Oh, jesus!

On Sunday (appropriate, but accidental) P, V and I trotted off the the Opera House to see Handel's Messiah performed by the Sydney Philharmonic. I didn't really know that much about it beyond the 'Hallelujah' bits but the prospect of hearing all those voices in a purpose built concert hall was too much to resist.

I had never actually stepped inside the Opera House before, though I stare at it every day. I expected it to be a bit more velvety and chintzy and generally trashy inside, but that's probably just because you've had to battle through the tat of Circular Quay to get there. I didn't expect all that starkness and concrete and clean lines. On the inside, at least of the bit we were in, it was smaller, as well. Given the huge clean grandeur of the outside, it kind of seemed oddly cramped, like a reverse tardis. In a nice, industrial chic kinda way. The toilets sported plywood doors with a very groovy curve and steeply sloping ribbed concrete cielings.

I realised as soon as they began that I should reminded myself to prepare for all that christian praise palaver. Not a difficult thing to remember you would have thought, what with being called 'The Messiah' an' all, but that slipped my mind in all the excitement of the prospect of a 300-400 strong choir. Not least because of the subject matter, I had never listened to the whole thing before, so I was also a bit unprepared for the frequency and length of the solos.

I may be the only person on the planet that didn't know this,  there are a lot of them, and a great many of them comprise of saying the same phrase over and over again with a different emphasis. I had understood that 'He was despis-ed' after the first or so ten repetitions and was ready to move on. Or just listen to the orchestra.

The tenor seemed to be doing a fine job, but the haughty tilt of his chin as he gazed at the audience like some low-rent prophet while he waited to be needed again was really getting on my nerves. The soprano was kind of like an upper middle-class kindy teacher who had finished her training before she realised she disliked small children.  She was a little like an unfriendly version of Juanita from Playschool, only not as saucy. The bass, my favourite, reminded me of my brother's school friend Gareth, who none of us have set eyes on for decades. I couldn't help thinking that these reflections were not quite the kind of transcendent contemplation that Handel and those who commissioned him had quite intended to elicit. Mostly, I just wanted them all to shut up and let the choir have a go.

All of that was secondary to the real problem, though, which was a distracting Powerpoint - sorry, multimedia - presentation that was flashing above us all, presenting a bizarre gum-leaf and drenched sheep interpretation of the whole passion play. Opening with the dog on the tuckerbox. I kid you not. At first I though it was going to be some frightfully clever po-mo pastiche of christmas kitch, but when the indigenous theme was introduced my ability to go cheerfully with the flow pretty soon evaporated.

I cannot even begin to tell you the mish-mash of stuff that went on, but there seemed to me to be a number of images that were open to a very limited and rather unpleasant interpretation. For example, presenting a pair of young indigenous men with the 'lost' who apparently needed to be saved from darkness by a little glowing jesus appearing above his head? I would have thought that a long term view of the 40,000-odd thousand years of Australian residency would suggest that they were doing just fine on a spiritual level thousands of years before anyone had even dreamt up the christian idea of god, and given the various events that have occurred to communities and families since (with church involvement for ill as well as for good), the claim is dubious at best.

Later, the same young indigenous man superimposed over a crucified christ with barbed wire silhouettes across him while everyone sang. "And with his stripes we are healed". I'm sorry?  We are now claiming that the suffering imposed on the indigenous community was a necessary part of "our" salvation? While I have no problem at all in acknowledging that the various assaults - both deliberate and accidental - inflicted on indigenous people in this country over the last few centuries clearly qualify as "sins",  claiming that the whole sorry mess has any redemptive value is another thing altogether. Its pretty hard to see the idea of equating the story of Australian colonialism with the story of a man/god put on earth in order to redeem us as anything other than cruel and offensive.

Everyone stood up when they got to the 'Hallelujah' bit.

We move on to "And we like sheep", and lo and behold, we have a bunch of sheep being mustered for a good drenching by the look of it. A little literal, perhaps, but I see the point. Then a picture of a crowd shot. All white faces. When I was in South Africa recently I was struck by how every white south african I spoke to (some of whom were nuns, by the way) unfailingly spoke about their black compatriots as 'them'. "They like to do this... "They have a strong tradition of...". Hundreds of nations and family groups  and different cultural traditions reduced to a single Other.  This slide-show didn't seem much different.  'We' as Australia, 'they' as....what? Not 'Australia'? A symbol?

Maybe I just missed the point, and it was some clever-clever pastiche poking fun at exactly the types of things I complain about above, and I was just too obtuse to get it.  But when the final group of shots appear incorporating a whole lot of national flags being waved, its hard to think positively about the interpretation.

I know that I've been away a while, but I have been fondly imagining that the fact that both our Prime Minister and our Opposition Leader are avowed church-goers of the christian variety was a pure co-incidence. Now I'm not so sure.

As for the four hundred people singing at the top of their voices, fucking fantastic.

Harbour-side Visitations

Here I am back in the Sydney Sky Palace (where, incidentally, this whole blogging business began). All here is pretty much as it was before. Which is rather pleasing.

The main difference is that we have a daily, twice daily or sometimes even thrice daily visitation from the creature above. As least, I think its from him (or her). There may also be guest appearances by cousins and other tribe members. I haven't got to know them well enough to tell them apart, yet.

Thus far he or she has limited himself to a restrained tapping on the window to alert when I have fallen down in my responsibilities and allowed the window- ledge to become bereft of seed. S/he has been very polite. There is a restrained maliciousness in the glint of that beady black eye, however, that suggests any failure to fulfill my duties will be met with rapid and gleeful retribution.  Though our acquaintance has been brief, cockatoos in general seem to me the kind of beasts that would find destroying the power lines or eating the locks, or, horror of horrors, coming in the window and eating the landlords beloved vinyls hugely amusing.

I am therefore strenuously resisting falling into demand feeding.  Lines are drawn in the battle of wills.

The Butterflies of Sun Moon Lake

Sun Moon Lake is the largest lake in Taiwan. Nestled up the highlands where the air is cooler and the humidity is low, it is surrounded by layer upon layer of steep hills that recede away into misty nothingness in the distance. Dawn casts an orange glow across the still waters. If you have a generous budget and a bit of luck, you can stay at The Lalu Hotel and watch the light shift and change from your private balcony, or slide back the walls and soak up the view from the bath.

It was apparently Chiang Kai-shek's favorite holiday retreat, and The Lalu is on the site of his former holiday residence. The newly constructed wing - designed by Australian Kerry Hill Architects - nestles unobtrusively into the surrounding greenery, and is simply the most gorgeous, tranquil and generally lovely hotel I have ever seen. Unfortunately, there are a number of high-rise monstrosities nearby. Still, if you are looking out at the lake, or strolling around the well maintained boardwalk that rings the lake's edge, you can forget they exist altogether.

