And Then It All Came Crashing Down

*



And then it all came crashing down. A hand was gripped around his throat as he was shoved up against the pub wall. He could feel his heart thumping manically, and all of a sudden he was more frightened of a heart attack than of the man threatening him. "I'll knock your block off and chainsaw your house," the carpenter said, the man he had picked out from all the local yokels to sand his floor because he had seemed the most normal. When he had met him he had been working on another woman's house; and it seemed as if for once one of the locals was not on welfare and was actually working for a living. Such was not to be. The dignity of work was not for these people. The erosion of so many tiny Australian communities through the corrosive impacts of passive welfare and easy government money was almost complete.

It never occurred to any of them that someone else had go to work so that they could sit on their four acre blocks mopping up welfare and popping out endless numbers of children. Some of them almost never left their lots, bonging on and drinking on and king of their own domain, the bull male, the boss of some harried submissive girl - the like of which you would never find in the cities these days. Whatever you say dear hadn't been heard for a long time. How can I make you happy? I don't think so.

I'll knock your block off and chainsaw your house, the thug repeated, and he couldn't think, as he reverted to his training on solving conflicts, exactly how to behave. Submissive? You have no idea who you're dealing with. Go right ahead, I'll happily see you in jail for assault. They were thugs, proud of their loose cannon reputation. And so everything went crashing down, and the surf roared in his brain. The cousin, Philip, intervened, come on guys, come on, back off. And as the hand let go of his throat, he tried to calm his beating heart, but it kept on pumping wildly.

He went to sit in the public bar of the Tambar Springs hotel, and sat there, looking across at another builder he had talked to years ago; and said, wryly, I should have asked you to do it. The man grunted into his beer, reluctant to get involved. He ordered another lemon squash, because the lunatic was still outside in the corridor where he had left his last drink and he didn't want to go out there again. Not yet. Not ever. Oh calm thy beating heart. Now was not the time for another stroke, or another near miss. Now was the time to finally experience some freedom in his life.

But the chaos was gone. Everything was gone, ebbing away. The terrible despair which had stalked his every waking moment had dissipated in the surf crashing on the sand, in the tight young bodies jogging past him, in the ever changing scenarios of Australia's most famous beach. And so even this moment, under threat, did not awake the past demons, the person he had been, but instead conjured other solutions. Finally, calm enough, he walked out on to the veranda to have a cigarette. Your laptops gone, the wife of the chook man said. What? He asked. Your laptops gone, she repeated, out of your car. You're joking, he said. Nope, she shook her head, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his unlocked car.

He didn't know what to do. The thought of going straight to the police crossed his mind, but it wasn't in his direct lexicon of responses to any situation. So he smoked a cigarette, thought what the hell to do, could feel his heart thumping and thumping and remained more scared of a stroke than the situation itself, and finally thought: bugger this, I'm out of here. Nothing is worth this. Nothing is worth being crippled for life. And so he got in his car and drove out of town, the sight of all the locals sitting on the veranda, entranced by the action, the situation, a bit of drama in a place where nothing ever happened, barely registering in the churning surf that was his brain.

He was not thinking straight. He was not making good decisions. He drove out of town, up the curve past the police station where he could see the policeman was at home, past the 50 kilometre speed zone, and for the next 200 kilometres down the highway looked nervously in the mirror, thinking the psycho builder might be following him, force him off the road, kill him. All because he had refused to pay, as per arrangement, until the job was finished. Oh how, in the following days, he wished he had just pulled into the police station instead of driving off down the highway. One course obviates another, it has always been thus; and in this case who was to know, perhaps this was the better way: a wise man walks around trouble, retreat can be the safest, most appropriate course. Surrender to win, as they say in the classics.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/turnbull-crosses-floor-to-vote-with-labor-20100211-nts2.html

Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has crossed the floor of Federal Parliament to vote in support of Labor's emissions trading scheme.

Mr Turnbull sat with government MPs in the lower house on the second reading vote to pass the carbon pollution reduction scheme. He was joined by independent MP Rob Oakeshott.

But the Coalition avoided further embarrassment when it declined to call for a division on the final vote, depriving Mr Turnbull of the opportunity to cross the floor to support Labor.

It was passed on the voices alone with MPs remaining in their seats.

Some Coalition MPs appeared to want a division but the manager of opposition business in the house, Christopher Pyne, jumped to his feet to make sure it didn't happen.

"No division," he repeatedly told the Deputy Speaker.

The legislation now goes to the Senate, where it faces almost certain defeat for a third time. Labor lacks the numbers to win approval without the support of seven non-government senators.

Earlier, the government used its lower house majority to gag debate and bring on the ETS vote before midday, when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered his second Closing the Gap progress report on indigenous disadvantage.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/ets-safely-through-reps/1748519.aspx

Labor's embattled emissions trading scheme is on its way back to the Senate for a third time, although former Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull did not have to officially cross the floor to support the bills on their final vote.

The Opposition did not call a division on the final vote for the bills, about 11.45am, although Mr Turnbull did cross the floor for the earlier, second-reading vote.


The final vote came after the Government guillotined debate on the bills with 13 MPs still scheduled to speak, outraging the Opposition. The Government wanted the bills completed before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered his report on indigenous disadvantage at noon.


The bills now go to the Senate where they have been twice rejected already. The Government has failed to win the support of any other parties for the bills, however, two Liberals supported the last vote. The legislation is likely to face the same fate for a third time when debated again over coming weeks.

Is Google a friend or foe to Internet service providers? It's a question many broadband providers are likely asking themselves on Wednesday, after Google's announcement that it will build fiber networks in communities across the United States to test new broadband services and capabilities.

Google says the new ultrahigh-speed fiber networks it plans to build will be used as a test bed. But some broadband providers are likely suspicious of Google, as the Internet search giant once again creeps onto their turf.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-10451308-266.html

Google says it does not want to get into the ISP business.

In its announcement, Google said it plans to work with local and state governments to build fiber-based networks that will serve between 50,000 and 500,000 people with broadband service, offering speeds of at least 1 gigabit per second. Few details about the project are available. But a Google representative said the fiber-based networks are similar to what Google is doing with the Wi-Fi network it has built in Mountain View, Calif.

That network, which went live in 2006, provides free Internet access, with speeds up to 1 megabit per second over Wi-Fi.

"The goal is to work with interested communities, and to experiment and learn ways to make broadband better, faster, and more accessible," the representative said in an e-mail. "We will welcome other providers to offer services over our open network. And we hope to make public what we learn through this experiment so that other providers can benefit."

Wasted Ways

*



Who shall aid and protect us when the blood-streaked dawn we meet?
Will England, the hated of nations, whose existence depends on her fleet?
Who, because of the deer-parks and game-runs where her wheat-fields and pastures should be,
Must bring food for her herded thousands and shepherd it over the sea?

The beak of the British Octopus, or the Bosses within our reach
Who spend the hot days on the Mountains or summer at Manly Beach!
The thousands of paltry swindlers who are fathoms beneath our scorn –
Or the army of brave sons grown from the children who should have been born!

The wealth you have won has been wasted on trips to the English Rome,
On costly costumes from Paris, and titles and gewgaws from "home".
Shall a knighthood frighten Asia when she comes with the hate of hell?
Will the motor-launch race the torpedo, or the motor-car outspeed the shell?

Keep the wealth you have won from the cities, spend the wealth you have won on the land,
Save the floods that run into the ocean – save the floods that sink into the sand!
Make farms fit to live on, build workshops and technical schools for your sons;
Keep the wealth of the land in Australia – make your own cloth, machines, and guns!

Clear out the Calico Jimmy, the nigger, the Chow, and his pals;
Be your foreword for years: Irrigation. Make a network of lakes and canals!
See that your daughters have children, and see that Australia is home,
And so be prepared, a strong nation, for the storm that most surely must come.

