Week beginning 16 March 2022

The books reviewed this week are both fiction. They were sent to me by NetGalley for review. Lisa Unger’s Last Girl Ghosted and the inspiring story of the women’s march to Washington by thousands of women after the election of former President Trump have feminist themes. On the March by Trudy Krisher is a particularly enthralling read.

Lisa Unger Last Girl Ghosted HQ Digital An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers Ltd 2021.

Lisa Unger has always written novels that are totally engrossing, with their multi layered characters, gripping plots, and eye to the broader aspects of human relationships and society’s problems. Last Girl Ghosted drew me in once again to a novel that kept me reading well after the light should have been out. See Books: Reviews for a complete review.

Trudy Krisher On the March: A Novel of the Women’s March on Washington The Social Justice Press, 2022.

Reading this poignant, yet uplifting novel, was an absolute joy. More than that, I learnt so much, not just about the Women’s March to Washington after the Inauguration of the former president, Donald Trump, but about the issues raised by the main characters.

Henrietta, Birdie, Lou, Emily, Jenny, Katie and inspiring women leaders gather on a bus to travel to Washington from Kansas. The trip is punctuated with practicalities, such as where to sit, stopping for food and rest rooms, tiredness and general discomfort, lack of space, and, more dramatically, the bus lurching into a mud patch. It also involves listening to conversations that offend and enlighten, being enthused by a leader, making friends and learning new skills. Behind all this observable activity is the complexity of several characters’ inner thoughts, their background stories, the events that they cannot bear to think about, and hide from themselves as well as others. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.

After the Covid Report: Cindy Lou at Black Fire; Russian Embassy in Lisbon lit up in blue and yellow; Sydney Harbour Bridge find; Barbara Pym’s Novels Resonate; Outrage Sign a reminder of the women’s march to Parliament a year ago; Paul Borngiorno – article about Anthony Albanese.

Covid in Canberra

New cases recorded on 9th March – 838; 10th march – 821 cases; 11th March – 791 cases. Although there were thirty seven [people in hospital on the 9th, with two in ICU, one of whom was ventilated, the numbers were static or improved over the three days with the same numbers on the 10th, and thirty one in hospital with one in ICU and ventilated on the 11th.

Sadly, three more deaths have been recorded with one occurring in February and the others in March. The total number of lives lost in Canberra is 37. Total cases recoded since March 12 2020 is 58,021. Vaccination numbers continue to improve, with 79.0% five to eleven year olds having received one dose. Second doses have begun for this age group. Boosters have been given to 70.0% of Canberra’s population over sixteen.

New cases recorded on 15th and 16th March – 786; and 1, 226 new cases. There were forty people in hospital, with four in ICU on the 15th, and one life lost. Although there was a dramatic increase in cases on the 16th, there were no more people in hospital.

Cindy Lou at Black Fire – Again!

I was thrilled to find that, unlike many restaurants on Canberra Day, Black Fire was open for lunch. This meant that the meal that I was keen to have with my friends and grandson could be arranged before I must succumb to eating pap after dental treatment. It was such a pleasant surprise I checked on when this restaurant is closed – rarely is the answer. Christmas Day and one other (possibly New Years, but I shall check next time I am eating there). As usual, the food was delicious, the service efficient and friendly, the space between the tables generous. And no noisy music! A tremendous start.

We had three courses, as well as a bread smothered in fresh tomatoes to begin. The bell peppers stuffed with crab were delicious, as were the panzarotto and the prawns. The last is my favourite dish, with the stuffed bell peppers a close second. Mains also included prawns (I love the prawns and the bell peppers as a meal), a beautifully cooked strip loin steak, one friend’s favourite Maltagliato and the ravioli.

The desserts were all tempting but we decided on the fig gelato, the cheese cake, the chocolate coulant and the crema catalana. With a reasonable variety of wines available by the glass and coffee, this was an excellent Monday holiday lunch.

Copied from Facebook – Thank you, Roger Hutchinson

From The Sydney Morning Herald – a fascinating story: Rare Harbour Bridge photos prompt search for woman missing from history

Julie Power  15 hrs ago

A rare album of photographs by a woman documenting construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge was lost in the State Library of NSW for nearly 90 years, a victim of poor cataloguing.

