Tour Musings

Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.

I went looking at travel quotations and this obscure one from Cesare Pavese (an Italian poet) may help me articulate musings arising from my recent holiday. Here then I wonder about the personal implications of travel and some of what Pavese wrote resonates.

Saying 'brutal' takes it too far in my case - I went from a developed nation to other developed nations in an age of convenience. But there were times in which I had to endure discomfort and boredom (particular on flights) and I was definitely aware of risks both likely and unlikely. My travels had been postponed by what had been a very risky pandemic. Now I was potentially exposed to more human respiration than in a very long time (and a lot of passive smoking too).

Other aspects of our changing times were also sobering. The world had arguably been getting safer than it has ever been but then some new or old-as-new conflicts burst forth and one cannot ever completely dismiss the possibility of stray missiles or hijackings. Ironically the very security processes one meets at airports are reminders of all those dangers.

But alongside fear exists trust. This attitude is vital in many aspects of life and becomes more pronounced in travelling overseas. I put my fate in the hands of so many strangers. Even the smallest of acts can shape ones day - consider getting the right advice on which platform to go to following a sudden change to train times. I was well served by others. My lack of familiarity with languages and locations and processes were all smoothed over by those who professionally or voluntarily helped me. To all of them I was grateful - even the grumpy ones.

I never exactly forgot home or friends but I did let them fade somewhat into my mental background. There was so much to actively focus on in the here-and-now. In some cases it was the positive of things I had wanted to see for a very long time. In others it was the negative of ensuring my few key possessions were in exactly the right pockets from moment to moment. I stepped carefully on cobblestoned paths to prevent losing balance. I intently observed passing landmarks to ensure I never got too lost. My senses seemed sharpened. I felt hale-and-hearty. Some of that has falterend since and I wonder if there was some kind of travel adrenaline enhancing me till the moment I got home and truly relaxed.

I walked more in Europe and in more ways than usual. It all felt fine then but on returning it seems I exacerbated some old damage and recovering from that takes longer now than it did in my youth. Age is getting to me and I wonder whether I left this holiday till too late in life. It was hectic in a way that was more tiring that it once would have been. But I had more confidence now than I would have in younger days (despite sometimes feeling like the new Monsieur Hulot in my stooping and bumbling ways).

It may be the last time I do anything so ambitious - eight cities in two weeks is a lot. The other side of the planet is also a very long way away. A friend has discerned in herself a limit of how many time-zones her energy levels will allow her to travel and possibly I will observe something similar in future. There is still plenty to experience closer to home.

Another friend recently designed his European holiday with a Byzantine theme guiding it. I never had one but rather a few interlocking themes. The notion of a unified Europe was one. Another much smaller one was the inspiring music of Queen. Aspects of my travels felt akin to pilgrimage. And some of that was surprising and spontaneous. I waded into the Mediterranean but what started with dipping my feet in its inviting waves impulsively turned into holding its water in my cupped hands and even experimentally tasting that ancient brine. I reckon it may have looked ritualistic to anyone observing. And that inner-sea is something worthy of awe as a natural phenomenon that then fostered such a dramatic florishing of diverse human civilizations.

They say travel is of value because it brings us closer to such diversity. I felt that in travel but I also feel it back home in multicultural Melbourne. I suspect that there are others who travel yet never discover anything more than confirmation of what they think they know. But I was open to both the big and the small things along the way. Some of the things I most enjoyed discovering were the ones I had never intended to find. One may go to a city to witness some grand momument seen in a dozen documentaries but then find something more charming in a sidestreet just around the corner. And then there is the next corner you never turn into but some other traveller has and that then becomes a tiny part of the life they are living.

I may well never return to those various locales but I am left with vivid recollections of them. I can imagine moving among any of them in a way that is odd for something that in reality involves a few days of flight to experience. Those imaginings now help enhance the comforts of the familiar.

Grand Tour

In a few weeks I will be visiting Europe. Right now this announces that plan and then on my return it will become a record of my travels. If the past is any indication then it will be rambling.

All the biggest aspects of my plan are sorted but the small stuff I still need to get done is annoyingly fiddly. Posting this kernal of an entry now is possibly an act of procrastination. Expect more in a few weeks.

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Now I'm back from my overseas holiday - a privilege even in this day-and-age (with only a minority of the global population crossing borders just for fun). This is my travelogue moreorless as a chronology.

Europe via Doha

I flew Qatar Airways from Melbourne late on a Friday. The service and quality are decent and I particularly enjoyed the variety of food served. Meals also provided me with rests from wearing my face mask (a voluntary discipline of mine) and indicated that time was passing. I also managed to concentrate on a few movies and programs.

We arrived at Doha Airport in the wee small hours and were free to wander about inside till our connecting flight. This makes sense - if all the security checks are happening at the ends of your journey then why bother with them in between? This cultivated oasis impressed me with its generous facilities and I was particularly taken with its relaxing indoor garden.

Venice

The shorter of my two flights eventually arrived at Marco Polo Airport in greater Venice on Saturday and I muddled my way onto a bus bound for Saint Lucia Station on the islands of classical Venice. What an amazing town of canals and laneways. The accumulated aromas of Italian cooking overpowered that of the briny lagoon. I had a few hours to just wander and even in that time discovered things like the La Maddalena Church with its Masonic look.

I met with the Intrepid Travel group I was to be part of for a week. We were staying at the Hotel San Geremia and were soon allocated our rooms. Mine was on the top floor and so a holiday of stairways began. My window overlooked a terracotta tiled roof towards a patch of trees behind the hotel. That evening we reconvened for dinner at a restaurant chosen by our Italian guide. I ate some good pasta and we were entertained by an accordianist.

I became familiar with some of our mixed group of tourists from North America and Australasia. We were of diverse backgrounds. Existing connections between members included partner, sibling and recurring travel companion. I feel like I was poitioned exactly between the younger and older halves of the group. Everyone was engaging and chatty once they got a chance. Some of them stayed out longer but I needed my sleep so crashed after dinner.

Sunday started with me hunting for breakfast back at the station and then meeting with the group for a guided walk. We soon left the busy thoroughfares and found outselves in an old Jewish ghetto. We were made aware of curios like the local rainwater wells in so many of the squares. We criss-crossed the Grand Canal by both gondola and the Ponta di Rialto bridge (just so we could). Our key destination was the Piazza San Marco from which we could see across the water to the palace of the Doge. Our guided tour ended abruptly with a surprise lunch of crostini with various toppings. This was covered by our tour fees but was one of many times I think some of us wished our guide would tell us a bit more in advance.

Following a nap I then went on my own unguided walk. I started by visiting the park behind us - Parco Savorgnan - one of the few large patches of public green space on these compact islands. Then I had pizza in a cafe on the Cannaregio Canal while a gigantic gull begged from its waters. Later as dusk was gathering I crossed the Ponte degli Scalzi close to the station and got lost in some laneways that refused to ever run along the canal side.

Eventually I discovered a church square - Campo San Giacomo - and enjoyed the atmosphere of locals just hanging while kids played ball. It was a balmy night with a festive vibe and one lane between squares was inhabited by a person disguised as shrubbery scaring passers-by. I never felt too lost as there were always others wandering about. I returned to my room to pack for travel the next day and pondered turning some of my experiences into a 'choose your own adventure'.

