BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

The seats made from local stone -porcelanite- at the Casuarina Square shopping centre have been much admired. An information plaque shows stonemason Tom Finlay working on the colourful stone. Finlay's famous place on the highway, complete with dinosaurs, Chinese dragon and assorted oddities , is up for sale.

Interestingly , bushman, raconteur , Protector of Aborigines and author , Bill Harney , noticed the distinctive rock when he was in Darwin in 1940 and mentioned it in his book , Life Among the Aborigines , first published 1957 . He said the Wargite name for Darwin in those early days -Karamalal- was derived from the flat, porcelanite rocks that formed the base of the town. Harney was intimately involved with another rock- Ayers Rock (Uluru)- where he became the popular ranger.

THE YEAR OF YOWIE POWER

Lumbering out of distant , mist shrouded rural electorates have come the terrifying hairy creatures , Yowies, better known as independents. These three metre tall , howling, smelly monsters strike fear into the hearts of our political leaders. One particularly fearsome beast wears a cowboy hat , a three-piece Savile Row suit and is armed with a .45 calibre banana which he threatened to insert up the sago palm of a trembling Townsville chimp.

Plans are being made to capture the Yowies when they next set foot in Canberra to emulate King Kong climbing the Empire State Building by scampering to the top of parliament house with Julia Gillard screaming for mercy . Once netted they will become part of Tim the Yowie Man's Destiny Trips which specialises in weird Canberra ghosts ,poltergeists and history tours ( Coming soon : Rare interview with a fearless Yowie hunter and Territory sightings .)

BRIZ VEGAS GOING BROODY ?

No wonder the ALP was well and truly plucked in Brisbane at the election . There is a new breed of Bananalander in the Queensland capital which is very flighty . Some are keeping chooks as pets inside their houses and take them out on leashes with designer label chook NAPPIES !!! There is also a range of bling jewellery for the cacklers. On top of this , some woman hold botox hens' night parties where you can have your wrinkles puffed out so that you come home looking like a spring chicken instead of a pot boiler. This will surely mean the end of tame Tuppa Ware parties.

BATS IN THE BELFRY & QUEENSLAND

TOWNSVILLE : Lavarack Barracks military base will be moved from here to Charters Towers next week under a special deal struck by the Gillard Government to win the support of the patron saint of Australian bananas, Bob Katter. The troops will be instructed to wage war on the smelly fruit bats which have plagued the Towers community for years. While shooting anything which squawks in the dark, the soldiers will be allowed to plug hairy arsed James Cook Uni students who stray into town and use napalm on any National Party weirdos who arrive in stretch limos . Field Marshal Katter has instructed the grunts that any greengrocer in North Queensland who sells Filipino bananas is to be dragged screaming behind a Brahmin bull or an Abrams tank to the border and turned into one of those tragic buggers , a Mexican.

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SHIVER ME TIMBERS ! WHALE OF A TALE

In a bizarre prediction, Little Darwin said the election contest for the seat of Herbert in North Queensland could end in the political death of a person who is dragged into the depths by a pod of frolicking whales. We wish to make it known that this preposterous scenario was exaggerated -it only required a single run of the mill albino whale to end his life. According to an eyewitness account, a rope attached to a harpoon made out of a steel post from a white shoe brigade's building site KEEP OUT sign wrapped around Captain Ahab's false ivory leg and yanked him screaming into the briny. Passengers on a Magnetic Island ferry , namely Rebecca and Chas. , attempted to save the unfortunate fellow with a barge pole and a flensing knife and later had to receive counselling for hysterical laughter.

ART MARKET DEPRESSED

As a result of the the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair , many are now asking if the boom is over. Very few sales were made and although there were many viewers in galleries throughout the city, the buyers were few and far between. Dealers have been comparing notes and the message is uniformly one of gloom. There is talk that one gallery will be closing down in the near future

DEATH OF A CERTAIN PARTY

As the fateful election looms, word has come through that my mother is at death’s door. A rusted on Labor voter , she helped pass out how to vote cards at elections in Brisbane . Fate dealt her a bad hand from her teens when she became a single mother , after refusing to turn me in embryo into a Bondi Boy like so many others. During WW11 she made parts for bombers and then spent many years working her guts out as a poorly paid nurse in nursing homes for the aged and handicapped . In recent years she expressed warnings about the future of the nation and alarm at the thought of the Coalition regaining government.

