The Last Ride

*

This is your first taste of mystery
Hey, do you like it? Feel bitter already?
I could make you feel so young and vulnerable
Even though your Daddy's rich and powerful
I could have made you fishers of men
I'm gonna teach those birdies to sing
I'm gonna teach those birdies to sing
I'm gonna teach all the birdies to sing
So cheaply now

Ride, come ride,
Ride, come ride with me
Ride, come ride
Ride, come ride with me

Well, black summer night,
You can hear my sirens wail,
I gotta take another slug now,
When you hear my engines fail.
On wet black summer night
You can hear my sirens wail.
I gotta take another slug now,
When you hear my engines fail.

Slow down little sweet tooth
It's a long way down as the crow flies
Will you really nose-dive all the way down?
Are you planning to crash-dive all the way down?
Are you mine, all mine?
All mine, all mine, all mine?
Mine, All mine?
All mine, all mine, all mine?

The Triffids, Fields of Glass.

The Last Ride. It was everybody's idea to use their break from the weekend at St Joseph's spiritual retreat to go to the movies. There was little free time, but the entirety of Saturday afternoon had been set aside. They travelled in a cavalcade of cars from the magnificent Kincumber Spiritual Retreat, based at St Joseph's besides a small stone church, allegedly the oldest continuously running Catholic church in Australia. He longed for everything, half wired, everything except to fit in, because they were shadows he could only attempt to colour in, magnificent self obsessed ranters delivering their urgent messages of cultism. Some of them never shut up about their higher power, as if the length of their sobriety was a ladder of spiritual supremacy. Ten years and you were admitted to the priest hood. They boasted, oh no, shared intimately, about the struggles with their own accolytes, their sponsees, and he stared at the expensive, immaculate carpet and the expensive triangle flecked fabric in the chairs.

They were at Avoca Beach before he had barely realised they were on the move, parking, awkward globules forming on the pavement as they watched others park. They walked the short distance to the beach; and once more the luxury, the vivid colouring of Australian beaches, the casual magnificence of the vista, struck him. It was winter; and had been cold, but even so there were people everywhere, queueing outside the cafe, settling in for a late lunch at the beach side restaurant. On the way in they had commented about the real estate, the prices, the brand new, modern architecture that had taken over the once sleepy beach side settlement, the last remaining unrenovated fibro house, bright green. The magnificent large homes high on the hill overlooking the surf. Like all groups such as this, they coagulated pointlessly, leaderless, around the cafe and then proceeded on out along the walkway to the edge of the rocks, where they stood in groups talking intensely. He talked to no one. That was his only defence left.

The Last Ride, Australian actor Hugo Weaving's latest offering, was playing at the Cinema by the Sea nearby, and it was generally agreed that half the group would go, the other half taking the high moral ground and thinking it was a waste to spend time inside on electronic entertainment when the beauties of their obsessive God was on display all around. He was an agnostic in the middle of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney's historic Catholic centre. He didn't believe, couldn't believe, and saw no reason why he should suspend reason, logic, belief. He took what he needed and left the rest; and what he needed was company, friendship, guidance, a loving hand, diversion, tales of heroism and struggle, of triumph against the odds. Sober, his childhood was already flashing before his heart. With a softly spoken Frenchman from the group he broke away and went over the dip at the end of the walkway, onto the wide flat rocks at the cliff's base. And they walked as far as they could across the rock platform, free from the group, free from their own problems.

The movie started at 3.45, leaving them enough time to get back to St Joseph's Spiritual Retreat by 6.00, when dinner was scheduled. Jokes flowed easily as they queued for tickets; and then went inside the atmospheric old fashoined theatre with its worn velvet red seats and flimsy walls. There hadn't been a fresh slick of paint since the 1970s. He sat sandwiched between people he had come to light, big, voluble, kind, expressive, emotional Michele, with a single l, and Philip, who ran a catering business. There was the easy banter of strangers thrown together who had decided their common purpose made them friends. If not life long, certainly for the purposes of the afternoon. And then acame the movie, The Last Ride, of which he had known little except it was Australian. Hugo Weaving played a rough, criminally oriented father who was on the run after killing Max, once a friend. The flashbacks told the story of them living in a derelect car park in a rural area, sheep picking through the old cars, their house thrown together from scraps of wood and metal.

I'm going to the pub, Hugo had declared, leaving his son in the care of Max, who, for whatever reasons, ended up climbing into bed with the boy. Later the boy denied it was sexual, Max was just lonely, he declared, but when Hugo came back from the pub he bashed the living daylights out of him and left him for dead. He was still breathing when we left, I swear, he declared, but now he is on the run with his boy, passing through an old girl friend's house and across the great flat plains of Australia, out to Maree and the Afghan museum and on to the Flinders, where they camped out. There is one terrible scene, after the boy had played with lipstick and makeup on his face he found in the stolen car, apparently believing it was magic paint to ward off evil. Whatever the reason, Hugo bashes him badly, that hideous scene shot throug the trees of the belt going up and down up and down and leaving him battered and bruised. At one point he is standing over his father with a rock in his hand, wanting to kill him. The rock falls harmlessly to the ground.

