This week I review two novels by Kerry Fisher. They are both set in Rome, tempting me to add this city to my 2024 travels as features that I have not read about previously are brought to light in these detailed works. One, Secrets at the Rome Apartment, was sent to me by NetGalley as an uncorrected copy for review. I was able to buy the first in what might well become a very readable series, on book Bub for 99p – a good find indeed.
Kerry Fisher begins this delightful series with The Rome Apartment, in which the continuing characters, Ronnie and her daughter Nadia, and Marina are introduced. Their personalities are well observed in this first novel although it centres on Beth and the possible breakdown of her marriage. Ronnie’s and Nadia’s fraught relationship is sketched in around the possibility of the latter and her husband taking up residence in one of Ronnie’s Roman apartments, on a sabbatical from Britain. Ronnie and Marina’s relationship is described through their interaction with Beth, visiting in response to their advertisement of the apartment as a place for a woman in crisis to recuperate. Beth becomes the resident of the apartment Nadia would like to use. Although there are two other apartments they are in a state of disrepair. Their refurbishment and the manner in which is accomplished cleverly adds to the Marina’s characterisation. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
Kerry Fisher, Secrets at the Rome Apartment (The Italian Escape Book 2), Bookouture July 2023
Secrets at the Rome Apartment continues the story of Ronnie, Nadia and Marina. A prologue establishes that one of the characters has been involved in a devastating accident. In the first chapter, Ronnie six years after his death, has obeyed her daughter, Nadia’s demand that she put flowers on her husband, Matteo’s grave. While there she meets Gianna, his mistress of twenty years and a reason for Ronnie’s reluctance. This chapter establishes that Ronnie’s secrets have impacted on her marriage and relationship with Nadia. Chapter 2 is a return to the past, June 1971, and Ronnie’s secrets begin to be revealed. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.
After the Covid update: Cindy Lou; Annabelle Crabb and Kitchen Cabinet; Heather Cox Richardson re the Republican Party; Guardian Live advertised talk – In conversation with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Hillary Clinton interviewed by Rachel Maddow; Georgia Indictments.
Covid update by Australian state on Friday 11 August, 2023
Australian Capital Territory : 191 new cases; 9 in hospital; none in ICU or ventilated; no deaths recorded.
New South Wales: 1,993 new cases; 664 in hospital with 13 in intensive care; 36 new deaths recorded.
Northern Territory: Five average cases in the week to August 8, with one in hospital and none in ICU. No deaths were recorded. NB the Northern Territory records data fortnightly so the next record will be Friday August 18.
Queensland: Records on a seven-day rolling system (as per the federal government’s national reporting site). There were 183 daily average cases (a decrease from the previous week); 119 people in hospital and one in ICU.
South Australia: there were 503 new cases (a decrease from 536 last week); 37 people are in hospital and three in ICU. There were no deaths recorded.
Tasmania: there were 217 new cases with 7 people in hospital and 1 in ICU.
Victoria: no independent recording of statistics. However, the federal statics show that there were 63 average daily cases, another decrease. There were 85 people in hospital and 5 in ICU. There was one death recoded.
Western Australia: There were 677 new cases with 59 people in hospital, with 3 in intensive care. There were 10 deaths recorded.
Cindy Lou at Divine, Jamieson
A pleasant lunch at Divine Cafe and Bar meant that I did not have to venture into a cold Canberra night for a meal out for a change from home cooking. I chose from the lunch menu and my friend chose from the breakfast menu that is available until 2.30. My prawns were some of the nicest I have had – large and nicely cooked, no chilli, just luscious prawns. The accompaniment of rice noodles, egg, tofu, shallot and crisp bean sprouts made a delicious meal.
The spice beans shakshuka breakfast menu dish was generous and also, from the look of the dish at the end, delicious.
Two tropical juices accompanying the meals were excellent.
ABC BACKSTORY
Annabel Crabb on what happens behind the scenes of Kitchen Cabinet and the importance of a travel-hardy dessert *
By Backstory editor Natasha Johnson Posted Yesterday [Saturday] at 12:21pm
Picture this… Annabel Crabb checking in at an airport, popping her signature wicker basket through security screening and boarding a plane, hoping the precious contents of her basket survive the flight and the change in weather conditions between the place of departure and the destination – the home of a politician she’s filming for her show, Kitchen Cabinet.
Returning after seven years, the new series profiles former Home Affairs minister Karen Andrews, Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Western Sydney Independent Dai Le, Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John, Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe and Labor Minister Anika Wells.
Crabb has travelled to the Gold Coast, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Wodonga and Sydney and her logistical challenge – aside from the interview itself, of course — is always how to make sure the dessert she’s carefully crafted is delivered in the best shape possible.
