Call me Ishmael?

Pic by Spike

It's been eight years or so since I was last on the water sailing a dinghy. James, my experienced buddy, told me that the essentials come back to you very quickly. He was right, although I'm very glad he was sitting next to me as we glided over the barely-ruffled surface of Lake Tuggeranong. At times we came almost to a complete standstill. Breezy, it was not. But it was enjoyable.

The ever-patient Spike sheltered in the shade of a tree from which vantage point this photo was taken. Next time we're both there it's possible we may sail together. Such is the bond of trust. Or the folly of ignorance.

A bird starts a bush fire

Mop-up work continues after fires in the Tarago area. Source: Canberra Times
Photo: Karleen Minney

Today's Canberra Times reports the assessment of the rural fire service that a low-flying bird, ignited by power lines north-east of the ACT set fire to the bone-dry land beneath it. The report tells us almost 3,400 hectares of grassland, woods and farming property were destroyed. Although livestock and wild animals were killed, one house and some vehicles destroyed, fortunately no one was hurt and no one died. Still. Summer heatwaves in a time of climate change and global warming are not done with us unless we take action.

Celebrate diversity

And don't let racists win.

A picture of two girls wearing hijabs was taken at a 2016 Australia Day event in Docklands. The photograph was used in a 2017 Australia Day billboard which included rolling images of people from different backgrounds. The billboard was removed after threats. Photograph: GAZi Photography/www.australiaday.vic.gov.au

Crowdfunding raises $50,000 for new Australia Day campaign with girls in hijabs. Read the story in the Guardian Online.

Sam Dastyari exposes the vile absurdity of Pauline Hanson

Racism is having a worrying (but minor) resurgence in Australia. Pauline Hanson is its best known flag-waver although in recent days journalist Andrew Bolt, television 'celebrity' Sonia Kruger and Norther Territory politician Adam Giles have added fuel to the flames (or been sucked into the vortex ... if you're inclined to feel over-generous when reflecting on their public pronouncements). All four have spoken up or written in favour of banning or keeping out Muslim migrants to Australia.

Sam Dastaryi, an Australian Labor Party Senator with whose right-leaning tendencies I have often disagreed, has been remarkably effective and truly outstanding in challenging attempts to make anti-Muslim sentiment the new normal of Australian political discourse. His performance - sitting next to Pauline Hanson on last night's ABC programme Q & A - is a masterclass in challenging political opponents directly, forcefully and effectively without losing either the plot or - even more importantly - the argument or the audience. You can see it here.

Today he posted a photo and comment via Twitter to highlight the absurdity, the irrationality, the mendacity of Pauline Hanson's racism. You simply cannot fault his analysis or doubt his real courage in these ghastly times. We need more people like Senator Dastyari to be willing to stick their heads above the parapet to say ... Enough, No more! And the rest of us (you know, when is a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant like me ever going to encounter such a challenge to my legitimacy and background?) ... we need to give whatever support we can to brave, decent, progressive voices.

Sam Dstyari at five years old. Pic: Sam Dastyari
Me @ 5. Never been religious (born Muslim).
Under the Hanson ban I would never have been able to come to Australia.

Some days a man could weep

From today's Guardian ...

The TV presenter Sonia Kruger has called for an end to Muslim immigration to Australia, saying she agrees with the US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s stance on immigration.

Read the whole article here.

Thankfully good folk like those at Gosford Anglican Church know something about common, human decency.

Mr. Angry from Gilmore comments ...

Failed politician and former Chief of Staff. Pic: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Down here in Australia there has been a flurry of journalistic activity arising from the anticipation of the publication today and extracts from a book about the downfall of Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia.  Much of the current excitement revolves around the fall out last September from perceptions (which means tittle-tattle and gossip) within the parliamentary Coalition group that Mr. Abbott might have been having an affair with his Chief of Staff, the reputedly fearsome Peta Credlin.

I neither know nor care about the depth or otherwise or the precise nature of the pair's personal relationship. It's simply none of my business.

