And the celebration of world youth day, for which I had already become subversively active, triggered a few shots from Fiz, as he is known for short, which, in turn, triggered a few letters to the editor brandishing Fiz for his ‘relentless’ rage against the oh so wonderful and timidly cowering catholic church. That letter prompted me to write the following letter in response
31st August, 2008
Re.: Letters to the editor 31st August, 2008, Denis Collins, Blackheath
Denis Collins, I guess Fiz will stop, what you call in your temperate, measured words, hysterical diatribes, (talk about people in glass houses being careless with rocks) as soon as the assorted churches, christian or otherwise, stop telling all and sundry what to do and not to do. Stop their obsession with sex. Stop their homophobic ranting. Stop preaching utter nonsense, such as creationism as pseudo science. Any chance there?
Getting to early September, I somehow had enough of the cold and rang Ute to tell her, that I would come to Flying Fishpoint for a few days, in order to soak up some warmer temperatures and a bit of tropical ambience. And there was a new rain forest walk which I would like to visit near Innisfail. Gesagt, getan
trip 4
5th September, Sydney – Cairns – Flying Fishpoint
10th September, Cairns – Sydney
The funny thing with this trip was, that it basically rained on all but the first day – when we did our rain forest walk – but it was warm and created a wonderful atmosphere for sitting around, reading, eating drinking and, in the evenings, playing lots of Yatzee with Dominic, Helga, Tony and Ute.
It was also a pleasant coincidence that my good friend Thomas from Adelaide spend some quality time in Flying Fishpoint as well and I was pleased to see him.
In September our political scene hotted up a bit, thanks to the machinations of the liberal party which, as yet, has to come to terms with the idea of being in opposition. For most of the year they had the misfortune of being led by Brendan Nelson. (3 Photos in this following section are taken from the Internet)
He is a nice enough guy, but, as we would say in our Australian vernacular piss weak.
His public performance often left things to be desired. His arguments on camera became increasingly mangled and contradictory and by August, almost all people in the liberal party room were talking about having to replace the poor bastard. The polls showed him, at times, on a 7% approval rate, compared to that of his opponent, Kevin Rudd at 65% plus. Not a very good look.
At the same time the liberals were still somehow dreaming about Peter Costello, the former Treasurer and wannabe leader for so many years putting up his hand to lead the party.
But he had made, in more than one convoluted way clear, that he had no particular interest anymore in such a job. But as it often happens, politicians don’t believe politicians if they say no to something which they would be expected to say yes to. Such is politics.
In all this unproductive rumbling about the liberal leadership, Brendan Nelson was obviously asked many times whether he felt that he still had the confidence of his party or whether he would be leaving the leadership and make place for somebody else. And in one of those tedious interviews, his response was: “I am going nowhere”
And that response, using the common Australian interpretation means something slightly different from what he intended to say, but without intention, he described his situation perfectly. He was going nowhere with his leadership. And neither was his party.
In those days I wrote to a friend
Green Point Palace 15th September, 2008
letter to a friend
…… Speaking of the Howard era. We are currently spoon-fed with titbits of the Costello memoires. Seeing the Libs squirm and the ALPlers grin like a Cheshire cat with lots of crème around its mouth is a sight to behold.
Not that there is a lot of real news in it. We always knew that Howard is, what we call in German, a Winkeladvokat. They are masters in re-interpreting commonly understood terms so that they actually mean the opposite of what everybody else understands them as meaning. He carries the moniker lying rodent not for nothing and bestowed on him by his own party.
And the ALP in NSW is just getting a whacking at every turn possible. Nathan Rees, our new Premier, can hardly keep up with the number of apologies he has to issue on a daily basis. The next few by-elections – due to MPs leaving the sinking ship in droves – will end with a big mauling of the NSW ALP. Deservedly so, one has to say. The council elections on the weekend were just a warm up run.
As you can see, we live in interesting times – the way the Chinese, euphemistically, wish.
