That Shuffle, That Slight Stagger

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If these were the times, the days, slippery in content, slippery in objective, when he caught sight of old faces and old obsessions he barely wanted to know, when he was crowned king of the paupers and gave his life away = "it's as if he was boss" = and he let fly, truly devastated, no one knew what went on inside, when he was crowned king of the losers and the alcoholic content of each day spiralled out of all control, all reason, and he was drowning without cause; it was easy to reflect back, a stray digital photograph, a face in the street. Even the other day on the Bangkok Sky Train, the BTS, he would have sworn he caught sight of the local alcoholic from the corner pub, Al, was that his name, who lived in the little back room at the back of the beer garden in Redfern in Sydney, who the neighbours had banded together to buy teeth for last Christmas, or was it his birthday, something like that, and would still play, marvellously, in The Festers whenever they re=formed in the pub on Wednesdays or Sundays, just that shuffle, that slight stagger, when all the rest of the world were assumed to be idiots and they were only happy here, inside, amongst themselves, where everyone was as hopeless as each other and they thought nothing of being smashed by noon, indeed nothing of being smashed at all.

These were the days when he had been so happy to find a new family, to be drinking again, to be like a normal man. These were the days when work began to retreat in importance; when the kids, almost grown, no longer required his 100 per cent attention and he began to feel trapped by the ministrations that had for so long defined him, single dad, and when creeping through the alleys and walking up and down that back lane, smoking away from the kids, looking over into people's back yards, into other people's lives, when, disassociated from every shred of normal life, he walked and he walked; and people, normal people, began to recede into the distance of an ancient promise, that there was no cause without consequence, would come barking up the back fence and he would see, there at the periphery of vision, the boiling clouds and the uncanny disturbance and everything that he had so wilfully, so determinedly escaped; falling off the face of the earth; pledging forgiveness for another day, shocked at his own dissolution, forever the fool, and yet, out of all of this, phoenix like, there arose an entirely different platform, triumphant, funny, hysterical in intent, clashing rhythms and confirmed laughter, and a profound delight in each passing day.

They went to Ratchuburri as planned; and once again that terrible, funny, amusing truth: no Thai comes alone. There was a van full of some of the trissiest men he had ever met; there was Peter, tall, angular, serious, with the Thai girls watching his every move, curious, panting, he could hear them in the ether while their stern Thai boyfriends looked on, ready to kill the foreigner if that is what it took to protect their honour, and a melting moment, "This is Mama", the honour, he could see where Aek got his looks from, they could have been identical, and he sat in that tiny house where his current boy had grown up; looked through the photograph of his Buddhist initiation, moved, delighted, profoundly, trapped, trapped, happily trapped, holding hands, curious looks wherever he looked, and finally they boarded a boat and edged through the long canals, the tidal waters, coated with floating weeds, washing this way and that, and the bats in the belfry that weren't there any more, every day one more word would make sense, yesterday it was passan, as in passan Thai, the Thai language, and the merry band of whoever they were, he had no idea why half these people were here or what their connection, if any, was to the family or the brother who was graduating from the wat.

Later in the evening it was time for the holy man, and they queued to be blessed, even he; and he thought, as the strangely powerful, most definitely strange, strong presence, traced white across his brow; this man has caught sight of a frozen waste, a strange world, a complex, utterly alien feature, and let him go quickly; back into another world where he smiled while the traditional performers performed their magic and the flowers gathered in complex arrangements. Earlier, they had sat by the river and he had grilled the trissy boy from the X-Bar about everything, the gold chain around his neck, how long he usually stayed with a Farang, foreigner - no more than a week - the food was no good for him, he was allergic to them, as if they were a dog or a cat, and they were no good for his body. The same boy who, melodramatic or possessed, later shouted out frantically before the shaman, who passed the healing stone over his shaking, shouting form. A very disturbed boy, he thought; after having listened to his former explanations; I'm 26 now, not so many customer, they like them 19; I want enough money to open a shop, the gold, they ask me what I want, I always say gold, the family, if you have money in the bank, they can always take, but they can't take your jewellery; and it is always there, it fluctuates but goes up in value; it's always there if everything goes wrong, if I need to sell, if I get sick, if I am old. It was so easy to misinterpret everything he saw; everything he listened to; everything he experienced. The river, mae nam, moved slowly this way and that, the intricate canal system dividing up the horizon. What does he say? What does he ask you? His current boy questioned the trissy, possessed, disturbed one; and he heard the explanation in Thai, not bothering to correct whatever was passed on. Nothing mattered in the scheme of everything. They were here now.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/keating-hits-back-hawke-only-survived-as-pm-with-my-help/story-e6frg6nf-1225891811095

Paul Keating writes in a letter to Bob Hawke of his displeasure with Blanche d'Alpuget's biography

IT was with much disappointment that I opened The Weekend Australian to find on page three the headline "Hawke's take on ditherer Keating and lying Richo" and to read at the first line that either you or Blanche had described me as "an ailing vacillator".