Henry Lawson, Australia's Peril



Someone else would come along in a different era. Wasted ways. They would seize all this; make sense of another's life. How quaint things look in history; before the greatest crime of the modern era became racism, or sexism, opr, it often seems, independent "thoughtism". Think not your way to triumph. Think not as one of the pack. So how damned cruel was that? If in ancient times there had been other solutions; then was not now. Irradiated with new technological inventions, the Information Age now upon us had changed everything. While the Industrial Age, with its grim images of smoke stacks and D.H. Lawrence villages in the north of England, this era glistens with computer boxes and shining screens, smart cars and savvy attitudes.

And spoilt creatures tottering down streets, gossiping girls barely drawing breath as they enter the crowded lift, dolled to the nines for a day at the office, who knew where the job could take you? Up, up and away, into the bosses lap and into the back of his limousine. We were all so intelligent now. Information on almost any topic imaginable lay just at our fingertips. Google had taken over the world, providing services which would have seemed like science fiction only a few years ago. When he was a lad. When the days were old and we thought we held the future in our hands. Such arrogance. Such benighted self obsession. Such naive faith. We thought we were the centre of everything, and found out through cruel experience we were nothing but a fleck on the outer outer rim of the earth's consciousness.

Such as it was, these thoughts were of no use now. His children laughed at his fumbling use of the new technology, downloading, i-pods, just click and drag his friend said, it's easy. It would have been science fiction to think that everyone in the world could have their own web page, like this, for nothing. You had to be cruel to be kind. Exterminating self was not an option, or only one option. Day followed day and he clung to some internal terror as if it was a familiar friend, an old cast, a talking tea pot, nonsense images to stave off despair. Oh come all ye faithful; joyful and triumphant. Well, that wasn't it, there wasn't any easy way to bring forth a new you, to rewrite history, to rewrite the person he had been.

He was too sophisticated to try keeping on beyond his use by date, to pretend to be something he wasn't, to make foolish mistakes from an old man's memories. They felt conned and he felt conned; and so he called the police. They've taken my laptop, I want it back, he told them. I don't appreciate being threatened, being held up against a wall. He no longer felt safe. Idiots ruled, inside and out. Wild dogs roamed the street. Fantasies evaporated. Old men went walking. Loud Americans watched the passing of the days. Stories crowded in, a tumult in their own fashion, but none of it was earth shattering, these ordinary lives, these humble units filling the suburban shopping malls, those places of utter ordinariness, utter defeat.

J.D. Salinger wrote and wrote, every day for decades, without publishing, and what was there? The greatest tales. Mountainous works of art? Gibberish? Ordinary tales of ordinary lives could easily be wrapped up into art; made to appear more profound than they really were. Because they were just lice on the planet surface. He watched idly, at least for a moment, a fat plain thick-as-a-plank woman talking non-stop to a shop assistant she appeared to know in some way or other. Out there were the most profound events, historical shifts, Obama who? In here the gossip was minute, what who had said to who outside the school while the mothers waited for the bell to ring. For the flood of children. For the day to be over. Under the fake light of the mall, these people's lack of depth became even more obvious.

There was no fashion. They were all on Centrelink payments. Their lives revolved around daily routines; each more mind numbingly dull than the last. But he was the one who was unhappy. They bumped into each other and chatted happily as if a day out at the shops was a grand thing. He drank to dream ever greater dreams; and even now wished those dreams would transport him, take him sailing away on a quixotic cloud. The grand design. The grand works of art. The noble purposes. The mystery of creativity. He saw another plain couple sitting on a bench, overweight, most of them were overweight, and thought: how could they lie next to each other every night? Their fat flesh. Their lousy smells. Their alleged happiness. How was it possible to survive this level of utter dreariness?


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/liberals-turn-on-opposition-finance-spokesman-barnaby-joyce/story-e6frf7l6-1225826912575

BARNABY Joyce is under fire from his own colleagues, who say he is a ticking "bomb", and the Federal Government, who have branded him a "freak show".

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott slapped down his finance spokesman's suggestions that foreign aid could be cut and public servants axed.

There is growing anxiety in Coalition ranks about the high-risk choice of Senator Joyce as a member of the Opposition's economic team.

Economic credibility will be an important election issue, and some say his views put the Coalition's economic credibility at risk.

Others insist he is a breath of fresh air who is cutting through with voters.

Treasurer Wayne Swan described Senator Joyce as "Barnaby Rubble", living in the Stone Age, and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said he was "a freak show".

One MP said colleagues cringed when Senator Joyce stumbled over millions, billions and trillions at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

Another Liberal MP said: "There is not a single colleague in the Liberal Party that has any faith (in Senator Joyce). Everyone is just going tick, tick, tick, tick."

Another Liberal said: "If he keeps on going it is going to be a real concern. He can't go around the place talking about (budget) cuts that do not reflect party policy."

A fourth Coalition figure was equally blunt: "Barnaby still operates as a loose cannon. And his comments on foreign investment are seen as too racial."

Senator Joyce was unapologetic when contacted by the Herald Sun, declaring that he would continue to press for savings to rein in debt.

He also denied being counselled by members of the Coalition leadership team.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6130IP20100204

China's outrage over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and President Barack Obama's planned meeting with the Dalai Lama has shown that, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Beijing is growing pushier in public.

In past decades, a poorer, more cautious China greeted U.S. weapons sales to the disputed island with angry words and little else.

Not now, as China enters the Year of the Tiger in its traditional lunar calendar cycle of talismanic animals.

The Obama administration last week announced plans to ship $6.4 billion of missiles, helicopters and weapons control systems to the self-ruled island Beijing calls its own. China threatened to downgrade cooperation with Washington and for the first time sanction companies involved in such sales.

Beijing this week also condemned Obama's plan to meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader reviled by China.

China's loud ire adds to signs the country is becoming surer about throwing around its political weight, growing along with an economy soon likely to whir past Japan's as the world's second biggest, though it will still trail far behind the United States.

Behind this assertiveness are domestic pressures likely to make it harder work for China's leaders to cool disputes with Washington and other Western capitals.

"There is this paradox of increasing confidence externally and lack of confidence domestically," said Susan Shirk, a professor specializing in Chinese foreign policy at the University of California, San Diego.

"There's also what I consider a serious misperception of the country's economic strength and how that translates in power."


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/former-pm-john-howard-pumped-up-water-grants/story-e6frg6nf-1225826894599

FORMER prime minister John Howard overruled his own department by granting nearly $100 million in taxpayer funding to questionable water projects in marginal electorates, an audit revealed yesterday.

The Australian National Audit Office report into the administration of the $1.6 billion Water Smart Australia program shows how Mr Howard had intervened to award funding to projects that failed to meet the selection criteria.

They included the $40m NQ Water project to upgrade Townsville's water supply, and South Australia's $20m wastewater recycling scheme and $34.5m "Waterproofing the South" program.

The report shows that Mr Howard's own Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet had advised him that the NQ Water project was, at best, "only marginally competitive".

The National Water Commission - which was set up as part of the PM&C portfolio - had advised that the SA Wastewater proposal was "poor quality . . . and would not be recommended for funding if it were not an election commitment".

"In the absence of an election commitment, the proposal would not be recommended for funding on merit as it is not particularly innovative, the magnitude of environmental and other public benefits is difficult to determine and the value for money is uncertain as a result," it advised.

The ANAO report found that 11 water projects, unveiled as election promises for the 2004 and 2007 polls, were awarded total funding of $548m.

It reveals that Mr Howard - who was the minister responsible for water during the first three years of the program - gave out more money than the NWC had recommended for some programs.

His government boosted funding for Brisbane's water recycling scheme from the $247.6m recommended by the NWC to the full $408m sought by the Queensland government.

Into The Future Back To The Past

*



If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine,
If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign,
If you're proud because of fortune or the clever things you do --
Then I'll play no second fiddle: I'm a prouder man than you!

If you think that your profession has the more gentility,
And that you are condescending to be seen along with me;
If you notice that I'm shabby while your clothes are spruce and new --
You have only got to hint it: I'm a prouder man than you!