On the weekends couples drape themselves decorously around the paths and groves, big powerpuff creations of white organza and sharp suits being snapped by wedding photographers among the bamboo, as massive butterflies gambol about overhead.

"We don't have many butterflies here," said the Hotel Guy. Was he mad? Spectacular flutter-bys were everywhere. "Oh, in Taiwan we do," he explained. "We are called the Kingdom of the Butterfly. But not so much here. Much more in the South"

The mind boggles. Its hard to imagine better butterfly action than we were getting at Sun Moon Lake.The highlights were probably the massive creature of black filigree with fillings of white, red, orange and yellow. This one took the prize for sheer gaudiness. It was flopping around amongst the Morning Glory Flowers, big as a dinner plate and frames by the azure waters of Sun Moon Lake like a little gravity-defying stained glass window.

The dull brown one liked having his photo taken. The rest insisted on hopping about in a very un-photogenic manner.My particular favorites were the huge black ones, as big as your hand, with metallic blue on lower wings fringed with a lovely rococco flourish of fiddly-bits. We had seen a number of these big black beasts, but I struggled to catch one on film. They flitted around in the shadows, hid behind ferns, pretended to be falling leaves and generally acted compulsively camera-shy.

We were at the end of our last walk before leaving for Taipei, and I had abandoned all hope of getting one on film when suddenly there it was, jet black a with dark green and bright blue splashes flashing in the sunlight. This particular one was lazier than all its cousins, and actually stopped on the lantana occasionally. All that fast-finger practice of playing arcade games on the plane came to the fore as I snapped away maniacally, though the rather blurry splash to your left is the best I could manage.

The Path of Enlightenment

"Master, when can I call myself 'Traveller'?"
"When Grasshopper, you have found The Other Way"
"To where?"
"To the Path. To Nirvana."
"As in, 'Teen Spirit'?"
"No, Grasshopper. Not that Nirvana."

I was take The Green Bus. So it was written. From Exit 4, Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT. And yet, there I went and Green Bus found I none. Waiting for me in the mountains was respite from all wordly cares, bliss and comfort. Not to mention a 60 metre infinity pool. But how to reach it?

"O Reception, I beseech thee most humbly. The Green Bus is not more.How can I get to Sun Moon Lake?"
"Go to the bus station."
"And how to I get there?"
"By taxi." (subtext: 'Of course. Dummy.')"Give them this." She scribbles characters on to a note and hands them to me. I hope that they say 'Sun Moon Lake'.

"I am Leo." said the driver. "I take you to airport."
"But I need to go to the bus station."
"There, too."
I farewell Leo at Taipei Bus Station, and sentries at the gate point me to a Ticket Keeper. She frowns and points me back out the door. On the way, I pause at the Pool of Information & Enlightenment.

"No! Wrong station. Go this one." She hands me a little pamplet on a map and circles a yellow splodge a few blocks away. I wave feebly to the right, and she instructs me with elegant swipes of her ballpoint across the little printed map: right out the door, over the supermarket, down to he shopping mall,right again....

The wheels of my carry-on clickety clack on the tiles.Why do I insist on buying books? On the overpass, I give the bobbing man with no legs $50 NTD (about £1) for luck as our paths cross above a six lane freeway. Descending back to earth, taxi drivers call from left or right, but I can see no bus stop. Round the building site, past the front end loader, two blue-clad maidens swim into view from a brown cloud of billowing building dust.

"Bus to Sun Moon Lake?"
"Yes, madam. This way." I am not sure exactly when I became a madam. I think it was about the same time I turned 40.

The air clears to reveal another blue clad vision, an oasis of cool and calm, with perfect English. I can't even remember how to say "hello" in her language, though by now I am well into day 2.

"O Learned One, I seek a Bus. To Sun Moon Lake. There my lover waits, with a massive hole in his credit card."

With a beatific smile, a Timetable was summoned, but Alas, the next bus to Nirvana was not until 15:30. Happy as I was to bask in the glow of the Lady of the Buses, I was not sure that three and a half hours in her Linoleum House of Worship was quite what I had in mind. And it meant that I would not get to Nirvana before eight. This would verily speed me on the Path of Disgruntlement, when I sorely needed the Path of Delight.

"Is there no Other Way?"

"There are Two Ways you can choose. You can take bus to Sun Moon Lake at 15:30. Or, there is a bus to Puli. From There you get local bus to Sun Moon Lake."

Verily then did I "Woo hoo". The Bus to Puli arrived within 10 minutes. Lengthy discussion did the Lady of the Buses have with the driver have, telling him all. She also inscribed a parchment with rows of characters, strange and square, and handed it to me.

"Take this. Cross the road to the stop when The Driver says. Give them this. They will tell you the bus." The Driver did as he was bid, his mind as free and clear as the seats of the bus: I was the only passenger for three out of the three and a half hours of the journey.

I enter the Puli Bus station and pass the Holy Parchment beneath the glass. She reads, she frowns. She points at me, points at the clock,writes 15.45 on the paper.
I sit among strangers, in the highlands of Taiwan. Bhuddist nuns (apologies if that's the wrong term) with shaved heads pass in and out, on and off the buses. The loudspeaker calls names I can't understand. A tiny girl of about two is the only one that stares at my funny face and skin. I wait.

Next thing I know I am called by the Gatekeeper. She is waving a telephone receiver, gesturing to me. Who on earth is calling me at Puli bus station?

"Hello, Miss Weller. This is the Lalu Hotel. You are to take the 15.45 from Puli? The bus will take about 40 minutes. We will send a car to meet you at the station in Sun Moon Lake. It is a black wagon. You wait. It will bring you to the hotel."

Already the big hole in the credit card seems worth it. And so it comes to pass. The Gatekeeper and the Ticket Seller and a third woman who happens to be sharing my bench start waving at me madly when my bus arrives. Once again lengthy instructions are issued on my behalf. Along with a large bag of persimmons, notes are passed, bearing numbers and signs. Forty minutes further on, the driver waves me off, pointing to the numbers, the note and holding thumb to ear, pinky to mouth in the universal gesture of "calling" as he pats himself on the chest. I sit on my suitcase. He ends his call, and thumb and finger join in an circle of 'OK'. I reply with the thumbs up. We wave to eachother, and off he goes.

Within five minutew the car arrives, and the bag is whisked away. Within ten, I am seated in deep couches, a fruit juice in my hand and the lake stretched out before me, ringed in layers of steep misty hills

"So what have we learned today, Grasshopper?"
"That the very fast train to Taichung and a bus from there would have been quicker?"
"True. But no."
"That its the journey not the destination?"
"Mmmm.No bad, Grasshopper. But a little unoriginal."
"That I am finally 'Traveller?'"
"Hardly. What did you actually do, Grasshopper?"
"Fair point. How about 'Never to under-estimate the kindness of strangers?'"
"That'll do."