Tony Abbott has, justifiably in my view, refused to comment on or respond to questions about whether or not he and Ms. Credlin have indeed been inside each others underpants. But if I understand correctly what Nicki Savva, the journalist and author at the centre of row, has asserted or reported in her book it's this. She doesn't allege or comment on claims our former PM and his Chief of Staff were at it. She does, however, quote from named sources in the former PM's own political party (who have subsequently gone public) who confirm that Coalition gossip about unfounded, firmly-denied and unprovable claims of an affair were what finally tipped Abbott Government supporters over the edge to unseat their leader.

But the whole 'did they / didn't they?' business of salacious tittle-tattle misses the point. And even the defensive Mr. Abbott sought to turn the gossip to self-serving advantage. In having a go at the (presumably) false and almost entirely irrelevant question of sex (unless you're Mr. and Mrs. Abbott or Mrs. and Mr. Credlin) Tony Abbott sought to reclaim his tarnished reputation by defending his own and his Government's political records and so-called achievements.

It was at this point of reading an article in today's Guardian that Mr. Angry from Gilmore added to the frenzy by submitting a comment below the line of my favourite journal.

Abbott said in a statement on Monday the best response to the book was “the objective record of the Abbott government”, 

It's none of my business and I truly could not care less about Tony Abbott's sex life. 

NOT - INTERESTED - IN - ANY - WAY - SHAPE - SIZE - OR - FORM. 

But it is disturbing how demonstrably delusional Mr. Abbott seems to be. The 'objective record' of the Government he led - and of which the current PM was a member - was so astonishingly bad, so inept that not even his Tory mates could do anything but dump Mr. Abbott - unambiguously the worst, most incompetent, failed Government leader in Australia's history.

My saving grace is that 16 fellow readers recommended my comment. One reader, however, contradicted my assessment, suggesting that 'stopping the boats' was part of the good 'objective record'. A Guardian reader? Please.

Burns Night on Australia Day

Robert Burns - 1759 to 1796

There are eleven hours today - between Midnight and eleven o'clock this morning - when my past and present meet, where the miles between the land of my birth and the land I now call home vanish.  Time and space collapsed through the cultural connections I make.  They help shape my identity in ways I don't fully understand.

January 25th is the celebration of the birth and life of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns.  He was born on the 25th January in 1759 in the village of Alloway, south of the town of Ayr.  Here in Australia today it's our national holiday commemorating - increasingly controversially - the arrival of the 'First Fleet' in the great southern land in 1788.  The vast continent would be claimed as territory for King George III by Captain Arthur Phillip when he and a dozen or so oarsmen and military personnel landed at Sydney Cove from HMS Supply. The other ships in the fleet were marooned in Botany Bay by a fierce storm.  Burns was 29 years old on that very day.

My blog draws its name from Burns who wrote a poem To A Louse: On Seeing One On A Lady's Bonnet, At Church (1786). I'm the louse that answered back.

My friend Stuart Hepburn (we met at university where we were political rivals in fiercely opposed left-wing camps) delivered an astonishing, awe-inspiring rendition of Burns's comic masterpiece Tam O'Shanter, written in 1790. I believe you'll not come across a finer interpretation of the poem anywhere than Stuart's rendition. Burns would be the first to raise a glass and cheer.

'Tam O Shanter' by Robert Burns, performed by Stuart Hepburn from Prancing Jack Productions on Vimeo.

Art - eat - art - coffee

Fred Williams - Lysterfield triptych.  NGA

A day off from the office to spend time with friends visiting from Scotland, Barbara McKissack and Brian Smith.  After Spike gave us the guided tour of the Canberra Glassworks - where one of her works sits in a kiln slowly lowering its temperature before being extracted tomorrow - we enjoyed a more than decent, very late brunch on the Kingston foreshore - at the Local Press Cafe.  Then we headed for the National Gallery of Australia to see its recently re-located and re-hung national collection.  (I'm afraid we all agreed we could give the Tom Roberts 'blockbuster' show a miss.  Personally, I feel I've seen the sheep-shearing scenes enough.  There may be more to discover in them.  My opinion may change. Or not.)

On the other hand I never tire of seeing the Fred Williams triptych. It does something but I don't quite know what or understand why.  But that doesn't matter.  You simply need to look.

