Journeys of life- part the second

In 1967 we set sail for Australia. I was 14. I think none of us, parents included, had any idea of what was really ahead of us.
Nevertheless we had an exotic trip aboard the SS Orsova of the P&O line. Visiting Gibraltar, then Port Said......just before the Suez Canal was closed we passed through, , bypassing Aden (where an 'incident' had occurred...a soldier I think having been shot.... ) we went to Djibouti on the horn of Africa.  I remember being quite frightened as night fell and we were far away, and quite aware, for the first time ever, that we were white people on a black continent.
We went on to the exciting city of Bombay/Mumbai....we had never seen anything like it. Encapsulating as it does both the tensions of India and the still present tensions of the Raj with its great gateway to India.
The tension that India is both British and Indian.
In the midst of all this is poverty and porn....women in cages.....I had no conception of what this meant.
From there to Penang and the Temple of a thousand Buddhas   and the Snake Temple (here). The stupid taxi driver gave my brother R a baby snake. At least we had the sense to realise that there was no way we would be bringing live reptiles into Australia.
A couple of day later we sailed into the more benign Singapore. A pleasant drive around and my father had clever photos taken of my mother sitting in his hand....I will try to find these and post them later.
Then we landed in Fremantle, sailed on to Adelaide (the Bight was rough!) and then we drove to Whyalla ......what a shock!

Where shall I begin to tell the story

More than one person's eyes have begun to glaze over as I started to tell them the story of how the relatively simple task of changing internet providers (rofl) dragged on for over ten days (nearly a fortnight in fact), then Sunday a phone call from India to say that the internet would be being connected on Monday.

Having destroyed contact with our previous provider - Big Pond- it was high time, and we were all getting a little tetchy. Sure enough yesterday someone rang at 12.20 p.m. to say that internet would happen soon.

We were out for three hours, but not surprised to see that there was a still a red light on the modem ...indicating that there "was a birth certainly"...but not quite there yet.

I optimistically thought it would simply (again rofl) be a matter of putting in new accounts and new passwords. At 12.25 a.m. (two phone calls to India later) I decided that I couldn't do this all; night...and grabbed my eye mask and went to bed. OOOh my head ached..and I slept poorly.

Finally at 5.30 a.m. I risked getting up, and rang India again. This time Said fixed the problem in 10 minutes. It is both a question of what and who you know obviously.

This all begs the question of why this didn't take 10 minutes 24 hours, or 7 days ago!

Oh you look a bit bored!!!

Royal obsession

On this anniversary of the defeat of the Republic referendum we are all reflecting a bit about monarchy.

A couple of articles in the press this week reminded me of this bizarre obsession we all seem to have worldwide with the idea that leadership and the right to rule is some how an inherited characteristic.

Touring Australia is a "Crown Prince" of the former Indian State of Rajpipia (here). How can you be a "Crown Prince" of a former state. I mean there is nothing to rule.

However the good prince, an openly gay man, is touring Australia and Asia to campaign against laws which criminalise homosexuality. His argument being that this aggravates the AIDS problem, I mean you are unlikely to admit to being gay if you are going to be executed!!!

I suppose the 'royal' status is a hook to grab attention. And why is it any different from a joke I might tell at the beginning of a sermon?

Likewise the Institute of African Royalty is meeting this week( see Associated Press's report here). At least these people may have some claim to represent some regional and sectional interests, though it is yet to be demonstrated that birthright is necessarily the best determinant of who might or might not represent the interests of a group of people.

There is a good photo of some leaders in traditional dress here....look at the footwear!

Meanwhile the ever smug Mr Abbott reminds us on RN this a.m. that we have 'evolved' our conception of monarchy by not focussing on the Windsors any more but rather on who the GG is.

Well, isn't that precisely what the Republican Movement wanted?

Pause for thought

The Australian opened its commentary about the Mumbai bombings with the chilling thought "nuclear armed India blamed nuclear armed Pakistan for its part...."
Chilling pause for thought!

Goodness gracious me!

I am interested (as always) in the reporting of the Mumbai terrorist attack. In the scheme of things it seems to me quite serious, one wondered how long it would take the hideous 'terrorists' to realise that there are an awful lot of soft targets around the world. And India must be one of them.
I guess the net effect of this will be that rich Westerners will stop travelling to India. Which is what happened in Bali, n'est-ce pas?
Who this causes suffering to is obvious.Not Osama, probably not the West...since we may just ahve mild disappointment at not going to India...but hundreds of low paid Indians will just not get the benefits of tourism, or trade or what ever. What a ridiculous waste.