Dear Gordon,

Dear Gordon,

A couple of things on my mind that I thought I should share:

1)Biscuits

I don't know who your media advisors are, but jesus! Next time some massive circulation newspaper asks you your favourite biscuit, just answer, for fuck's sake. You don't even have to do it yourself. Delegate the task to the person who fetches your tea if its quicker. But answer!

If you had compulsory voting in this country, you would recognise the importance of the biscuit. In failing to engage in this little bit of public banter, its like someone said hello to you at the busstop and you just ignored them. Bad manners, basically. But then, I bet no-one if your office has waited for a bus stop in a very long time. I think this would help.

2) Expenses

Hello? Have you lot never been to public adminstration school?

Rule 1)Fairness, transparency, efficiency.
Rule 2) The appearance of fairness, transparency, efficiency.

So, seeing that you seem determined to fuck this up, I though I would solve your expenses crisis for you, as follows:

1) No allowances for place of residence AT ALL.

2) A travel/remoteness allowance based on the location of the MPs ELECTORAL office. You remember those? They are where the people you represent drop in to see you.

3) Conditions of allowance as follows. If you electoral office is in Greater London, you don't get one AT ALL. If you live within a few hundred miles you get Rate A (to be determined). If you live in the fucking Shetlands or something, you get Rate B, which will be much higher than A.

4) You can give everyone a pay rise at the same time. A simple table (this is where the transparency comes in) can show The People (who are actually the whole point of you going to Westminster at all, and whose money it is, by the way) how the costs and adminsitration savings mean you can afford the pay rise and still save money.

That person who makes your tea could probably administer it for you. It might take them a day or two, but not much more.

Simples, as the meerkat, would say. That took about ten minutes. I am not sure why the Speaker took so long to come up with his idea, but I reckon I'm better value for money.

Please sort this out. If the Tories get in I might have to kill myself.

For my next trick, I will sort out the House of Lords for you, if you like (someone's got to do it, and you don't seem to have been making much progress on your own).

P.S. When discussing the expenses stuff recently, some woman on the telly - I think she was a labour Lord - said something along the lines that it showed a widening gap between "the governed and those who govern". The governed? To reiterate my points above about a) media, communication and good manners, and b)the Lords, it is, depressingly, no surprise that it did not occur to use a phrase such as "the people and their representatives".

No wonder no-one wants to vote.

Autumn sunset

Today, Edinburgh graced us with an amazing rainbow, just on sunset. The full semi-circle, and all pretty colours. After a slow (but warm!) start, autumn has turned out to be rather spectacular.



The sunset light was rather fine, too. These photos are taken in The Meadows.

Bridget of Arabia

As you are probably aware, dear reader, before I turned thirty I had not stepped off the shores of the Great Southern Land. It was primarily laziness that did it. Not that I was too lazy to travel, I was just too lazy to do the working and saving required to pay for the tickets.

Anyway, in 2006 the stars started falling over themselves in their keeness to align, and I found myself suddenly in possession of a silver frequent flyer card. Fancy. And that was before I moved to Europe. Since then I have been doing my best to take advantage of the incredible proximity of wonders.

I am still a bit of a nuff-nuff as a traveller, I must say, but its not for want of opportunity. In fact, as I sit here procrastinating about finishing the three jobs I must finish before I head South on Monday, I am actually thinking rather wistfully about the idea of a good long stretch of solid, stolid stick-in-the-mudness.

Imagine my surprise, then, when on Wednesday a charming young man called Simon from Wanderlust rang me to say that I have won an 8-day trip for two to Jordon, courtesy of onthegotours.

Really. I am not making this up.

What makes is triply stupendous, is that it looks like there is a good chance that we will be able to book in for a trip that coincides with a very special event. I am not going to tell you what it is, though just in case all three of you that ever read this blog jam the switchboard and steal our spots before we have been able to snaffle them.

Stay tuned!

Now all I have to do is figure out which continent my copy of 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' is on....

GO SAINTS!

Its Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final weekend. And wouldn't you know it, the first time my team has made the big match in years - and actually has some chance of winning - and I am at the wrong end of the world altogether.

For any passers by that may be unfamiliar, the last (and only) time St Kilda Football Club won The Big One was 1966. That's a long time between drinks, my friends.

My team scarf is at the ready alarm is already set for 5.00 am when ESPN starts telecasting in the UK. Apologies to the neighbours in advance for any uncouth hooting and hollering that may eventuate.

GO saints!!!!!!!!

Thunderbirds Are Go!

Iceland is an unstable place. It has volcanoes and earthquakes and big huge cracks running through the ground where the North American and European continental plates tear themselves asunder at a rate of 2cm a year. That sounds like quite a lot to me, considering we are talking the movement of whole continents. We are assured, however, that Iceland itself will not fall apart, as Mother Nature, like some dodgy property developer hiding evidence of a house's dubious foundations, is kindly excreting enough molten rock to fill up the cracks.

This, combined with the fact that urbanisation is a recent phenomenon in Iceland compared to other European cities, means that large tracts of the city are squat and square and sturdy, and made of concrete. And, it must be said, quite unprepossessing. Guaranteed to stay standing in an earthquake though.

Those buildings that do stand out, however, seem to almost exclusively inspired by the Thunderbirds, with perhaps a little James Bond circa early eighties thrown in. Almost every church and gallery I saw looked like it had just landed. I was also lucky enough to dine at The Pearl. This is situated in a large rotating glass dome, where I had the tenderest piece of lamb I have ever eaten, while Reykjavik circled below. Be foolish enough to leave your purse on the outer ledge of the table and it will take 2 hours to get back to you. This place had been built on a cluster of disused water towers, but had been converted into gallery spaces, and the rotating restaurant plonked on the top. You can see the light on the top shining down over the city as you eat your creme brulee. I kept an eye out for Blofeld and his fluffy white cat, but he was not to be found.

Let's Dance

Dancing. I do it, or at least I used to (mostly after application of alcohol), but I don't watch it. Not often. So it was kind of strange to find myself sitting in the dark red interior of Edinburgh's Playhouse having brow-beaten J, M, L & JH into forking out £20 to attend Michael Clarke's new show Come, Been and Gone. I hoped they weren't going to be grossly disappointed. At the time I booked I knew nothing about him. I didn't care. All I needed to know was that his new show was to have a soundtrack provided by Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and my patron saint David Bowie, so nothing was going to keep me away.

These tracks are not just part of my history, they are woven into my bones. You'd think in such circumstances disappointment would be almost inevitable. Surely it was impossible for a dance, even if made by the Golden Boy (and Golden Arm, apparently) of modern dance, to avoid clashing all those weighty preconceptions that I already had about what these songs meant, and what they should feel like?