Modern Australian Politics 101

Bonkers

Another insightful article from Lenore Taylor in today's Guardian Australia online.  And yet more below the line commentary in response from yours truly, here:

I am not now, never have been nor ever could have become a supporter of Tony Abbott. Just need to make that clear cos it's reasonable to acknowledge the point of origin of one's critique. 

But truly ... 

One is left almost speechless by the self-serving, delusional hypocrisy and cant of the man. It beggars belief that he could be so out of touch with the real world, so stunningly incapable of even the mildest form of self-critical examination. And yet one wonders if he has inhabited a Tony Abbott bubble of sycophancy for so long, speaking only to trusted like-minded others who only knew how to or had the courage to say "yes Tony, whatever you think", that he may actually have persuaded himself he speaks truth?

• The leadership ballot was brought on because it was about to be revealed he was - in fact - a winner? Eh? 

• Everyone else is disloyal, careerist and backstabbing? But even he does not refute Scott Morrison's revelation that TA offered to dump Hockey to protect his Prime Ministerial skin. 

• And nothing has changed? How supremely ironic that Mr Abbott and the ALP front bench are now the only sentient beings on Earth who cling to the delusional hope that what the Tories did was simply change the sales team.

Mr Abbott can be allowed to believe or promulgate that last idea because

1. he lost and is clearly hurting, 
2. he is as bonkers as is the idea that nothing has changed and
3. his shock jock friends need some one who is no less disconnected from reality to interview for a while as they try to savage the new Prime Minister. But even the shock jocks will get bored with Tony Abbott's broken record because they were only interested in cosying up to power and poor old Tony now has none.

But the ALP needs to shake off its fondness for / reliance on their last hope - like TA - that nothing has changed. The whole game as changed. The future looks entirely different - which isn't to say that some policies won't be carried forward because they clearly will be. Others, however, will alter and the context, strategy and discourse around the central conservative agenda for Australia will be conducted in wholly different terms. Tony Abbott is irrelevant to a conversation about what the future may look like because he always has been irrelevant to any discourse about the shape of modernity. He only ever wanted to look back and return to the mythical past. That and his demonstrable incompetence are the reasons he was dumped.

Now, however, the ALP has a duty to engage with the legitimate, necessary debate about what a modern, social democratic Australia could look like and offer it to voters as a credible alternative vision to 21st Century conservatism. The longer the ALP stays in the same conversation and mind set as TA the farther behind they will fall and the more difficult it will become to persuade Australians that the modern Left has anything real and appealing to offer.

What a depressing end to a week of abject failure on the Australian Left

Malcolm Turnbull, happy, today.  Pic: Rob Griffith / AP

Lenore Taylor in the Guardian Australia online gives us another of her measured, perceptive readings of what's going on in Australian politics.  Meanwhile, the Australian Labor Party continues to run around like a headless chicken and / or sits immobile in the middle of the road like a stunned rabbit transfixed by the headlamps of a rapidly advancing 50 tonne truck and / or falls at the first hurdle (choose your preferred metaphor) while Malcolm Turnbull re-sets the Liberal Party's operating system and starts to map out what the Australian future looks like under a conservative government that isn't delusional, isn't backward-looking, isn't in thrall to that ridiculous fool Tony Abbott.

As is becoming usual these days for Mr Angry of Gilmore I made some comments 'under the line' which is a place ... like space ... where no one can hear you scream.  How depressed is the author of these words?

And so ... this 'modern' Conservatism follows the lead of its NZ and European counterparts to assert authority over Australian politics leaving many casualties in its wake.

Almost everyone heaves a sigh of relief that the short, embarrassing, ineffective and destructively delusional reign of Tony Abbott is over, dead, buried and cremated.

Joe Hockey leads the way to the exit door, which others will also take because they know they have been comprehensively defeated. By and large this group will accept whatever crumbs from the table they are offered to simply go away.

Andrews, Bernardi, Abetz and a few other troglodytes will bleat from the sidelines for a while until even they get bored with the sound of their own voices. Soon, not even Andrew Bolt will bother to interview them.