La Spezia And The Cinque Terre

I rode my first bullet train the Monday we left Venice for La Spezia. It is a small port city on the west coast of Italy. We barely saw the city proper and only stood in its railway square and a street for bustops. We got taxi vans to Hotel Nella in the hilly Foca neighbourhood overlooking the city. It was a charmingly kitch hotel and - still tired - I stayed while the others went for a boat ride in the bay. Did I miss some things? Sure. But I experienced other things and at my own pace. All I did that evening was pop around the corner to the Hosteleria Bertolini for a lovely lone restaurant dinner.

On the Tuesday we got a bus and train on the Cinque Terra line. This was the purpose of us staying in La Spezia. The Cinque Terra is an array of five coastal villages connected by rail and hillside walking tracks. The five are Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Varnazza and Monterosso. We took the train to Corniglia - the only village to lack coastal frontage and be solely on a hill. The station is close to the shore however and to access the village we took a taxing zigzag of steps. This was our test - now we had to each decide to continue with our intended walk or turn back. I had misgivings but decided to stick with it. We visited cafe loos then started on the track to Corniglia.

Only just walking between two villages was plenty for me. The views were stunning - yes - but I felt pushed to the limit. A hillside bar among the vineyards half-way along our track was most welcome. Eventually we walked down into Corniglia. These villages are lovely in the way they are traversed by steep back-switching lanes and stairs. From here we were free to do our own things. I stuck with an older couple and we decided to get the train to Monterosso - the village with the best beach.

In Monterosso I dipped my feet in the Mediterranean. The water was temperate on this mild day and it was lovely just to wade in. Soon we were met by most of the younger group members and next thing I knew I was making a sand castle with one. It was a pretty impressive effort once done but we never managed to fill its porous swimming pool.

Next we took the train to Rigiomaggiore for gelato and browsing gift shops. Finally we planned to visit Manarola for dinner but somehow this turned into simply taking photos from the cliffside path overlooking this most picturesque of villages. By the time we looked for restaurants they were too busy. A new plan worked however - we gathered even more of us together and went back to Foca to eat (once more for me) at Hosteleria Bertolini.

Hotel Nella was our first experience of complimentary continental breakfasts and I was a big fan of both this way of eating and the spacious breakfast room. But we were all set to move onto the next part of our tour that Wednesday and so once more took to transportation.

Florence

They talk so much of this city in the Monash History Department. Do subjects there and you will come away wishing to see it. And so finally I did. We walked several blocks from the station to a large and youth-oriented hostel - FlorencePlus. The narrow footpaths and busy roads combined with huge luggage rendered our oldest members rather pooped. We dumped our stuff in a spare room (it was too soon to check in) and then went on another guided walk.

My favourite way of seeing a magnificent monument is to spy a sliver of it at the end of a narrow pedestrian street and then have more of it exposed as I enter into its square or plaza. The Duomo or Cathedral of Florance was thus revealed to us and what a marvel it is. In some ways however I prefer the smaller and simpler Baptistry that attends it. Both however look warmly inviting in marked contrast to the more northerly tradition of church design that Australians are accustomed to.

Next we saw a bunch of nude statues arrayed under cover in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Finally we walked onto the Ponte Vecchio with its shops and a portion of the Vasari Corridor (a sky walkway made for the Medici) crowning the bridge. Here our guided tour ended and we did our own various things (some of the others wishing to practice haggling in the street markets).

I went back to the hostel to discover that I had to share a room for two nights with another member of the group (it was okay but I made myself scarce at times because he was taking online interviews while on holiday). I explored the venue to discover it had a laundry in the basement and made use of that. If only all hotels had such a thing there would be incentive for tourists to reduce the size of the wheeled luggage they feel they have to lug about. The basement also had a diner and a sunken recreational courtyard, while the rooftop had an under-cover bar with views towards the Duomo. I enjoyed all this convenience but the elevators felt rather rickety.

On Thursday I had continental breakfast then retraced our steps of the guided tour but more slowly. I ate gelato while watching queues slowly move into the Duomo. I went across the Arno River and made my way to the Piazzale Michelangelo - a hilltop square sporting a replica of the statue of David. Hilltop destinations are navigationally easy - just wind your way upwards. I entered a hillside neighbourhood beyond a medieval wall and cut through the Giardino delle Rose (a charity-run garden of roses and modern art) to get to my destination. I barely glanced at David - my interest was in looking away from the hill and back the way I had come. These were truly grand views of Florence. Back down hill I had a late lunch of chilli garlic napoli pasta while dining alfresco. Returning to our hotel I looked for but never saw any of the old wine-seller 'plague windows' that were recently revived for selling coffees. I got a bit lost, but that was all part of the fun, then almost napped in the rooftop bar and somehow whiled away the evening.

Rome

We took train once more to the capital of Italy and onetime centre of the Mediterranean world. Once more we had to dump our stuff (this time at my first of three B&B brand hotels) and then take a full-on walk. We took in the Spanish Steps (close to the Spanish envoy to the Vatican) and the Trevi Fountain. I was struck by how these momunents are enclosed by relatively small squares that one never notices in the movies. We also stepped further back in time by seeing the Pantheon, the Forum and the Colosseum. It was almost too awesome for me - I was overexposed to popular architectural iconss and was most relieved on stepping into a church - Basilica St Andrea Della Valle - for the cool and calm rather than the decoration.

Chatting on this long walk with group members was fun but next we scattered and some of us took overcrowded essential public transport back to the hotel (there was a drivers strike on that day but everyone we met was remarkably composed). Following a shower and change I reconvened with the others for our Friday night farewell dinner at Saporito in the San Lorenzo quarter. Someone I had barely spoken with quizzed me on the relevance of Queen to what I had planned next. I had a burger because I was a bit over Italian by this night. However I stuck with those who went on for some gelato and then settled in and prepared for the second half of my European holiday.

Saturday involved walking to Rome Central Station and getting some trains with a change-over in the opulant Milan Station. I gave Mum a very quick phone call. As I rode the surprisingly efficient Italian trains I observed the landscape slowly shift from temparate plains and hills to cooler hills and lakes. The border with Switzerland was swiftly drawing closer.



Montreux

Transport went smoothly till I was faced with the need to transfer to a surprise train-replacement bus. I confusedly followed the crowd and someone muttered that recent avalanches had caused such temporary changes. I was preserving battery and so never took photos as I looked beyond the window at the green Alpine valleys we traversed. In the foreground was an even European distribution of villages in farmland, while in the background were forested hills with stony mountains peeping at us over them.

Eventually we got back onto a train and soon Lake Geneva appeared to one side of the line. I instantly recognized the scene from the album cover Made In Heaven and was relieved. I quickly left Montreux Station for its foreshore main road and checked into the old and gracious Hotel Splendid. Having secured my habitation for the next two nights, I ate Japanese close by.

On Sunday I had a small problem - Switzerland has its own distinct power points. I still had some battery charge left and rushed off to find the foreshore statue of Freddie Mercury. I took a lovely shot and immediately sent it to Belinda as part of an equinox birthday greeting. Now in the mood, I found the Queen Studio Experience close by. This small exhibition, housed in what was once a studio owned by the band, included instruments, costumes, album memorabilia, a room for viewing a documentary, and another with a mock mixing desk to play with. I took some more photos in efficient priority order then left for another and ever more pressing matter.