ZEN & THE (UN) JOYOUS RIDE IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT STEAK BURGER -WITH A CHUNDER ALONG THE WAY -STALKED BY SERIAL KILLERS & TERRIFYING POLITICIANS

(An unusual travelogue by mild mannered activist, Dr John Tomlinson, who returned to Brisbane after spending three weeks with Darwin friend , the well known outback rally driver and failed cordon bleu dog cooker, Rob Wesley-Smith. )

Up at 4am , Dr Tomlinson showered , had a cup of Timor coffee , said goodbye to Wes and set off in his Toyota Troop Carrier , towing his boat,the White Knight , plastered with stickers for a variety of worthy causes and also highlighting injustices ; one vintage slogan declaring I SUPPORT(Aboriginal ) LAND RIGHTS AND I VOTE . His epistle reads-

# The trip to Adelaide River was slow, but at least I was heading in the right direction.Somewhere out of Mataranka a four carriage fuel tanker road train overtook me but moved back early to my side, forcing me to brake heavily , reminding me just how easily one can slip under the wheels of these monsters.

I saw eight Black Cockatoos before Katherine , then just south of the town another 20 flew over with their slow surging wings (obviously hallucinating due to an overdose of high-octane Timor coffee-edit.) The last ones I saw, 600km south of Darwin were also hanging off every branch of a large tree. (Beginning to sound like those loathsome vampire bats Hunter S. Thompson encountered on his way to Las Vegas ). It was about there I noticed the last of the Turkey Bush , a pink to purple flowering shrub , one to three metres in height.

Just north of Renner Springs , there was a female Bustard or Bush Turkey ( proper name is Thick Knee ) standing in the middle of the road . I stopped, blew my horn and several times before it walked off the road. Then its striking male partner walked onto the road as if to say ,” I don’t get off the road for trains , so bugger off Troopy!” Several blasts of the horn and he finally took to the air. I had not seen a pair of Bush Turkeys on the Stuart Highway since 1968.

As dark closed in , I arrived at the Three Ways and ensconced the Troopy amongsts road trains .Slept like a log until the alarm reminded me it was 5.30 and time to make coffee before proceedingly along the Barkly . It was only 450kms to Camooweal , so I decided that would make a good spot to have breakfast as I had once had an excellent steak and egg burger there on the way to the Top End. By the time I crossed the border I was salivating in expectation of that feed, refuelled and ordered a steak and egg burger with salad , no sauce. The attractive young Aboriginal girl who cooked the memorable breakfast there must have had a day off as there was a young English backpacker in her place. .

While waiting , I recalled how many years previously I had a hamburger in Camooweal before driving off into the night , pulling well off the road for a kip as there had been a number of murders on the Barkly Highway. About an hour after eating that hamburger I was violently ill, as if poisoned, and was so weakened that I had extreme difficulty climbing into the Land Rover to drive on.

My breakfast finally turned up , I bit heartily into the burger, only to find my steak burger had metamorphosed into a hamburger . Muttering an expletive under my breath, I walked out.

Through Mt Isa and on to Cloncurry , I recalled an episode where the young waitress ominously said, “ Sorry about the steak “ when she put down my plate . It was charred . Another sloppy dish produced at the same place caused me to brand the town the Pizza capital of the world. Here I am at McKinlay and the cook adds some tasty bubble and squeak to my steak and egg breakfast. Dead Wallabies ,Euros and Kangaroos were like a guard of honour at a soldier’s funeral. They attracted a lot of Whistling Kites and what were either Little Eagles or juvenile Wedge Tails. The road-kill was almost uninterrupted all the way to Roma. Australian Ravens eventually replaced hawks.