If you have a swell companion when you see me on the street,
And you think that I'm too common for your toney friend to meet,
So that I, in passing closely, fail to come within your view --
Then be blind to me for ever: I'm a prouder man than you!

If your character be blameless, if your outward past be clean,
While 'tis known my antecedents are not what they should have been,
Do not risk contamination, save your name whate'er you do --
`Birds o' feather fly together': I'm a prouder bird than you!

Keep your patronage for others! Gold and station cannot hide
Friendship that can laugh at fortune, friendship that can conquer pride!
Offer this as to an equal -- let me see that you are true,
And my wall of pride is shattered: I am not so proud as you!

Henry Lawson




He was born in an insane age. He crept stealthily through the dense scrub, avoiding cliches of the mind but searching, as always, for a solution to all his wants. Needs. Desperate yearnings. An insane soul; desperate for contact, stability, a way forward which did not require great sacrifice. He could see so many things on the move; down far away across spectacular views. Time to move on, a cheerful voice said, harrumphing the horses on the long night trek. A distant boom, regular, sinister, momentous, could be heard a long way off. You've failed, that's all there is to it, a voice said; and while he looked at the glistening lives of overs there was no soul here. He smiled, a grimace across broken teeth. He looked up cheerfully at his master. The whip came down of its own accord.

He had been beaten so badly that he cringed throughout life, avoiding conflict. He couldn't be the lone soldier standing up for their destruction. He could see shells moving deep beneath the water's surface. The salt air spoke of ancestors. The drum beat spoke of primitive times. His head siwlred, the quest was a broken, desperate one. I hope you have the gift of desperation, some loud woman said. American accent. He was not surprised to later hear her say: I'm only here for a few days, I cause trouble wherever I go. He didn't speak to anyone. His misery was not theirs. They shouted and shouted, these voices, and all he could think was how much he wanted to be back in the bars; the sharp tang of whisky or bourbon, the sign that he was serious. Oblivion, the Byronesque quest.

But whatever lashings had been placed upon it, whatever fancy, justification, rationalisation had been used to justify past behaviour, it had all disappeared with the days rolling one on top of the other. The quest was just wrong. His desire to settle was strong; but was it here? Could anyone be so kind? Or so lonely? He could feel the loneliness around his mother's house, around all the women in their eighties. He could hear the voices of discontent, of longing. But it had all passed away. Another generation had taken up the mantle. They looked like fools, like old hippies, stuck in old habits, smoking when they shouldn't, thinking they were still young and there was an infinity of life before them.

The suburbs settled, and it was the loneliness that frightened him the most. They were seen as dark ages. They were seen as juvenile times waiting to grow up. He had been badly ripped off at Tambar. After a rush of blood to the head after receiving his payout he had commissioned a local bloke to sand the floors. Jason. Unknown to him the bloke wasn't the carpenter he appeared, but yet another denizen of the area, Mullawy in this case, the town with little but a garage and a pub, on the disability pension. They all wanted cash to avoid getting dobbed in, but after having paid taxes for the past 30 years he felt like dobbing him in to Centrelink. He had been thoroughly and totally ripped off. He rang up to cancel the arrangement at the hardware yesterday, only to discover that the nasty little prick had just put another $200 worth of supplies on to his credit card. The whole thing had cost more than $5,000. It had been a very very expensive mistake.

And because he wouldn't pay the final amount until the job was done, refused point blank, a fight had erupted, with Jason cornering him in the pub and threatening to knock his block off and chainsaw his house. He wouldn't feel safe there anymore, and would have to get a dog, preferably a rottweiler that would tear any intruder's head off. And then, unbelievably, Jason had nicked his laptop out of his car; supposedly in case he didn't get paid. He should have gone straight to the police. Instead, hating conflict and not naturally drawn to the authorities, he got in his car and drove out of town, checking the rear vision mirror for hundreds of miles, hoping he wasn't being followed, although of course it was unlikely, they were all too lazy, that mob, to do anything at all.

I'm going to knock your block off and chainsaw your house, Jason threatened; and when he declared he didn't like being threatened he said: "I'm not threatening you, I'm just telling you the facts maaaannn. You've come to the wrong area." Let the gronks take over. Let the thugs rule the planet. Let disease enter our own tiny souls; and let the past rule. So he got in the car and he drove and he drove; wishing all the while he had followed his first instinct and called the police. The c... can go and die. They can chase their own tales in their own boring world; and watch, watch, from the pub veranda, as the sun slowly sets and the evening sounds of the bush took over from the day's sounds; passing trucks, the wind in the trees.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/abbott-rubbing-the-shine-off-rudd/story-e6frg6nf-1225826538393

THE all-important net satisfaction rating for the respective political leaders from Tuesday's Newspoll tells an interesting story. While Tony Abbott has not started as strongly as previous Coalition leaders Brendan Nelson (+17) or Malcolm Turnbull (+25), in just a couple of Newspoll results since his arrival Kevin Rudd's net satisfaction rating has fallen considerably.
The take out of this is that Abbott is not popular, but his brand of opposition politics is nevertheless succeeding in taking the shine off Rudd.

In the past three Newspolls, Rudd's net satisfaction rating -- derived by subtracting the percentage who describe themselves as dissatisfied from those who are satisfied -- has fallen from 26 to 18 to 12, and Abbott can take credit for the slide. At its peak, Rudd had a net satisfaction rating of 57 and his average during Turnbull's time as Liberal leader was more than 30 (Turnbull's fell to -33). Rudd's rating is almost half what it was when it was at its lowest during either previous Liberal leader's time in charge.

Much of the commentary about Abbott has been that he will provide a sharp contrast to Rudd. That contrast appears to be making voters think twice about Rudd's deliberately bland bureaucratic style, which is not as appealing as it once was.

http://www.carboninsight.com.au/?gclid=CN7WvKWN158CFZAwpAodoTAiZg

THE Government will tear into Tony Abbott's climate change policy today after a departmental analysis challenged its calculations and concluded it would actually cause greenhouse gas emissions to rise.

The analysis, prepared by the deputy secretary of the Department of Climate Change, Blair Comley, says that rather than reduce emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 as the policy claims, it would lead to an increase of 13 per cent.

Mr Comley, an economist who was instrumental in designing the Government's emissions trading scheme, says the Coalition policy underestimates the cost of each tonne of carbon for which taxpayers would pay businesses that reduce emissions.

On Tuesday, Mr Abbott unveiled a policy he said would cost $3.2 billion over four years and more than $10 billion by 2020.

At its core is an emissions reduction fund worth $2.6 billion over four years.

Polluting businesses which chose to reduce emissions could apply for grants from the fund and they would be paid between $10 and $15 for each tonne of carbon they saved.

The departmental analysis says the claims made about the fund ''are subject to very large margins of uncertainty over both cost and [greenhouse gas] abatement''.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/barnaby-joyce-stumbles-over-billions-in-climate-policy-funding-explanation/story-e6frg6xf-1225826449371

BARNABY Joyce has stumbled over arithmetic in his first performance as opposition finance spokesman, confusing trillions with billions at the National Press Club.
And it has prompted Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner to tell The Australian Online: “If Senator Joyce wants to be the Commonwealth's chief accountant he needs to learn his billions from his millions.”

Under pressure to explain where he would find the $3.2 billion required to fund the Coalition's climate change policy, the former accountant said he was “up to that task” of finding $3.2 billion in savings from $1400 million.

"Let us look at the cost of this policy, we are looking at $3.2 billion over the next four years. We have expenditure over the MYEFO statements, if I'm correct of about $1.4 billion, that we're going to spend,'' he said.

"The Labor Party is about to spend 1400 million dollars. So I think I can find 3.2 from 1400, I really do, I think I'm up to that match. That is approximately .2 of 1 per cent. That's capable.

“Well, you know we've got $1.4 billion worth of Labor (spending) sorry 1400 million dollars.

“So we've got 1400 from which we need to find 3.2. I think I am up to that task, I really do.”