In many parts of Europe supermarkets bear the name of Coop. These are cooperatively owned by consumers themselves. For me the Montreux branch was simply a very useful store that sold me a European Union to Swiss power adapter. I rushed back to my room for some relaxation and the charging of my dutiful phone, somewhat to the frustration of the room cleaner. I had already been emergized by complimentary breakfast in the dining room, so it was soon time for a longer walk along the lakeside.

In the small parks that line the shore I came across a big band performing for passers-by. Then I pressed on a few miles to the impressive Chillon Castle. The walk itself was picturesque due to the mountain-reflecting lake, the parklike walk, the intermittent public art, and the clement conditions that day. On my return I visited the station ticket office to confirm my connections for the next day and count the platforms. Such a practice would come in handy on other days.

I relaxed in my room some more then went a few streets back from the lake to find dinner. I had imagined something basic but impulsively dined in a fancy restaurant (complimentary bread followed by morel risotto and rounded off with tiramisu). Another customer even commented on my tasty choices. My first city alone had been a very satisfying one.

It was raining on Monday as I looked across the lake from my window-side breakfast table. I chatted with the owner on checking out and then took the stairs a few blocks back to the station and onward to another city across another border.

Strasbourg

My train rides to Strasbourg in France went smoothly but I then faced a long and rainy walk to my suburban hotel (another B&B branded one). Trudging along a bike track beside a highway is hardly the most gratifying of walks but it was moderated somewhat by a garden colony to one side and soon I entered the inner suburb of Schiltigheim. It grew on me quickly. My hotel was the most new and basic I had been to but served its purpose. I spent the rest of the day in relaxing and exploring the neighbourhood. There was an old factory or warehouse that reminded me of Willy Wonka. There were charming backstreet townhouses decorated with wall art. I enjoyed dinner at a welcoming Indian restaurant on the main street and then settled in for a night of reading.

On Tuesday I had complimentary breakfast then walked along roads and across waterways to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. I find it apt that a French locale with a German name hosts an institution dedicated to cultivating peace between onetime belligerents via prosperous interdependence. I entered the modern ediface and passed security similar to that of an airport yet far more relaxed and respectful in tone. Once inside I undertook a self-guided tour of the public sections of the facility. This included displays of Europe themed art and ornaments. My favourite was a model of the stucture I was in. I dodged the school groups that started filling the space and went onto the Hemicycle itself - the deliberative chamber of one of three European Union institutions that determine confederal policy. It was empty yet still impressive. However my mood was somewhat dampened by a political trend in which the 'Euroskeptic' ends of the Hemicycle are courted by too many of those sitting between them.

I finished with a snack in the cafe there and then walked via the Contades neighbourhood and some sports grounds back to Schiltigheim. That afternoon I made use of a laundromat and was soon asked advice by another person on using the machines there. Later I had a deconstructed pizza salad for dinner in a charming backstreet square (the streets that intersect there have names but the square itself seems nameless). Back in my room I packed and rested for the next day of travel.

Walking back to Strasbourg Station on Wednesday morning was complicated by my tendency to think taking streets parallel to your intended route will have the same basic result. It did allow me to glance at some old city architecture and I still got to my train on time. Familiarizing myself with stations and platform numbers had been serving me well but nothing was to prepare me for what happened once I crossed into Germany.

Appenweier Station has only three platforms but one is separated from the others by a short walk through parkland bisected by a stream. Luckily the path is well signposted. I had only a short time between scheduled trains but then my next one was half an hour late. I could have explored the village a bit but stayed put. The rest of the day my lateness accumulated. However it was more than just that one service messing with me. Trains were late or even cancelled at every German station at which I paused. Ticket offices were very helpful in issuing printed re-routings but problems cascaded. I cannot even tell you which stations I changed at but I feel like I stopped in Frankfurt, Bonn and Cologne.

Aachen

By the time I got to Aachen, close to the Dutch border, I was just over it all. Fortunately my hotel (third and final of the B&B brand) was a short walk from the station and there was a Turkish kebab shop across the road. I settled in and had a restful night away from crowded carriages and confused platforms. The foyar sported a small plastic statue of Charlemagne and it seems this image followed me in every part of town I visited.

On Thursday I slept in and, following breakfast, walked into the centre of town. I feel that Aachen is 'right sized' for wandering around and seeing things. I stumbled onto the town park. It featured a shrine-like shelter centred on a mineral springwater font and a glass-enclosed section of archaelogical excavation. Close by was Aachen Cathedrel and this time I did go inside. There were too few visitors to warrent queuing so it was easy. It was worth it as this is a particularly impressive cathedrel for its relatively modest size.

I browsed shops (some of them featuring that same statue) and donated a murder mystery I had just finished to an op-shop. I consumed cake and hot chocolate at a book store cafe - this particular book shop was four levels tall and even had a rooftop garden. I spent some time there, looking at everything from childish toys to adult magazines. But this was a diversion from why I was in the old capital of the Frankish Empire.

I found the Carolus Thermen in some parkland beyond the city centre. Past its barrier of change rooms and lockers is a marvellous playground of indoor and outdoor mineral pools and I whiled away a few hours just relaxing and taking in the atmosphere there. A large (and fully clothed) statue of Karl the Great overlooked us all. While seemingly incongruous, I like to imagine that the Carolingian ruler chose this town as his capital so he could always have a decent bath. I had a late lunch in the restaurant upstairs and this time I was overlooking the Holy Roman Emperor.

The mineral waters must have made me sleepy because I was slack for the rest of the day. I re-familiarized myself with the station (also right sized in my opinion) and cobbled together a snacky dinner from one of its shops to take back to my room. I packed for Berlin and then read from the Fighting Fantasy gamebook Starship Traveller.

Berlin

My intercity train connections to Berlin went smoothly and I enjoyed looking out the window at passing farmland and towns. Of particular note was the Volkswagen factory seen from Wolfsburg Station. But I have to backtrack a bit to that B&B Hotel because the theme of this Friday was silly mistakes. I had forgotten that the breakfast there was non-complimentary - embarrassing - but it was an error quickly corrected.

My next mistake happened in the massive Berlin Central Station. I got my intended suburban train for Charlottenhof confused for one for Charlottenburg. I quickly recognized the problem and rushed back to central from the zoo station. My destination was in greater Potsdam - technically a distinct city yet part of the greater Berlin-Brandenburg conurbation. I found the Havelufer Hotel even if it is barely signposted and from the street looks like it could be abandoned. It is however decent and gave me the biggest room of my holiday.

My third and final mistake of the day was to be infected by the enthusiasm of the young hotel receptionist who stressed that I had many hours yet in the day to explore beyond the hotel. I took this to heart and soon set off to find one of my holiday objectives. The hotel faced the Templiner Lake and I walked around it with the assistance of smartphone maps. But I also argued with that same device and we took a rather circuitous route through both tree-filled parkland and town house neighbourhoods. Along the way I encountered a fox. Soon I was lost in woodland at dusk walking on crunchy acorns along a track between a cemetary and some wire-fenced technical facility. Beyond that fence was my destination but how could I get to it? I walked the perimeter and eventually came to the gatehouse of the Albert Einstein Science Park but the guard told me to go away and return in daylight.

Eschewing dirt tracks, I took major roads, passing an Oktoberfest carnival, and got some currywurst with salad and chips for dinner. Back in my room I wondered whether I should try the next day for the same attraction or just abandon it altogether. I had been sticking to and succeeding in plans pretty well till that day but still had one more full day in Europe to go.

