Australians " totally uncivilised"

Also posted at Nudges and Deflections

The Australian team, notably Messrs Ponting and Martyn, have been described by Sharad Powar, the head of the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) as "totally uncivilised" for their behaviour at the Champions trophy presentation.

I know from personal experience that Indian people set great store by ceremonial protocol: at most functions there is a hierarchy of guests, with the chief guest, in this instance Mr Powar, being the most important. Ceremonies with each guest, beginning with the least important, being acknowledged, and usually invited to speak. Nothing should disturb this. In my only appearance at such a ceremony (not, alas, related to any performance on a cricket field) I was speaking when the power failed. The show nevertheless went on: fortunately I was speaking off the cuff and was able to finish quickly and allow the next speaker their turn (half way through which the lights came back on).

Acording to Cricinfo Cricket Australia is trying to hose the matter down, though to my mind CEO James Sutherland's comments seem a bit bland for an Indian audience, however well they may go down in Australia:

James Sutherland, Cricket Australia CEO had said yesterday that the relations between both boards were absolutely fine. "It's unfortunate that there has been an interpretation of disrespect from that. I know that no disrespect was intended by the Australian players; I have spoken to Ricky about it. Perhaps sometimes these things can happen between different cultures."

For a sample of Indian opinion see these pieces from Hindustan Times , Times of India and The Hindu. Here's an extract from the latter:

We respect the way Australia runs its cricket and we respect the way Australia plays its cricket, which is probably why half the Australian team strides around on Indian television hawking stuff. (We certainly don't respect our board president getting pushed around).

But in Australia, respect for Indian cricket is grudging, if at all. The talking-down, slightly supercilious tone that some use (which we got for years from the English and still do in some places) bothers me.

Culture shock

It bothers me also that this is what you often read about India in Australian sports pages. Chaotic. Noisy. Dirty. Cracked pavements. Delhi-belly. Yawn. It's true, but it's also all so 1980s about a country that's changing every day. It's intriguing, too, that culture shock only occurs going from West to East.

Presumably this shock explains why few write about how well Australia's players are treated in India.

I'm not being precious, I'm just plain bored. And wondering, is there nothing in pulsating, economically powerful, rapidly changing, complex India, which is interesting (and I'm not talking about elephants on the street and the maharajas).

India may not be big news in Australia but it is elsewhere in the world, and by resorting to lazy stereotypes some cricket writers, who are the primary messengers, are not being entirely accurate messengers. Writers in Australia such as Peter Roebuck, Greg Baum and Chloe Saltau, and former cricketers like Ian Chappell, do a fine, thoughtful job, but I find them lonely voices. After all, if anyone wants to know about India, all they have to do is ask: we love talking.

Guilty until proven innocent?

Several serious charges have been laid against the former NSW Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Milton Orkopoulos. Premier Iemma has according to The Australian dismissed him from the ministry and as a state MP.


While I don't in any way play down the gravity of the charges it concerns me that due process, especially that a person is innocent until proven guilty, has not been applied here. The correct thing to do would be to stand down Mr O from the ministry, to withdraw his preselection for the election due early next year and to ask him to resign as an MP pending the outcome of the case.

1984 - 2050?

Today on the News Ltd website a new blog, Blogocracy began. On the evidence of today's prolific output, and the author, Tim Dunlop 's , other blog , he will look at local and world affairs from a different perspective from most of the other News Ltd columnists/ bloggers. This is most welcome.

Having said this I thought that one of his posts today "I'll stop calling the Howard Government Orwellian" went over the top. Although he refers to the Appendix to 1984 in which Orwell outlines the principles of Newspeak (the artificial language which aims to prevent the expression of ideas at odds with official ideology), he accuses the Howard government, or more accurately Parliamentary Secretary Robb of being Orwellian for seeking a replacement for the term "multicultural".

Mr Robb may be able to come up with another term to replace "multicultural" ("diversity", "harmony"?) but I'd be surprised if it happened suddenly, as IMO the word has taken root in Australian public (if not everyday) parlance. All governments, and political parties (not to mention many other bodies), seek to manipulate language for their own ends, yet for Dunlop to imply that the Howard government somehow stands alone on its own axis of linguistic evil is to overstate his case. In fact in his elaboration of his headline he waters down his argument considerably, but it's the echo of the headline which remains in the mind. In the 1984 Appendix Orwell said that didn't expect Newspeak to be completely established in his dystopian society until about 2050. Perhaps the novel should now be renamed (or subtitled) "2050"?

Culture of complaint against public broadcasters continues

UPDATE 6 November: Matt Price's article referred to below is now online here.

ORIGINAL POST (unchanged except for one typo corrected)
"Aunty and co face Neo-Connie's wrath".This is the title of Matt Price's column in today's Weekend Australian. To read it (and like most of Matt's stuff it's worth reading) you'll need to go to page 20 as, unlike most if not all his other pieces, this isn't online. I won't speculate why.

"Aunty" is of course the ABC, about whose current travails Matt has written previously, such as here.. "Neo-Connie" is NSW Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells , aka, as he puts it "Connie to her pals, neo-Connie to detractors", who "chooses to patrol the public broadcasters for signs of far-Left bias. Which, in neo-Connie's eyes, are everywhere".

He also has a critical thing or two to say about Victorian Senator Michael Ronaldson aka "neo_Ronnie", who "is less dedicated culture warrior than knockabout bully to whom broadcaster bashing is more sport than religion" .

The two Senators used the recent Senate estimates hearing to quiz, harangue, berate - call it what you will - the managing directors of the ABC and SBS about alleged left wing bias. Matt gives some examples of their lines of questioning and comments about the increasingly abrasive tone they used. The committee chairman (also a Liberal) "was plainly embarrassed and to his great credit intervened to chide his ultra-aggressive colleagues".

