The New South Africa?

SECOND AVENUE: While sitting in a net cafe in Moscow and reading about the Cronulla riots still remains my nadir, the way the news of the neglect of Delmae Barton at a Brisbane bus stop has found its way around the world just ensures the shame persists. It would seem that our international reputation as racists continues to grow. And so it does. As long as our neglect of a proper dialogue with the Indigenouse community persists, as lond as we struggle to come to terms with Islamic Australia and as long as we lock those lucky enough to survive our treacherous ocean fence behind razor wire, our critics will have quivers full of arrows.

We weren't always like this. As a nation, at least as best I remember it, used to talk about these things. What's more, we took pride in our multiculturalism and saw in it the personification of a better world. But the reign of the Suburban Solicitor has robbed us off all of that.

You're Fired

SECOND AVENUE: But then, on the flipside, I was watching the UK version of The Apprentice last night and I saw the building where I work. Everytime they come back to the head honcho, property baron (I think) Alan Sugars, the camera does a fly through off all the towers and you get to glimpse my steel and glass citadel. Aside from that my job is unceasingly boring and I have a new appreciation for how lucky we are to have Triple J.

Moan [syn. groan]

SECOND AVENUE: Sometimes this city seems on the verge of collapse. Steping off the Tube in East Acton or Stockwell the world of The Clash comes alive. All the grit, an grime and edge of London Calling, cruelly offset by a relentless grey sky. An acne of tower blocks pock marks the suburbs. Garbage gets stacked in the streets. And the Tube never seems to work. With the possible exception of Sydney, it has the most unreliable mass transit system. When an elephant shakes his trunk Thailand, the entire Jubilee line goes out of service.

Will Somebody Please Define Civil War For Me

ACTON: I couldn't let the third anniversary go past without acknowledging Rumsfeld's Folly. I mean I could go on and gloat about how right I, and other opponents to the war, were but that seems to trivialise the thousands of Iraqis who have been thrust into one of the world's deadliest current conflicts. Between 20 and 40 people die from an element of the insurgency everyday. That's not the brink of civil war, it's well beyond the edge in free fall. The only question is, how far to the bottom?

I was reading Salam Pax's seminal blog Where is Raed? I came across a post from before the war where he quoted an article from a journal put out by a neocon think tank outlining plans for post war reconstruction. It warned against: "radicals in Iran and Syria [who] may see U.S. troops in the country as an attractive target for terrorist operations." Not too mention disgruntled Iraqis.

Nevertheless the Tri-Lateral Keepers of Freedom bluster on, and the world feels even more dangerous than in those first horrible moments after September 11.

In addition, radicals in Iran and Syria may see U.S. troops in the country as an attractive target for terrorist operations,

Passenger Action of the Jubilee Line

ACTON: It's a not uncommon phenomenon in this town, to be standing at the train station, in the bump and push of peak hour, buffeted by free newspapers and paperback thrillers, overhearing somebody else's taste in music, and then to have somebody come over the intercom and say: "All trains on the Jubilee line have been suspended due to earlier passenger action."

Then everybody silently curses the aforementioned passenger.

And in that quaintest of euphemisms, we are all able brush off the horrible thought that life, for some people, seems so utterly hopeless, so grindingly painful, that the only solution is to end it on your way home. But this tragedy becomes, for us scurrying commuters, just another stop on the busy line of irritable delays from signal failure to congestion. So we all selfishly and silently wish that they'd chosen to end it in some empty, out of the way room.

Something for Smithy, Something for Mum

SECOND AVENUE: So now that the trauma of Graham Smith's men has born out the adage that one day cricket is just a hit and giggle with the masses, while test cricket is the battleground at the soul of the game. I wont begrudge the successes of the SA one day team, but what I will begrude is any celebration of their superiority.

On another, unrelated topic, as I blog from my new pseudo-Manhattan dateline, Mum you should really check out Ben Gibbard or Death Cab for Cutie or The Postal Service. Get somebody to rip the songs of my computer. You might say that they're too noisy but they really do feature the absolute best songwriting going around. Anyway give 'em a tinkle... but here are some words to wet your appetite:

The glove compartment isn't accurately named
And everybody knows it.
So i'm proposing a swift orderly change.

Cause behind its door there's nothing to keep my fingers warm
And all i find are souvenirs from better times
Before the gleam of your taillights fading east
To find yourself a better life.

I was searching for some legal document
As the rain beat down on the hood
When i stumbled upon pictures i tried to forget
And that's how this idea was drilled into my head

Cause it's too important
To stay the way it's been

There's no blame for how our love did slowly fade
And now that it's gone it's like it wasn't there at all
And here i rest where disappointment and regret collide
Lying awake at night

There's no blame for how our love did slowly fade
And now that it's gone it's like it wasn't there at all
And here i rest where disappointment and regret collide
Lying awake at night (up all night)
When i'm lying awake at night.