It started to rain at Ilfacombe, south of Longreach. Between there and Blackall I saw three young Emus . a few well behaved Euros and several Wallabies who seemed resolute as they dashed with fierce determination from one side of the road to the other to see if I could manage to lock up the brakes on the boat trailer. In Blackall , where I stopped because of the rain, I noticed a collection of grey nomads parked near the centre of the town and joined them.

As I finished drinking champagne , I wondered how the town council had managed to resist the nasty but ubiquitous bunch of bastards who call themselves Queensland caravan park owners who constantly pressure town councils , parks and wildlife, state politicians and other people of influence to close all the public places where poor travellers might linger for the night.Thus grey nomads, backpackers, and assorted others are forced to book into their cramped and uninteresting gulags of misery. As they wrote at the time of the English enclosures :

The law locks up the men and women
Who steal the goose from off the common
But leaves the larger villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.

Just as I was thinking of opening a bottle of red , this old fella with a glass of white in his hand , from Benalla ,on the Victorian NSW border, wandered over and after inspecting the boat announced that if I went up to the Court House the next morning I would be able to vote in the fortchcoming federal election . I thanked him for the information, but informed him that I had written to the then Prime Minister Rudd advising him that for the first time in my life I would be voting informal.

I have always voted for the Greens or left wing candidates but this time , because of income quarantining and other aspects of the NT Intervention , I could not , in all conscience , allow my preferences to flow to a party which supported racist interference in the lives of Aboriginal people . After phoning home and discussing politics, I consider changing my voting intention,if Jenny Macklin was removed from her portfolio. At Miles I had a Dagwood steak , drove to the free camping area and, as I lay there listening to the rain , pondered the Zen question :”Is a futurology billboard a sign of the future ?”The billboard he speaks of features a faceless pollie headed VOTE FOR NOBODY .

(No hotshot political reporter is capable of turning in an election feature of this brilliant calibre. Without a doubt, his golden prose will be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Down Under Literature and also the Sir David Attenborough Award for the Preservation of Wildlife , especially the tragically endangered species-the genuine Steak Burger).

HIGH PRAISE FOR DARWIN SCRIBE

Darwin based journalist/author , Nicolas Rothwell, has been called one of the best thinkers and one of the most elegant writers in Australian journalism by the ABC's Late Night Live presenter, Phillip Adams, in a panel discussion on the infuence of polls on politics. Rothwell is the North Australia correspondent for the national newspaper, The Australian .

During the discussion Rothwell pointed out that at the previous federal election the Northern Territory had been the centre of a national emergency, the intervention. In the current campaign , Aboriginal matters had hardly been raised. He made the observation that China also appeared to have dropped off the radar since the demise of Kevin Rudd. The presidential nature of elections , it was said, with polls reporting one or other of the two leaders being a point or two ahead , made the event seem like a horse race .

SHADES OF THE 1975 ELECTION

With only a matter of days to go before the election which will decide if the Gillard Labor government is elected, there is a growing tense situation on Timor Leste similar to the position which existed in 1975 when the Whitlam Government was fighting for survival . The Indonesian invasion of Timor was well and truly on by then . This morning Radio Timor reports that Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has cancelled a visit to the troubled Naktuka border region because of the presence of armed Indonesian soldiers - " a battalion"- in the area. Woman and children have been advised to move to a safe area and a letter of concern has been sent to Indonesia via Foreign Affairs . Silence all round here in Darwin , especially in the Roma Bar and the Cav.

NEWSFLASH >>>>WHEELS FALL OFF MAD MONK'S ELECTION CAMPAIGN ***DARWIN BLAMED ***NUNS BATTERED

BUNDABERG : In breaking news, it has just been revealed that Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop have been admitted to hospital here after their tandem with a pink fringe on top was involved in a nasty collision with a Mr Whippy van and a party of bikini clad nuns. An eyewitness told Little Darwin the crash happened when Ms Bishop,who has the Australasian franchise for Evil Eye cosmetics, swerved to avoid a male cane toad as big as a prominent TV reporter.