He continues

As taxpayer-funded outfits, ABC and SBS should be answerable to senators scrutinising government. If people such as neo-Connie feel compelled to complain about nudity on SBS, it's a small price to pay for public funding.

But the bullying is out of control. John Howard has stacked the board that chose [Mark] Scott as the man to lead the ABC into the complex, ever-changing digital era. On Monday's performance [at the Senate estimates hearing], he'll do a good job. The appointment of an editorial director to guard against partiality is contentious and bureaucratic and won't stem criticism of the ABC. But you'd think government senators would at least give Scott a settling-in period. Instead, neo-Ronnie and Connie roundly mocked and scorned the ABC chief, who stoutly defended the corporation against their generally absurd, overblown attacks.

It's easy for a senator with a tramscript and a chauffeur to sit on their air conditioned ar*e and blithely lambast a war corespondent for using the term militant instead of terrorist during a live interview, often conducted in a battle zone. Scott ignored the snide comments and insults, lauding the professional judgment of his reporters and explaining how 65 radio stations running live around the clock will produce an array of content, not all of it necessarily adhering to a bureaucratic formula.

Wait for the futile nitpicking to increase as Labor and the minor parties mirror the Liberals' tactic of bombarding the ABC, in particular, with complaints...No good can come of this, and the obsessive, unreasonable antics of neo-Con and neo-Ron will eventually backfire on unreasonable critics of ABC and SBS.

Unless I'm wrong, audiences and voters much prefer the flawed public broadcasters to pissant, pedantic politicians. And by the time Labor and those far left-wing leftists eventually win office, nuisances such as neo-Connie and neo-Ronnie will have written the rule book for egregious political interference.

Listening to books on the ABC

Among the rarely acknowledged (by others) pleasures of ABC Radio National are the book readings: First Person (weekdays at 10.45 am as part of The Book Show) and the Book Reading (weekdays at 2pm, repeated at 11 pm). You can also listen to them via the internet.

Not every book chosen is to my taste, but the current ones have grabbed my attention. First Person is featuring Charmian Clift's Mermaid Singing and Peel Me A Lotus, which describe life with her family on a Greek island in the 1950s and 60s. In yesterday's episode she vividly depicted the life of the islanders, notably the backbone of their economic life: the annual sponge fishing expedition which took the men who sailed off in the boats to the limit of their endurance and, in the case of some of the divers, beyond it.

The Book Reading is presenting Strike, described on the program website as "a previously unpublished novella by the Australian poet, David Campbell (1915-79) who served with distinction during World War Two." It depicts wartime service life at Batchelor airfield in the NT and points north. Adrian Mulraney's reading is first class: like all good readers he varies his tone to distinguish between characters (most of whom are male), while in the more descriptive passages evoking both the routines and boredom of service life and the gut-tightening apprehensions of action.

Campbell is better known as a poet. For more about him and to read some of his poetry, including "Men in Green" which reflects upon another incident in WW2, see here .

I wonder what those, eg Frank Devine, who are continually banging on about its lack of balance etc would make of the ABC doing what it has done to promote Campbell 's literary reputation. After all Campbell was hardly your typical latte leftie: he came from a prominent pastoral family, and for much of his life maintained a close connection with the land.

Well done, whoever at the ABC chooses the books. Enjoy your lattes.

Blogger troubles

Over the weekend something went awry with my Blogger beta (claimed by many bloggers to be a great improvement upon Blogger ordinary). It's not possible for blogs to revert to the earlier version so, to reduce the risk of being left without any personal online forum, I set up another two blogs Casting a Short Shadow 2 and Nudges and Deflections 2 to mirror or, in the worst case eventuality, to replace the Blogger beta "upgrades".

Well, as you can see from this, a kind of normality has been restored, but I won't delete the no.2 blogs just yet.

For the record here's what I posted on Shortshadow 2:

Monday, October 30, 2006
Blogger beta restored...

Blogger beta has now been restored, so I'll revert to http://shortshadow.blogspot.com/ for postings but keep this for the time being as a backup in case of further interruptions.


Saturday, October 28, 2006
Back up

I've created this blog as backup for my principal one Casting a Short Shadow, which I'd transferred to beta blogger hoping and expecting that it would work better. Alas, a combination of factors, including problems Google are having with beta blogger and my own low level of technological competence, have dashed my hopes, so I'll keep this one going for the time being.

I've done the same with my mostly cricket blog, the overflow version of which is Nudges and Deflections 2

The Mufti speaks

The comments of Sheik Hilali have been reported not only in the Australian media, eg this "edited transcript" from The Australian but also internationally, eg the BBC, Al Jazeera, CNNand The Guardian.

I find it difficult to get inside his mind, and in particular wonder why he is not fluent in English after 20+ years' residence here.

While the Mufti is reported as apologising for his remarks, he has apparently not retracted them, and has exacerbated matters by claiming, as The Age and the ABC among others have reported, that he will only resign "when the world is clean of the White House first". This will only intensify the anti-Islamic feeling among non-Islamic Australians and perhaps some Islamic ones as well.

Back on line

I wasn't surprised to learn that my computer hard drive needed to be replaced. I've spent much of the day reinstalling or trying to reinstall programs.

For the last week I've used computers in local libraries to check my email, but didn't have time to do much else.

I hope to resume more regular postings soon.

Withdrawal symptoms

Last night my computer crashed, so I'm posting this from the local library while I wait to see if the hard drive can be brought back to life. I shall return, but for now I can't say just when.