The fact that I know nothing about dance probably helped, but throughout the night I didn't have a single "that's not right!" moment. From the silver-clad lycra visions of the early track to the red legs and slash-backed black and white blazers against an azure background of Jean Jeanie (photo above courtesy of The Guardian), I was mesmerised. Moved to tears more than once, as well. Whether that was because of the dance or my own resonances with the music, I don't know, but it doesn't really matter: if the dance hadn't been so right the connection would not have occurred.

All those lycra-clad bodies did make me wonder though, as I looked around the packed house, whether part of the appeal of dance was that it was the only forum in which one can legitimately perv the human body. The show we trotted off to the next morning would suggest the answer is yes. Daniel K's Q & A played around with notions of art and democracy and consumerism by taking a survey-based approach to dance production, with all the research documented in a very weighty tome distributed to us all, courtesy of funding from the Singapore Arts Council. According to Daniel's survey, 'appreciating the human body' was the most popularly nominated response the audience made when asked what the objective of modern dance was, and the second most important after 'enriching our souls/spirits'.

We saw the same piece three times, once to open, once after having the research presented to us, and once after voting on our preferences for key elements such as music and costume, by the end of which we all knew a lot more about the decision making process of choreography than we did at the beginning. It also did a great job in raising key questions about art and the artist's relationship with their audience. Do they want to be loved? If so, is giving people what they want the way to acheive it? And where does truth and honesty, versus craft and artifice, come in to the whole equation?

I feel an essay coming on. So I will stop and go and get ready to go to Iceland. No, really.

Ghostly pursuits

To be honest, a ghost-writing workshop was not my first choice for Edinburgh Book Festival. However, being an aspirational little soul, I have not completely abandoned the notion that one day someone might actually PAY me to write something that I was going to write anyway. However much you tell yourself that whipping up a research document or conference report is a fine way to hone your writing skills, it hardly qualifies as "fun". There are people in the world who get paid for things they find fun. Its food for thought.

One such individual is sports journalist and ghostwriter Martin Hannan, who seems to make a pretty good living out of this ghostwriting lark. He's made a few quid out of NOT ghostwriting as well, thanks to the services of a good agent and smattering of canny contractual clauses. The moral of the story? Get a good agent.

There was much informative and entertaining discussion about the skills involved in writing someone elses voice. Many diverting factoids, as well. Did you know that Dick Francis's wife ghosted nearly all his books? I didn't. The need to sacrifice ego for craft was also noted, with due kudos going to Rebecca Farnsworth, Jordan's ghostwriter who, according to MH, has done a magnificent job of accurately capturing Jordan's pearls of wisdom in all their glory. With spelling. (Katie: "I talk into a Dictaphone and they go away and type it. I've got so many other things to do I couldn't sit there and type, plus I didn't pass English.")

I was getting quite excited. I've written for Ministers and senior executives, I thought. I can do empty rhetoric and vapid monosyllables with the best of them. A corporate voice is still a voice, however inhuman. In my head, I was half-way to being intimate friends with half the celebrities on the planet, trusted guardian of their images and secrets.

I was bitterly regretting that most of my idols were highly literate, and wondering what doltish stars I might be able to love, when a little fly in my fantasy ointment became apparent. We were asked to interview eachother and prepare a little ghost-written introductory paragraph to an autobiography, with a big glossy book on Scotland as the prize. One class member left early, and I had remembered Shelley Winters was in the Poseidon Adventure when no-one else did (long story), so I was to interview Martin himself. It was at about this point I remembered the inconvenient truth that I have never interviewed anyone in my life.

However, the bloke had just talked about himself for an hour, so I did have an unfair advantage. Nevertheless, I am enough of a suck not to want to seem like a twit to the teacher and well-established local journalist. With a ruthlessness born of desperation, I poked away at that most vulnerable of areas - childhood, family and religion, and within minutes he had helpfully confessed to seven years in the seminary training to be a priest. So there I had it, the Holy Trinity of popular autobiography, religion, journalism and football.

I left feeling rather pleased with myself, and with a big fat glossy book on Scottish history under my arm.

Recommended reading: The Ghost, by Robert Harris

Hackpacker's End of Melbourne Writer's Festival

I think this means I have lost the duel: Hackpacker's already outnumbering me on the blog front. Muskets at the ready for his latest cross-post from the Melbourne Writer's Festival.... As well as a beguiling name, Wells Tower has one of those author photos that promise much. It has the look of someone who is either hurt or about to throw a punch. His Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a blistering collection of short stories where you want to hear precisely what inflection the author puts on every word. His Friday free session was packed with folks who couldn't get one of the limited places in his Sunday workshop and although he spoke quietly he didn't disappoint. He was most interesting on his writing method citing the internet as 'lethal to writing and reading', because of its distracting power. He described his ideal writing day as working on creative fiction first thing in the morning when he was fresh, then giving the afternoon over to journalism then in the evening working on his screenwriting which he reckons comes easy to him. Sleep wasn't part of the equation. He emphaised the importance of revision by talking about the need the 'grad school' wisdom that that you begin thinking revision "is like cleaning up after the party, but you learn that revision is the party". Except for Wells there is no party. His hard work ethic and dazzling writing made me put a small note over my desk: WWWD (What would Wells do?) to stop me from goofing off on the web instead of writing. On Sunday there was a late (but free) addition to the program in the form of a chat with US editors hastily named "Are you a writer interested in submitting work to American magazines?". It just so happened I was, so I found myself in an audience of 50-odd other "interested" folks. Jessa Crispin characterised her Bookslut as for intelligent people "who won't be adjusting their monocle or putting on a faux British accent" while reading. She was intersted in writers with enthusiam and sincerity to write about books. McSweeney's publisher Eli Horowitz and The Believer editor Heidi Julavits talked enthusiastically about their publications. They found it difficult to characterise the kinds of writing they were after (Eli was influenced by some crocodile jerky he'd just been given and said he'd accept anything to do with crocodiles right now), but welcomed submissions. The Believer has 'a pathetically long lead time' of six months which means timely articles require a lot of organisation. Julavits pointed to the themed issues (around art, music and film) as good targets for publication and talked about her bias against the first person pronoun especially when the author intervenes in the story needlessly. A useful side point for publishers was that both areas had a good base of subscribers (Eli estimated that McSweeney's Quarterly had "about 8,000 subscribers" and "around 5,000" sales through bookstores). It means they know they're going to sell enough to pay the printer so they can swerve clear of advertising and can concentrate on content. As the festival rolls up its banner for another year, it's exciting to think of next year's fest with new director Steve Grimwade at the helm.

