The Byronesque Quest

*

Backyard

The God of Smoke listens idly in the heat
to the barbecue sausages
speaking the language of rain deceitfully
as their fat dances.

Azure, hazed, the huge drifting sky shelters
its threatening weather.
A screen door slams, and the kids come tumbling
out of their arguments,

and the barrage of shouting begins, concerning
young Sandra and Scott
and the broken badminton racquet and net
and the burning meat.

Is that a fifties home movie, or the real
thing? Heavens, how
a child and a beach ball in natural colour
can break your heart.

And the brown dog worries the khaki grass
to stop it from growing
in place of his worship, the burying bone.
The bone that stinks.

Turn now to the God of this tattered arena
watching over the rites of passage -
marriage, separation; adolescence
and troubled maturity:

having served under that bright sky you may look up
but don't ask too much:
some cold beer, a few old friends in the afternoon,
a Southerly Buster at dusk.

John Tranter

In Afghanistan more than a million people now face virtual house arrest, allowed out of their homes only for three hours each afternoon. In many remote areas this means it is impossible to get to a hospital, and women die in child birth. People dash from their homes to the markets. Helicopter gunships shoot people they find in the fields outside the narrow curfew hours. It's all part of the war on the Taliban, funded by western money, approved by the Western powers, including Australia. There is almost a total blackout of media coverage of the gross human rights offences and the massive damage being done to the economy because no journalists venture into the tribal areas anymore; and those who are there daren't speak out for fear of being shot. People die in distant fields while preening power brokers, Nobel Peace Prize winners no less, turn the other way while providing the money for these gross outrages.

These fragments of present history come down to us through many different sources. There were always outrages in the distant fields of war. His whole life was changing and that was all there was to it. They looked back at their own dishevelled pasts as some kind of Bryonesque quest, noble within itself, discovering the truth about the days flickering past, about their own existence. Grown in the suburbs, destined for the suburbs, these mantles of mediocrity had settled across the entire place. There was no solution. All was not lost but times were most certainly difficult. Sydney really is at the end of the known universe, he said to his friend in the back garden, who agreed. The only bit I'm interested in is from here to there, he said, gesturing at the distance between his house and the beach, Australia's most famous beach.

It was time to leave, there wasn't any doubt of that. He made friends with a charming old American academic who reminded him, in part, of John Parks, the American academic he had worked for for a year at Sydney University. We weren't going to reveal the most intimate flashes. Time was of the essence yet time was slipping away. We were prepared to be distorted. We came running, running, in a flurry of sweat and excitement out of the night. Distant battlefields were just another undiscovered tragedy; impossible for the brain to take in. They were miniscule worms wriggling in a petrie dish; they made way for the future and a way for the past. They didn't know who they were anymore. He was disconsolate with rage.

Because while nothing seemed fair, there were many other solutions to be had. He wanted to reach out and embrace everyone, record everything. Five am and on queue the kookaburras begin their raucous chorus. They were destined to be strangers. It was such an intimate thing, this lost longing. Could hardly be more intimate, he heard a voice say, and he wanted to make everything his own, be accepted, march every which way, approach the same bar, high in a Penang penthouse, watch the sqwawling, skanky city beneath. Hey Johnnie, you want something? These tales, there had been so many, did not a story make, and yet images collected over a lifetime needed to be portrayed, to fill the holes in the meta-narrative, whatever it was.

And so he knew, though he still found it hard to believe, that he was leaving Sydney, if not for good at least for now. There were other shadows flickering by, withdrawal sweats and drifting clouds of depression, free floating anxiety, but what had seemed like such a noble, Byronesque quest in their youth had turned them into nothing but thrill seeking derelicts, always looking back for the great party that had been. Father and son sat next to each other; while others sneered at outdated programs. He sought the answer and could not find. He made all those unique connections necessary for a shadowy lifestyle; and in their secret flitting from one place to another registered on nobody's radar. The authorities couldn't care. The politicians couldn't care.