Not the Mark Scott who robbed his own bank

The recently appointed ABC managing director, Mark Scott (not to be confused with his NZ namesake who robbed his own bank) has effectively conceded that the mostly right of centre critics of the ABC are correct. He has said in a speech to the Sydney Institute

I suspect the truth is that we are by no means as bad as our critics might suggest and not as blameless as our defenders might wish. My focus, however, is on the future and ensuring our performance is better in the future.

He proposes a number of changes, which are summarised in the ABC media release:

1. ABC Editorial Policies now [ or will from March 2007] require the ABC to be able to demonstrate impartiality at the platform level (i.e. the individual television or radio network, or on ABC Online) for opinion, topical and factual content. This means the ABC must provide its audiences a range of different perspectives on the subject under consideration.

2. A new content category called Opinion is being recognised within ABC content for the first time. This is content presented from a particular point of view about a matter of public contention. This content will be signposted and the requirement for impartiality will mean a range of views must be presented over time.

3. A new position, Director of ABC Editorial Polices will be created to report to the Managing Director in his role as Editor-in-Chief to provide independent assessment of editorial performance.

How effective will all this be? This morning on RN's Breakfast (one of the programs which Scott praised in his paper), Fran Kelly quizzed him about how far the "Opinion" category might extend. Did it cover reviews of films such as An Inconvenient Truth which dealt with "matters of public contention"? Apparently yes. At the Movies will now, it seems, be "signposted". Is this Scottspeak for saying that there will have to be some kind of right of reply to anything which the DABCEP deems contentious or unbalanced? Sometimes circumstances change rapidly so that yesterday's perceived imbalance becomes today's middle of the road position: for example, Mr Howard and some of his ministers have shifted their ground considerably about climate change in the short time since An Inconvenient Truth was released here.

How too, will the "range of different perspectives" be provided? Point 1 implies that entries in online guest books and forums (which many radio and TV programs now have) will not be sufficient as they are on a different "platform". Will the guest books themselves have to reflect this "impartiality". Already these comments are usually moderated: will the ABC have to implement a quota system to ensure this?

Will the changes also encourage critics to whom Scott refers as "those who sound off against the institution but appear never to be reluctant to sound off before an open microphone and receive an endorsed appearance cheque" ? Will the "rigorous, intense and well-mannered discussion " which he asked for at the begining of his Sydney Institute speech be possible in his new world?

Other bloggers have weighed in to the debate Here , here , and here are some with whom I generally concur.

Wrestling with ideologues #2

The Australian is not letting up on its criticism of the deficiencies which it perceives in our public secondary schools, about which I've posted previously . Last weekend it published an editorial "Little Red Curriculum" which raised the spectre of Maoist ideologues corrupting the minds of our youth.

It has produced a variety of responses including these . A very good one was published today with the headline "Mao and maths don't mix". The writer begins "I'm a teacher, a maths and physics one for that matter and, try as I might, I have been unable to teach Maoism and physics/ maths in harmony with each other". After making some other points, including that he's met "left-wing, fruit-loop teachers" but "they represent a bizarre anomaly and are not in significant numbers", he concludes "There are many serious issues in education that require the attention of serious people. This 'lefty, commie' political diversion is not one of them". Hear, hear.

Nudges and Deflections

Today I've started a new blog Nudges and Deflections about cricket. I expect that I'll have a lot to say over the coming months; beyond that....well, who knows?

Where is the next drink coming from?

I took this on Friday near Victor Harbor, which is in, by South Australian standards, a high rainfall area. That's the sea in the background. The empty dam shown here would normally at this time of the year have enough water to satisfy the cattle.

Parish pump malfunction

In my letterbox today was the first communication I've received from my two local councillors, who were hoping to be re-elected in the forthcoming elections. They reported that because the only other candidate for the ward had withdrawn her nomination the State Electoral Office has deemed the election to have "failed". This means that the ward will be unrepresented, as their missive states," until a supplementary election is held sometime in 2007".

This is preposterous. Councils or, more specifically, elected councillors may not have much clout (they didn't do anything to modify the planned development next door to me which has now resulted in much of my natural light being blocked off) but some people, like me, believe that citizens should be given some opportunity to influence how they are governed. Even so, I'm not surprised that none of the Council's , State Electoral Office's , Local Government Association's , or the Minister's websites mention it.

This is all relatively small in the scheme of things, but it would be good to see something done, and soon, to remedy this.

Another literary prize

The 2006 Nobel Prize for literature has been won by Orhan Pamuk . Unlike the Booker, which is awarded to a particular book, the Nobel is awarded to a writer for the body of work which they've produced.

The brief citation on the official website refers to Pamuk as a writer "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures". More detailed "biobibliographical notes" (in English) are posted elsewhere on the Svenska Akademien website.

At the same time as his win is announced comes a report from the BBC that the French lower house has voted in support of a bill making it an offence to deny that Turkey committed genocide against Armenians in 1915. If you know anything at all about Pamuk you'll know, as I've previously posted and The New York Times states in its report of the Nobel Prize, that Pamuk has been in trouble with the Turkish authorities:

Pamuk, whose novels include ''Snow'' and ''My Name is Red,'' was charged last year for telling a Swiss newspaper in February 2005 that Turkey was unwilling to deal with two of the most painful episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians during World War I, which Turkey insists was not a planned genocide, and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey's overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.

''Thirty-thousand Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it,'' he said in the interview.
The controversy came at a particularly sensitive time for the overwhelmingly Muslim country. Turkey had recently begun membership talks with the European Union, which has harshly criticized the trial, questioning Turkey's commitment to freedom of expression. The charges against Pamuk were dropped in January, ending the high-profile trial that outraged Western observers and cast doubt on Turkey's commitment to free speech.

Apart from watching developments in the next few days and beyond, I'll also be looking to read more of Pamuk's work: earlier this year I read Snow, and I hope to try My Name is Red next.

