Harbingers

*

I couldn't be seen like that. Not gasping, not panting. Not just desperately wanting everything to end. Not able to achieve a heightened place. Money saved at every turn. Bangkok brothels mounted in corridors, each to be explored. He couldn't care less what the consequence. I love you. I miss you. These things were dancing on a very fine pin. I love you; when the whole of the city beckoned; redolent with glory, puhm poohey, plump, chubby, an observation of status or derision. I love you, that is what I have come to know. We were going to make the swiftest break, the most immediate of corridors, sweeping, beautiful. Dizzy, you bet you. Spewing out of those Colognes, out of the swirling spear, out of the elegiac ear piece, out of Christmas and New Year, out of wind tunnels and constellations not just of exquisite despair but mind numbing beauty, as if consequence was the only answer, as if we said too much just by being here. As if he lied and lied and lied. Just to to be there in the instance, paralysed, transfixed, whole ancient scenes and absolutely modern cities glazing in a transfixed hallucination straight before him. Nothing would be the same, nothing would be the same.

At least I don't stare out the window for two hours every time there's a suggestion we do something, Ian said, all fresh and brash from Australia, all working fine, all happy, ancient times, ancient red light districts, their patina of gloss so old that they had taken on a more enduring light, of insane, instant beauty, of a deadening hand, of finite joy; of short moments, he thought, when the woman behind the bar, when he had already told the girl he had a boy waiting at home and they would be going back for dinner shortly he was just showing his straight friend the sights while trying to be sensible himself, dumped the keys to an upstairs room in front of him. Infinite loss. All the bar laughed, when it was explained that his friend was the straight one; and so she took back the key with good spirits and he tipped the girl 100 baht for her company. It was all too brutally frank. Ian gave his Sexy Sar too much money, and so she didn't come. Why would she bother? He already paid her. It was always going to be a brutal waste. He pay to take her to Australia; then no boom boom. Everyone warn him. Be careful your heart. It's easy to fall in love with them. We're old, we were lonely; at least in that department. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.

So to cure some real or imagined illness, angst, dankness of spirit, old fashioned horniness, sometimes he would take himself off to the brothel; where there wasn't any doubt, they take good care. It was always going to be such a terrible waste. They were so beautiful. He couldn't reach whatever state it was he wanted to reach; so he took himself in laughing, finite manner through the craziest reaches; and they danced to remember, they danced to forget. There was a prickling disorientation between them. Take care. You take care. Many mistakes. If he hadn't been so vulnerable he wouldn't have been so crazed. So they had a quiet night at home. He reached back through the days to the boring part; where they were happy in their quiet routine; where a big night out was Saturday at the kareoke bar, when there was no school the following day. It was always going to be thus. It was going to be an insane waste. He was going to be fractiously concerned. He was going to fuss. He calm me down, he explained to the interpreter, he make my house a home. Before, I never sleep more than two hours a night. He think that now I am gassap gassai, restless, but it is nothing to what went before. When the "ting tong" craziness was in every reach; every frame; when he walked the best walked dog in the world through the mistiest, loneliest streets. Then he came here. And never slept alone again. And that was that. Some people were very easy to make happy.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/gillard-lashes-out-at-media-coverage-20100912-1570l.html

JULIA Gillard has lambasted the media for not exposing the up to $10.6 billion black hole that Treasury found in Tony Abbott's election costings.

She has also taken an oblique swipe at some of News Ltd's coverage.

The Prime Minister said the campaign contained a lesson for media organisations.

The central issue had been the economy - the government's stimulus versus Mr Abbott's slogans about debt and waste. But ''it took three independents to find the $11 billion black hole. That should have been a job done by journalists during the campaign. People should have known that before they voted'', she told the ABC. ''The biggest story of the campaign was effectively missed''.

The independents got the information after the election because they insisted Treasury should cost both sides' promises as part of their negotiations with them. Mr Abbott, who had earlier refused to submit his policies for official costing, eventually agreed to do so.

Pressed about criticism of News Ltd's political coverage, and particularly Greens leader Bob Brown's attack on The Australian, Ms Gillard was cautious but said: ''I don't believe in editorialising on the front page. I do believe people have got an obligation to report the facts.

''I think that there are times when media personalities actually think that they are involved in the political process rather than commentating on the political process … I've been known to joke that Sky TV is endlessly journalists interviewing journalists - the politicians are no longer required.''

Senator Brown has accused The Australian of stepping ''out of the role of the fourth estate to think it's the determinant of who has seats in the Parliament'' and said that ''it needs to be taken on''.

The Australian's editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell, told Crikey last week that Ms Gillard had rung him twice during the last week of the election campaign and had ''both times thanked me for our fair and balanced coverage''.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/13/3009789.htm?section=justin

A Sydney man who embarked on a bicycle quest around Europe to find his son is hoping to be reunited with the boy today, nearly three years after his mother fled with him to the Netherlands.

But Ken Thompson has been told it could be months before he will be able to bring the boy back home to Australia.

In 2008 Mr Thompson's estranged wife left Australia with their son Andrew before a court had determined custody arrangements.

Dutch authorities have told the ABC that extradition proceedings are underway to have Melinda Stratton returned to face contempt of court charges.

Andrew was three years old when his mother took him from Australia, and is now six.

Mr Thompson's desire to find him was so strong he quit his job as a deputy fire chief, mounted a bicycle, and rode 6,500 kilometres through Europe to find him.

He says he is excited ahead of today's reunion.

"I've been searching the world for him for two-and-a-half years," he said.

"So the process now is to give him time to come to accept that his father is here and that his father wants to see him."

It is understood Andrew came to the notice of authorities when he was enrolled for school.

Picture: Glen Campbell www.glencampbellpictures.com