Sirdan’s Sunday lunch

The Empress, E, Sirdan’s neighbour and I had our post-election Sunday lunch today. There was no weeping or gnashing of teeth.

The conversation did get around to a remarkable story that was front page news in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald even with that day’s election dominating: Lesson for the school of hard Knox, concerning the young man above.

IT TAKES a lot of guts at the best of times to stand in front of 1350 fellow students, 150 teachers and 600 parents in the school assembly hall and tell it as it is.

But when it involves accusing some of your year 12 classmates of being cheats, and fingering influential parents for bullying the school authorities into giving prestigious positions to undeserving sons, the effect can be nothing short of sensational.

Especially when the school is the well-respected North Shore institution Knox Grammar, which counts among its alumni the veteran broadcaster John Laws, Macquarie Bank chairman David Clarke, former editor of the satirical Oz magazine Richard Neville, Hugh Jackman and ethicist Simon Longstaff.

Polling Day in Surry Hills

Just past 8am and the polling booths will have just opened for today’s election. There will be no surprises in Surry Hills where Labor is 100% sure to win. But nation-wide? There were those at last night’s meeting still saying “landslide to Labor” but it does seem it will be a very close thing.

I have to say I thought Noel Pearson’s dummy spit yesterday was impolitic. He could have saved that for after the election. I really wonder too whether he bothered to look beyond the campaigning hype (on both sides) at actual ALP policy on Reconciliation and Indigenous Affairs, particularly Constitutional Recognition Of Indigenous Australians. All he has done is tarnish his own reputation for a degree of balance and originality — for which I have up to now tended to respect him — and made life difficult for himself if Labor gets elected.

Here in Surry Hills it is a grey morning and the sound of crows fills the air. Is this ominous? If so, for whom? I go coaching in Chinatown shortly and will vote either on the way there or on the way home, depending on the crowds. Meanwhile I note, if this relates to anything, the relative readership figures for the past 21 hours on my blogs here at WP:

Pre-election: Politics in the Pub at Surry Hills

So I went down to The Gaelic Club this evening for Politics in the Pub; Sirdan was meant to come too but he must have been working. I do get to see him Sunday so I guess I’ll find out what happened.

I had a bit of a connection with this event, as these entries explain. Some nice things were said about my story in the introductory talk, and then we heard from the ABC’s Mark Willacy. He is an interesting speaker. We also heard from Noah Bassil, Deputy Director, Middle East Centre, Macquarie University. There have been some interesting talks at Politics in the Pub over the years as you will see if you visit that link; a few of them have transcriptions. You may see tonight’s talks on UHF 31 Thursday 2.30 pm and Sunday 10.30 pm.

New taste (for me) and M’s travels

New taste

Coaching finishing a bit late last night I went to a tiny Uigur restaurant — a real hole in the wall — near the Entertainment Centre. They asked me if I wanted mild or spicy; I opted for mild — which was quite spicy enough for me. (Depends how much you like chilli.)

While I slept

There have been 115 visits to this blog and Oz Politics since midnight; it’s now around 8am. They come from all over.

Two passing thoughts

1. Small joys of blogging: right now someone in Kathmandu is reading Friday Australian poem #11: “Because” by James McAuley. Everyone should…

2. On tonight’s Compass I found myself most drawn to Inga Clendinnen, historian and atheist, and least to Jim Wallace.