Bookie Prize

The winner of this year's Man Booker Prize is Kiran Desai for her novel The Inheritance of Loss , which is not yet available from booksellers in Australia. Why not? Many Australians, including me, would be keen to read the winner of such a prestigious award asap; but the only way of acquiring a copy is to source it overseas. No doubt the book will be available here soon, but the delays in doing so make the local book publishing and distribution trades (or their global parents) look inept.


While I'm on the topic, my eyebrows were raised by the official official Man Booker Prize website which features a link to the "Man Booker bookie". I don't particularly mind if people want to bet on the outcome, but what would happen if bookies were allowed to advertise on, say, the websites of sporting bodies?

Watch out!

The Independent (also available here)has just published a 7,000 word piece by Robert Fisk in which he reviews the history of the Middle East over the past 31 years and his part in reporting it. Did he predict some of the things that have happened? Reviewing his old notebooks, he finds that he did issue some general warnings, but of course he couldn't predict the precise nature of the attacks.

Here's a sample which captures the flavour of his style:

I don't like journalists who, in middle age, start to pontificate morbidly about the wickedness of a world that should be full of love, or who rummage through old notebooks in search of pessimism. So I own up at once. Surely we don't have to be weighed down by the baggage of history, always looking backwards and holding up billboards with the "The End of the World is Nigh" written in black for readers too bored to look at the fine print. Yet when I sit on my seafront balcony today, I am waiting for the next explosion to come.

Beirut is a good place to reflect on the tragedy through which the Middle East is now inexorably moving. After all, the city has suffered so many horrors these past 31 years, it seems haunted by the mass graves that lie across the region, from Afghanistan to Iraq to "Palestine" and to Lebanon itself. And I look across the waters and see a German warship cruising past my home, part of Nato's contribution to stop gun-running into Lebanon under UN Security Council Resolution 1701. And then, I ask myself what the Germans could possibly be doing when no guns have ever been run to the Hizbollah guerrilla army from the sea. The weapons came through Syria, and Syria has a land frontier with the country and is to the north and east of Lebanon, not on the other side of the Mediterranean.

And then when I call on my landlord to discuss this latest, hopeless demonstration of Western power, he turns to me in some anger and says, "Yes, why is the German navy cruising off my home?" And I see his point. For we Westerners are now spreading ourselves across the entire Muslim world. In one form or another, "we" - "us", the West - are now in Khazakstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Lebanon. We are now trapped across this vast area of suffering, fiercely angry people, militarily far more deeply entrenched and entrapped than the 12th-century crusaders who faced defeat at the battle of Hittin, our massive forces fighting armies of Islamists, suicide bombers, warlords, drug barons, and militias. And losing. The latest UN army in Lebanon, with its French and Italian troops, is moving in ever greater numbers to the south, young men and women who have already been threatened by al-Qa'ida and who will, in three of four months, be hit by al-Qa'ida. Which is one reason why the French have been pallisading themselves into their barracks in southern Lebanon. There is no shortage of suicide bombers here, although it will be the Sunni -- not the Hizbollah-Shiite variety -- which will strike at the UN.

This is Fisk at his best: describing the situation and outlining what will probably happen if things don't change. As ever, he doesn't suggest ways of avoiding this (and he's said elsewhere that it's not a journalist's job to do so), but it would be good to hear what he, with his all his experience and knowledge of the region, believes could be done to avert or even ameliorate some of the carnage he expects to follow. The closest he comes is at the end :

It's always been my view that the people of this part of the Earth would like some of our democracy. They would like a few packets of human rights off our supermarket shelves. They want freedom. But they want another kind of freedom - freedom from us. And this we do not intend to give them. Which is why our Middle East presence is heading into further darkness. Which is why I sit on my balcony and wonder where the next explosion is going to be. For, be sure, it will happen. Bin Laden doesn't matter any more, alive or dead. Because, like nuclear scientists, he has invented the bomb. You can arrest all of the world's nuclear scientists but the bomb has been made. Bin Laden created al-Qa'ida amid the matchwood of the Middle East. It exists. His presence is no longer necessary.

And all around these lands are a legion of young men preparing to strike again, at us, at our symbols, at our history. And yes, maybe I should end all my reports with the words: Watch out!

"Nets tomorrow at 9am. I trust I shall see you there": cricket revival in USA?

An unexpected source, The Smithsonian magazine , describes the growing popularity of cricket in the USA. The author, Simon Worrall (one vowel away from a great cricketer's surname) includes a succinct historical summary with some interesting facts, eg that NYC Mayor Bloomberg in 2005 announced plans to build a $1.5m "pitch" in Queens.

Worrall also describes the spread of the game beyond its original bases in Philadelphia and New York, though IMO he underrates the influence of the West Coast, where British Empire/ Commonwealth expats in Hollywood such as Sir C Aubrey Smith ( who once appeared for England at cricket as well as in many movies such as the 1939 version of The Four Feathers ), Laurence Olivier and Boris Karloff raised the profile of the game and where, as Cricinfo reminds us, a match was televised in 1958. It was "Round the Corner" Smith (the soubriquet derived from his bowling runup, not from any propensity to unsporting behaviour) who set the tone for the Hollywood Cricket club which he founded in the 1930s and which still continues with, we are told, support from such latter day cricket fans as Mick Jagger.

For the un-, or insufficiently, initiated The Smithsonian website also has a companion piece "Cricket for Dummies" by Matthew Engel the editor of Wisden. His (or his sub-editor's) summary: "It's a lot like baseball. Except that it's profoundly different". This and much of what he goes on to say is generally OK, though by describing bowlers' "throws" he may be sowing the seeds for future controversies if cricket really does take hold in the USA.