Angry Liberal Party strategists blame the ugly Darwin cane toad Ms Bishop patted -as bosomy as Mae West -for the accident . Ever since that bizarre photo opportunity in Darwin the scent of the female cane toad has attracted hordes of mad male croakers everywhere Bishop has gone. The Coalition's Brisbane election launch was a disaster because the front three rows of seats were filled with warty toads hopping about, winking at Ms Bishop. It was hard to tell who were the toads and who were the Chasers at the event.

A hospital spokesman said Abbott was knocked out in the accident and was given the kiss of life by the bikini clad nuns , from the Melbourne Order of Perpetual Indulgence, who are on sabbatical,soaking up the sun before returning to Victoria to go mouldy.

A visiting specialist, Dr Patel, operated on Abbott and removed his ears, which means he will no longer appear in wide wing Libra advertisements. ( See post August 7.)

DARWIN PORT REVIEW CONCERNS

Several stakeholders have expressed concern about the way the review of the Darwin Port Corporation Act and associated legislation may be carried out and the recommendations that could flow from it. A contract for the review is expected soon and will cost up to $500,000, according to the July 29 tender notice.

There is a feeling that certain vested interests and individuals , some with axes to grind, will attempt to bring about changes which will be detrimental to some present participants in port activities. One important group in particular suspects that the review will be used to try and “rule them out ” of a say in the running of the port.

It is said the NT Government is so “mesmerized “ by the proposed megabucks Inpex project with its huge impact on the port, harbour , environment , economy and the political survival of MLAs that it will go along with anything suggested in the review, without thinking of the consequences , especially in relation to the workforce. Little Darwin has been told that in its bedazzled state, the NT Government could be “hoodwinked” into accepting and backing adverse , anti -democratic changes.

A businessman opined that the reason why former DPC executive Michael Nesbit , who suddenly quit to return to his family in Melbourne after 18 months of a four year contract, had been rehired as a $1500 a day consultant by the Chief Minister’s Department , is that nobody locally is on top of the port big picture ramifications. Nesbit, we are told, is highly qualified , hard working ,has carried out some very detailed figuring in connection with the energy industry impact and requirements on the port, and he and his family holidayed in the south of France with another DPC family. The businessman mused that Nesbit is so knowledgeable about the port, it would be desirable for him to be involved in some way in the $500,000 review .

Dissatisfaction with the present running of the DPC is reflected in recent media reports calling for an inquiry into the running of the agency. While on the subject of the DPC , the Bushranger column in the Sunday Territorian, under the heading Bullying probe , said DPC head ,Robert Ritchie, responding to allegations by Maritime Union Australia NT organiser, Thomas Mayor, that there were complaints about the treatment of personnel , has semaphored he will not tolerate bullying or harassment in the workplace.

No word has yet been heard about the call by independent Gerry Wood MLA and Thomas Mayor for an inquiry into the DPC. It used to be basic journalistic practice that when such calls are made , you automatically seek a response from those named and relevant minister /ministers.

SCOOP! ABBOTT TO BE DUMPED

Our new , highly paid political columnist, Mungo Season, half -brother of the well known hell raiser and man –about- town , Mango Madness -Season, today reveals that the ruthless federal Coalition is preparing to dump Tony Abbott before the election . With polls showing that the Coalition will be done like a takeaway dinner , there is fear and loathing in the conservative camp.

Overnight faceless men , women and Harold Holt gathered in exclusive clubs and voted to stab Abbott in the gall bladder. Little Darwin understands a ventriloquist's dummy will be the new leader. Andrew Peacock was considered for the job, but he has run out of hair dye.

The dummy sports a monocle , has just undergone a new coat of Nippon paint and is decked out in impressive naval clobber provided by Darwin’s leading vice-regal tailor , Myers. A Tory dummy was selected because he can be easily manipulated by mining company executives , giggling clean coal company heads and other vested interests and monopolies.