On Saturday I had complimentary breakfast and then took a cable ferry over the water. Only once across did I start negotiating with smartphone maps and things worked a lot better. I moved far more directly and was soon at the gatehouse. It was open and in I went. There are many working installations housed in the science park and some rather nice old architecture. My objective was the Einstein Tower - an optical observatory in the form of some very distinctive expressionist architecture. It was named in honour of Albert Einstein who only commented that it was rather 'organic'. That genius may have been noncommital on its appearance but I am all for it and took photos from every vantage of this enchanting ivory tower. It was definitely worth the return walk that day.

Next I went back into Potsdam via a free toilet stop at a nearby tree adventures rope course. I browsed a shopping centre attached to the central station and then went into Berlin to meet an old friend. We originally met during my visit with Dad to small-town Germany back in the 90s and since then have only been in contact remotely. He now calls Berlin home. He took me on a walk of the city centre from the Brandenburg Gate to the Berlin Wall. Along the way I saw wide streets lined with monumental structures. We passed the US consulate and then its Russian counterpart. In front of that were silent vigils for those oppressed by belicose expansionism. But we were there for other things.

It was good to have a proper conversation with someone about our lives and travels and the changes we have witnessed. Of course I was also shown remnants of the Berlin Wall. Next we took a train to the Friedrichshain neighbourhood and stopped in a groovy student cafe. This was followed by some back laneways in which old warehouses converted into nightclubs stand as testament to the vibrant culture of this once divided city. We even passed a DJ spinning tunes under a railway bridge. My friend then went onto a dinner party and I returned to Potsdam for my final sleep overseas.

Things went very smoothly on Sunday - seems my mistakes were behind me. Berlin-Brandenburg Airport is new and efficiently designed and I had a lot of time to fritter away there. But eventually I was on a plane and preparing for more terribly long flights.

Home via Doha

I was still impressed by Qatar Airways but somewhat less so with Doha Airport. Something had changed and this time I had to endure two security check processes between my flights. Was it the resurgent clash of creeds in the Levant that had prompted this? Or was it simply that I was there at a busier time of night? Who can tell. It only enhanced my sense that I wanted it all over and done with so I could be back home.

And eventually I did. I was relieved once I got into Melbourne late on a Monday. During both a Skybus and a taxi ride home I felt a sense of relaxed belonging. It had been a long time for me to be so far away. My room however struck me as strangely busy - I must have grown accustomed to the minimalism of all those hotel rooms. My sleeping patterns and so forth took something like a week to normalize. And yet I was still living my European holiday in the form of curating photos and reviewing my notes.

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I have now blogged on some of the philosphical aspects of my travels that may have interrupted the flow of this post. Take a look here.

Advanced Toys & Trinkets

I have written much on the topic of Dungeons & Dragons as a role-play game but here I will turn to some toys of the same name. Once more I ruminate on the concept of a 'modest yet well-rounded toy collection' (as I did here and here).

In the 80s there was a toyline by LJN that was given the branding of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) and I cannot fathom why. The simpler parallel game name of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) seems like better branding for kids. A charming cartoon (starring mundane world kids turned into fantasy world adventurers) bore that simpler name. Some of the AD&D toyline characters had cameos in the D&D cartoon. Furthermore, those AD&D toyline characters were also presented in the D&D booklet The Shady Dragon Inn as important non-player characters. And yet in colouring books of those same characters, the tag of AD&D was once more employed. I lack the obsessiveness to find the answer to this puzzling corporate vagary. The toys themselves are more interesting.

I had or still have a few of them but mine hardly constitute a collection. Some of them are miniature scale moulded plastic figurines but I'm more interested in the larger toys of the same brand. They had some articulation, weapons and cloth outer garments. Most were 3-3/4-inch scale while a few were 5-inch. In other toy lines these would just be different options for the consumer but in this line they were presented as intentionally different sizes - only some creatures were given the larger size. That alone shows some sort of dediction to the story behind the product. But what do I think would constitute a decent collection? Try this...

The Heroes: Strongheart, Ringlerun, Mercion,
Peralay, Elkhorn, Young Titan, Destrier

Strongheart the Paladin would be nominal leader of the good characters. Alongside him would be Ringlerun the Wizard and Mercion the Cleric. What makes that third character interesting is that she is presented as a cleric at all. In the 80s the depiction of religion in gaming was a controversial one. Nobody was ever a cleric in the D&D cartoon and yet here we have one in the AD&D toyline. Admittedly she looks rather wholesome.

Then there would be Peralay the Elf and Elkhorn the Dwarf. The fact they are only designated that way suggests that they belong in the non-advanced D&D of 'race as class' characters. One thing I like with these two is they boldly demonstrate size differences. Both dwarves and elves are smaller than humans here.

Rounding off the good forces would be the Young Titan (a 5-inch figure) and Destrier (a mount for Strongheart) maybe only needed for some quests.

The Villains: Warduke, Kelek, Skylla,
Zarak, Zorgar, Ogre King, Nightmare

Warduke the Warrior would be nominal leader of the evil characters. I imagine they all bicker and scheme but his shadow-shrouded face with glowing red eyes suggests someone they would all be cowed by. Allied with him would be Kelek the Sorcerer to which I would add Skylla. She is also a magic-user but was only made in the miniatures scale. More recently the adult collector company Neca has ported her into the larger line so I'm hardly the only one who thinks this is a worthwhile thing to do.

Zarak the Half-Orc Assassin (possessing both 'race and class') is a distinctly AD&D concept. And if I'm surprised by the inclusion of a cleric in this line I'm personally shocked at having a professional murderer presented too. Still it is just imaginary and once more I like the implication that orcs are somewhat shorter than humans. I imagine Zarak always tricking Zorgar the Barbarian into taking on the most dirty jobs for the gang.

Rounding off the evil forces would be Orge King (a 5-inch figure) and the Nightmare (a mount for Warduke) maybe only needed for some quests.

The Hazards: Dragonne, Hooked Horror,
and the Fortress Of Fangs Playset

Every adventure needs its hazards that may befall both protagonists and antagonists. The Dragonne (which I would rather call something plainer like 'Leodrake') is a draconic lion and a very impressive looking toy. The Hookled Horror is a distinctively odd monster from the game and looks just lethal. In another mood I would even re-cast the Titan and Ogre into this category. Finally there would be the truly wild and wacky Fortress Of Fangs playset to round off the best of this toyline from days of yore.

Seems fun even if role-playing itself is more fun.

Radiooooo

Radio but with the last letter written five times. This is the name of a website that serves as an online radio station with content curated by its membership. The interface very quickly tells you what it offers. There is a world map and a sliding scale of decades from over a century of recording. Using this you can hone in onto any offered time and place and then listen to the music of various artists. I tend to focus on the 60s-to-80s but let the world be my musical plaything. At other times however I just let the website do its things so that older and newer tracks are played too.

Here I will laud just a handful of the tracks I have discovered at Radiooooo. In this process I have found that the past is rich with new content. Much like history, there is always something more to find. But I will start with one newish track it played to me.

Disco Man (2021) by Remi Wolf is surprisingly joyous. The tense gloom I have noticed in many pandemic-era tracks is refreshingly absent here. The singer eschews such a pose in this song and you get a sense of gay abandon in celebrating the fun of the now. But sometimes I do enjoy the depiction of other emotional states.