Known only by her married name, Mrs Frank Smith was a talented prize-winning amateur who documented the five-year period before the bridge opened on March 19, 1932.

The images reveal she had rare access. “I stood on the bridge at midday,” she writes, describing a page of photos in which she is perched on the unfinished structure surrounded by male workers.

Now the library is trying to solve the mystery of who Mrs Frank Smith was. Her photo album, donated in 1937, will go on display from March 19 in the library’s Amaze Gallery to mark the 90th anniversary of the bridge opening.

Celebrations begin on March 17, with a light show beamed on the eastern and western sides of the bridge. On Saturday, locomotive 3801 will leave Central Station through the city underground line and travel up onto the bridge’s main deck.

State Library curator Margot Riley found Mrs Smith’s album in a category called printed books after the library’s collection was relocated during the pandemic.

“I thought, ‘wow, this is totally new’,” Ms Riley said.

The photos were “beautiful” for an amateur, some similar in style to the moody images with cloudy skies shot by professional photographer Harold Cazneaux.

The album is prefaced with a poem about the bridge, which Mrs Smith describes as an “arch of strength and beauty”. The poem describes the bridge as majestic, and far-flung across the sky, and gives thanks to the men “who thought you” and “wrought you”.

There are similar albums by male photographers in the library’s collection, but this is the only known album by a woman, Ms Riley said.

She was delighted to find it because so little attention had been paid to the contribution of women to the building of the bridge “beyond the occasional glimpse of a cloche hat or silk stockinged limb among the many booted and suited men photographed at the milestone moments”.

The album proved women were as caught up in the “excitement of the spectacle, witnessing the engineering marvel that was taking place before their eyes, as their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons”, she said.

Today in Australia, only 13 per cent of engineers are women. During construction of the bridge, women were involved in the clerical side of the public service, engineering and construction industries.

They included Kathleen Butler, secretary of chief engineer John Bradfield. Ms Butler helped Bradfield prepare the bridge’s specifications, managed the tenders for the £5 million contract, and is understood to have written most of the legislation.

“If Mr Bradfield is the father of the bridge, Ms Butler is the godmother,” wrote the Blue Mountain Echo.

She was acknowledged by Bradfield for her “invaluable assistance”. Because of public service rules, she had to leave her job when she married in about 1927, Ms Riley said.

Vera Lawson worked as a comptometer operator for Dorman Long (the British engineering company that won the tender to build the bridge). She calculated pay, invoices, workers’ compensation and quantity estimates for the company.

Not much is known about Mrs Smith. Ms Riley said there were some clues. Unlike the public, she had frequent access to the bridge during construction. She was well dressed and travelled by ferry frequently to the city, taking photos of the bridge as its arms inched together. In those days, photography was an expensive pastime, suggesting she was well off.

The album includes autographs from engineers, including those brought to Australia by the British Construction Engineers company for construction. She may have been married to one.

It is also signed by Lawrence Ennis, engineer, managing director of Dorman Long & Co., Ltd and construction supervisor of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, 1929.

If you know more, please contact the State Library or jpower@smh.com.au

Note: the photos are Bing photos, added for interest. They are not from the discovered album.

Barbara Pym’s Novels Resonate

Above in Cindy Lou’s Review of Black Fire and its delicious menu offerings I mentioned the ‘pap’ I might have to eat instead after some dental treatment. I was reminded of one of Barbara Pym’s wonderful vignettes of the men that at times she viewed with affectionate weariness. In A Few Green Leaves Dr Gellibrand complains about the food at the Hunger Lunch, asking for another slice of bread he originally dismissed as “pappy” . The Hunger Lunch brings out the worst in the men, with the older doctor’s querulous behaviour; the young doctor’s having opted for a hearty casserole at home and the rector refusing to provide a “pious bromide” in agreement with Miss Lee’s statement that people cannot always have what they want .  The women, in this rare case adopting nurturing qualities, deal more easily with a charitable event that depends on their own restraint. (Robin Joyce, Barbara Pym’s Troublesome Women).

A year ago – a great start, followed by Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins at the Press Club. We want and need more. Action!

