only crimes if we make the commitment of a formal partnerships.

Regrettably, the proposed evidence for the argument was, putting it diplomatically, inadmissible.

After a significant swathe of precedents originating almost exclusively from scripture, it was put to us that polygamy should not be ridiculed as long as prostitution exists in the West. It’s tedious and tiresome to hear the holy texts quoted, and scant credence can be given to the claim that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Who believes that? And should the early Jews, Christians, Muslims or followers of any other faith have practised polygamy a millennium ago, that is hardly logical reasoning to continue any cultural tradition. As to prostitution, no civilisation worth its mettle has not had sex-industry workers toiling for the greater good alongside its politicians, scholars, scientists and artists.

Metering out anecdote and personal opinion does not constitute a sound method by which to influence and persuade. And for the majority among us, holy texts are anthologies of the fantastical, the fabulous, and the simply untrue.

As for "societies that practise monogamy and clandestine relations", they are demonstrably not, as Mr Trad, put it,"delusional." Monogamy is certainly not a perfect modus operandi for all. It is a manner in which millions of people with different beliefs and values take on, for better or for worse, with or without official sanction of the church, temple or mosque. Besides, a single fertile male and a single fertile female are the minimum ingredients required to procreate; if begetting children was the sole reason for our existence, mathematically two provides less relationship permutations that three, four and more. Further, no proof was offered that infidelity is less present in polygamous than monogamous relations. Why complicate the recipe by adding unwanted complexity into the mixture? Keep it simple.

After attempting to explain the shortcoming for one-on-one liaisons, we learn that Mohammed came upon the solution: polygyny. Quite naturally, the audience must’ve felt duped. Polgyny, the act of a male entering into conjugal relationships with more than one woman, was the only real thing on offer here. Its counteroffer, polyandry, where a woman possesses more than one husband, was not on the agenda. The reason for this? Scripture. More like bollocks. Further, apparently there are medical reasons that women should be disallowed from entering into polygamous relationships. What they might be, well, we weren’t to discover.

There are too many educated, independent and free-thinking women in today’s society to really bother any further with the remainder of Mr Trad’s speech. It was supposed to be a dangerous topic, however, inanity wasn’t what the audience had looked forward to. Well, maybe just a little.

As Mr Trad dug himself a deeper hole with the shovels of illogical anachronism and ancient mythology, he didn’t seem too bothered. Digging a small trench along the way, he even suggested the sexual proclivities of men predispose them to polygamy, and that women lose their libido if left to languish in monogamy. You had to wonder if the man remembered that question and answer time would inevitably follow.

But it should be stated: there is a sound, ethical argument for polygamy. Better still, polyamory, having a number of sexual partners at the same time, appears the egalitarian and just path down which to stroll. There might just be enough love to go around, without anyone belonging to another by law.

Keysar Trad's full speech is here: Supporting the right of women to choose

[It's worth noting, Keysar Trad is no fire-breathing monster. There are certainly attempts in the Australian media to cast the man as totally objectionable and offensive, which often detract from what he actually says. His ideas are more nonsensical than offensive, and it doesn't pay the smug, the highly literate and the University-educated to denigrate him. In public he has a warm smile and is approachable. He does believe what he puts forward, and since very few of us would show the courage to stand by our convictions under such scrutiny, I'll at least give him the benefit of an open mind. Even if I did have the odd wry smile myself during his speech. Vive la difference, I guess - just don't elect the man into office.]

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Moving forward

It's been a full eight months since I last wrote anything on this site.

Partly due to laziness and partly owing to my unexpected and unsatisfactory re-insertion into Western society, I've found time, patience and motivation wanting as I passed weeks and then months back in the corporate world, replete with mistruths, amoral hyperbole, mind-crushing conservatism and a sycophantic, uninspiring and delusional desire for social status.Frankly, if it weren't for my friends, I would certainly have gone off the rails by now. And there is certainly a small group of my acquaintances that has undoubtedly come to the conclusion that I have veritably digressed from the path of social inclusion, to a shady world where my loud opinions promise a life of misery and exclusion. I have a sneaking suspicion that my current path, while allowing me once more to sleep soundly at night, is forever making me incompatible with living in general, polite society.

You see, I've just about had it with the values and concerns of the place I presently call home. However, I know the problem to be me, and not the society I'm living. It's just not possible that everyone else is wrong. If the majority of people wake up five days a week, don suit, shirt and tie and head into an office to work an inordinate number of hours, I am not here to decry it. My dissatisfaction with my own life is entirely my own doing, and I am to blame for letting it get so out of control that I almost sunk permanently into a deep well of delusion.

I'm disgusted with myself; that I didn't have the courage to speak out sooner and face my fears. That I sold my sold to a devil I don't even believe in. It genuinely pains me that after four years where I had the fortitude to do what I want and construct a life that was moral and worthy of living, I gratified myself with the trap of Western work life.

None of it counts for anything. I see unhappiness wherever a person's goals direct only his ascent up the ladder of social acceptance. Misery behind hundreds of thousands of closed doors, houses in which inhabitants lead a life of self-absorption and slow suicide, where people venerate illusion and sweep anything that might hint at truth or visceral emotion under carpet, forever held down by upholstered Chesterfields and giant plasma screens bleating the latest garbage masquerading as newsworthy events.

It feels good to breathe again.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Sydney. You ought to be happy here.



Sydney inhabits a geography that gives it a massive and unfair advantage alongside other cities of comparable size and population.


The country's largest metropolitan conglomeration has more beaches, bays, inlets, sensuous curves, crests and cliffs that any other city I've yet visited. The dense, built-up areas between the central business district, from Bennelong Point which supports the magnificent Opera House, through to the rocky and wild cliffs facing the vast Pacific, house the middle and upper class in apartments and houses that take full advantage of the city's natural beauty. And, at least in the eastern stretch of the city, water is everywhere.


The harbour flows out to the Heads, a turbulent neck of water that announces the grand and vast Pacific Ocean, with seas that glisten and waves that smash with unnatural force against the weathered sandstone on which the city is built. The water is alive with a myriad of sea-going vessels, from the thousands of pleasure craft clogging the waterways on the weekend to the green and gold ferry carrying commuters from the centre to the furthest reaches east and west.

The city has magnificent parks and even patches of quasi-wilderness that line the foreshore. The Botanic Gardens are perched on the edge of the business district; many stroll through it on the way home from work.

Sydney is clean, its air fresh. It has sunrises that cast an orange glow across the eastern suburb, sunsets that cause the downtown skyscapers to glint, the bridge standing proud. The quality of life enjoyed by the majority of its inhabitants is unrivalled in many countries, even those of the western world. Access to good food, clean water, transport, health care, social welfare; it makes most people incredibly smug to live in a city like this.

But I just can't settle in.