I never knew of Labi Siffre and with songs like Cannock Chase (1972) we are given melancholy with a hint of hope thrown in. It is both heartfelt and beautiful. He seems a rare and overlooked singer-songwriter from a time in which others like him were dominating the charts.

I did know of Eartha Kitt and with tracks like Whatever Lola Wants (1962) we get a seductive yet quirky delivery that is all her own. She was much more than just Catwoman or the wise elder from Erik The Viking.

But now I move away from the Anglosphere. And yet English creeps into songs all over the world. Nice Mover (1979) by Gina X Performance says nothing of much consequence in English but this only accentuates its status as a quintessentially German New Wave track.

Zindagi Meri Dance Dance (1987) by Alisha Chinai & Vijay Benedict is in Hindi but every now and then the Bollywood singers say cute things like how they want to sing and dance on either Mars or Venus in very crisp English. This is lots of fun.

Songs that are mostly in another language but then present a short English phrase can have varying effects for the Anglophone listener. In French Graffiti (1975) Jane Birkin sings breathily in French but towards the end suddenly says "I want to be fucked by you" in English and it really gets your attention.

Eventually I escape English entirely but sticking with French for a moment - Lindberg (1968) by Robert Charlebois & Louise Forestier from Canada - what is this song? I cannot tell but it is compelling.

Ma Beham Nemiresim (1973) by Googoosh from Iran is likewise compelling. She seems to be singing of something important and tragic if only to the singer of the song. It feels exotic and timeless.

Rozy (2013) by Dakh Daughters from Ukraine presents the wild chants and beats of an alternative circus raging for a better world of both free nations and free individuals.

La Zarzamora (1974) by La Grecas from Spain seems to update Romani music with a pysychedelic groove but I cannot say much more as a lot of these tracks are obscure even in an era of instant information access.

Radiooooo also offers something the charts rarely have - instrumentals - and I find some of the best come from Brazil. Summertime (1971) by Rosina da Valenca and Bebe (1972) by Eumir Deodato really are an aural balm.

I lack eloquence in much of this post because music is something that resonates in a way that is difficult for the individual to reduce to words. I also feel this post is a bit short but that is because it takes time to actively pay attention to the data of tracks passing by on Radioooo. Its purpose is for listening and stopping to note names and dates interferes with that. Maybe I will add short paragraphs here from time-to-time.

One more thing Radiooooo lets you do is modify what is played with controls dubbed 'fast' and 'slow' and 'weird'. And yet I find that it is never too frantic and rarely ever mundane. What one gets in summation is a somewhat surreal yet centering musical experience of a past that has never entirely gone but is just around the corner. It is like a space-time cabaret and a wonderful way to explore a whole world and century of music. I use it regularly as a supplement to my own collection.

Cooking With Logan

This is barely creative writing and barely a cooking post but it will have to do for now. Call this the third installment in my Logan trilogy if you like. In it I examine what our solitary old fellow does on his Sundays at home. Much of it is defined by meals.

It was a Sunday and Logan Mallee started it by splashing cold water in his face and drinking some with his morning tablets. Next, he got to work on a breakfast of grilled mushrooms on wholemeal toast accompanied by a glass of diluted mineral water. Yes, Logan was frugal, but in this case he was just taking the edge off the sharpness of the bubbles. So far, the elderly pensioner had been working in his pajamas, slippers and dressing gown, but now he took a quick shower and got dressed.

Logan was staying around home today, but could not resist taking a quick walk around the block, in the hope of running into some neighbours taking their dogs out. That done, he returned home and got in some gardening while the morning was still cool. He had never been much of a gardener, and the condition of the yard showed it, but he managed to keep to within neighbourhood guidelines of acceptability, and his few cultivars added interst to his cooking.

Next thing Logan knew, it was morning tea by his own reckoning, and he returned to his kitchen for some coffee, a handful of cashews and an apple. Following what seemed like a short rest, he got onto some household chores, while listening to radio news and talkback. Doing the dishes, putting clothes into wash, dusting and tidying the clutter of the past week, and all the while Logan muttering at whatever somebody was saying over the airwaves.

Lunch for Logan was satisfying yet easy to prepare. He simply dumped a small tub of pre-made potato salad into a bowl along with a small tin of smoked salmon and threw in some finely chopped herbs he had grown. He chased this with more diluted mineral water. Next, Logan went into the living room and opened a window that had long ago been enclosed by the back extention of his house. Now it simply allowed music to flow into the study behind it. He put something on the record player and got to work in his study.

There was always something to sketch or resketch. Local sites arrayed around the walls included some shops, a milkbar, the library, his favourite eatery, a community hall and a sports field. Right now however Logan was reworking an old sketch of his last and, he had to admit, favourite dog. He wondered whether he should get another one or if he was just too old to ensure its welfare beyond his own life. Putting such musing behind him, Logan remembered that he had planned to sort some paperwork but, on glancing at it, decided to put it off till another day.

Anyway, it was time for afternoon tea, and Logan had a hot cuppa with honey and lemon to go with some crackers topped with soft cheese and dill pickles. Following that, it was time for a nap, so he returned to his bedroom and settled in for an hour or so of scrambled sepia-tone memory. Some time later, the sounds of lawn mowing and muffled chatter woke Logan and, gathering his hazy wits, he got clothes in from off the line.

It was getting cold so he put on the living room heater and set to work once more in the kitchen. For dinner, Logan found that baked beans from two tins was so much better than from just one. He combined diced tomatoes with cannallini beans in a pot and added spring onion and garlic. Once more, he had the weakened bubbles to wash it all down. Logan had nobody but himself to blame for a hearty fart as he rose from the table.

In his warmed living room he watched some telly. A game show and a situation comedy entertained him. They were a window onto a wider world he spent less time in now and, even as he knew it was fluff and fiction, it still helped him feel more connected to something. A lot of the shows he had enjoyed in his prime seemed to be back in re-hashed form, and the small changes were interesting. Everything old is new again, he mused, except for Logan himself.

Eventually, it was time for a mug of hot chocolate, a handful of almonds, and some blackberries from the back yard. Following that, he prepared for bed and washed down more tablets with water. Logan read a few chapters from the spy thriller he was currently reading. With that reminder of the past settling his mind, he drifted off once more, wondering what the coming week would bring.

The meals described here fit my image of 'old codger food' while also fitting notions of what I enjoy. I have play-tested this one-day diet and it can just about satisfy me at my current age.

Trolls

In running a new role-play game I have chatted with players on the topic of creating settings and scenarios. One thing I noted is that such creativity involves mixing the creative concepts of others and the more you mix the more distinctively yours a concept can become. To illustrate this I will focus on just one thing - Trolls in The Lands. I can discern something like five influences that went into my imaginary trolls. These concepts played back-and-forth concurrently in my mind. Here I shall present them in a sequence that moreorless fits my own discovery of those various conceptions.

The oldest encounter I had with trolls was in the fairy tale The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I'm sure this is true of many a childhood. This troll lives under a bridge and I had always imagined it therefore as something semiaquatic. Now I look back into the story and see some ambiguity. Many images depict the troll as standing under a bridge but on some enbankment. The story itself sometimes ends with the troll swept away by the flowing water once pushed in by the biggest brother goat. Nonetheless I decided that my trolls would be something that lurks in shallow waters and busts forth to accost shocked travellers.