And Then It Was All Over

*



My Country

The love of field and coppice, of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance, brown streams and soft, dim skies-
I know but cannot share it, my love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror- the wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests, all tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains, the hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops, and ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country! Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us we see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather, and we can bless again
The drumming of an army, the steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country! Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine she pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks, watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness that thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country, a wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her, you will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours, wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country my homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea MacKellar



And then it was all over and he found himself sleeping under the stars. So many things had happened, but there was no continuity, no easy story to be told. He did his morning walk past the ramshackle working cottages of Tambar Springs; watched the children running along dilapidated verandas before school. He wanted to delve into everybody else’s life because there was nothing in his own. Observer status was all very well, but in the end it was cruel, no way to live. And then it was all over. The voices had gone. His lungs hurt. His heart ached. One minute the beach, the next the inland. One minute the waves crashing on the shore, the next the wind whispering in the trees.

He’d been done over by the local yokels and was not impressed. Anyone could have done this. He was sure there was an answer. He made his way through the dark. He said a little prayer, like a deranged dog being tortured by a stick, howling and snapping at his tormenter. The flies were persistent. The place was in chaos. The life he had known for decades was gone. Everything was up for grabs. Well, it obviously needs a second coat, he said of the floor, preparing for a fight. He was sick of being ripped off because he was from the city. Nobody did anything here, in Tambar Springs. Most of them were on disability. Most of them were useless.

Why do something in one day when you can take five, was the motto, or so it seemed. All too soon. He poked through the tiny park, allegedly the oldest cenotaph in Australia dedicated to the soldiers of World War One. He was shattered by what had happened. More the fool you. He was determined to make a go of it, but nothing was right. He wanted to be free, but didn’t know how, the trailing demands, the nasty little sparks. Oh how he ached for something real to happen in his life; there in the distance, lost between thoughts, clouds of chaos drifting through his consciousness; and nothing, nothing was right.

Bugger this, I’m off, he thought. It’ll all be here when I come back. The wind whispered in the trees and threats encroached on every side. He was shocked by the disrepair his life had fallen into; and ashamed at the missed opportunities, the passing days. I never expected this to happen, he declared, and the woman raised an eyebrow. It was all too much. Treacherous little pricks pretended nothing had happened. He felt utterly betrayed; and yet there was no point in hanging on to grudges. They festered in his own mind and hurt no one else. He had been betrayed because he had allowed himself to be vulnerable; and they were the mistakes of a lifetime. They were the things he should never have done, the courses in life he should never have taken.

The pathroads to a better life were everywhere, and yet he could barely see them, so caught up in old images and old lives had he been. This was a different era. It didn’t have him in it. The elder statesmen of the ghost whisperers, the empath tired of the broken lives with which he could so easily commune. He could turn anybody’s tragedy into poetry just like that; obscene, really, how easy it was to turn the ordinary into the spectacular, to make something profound that was barely a whisper in the larger cosmos. He could see the stars and the night clouds drifting across the sky; he could hear the mosquitoes persistently dive bombing him; and he turned, indignant at everything that had been done to him.

It was time to no longer care. It was time to put everything behind him. Those small groups of talented young people with which he had so closely identified were gone; disappeared into history with barely a trace. Friends he had thought would last a lifetime were never to be seen again. Accidental meetings in the street of the few survivors brought back floods of memories, how’s Russell, did you hear Colin died?

And now he was in the bush; where for years he had wanted to be. You left the house in a shambles and thought I would pay and pay. He was not impressed; they were everywhere, the local yokels, clutching at money, hoping for the best. He was ashamed of what had happened; and yet here he was, freer than he had ever been, a whole new life in front of him.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/tony-abbotts-climate-change-plan-a-populist-con-job/story-e6frf7l6-1225826185124

TONY Abbott has promised to attack climate change with a $3.2 billion plan that does not cap carbon emissions but instead proposes direct action such as planting trees.
And while Kevin Rudd has ridiculed the direct-action plan as "a climate con job", most business groups have backed the plan, agreeing with the Opposition Leader's assertion it is "cheaper, simpler and more cost-effective" than Labor's proposed carbon emissions trading scheme.

Mr Abbott used his policy launch yesterday as a springboard for a frenzied attack on the Prime Minister as Parliament met for the first time in 2010 - which will almost certainly be an election year, The Australian reports.

On the same day a Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Australian found he was closing the gap on the Government, Mr Abbott accused Mr Rudd of floundering on climate change since December's Copenhagen summit failed to settle on a new global deal to reduce carbon emissions.

He demanded Mr Rudd "move on" from the concept of emissions trading and accept that Australians were "sick of being treated like mugs" by his Government

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/as-bad-news-bites-rudd-gets-drum-on-gillards-popularity/story-e6frgczf-1225826101173

IF Newspoll is the drug of choice for the nation's politicians, Kevin Rudd was dealing with a double dose of unsolicited advice yesterday, including a rogue poll on his deputy, Julia Gillard.
The unpleasant news of the Tony Abbott-led Coalition outgunning Labor on the primary vote greeted the resumption of federal parliament.

And while the polling in The Australian fitted neatly into the Prime Minister's attempts to spook his MPs and voters about the threat of Labor losing the next election, there was more unpleasantness on the ABC's website The Drum.

"Gillard shines as Labor's rising star" was the headline on a piece by Insiders TV host and political veteran Barrie Cassidy, who once worked as Bob Hawke's chief media spinner.

"Private research has confirmed what most political observers have suspected for some time," he wrote. "That Julia Gillard is the rising star in Australian politics and if the government wants to maximise the vote at the next election, then she will need to share with the Prime Minister much of the campaign spotlight."

Whether the Prime Minister was rattled we may never know. But the endless parade of the Liberal leader's naked flesh at the beach, and his Lycra-clad ride up Canberra's Red Hill early yesterday morning, complete with heavy-breathing news grabs on Newspoll, were enough to prompt a brain explosion of sorts in parliament.

Mr Rudd declared: "The Leader of the Opposition has changed his position on the ETS probably more often than he's changed his undies."

But who commissioned this rogue poll on Julia Gillard? The Labor Party is adamant it is in the receipt of no such "private research". Plenty of unions are known to be in the polling field. And it all seems strangely reminiscent of some unhelpful Emily's List polling leaked after the 2004 election, suggesting then deputy leader Jenny Macklin was failing to "cut through" in the job, with Ms Gillard's campaign talents second only to John Howard's.

Ms Gillard ultimately took the deputy's job, and the rest is history.

Regardless of the ALP's denials, Ms Gillard's biographer, Christine Wallace, who will publish her book this year, believes the polling on the deputy leader is strong.

"Gillard does poll strongly, but Rudd's resilience isn't to be underestimated," she said.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/abbott-starts-day-two-with-poll-boost-20100203-nbdl.html

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott starts day two of the parliamentary sitting with a new climate change policy and a comfortable lift in the polls.

Even Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who encountered Mr Abbott at the traditional pre-parliament church service, remarked on his good result in the polls.

The coalition was up two points and the government down by the same margin on the two-party preferred basis.

Mr Rudd said there was no guarantee first-term governments were a shoo-in at the next federal election.

"Look what happened to the Hawke government back in 1984, very close-run thing, the Howard government in 1998, a very close-run thing," he told ABC Radio.

Only three people out of 100 needed to change their minds in order for Mr Abbott to become prime minister, Mr Rudd said.

But first the public will have to make up its mind on Mr Abbott's climate change action plan, which he released on Tuesday.

Sunday

*



And I know you like your boys to take their medicine
From the bowl with a silver spoon
Who run away with the dish and scale the fish by the silvery light of the moon
Who were taught from the womb to believe till the tomb
That as far as their bleeding eyes see
Is a pleasure pen, meant for them, builded and rent for them
Not for the likes of me
Not for the like of you and me

And for one crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
And I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin

Oh but the green-eyed harpy of the salt land
She takes into hers my hand
She says, "Boy I know you're lying
Oh but then, so am I,"
And to this I said "Oh well."