Melbourne Writer's Festival: Future of the Book

Today we are most honoured to be joined by Hackpacker, who sends us this missive fresh from the Melbourne Book Festival, as part of our duelling blogs series. Thursday the MWF got all digital. There were sessions dedicated to marketing in the info age and showing off the latest e-readers. I got along to three sessions but the whole day proved too much of a test of stamina and battery life. The opening was called the State of Digital Publishing. Victoria Nash and Elizabeth Weiss grappled with the huge subject from the publisher point of view. They were concerned about the rise of the $9.99 e-book and how it had pushed them into what Elizabeth refererred to as "Get all out books out there and have them competing" mentality. Victoria mentioned piracy and how they saw it as "protecting our authors' copyright and obviously our revenues". It all looked very industry-focussed and I felt like the author was out of the picture. Thirty minutes in Bob Stein got a word in about the future. He pointed out that more than a million books are available on public domain and that the book industry was facing the same challenges that video and music had online. He characterised it as seeing the book as something unique that allowed it "a free pass - I actually think it's going to be worse". It wasn't all grim as cloud computing would change the way we read and Bob pointed to newer shorter forms of writing that would thrive in this environment. Get your flash fiction ready now. The marketing session was interesting - apparently it's all about community and SEO. But no-one really had a good way to monetise community. Lonely Planet pointed to blogsherpa (sharing traffic with bloggers rather than pays them) and their new groups. While Brett Osmond pointed to sucesses they'd had like a Where the Wild Things Are Facebook page which offered fans (more than 40,000 of them last look) of the book new content. I couldn't help but thinking that a major movie might have pushed up the fan numbers a tad. The AirBourne project Random House conducted looked amazing with 28 chapters contributed by users and the whole manuscript bookended by thriller writer James Patterson. But again it was called "a marketing exercise" rather than a big moneyspinner. Thank god for Liner Notes' Thriller edition which ended the day on a high. Nick Earls mashed up Beat It with Masterchef while managing to sidestep Weird Al Yankovic's Eat It. But Melbourne's own shone out with Emily Zoey Baker doing a Jeff Goldblum impersonation, Sean M Whelan working his poetic alchemy on "Ma ma se mama sa ma ma coo sa" until the phrase had a new meaning and Ben Pobje told us how long lost twins getting it on was all part of Human Nature. A fitting tribute to the King of Pop that brought tears to the eye.

Books and Brits

My first Edinburgh Book Festival gig (the first I was let into anyway) was to see Ian Jack, who was impressively articulate and perceptive, as well as pleasingly rumpled, as a journalist shoud be. I could have happily listened to him chat with the venerable Ruth Wishart for some time, as I think could have the rest of the audience. Alas, it was not to be.The audience was completely white, mostly middle-aged, and entered with a kind of furrow-browed earnestness that said 'I'm not here to enjoy myself, my national identity is at stake.' It was wall-to-wall tweed and natural fibres. Until, that is, the speakers arrived. Enter stage left a very slim woman with perfect make-up, a blonde bob with edges as sharp as a knife, a short, red, body-hugging dress, heels and a broad patent leather belt. She had to be American.

She writes for the New York Times, apparently, but I have never read her. For a start,I don't read columnists in newspapers. If you want to witter on about nothing start a blog, I say. I did. I see no place for it in a publication whose function purports to be news. At least that's what I think until someone offers me a column, at which point I will be wholly and enthusiatically in favour.

Judging ONLY from the appearance at the Festival, one would conclude that her column consists of amusing little observations about those whacky English with their sexual hang-ups and refusal to use the word 'toilet' in polite company(really?). The overall impression was that she probably came from a part of New York that was solely inhabited by well-educated white people, and upon marrying an Englishman, now lives in an area of London solely inhabited by public-school educated white folk. Apparently, they love their dogs but have trouble expressing their emotions to humans. Well blow me down with a fucking feather.

Well, good luck to her, if she can manage to get a gig at Edinburgh festival to promote her collection of columns, she is clearly destined for great things. I am not sure that being part of a session billed as being a discussion of Britishness was the right place for her, though. In fact, having only glimpsed America through the prism of Vegas and Arizona (see above mentioned blog), I am not sure she was even going to be much use in a discussion of American identity. She claimed, among other things, that Americans - unlike the British - become Americans when they arrive on those shores, whereas the British are always looking back to their origins and staying exactly who they were in the first place (those naughty fundamentalist Pakistanis were cited as evidence).

The tweedy audience, feeling increasing hurrumphy, kept her on her toes. They have been quite feisty this year. One pointed out that both on the stage seemed to be speaking solely about some white, Christain, tea-and-biscuits version of Britain that no longer existed, if it ever had. Another pointed out that in her 15 years of living in America the people she met were constantly referring to themselves as 'Irish' or 'Italian', when in fact that had not been the case for four generations.'Well,' our American friend replied.'People got very interested in their heritage after Roots was on television.'

Please.

One small editorial note on the program. It described her take on the English as 'waspish' when they clearly meant to say 'W.A.S.Pish'. Regardless, the most eloquent statement of national identity remained the appearance of the red dress and the shiny shiny black belt.

Held Breath

Hackpacker just sent me a copy of the fiction issue of the (Australian) Big Issue where he takes his rightful place amongst the short fictionistas with his story Held Breath.

I thought I was going to miss it, not being there to collect my issue and all, so I am eternally grateful. Its fantastic to see this fabulous story in print, all taut and neat and beautifully written. And it made me cry. Again. I mean this in a good way. As The Troggs would say, Hackpacker, I think you move me.

And how good is it that the Big Issue did a short fiction edition? Well done!

P.S. Hackpacker also sent me a guide to finding all the Deuchars I want in Edinburgh. Beer and excellent short fiction. Can you conceive of a better package?

Thanks!

Homecoming Queen

It's the Year of Homecoming here in Scotland. Three hundred events are scheduled between Burns Day on the 25 January through to November. Pageantry, pipers and tartan abound.

The official line is that the Homecoming Year will recognise and celebrate a unique cultural heritage and welcome "home" the estimated 100 million people in the world with a 'blood link' to Scotland.

It has also been pointed out that it is a good way for Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, to incite a little nationalist fervour and further cement the Scottish National Party as the natural government of choice. Besides, finding another reason to fleece the tourists by offloading shitloads of tartan, whisky and Loch Ness monster hats never goes astray, especially when there is a recession lurking in the wings.

It has not gone unnoticed that many of these ancient traditions are in fact a Victorian invention, conjured up by Sir Walter Scott. Ever on the lookout for a good promotional opportunity, when the George IV came north for a "King's Jaunt" in 1822 Scott went out of his way to ensure that there was never a dull moment. As Stuart Kelly points out in his article (well worth a read), the grand tradition of fleecing tourists for over-priced tartan was born: the King paid the modern equivalent of £1,123,750 for his.