And the ALP - as evidenced again today by their inept, spectacular missing of the point, inability to see the bigger picture and tone deaf responses to what is clear for everyone else to see - already slips further behind, falls short and stumbles into a bleak, losing future. Their lack of understanding, analysis or credible alternative vision make this a very gloomy Sunday indeed for a left-leaning voter like me.

Bill and his team had two years to prepare for this moment. It's ghastly to realise just how bereft of ideas, how lacking in strategic nous they have shown themselves to be. Ghastly.

A tweet I received today with a rhetorical question

Why don't refugees go back to where they came from?

Australia can do more.

Late-season sun

It feels slightly strange today to be sitting here in our suburban garden in south Canberra. I have retreated to some shade to escape the fierce intensity of the late season sun of this Indian summer. But although it's uncharacteristically hot we seem to be languishing in a spell that's neither one season nor another. I shelter from the heat. Somewhere in the vicinity of our drowsing cat a cricket chirps forlornly, it seems, for there is no response from any other lonely cricket. Perhaps ours is the last cricket to sing this year. Elsewhere the signs are telling us that summer is over, the fall awaits.

The garden's earth is hard and unforgiving. It has been weeks since the last heavy rains soaked the ground to feed the plants, many of which look tired and in need of a good long drink. Some, it's clear, have already shut down for the year. We will not see their brightly coloured flowers, vibrant green leaves or new growth for months now. The lower branches of the majestic pin oak at the end of the garden also display the early signs of season's change. Here and there brown leaves disrupt the coat of green. Every now and then, when the breeze picks up, a leaf or two tumbles to the ground.

We are in between the seasons (we have them in Canberra, unlike most of the rest of Australia). But whatever name we might given to this liminal space it's neither summer nor autumn, neither one time nor the other.

Do I pick up on (read too much into) this not-season, these days of this as well as that, neither one nor the other because it fits my own sense of displacement? Sundays always heighten my feelings of being from somewhere else, not fully belonging either to this new home of mine (after more than fourteen years it still feels new) nor, self-evidently, to the home I left behind; the place and its people.

Why Sundays particularly? 

It's easy enough to see. First act here is to check the football scores back there because for reasons I cannot begin to explain it matters to me how well or (as is more likely) how badly the team I have followed since I was ten or eleven performed. Yesterday, against the odds, we won. Next, one of the great rituals of a Scottish - British - Sunday; a long, luxurious read of the Sunday papers accompanied by tea, toast, a breakfast one can browse through just like the stories. I am infinitely more interested in the news, the sport, the cultural life and - especially - the politics of my homeland than the petty circus here with its unappealing set of clowns and comic singers. I wonder how my friends back there spent their Saturday nights and what stories they will tell to one another over Sunday lunch in a favourite pub. But if or when they meet I will be absent as I've been for many years now. Emigrated but far from integrated. Neither here nor there but somewhere in between. Not one thing or another.  A bit like this unseasonable weather.

In The Guardian ... so it must be true

I submitted three of Spike's photos of our trips to games at the Asian Cup which were posted on the Guardian Witness web site here.  A journalist from The Guardian, Tom Stevens, wrote to me with questions about our experiences at the tournament.  I rushed off answers before jumping in the car last Friday to drive to Sydney for the Quarter Final and Semi Final games last weekend.  Never thought any more about it.

Iraq v Palestine, 21 January. Pic: Spike Deane

I received an e.mail from Tom earlier today with a link to his article in The Guardian today, here.  Spike's photos are republished and extracts from my answers to Tom's questions were turned into quotes for his article. 

Lifelong Guardian reader that I am, I couldn't be more chuffed to appear in its virtual pages.  And - ageing Leftie, as I am also - I'm very pleased that my references to the broadcasting deal struck by the Football Federation Australia were quoted ... almost as I wrote them.  Tom wrote,

"Another interesting point our readers have made hinges on the Australian TV coverage of the event, or lack of. Dougie suggests that Football Federation Australia sold its soul too cheaply by signing the rights to the group stages over to Foxtel. “FFA missed the opportunity to open the tournament up to casual viewers through free to air broadcasting. It might be a long time until Australia host a football tournament of similar stature, and rather than being ‘dazzled by cash’ FFA could have looked at this tournament as an opportunity of building a long term future for the game.”