Well put me in a cage full of lions, I learned to speak lion
In fact I know the language well
I picked it up while I was versing myself in the languages they speak in hell
That night, the silence gave birth to a baby
They took it away to her silent dismay
And they raised it to be a lady
Now she can't keep her mouth shut

And for one crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
And I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin

Augie March



They jogged past, fit as fiddles, astonishing good looking some of them, and he walked past them. Nineteen years before, well, 19 years and almost 9 months before, his son had been conceived, in one of those flashing moments when he knew she was pregnant. She was the third woman in rapid succession, the only one who went through it. They had two children under two before they barely knew each other. I've always wanted to have children, he had expressed out loud, there on that balcony overlooking Woolloomoolloo, with views to the Opera House and the Bridge. Shortly thereafter there had been a miscarriage. Shortly after that he moved. And shortly after that came the next pregnancy. It all happened very fast. He had been a reporter on the Sydney Morning Herald and all had been fine with the world.

A young, good looking partner. The world turning on its axis. The sound of the sea out the window, the boxes of his old life inappropriate in the new surrounds. A milk crate? Well, those were the days. Later he would come home to find half his clothes had been thrown out. They were daggy, she said dismissively, perhaps truthfully. The waves crashed and young fit friends seemed to bounce in and out. Now everything had ended, everything, his life as a reporter, with both of the children off in boarding situations his life as a single father, everything. And so he walked up and down the beach every day, and half the world jogged by. They were in a different realm, in a different stage of life.

How he envied them some days; and when he first came there, after that darkest of dark molasses evil period, would pace up and down the beach staring bitterly, angrily, sadly, blankly at the sand. They say God is in the places in between; perhaps. He wouldn't know. But the waves crashed and his eyes lifted. And after a few months the thought came crashing in: Life Is Magnificent, Every Day Is Glorious. Where did that come from? How could it be? He sat in his alcove and smoked an inappropriate cigarette, and could see the dolphins splashing out to sea, the lovers canoodling on the rocks below. Or depending on the hour young men with their shirts off doing their Eastern inspired exercises.

Yesterday he saw a group of businessmen at about 7am. They had obviously been up all night drinking and decided to go for a skinny dip. Their unattractive bodies, by local standards, shivering in the shock of the sea. They were laughing hysterically as one of them stood on the sand with his togs still on. Not going to join them? He asked, grinning because everything was so fabulous and the day so wonderful and the beach just looked absolutely beautiful; every where he looked another tableau. It's public! The man declared rather superfluously. People are looking! Have fun, he grinned back again; barely braking his stride, because there was more that was beautiful to be embraced, the view from the point, the water splashing on his feet.

He had been spending 12 hours or more at work and now he was free. He tried to give them a cuddle but they were too big now. And it was all such perfect timing. But he couldn't help but feel sad, at everything, everything. The farewell came and went and was really nice. None of the hierarchy came, of course. These were the masters he had been enslaved to all these years, invisible. Names and legends and stories, all things In the passing days and the passing years, his once garrulous nature wrecked by tragedy, his own vulnerability leading to attack. Never again. But who can know now. He was prepared to change everything; to walk into a new role; to become a different person. How grounded was that? Not very.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/most-popular/2010/01/30/jd-salinger-had-15-new-novels-hidden-in-safe-115875-22005281/

Locked behind the thick steel door of a safe, inside an isolated house in a remote wood, lie what could be some of the greatest works of literature ever written.

Yet the words that fill every page have never been read by anyone except the reclusive genius who wrote them.

And now, at least 15 unpublished novels by JD Salinger, the American author of The Catcher in the Rye who died this week aged 91, could well be destroyed.

Fans of the author, one of the 20th century’s most influential writers, have longed for more since his last published work, a story in a magazine back in 1965.

But while his most famous work sold more than 60 million copies worldwide, Salinger retreated from society, giving his last interview in 1980, and was rarely seen in public.

However, he never stopped writing. For 40 years, alone inside a concrete bunker in his rural New Hampshire home, he is said to have furiously bashed away at his typewriter.

But he didn’t allow anyone to see his latest works – locking the precious manuscripts away as soon as they were finished.

Tributes to the legendary author poured in yesterday after his son, actor Matt Salinger, released a short statement that his father had died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday night.

Horror novelist Stephen King said it felt like “an eccentric, short-tempered, but often fascinating uncle had passed away”.

But it is the fate of the author’s secret cache which is causing the most interest – and distress – to fans.

While there was speculation Salinger wanted the books to be published after his death, others have hinted he may have ordered that they should all be destroyed.

Whatever happens, this last chapter in Salinger’s fascinating life is likely to throw up far more questions than answers.

Almost nothing is known about the author’s life since he retreated into self-imposed seclusion in 1953, in the tiny village of Cornish, New Hampshire.

In his last interview, for a high school newspaper in 1980, he said: “I love to write and I assure you I write regularly. But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.”

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2010/01/30/salingers_solitude_their_source_of_pride/

Salinger’s solitude, their source of pride
A little town fondly recalls one very quiet neighbor

By Bryan Marquard
Globe Staff / January 30, 2010

The tall, angular writer with his recognizable shock of white hair could be seen over the years striding through downtown Hanover, some 14 miles north, where he would duck into the Dartmouth Bookstore on Main Street. On an overcast day, passersby might spot him in the Windsor Diner, across the Connecticut River in Vermont, his profile defined by lights inside as he sat in a window booth overlooking Route 5.

He was such a regular at the fund-raising roast beef suppers at First Congregational Church in nearby Hartland, Vt., that when his health failed and he became too frail to attend, his wife drove over to pick up a take-out order from the basement fellowship hall.

“I think maybe he looked like a recluse to the media, but he talked to people, you know,’’ Merilynn Bourne, chairwoman of the Cornish Board of Selectmen, said in town offices yesterday. “If you knew who he was, you’d see him here and there. You’d see him in the grocery store; you’d see him in the post office.’’

“We didn’t use the word recluse; he just kept to himself,’’ said Keith Jones, a selectman. “In my eyes, he wasn’t famous. He was just my neighbor.’’

The writer John Updike once praised Salinger’s short stories for the “Zen quality they have.’’ Salinger himself might have appreciated how the best approach to spotting him had the paradox of a Zen koan. If you did not go looking for him, he was there. If you did, he was not.

When reporters and fans of “The Catcher in the Rye’’ asked for directions to Salinger’s house, “sometimes we’d send them on a little goose chase,’’ said Mike Ackerman, proprietor of the Cornish General Store.

“Nobody would give him up,’’ Jones said.

With protection like that, Salinger lived relatively undisturbed in a largely rural area where many treasure privacy and where the distance between houses is often measured in several wooded acres, rather than lawns. Cornish is part of the Upper Valley, a region straddling the Connecticut River that forms the border between New Hampshire and Vermont. The area’s most urban communities endure only brief traffic jams at rush hour; the smallest have a flashing yellow light at crossroads.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/American-writer-JD-Salinger-leaves-a-rich-legacy/articleshow/5521915.cms

JD Salinger’s reclusiveness was as famous as his slim output of books. But the walls he built to protect himself— and his art—cannot take away from JD Salinger, American Writer
the world his words that remain deeply etched in the American conscience. Why did Salinger disappear from the American literary landscape, a landscape he himself made more beautiful with his own elegant and, at times, comic brush strokes.

His stories, most of which talk about the emotional wounds of the young, changed, post-war, the American model of short fiction. If Hemingway made American writing more virile, Salinger lent it a soft and comic touch. With his great ear for American street argot and a comic timing better than a stand-up comedian’s, Salinger influenced and shaped his successors more than any writer would ever do. They got excited as hell thinking (The Catcher in the Rye) about it as probably he would have written.

John Updike, who was to follow him into the New Yorker, said: “Salinger opened my eyes as to how you can weave fiction out of a set of events that seem almost unconnected, or very lightly connected.” Salinger’s is a constant presence in all Updike’s books. The vernacular in the Rabbits, the humour in Couples, the comic element in The Witches of Eastwick would not be possible without The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger’s only novel, a rite of passage for millions of teenagers across the world.