Trembling Tory tacticians have been in a funk since secret polling revealed that Tony Abbott’s budgie smugglers frightened away the influential Liberal blue rinse, pearls and cardigan set . Many prominent Liberals looked as if they had been sucking lemons when today's poll results were published.

FLOWER POWER ELECTION

Political pundit , Mungo MacCallum , revealed his green digit when he told a Darwin audience that democracy is a delicate flower

The floral fragility of the Australian nation is evident in the North Queensland seat of Herbert , centred on Townsville, which takes in Magnetic and Palm Islands . Its outcome could decide which side captures the Treasury benches and who will be the next PM. Actually, there are six North Queensland seats which could fall either way which have a record all going from one side to the other in a bloc .


As the fateful election date draws nigh , there is much nervous twitching in both major parties in Herbert . The battle could end in a dramatic scene out of Moby Dick , a candidate dragged to political death full fathom five by a pod of frolicking humpback whales. An extraordinary cavalcade of people including the Penis Puppets , Molly Meldrum and Berlin Wall Bob could influence the vote in the electorate hothouse. In addition, the Cowboys have had a rotten season, fans are depressed and would like to give somebody the boot , except most of them wear thongs and,like rampant noxious weeds, will express their frustrations by voting all over the political garden,not as one coordinated pack of overwhelming forwards.

Much to the delight of many, whales recently started to appear in Townsville’s Cleveland Bay, especially around Magnetic Island . While the Greens have agreed to swap preferences with Labor in most electorates , one of those exceptions is Herbert, which seems to indicate a certain attitude to the ALP candidate, Tony Mooney , a former Labor mayor of Townsville. In office, he locked horns with environmentalists and activists wanting to stop development of certain projects on Magnetic Island , including beautiful Radical Bay , said to be a birthing place for whales.

Over the years Mayor Mooney clashed with a strong group of concerned conservationists and environmentalists on the island , all of whom have long memories. One dispute resulted in legal action which forced the closure of an island newspaper . When another newspaper sprang up , the council refused to respond to questions it posed ,the subject of representation by the Magnetic Island Labor branch which said the council stance was not a good look for the party.

Mooney, mayor of Townsville from 1998 to 2008, has a track record of failing to win vital elections outside of civics. Despite being strongly tipped to win the 1996 Mundingburra by-election , in part due to ALP infighting, a large field and the leafy Greens refusing to direct their preferences to Labor, he failed to do so and the Goss government, in which Kevin Rudd was the top mandarin , crashed .

Mooney also failed to win the preselection tussle for the seat of Townsville in a state election and was beaten by Mike Reynolds , a minister and Speaker before his retirement . It is no secret that both men disliked each other.

The forced amalgamation of the ALP dominated Townsville City Council and the Thuringowa City Council in 2008, saw Mooney beaten in the vote for the mayor of the greater burg. Leading up to the election he had been pro the construction of a Chinese smelter on the outskirts of Townsville . However, in a backflip before the election , he seemed to announce on air that he was against the smelter. All but one of the former Townsville City Council ALP members who contested the amalgamation election failed to gain a seat . It was almost like Colonel Custer’s last stand for the ALP.

Depite this , in March this year, the then PM , Kevin Rudd, enthusiastically announced Mooney as the inside runner without a democratic plebiscite , a move which upset some in the local ALP. Indeed , Jenny Hill, the only former Townsville City Council member to be elected to the larger council , was reported as saying some party members had walked away when told that Mooney had got the nod from the national executive. She urged those still in the party to hang in there and fight off the Tories.

Over the years , Mooney has been praised by members of the media as talented, experienced , destined for a prominent place in the Queensland government, even described as a man of the people, yet he has a puzzling track record of failing to bring home the bacon. In a strange episode over the venue for the Townsville Show , a “bomb” was reportedly thrown into Mooney’s driveway, which shows you how seriously they take things in NQ, especialy when it involves fairy floss , Dagwood dogs and Cooktown orchids.


