BELLINGEN: Do the ghosts of the Gumbaynggir People and the red cedars shine in the wee morning glow? Payton L. Inkletter asked a Scotchman on the road

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

05^th April 2009:

Sunday: Don’t ask me how, but what with the fit of backyard activity I ended on last entry, and my doe eyes at the missus for a plate of sliced pears and shavings of cheddar cheese, with coffee, and nattering, it was after one o’clock; if you can explain where the time went, contact me.

Of course, the embrace of Mistress Nodette was still some time off, for Missus Inklelustypanties began eyeing me off with her trademark lasciviousness, and I knew I was a goner. So off to the boudoir I was marched, like an innocent lamb thinking I was going to play in a field of clover, when the frilly knickered lizard, aka the rapacious reptile, really had planned a roll in said clover. I was ravished long, hard, and repeatedly, but as the billions of regular readers of this diary well know, I’ve long learnt the lesson of resistance: don’t, for I only delay the inevitable, and she then feels justified in employing rougher than usual handling to change my NO into a yes. When the alabaster dragon finally discarded me like an empty carton of Harvey Fresh UHT full cream milk I timidly requested that she cover me with the few bare threads called bed linen at our place, and I slipped into the embrace of a kinder vixen, Mistress Nodette. It had passed two o’clock.

By arrangement the chalky crocodile roused me just before seven so I could watch My Beloved, and most of Sixty Minutes, with a dash to take vittles to Pa pree between the first and second stories. I say, that video clip on tonight’s news purportedly of the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley flogging a young woman, if it’s genuine and not a setup, is the type of thing, including the blowing up of schools, we should see daily on our news around the world, to remove any lingering doubts in the minds of reasonable people that Sharia Law is an all good thing for society. It would appear that at its worst it is at least as bad as the oppressions wrought by Christianity at its worst.

Now to Sixty Minutes: The first story, ‘Wake Up Call’, by poster boy Liam Bartlett on mobile phones and brain tumours was so disturbing, and I phoned Baby Inkletter immediately it began and urged her and Hee Peggy to watch it there and then. Some years back there was a big exposé on this very point, and as I recall the mobile phone industry so poo pooed the idea with doubt that it was put to bed. I think there was a recommendation nevertheless to use the better designed ear phones and mike from the mobile unit, to keep the microwave radiation at a much safer distance from the head. What a wonderful fellow is that Dr Charlie Teo, taking on the worst brain surgery cases! And Baby Inkletter took the call on her mobile, for they do not have a landline…

Who could disagree with the sentiments of Liz Hayes’ story ‘Backyard Revolution’? But who but the well off can afford the water required, at least here in Perth, to grow the vegetables in our bottomless sand and scorching summers? It makes a mockery of the money saving claims.

And how uplifting was Tara Brown’s story, ‘Wonder Boy’, on the wonderful progress of Terry Vo, who just four short years ago lost two hands and a foot in a nearby suburb playing basketball at home! He is an inspiration. What did you all think of his C-walking? How good was that! And with one prosthetic lower leg!

I stayed on to watch Dateline with George Fungus on SBS, and found Mark Davis’ story on the coup in Madagascar, ‘Diary of a Coup’, fascinating on many levels. How tragic that so many citizens, apparently unarmed, were shot dead and others maimed, on February 7^th. The video shown by Andry Ralijon senior adviser to the elected President Marc Ravalomanana was horrible. Why not fire a couple of shots over the heads of the folk charging the palace, and let them take stock, and probably turn and run away. As it was, they turned and ran away, with at least half a minute of follow up firing upon fleeing unarmed citizens, killing dozens of them. It was a disgusting demonstration of the cheapness of their lives in the minds of the cowards behind the President’s guns.

George’s next story, ‘Reds go Green’, by Adrian Brown, was so apt, and why couldn’t General Motor’s obscenely overpaid Rick Wagoner have come up with, and stuck with, an idea like BYD Auto's F3DM hybrid car? It might simply have saved the skin of his dying company, which has lost a mere US$82 billion under his ‘leadership’ in the past four years.

I enjoyed George’s chat with Will Hutton, Guardian columnist and British economist; two men with a natural flow and quite a grasp on matters of global import. Hutton’s analysis of the G20 was enlightened. Now forgive me for this extensive quote of Will Hutton’s from Dateline’s transcript web page, but it sums up so well the bastard mentality of so many of the type of capitalists who floated to the top – like excreta does in tanks – to the most influential positions in the free market free-for-alls that characterised the past decade: ‘…we were privileging the get-rich-quick dimension of capitalism - a dimension of capitalism that did not accept the obligations to pay taxes. What a game it was! We pick up these enormous bonuses, we live in Palm Beach, and you guys, when things go wrong, you can foot the bill. What a bargain was that!’ Oh what a pleasure it is to listen to George Negus interview people with some nous.

I charged away for half an hour to the poota, then back again to watch Compass’ ‘The Real Jesus: The Hidden Story of Jesus’ part one, by British theologian Robert Beckford, which for me was a lame tired old rehash of the usual ‘Jesus was a special human, but only human nevertheless’ ‘exposé’ so common of recent decades turned into documentaries. Echoes of the, well, I won’t be so unkind to call it ‘drivel’ as some might, of Barbara Thiering, but I would call her very smugly certain of her theories. To be fair to Beckford he did make the parallels between the Christian stories and earlier religious stories rather clear and interesting. But I am not exactly on the edge of my seat for his conclusions, next week or whenever his final episode hits the screens, if he’s got the guts to give them, on the nature of Jesus. (Are you to make of this that I essentially accept the Biblical ‘analysis’ of Jesus’ nature? No way Hosé! The Bible gets it part right and very many parts wrong in my opinion, but that’s another long story…)

I struggled along with some health problems, and thus decided not to go for my late walk, instead planning to hit the sack early, which I did, about two o’clock, in the arms of the chalcedony chameleon. No more writing, no more emailing, no more nothun…

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