It's Life Jim But Not As We Know It

COLLINBOURNE ROAD: Saw my first literary event last night at the cavernous Waterstone's bookstore just off Piccadilly Circus. Jayster, author of Bright Lights, Big city and erstwhile Lunar Park character, was spruiking his new book.

Now I seriously admire this guy but I couldn't help thinking 'Gee you look like William Shatner'.

Its A Celebration Be-atches!

COLLINGBOURNE ST: Well it seems after two weeks pounding the streets of the Great Doctor's city that I finally found smewhere to paek my grubby backpack, if only for the next month or so. And it wasn't due to the toe busting endeavour that has powered me through the last month. No it was courtesy of the same French lass who is responsible for the same painfull dificult French keyboard that is sponsoring this entry.

it seems that one of Lisa, Charlie's housemate, olf flatmates is moving out of his houuse in East Acton. So while it is mildly out of my price range it is just down the road. This time Saturday it'll bye bye buy Eastern European council houses and hello the good life. At least for the next six weeks: So, as the great Rick James says It's a celebration be-atches.

Funny or Fuckwit

CHEZ BOO INTERNET CAFE: Going to visit a potential house share with strangers is something like a job interview. Only its a job where the only thing you're being judged on his how cool you are and how much beer you do/don't drink. Last night I visited what was, I think, my eighth place. I visited another this afternoon but that was so disastrous it doesn't warrant comment. Anyhow for the one last night I steeled myself in the cold of Second Avenue, Acton, before tentatively knocking and then settling in to rattle off my three or four funniest anecdotes trying to tread the tightrope between funny and fuckwit. My dear readers you, above all people, have probably got the best idea of where I fall along that spectrum.

But last night's place was livable unlike so many others I saw last week. There was the room in the back Clapham ghetto with a pair of Polish sisters - a shoebox room decked out like something one of the Snowtown killers (or victims) would have lived in and views out over the Council Estate Common. Then there was Stockwell which looks so close to Clapham on the map. But then distance isn't simply physical. I've seen a few other places, some nice, some not, but, it seems, I haven't been able to make the right impression. The search, it is safe to say, continues.

Don't Get Sick at My Hospital

SHEPHERD'S BUSH: So after a hard day at the office and my first proper, cross London prime time commute (from Chez Bu to Bond Street on the Central then change to the Jubilee to Canary Wharf if you're interested) I thought I might finally take some time out to tell you what I've been doing these two weeks past.

I moved doss spots from the Bu to Baron's Court to stay with BK and Rod for a week and a bit. I ended up crashing in flatmate Vanessa's room while she was in Istanbul. It's a quiet little place on a nice street, aside from the Piccadilly and District Lines that run just beyond the double glazed living room windows. About three hunderd metres walk from the cutest Tube stop in the whole of London. Alighting the Baron's Court Tube station at twilight really does make you feel like you're hopping of the platform somewhere green named Somethingshire.

I've been working for the much lauded NHS and got to see, albeit briefly, the Byzantian mediocrity of a massive public service. I was registering patients from doctor's referrals for two weeks. While the work may have been boring I learnt two key things. Firstly, I never, ever have to type the words "rectal bleeding" or "anal fissures" ever again. And secondly as qualified as they may be, perhaps the wise medical fraternity of the globe need a Handwriting 101 course.

The clincher though, other than registering patients for gender reassignment, was that I got to travel to and fro from work via a very quaint walk through a cemetary for about five minutes. It was almost like I was back at uni.

Sniffing Glue on Smith Street

SHEPHERD'S BUSH: This blog wouldn't be what it was if I didn't republish this gem from marathoner Matty Phillips:

Family of Collingwood supporters head out one Saturday morning to do their Christmas shoplifting . While in Rebel Sports the 8yo son picks up a Brisbane Lions footy jumper and says to his 10 year old sister, "I've decided to become a Lions supporter and I would like this for Christmas". His sister, outraged by this, promptly whacks him round the head with her carton of Winnie Blues and says, "Go and tell Mum.

Off goes the little lad with the Lions footy jumper in hand and finds his mother. "Mum? " "Yes son? " "I've decided I'm going to be a Lions supporter and I would like this jumper for Christmas". The mother is outraged at this and throws her moccasins and a full stubbie of VB at him, promptly whacks him around the head and says, "We'd better talk to your father".

Off they go to Barwon Prison during visiting hours with footy jumper in hand and find Chooka, his father.

"Dad?" "Yes son? " "I've decided I'm going to be a Lions supporter and I would like this jumper for Christmas". The father is outraged and Promptly whacks his son around the head with his fists and says, "No son of mine is ever going to be seen in THAT", and then kicks him from one end of the Rec room to the other for further good measure.

About half an hour later they're all back in the car and heading towards home (St Albans). The mother turns to his son and says "Son, I hope you've learned something today?"

The son says, "Yes I bloody have." "Good son, what is it? " The son replies, "I've only been a Lions supporter for an hour and already I hate you Collingwood p-r-icks".