Undertow
Posted on September 28, 2006
I’m becoming a vertiable book review blog. Only because I have about nine books sitting there waiting for me to read them - so I’m putting my shoulder to the wheel avoiding the telly and reading my head off.
Undertow was given to me by a friend of the author Sydney Bauer - who is impossibly pretty and glamorous-looking for an author, judging from the pics on her site. But not holding that against her, I ploughed into it.
It’s possibly be the first investigative crime style novel I’ve ever read and by golly I’m enjoying it. Well written, well researched. Compelling, as they say.
She’s done something rather interesting on her site showing images of some of the locations from the book - cute.
It’s her first novel and I hope it goes well for her.
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So Impressed
Posted on September 27, 2006
We had our friends M & J over to lunch recently. They’re a couple who will enter into a domestic for the sole purpose of entertaining their friends - and making them realise how grateful they are to have each other.
One particularly memorable dinner had them at either end of the table debating which one had the hairiest arse. I think that was probably a fairly low point in our social calendar but it made a pleasant change from real estate prices and global warming.
Anyway on this occasion M (the wife) revealed that when J met new people - say the fathers of their kids school friends - they shot up in his estimation if they said ‘Fuck’ at some point in the conversation. We all took turns poking fun at him over this but later I realised it’s not so silly.
Hanging with the Mums at the school gate can be pretty dire sometimes and frankly if someone arrived and threw the ‘F’ word in, I would find that more scintillating than the eternal discussions about school projects and what people are going to make for dinner.
But then, if they said the ‘F’ word more than was appropriate I’d probably swing back the other way and think they were rather uncouth. Far from a sure fire way to impress people I guess.
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The Secret River
Posted on September 26, 2006
Just finished reading The Secret River and enjoyed it immensely.
It was particularly significant to me for a number of reasons, the first being that not growing up in Australia I don’t have that solid foundation of Australian history behind me. The other is that my partner (and consequently children) have convict and aboriginal ancestory.
Although I like a nice bit of prose I’m not a great one for too much in the way of endless lyrical descriptions of landscape esp at the cost of any sort of plot. Kate Greville has managed to strike just the right balance conjuring up the beauty of the river, and the love her character Thornhill has for the land, while developing characters (most of whom are odious) and moving the plot along.
While set in Australia, it is a universal story Europeans moving into a country and imposing their values on the indigenous people. They despise them as savages in the most brutal way and yet are morally bankrupt themselves.
When I finished it I had ‘white-guilt’, the shame you feel on behalf of your forebears.
I wish I could say that all has changed but the truth is very little has changed apart from the fact that people don’t have government sanction to murder the indigenous people of Australia these days.
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Bush School
Posted on September 25, 2006
Bush School Premieres on SBS TV Australia
8:30pm, Thursday 28 September, 2006
Five years ago, school teachers Colin and Sandra Baker decided to do what other baby boomers were doing, opt for a sea-change, though, theirs was more of a desert-change. The town of Warrego, situated on the edge of the Tanami desert, was the Baker’s destination and their plan was to run the Warrego primary school. However, the gold mine closed and almost overnight, Warrego became a ghost town. With no students left, the school would have to close. To keep their school going and to save their jobs, Colin and Sandra had to find a way to encourage the children from a remote, Aboriginal community to come to Bush School.
A bit of blatant promotion for our talented friend Bryan Duffy who has produced, directed, written, edited - everythinged this doco. It’s been selected as the Sydney Morning Herald’s ‘Show of the Week’ this week - which is really exciting.
It’s an wonderful story and will also be featured on the National Geographic Channel at some point - so watch out for it!
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The Big Hickup
Posted on September 24, 2006
There was an interview in the paper with Terry Hicks, father of Australian David Hicks being held without trial in Guantanamo Bay. The man’s a bloody legend, the lengths he’s gone to to have his son released.
As far as I can see David Hicks was a young man in search of a cause and a little adventure, maybe he’s gullible or not that smart but, at some point, he believed that Islam was the answer to life’s riddles and next thing you know he’s batting about Afghanistan and hanging out with al-Qa’ida. He starts to get confused and disillusioned writes home to Dad asking for advice but then is arrested by the US troops - unarmed - in the back of a truck.
He’s now been in Guantanamo Bay for four years without a trial or any charges being laid against him. As his father has pointed out, if there are charges, why don’t they charge him?
According to Hicks he’s been subjected to ten hour long beatings. Every picture we see of him he’s bound and shackled and escorted by two armed guards. What the hell is it all about? Bin Laden he ain’t. He’s the forgotten man no-one wants to claim. A man who made an ideological mistake but is so far from dangerous it’s a joke.
My daughter (13) said ‘Wouldn’t the American people do something if they knew what was happening to him?
Sadly America has about as much control over bully boy Bush as we have over John Howard.
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