One of the biggest Homecoming events was the Clan Gathering (25-26 July). Hordes of visitors from New Zealand, USA, Australia, Germany, Canada (among others) wearing little laminated access passes flooded into to Holyrood Park. Despite the fact that J had spent the morning grumbling to his barber about the whole thing being a 'pile of pants' I made him trek into the Old Town to watch the parade at the end. A parade's a parade, after all. Besides, what better way to start to get my head around all this clan business?

Each clan carried a sign, like at the Olympics, and the names were announced by loudspeaker. The leaders were usually all tartaned up, but various codes of dress applied thereafter. Americans sported bum-bags, shades and tartan bandanas. A Maori sported a full set of facial tattoos and traditional ceremonial cloak. Everyone was waving, a few were staggering, some of the old folk looked like it may well be one parade too many.

Many 'homecomers' from the diaspora had brought their own ornate banners to declare their allegiance. In general, the non-Scots were looking either baffled or delighted to the point of tears. One large American man marched up the middle of the street waving to the crowd and, with his hand on his heart, kept announcing "I've come home! I've come home!" John Michie of Taggart fame was spotted in the front line of one group, and the crowd greeting him with an spontaneous chorus of "There's been a murrrrrderrrrrr!" It was a warm and warm and sunny evening, pipe bands were playing Scotland the Brave ad infinitum and people were waving and giving a a little cheer when their own clan passed by.

Suddenly the laughing was replaced by a loud, resounding and quite sustained booing. The Campbells had arrived.

Its a long and complicated story (see a short account courtesty of the BBC. Wikipedia has a longer one), but basically Campbell soldiers were being housed and fed under the laws of highland hospitality by a bunch of McDonalds who had failed, despite attempts, to declare allegiance to the King William of Orange by the specified deadline. The Campbell lads had been sharing the houses of the McDonalds for 12 days when they received the order to kill. On the night of February 13, thirty-eight McDonalds were slaughtered in their beds, with many others perishing when they fled into the blizzard outside.

The Massacre of Glen Coe, as it is now known, occured in 1692, but apparently there is at least one pub in the are that display a notice that they accept 'No Hawkers or Campbells'.

The booing was reasonably good natured, but it was there. It was the booing, as much as the pipe bands, that made you believe that Scottish history is alive and well.

A Novice’s Guide to Edinburgh in August

1. It will rain

Persistently. In 2008, it rained every day, for the whole month. As a newcomer, I found this a little excessive. ‘Of course it’s raining,’ said my companion, ’It’s August. It always rains in August’. So why do the good burgers of Edinburgh invite the world to visit in the rainiest month possible? Well, it’s good weather for indoor pursuits. My own theory is that the arrival of legions of professional entertainers is planned specifically to stop the sun-deprived, vitamin-D deficient locals from throwing themselves in a lemming-esque unison from The Crags in damp despair. Bring an umbrella.

2. "I'm sorry, that was the July price"

According to Edinburgh’s Evening News, a record number of residents are putting their homes up for rental during the Festival. Rents are about two-and-a-half times the normal rate during Festival season. Those creatures you see in the alleyways are not zombie’s, but sleep deprived young locals with kinks in their necks from sleeping on their parent’s couch while they make the equivalent of four months’ wages renting out their inner-city flats to tourists.

3. There’s a little problem with transport.

Edinburgh is building a little tram line. Though modest by comparison to the networks of Lisbon or Melbourne, it is causing chaos of truly gargantuan proportions, including very many large holes in the ground and closure of the main thoroughfare of Princes Street. In the city centre, there are streets completely blocked to cars, buses temporarily diverted to alternative routes, and things suddenly going one-way that never have before. Temporary barriers and fencing feature heavily. It’s not all bad news, though. Getting around on foot is fine, and most Festival venues are within walking distance of each other. It is hilly here, though, so allow an extra ten minutes for resting half way up the hills if your gym membership has lapsed. If you get bored, you can play a quick game of ‘where’s my bus stop today’ to fill in the time.

4. You’re not the only person that thought this was a good idea.

During the Festival, the population of the city swells like a boil to twice its usual size. For those who live here and are accustomed to getting from A to B at their own pace with very little difficulty, Festival time can be a teensy bit trying. The pedestrian traffic jam that occurs all year around the statue of Greyfriars’ Bobby spreads like a tumour through the Old Town, until every tiny precipitous Close is bulging with bum-bags and Gortex. You may only see one t-shirt that says ‘Get out of my way: I live here,’ but you will see a few faces wearing the same message (including mine, I must admit). If they look like they actually have a normal job and are trying to get to work on time, it’s polite to oblige.

5. You will miss stuff you really want to see

Unless of course, you can swing some weird science and do some cloning or something. This is the key festival go-ers dilemma. With the Fringe, Book, International, Art Festival, Mela and the Comedy Festivals, and probably a few others I have forgotten, all going on in August, even the most anal planners among you will have timetabling clashes. It’s that good. Just remember that for every acclaimed genius, there are probably about three undiscovered ones at bargain basement prices testing their wings in some small venue around the corner, waiting just for you.

6. You will see stuff you really want to miss

I am thinking here chiefly of hen’s parties, bucks parties, and divorce parties. These tend to congregate around the Cowgate area. If you see a large fibreglass cow’s arse sticking out of a high wall, you are in the zone. The hen’s parties tend to feature stretch limos, little headdresses of sparkly stars wobbling on springs, feather boas, and a lot of hot pink and bling. The current fashion for buck’s nights seems to be dressing up in plastic superhero costumes. Both often involve specially printed commemorative t-shirts, and so much alcohol that any attempt in conversation from those outside the circle is doomed to fail.

7. There will be singing.

People do it quite a lot, here, particularly blokes after a few pints, and not necessarily because they are good at it. Football season starts half way though August so there’s months worth of pent up football songs waiting for lusty release. Bear this and the festival-time extended licences in mind if you are an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type are deciding between a room next to a pub and a room next to a haberdashers. (Tip: If you want to join in, make sure have the right song for the right pub. Many are shared territory, but singing Hibs songs in a Hearts pub is foolish. A Celtic song in a Rangers pub is downright suicidal. )

8. You will have a great time.

Chances are that everyone you meet will be having one too. Everyone is getting festive (festering?), and it’s infectious. Every theatre, church hall, school annex, nook and cranny hides a performance, some bizarre, some mystifying, but many truly remarkable.

9. There is respite.

If the unbridled hilarity all gets too much, you won’t have to go too far for respite. Take a walk up to Calton Hill or, if you are fitter and more ambitious, up to Arthur’s Seat and check out the 360 degree views. Chill out in The Meadows, or play a spot of golf at Bruntsfield Links. For a bit of quiet art, take a walk along the Water of Lieth and Visit Dean’s Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art, or just slip into the National Galleries on The Mound, right in the heart of town. All are free.