Herbert is notionally a Labor seat with a slender margin of less than one percent due to the retirement of the Liberal incumbent , Peter “Sit Down You Are Rocking the Boat” Lindsay , a name which could be mistaken for a noisy character out of Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls. So called because whenever he caught the ferry to and from Magnetic Island, Lindsay always stood up talking to somebody so that he was as conspicuous as a barber shop wooden Indian. At the last election, Lindsay withstood a strong ALP challenge, accompanied by fries and much squirting of the sauce bottle, by Townsville’s McDonald’s king , George Colburn . In a weird sound bite earlier this year , Pistol Pete Lindsay was heard predict the price of sausages would skyrocket for some unfathomable reason.

The Liberal National Party candidate this election is portly, rock-a- billy auctioneer , Ewen Jones, renowned for telling corny jokes . Lindsay may have bequeathed him some sausage sizzler rib ticklers.

What about the Penis Puppets ? I hear your say. Well, there is a Family First candidate , an aeronautical engineer, Michael John Punshon. When the outrageous Penis Puppets visited Townsville there was a big demo with placard waving locals deploring this filth . An infrequent publication extolling good clean family virtues said that “Molly “ Meldrum should be flung into the eternal fires of Hell for introducing Australian youth to Countdown .

Another family matter which could swing the Herbert vote to the Tories is the fact that a study carried out in the electorate showed that about 3000 fecund women intend having a child in the near future. Abott’s higher paternity leave entitlements might cause myopic woman, with rose tinted bifocals, to look at him in a more favourable light. Once more the old ALP warring factions are squaring up to each other. There are scores to settle . One grumpy member of the right is known as Berlin Wall Bob, a cute title derived from action he took after falling out with a neighbour. The long arm of the NSW Labor Sussex Street fixers might also extend to Townsville via Brisbane union mates. Little Darwin happens to know that a female candidate in a past election was shocked when she was contacted by a hotshot investigative reporter and quizzed about her relationship with a certain powerbroker.


Some say the Herbert outcome will be another Mundingburra by-election disaster. Others insist PM Gillard saved Mooney’s neck by settling the mining resources tax issue , otherwise he will be a goner, again.

Minus his gall bladder, Kevin Rudd flew into Townsville and went with Mooney to glad hand and press the kidney fat on Palm Island , hoping to win the indigenous vote . After the long running death in custody case and dissatisfaction with the Bligh Government, it is hard to determine the indigenous vote. Is it any wonder that politicians follow a tight script when all about them are allegedly sane members of the community who want to emasculate Penis Puppets, torch Meldrum and his dog, blast the mayor’s driveway , save sausages from becoming astronauts , produce a baby Bananalander or two for Pete/ Julia/Tony and practice voodoo on each other. In this extraordinary hothouse, a cactus would surely wilt .

DAISY, DAISY -OPP'S AFTER YOUR VOTE

In a desperate bid to make himself more appealing to female voters, the Mad Monk is now campaigning on a bicycle built for two , a prominent Liberal femme in the driving seat. Little Darwin can reveal that Bronwyn Bishop gripped the handle bars for the first time with her cauliflower-eared,so-called "political love child", sired by a cricket reject, bringing up the rear in a cane bassinette .

It is no secret that Brownyn has always wanted to be in control of Australia, so she did a victory dance when asked to steer Tony's tricky tandem with the pink fringe on top. After a full body wax to reduce wind resistance, her bouffant hair jammed into a jet pilot's helmet, Bronnie donned Margaret Thatcher's Falkland Islands War commander -in-chief battle jacket , threw a No. 10 Ingham's turkey drumstick over the Malvern Star, and sallied forth to convince unsuspecting women that Tony is a SNAG .

The first leg finished at a retirement village, where she passed the machine and her "baby" over to the care and guidance of that shining example of Liberal femininity , the garden gnome masher, Julie Bishop. [This Bishop is no relation to Bronwyn Bishop . Strange, don't you think , that Abbott moves in bishopric circles?]

The tandem and Abbott both underwent a quick grease and valve grind before No 2 Bishop took command and made a lighting dash from Adelaide across the Nullarbour Plain to Perth , narrowly avoiding abduction and an embarrasing internal examination by the depraved crew of a marauding UFO heading for the NT.