I met the trolls of Middle Earth as a tween. Tolkien drew from creatures of Norse lore that are somewhat vague in description and his too vary over time. The three trolls in The Hobbit, while large and stupid, are rather humanlike. Their only fantastic characteristic is reverting to stone once exposed to sunlight. In Lord Of The Rings they become more monstrous and seem akin to the orcs they fight alongside. This impressed upon me the importance of having such creatures in a fantasy world but that role eventually went to my version of ogres (which for me are a cross between orcs and hill giants).

Next came Grendal and Grendal's Mother. I read a translation of Beowulf for young readers which may have named one or both as trolls. This Old English tale comes from a time in which its Scandinavian characters were experiencing a transition from Norse to Christian religion. It shows in the various ways these lethal monsters are described. The words and behaviours fit the older religion but they are reconceived as descendents of the wicked Biblical Cain. My trolls lack any supernatural significance but I do try to convey a sense of gloomy foreboding that came from this story. The abode of these two creatures is a grotto in a swamp and that entrenched for me the connection of trolls to water.

Eventually Dungeons & Dragons came into my teenaged life and its core rules describe a rather different monster from the influences thus far named. These gaunt creatures had rubbery hide with the ability to regenerate rapidly (even recombining with severed body parts). I think this was influenced by some pulp fiction author the D&D creators were into. I digress now into a bit of speculation of how to link this troll back to the mineral troll of Tolkien. Apparently silicone rubber can self-mend with the application of heat. What if D&D trolls were a living version of this? Fire would then become a boon rather than a bane to them. But back to my trolls and what I took from D&D was that regenerative ability.

Nature is my final and most important inspiration for trolls in The Lands. Salamanders are amphibians. They are carnivorous. They can even regenerate. My trolls are basically massive predatory salamanders. To emphasise this I call them freshwater or saltwater trolls. A tiny tip-of-the-hat to stone is given in them swallowing gastroliths to help in digesting stubborn armoured prey. Only problem is salamanders look cute to me.

In my imaginings and drawings I try to make my trolls more scary. In drawing them something emerged which reminded me of Ymir by Ray Harryhausen. Admittedly that alien is still a bit cute. However the vestigal gills I describe as looking like a mane of lank tendrils are reminiscent of the Hellhound from Hell Boy and that is more the level of creepiness I was aiming at. For specifics on my version of the troll click here (then scroll down three quarters of that page).

Wowsers

An American may well think that 'wowsers' is another way of saying 'wow' but in Australia this old word refers to judgemental morality campaigners who wish to restrict the recreational activity of others. A wowser was defined by writer C J Dennis as someone who "mistakes this world for a penitentiary and himself for a warder" but I will try to be more open-minded in examining them here.

Concerned Citizens

The stated motivation of wowsers is concern for the welfare of individuals and society as a whole and I will take them at face value. Many issues that wowsers focus on are cause for concern. The toxin that is alcohol can result in both street and domestic violence. Problem gambling can impoverish households. Prostitutes are prone to abuse and victimization. Recognition of such problems is close to a consensus these days. But wowsers are mistaken in a few key ways. One is to think that criminalizing things many enjoy can be effectively enforced. The other is to deny that making judgements for oneself is a vital characteristic of adulthood that deserves to be exercised.

Prohibition provokes a number of responses born of diverse personal characteristics that occur in every generation. Many will conform. Some however will defy restictions as an affront to personal autonomy. More will simply find the forbidden enticing. And yet others will persist in a behaviour that for them is addictive. Then there will be those who aggressively profit from a ban by engaging in organized crime. History has shown the flaws of zero tolerance and so harm minimization solutions are now more well-regarded. Today the classic wowser is relatively rare. And yet many others behave in ways that seem wowserish.

Behaviour Managers

A mindset of experts and policy advisers is to regard society as a kind of machine that can be managed statistically. Reduce smoking by X and improve the budget bottom line by Y. I suspect it is this technocratic tendency rather than wowserism that has driven Australian governments to curb tobacco consumption. A whole raft of regulations and taxes has bit-by-bit succeeded in turning smoking into a minority activity. As a non-smoker I'm happy to live an almost entirely smoke-free life. But I wonder exactly what the line is between harm minimization and zero tolerance.

A new intergovernmental plan in Australia will only allow vapes as a prescription medicine. This is following a decade or more of vaping as something that is done recreationally. How well will this work? I suspect its suddenness will be a problem. Contrast that with how we gradually altered the incentives and disincentives of tobacco smoking at a speed Australians could work with. I worry that more rapid reform could backfire. Those it seeks to help - in particular the young - may well just be driven to resent those in power.

Propagandists

A populist trend cutting across ideological divides seeks to politicize everything. This includes creative content which cannot simply be itself anymore. Every game or movie or album can be perceived as propaganda for one side or another. And whether someone approves or disapproves of that content will depend on whether they think it promotes whatever conception of culture they value. This will then motivate them to publicize some content while hindering the rest.

A pedantic definition of censorship says that it can only be imposed by governments. But corporations, organizations and movements still have power and can enact what some euphemistically call 'consequences'. Rival crowds deploy such consequences back-and-forth and tit-for-tat. Taken all together such actions can hamper creative expression and drive communication 'underground' to distort and fester.

Killjoys

Both bonafide wowsers and those who behave like them overstate the existence of conditioning. In some cases that is because they themselves would love nothing more than to condition others. But for conditioning to exist everything in our lives must be deliberately pushing us in the same direction. In reality we are faced by a host of contrasting influences that pull us in many directions. And one of those influences is our own self. By the time we are adults we can make our own decisions and express our own preferences. But wowserish dogma imagines we are empty vessels to be possessed by any passing spirit. Then any depiction of flawed behaviour we witness is like the Necronomicon of horror fiction - merely reading it will seduce and corrupt. But personal experience says otherwise.

I have seen plenty of fashion advertisements but never been attracted to super-models. I have enjoyed action movies but never taken the law into my own hands. I have been amused by dodgy old comedy sketches but never been a flasher. This surely cannot be that unusual. How did I get to be this way? If anything I was exposed to more influences rather than fewer and got a chance to develop skills of discernment. But for that variety to occur nothing could be too dominant. However mobile Internet can result in over-exposure to a narrower and therefore more addictive array of influences (ironically in the face of more information we tend to narrow in on less). If so then I may have to share some non-alcoholic drinks at a milkbar for killjoys and curmudgeons. I wonder how fun that would be.

Hey Hi

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a big media topic over the past year or so. I cannot say I have a fantastic grasp of exactly what it is or what distinguishes AI from other kinds of computer activity. Even the question of exactly what intelligence could be is beyond me. I even think of a choose your own adventure book as a simulation of intelligence in paper form.

The key distinction to draw however is that the writer of such a book or program understands exactly how it works and what it can do. The latest generation of AI is different - even its own programers cannot understand exactly how it works or what results it will produce. Another factor that has made it controversial is that it can engage in seemingly creative acts that till recently only humans could do. Now machines can do much more than repetitive manual work or the purely logical processing of information. The Internet is a big factor here and AI can draw on a massive body of human-generated creativity in its own complex act of regurgitation.