From me, however, best wishes for interesting times in the best of German/Australian tradition. All the best
PS: this letter was written last night and saved, just before the power supply of my PC said for ever good bye and switched off the computer in an uncerimonial fit. Which meant I had to lug it to West Gosford to a computer repair shop and replace the power supply.
During the ensuing 15 hours, Brendan Nelson has called for a leadership spill after having been white anted for the last 9 months (he is an absolute dill) And as every ALP man worth his/her salt would know, you don’t call leadership spills unless you know exactly the outcome. And Brendan got that one wrong (and not only because he is an ex-ALP and liberal now) by the looks of it. In other words, we have the member for Wentworth, Millionaire and bonvivant Malcolm Turnbull now in the leader’s chair.
Whether that will change anything is a different question. But here we go – she’ll be right mate, as we Bavarians say so eloquently –
And if I don’t send this e-mail now very soon, the big machine in Switzerland might have created a new black hole in which we all disappear.!!........
And there he was, Malcolm Turnbull in the role of leader of the opposition.
One of his dreams came true. However, since his party, or he, cannot decide on any policy or anything constructive to hold the government to account, he resorts to childish accusations of Rudd or other ministers, one of those being to criticise them for their extensive travel, in particular it such dire times when the world financial markets come to a melt down. Never mind that Kevin Rudd spent most of the time on the trip, for which he was so severely criticised, in NYC and other parts of America, at the centre of the malaise and talked extensively with many of the players in this game in order to obtain as much first hand information on facts and possible solutions as is humanly possible.
But Mr Turnbull wanted him at home in order to be able to have a go at him in parliament. And it got a bit up his arrogant nose that these one on one confrontations simply could not take place . this prompted me to write the following open letter to Malcolm Turnbull
Green Point (NSW) 24th September, 2008
Open letter to Malcolm Turnbull
Dear Malcolm,
I think in your valiant efforts to show those neo luddites on your and the other side of the house what a ripper new leader you are, you are losing a bit of touch with reality and logic.
Your constant moaning about Kevin 07 not being in the house but spending a week in NYC contrasts, in the logic capers, a bit with your moaning and groaning about the government doing bugger all but setting up inquiries into all and sundry.
If the latter were true – as you insist it is – there is nothing for Kev to do right now other than to wait for all those reports to flood his desk. So he might as well use the time for a fleeting visit to NYC with some potential for national benefit.
And as far as communicating with those neophytes (as you might regard those ALP masses back home in Canberra) there is this thing with the little squiggly bit, you know, the thing which OzEmail was into big time, which has miraculously dispensed with the good old postal dove and allows for pretty good and timely communication of all sorts of things. (even taking into account that NYC is far behind Canberra – 14 hours according to my world clock - to be precise)
Or is the real reason for castigating Kev for his travel the fact that his absence might take a bit of the gloss of your first week performance in parliament as the new and oh so brilliant economic manager.
I agree, on the TV news at night it might sometimes look a bit like Romeo and Juliet in the balcony scene with Juliet having left the balcony for a quick pee. Makes Romeo look a bit superfluous!
Coming to think of brilliant – manager – merchant banker – world financial markets – etc – I would think that you should be the first – inflated ego and volcanic temper allowing – to fly somewhat under the radar and hope for the tsunami to wash over you without a lot of traces of damage – image or otherwise.
It is, after all, your professional colleagues – those brilliant merchant b(w)ankers, who managed to manage their fortunes into oblivion and now stand – cap in hand – at the tax payers’ funded trough (a mental picture which is more commonly associated with politicians rather than the proud and self-appointed guardians of private enterprise) waiting for the morsels of public money to fall into their laps.
I don’t know whether the inventors of PPPs (public, private partnerships) had this kind of scenario in mind without telling the great unwashed.
Malcolm, sit back, relax, count the left over cash if you must but think of a new and better way than dear old Brendan could, to provide this country with, what it needs for the political oxygen to flow, a convincing political ALTERNATIVE.
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