Wrestling with ideologues

The front page of today's Australian features two articles which comment on the current state of Australian education and training. The lead story headline boldly asserts "Canberra to seize syllabus", while another headline "Skills crisis paves path to payday for Aaron,16" accompanied by a photo which makes the secondary story seem more important than the headline .

The first story quotes Education Minister Bishop:

"We need to take school curriculum out of the hands of the ideologues in the state and territory education bureaucracies and give it to a national board of studies, comprising the sensible centre of educators."

It? Is there really a single overarching curriculum, or is she really thinking of curricula for various subject areas? And who are the "sensible centre of educators" she has in mind? Her attempts to draw a comparison between the state education bureaucrats and Chairman Mao are grossly overstated and will deflect public attention away from the merits of some of her points. I can see the appeal of greater consistency across the board in many subject areas, but would be wary of a centrally imposed curriculum in subjects such as history and geography which
would inevitably tend to reflect the views of the Eastern states.

Aaron's story makes the Minister's concern about ideologues seem pointless, as the young man has turned his back on the school system and followed the lure of good money. The Prime Minister has endorsed this: "Not everybody is suitable for a university education and we have to get back to the time when a prized and valued technical qualification was as important to somebody's future as a university degree".

Did this time that "we have to get back to" ever exist? I doubt it. The PM and his acolytes, notably Ministers Bishop and Nelson, have had a lot to say recently about ideologues and school curricula. Aaron has already bought a car and is saving for a mortgage: he admits he was not a great student, but at 16 he seems to be wedded to many of the values which the government (and the opposition for that matter) espouse.

Minister Bishop made her provocative remarks at a History Teachers' conference. Matt Price was also there: his views are much closer to the "sensible centre" of opinion than the Minister's.

Not in our backyard

I took this photo today when I was walking in the Fleurieu Peninsula near the area where it was recently reported that uranium exploration would be taking place. Uranium was mined at Wild Dog Hill near Myponga for a time in the 1950s.

In a media release Premier Rann has pooh poohed the idea:

“Under Don Dunstan’s 1971 mining act companies have a legal right to explore,” Mr Rann said.

“However, this does not give companies the automatic right to develop or establish any mining activity without the approval of the Environment Protection Authority and the State Government.

“While I am Premier of this State there will be no uranium mining established anywhere near Myponga Reservoir.”

Marathon, the company concerned, has, according to the ABC, "moved to allay fears that the area would ever be mined".

That said, the reported comments of Dr Santich, the CEO of the company,

"Down there at Myponga we've known since we put in the application that it was highly unlikely that we'd ever get a permit to mine, even if we found what you call a viable deposit which would have to be massive and very rich...Nevertheless it's worth exploring, it's worth getting that knowledge."

suggest that we may not necessarily have heard the last of the matter.

65 years on: another clue in the HMAS Sydney mystery?

Today the media, including The Australian , The Age and the ABC report on the exhuming of what may be the remains of a survivor (or a crew member) from HMAS Sydney which was lost in 1941 following an engagement with the German raider Kormoran.

The existence of the possible survivor's remains has been known for some time but only now have what may be his remains been re-discovered, afterthey were apparently buried in an un- or poorly marked grave on Christmas Island just before it was occupied by the Japanese in 1942.

Almost 65 years after the event many questions remained unanswered, notably how the Sydney could have been surprised by the Kormoran and why there were 317 survivors of the Kormoran but none from the Sydney. This has given rise to continuing speculation about what really happened, for example whether survivors were killed by the Germans (or possibly the Japanese even though at the time they weren't at war with Australia but may have had a submarine in the vicinity).

The official view is summarised on RAN and Australian War Memorial websites. Some alternative theories are evaluated here.

In 1999 a Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade reported on the loss of the Sydney. Here is the link to the full report. The Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations is here . It concurred with one author's opinion (prefiguring Donald Rumsfeld's on a broader range of issues) that much about the loss was "unknown and unknowable", but ended with a rousing but essentially hollow appeal to all parties:


The Committee is well aware that the level of interest in Sydney and her fate is so extensive that, regardless of the outcome of this inquiry, individuals and groups will continue to research the topic and expound on their various theories. This is to be welcomed, if it is undertaken with an openness to the information available and a willingness to listen and to take into consideration opposing views. ...The Committee strongly believes there is a need for all involved in the Sydney debate to move beyond animosity and antagonism and find common ground. No one group 'owns' Sydney, or has a monopoly on truth. The Committee hopes that in future researchers will rise above the personal acrimony and suspicion that has marred so much of the debate thus far. An exchange of differing views is a positive process, and can only lead to a better understanding of the events of November 1941. HMAS Sydney deserves no less.

Since then there have been moves to locate the Sydney's wreck, and an organisation Sydney Search Pty Ltd has been set up to do this. The Federal (($1.3 m), WA ($500,000) and NSW (($250,000) governments have provided or promised funding to assist with the search, preparations for which have gone quiet after a report in September 2005 that it would begin "within months".

Perhaps Tony Barrass the writer of today's Australian piece could shed some more light on the topic. In July this year he wrote that "searchers are deady to start" though he also implied that the usual suspect of a funding shortfall was delaying things.

Does the unadorned truth often prevail?

The many perceptive comments about the Hungarian Prime Minister's recent outburst of extreme candour include some from a local perspective, such as those of Matt Price and Bill Leak.

A-G's wake up call on torture

Yesterday on ABC TV's Insiders the Attorney-General Mr Ruddock, speaking from Washington, played his customary straight bat on several matters related to his portfolio, including a trial date for David Hicks ("needs to be dealt with expeditiously") and what constitues torture ("I don't regard sleep deprivation as torture").