Updike—unlike Salinger—was a tremendously prolific writer, compulsively playful with language. He left American letters richer by many masterpeices of short and long fiction. All of them have the ‘lightly connected’ touch that Updike found so enriching in Salinger

“A man who used language as if it were pure energy beautifully controlled, and who knew exactly what he was doing in every silence as well as in every word,” Richard Yates said. Yates’s Revolutionary Road came in the early 60s, around the same time that Salinger decided to brick himself up in Cornish, New Hampshire, on a 90-acre ranch. Yates’s book deals with the deeply wounded emotions of a suburban couple and is vastly different in pitch and tone from any of Salinger’s fictions.

But the polished beauty and controlled brevity of Yates’s language comes directly from Salinger. Compare: The whole slow, dry agony of this place would be cut away from his life like a tumour from his brain (Revolutionary Road). Now Salinger from The Catcher: He was rather like a Christmas tree whose lights, wired in a series, must all go out even if one bulb was defective. Two different sentences, two different meanings, two different moods.

But the sharp control, the strong belief in conciseness is there in both sentences.

Saturday

*



http://1.bp.blogspot.comhttp://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/ahc/national-assessments/bondi-beach/pubs/bondi-beach.pdf

Bondi Beach is one of the world's most famous beaches and is of important social value to both the Australian community and to visitors. Bondi Beach is significant because of its special associations for Australians as a central
place in the development of beach culture in Australia. It embodies a powerful sense of place and way of life. It is where Australians meet nature's challenge in the surf and is strongly associated with the Bronzed Aussie myth of
easygoing hedonism and endeavour balanced with relaxation. A place full of Australian spirit, synonymous with Australian beach culture, it is recognised internationally... Egalitarian in nature, the beach and surfing had a profound effect in changing our way of life, and developing our
sense of national identity. The central role of beaches, and Bondi Beach in particular, in Australia’s self image is reflected in the use of the beach by painters, filmmakers, poets and writers in exploring this new self image and reflecting it back to Australian society. Bondi has played a central role in this process, and has come to be viewed both within Australia and internationally as the quintessential Australian beach.



Already the days are getting shorter as the cusp of summer recedes. Got a call from the builder who was sanding his floors, wanting more money. He couldn't believe how hopeless they were. And yet this was Australia, where half the able bodied men of the nation sat around on disability pensions and passive welfare destroyed much of the nation's character. On Australia Day they went to the Oxford Tavern, which advertised topless barmaids, thinking that as it was nearby where they were and nothing else would be happening, it would be going off. A scrawny, rather nice, lets face it, barmaid with enormous jugs served three rather ordinary looking working blokes; and them. That was it. And soon the other blokes left; and it was only them left. After the other blokes left the barmaid put her top back on.

I'm not paid enough, she declared, while Ian pointed fruitlessly to the sign guaranteeing topless barmaids. I'm not paid enough she repeated. Leave her alone, he said. I'm more comfortable if she's more comfortable. Ian pointed at the sign again, but he shrugged. He wasn't a perve in any normal sense. This bar is like Australia itself, drained of life, he said, and they agreed, looking around at the grim surroundings, the peeling posters, the beer stained carpet, the povo walls. If there had ever been any good times in this place, it wasn't now. Behind them stretched another 20 kilometres of suburbs, equally dreary, equally drained of life. Outside the traffic whirred on the hot ashphalt, it, too, ugly and lifeless.

They were all shutting down. He downed another lemon squash. He thought of ripping someone's head off but couldn't be bothered. He thought of gangsters holding up banks, criminals owning bars, flash Leb boys in souped up cars, and realised that it was never going to happen here, there would be no guns pointed here. Down the road a group of men hovered at a tapas bar, drinking short black coffees, smoking cigarettes, not the least bit interested in the tapas. Australia's ludicrous licensing laws had crippled the bar scene. Richard Trevaskis had fantasised about opening a cocktail bar on Oxford Street, a cocktail on the way home from work. A perfect little bar.

But he died and it was well over a decade after his death before the licensing laws changed sufficiently to allow it to happen; those cosy little alcoves where money was no object, where men were united with each other, where flash days and glamorous nights lured them all into a startling intimacy, where other ways of being were all too well documented, where his own departure from the scene would be noted. Oh how he wanted to live in a village, to be known, recognised, appreciated. Here the hordes of tourists pass by and no one could care less. Leaving Sydney, he took his teenage kids first to the Icebergers, hunting for food, and then to Hurricane, where there was a wait of more than half an hour. But the ribs, the ribs, they're delicious, his son kept repeating. They were both moving into boarding situations, after all these years.

It had been him and the kids against the world for so long. Behind those locked doors and grated windows. Him and the kids and Major, the dog, huddled inside against the world. He had no belief that things would work well. No trust in anyone. He wanted to be free and yet didn't know how. Outside children with their yummy mummy ran towards the beach. But here they trailed the past with them, trailed through everything that had been. Surely there was an option, or an answer, but there was no knowing what it was. His farewell was later today; he just wnated to disappear. A gathering of the clan. A passing day. A passing life. It was all too easy and all too cruel. Oh, for God's sake, get a backbone, he thought, dismissing the local yokel pleading for more money.

All they had to do was finish the job to get their money - and they couldn't even do that. If everything worked it would be alright, but it wasn't going to. They hadn't worked in a generation and that was all there was to it. He could sigh with exasperation but there would be no acknowledgement. These shadows were going to beat them. The bastards had been too clever by half. He was going to Tambar to fix the house; and was utterly frustrated by the incompetence he found everywhere. His superannuation fund lied over the cheques being sent. So days rolled by when things should have been done but weren't. It was too easy to blame someone else. A life in transition. Is that all there is? Mary, Mary, quite contrary....


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/29/tony-blair-iraq-inquiry-billington

Blair at Chilcot: a well-rehearsed performance

Our theatre critic assesses Tony Blair's performance, and sees familiar mannerisms and usual arguments

What did we expect? That Tony Blair would break down in front of the Chilcot inquiry admitting he had taken Britain to war on the basis of flimsy intelligence? That he would beg God's forgiveness for the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqis? That he would guiltily confess that at the famous meeting at Crawford, Texas, he had given George Bush unequivocal support for military action?

None of these things happened, of course. What we got was an event short on drama but long on the now-familiar Blair apologia: a kind of "je ne regrette rien" in which he argued that, whatever the messy aftermath, he was right to take us to war to remove Saddam Hussein.

Just occasionally the panel broke through Blair's impenetrable mask of self-belief. He looked a touch rattled when the notorious Fern Britton interview was mentioned and he seemed slippery and evasive when questioned about Lord Goldsmith's change of heart over the legality of military intervention. But except when being interrogated by the terrier-like Sir Roderic Lyne, Blair gave an assured, well-rehearsed performance.

We got all the familiar Blair mannerisms: the thumb and forefinger pressed together to underscore a point, the palms extended outwards to betoken moral certainty in the face of external pressure, even the occasional wry smile as when he claimed: "I was never short of people challenging me."

It was a clever, lawyerly, almost Ciceronian performance in which Blair trotted out all the usual arguments and gave a display of his question-dodging skill. But it would have been much more revealing to see Blair quizzed by the parents, many of them present at the inquiry, of the British soldiers killed in Iraq. Then perhaps he wouldn't have got away quite so easily, as he did here, with murder.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/apr/27/ukcrime

The caged misery of Britain's real 'Hannibal the Cannibal'

Multiple killer Robert Maudsley has spent more than 20 years in solitary. His supporters say this only repeats the abuse that led to his crimes

'It does not matter to them whether I am mad or bad. They do not know the answer and they do not care just so long as I am kept out of sight and out of mind'. Robert Maudsley.

They called him 'Blue' because that was the colour the face of his first victim had turned as he slowly strangled him. Then he became known as 'Spoons' after killing again and leaving the body with a spoon sticking out of the skull and part of the brain missing.