Happy camper.  Off to the final tomorrow.

A storm and a tea cup

I submitted one of Spike's photographs of our visit to the first game of the Asian Cup to the Guardian's "Witness" section of  'were you there?' photo albums.  My favourite newspaper added me to the (admittedly small) mix today.  Fame at last.  Or not, as the case may be.  But I like Spike's photo, I enjoyed the experience of being at the game and - as anyone who knows me would not be surprised to read - I'm very pleased with the smart arse caption / title I gave to the photo (repeated as the title of this post).  The Guardian asked for a description which I've added below.  I've corrected my original typing mistakes ... vanity, vanity - thy name is Douglas.

"Huge thunderstorm hit Canberra just before Asian Cup game between South Korea and Oman. No shelter for most of the 12,552 spectators. Emergency panchos, umbrellas and for this Scottish resident of Australia's capital a Panama hat bought in Curitiba, Brazil during last year's FIFA World Cup. South Korea deserved winners of good game. Dougie Herd drinking tea. Photo by Spike Deane. Stylish pink poncho NOT by Armani."

More fitba'

Refugee from The Beverly Hill-Billies

Asian Cup 2015.  Game 2 of my 9, United Arab Emirates versus Qatar.  Smaller crowd than yesterday but at just over 5,500 more than I expected after yesterday's rain.  There was no need for the emergency poncho today but looking at the photo of me here maybe it would have been an idea to cover up my complete lack of fashion sense or style.

The game was lively, there were five goals and the UAE ran out deserving winners by 4 goals to 1.  I'll be seeing them again on Thursday, playing against Bahrain.  Enjoying my Asian Cup so far.  And hugely indebted to Spike for keeping me company and taking on role of 'official match photographer'.

Heid the ba'

Kuwait v Australia 2011

My tragic footall fan is coming out to play again.  The Asian Cup kicks off (pun intended) tonight in Melbourne with Australia playing Kuwait in the competition opening match.  My first match is tomorrow.

Sports blogger Kate Cohen has an article in the Guardian today.  The article is headed "Asian Cup final four the minimum expectation for Socceroos".  I beg to deffer and wrote the thoughts below in the article's comments section.  (Not just a football tragic but a Guardian Comments tragic too.) 

FIFA Rankings are about as reliable as the bidding process to host the World Cup. Australia ranked 100 tells us nothing.

I think football is an infuriatingly, beautifully simple game. Score more goals than the other guys and you win. Forget that and you're toast.

I have my tickets for the 6 group games in Canberra (I shall cheer loudest for the team from Palestine but I don't really mind who wins here). And I have my tickets for the quarters, semi and final. They are a different kettle of fish.

When I went to Brazil last June I did not expect to see Australia at the Rio final (although there were a few minutes against Holland when getting out of the toughest group in the Cup did not seem impossible).

But please guys. This is home turf. We all expect to see you in Sydney. In the final. Winning.

Go Socceroos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Football daft

The Asian Cup starts here on Friday.  I've bought tickets for six group games in the nation's capital then three others in Sydney.  Football daft it would seem.

Naff video but the competition should be fun.

I’m going to the first of my 6 games being played in Canberra on Saturday – South Korea v Oman, which is not quite Argentina v Brazil but it’s still international football.  I’ve got tickets for the Quarters, Semi and Final as well but they’re up in Sydney at the end of the month.   

My highlight is looking forward to the Palestinian team play Iraq in two weeks’ time. Five of the Palestine team were not allowed to travel.  Maybe some ‘war on terror’ dickhead thought they’d suicide bomb the goalie.  I saw players interviewed by Guardian Online (here) at the Palestinian Social Club in Sydney.  It’s the first official tournament a Palestinian team has played in and the players are saying, ‘yes we’re here for our country and the people and we are proud.  But we also just want to play football.’  The world over.  A bunch of lads just want to kick a football around a pitch.