Well...

*

Well the book was finished. Chaos At The Crossroads. He lost track of time. Had barely slept for ten days; or was it more. Two weeks? Twenty days? He couldn't remember now. He had spent twenty hours a day at the computer and it ultimately came in at 176,000 words, twice the length of the average novel. He first began it in 2004 and an early draft had been up on the web ever since. It was a time to finish things. To forget old obsessions. To move on. But this was beyond obsession, beyond hard work, in a different place, really. Rats scuttled through the grass. The boy stared at him bewildered. He would never be the same again. Not ever. You broke my frozen heart; that was more or less what he said. I know you like me. You old man. Papa. Sure. I like you. Always have, always will. This strange obsession with street boys as they climbed, climbed. She have power over you, he observed. After, after, hah bee, sip bee, five, ten years, she will be big, gangster. You, too, careful, careful,, mai koowey, no talk, never say anything to anybody, just progress, climb. You still very handsome, he said. It was true, unfortunately. He had sacrificed everything. Every element of common sense. Nothing changed. He had changed. It was all wrong. It was his fault. He understood that now.

There were days when he could hear the engines of every motor cycle as they passed the house along the narrow soi, or passed up along the even narrower alleyway beside the house. He could never identify which was which. He was waiting, haunted. You old man, I can do, sometimes, business. You good to me. Falang, foreigner, they like me. In the bar, many, many boy, working, no customer. Me, on the street, I have falang. Sure, sure. He took the news of competing interests in good cheer. He could see that there were many ways clear to a foreign future. That he had made serious mistakes. That if not unfaithful in body he was unfaithful in mind. That he treated the boy as if he was an impediment, which he was to a large degree. The house was beautiful. Everything was beautiful. But he was not happy. He couldn't indulge in his most demented fantasies. Pretty, sure, passionate, never. He could hear the contempt drifting down the line as he made up yet another excuse why he wasn't home. Moi, moi, he said dismissively. Whatever. He sat on the second floor of the Bangkok Christian Guest House and could see a million reasons why he shouldn't be there. The only people who don't get this simple program are those incapable of honesty, he heard for the hundred thousandth time, this self serving and ludicrous logic, if you don't agree with us you are dishonest, sure, whatever you say, and he listened to the Americans droning on. How on earth did they do it? He would never know.

The over-arching fly ways, the crumbling windows, the dirty curtains which had never looked out on any more than an indiscriminate industrial scene, the massive concrete station which had never been opened. He thought of trying to ask timmmae, why, what, as they whisked down the street past that strange empty billboarded concrete edifice which must have cost quite a considerable sum to have even got it that far, millions of baht, thousands of hours, the fallanxes of concrete, even the parking station with the sign: "Cars this way." He always passed that empty, unfinished station on the way to some pointless, obsessional, delinquent assignation. The girl friend was never far away; and even she had come to accept him as someone with problems but best of all, a foreigner always prepared to pay whatever price was demanded. He had no personal integrity or self worth left. Yet he had finished the book. Crazy as it was. Mad as it was. In the large font he had been working in, it came in at over 1,000 pages. Beautiful, he said of the finished project, as if any of the working boys he was talking to had the slightest idea of what he was talking about. Make money? That's what they were interested in. Well not entirely. There were various scandals. Him being one of them. But if in all those rivulets, all those strange corridors, all those uncompleted passageways and side pathways leading nowhere there had been at least some breath of humanity, something that could be passed on, he would have been happy. As it was, the chance of anyone relating to this distant state of mind was remote. Yes, I love her, the boy said. Yes, I can see, he said. She has power over you. What was money then, if it was not power? Come take me apart, corrupted heart. The lights of the fashionable restaurant reflected across the hovering staff, and for a moment, just a moment, he stared into those dark, tricky eyes. You understand me, the boy asked. Sure, he replied, sure.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/turnbull-to-make-a-quid-out-of-nbn--swan-20101122-182ww.html

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull privately supports the National Broadband Network, federal Treasurer Wayne Swan says.

It has been revealed that Mr Turnbull owns $10 million worth of shares in technology company Melbourne IT, which stands to profit from the NBN.

Mr Swan said he didn't believe what Mr Turnbull was publicly saying about the NBN.

"Publicly Mr Turnbull says he wants to demolish the NBN and privately he wants to make a quid out of it," Mr Swan told Fairfax Radio Network on Monday.

"That just demonstrates the absolute hypocrisy of the Liberal Party when it comes to the NBN.

"Mr Turnbull is simply doing what Mr Abbott told him to do, which is demolish it, when he thinks privately it's a real goer."

Mr Swan also said it would be irresponsible to reveal the business plan for the network now.

"We've got some advice yet to come from the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) at the points of interconnection, that doesn't come until the end of the month," he said.

"When that's with us cabinet can take a decision on the business plan.

"But until we do that ... you simply cannot release it, it wouldn't be responsible."

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/a-tilt-of-the-head-can-lure-a-mate-20101121-182en.html

Forget diamonds, fine dining and romantic walks in the sunset, all it takes to lure a mate is a tilt of the head, according to new research.

By simply tilting their face forward a woman's face can be judged to be more feminine and more attractive, whereas a man's face is considered more attractive when tilted backwards, this latest research has found.

Dr Darren Burke and Dr Danielle Sulikowski are the husband and wife team behind the research, which has been carried out at the University of Newcastle and Macquarie University.

While a lot is known already on the influence of feminine and masculine features on attractiveness, there is a gap in the evolutionary origin of what is considered masculine and feminine about facial features, according to Dr Burke.

"Our research investigated if looking at the face from different perspectives as a result of the height differential between men and women influenced perceived masculinity or femininity," he said.

"The research found the way we angle our faces affects our attractiveness to the opposite sex."

Typically taller than women, men view women's faces from above so a female face was deemed more attractive when tilted forward, simulating this perspective.

The opposite was then true for men whose faces were judged more masculine and attractive when tilted backwards as though they were viewed from below.

Dr Sulikowski said these findings offer some clues to help unravel "the mysteries of mateship rituals" in this century.

"The next step is to determine if people use this effect in real-world mate-attraction scenarios," she said.

The findings are published in the latest edition of Evolutionary Psychology.

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