His third and fourth victims died on the same afternoon and soon afterwards Robert Maudsley acquired the nickname that has stuck: Hannibal the Cannibal.

Although he is now nearly 50 and has not committed a crime for more than 25 years, Maudsley is officially classified as Britain's most dangerous prisoner, a man said to represent such a high risk to those around him that he has spent the past quarter of a century in virtual isolation. With no prospect of ever being released, he will remain in prison in isolation until he dies.

Maudsley's bizarre and tragic story will be highlighted by Channel 5 next month as part of its Hideous Crimes documentary series. Using unprecedented access to members of his family, friends and former inmates, as well as Maudsley's own letters and psychiatric sessions, the programme paints a startling portrait of the abusive childhood that turned the man into a killer.

It will also mark the start of a new campaign to improve Maudsley's quality of life, on the grounds that his treatment could lead to further mental breakdown and is therefore a breach of his human rights.

'The prison authorities see me as a problem, and their solution has been to put me into solitary confinement and throw away the key, to bury me alive in a concrete coffin,' Maudsley wrote recently. 'It does not matter to them whether I am mad or bad. They do not know the answer and they do not care just so long as I am kept out of sight and out of mind.

'I am left to stagnate, vegetate and to regress; left to confront my solitary head-on with people who have eyes but don't see and who have ears but don't hear, who have mouths but don't speak. My life in solitary is one long period of unbroken depression.'

It is a situation that has appalled his supporters, who say that Maudsley is the victim of an uncaring and unsympathetic prison system that virtually denies him treatment and does nothing to assist in his rehabilitation.

Maudsley is housed in a 'glass cage', a two-cell unit at Wakefield prison that bears an uncanny resemblance to the one featured in The Silence of the Lambs. It was built for Maudsley in 1983, seven years before the film was released. At around 5.5m by 4.5m, the two cells are slightly larger than average and have large bulletproof windows through which inmates can be observed.

The only furnishings are a table and chair, both made of compressed cardboard. The lavatory and sink are bolted to the floor while the bed is a concrete slab.

A solid steel door opens into a small cage within the cell, encased in thick Perspex, with a small slot at the bottom through which guards pass him food and other items. He remains in the cell for 23 hours a day. During his daily hour of exercise, he is escorted to the yard by six prison officers. He is not allowed contact with any other inmates. It is a level of intense isolation to which no other prisoner, not even Myra Hindley, has been subjected.

Maudsley has a genius-level IQ, loves classical music, poetry and art. He is keen to take an Open University degree in music theory. Friends and family describe him as gentle, kind and highly intelligent. They enjoy both his company and his sense of humour.

'Since getting to know Bob, I have seen many prison documents about him,' says Jane Heaton, who began writing to Maudsley three years ago and has visited him several times. 'Everyone concentrates on the crimes he committed 25 years ago.

'It's as if they are living in a time loop and no one is prepared to look at how he is now. I would like to see him get an independent review of his condition and find a suitable course of treatment for him.'

The most recent pictures of Maudsley are more than 20 years old and were taken from a documentary made about his time in prison a few years into his regime of solitary. The rigours of solitary have taken their toll and today Maudsley looks far older than his 49 years. He has a grey beard, his hair is long and wispy and his skin, pale from lack of sunlight, is sucked in across his cheekbones.

During his last murder trial in 1979, the court heard that during his violent rages Maudsley believed his victims were his parents. The killings, his lawyers argued, were the result of pent-up aggression resulting from a childhood of near-constant abuse. 'When I kill, I think I have my parents in mind,' Maudsley said. 'If I had killed my parents in 1970, none of these people need have died. If I had killed them, then I would be walking around as a free man without a care in the world.'

Maudsley was born in June 1953, the fourth child of a Liverpool lorry driver. Before his second birthday, Robert, his brothers Paul and Kevin, and sister Brenda were all taken into care after they were found to be suffering from 'parental neglect'.

The young Robert spent most of his infancy at Nazareth House, a Roman Catholic orphanage run by nuns in Liverpool. During that time he formed a close bond with his brothers but barely knew his parents, who used to visit occasionally. Several years later, during which time they had eight other children, they took the first four back home.

It was to be the start of a horrific campaign of physical abuse. His brother Paul remembers: 'At the orphanage we had all got on really well. Our parents would come to visit, but they were just strangers. The nuns were our family and we all used to stick together. Then our parents took us home and we were subjected to physical abuse. It was something we'd never experienced before. They just picked on us one by one, gave us a beating and sent us off to our room.'

The worst, however, was reserved for Robert. 'All I remember of my childhood is the beatings. Once I was locked in a room for six months and my father only opened the door to come in to beat me, four or six times a day. He used to hit me with sticks or rods and once he bust a .22 air rifle over my back.' While his brothers had some vague memories of his parents, Robert had been too young and never knew them at all.

He was eventually taken away by social services and placed in a series of foster homes. His father told the rest of the family he had died. Robert drifted down to London at 16, developed a massive drug habit and spent the next few years in and out of psychiatric hospitals after repeated suicide attempts. On numerous occasions he told doctors that he could hear voices in his head telling him to kill his parents.

Working as a rent boy to support his growing drug habit, Maudsley committed his first murder in 1973 after being picked up by labourer John Farrell for sex. When Farrell produced pictures of several children he had abused, Maudsley flew into a rage and garrotted him.

Declared unfit to stand trial, Maudsley was sent to Broadmoor hospital for the criminally insane and remained there for three years. What happened next has become the stuff of prison legend. In 1977 he and another psychopath took a third patient, a paedophile, hostage and barricaded themselves into a cell. They then tortured their victim for nine hours before garrotting him and holding his body aloft so that guards could see him through the spy hatch. According to one guard, the man was discovered with his head 'cracked open like a boiled egg' with a spoon hanging out of it and part of the brain missing.

Ironically, despite killing a patient in Broadmoor, Maudsley was found fit to stand trial. Convicted of manslaughter, he was sent not to hospital but to Wakefield Prison, otherwise known as the Monster Mansion. Maudsley arrived at Wakefield to find his reputation had preceded him. Dubbed 'cannibal' and 'brain-eater', he had been at the prison for only a matter of weeks when he set off on another killing spree.

According to other inmates who were there at the time, Maudsley set out to kill seven people that day. The first was sex offender Salney Darwood. He lured him into his cell and cut his throat, then hid his body under his bed. Maudsley then spent the rest of the morning trying to find other people to lure back, but no one would go with him. 'They could all see the madness in his eyes,' said one.

Eventually, he sneaked into the cell of 56-year-old Bill Roberts and attacked him as he lay on his bunk, hacking at his skull with a makeshift knife and then repeatedly dashing his head against the wall.

He then calmly walked into the wing office, placed a serrated home-made knife on the desk and informed the guards that they would be two short when it came to the next roll-call.

Convicted of double murder, Maudsley was inexplicably sent back to Wakefield Prison. Unable to mix with others for his and their safety, he was moved into solitary confinement and has remained there ever since.

During a spell in Parkhurst, on the Isle of Wight, Maudsley met psychiatrist Dr Bob Johnson, who, after three years of interviews and counselling, believed that he was making great progress and was three quarters of the way through removing the aggression and latent violence that made Maudsley such a danger. But then, without warning, the treatment was cut off and Maudsley was moved back to Wakefield.

'As far as I can tell, the prison authorities are trying to break him,' says his brother Paul. 'Every time they see him making a little progress, they throw a spanner in the works. He spent a time in Woodhill prison, and there he was getting on well with the staff, even playing chess with them. He had access to books and music and television. Now they have put him back in the cage at Wakefield. His troubles started because he got locked up as a kid. All they do when they put him back there is bring all that trauma back to him.'

Maudsley himself agrees: 'All I have to look forward to is further mental breakdown and possible suicide. In many ways, I think this is what the authorities hope for. That way the problem of Robert John Maudsley can be easily and swiftly resolved.'