Before you leave, pick a vantage point, like George IV Bridge, and take a moment to look at the city. It is handsome, grandiose, and ornate. With the medieval labyrinths of the Old Town and the clean Georgian lines of the New, plenty of fiddly Victoriana thrown in, and all perched on a dramatic steepled landscape, there’s plenty to look at.

10. Yes, they do wear kilts.

For those of you unfamiliar with the British Isles, this is not just something Prince Charles does when he’s trying to get down with the Provinces, but a standard form of formal dress. If you see a chap in the pub wearing a kilt, chances are he is on his way to a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) formal dinner, wedding, or a funeral. Or he might just be on his way to a rugby International. Unless he is one of the pipers busking outside St Giles Cathedral or the station, he is not doing it for entertainment. And no, he probably doesn’t want his picture taken.

http://www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk

WWW.EIF.CO.UK

http://www.edfringe.com

WWW.EDBOOKFEST.CO.UK

WWW.EDINBURGH-MELA.CO.UK

WWW.EDINBURGHARTFESTIVAL.ORG

The not-so-lonely Planet

I am extraordinarly chuffed to announced that, as of this morning, I am officially entitled to refer to myself as 'Lonely Planet Author'.

The good folk at LP have today posted Edinburgh in Festival Time - For Free. Swing on by for a quick run-down of what to do in this fair city during August on a non-existent budget.

Stay tuned for further Edinburgh Festival news over the coming month....

It's a jungle out there

This is Limpo the Elephant. See that nasty kink in his rear left leg? When Limpo was an unnamed baby elephant otherwise undifferentiated from the other little bundles of elephant joy, he was assaulted by an angry rhino, who had taken exception to him for a reason that probably only the elephants remember. Maybe he waved his trunk in an insulting fashion at the waterhole, or something.

The rhino in question went completely balllistic and though Limpo managed to escape with his life, his leg was severely damaged. They feared that the damage might be fatal, but he healed up alright and was able to move about and feed himself. Crisis over. Years went by, Limpo limped and ate and ate and limped and grew and grew and behaved in a generally elephantine fashion, as befitting a strong young elephant in his prime.

Then one day, Limpo went out and found the nearest rhino and beat it to death.

Well, the park people thought, its a jungle out there. Or a veldt, anyway. Shit happens. Disputes occur, hormones rage, tempers flare. Occasional tragedies ensue. A little while later, though, he did it again. Another rhino bites the dust. As months stretched into years, the park people realised that this was not a simple, straightforward crime of passion. As the death toll mounted, they realised they had a serial killer on their hands. Limpo was waging a one-elephant war on the rhino race. It was rhino-cide on a grand scale.

By the time the fifteenth rhino had died a violent and bloody death, capital punishment must have been looking like a pretty good option. Can't have your tourists coming across murder scenes when they are out to take their pretty pictures of the Big Five. Instead, though, they brought in a heavy hitter, in the form of in another elephant. A chilled old elephant from further North. An elephant with gravitas and wisdom. An elephant carrying the weight of a great many years and thus, seniority. Most important of all, The Grand Old Elephant Of The North got along extraordinarily well with rhinos.

In what must be one of the world's all-time greatest triumphs of criminal rehabilitation, after the two elephants had spent some time together, the slaughter ended. The old elephant eventually went back home, and Limpo, as far as anyone knows, hasn't harmed a hair on the rhino's head since.

I love a happy ending.

P.S. apologies to the people I sent photos to referring to 'hippo-cide': it was a slip of the brain.

Vale

I have just been to a fireman's funeral. I stood in the rain and watched it pass by, anyway.

I'm not sure why I went, really. I didn't know him, but he was from the station round the corner, and died while fighting a fire in a pub not far from here. That seemed reason enough.

I actually had to call them yesterday when an alarm went off in the block of flats. Turned out to be a false alarm, but they were hear in minute and and they met my apology with a completely unperterbed 'Nae bother'. I wanted to say something to them then, but I figured they could do without getting reminded they were about to bury a collegue every time they tried to do their job.

We could hear the piper before we caught a glimpse of the parade through the teeming rain. It rained in a truly Scottish fashion, from start to finish: heavy, persistent and drenching rain. By the time I got home my waterproof shoes were full simply from the awater running into them down my legs.

Other fireman lined the route, standing in the teeming rain, and from what I can see there was more than a few burly fire-fighting types quite glad to have rain to mask the water on their faces.

The Art of Waiting

On the plane to Africa, I read the following in Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Shadow of the Sun (Penguin (Australia) 2008):

"Therefore the African who boards a bus sits down in a vacant seat, and immediately falls into a state in which he spends a great portion of his life: a benumbed waiting."

Well, I thought, I can dig it. Sounds exactly waiting for the train at Richmond station, back in the day, when I had an office to go to.

Kapuscinski goes on:

"What does this dull waiting consist of? People know what to expect; therefore, they try to settle themselves in as comfortably as possible, in the best possible place. Sometimes they lie down, sometimes they sit on the ground, or on a stone, or squat. They stop talking. A waiting group is mute. It emits no sound. The body goes limp, droops, shrinks. The muscles relax. The neck stiffens, the head ceases to move. The person does not look around, does not observe anything, is not curious. Sometimes his eyes are closed - but not always. More frequently, they are open but appear unseeing, with no spark or like in them. I have observed for hours on end crowds of people in this state of inanimate waiting, a kind of profound physiological sleep:..."

I quote it at length because this is clearly not a passing aside or a throwaway line. (Though to be fair he does note elsewhere that any statement about 'Africa' is always going to be crap because there is no such homogenous place).

It didn't make me feel any better about my trip, though. The guy lived and worked as a journalist in Africa for years, so I figured he probably knows what he is talking about. Fuck me, I thought, I am gonna be BORED.

A week later, I am in a bare and unadorned hall, with a good forty minutes to go before the Conference's closing ceremony. Delegates have been listening to learned people all week, and they are about to hear just one more. There is plastic chairs and concrete, and very little else.

There is nothing to do but wait, but like everyone else I am getting there early, because I saw how the crowd waited before the Opening ceremony, and I am hoping to see a bit more waiting. I am hoping they will wait, spontaneously, in any spare patch of floor, in sync, starting with some simple melodies back and forth across the cavernous room, gradually adding harmonies, layer upon layer, three, four, five...

The film found at the link below is my experience of an African crowd waiting. Possibly it is no more typical than Mr R's, but I defy you to listen without smiling (the vision is crap, but listen to the sound!). Better still, give it a go next time the 5.34 from Flinders Street is late.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPIh038Z3Sc

back in black

My Mum tells be that the white on black is too hard to read. But I do so, so, so like black. I'm from Melbourne, after all. It's what we do well.