In today's Australian Bill Leak has a cartoon titled "Humane torture" showing the AG as one man band (bugle, banjo, drum) demanding admittance to a Sleep Deprivation facility saying "I'm here to help...". Enough said?

England XI to field XVI: is it cricket?

While the cricket world is currently preoccupied with the ICC referee's decision in the ball tampering case (the full decision, which IMO is worth reading, is here), and the collateral speculation about Umpire Hair's future , another matter, a proposal to change the nature of the preliminary matches of the England tour, has slipped under the media radar.

England has apparently requested that either one ( according to Adelaide Now aka The Advertiser online) or both (according to Cricinfo )three day preliminary matches will become basically centre wicket practice.

In one sense this harks back to the nineteenth century where matches were often played against odds, eg England v XVI of Woop Woop. Then however it was the local opposition, not the touring team, who were allowed to augment their numbers to even up the contest. Now it seems that anything goes, including downgrading matches which have been advertised for some time as first class.

Cricinfo reports this feeble attempt to justify the proposal:
John Buchanan, Australia's coach, said England's request was just a continuation of what is now a common practice. "They want to be able to use as many players as they can, so really they're treating it, as most teams do, as game time and match practice in different conditions," he said. "Albeit that they might not be totally similar to exactly what you're going to play on, but it is time in Australia out in the middle, playing cricket and preparing."

I can't see the rationale behind this: it might be out in the middle and preparing, but if players can be rotated at will this makes a mockery of the game.

Of course, if the last few Ashes tours and reports of the state of fitness of the selected squad are anything to go by, it is quite possible that England won't have more than 11 fit players for these games. If so, what will happen: back to plan A or cancel them?

All change on the buses?

The long-awaited (well for the last few months) changes to Adelaide public transport have been published online, a couple of days before their official release date.

On one hand there's been a lot of speculation about potential changes, including service reductions; on the other there's been a lot of spin from the government about better services et al.

I've run an eye over many of the changes, which will take effect from 15 October, and to me they look like a case of the more things change the more they remain the same. Many routes have been tweaked, and renumbering some gives the impression of many more changes than are in fact the case.

That said there are still some issues which the authorities have ducked , such as how to improve the provision of services accessible to physically disabled people. The current policy of publicising only routes which are totally wheelchair accessible instead of, as happens elsewhere eg Darwin, inviting disabled patrons to contact the bus company and request an accessible bus for the particular service they wish to travel on, is shortsighted and prevents the company (and the government) from earning a few brownie points.

Regional media

After bagging it in my preceding post, I was pleasantly surprised to see ABC TV moving back into my good books with tonight's Media Watch which discussed our regional media's trend to fob off local communities with news plucked at random from all over the place.

I raised an eyebrow when Monica Attard used Wollongong as her principal example of "regional" media: I thought it was part of the greater Sydney conurbation. That said, the program provided a considerable amount of information, some of which is expanded in the program website. For example, check out Minister Coonan's answers to the questions submitted to her for confirmation (if you needed it) that doublespeak still flourishes.

If the program had a shortcoming it was that it concentrated on the commercial electronic media, and didn't balance this perspective by referring to the ABC. The fact is, as I can attest from my recent travels in the interior, that the ABC is the only substantial source of local news in regional areas. Newspapers aren't available in the morning (though some may be accessed via the web) and when they do arrive they cost much more than in the southern capitals: the weekday Australian sells for $3.00 in Darwin and $2.20 in Alice Springs. ABC local radio is a valuable source of local and other news (and the various websites are an archive of information for tourists and others - for an example which I've used see ABC Kimberley) .

ABC punches below its weight

"Inspiring stories of the human spirit" is the ABC's website puff for Australian Story , which tonight plumbed new depths of banality by featuring a female WBC featherweight boxing champion who is also a fundamentalist Christian and, if this is any indication, has a literacy problem (though she aspires to "memorize the Bible").

I'll post this though I'm not sure that this froth should be blown any further.

Doctor Warne bending the elbow?

Cricinfo reports that there was some ill feeling in the Hampshire v Lancashire cricket match where the Hampshire skipper, Dr Warne , was piqued by the opposition's refusal to give his team a sliver of opportunity to win the game outright.

Shortly after lunch there was a surreal five-over period where Warne and others deliberately offered up a series of ridiculous deliveries in an apparent protest. Warne himself sent down a succession of bouncers and was no-balled for throwing the ball from a standing start.


No balled for throwing? The photo of the incident shows a well flighted ball delivered by a gunbarrel straight arm. Wearing a cap to deliver a ball and not running in are not illegal: I recall seeing West Indian Chris Gayle doing the same last year in a ODI v Pakistan .

Anyone who thinks that tossing a ball high in the air is somehow against the spirit and laws of cricket needs to be reminded that another doctor, Arthur Conan Doyle, as Michael Parkinson reminds us, once wrote a story "Spedegue's Dropper" about how the Ashes were recovered using just this ploy. Nobody has raised an eyebrow about the legitimacy of the delivery, and, showing that art occasionally does imitate life, it has even made the Cricinfo XI freakish dismissals list .

Breaking news or false lead?

The (Australian) ABC is running a French report that Osama Bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

As I post this hasn't been picked up by many other media outlets, though The New York Times website has a report with a cautious headline "France to Probe Bin Laden Death Report Leak".

I'll be interested to see whether any of these matters (the leak, the report and the death itself) are corroborated.

One year on

A year ago today I began this blog. At the time my aim was to post regularly (at least three times a week) on a variety of topics and to attract a few readers other than friends and relatives. I seem to have done this.

I hope to keep it going but also to work on improving it, eg by writing more frequently about books I've read and films I've seen. These are modest aims but I'll try to keep them in mind over the next year.