The Byronesque Quest

*



Backyard

The God of Smoke listens idly in the heat
to the barbecue sausages
speaking the language of rain deceitfully
as their fat dances.

Azure, hazed, the huge drifting sky shelters
its threatening weather.
A screen door slams, and the kids come tumbling
out of their arguments,

and the barrage of shouting begins, concerning
young Sandra and Scott
and the broken badminton racquet and net
and the burning meat.

Is that a fifties home movie, or the real
thing? Heavens, how
a child and a beach ball in natural colour
can break your heart.

And the brown dog worries the khaki grass
to stop it from growing
in place of his worship, the burying bone.
The bone that stinks.

Turn now to the God of this tattered arena
watching over the rites of passage -
marriage, separation; adolescence
and troubled maturity:

having served under that bright sky you may look up
but don't ask too much:
some cold beer, a few old friends in the afternoon,
a Southerly Buster at dusk.

John Tranter



In Afghanistan more than a million people now face virtual house arrest, allowed out of their homes only for three hours each afternoon. In many remote areas this means it is impossible to get to a hospital, and women die in child birth. People dash from their homes to the markets. Helicopter gunships shoot people they find in the fields outside the narrow curfew hours. It's all part of the war on the Taliban, funded by western money, approved by the Western powers, including Australia. There is almost a total blackout of media coverage of the gross human rights offences and the massive damage being done to the economy because no journalists venture into the tribal areas anymore; and those who are there daren't speak out for fear of being shot. People die in distant fields while preening power brokers, Nobel Peace Prize winners no less, turn the other way while providing the money for these gross outrages.

These fragments of present history come down to us through many different sources. There were always outrages in the distant fields of war. His whole life was changing and that was all there was to it. They looked back at their own dishevelled pasts as some kind of Bryonesque quest, noble within itself, discovering the truth about the days flickering past, about their own existence. Grown in the suburbs, destined for the suburbs, these mantles of mediocrity had settled across the entire place. There was no solution. All was not lost but times were most certainly difficult. Sydney really is at the end of the known universe, he said to his friend in the back garden, who agreed. The only bit I'm interested in is from here to there, he said, gesturing at the distance between his house and the beach, Australia's most famous beach.

It was time to leave, there wasn't any doubt of that. He made friends with a charming old American academic who reminded him, in part, of John Parks, the American academic he had worked for for a year at Sydney University. We weren't going to reveal the most intimate flashes. Time was of the essence yet time was slipping away. We were prepared to be distorted. We came running, running, in a flurry of sweat and excitement out of the night. Distant battlefields were just another undiscovered tragedy; impossible for the brain to take in. They were miniscule worms wriggling in a petrie dish; they made way for the future and a way for the past. They didn't know who they were anymore. He was disconsolate with rage.

Because while nothing seemed fair, there were many other solutions to be had. He wanted to reach out and embrace everyone, record everything. Five am and on queue the kookaburras begin their raucous chorus. They were destined to be strangers. It was such an intimate thing, this lost longing. Could hardly be more intimate, he heard a voice say, and he wanted to make everything his own, be accepted, march every which way, approach the same bar, high in a Penang penthouse, watch the sqwawling, skanky city beneath. Hey Johnnie, you want something? These tales, there had been so many, did not a story make, and yet images collected over a lifetime needed to be portrayed, to fill the holes in the meta-narrative, whatever it was.

And so he knew, though he still found it hard to believe, that he was leaving Sydney, if not for good at least for now. There were other shadows flickering by, withdrawal sweats and drifting clouds of depression, free floating anxiety, but what had seemed like such a noble, Byronesque quest in their youth had turned them into nothing but thrill seeking derelicts, always looking back for the great party that had been. Father and son sat next to each other; while others sneered at outdated programs. He sought the answer and could not find. He made all those unique connections necessary for a shadowy lifestyle; and in their secret flitting from one place to another registered on nobody's radar. The authorities couldn't care. The politicians couldn't care.

And so, in the end, it came to nothing. Their destiny as street alcoholics defied their multiple talents, all the gifts and benefits they had been born with. He was marching past the statues he himself had built. They had once meant something but now were shimmering into disbelief; flickering and fading into eternal night. Beauty lasts forever. Love lasts forever. That's what they say. It was obvious nonsense. From that lonely beach so long ago where he had waited to die to the present, massive beach where tourists from around the world stretched their perfect bodies and flirted with each other, not noticing the old man who walked between them, he had learnt one truth: all was ephemeral, nothing lasted. Now he packed his bags and prepared to leave; an entire life.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/rich-or-poor-gillard-plans-to-put-it-all-online-this-year-20100128-n1s7.html

THE financial resources of every school in Australia will be on public display in the next version of Julia Gillard's My School website, due later this year.

State and territory governments and Catholic and independent school authorities agreed a year ago to provide the information but have not yet been able to devise a measure that allows fair comparisons between government, Catholic and independent schools.

Peter Hill, the chief executive of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which is responsible for My School, said data about each school's financial resources would be published in a second version of the site, along with results from this year's national literacy and numeracy tests.

''A lot of people will be very interested in finances of schools, because, of course, some schools have much more in terms of financial resources than others and this may go a long way to explaining some of the differences we're observing,'' Dr Hill said.

He said financial data would not be used to determine ''similar'' schools to which schools could be readily compared but would be displayed on the site separately.

Many parents had difficulty using the site after it was launched yesterday.

Dr Hill said the level of interest was greater than site producers had prepared for. It received 290,000 hits in the hour after its launch, at 1am. By 10am it had received 2.5 million. By 2pm this had grown to 4.5 million.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/8485282.stm

Andy Murray believes he is ready to end Britain's 74-year wait for a male Grand Slam singles winner after reaching his maiden Australian Open final.

The 22-year-old beat Marin Cilic to become Britain's first finalist in Melbourne since 1977, but he said: "I want to be remembered for winning it."

Asked if he thought he could triumph, he told BBC 5 live: "Yes, I think so.

"I've played my best tennis so far, I just need to do it in one more match. I'll give it my best shot."

Murray will meet Roger Federer or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in his second Grand Slam final on Sunday after coming from a set down to beat Cilic.

"There's a lot of pressure in Slam finals and if it's Roger, he's going to have the edge in experience," said world number four Murray, who lost to Federer in the 2008 US Open final.

"But I feel like if I play my best like I have been this week and fight hard, I've definitely got a chance of winning."

I want to win it obviously for the people that I work with, for my parents... then doing it for British tennis and British sport would be excellent as well

Andy Murray

Murray dropped his first set of the tournament in his semi-final against Cilic, and was struggling for inspiration when he trailed 6-3 2-2.

But, with a break point, Murray chased down a drop shot, produced a volley on the stretch before racing back to the baseline, spinning, and rifling an outrageous forehand pass down the line.

As a stunned crowd rose to its feet, a fired-up Murray pumped his fists and roared his approval.

"They don't happen that often, so you've got to enjoy them," he said later.

"It was really important because, I don't want to say the match was slipping away from me but the momentum was definitely with him."

From there, Murray swept to a 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-2 win over a tiring opponent in a minute over three hours.

The Scot now has two days' rest before Sunday's final.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/01/100128_obama_analysis.shtml

President Obama has delivered his first State of the Union address, stating his main focus would be job creation and fixing the economy.

Mr Obama acknowledged that the government bail-out of banks had been deeply unpopular, but said it had been necessary to stabilise the financial system.

In a speech that was at times combative, Mr Obama said he would not leave the huge budget deficit he had inherited to be tackled by another generation.

He warned Congress that it must change the way it does business to restore the trust of the American people.

Many African-Americans voted Mr Obama into office hoping he would make a real difference to their lives.

His candidacy created an unprecedented excitement in black districts of St Louis, but there are parts of this city that are suffering from almost unbelievable deprivation.

Amid one of the most run-down parts of town, Fergus Nicoll finds a church that is helping the local community rebuild lives ruined by the economic downturn.