The New Daily

Paul Bongiorno: Not being Scott Morrison gets better by the day for Anthony Albanese

OPINION

Paul Bongiorno

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By now few on either side of politics are convinced Scott Morrison will repeat his death-defying victory at this year’s federal election most likely to be held in just 60 days.

All hope of something turning up to reverse their fortunes is evaporating for Coalition MPs and senators.

The latest Newspoll is merely confirmation of the feedback they are getting in their electorates, best summed up by the comment “Morrison’s lost the mob. They have given up listening to him”.

Labor has had an extraordinary run in the poll this year. It has led all four by 10 points or more – landslide territory if repeated at the election.

Of course, borrowing from Italian opera, it’s not over until the fat lady sings, or more pertinently, till the last vote is cast.

But Labor insiders are more confident, albeit nervous that Anthony Albanese won’t be the stumbling block for voters in the same way Bill Shorten was last time.

The findings of Newspoll are very encouraging for Labor in this regard: In February 2021 Morrison led Albanese as preferred PM by 35 points. Thirteen months later, that lead has vanished.

In the same period, approval of Morrison’s performance has dramatically eroded as Albanese’s has steadily grown.

Here there has been a 55-point turnaround, with the Prime Minister now 14 points in negative territory, and the Labor leader in the positive by two points.

Albanese believes voters are far more cynical of his opponents “this time around”.

The revamped, lean and hungry “Albo” as he was portrayed in the 60 Minutes profile on Sunday night said voters know what “Scott Morrison is, they’ll be more sceptical”.

Indeed, the producers of Nine’s flagship current affairs show used a telling graphic at the beginning of Karl Stefanovic’s report.

It had a spruced-up Albanese resplendent in a business suit, shirt and tie, wearing his new “serious glasses” and looking prime ministerial while over his shoulder was Scott Morrison in a polo shirt playing the ukulele.

Albanese, like his campaign advisers, believes the photo ops, the hair shampooing, the mopping an already cleaned basketball court are working against Morrison.

The Opposition Leader quipped to Stefanovic that the ukulele playing that featured in the show’s profile of the PM a couple of weeks back, was unforgettably bad: “I’ve seen and heard it. It now cannot be unseen.”

The Albanese camp is thrilled their man’s appearance on the program drew 60,000 more viewers than Morrison and won its timeslot in the five mainland state capitals.

This could suggest voters are curious to know more about Albanese, who self-describes as a straight shooter “what you see is what you get”, whereas he doesn’t quibble with the description of Morrison as “a liar” because he has “said things to me that are simply untrue”.

Not being Scott Morrison is a huge leg up for Labor on the cusp of the election campaign.

Governments do tend to lose elections rather than oppositions win them and the signs are this is happening.

Scott Morrison’s response to the flood catastrophe is being likened to his equally tin-eared blame shifting over the Black Summer bushfires.

How the Prime Minister thinks hiding behind bureaucratic process can protect him from flood victims’ angry sense of abandonment is a mystery.

Former treasurer Wayne Swan will not have a bar of it.

He recalls how quickly then prime minister Julia Gillard responded to the 2011 Brisbane floods, earning the gratitude of the Queensland premier for Canberra taking the initiative.

And that was before Morrison’s much-touted new emergency measures were brought in on the promise to cut red tape.

The budget at the end of the month is the government’s last best chance for a reversal of its fortunes.

The tactic of bringing forward a big-spending budget and then quickly going to the election worked like a treat last time, but the task is now much more daunting.

On Morrison’s watch government gross debt hit a record $866 billion last week, undermining his attacks on Labor and throwing into bold relief the contradiction of talking small government and free markets while at the same time proudly touting massive interventions with the promise of more to come.

Albanese is unsaddled by this ideological straitjacket, he says Morrison “adheres to a rigid ideological view that if governments just get out of the way, market forces can meet all the challenges”.

Voters have had three years to see what the Prime Minister means and they are clearly unimpressed. They see him shirking the job they have entrusted to him.

Albanese is promising a different style of leadership, he says “government can make it easier for business and communities to respond to crisis”.

A real choice is galvanising for voters.

Paul Bongiorno AM is a veteran of the Canberra Press Gallery, with 40 years’ experience covering Australian politics.