My concern over this is eclipsed by an older worry over how mobile Internet has been altering human interactions. And my own work as an integration aide in adult eduation is intensely human-facing so will still be a job for some time to come. But I may as well get a passing familiarity with some of the latest AI tools. To that end I played with two particular applications.

* * * * *

I chatted with something now called Gemini - a generative AI chatbot that can hold a conversation and produce written content on command. I acted as if it were a person and complimented it on its polite manner. I also asked it what it would do if someone were rude to it. It told me it would ultimately end such a conversation. I was impressed. Evidentally its programmers at Google have put various parameteres on its behaviour. It results in some overly repetitive language as it apologetically stipulates what it can and cannot do. I can relate. I asked it for feedback on my own writing and it advised that I could be more succinct and use more active language. This is true. Next I gave it some more substantive tasks.

I asked for a description of a medieval fantasy village. It did pretty well but some aspects of the setting felt more Midsomer Murders than The Forgotten Realms. I asked it to describe a mid-sized faster-than-light spaceship that uses centrifugal force to simulate gravity. Once more it did well but completely neglected the bit involving spinning circular forms. It can definitely produce flowing and grammatical word-count that a human can then tidy and personalize (assuming that they bother).

Next I asked it to make some judgements on matters non-fictional. What characteristics both unite and distinguish classical liberalism, democratic socialism and traditional conservatism? It did well in drawing on academic definitions but there were some nuances I felt needed adjusting. Hardly surprising given my own qualifications. I asked it if my statement "funk is to soul as metal is to rock" made sense and it gave grounds for saying that it did. However it cannot recommend a flowing selection of tracks to save its life.

One thing I neglected to do was ask it about patently dodgy topics - it would be interesting to see how it responded to a conspiracy theory or bogus conception of the world. But I'm wary of even entertaining such notions online. I prefer these tools to be for fun.



I recently resumed GMing some role-play games and hunted online for free artwork to illustrate characters or locales. I noticed something was suddenly different. There was a lot of content from a handful of new websites. It was superficially decent but the closer I looked the more flaws I noticed. The overly idealized yet creepy faces. The deformed hands. The accidentally Escheresque architecture. I realized what I was seeing was a host of collaborations between AI and users describing what they were imagining. And then I decided, if you cannot beat them, join them, and started experimenting at a website called Night Café.

The resulting pictures were fine for my purposes of printing them as small grey images to flash at players as I described non-player characters. But then I moved onto something I hoped would work with the flaws of this new method. Toys are caricatures of reality. They are mass-produced and simplistic. They depend on commonly understood concepts and imagery. Hence I created The Sub-Culture Kids Action Figure Selection.

These are images of retro action figures depicting youthful members of well-known sub-cultures from a variety of backgrounds. They were produced by wrangling text over several fiddly and frustrating iterations. Nonetheless this method of producing images with colour and perspective was far quicker than anything I could do manually. And some of them are better than others.

Raving Rina is the best - even the characteristic AI mistake of blending her headphones with her hairstyle somehow works. Skating Suzana comes complete with an accessory. Hugo Hearts Hip-Hop and Grungy Gus are decent variations on each other but the latter needs more long and lank hair that I never managed to coax from the AI. Feral Faris looks like a hippy but is supposed to be of the more recent iteration of feral. Finally Gothic Greta seems like she comes from another toy line altogether - her proportions are too mature but older drafts of her looked far too childish.

It seems like I'm blaming my tools. I jumped right in rather than looking for elaborate instructions or getting advice from other Night Café users. But the whole attraction of this stuff is in time-saving. If I want I can use such imagery as drafts from which to hand-draw things that I can more exactly control. For now I have some sense of what the latest applications of AI can and cannot do.

Star Trek Dolls

I have expounded on the demographics of various Star Trek crew but here I will do something frivolous and re-imagine an old toy line. A company called Mego made a range of Star Trek dolls in 1974-1976. If this is nostalgia then it is vicarious - at the time I was playing with plush toys and wooden blocks. I never even knew of Star Trek till I was obsessed with Star Wars action figures from 1978 on. But the messy history of toys can be fun. Mego made five original Enterprise crew and nine aliens for them to encounter. My concept is to change that to seven crew and seven aliens (even if the aliens may stand in for entire species rather than individual characters). But which ones?

The 80s Star Trek movies fixed in our imaginations the seven key characters as Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov. But in the 70s things were somewhat different. The Filmation cartoon, for instance, dropped Chekov in favour of Nurse Chapel. I choose this small step forward for gender equality even if it is a small step backwards for Détente. But what of the aliens?

Mego made some odd and arbitrary choices for the alien dolls. A few are recurring antagonists. Others are chosen seemingly at whim from stand-alone episodes. And others were wholly invented by the toy-makers. Sometimes I like to use more objective selection criteria and for these imaginings I suggest that an alien must have featured in more than one episode. It transpires that very few fit that restriction. The 60s were a time of stand-alone episodic story-telling. Yes the Klingons were in several episodes, but the Romulans, Andorians, Tellaraites and Orions are in only a few each. The Talosians get in on a technicality by featuring in the only two-part story. And the Salt Vampire creeps in only by having its costume re-used as a taxidermy display item. Nonetheless, I think this is a fun selection.

Here are the resulting toy lists...

The Crew: Kirk, Spock, McCoy,
Scott, Uhura, Sulu, Chapel

The Aliens: Klingon, Romulan, Orion,
Andorian, Tellarite, Talosian, Salt Vampire

The Tellarite could have been a modification of the Mugato they did make. The Orion dancer could have been adapted from the existing Mego Batgirl, since Yvonne Craig played both. And apparently stuntwoman Sandra Gimpel played both a Talosian and the Salt Vampire, so they could have shared a body sculpt.

The range could be completed with the Enterprise Bridge And Transporter they made along with a playset inspired by the Rigel Seven Fortress (possibly by just adapting some medieval playset). I would never have gotten into the line however - the action figure scale pioneered by Kenner Star Wars toys was that much more convenient and fun.

Joiners And Non-Joiners

Months have passed and finally I post about the recent referendum proposing a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous advisory body to the Commonwealth. I had written other things online (a few comments in The Guardian and a few with friends on Facebook) at the time. My focus here is on what the results say for more than Indigenous representation but for civil society as a whole.

It is tempting to compare the referendum with past electoral events. The 1999 Republican Referendum concerned a key aspect of Australian identity but had the same implications for all Australians. The 2017 Same Sex Marriage postal survey (intended as a plebiscite) concerned particular Australians but was imposed on them by the political game-playing of our last Federal Liberal-National Government. In contrast the recent referendum for an Indigenous Voice was developed and proposed by the Indigenous community itself.

Pursuing that proposal was an election promise of the current federal Labor Government. Once that happened there pretty much had to be a referendum even if its chances looked shaky. And those of us committed to a kind of reform that is informed by those directly affected by it had to take a stand.

The problem then looked like a lack of bipartisanship. History showed that referenda only pass if both major parties support them. And the conservative Liberal-National Opposition at a federal level soon decided to oppose the proposal. The conventional wisdom then is that if only we could have had bipartisan agreement then the referendum would have passed. I wonder. We needed to get a "majority of votes in a majority of states" but fell short of even a majority in the electorate overall. I want to look more closely then at the political landscape.