All the time Tony was pedalling like a dope- crazed Tour de France competitor, sucking on baby rusks to keep up his strength . In the WA capital he was so exhausted by the marathon bike ride that he tottered about in a drunken sailor state , looking like a badly filleted puffer fish, and was presented to gullible and lonely western line dancers as a macho iron ore man.

WIKILEAK FAMILY ISLAND SECRETS

The lively online newspaper, Magnetic Times, has posted an exclusive story detailing the free and easy life the mother of Julian Assange , of Wikileaks fame, led on Magnetic Island. Island historian , Zanita Davies , discovered the island link in the Magnetic Island History and Craft Centre’s “Can We Help You ” visitors’ book. What follows is an extract from the Magnetic Times website.


From September 28, 2009, Ms Assange writes: My name is Assange. I have lived on the Island three times. 1971 as a single mum with a young baby. I rented an island cottage for $12 per week in Picnic Bay. It is still here. It had a green concrete floor and floor to ceiling wooden louvres and a central “cyclone” pole bolted into the floor. It survived Althea. I lived in a bikini, “going native” with my baby and other mums on the island. I used to catch a white cowie shell I found
(sic) .

Old Pat, an elderly gentleman who leased Nobby's Headland for $500 for 10 years and lived in a broken down stone house would have us up for tea once a week. He was a chef before retiring and always wore a safari jacket. Great for filling up on the mainland of all manner of delicious goodies for us.

Back again in 1976 with new husband. Lived in Horseshoe Bay on an old abandoned pineapple farm. Slashed way to front door with machete. Shot a taipan in the water tank and on son’s bed. Had to suspend fruit from ceiling to protect from possums.Back again in 1982 with another little child. Lived in a flat on esplanade in Picnic Bay.



Back again as a grandmother with long term boyfriend - still in love with island - only staying 2 weeks.

Back again? The article in the New Yorker, titled, No Secrets, by Raffi Khatchadourian, includes the following paragraph with Julian Assange referring to his times on Magnetic. Assange was born in 1971, in the city of Townsville, on Australia’s northeastern coast, but it is probably more accurate to say that he was born into a blur of domestic locomotion. Shortly after his first birthday, his mother—I will call her Claire—married a theatre director, and the two collaborated on small productions. They moved often, living near Byron Bay, a beachfront community in New South Wales, and on Magnetic Island, a tiny pile of rock that Captain Cook believed had magnetic properties that distorted his compass readings. They were tough-minded nonconformists. (At seventeen, Claire had burned her schoolbooks and left home on a motorcycle.)

Their house on Magnetic Island burned to the ground, and rifle cartridges that Claire had kept for shooting snakes exploded like fireworks. “Most of this period of my childhood was pretty Tom Sawyer,” Assange told me. “I had my own horse. I built my own raft. I went fishing. I was going down mine shafts and tunnels.”

FOOTNOTE: Little Darwin was impressed by the fact that Ms Davies and her husband, Gary, a collector of British humorous postcards , have a footscraper bought at the fabulous auction of contents at Anlaby , the old South Australian Dutton dynasty homestead last in the family possession of the late author , Professor Geoffrey Dutton .

SCOTTY DOWN IN THE DUMPS

That man seen playing bagpipes in the bush just off the road to the Shoal Bay dump, was he about to jettison the musical instrument or had he bought it from the dump shop and was testing to see if he had value for money ? You see some unusual sights as you motor about the city in Top Gear , but this was one of the stranger kind.

WAITING FOR BUSO #9

(Samuel Beckett overhears multicultural pie patter in Bris-Vegas .)

Alighting from one of the 500 CNG powered buses in Brisbane at a stop opposite the Queen Alexandra Hospital , Woolloongabba , I went in search of a loaf of sourdough, to which my half- sister had taken a liking, and headed to a nearby Vietnamese bakery. Sitting outside the aromatic bakehouse was a possible outpatient from the hospital who, like so many mature- age Queenslanders, had a potbelly, freckles , wore a T-shirt , shorts , sandals ; a broadbrimmed hat rested on a table .There was a bright white bandage on a leg .