And the idea of reworking the whole colour scheme....! Readability is one thing, but there are already way to many pastel colours in the world for my liking....

However, my Mum generally knows best. If you are finding this hard to read because of the colour, please let me know. If you are finding it hard to read because of the content, you probably also should let me know. But break it to me gently.

You've been Googled

I am hoping like hell that 'bing' turns out to be crap. Because I won't use it.

Not for any logical reason, just because I haven't forgiven them for Vista.

I will not bore you all the actual problems with running the dog of a thing. What really pisses me off is that it was forced upon me. I needed new hardware. Why could I not have my old operating system on my new PC? Windows Whatever It Was (pre-Vista) had served me perfectly well, and wasn't that old. Why was it so unreasonable that I should expect to be able to choose? Couldn't I at the very least be given the choice to buy with no operating system at all, so I could have put my old one on? Apparently not. I must be forced to purchase an endless supply of frequent crashes and inexplicable stalls.

Impotent fury festers. Besides, its rare to have the opportunity to happily nurture resentment and turn the other cheek to the advances of that harlot Forgiveness without hurting a flea. Why would I want to give that away?

I found myself with a dilemma, though, after the nightly news have furnished the Big M with about 5 minutes worth of free advertising. What if 'bing' is actually better? A lot of my work depends on internet research. If it was good, there was a very real prospect of being forced to comply. The very thought makes me break out in a rash.

So I thought I would run a simple test and ask them both to find something obscure. I 'binged' myself. It sounds like a mild assault, like having a ping-pong ball bounced off your head. Then I Googled myself. More of an aural tickle, I think.

To my everlasting relief, I found that 'bing' disdains me as much as I disdain it. It most ardently prefers an American sociologist of the same name. Google knows the sociologist, and the kindergarten teacher, and the lawyer in Ohio who share my name, but it knows me as well.

It wins. Phew.

Florence luxuries.

Florence! What a luxury.

Its a luxury and a privilege for anyone to have an opportunity to go to Firenze for the weekend, obviously. As an Australian, who has spent most of one's life assuming that any trip to Italy will take a years worth of savings and probably two years' worth of accrued leave from work, I am acutely aware of just how great the privilege is.

In fact, when P first suggested I come and meet her there for the weekend, my instinctive response was 'no'. It's justs not the sort of thing one does, is it? It took J, a European and well-travelled one at that, to point out that I both could and should. So I did.

It took about the same time to get there as it used to do to drive to visit Mum and Dad in Gippsland. Andthe plane ticket cost didn't cost any more than the petrol would have, either.

And yes, the art was magnificent and the architecture grand (more of all that later). Yes, the view from the hotel window (domes and roofs and flying sparrows framed by foothills) was lovely. Yes, the food and the wine were great, and the people running the trattoria friendly, professional and often chic.

More glorious than that, though, was to have the opportunity to sit eating and drinking with family and friends. The main bit is the company itself, obviously. Lovely people who you like, who are family, whose friends and family are by extension and connection and varying degrees of separation also yours.

There is something else, as well. Its time spent with people with shared experience, shared acquaintences, shared context. Suddenly remembering what its like to skip all those laborious parts of polite conversation where you explain the backstory: where you come from, what you mean, who on earth the other characters in the story are.

The real luxury is to be able to speak in short-hand. To be able to say something like 'it was at that place in Alma Road', and have everyone there, know exactly what house you are talking about, in what suburb, who lived there, and exactly the kind of parties that were held there in the summer of 1988. All you need is one little phrase like that and the scene is suddenly peopled with the whole tapestry and characters and sub-plots that we share.

So thank you Penny, David & Romani and the Oxforshire Aussies. Thanks for the whole weekend, but especially for that lovely night at Gustavino on the Via della Condotta, where the conversation, like the wine, was full and rich and warm.

Silence in Disneyland

Just one further thing that I have to mention before I stop crapping on about Venice.

Talk to people about Venice and the first reaction you tend to get is a 'wow' if they have not been there, or you get a kind of sneer and a remark about 'Disneyland for Grown-Ups',which is the precursor to the slightly embarassed admission that they have.

Its is true that the really touristy bits are genuinley and dismayingly awful. One night, when we where sitting in our rose garden, looking over the grand canal to the people dining on the opposite shore, we had a thought that maybe it would be nice on a sunny evening to eat while watching those glossy water taxis drift by. Perhaps, we reasoned, even though the restaurants in question were off the the horridist street we had found, once you were in looking out it would be alright.

So, we slipped past the African guys selling fake handbags and ventured over the Ponte Scalzi,the density of persons-per-square-foot increasing with every step. We peered past the glitter of gelati vendors, walls festooned with low-rent mini-masks and bad t-shirts and through to the restaurants mining the bottomless income-earning potential of their canal-side tables. The first three or four didn't warrant a second look. We were about to turn back, but dedided to creep ahead just a bit more.

Suddenly, to our relief,we were greeted with lovely old rugs draping over antique furtniture in a rather peaceful and elegant looking hotel lobby. With the confidence that stems from Green Coat Magic, we strolled in. Through the glass doors directly in front we could see white table cloths, tragically empty glasses and sunlight glinting on the water. This was more like it.

We had nearly reached the door to the restaurant when suddenly it came. With a pant and a crackle, a slightly off-key 'O sole mia'(sic) boomed out from the terrace, tune favoured of advertising industry gondoliers the world over (though apparently its not even a Venetian song). Worse, it was accompanied by the amplified puffs, clicks and crackles that accompanies bad cabaret acts the world over. Yes, there was a live (though possibly only just) singer in a bad suit creeping his way between the tables.

I looked at J. He looked at me. Without breaking silence or stride we pirouetted on our heels and walked straight out again, back through the souvenier stalls, back over the bridge, back to the safety of Santa Croce, on OUR side of the canal.

Which brings me, after that rather lengthy and unintended digression, to my point. Which is silence. In amongst all the Disney madness of a city that lives and breathes tourism, is was surprisingly easy to find silence. It was in in Santa Croce, San Polo and Dorsoduro, anyway. All the tourists didn't seem comfortable with the notion of getting lost in this maze of lanes where no car has ever rolled, so in that part of town all it took was a little wander down a narow lane,and suddenly you would be in the cool shade, with the old walls like canyons brushing your shoulders and geraniums glinting from widow-boxes in the top floor. A square opens in a glare of light and there is women playing with their babies, boys doing their best to skittle old men with their soccer balls, and old women watching over it all. Turn down another lane and you meet an old lady with a walking stick who waves and says something to you in Italian. You smile, continue on your way, and reach a dead end: canal and no bridge, and which point you realise she telling you that down there was only 'aqua'.

You thank her sheepishly as you return,and she smiles tolerantly in a way that looks like it probably translates as 'the idiots never stop and listen'.