Author: cottonward

SMH NSW transport campaign and politics

I haven’t posted about politics for ages – am keeping up with it but just nothing happening of any note. Peter Garrett on Lateline last night looked like his heart wasn’t in the job anymore – they should move him off. I’m not convinced the flatbacked turtle is safe or the blind gudgeon. If he can’t convince me of that, there’s no point in him doing that job.

Q&A went off tonite – the Muslim cartoon. Tony Abbott. Ooh.

I don’t give a toss about Kristina taking Nathan’s job. I think Rees should stay on.

I liked the comment about Malcolm Turnbull – “the only way we could get rid of him was to make him leader.” Can’t remember where I read that.

SMH transport campaign – I think Andrew West is brilliant cause he  writes well about topics I like. I have his books – Bob Carr and Inside the Lifestyles of the Rich and Tasteful. The latter was lying around the SMH kitchen on the “freebie” table so I nabbed it years ago. It’s great.

Am reading the transport campaign and am disappointed the inner west has been sidelined in favour of the north-west and south-west. It takes me an hour to travel 3km to work in Pyrmont by public transport, which is criminal. Yet if I drive, it only takes 10-15mins, but I have to pay parking at $3.30/hr or $20 for the day at Star City as “punishment” for driving my car.

I don’t see how it’s worthwhile for me to spend an extra 1.5hrs commuting – that’s crap.

And don’t tell me to ride a bike – I did that and got rosacea from the sun (despite covering up and slathering on SPF 30). So I have to stay out of the sun now to stop that from getting worse. Have sold bike.

Am pleased the SMH will have more tabloid sections for “commuters”. Ties in nicely with the transport campaign.

Join the campaign here. Send submissions/ideas to submissions@transportpublicinquiry.com.au by 6pm on October 8, 2009.

Photo Douglas Elford, Western Australian Museum.
Help! Save me! Blind gudgeon. Photo: Douglas Elford, Western Australian Museum.

Brigid Delaney’s This Restless Life book launch

It was packed out. $10 each at Gleebooks and Annabel Crabb did a great interviewing job. Brigid chatted about how the high-fliers with top jobs but on short-term contracts are portrayed in the media as having everything but really feel unhappy and anguished.

Got my book signed and chatted to an SMH reporter in the line next to me about a front page story the reporter had written recently. There was a bit of aggro from the lady behind us cos someone had pushed in and was having a lengthy conversation with Brigid – but had not bought a book to be signed! “Hey lady, are you getting a book signed or what?” the aggro person asked.

Several SMH people there supporting Brigid. She thanked me for giving it a kindly mention on Facebook.

Paddington Reservoir

Elizabeth Farelly raved on about it here. “This is a world-class weave of ancient and modern and I love it, too.” “This ruin had been home to an Anglican church, a water reservoir (part of Busby’s famous Bore), a garage, an air-raid shelter and a servo, before becoming the canvas for a decade of graffiti artists.”

Went out to have a look and it’s great. It’s opposite Paddo Town Hall/Chauvel Cinema (cross a road but same side of the street).

I was in Paddo stocking up on Mac cosmetix.

Four Corners last night – Belmore Park

It was about youth remand centres and rehabilitation. A bloke said he “rolled” people for money in Belmore Park as they walked to the bus.

A couple of years ago I was walking through Belmore Park and was feeling very grim and preoccupied cause I was in agony with endometriosis pain AND on my way to a Lifeline counselling class. A young guy snuck up and grabbed the strap of my handbag.  I didn’t flinch or fight, just kept on walking, didn’t even look at him and he seemed really freaked out by my non-reaction. He started lecturing me on “how dangerous this area is” and it wasn’t safe for me to be walking alone (it was 5.30pm on a sunny weekday) and how people get their handbags snatched.

I didn’t answer but I was thinking it was very hypocritical since he seemed to be the only danger around. I wasn’t chatty so didn’t tell him where I was going.

He got me safely to Central.

The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

Finished it last night. So depressing*. I hadn’t read anything about it before except knew John Hinckley and Mark Chapman were fans. My summary written at 3am: “Am amazing study of someone who feels crap all the time.”

While checking how to spell Hinckley, I just found this post that says serial killers have great taste in literature. Dunno if I’ll read Stranger in a Strange Land.

I didn’t realise Holden had ended up in an institution at the end – I just thought they had a psychoanalyst at his next school. And that he just “got sick” as a temporary thing. A bit disappointing.

Fave bits:

“Boy, I really fouled that up. I should’ve at least made it for cocktails or something.”

“People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I’d play it in the goddam closet.” [NB:  subjunctive.]

“And you could tell his date wasn’t even interested in the goddam game, but she was even funnier-looking than he was, so I guess she had to listen. Real ugly girls have it tough. I feel so sorry for them sometimes.”

“Which always kills me. I’m always saying ‘Glad to’ve met you’ to somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.”

“If you think I was dying to see him again, you’re crazy.”

“Newsreels. Christ Almighty. There’s always a dumb horse race, and some dame breaking a bottle over a ship, and some chimpanzee riding a goddam bicycle with pants on.”

“You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they’re mean bastards at heart. I’m not kidding.”

“… I’d meet this beautiful girl that was also a deaf-mute and we’d get married. She’d come to live in my cabin with me, and if she wanted to say anything to me, she’d have to write it on a goddam piece of paper, like everybody else.”

“I know more damn perverts, at schools and all, than anybody you ever met, and they’re always being perverty when I’m around.” 😉

*Not as depressing as The Game by Neil Strauss, though it’s a great read.