An Asian man , hand in pocket, approached , and was greeted as if an old friend by the bandaged bloke .There certainly was no indication of Queensland xenophobia , evident in many parts of the state, a growing problem for the Gillard government and a fire eagerly stoked by the Coalition, in the warmth of the greeting from the Australian .

The new arrival asked after a person called Jack. “He’s buggered , mate,” was the reply. “He has not got long to live - it’s his liver. He’s been on the (gesticulating as if swigging from a bottle ) from way back.”

When asked what he was doing , the Asian gent said he was going to buy a pie , but from a shop in a nearby supermarket , not the Vietnamese bakery. On hearing this , his friend was taken aback. . In a loud voice , which could be heard in the intensive care ward located across the road and up the hill, over the roar of the busy Ipswich Road traffic , he said the pies made in the supermarket venue were no good , and three days old. In a quaking voice, the intending pie eater pointed out that they were cheaper than the ones in the Vietnamese bakery.

Affronted, the pie expert continued his disparaging comments ," Three days old and shit, mate , don’t buy one from there . This is the best place, and they are fresh every day."

Even though I deliberately lingered about , I never did find out which shop provided the pie in the finish. I think the Asian man may have had some Scottish blood in him and was waiting for the Vietnamese bakery PR man to limp off and catch a bus so that he could make a thrifty buy , without being harangued.

MEDICAL MISHAPS

Medical circles are buzzing over the unfortunate events involving a prominent Territorian . In inserting a port under a shoulder for drugs to be administered the lung was punctured, causing it to collapse. After this was rectified , there was an error with the chemo-therapy.

WAR MEMORIAL DISRESPECT

To boot a football around near the cenotaph on the Esplanade is disrespectful but to use the flagpoles as goalposts is beyond the pale.

Equally outrageous is the continued failure to correct the glaring errors in the granite memorial wing.. It is not UNITED NATION (singular) PEACEKEEPING – should be UNITED NATIONS ; it is not NETHERLAND’S EAST INDIES - should be NETHERLANDS (meaning the East Indies part of the Low countries , regarded as a singular entity despite being hemispheres apart ) .

The accepted modern spelling for the Philippines is not that on the memorial . The fading white highlighting on some of the names on the rolls of honour on the original WW1 cenotaph also need attention.

UPDATE ON BORDER INCIDENT

The latest, slightly edited, information about the border incident at Naktuka is as follows -

*Naktuka case could be a threat to security: Mahein*Timor Post, July 29, 2010 language source: Tetun . Director for Mahein Foundation, Nelson Belo, said Naktuka border case could be a threat to the country’s national security if the Timorese Government did not seriously seek a quick solution. Belo said the border did not only belong to the Timorese people who were living in the border area, but it belonged to all the Timorese people. Belo stressed that when security in the border was not going well, it would impact the Timorese people’s lives in general. He hoped that the Naktuka case would not cause conflict between the two countries’ military forces. Belo also called on the Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security to urge the Government to find a solution to this problem as soon as possible.


*Naktuka case is a small problem: Foreign Affairs Ministers* Diario Nacional, 29 July 2010. Language source: Tetun . Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Timor Leste and Indonesia recognized that the local residents in Naktuka were traumatised and intimidated; therefore they urge the countrys' leaders to resolve the problem immediately. “This is a small problem because , although only few military members threatened the community. They were not threatened by the Indonesian government. Our people built houses in the area without informing Indonesia,” said Minister for Foreign Affairs of Timor, Leste Zacarias Albano Da Costa. Da Costa stressed that Timor Leste would use the agreement made by Holland and Portugal in 1904 where Naktuka was part of Timor Leste area. In recent days, President Horta blamed the Ministry of Social Solidarity and Ministry of Agriculture because they did not coordinate with the Foreign Affairs Ministry before building social houses in Naktuka.