He had always wanted to kill his own father, after those ceaseless, pointless, cruel bashings he himself had suffered, vicious, pointless bastardy, and he fantasised constantly about sneaking into his parent's bedroom where his father's large form lay sleeping, and plunging the knife into his back. Again and again he had the dream. And finally, when the bashings became even more targetted and more pointless, he retreated, behind the veils, into silence. He played the game: how many days could he go without speaking to anyone at all for any reason. It was actually quite a hard thing for a young boy to achieve, not sayhing a word to teachers, friends, parents, no one. Four days was his best. And of course he was beaten for his own silence, his insoucience, his arrogance, for being him. They were all tearful at the end of the movie. Who's idea was that? he asked as the lights went on, what a grim little number. For the movie had been unrelenting, the dynamic between the pair its soul focus. And they all shuddered later, as they sat around in a circle, and he spouted angrily at anyone and everyone, why pick me, you know I hate talking, why should I make myself vulnerable so you people can pick over, ridicule anything I say.

How can it possibly be therapeutic, opening yourself up to the gossips and the sickos, the emotional terrorists, the parasites, the vicious little insects that resembled humans only in passing? Why the heck should he? I wanted to kill my father too, I fantasised about it all the time, he admitted, and the sign reared large in his head: TRUST NO ONE.

THE BIGGER STORY:

A car bomb has killed four people and injured 40 at a market on the outskirts of the north Iraqi city of Mosul while bombs in Baghdad killed at least three.

All of those killed or injured in the blast in Kukchali, a mixed Sunni-Shia area to the east of Mosul, are believed by police to be civilians.

The city, with its volatile ethnic and religious mix, has seen numerous attacks by insurgents.

US troops pulled out of Iraqi cities less than two weeks ago.

Correspondents say the Mosul bomb went off in an area with a predominantly Shia population, thought to be from Iraq's Shabak community.

On Wednesday two car bombs went off outside Shia mosques in Mosul, killing at least 14 people and injuring about 30. According to Reuters news agency, Shabak areas were targeted in both attacks.

Mosul, a city of about 1.8 million people about 400km (250 miles) north-west of Baghdad, is mainly populated by Iraqi Arabs with Kurdish and other ethnic minorities.

US and Iraqi officials have described the city as al-Qaeda in Iraq's last major urban stronghold in the country.

In Baghdad's central Karrada district, two bombs hit a billiards hall on Saturday evening, killing at least two people and injuring 11.

Another bomb in the south-west of the city killed at least one person.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25750704-643,00.html

CONSUMER confidence hit a 19-month high in July after the Rudd government's cash handouts and a surprising resilience in the jobs market lifted spirits.
Sydney shoppers

"Stunning result": Westpac's Bill Evans said the consumer sentiment index had risen 23 per cent in June and July, marking the biggest two-month increase on record. Picture: Bloomberg

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index rose 9.3 per cent to 109.4 - the first time since December 2007 that optimists have decisively outnumbered pessimists.

Separate data showed housing finance approvals rose a surprising 2.2 per cent, seasonally adjusted, in May from April. Economists had expected a rise of 1.5 per cent.

Westpac chief economist Bill Evans said the consumer sentiment index had risen 23.2 per cent in June and July, marking the biggest two-month increase on record.

“The second largest two-month increase was 18.8 per cent in March 1992, when households were finally convinced that the Australian economy was coming out of recession,” said Mr Evans.

“This is unquestionably a stunning result. My personal view had been that, given last month we saw the second largest increase in the index since we started measuring in 1974, any rise in July would have been a great result.”

Relief that Australia had dodged a recession also boosted sentiment.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25760016-11949,00.html

KEVIN Rudd shared centre stage with Barack Obama overnight and Australia's carbon capture and storage institute was lauded by world leaders, turning the major economies forum meeting on climate change into a diplomatic triumph for Australia.

Mr Rudd and President Obama stood at adjoining podiums after the summit in the earthquake ravaged town of L'Aquila, north of Rome, the President to brief the world leaders and media on the limited progress made in the talks and Mr Rudd to brief on Australia's global carbon capture and storage institute.

Mr Obama introduced Mr Rudd, saying the Prime Minister had a "significant announcement".

As British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Italian Prime Minister and summit host Silvia Berlusconi, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Mexican President Felipe Calderaacón entered the stage to stand behind the two leaders, President Obama quipped "you got back up here".

"It's good that we hunt in packs" Mr Rudd replied.

Mr Rudd told the press conference, packed with several hundred leaders, advisers and media, that he had set up the institute, which began work in June, "to get large scale carbon capture and storage projects done around the world, not just talked about."

"It was one practical contribution" that Australia could make, he said, as the President led the room's applause.

But while the major economies forum was a success for the Australian Prime Minister, it made very little progress in its aim of breaking a negotiating gridlock between developed and developing nations ahead of the crucial Copenhagen summit in December which is intended to cut a global emissions reduction deal to take over after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Mr Obama said the 17 leaders at the meeting, which he called and chaired, had had "candid and open discussions".

Redfern, including at top Redfern's infamous Glengarry Hotel, the watering hole for some of the suburbs most dedicated alcoholics. Once a blood bath, now attracted a better behaved and largely younger clientelle.