And so, in the end, it came to nothing. Their destiny as street alcoholics defied their multiple talents, all the gifts and benefits they had been born with. He was marching past the statues he himself had built. They had once meant something but now were shimmering into disbelief; flickering and fading into eternal night. Beauty lasts forever. Love lasts forever. That's what they say. It was obvious nonsense. From that lonely beach so long ago where he had waited to die to the present, massive beach where tourists from around the world stretched their perfect bodies and flirted with each other, not noticing the old man who walked between them, he had learnt one truth: all was ephemeral, nothing lasted. Now he packed his bags and prepared to leave; an entire life.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/rich-or-poor-gillard-plans-to-put-it-all-online-this-year-20100128-n1s7.html

THE financial resources of every school in Australia will be on public display in the next version of Julia Gillard's My School website, due later this year.

State and territory governments and Catholic and independent school authorities agreed a year ago to provide the information but have not yet been able to devise a measure that allows fair comparisons between government, Catholic and independent schools.

Peter Hill, the chief executive of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which is responsible for My School, said data about each school's financial resources would be published in a second version of the site, along with results from this year's national literacy and numeracy tests.

''A lot of people will be very interested in finances of schools, because, of course, some schools have much more in terms of financial resources than others and this may go a long way to explaining some of the differences we're observing,'' Dr Hill said.

He said financial data would not be used to determine ''similar'' schools to which schools could be readily compared but would be displayed on the site separately.

Many parents had difficulty using the site after it was launched yesterday.

Dr Hill said the level of interest was greater than site producers had prepared for. It received 290,000 hits in the hour after its launch, at 1am. By 10am it had received 2.5 million. By 2pm this had grown to 4.5 million.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/8485282.stm

Andy Murray believes he is ready to end Britain's 74-year wait for a male Grand Slam singles winner after reaching his maiden Australian Open final.

The 22-year-old beat Marin Cilic to become Britain's first finalist in Melbourne since 1977, but he said: "I want to be remembered for winning it."

Asked if he thought he could triumph, he told BBC 5 live: "Yes, I think so.

"I've played my best tennis so far, I just need to do it in one more match. I'll give it my best shot."

Murray will meet Roger Federer or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in his second Grand Slam final on Sunday after coming from a set down to beat Cilic.

"There's a lot of pressure in Slam finals and if it's Roger, he's going to have the edge in experience," said world number four Murray, who lost to Federer in the 2008 US Open final.

"But I feel like if I play my best like I have been this week and fight hard, I've definitely got a chance of winning."

I want to win it obviously for the people that I work with, for my parents... then doing it for British tennis and British sport would be excellent as well

Andy Murray

Murray dropped his first set of the tournament in his semi-final against Cilic, and was struggling for inspiration when he trailed 6-3 2-2.

But, with a break point, Murray chased down a drop shot, produced a volley on the stretch before racing back to the baseline, spinning, and rifling an outrageous forehand pass down the line.

As a stunned crowd rose to its feet, a fired-up Murray pumped his fists and roared his approval.

"They don't happen that often, so you've got to enjoy them," he said later.

"It was really important because, I don't want to say the match was slipping away from me but the momentum was definitely with him."

From there, Murray swept to a 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-2 win over a tiring opponent in a minute over three hours.

The Scot now has two days' rest before Sunday's final.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/01/100128_obama_analysis.shtml

President Obama has delivered his first State of the Union address, stating his main focus would be job creation and fixing the economy.

Mr Obama acknowledged that the government bail-out of banks had been deeply unpopular, but said it had been necessary to stabilise the financial system.

In a speech that was at times combative, Mr Obama said he would not leave the huge budget deficit he had inherited to be tackled by another generation.

He warned Congress that it must change the way it does business to restore the trust of the American people.

Many African-Americans voted Mr Obama into office hoping he would make a real difference to their lives.

His candidacy created an unprecedented excitement in black districts of St Louis, but there are parts of this city that are suffering from almost unbelievable deprivation.

Amid one of the most run-down parts of town, Fergus Nicoll finds a church that is helping the local community rebuild lives ruined by the economic downturn.