Relative work value changes

Andrew Leigh reports the results of a study carried out by a former WA Assistant Director General of Education which shows how the relativities between WA backbenchers' and teachers' salaries changed from 1973 to 2003.

In 1973 a backbencher's base salary was $10,000 whereas that of a four year trained teacher at the top of the scale was $8,150, ie the backbencher earned 123% of the teacher's salary.

By 2003 the respective amounts were $106,000 and $56,126: the backbencher now earned 189% of the teacher's salary!

It would be interesting to see similar comparisons with other occupations, though not limited to predominantly public sector ones such as nursing and police.

Going for the doctor of spin

Shane Warne has been awarded an honorary PhD by Southampton Solent University. According to the university's website

The accolade was conferred at The Rose Bowl in Hampshire in a twist on the traditional university graduation ceremony. A procession of university high officers, made their way to the boundary rope in front of the pavilion. Warne, the scourge of England’s batsmen in successive Ashes Test Series, received his degree scroll wearing customary academic dress.

The Pro-Chancellor who officiated at the ceremony said

As arguably the greatest bowler who has ever lived, Shane Warne is highly deserving of this honorary doctorate. His sporting success is an inspiration to all, and is particularly close to our own hearts given the university’s commitment to sporting achievement. We felt it was only fitting to break with tradition and confer this degree at the Rose Bowl, the home of Hampshire cricket, in recognition of the huge contribution he has made not only to international cricket but to the success and popularity of cricket in the Hampshire region.

Unfortunately the new doctor soon afterwards, as The Times reported, required the services of a medical doctor to attend to an injury sustained on the paying field.

Dr Warne has also been in the news recently for allegedly disturbing the harmony of the Australian team.

Perhaps the last word for the moment should be Geoff Boycott's advice to him:

Australia are the favourites this winter. I really think they will win unless the injury tally evens itself up. They are fit and fresh and well-rested. Some people say Shane Warne is creaking, but I say he took 40 wickets in last summer's series. Richie Benaud reckons Warne will be back for the 2009 Ashes and the only thing that makes me think otherwise is that Warney's life is full of escapades. If he slept with his bat, like I used to, he could probably manage another five years.

Border security breached in WA

The ABC reports that a live cane toad has crossed into WA from the NT, thereby evading the substantial WA border protection illustrated in these pictures which I took last month.

Fortunately the report states that the illegal immigrant was found by a Kunnunurra couple "near the town's caravan park" (a dog whistle that tourists were responsible for its importation?) and was subsequently disposed of by a local vet.

After my experience at the hands of the WA officials, who not only took the fruit and vegetables in my possession (all of which I voluntarily declared) but also confiscated a box in which they had been stored, I'm surprised that anything could have escaped their zealous scrutiny.

Perhaps not everyone passing the checkpoint was subjected to the same degree of attention as I was. I thought at the time that there may have been a form of profiling in operation, and that because I was driving a vehicle with a non-WA registration I therefore qualified for closer examination. I wouldn't wish a plague or even a trickle of cane toads upon anyone, but unfortunately they're a fact of life in northern Australia. Perhaps the WA authorities could do more to alert all travellers, whether their own people or interstate or overseas tourists, to their quarantine policies and to seek their cooperation in advance so that the rigour of the border searches (and the brusqueness of some officials) don't come as such a surprise.

Free media?

Yesterday's Crikey referred to an article by Richard Addis in The Guardian (UK) which ponders whether in 10 years' time all newspapers will be free. It's worth reading the whole piece for yourself, as it includes some rough calculations of costs and benefits. Addis suggests that the freebies are but a step on the road to fully online papers.

In Australia the free newspaper (many of them owned by News Ltd) has long been a feature of the suburban lawnscape, though it's not quite like London situation where the free papers have been used as bait to entice readers to fork out for a bulkier edition later the same day.

The costs of printing and distributing newspapers throughout our dispersed suburbs must be huge, and while a lot of people, including me, like to be able to hold something in their hand (if only to do the crossword puzzle or to have something to read on the bus) it may be that we can be weaned away from our reliance on print. After all I read bits and pieces of many papers on the web already.

Here in Adelaide both The Advertiser and The Independent Weekly have a free daily email each weekday which are sent out within minutes of each other to anyone who requests them. This competition doesn't guarantee that they'll report all the local news that's fit to email: yesterday neither reported the latest rumours about Mitsubishi, but it may be another indication of the way the wind is shifting.

That said, I think the home delivered newspaper will be with us for a while yet: perhaps even longer than 10 years. On my recent trip up north I was surprised that the weekday Australian costs $3.00 in Darwin and $2.20 in Alice Springs (and is not available at newsagencies in each place until the afternoon) . There are obviously people who are prepared to pay these prices and wear the delays (which can be even longer in more remote areas). Even so I'm surprised that a full text internet version isn't more widely promoted in those places: or perhaps it is and the tradition of the morning (or morning after) newspaper is still alive and well.

Alternative Prime Minister?

Just when I thought that Kim Beazley was starting to look and sound like an alternative PM he has made a fool of himself again. No, not over his assertion that the IR issue was the main reason why the Labor government was returned in Queensland (even though Laurie Oakes in The Bulletin has taken him to task for this), but over his idea (demand?) that everyone coming to Australia should have to sign on to an unspecified list of "Australian values".

Not only does this have all the indicia of policy made up on the run (as his predecessor was apt to do) but, as Matt Price in The Australian put it so pithily:

Having criticised Howard for dog-whistling on Muslim-bashing all these years, some Labor MPs are worried Beazley is sticking two fingers underneath his tongue and blowing hard.


One of the worried MPs, judging from her comments on last night's ABC TV Lateline, would be Julia Gillard . Only the transcript of her interrogation by Tony Jones is available: a video would show how she just managed to maintain her poker face for the duration of a longish interview.