Labor were united as a party behind the Voice but surveys showed many recent Labor voters decided to vote No. Would bipartisanship have swayed them? Possibly if (as I suspect) many more than we assume are swinging voters. Nonetheless it shows political sides are rarely monolithic. That is even more so with Liberal-Nationals. A National federal parliamentarian became an independent to campaign for the Voice. A Liberal federal shadow minister moved to the backbench to do likewise. And at a state level whole party divisions including state leaders prominently supported the Voice. Conversely the Voice supporting Greens lost a senator to independence over the radical notion that constructive reform is never satisfactory. Votes went in all directions from the perspective of party politics. And that is just one way of looking at society.

There is a complex array of interconnected voluntary associations that seek to involve and advocate for many distinct yet overlapping groups within wider society. An impressive number of such organizations endorsed the Voice. These crossed all sorts of historical divides - labour and capital, Christian and Muslim, nerdy academics and sporty jocks. I noted this and had hoped it would have an impact on the campaign. And I think it did. Such organizations draw on and communicate with those who tend to get involved in the connective structures of society. One intersting survey even suggested that Yes voters were more likely to be involved in various community groups.

There were plenty of volunteers for the Yes case and my hunch is we had a better face-to-face campaign than the No case. Estimates say there were something like eighty thousand Yes volunteers (almost one for every ten Indigenous Australians). It defintely felt to me like we had a better presence on the ground. And this made sense to focus on as a way of circumventing the political distortions of the World Wide Web. Yet it seems those distortions now seep into all other aspects of life. And how many of us are even aware of, let alone pay heed to, the organizations formed to advocate for us? We lost despite that on-the-ground campaign (which it transpires was better funded than that of our rivals). We lost despite all those endorsing groups. And suddenly it looked to me like the Yes and No votes were populated by joiners and non-joiners respectively.

To put it starkly, this could even be described as a divide between civil society and mass society. Some individuals are still integrated into various forms of community (something Indigenous Australians have long understood) while a growing number are loosened from such links and must form others for themselves. Some of my thinking is informed by reading Disconnected by Australian academic and politican Andrew Leigh. And maybe I'm exaggerating. This was just one vote and what it suggests hardly aligns with a host of recent Australian elections. But I do worry about the seeming drift from pluralism to populism in our political relations.

Cultural forces could be part of why we lost. However I cannot overlook institutions. Our electoral rules are among the best in the world (never mind what some suspicious No voters felt in bringing pens they 'trusted' to the ballot box). But there is one key flaw in how we conduct referenda. In every committee or general meeting I have ever attended there is always the option of abstaining in a reductionist yes-no vote. But in referenda we only get two boxes to choose between. Voting informally is an option but is hardly one that electoral commissioners can advise. There should explicitly be a third box for those who cannot decide and do not wish their vote to be counted in calculating a majority. The slogan "if you don't know then vote no" would then become the truly uninvolved "if you don't know then don't vote" and it would become more difficult to manipulate apathetic voters.

How Bazaar

One activity I enjoy is visiting bazaars - spaces in which many stall-holders gather and sell second hand items of any kind. It started over a decade ago with discovering the Chapel Street Bazaar. I would go looking for particular items to buy - select old Transformers mostly. Rarely would I find exactly what I wanted. But it hardly mattered because most of the fun came from simply seeing all this dodgy old stuff.

Somewhat more recently I was introduced to the larger Waverley Bazaar closer to home. This warehouse setting for browsing old tat then moved to even larger premises in Clayton past the newly constructed M-City (which incidentally is a right-sized shopping centre featuring just one supermarket, one department store, and a cinema). Here one can stroll for an hour slowly taking in all the consumer novelty of several decades past. Few things are truly antique but there is plenty of retro stuff to satisfy. I go for the toys but stay for other things. Here I will share a handful of the many photos I've taken to give a sense of the nostalgia.



There are plenty of old vinyl records but this one has been turned into - what - a bowl of some kind? Possibly an ash tray? Who can say for sure. Somebody adapted it into a minor work of craft and you could utilize it any way you wish.



I saw this nude statue at Chapel Street and then later at Waverley. I have to allow for the possibility than even something this large and particular was mass produced. They could have been two separate copies. And yet I fancy that she was following me around. I suspect that some items pass hands from stall-holder to stall-holder and just move about. What a jolly good sport.



I suppose a plastic plaything had to be part of my survey. I never had nor played Mousetrap but always enjoyed the ads and indeed any such gizmos. It has been fun reliving both my own childhood and the childhoods of others in coming across games like this colourful contraption.



Here we have a sliver of the history of how history is depicted. Some may find it holds a dated message but it works well as a presentation of information. We see how the Spanish and Portuguese aspired to divide the world between them in the 1500s. And our spherical planet is rendered here on paper in such a way that the colonizing powers expand from the approximate centre of that process. Plenty of maps have been called 'Eurocentric' but this one literally is.



I cannot even tell you what this is. Definitely a machine. Most likely a computer (I think it says so in writing). Something computerized then. But what does it do? I want to say it worked in a factory or garage but the truth is I merely like the way it looks. Others can tell me what its function was. I wonder if anyone will ever buy it.



Sometimes it is difficult to tell exactly what an item is. This massive strangling snake could just be a model but I suspect it is a cumbersome piece of taxidermy. One becomes accustomed to seeing markedly different things at a bazaar but sometimes I am still utterly surprised. And in this case a tad spooked. The way it just lolls about among household items and clothes racks is incongruous.

* * * * *

A bazaar often acts as a museum while it is always a store. The many stall-holders stock the shelves but everything is managed and transacted via one front desk. At the Waverley Bazaar they even have the space for a basic cafe and I usually make a purchase there - I think of it as a voluntary entry fee. After all, I want them to stay open. And now and then I'll buy a gift or bring a friend to share in the experience. Even if it has become a part of my everyday life it still feels just a bit bizarre.

Sidebarring

Here is a bit of a 'housekeeping' update for this weblog. It occurred to me that my use of Internet tools has become somewhat more sophisticated since I added sidebar links here. I access frequently used websites in other ways. Besides, some of them I use far less frequently now. But what changes have I just made?

Weather and Transport go to public websites in my nation or state for such information. Trivia links to Wikipedia. I'm keeping those three even just as 'legacy features'. Choraldom linked to MonUCS but my musical involvement is far more ad-hoc now. News & Net took me to Yahoo but the truth is I pretty much never used it for news, and I know how to communicate online, so that's been replaced with The News provided by The Guardian Australia. I've also added Better News for the Fix The News positive news aggregator. It also acts as a funding platform for targetted philanthropy and so contributes to the very progress it draws attention to. That in effect replaced a Human Rights link to Amnesty International (AI).

AI still does a lot of worthwhile advocacy for political prisoners and even criminals facing death row. However in recent times it has made some rash and risky statements which demonstrate a vulnerability to manipulation. The temptation to instantly gratify online audiences risks diminishing it focus and therefore its effectiveness. I saw this in both world and national news (ask me for particulars) and then experienced a small instance of it personally.

I received an invitation to an AI picnic for supporters of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. This came in the closing weeks of that national referendum campaign and on a day that I was committed to volunteering for the Yes case at a local polling place. I wondered why they would divert potential helpers away from the frontline work of changing minds and asked them so in an email. That was several weeks back and I'm yet to receive a response. I can only guess at the same performative root cause as in those recent media incidents. It all seems strangely inward-looking.

But this was supposed to be just a housekeeping entry.