As you know, I have written no book about my years as treasurer or prime minister. I have declined repeated requests to "get it all down and set the record straight". And not only have I not written a book, as prime minister I did not respond to the book you yourself wrote after you left office; the so-called history of the Hawke government. In it, as you know, you treated me shamefully while attempting to diminish my motivations and larger schematic. Yet I did not upbraid you for it.

Indeed, you will have well noticed that I have desisted from writing any exposes; that I have not reflected adversely on your years as prime minister. When criticism of the Labor years often arose at the hands of Howard and Costello, I would more often than not make a defensive comment in terms of "us" or "Bob and I", because I believed the unity of our purpose reflected more strongly on what we achieved and on Labor's record. That is, we looked stronger together than as two personalities separated as to objectives and outcomes. And this was the way I was happy to leave it.

But you are not happy to leave it. You want to retrace the ground for a second time in a major book, only this time a book written by your wife. Of course, I have not yet seen the book; I can only go on the serialised excerpts and news stories of the kind referred to above. But the Dusevic news story on page three is obviously a lift from the book where you (or Blanche) wilfully misrepresent my role in the float of the exchange rate with supportive quotes for your line by Ross Garnaut, your rusted on, if one-eyed, adviser at the time. The book apparently quotes Bill Hayden saying "he wanted me to be onside with him to oppose it". This, of course, is totally untrue, as my real mission with Hayden at that time was to bring him onside as he was one of the few people in cabinet able to upend or delay it. But to give Hayden his due, he always saw the sense of it. Or at least from May 1983 when it became apparent that the managed system was on its last legs.

The Dusevic story then goes on to misrepresent my position in relation to the first Gulf War. As you know, in 1991 I was in favour of the UN system returning to life after the long impasse of the Cold War and, in meetings with you, I said that if President Bush, two years after the (Berlin) Wall had come down, was prepared to reinvigorate the UN with a UN-mandated assault upon Saddam Hussein, I believed Australia should support it. And if you remember, I advised you to get in early before Mulroney and the British because the Americans were looking mainly for early moral support rather than material support. I went on to say this should allow us to put a couple of ships up the top of the gulf rather than commit ground forces and aircraft. And you were happy to agree. As I remember at the time, mighty happy, for I was both deputy prime minister and treasurer and effective leader of the Right in the parliamentary caucus. My agreement meant full political protection for you.

Which brings me to the point, what do I do from here? The first thing I will do is, when I get a hold of a copy, read the book. But I suspect the book will be a more polished reflection of your self-serving account of your years as prime minister. I will bet, London to a brick on, that the book will do way less than share those years of achievements with me, or my work or indeed adequately with the work of other ministers. I will also bet, London to a brick on, that notwithstanding what the serialised account on Saturday had to say of your breakdown in 1984, that the book will fail to make clear that your emotional and intellectual malaise lasted for years. All through the Tax Summit year of 1985; through to your lacklustre performance through the 1987 election, to the point when in 1988, four years later, (John) Dawkins had to front you, asking you to leave. It was only after that that you approached me, at your initiative, to enter into an agreement with me to succeed you following the 1990 election. An agreement you subsequently broke. The fact is, Bob, I was exceedingly kind to you for a very long time. I knew the state you were in in 1984 and notwithstanding a lot of unhelpful advice from Garnaut and other obsequious members of your staff, I carried you through the whole 1984-1987 parliament, insisting you look like the prime minister, even if your staff, the Manchu Court I called them, were otherwise prepared to leave you in your emotional hole. No other prime minister would have survived going missing for that long. But with my help, you were able to. Kevin Rudd had two months of bad polls and you were the first to say he should be replaced. And you have since repeated it. Indeed, when Blanche asked me to be interviewed for her book, I told her she could not write about your years with me, without dealing honestly and fully with your long years of depression and executive incapacity. I told her for that reason alone, I should prefer no interview with her.

This letter is written now, not simply to express my disappointment but to let you know that enough is enough. That yours and Blanche's rewriting of history is not only unreasonable and unfair, more than that, it is grasping. It is as if, Narcissus-like, you cannot find enough praise to heap upon yourself. In hindsight, it is obvious yours and Blanche's expressions of friendship towards me over the last few years have been completely insincere. I can only promise you this: if I get around to writing a book, and I might, I will be telling the truth; the whole truth. And that truth will record the great structural changes that occurred during our years and my own as prime minister, but it will also record without favour, how lucky you were to have me drive the
government during your down years, leaving you with the credit for much of the success.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10642139

The three British soldiers killed by a rogue Afghan soldier in Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand province, on Tuesday, have been named by the Ministry of Defence.

There were Major James Joshua Bowman, Lieutenant Neal Turkington, both from Northern Ireland, and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun, from Nepal, all of 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles.

A major manhunt for the rogue Afghan soldier is under way.

The number of British personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001 is 318.

Nato said it was using every "asset" within its power to find the killer and those who may be assisting him.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the "despicable and treacherous" act would "not dent the resolve of the colleagues they leave behind".

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Empty building site in Bangkok; taken on mobile phone (Blackberry).