Come on, Kim : you need to do better than this.

England selects

The squads for the English cricket tour of Australia have been announced. Injuries have ruled out Michael Vaughan and Simon Jones, while there seem to be some doubtful starters, eg Ashley Giles who hasn't played for months, among those who have been selected. The selectors have prudently named a backup "Academy" squad which will be based in WA as a kind of travelling replacement pool.

I wouldn't write the English off so far in advance but on paper the team looks weaker than that which won the Ashes last year: the only possible improvements I can see are (assuming Read is preferred to Jones) in the wicketkeeping and maybe (if Giles is unfit and Panesar can spin the ball as he's done recently) the spin bowling. I won't make any further predictions, but will hope for a competitive series. England should be able to give Australia a good run for its money, but whether it can do enough to hold on to the Ashes (ie at least draw the series) is another matter.

Five years on

Almost every western media commentator has had, it seems, something to say about the fifth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centre. I don't have their analytical ability but, as I did visit the site earlier this year and took the photos above, I will post my one cent's worth .

Two pictures are of the site itself; the other two are of an adjacent churchyard dating from the 18th century (Ground Zero can be seen in the background of one of them) which was largely unscathed except for a tree uprooted by the blast.

When I was there I paused to reflect upon the destruction and the loss of life. I have never been in a place where so many innocent - and, despite what others may say, they were innocent - people have died at one time as a consequence of the actions of other humans. I know that there have been many other "occasions" (an unsatisfactory term, but I can't think of a more appropriate one just now) where there has been greater loss of life, but I will always remember my visit to Ground Zero and hope, though am too cynical to expect, that there will never again be deaths on this scale.

GNE 2006

Summary of journey [added to blog July 2007 from notes taken at the time].

Day 1

Adelaide - Coober Pedy via Stuart Highway.
880 kms

Day 2

Coober Pedy.
34 kms

Day 3

Coober Pedy - Breakaways (see photo).
82kms

Day 4

Coober Pedy - Alice Springs via Stuart Highway.
713 kms

Day 5

Alice Springs - Renner Springs via Stuart Highway
690kms

Day 6

Renner Springs - Dunmarra (Stuart Highway)
206 km
Buchanan Highway (see photo of road train) - Top Springs - Victoria River Downs (pass) - Victoria Highway - Gregory National Park (see photo of boabs)- Limestone Gorge
476 km
Total for day:682 kms

Day 7

Walked to East Baines River through washed out area.
Drove Limestone Gorge - Timber Creek - WA border (zealous quarantine inspection) - Kununurra.
297 kms

Day 8

Kununurra - Wyndham and return (see photo of me dipping foot in water).
255 kms

Day 9

Kununurra - Lake Argyle/ Ord River Dam - Gregory's camp - Timber Creek - Sullivan Camp (Gregory NP) (many flies but Hobson's choice).
435 kms

Day 10

Sullivan Camp - Katherine - Edith Falls Nitmiluk NP (first safe swimming spot on trip).
247 kms

Day 11

Edith Falls - Pine Creek - Adelaide River (see photo of station) - Batchelor ( car cooling system problem required rescheduling of proposed trip to Litchfield) - Howard Springs.
326 kms

Day 12

Howard Springs - Palmerston for car repairs; I took bus into Darwin. Collected car in pm.
33kms (car)

Day 13

Howard Springs - Batchelor - Florence Falls, Litchfield NP (resuming planned itinerary). Car clocked up 130,000 kms near Elizabeth River.
126 kms

Day 14

Litchfield NP tour: Buley Rockhole, Tolmer, Wangi (walked above waterfall).
67 kms

Day 15

Florence Falls - Batchelor - Snake Creek Railway remains - Pine Creek - Edith Falls.
282 kms

Day 16

Edith Falls - Katherine - Mataranka Homestead (near thermal pool).
181 kms

Day 17

Mataranka - Larrimah (Stuart Hwy); Larrimah - Birdum (rough track following railway line) for Birdum 2006. As in 2005, a most interesting group of people.
92 kms

Day 18

Rode the NAR (see photo), then drove Birdum - Larrimah (rough track), then back onto Stuart Hwy; brief diversions to Daly Waters and old Stuart Hwy near Banka Banka otherwise on to Tennant Creek (Outback Caravan Park - v good).
520 kms

Day 19

Tennant Creek - Stuart Hwy - Alice Springs (spent c 2 hrs there inc quick visits to Old Ghan and Road Transport museums - both worth seeing) - SA/ NT border. Camped with ( as I calculated) my head in NT and legs in SA. Among campers were a French couple cycling south.
831 kms

Day 20

SA/ NT border - Coober Pedy.
414 kms

Day 21
Coober Pedy(dep 0655) -Port Augusta via Stuart Hwy - Wilmington - Melrose - Clare - Adelaide (arr 1907).
896 kms.

Total trip: 8083 kms.

Colin Thiele

Colin Thiele died on the same day as Steve Irwin and thus his life has not been commemorated to the extent that many, particularly we South Australians, might have expected.

I'm not in any way belittling Steve Irwin, but I knew Colin Thiele. Many years ago I was a student at the teachers college where he was a lecturer and was impressed not only by his ability to evoke South Australian life and landscapes in his writings but also by his willingness to give his time to encourage others to read, and not just his books.

His passing is sad, but his substantial body of work will remain, as will the fond memories of people such as me, those who have sent letters to The Advertiser, and many more whose minds have been stimulated and enriched by reading his books.

Resumption of service

Yesterday evening I returned from GNE2006, after driving all day from Coober Pedy. Watch this space for more details of the trip, and for more frequent postings on other matters.