“My friend Wendy Sharpe, with whom I’ve written a couple of cookbooks, is an imaginative cook and she helps me with the recipes, so we’ll go through who is this person, what’s their background, I might ask them what sort of dessert do you like?”
“For example, Peter Dutton said he loves custard, and I thought okay that figures, so I made him a custard slice, but I put in some tweaks that I thought might appeal to a Queensland cop… like rum and coffee,” she explains. “So, we come up with a dessert that’s appropriate, looks nice on television and that will cope with a couple of hours in a plane [if we’re travelling interstate]. “Then, I make the dessert in my own kitchen, I’ll do a few trial runs first and once I’m confident I can make it, I devise a way of transporting it.”
“At airports I carry the dessert in my basket, which fits into the plane’s overhead compartment, and people tend to recognise me and know what I am doing but travelling to Perth with food can be tricky, because they’re VERY conscious of what you take into the West. “I’ve been pulled up at Perth airport with cake forks several times, so I’ve also learned that cutlery can be an issue!”
There have — over the previous six seasons, which aired between 2012 and 2016 — been occasions when the dessert didn’t last the distance.
“Probably my biggest disaster was the brandy snap baskets I made for Craig Emerson in 2012, which were supposed to be filled with passion fruit curd and berries,” she recalls. “They were a MASSIVE pain in the arse to make and then I made the mistake of transporting them in a vintage tin whose beauty sadly outshone its actual airtightness. “Combined with the Brisbane humidity, my crisp little baskets became flat, flabby discs. “You’ll notice in that episode that the camera doesn’t linger on the dessert! “Also, in the last Kitchen Cabinet that went to air – two days before the 2016 election – I took Bill Shorten a picnic.”
“Foolishly, I once again relied on a vintage item – a fabulous old picnic case. “The Thermos leaked all over the sandwiches. “Shorten very politely ate soggy sandwiches without complaint.”
Of course, the show is not really about food, either Crabb’s creation or her interviewees.
Rather, what politicians reveal about their personal and political lives during a relaxed conversation in the comfort of their kitchen, freed from the straitjacket of scripted ‘talking points’, evasions and snappy sound grabs that usually pepper daily political discourse.
“The food is essentially a device,” she says. “It gives people something to do with their hands and it’s something that they can concentrate on or switch to talking about if they feel uncomfortable. “If I’m going too far with something personal they go ‘oh, I think the beans are boiling’! “It’s a bit like how you have the best conversations with teenagers when driving in a car to footy training or somewhere and you’re not looking at each other. “Somehow, you get more out of that conversation. “This is the same thing; my main aim is to make them forget that they’re doing a televised interview so they will tell me more stuff.”
Crabb came up with the idea for the show after years working as a political journalist in the Canberra press gallery and says Kitchen Cabinet aims to give the audience a new insight into their elected representatives.
This season showcases the diversity of the current parliament, with the eight politicians featured having very different life stories and paths into politics.
“I always thought it was interesting that when you met politicians when it wasn’t in a formal interview situation you often learned a lot more about them and it was always useful in predicting how they were going to jump on certain issues because politicians are humans with huge subjectivity,” she says. “The thing that they will pursue and pursue and pursue or the thing that they will expend some political capital on is something that’s important to them because of something that happened to them in their life. “I don’t think Kitchen Cabinet is a substitute for political coverage — people critique the show and say oh, you’re giving them a soft ride. “Well, I interview people who get a hard time on the ABC all the time but I’m trying to find out stuff that you wouldn’t be able to find out if you had your boots on their throat in an interview. “It’s a delicate balance too — sometimes, if I’m asking about something very, very personal I will canvass it with a politician in advance. “Every single politician we elect has a back-story that dictates the way they behave in politics and whether you love or loathe them, it’s always worth knowing that story.”
To avoid interrupting the flow of conversation, four cameras are set up in the politician’s home and film pretty much non-stop for about four and a half hours.
“The point of having so many cameras is that you can set up, light the place and then I can just step in and have a conversation where we’re not stopping and starting and saying ‘will you please say that again down camera two’ or whatever,” Crabb explains. “I’ve also got a very handy crew who’ve been with this show for a long time — director Stamatia Maroupas, director of photography Josh Flavell, sound recordist Gavin Marsh, camera operator Ben Lindberg, makeup artist Belinda Weber — somehow they manage to make a high-quality half hour of TV in one day, which is almost unheard-of. “And executive producer Madeleine Hawcroft has been there since the very beginning when she spent every shoot wearing my newborn baby in a sling, walking around the location outside with an earbud in her ear listening as I did the interview inside. “That’s how committed this brilliant crew is.
“We only have our guests for one day. “It’s hard enough to get one day out of the working politician’s schedule let alone an opposition leader or minister, so we’ve got to get it all done fast. “I prepare a list of questions, but I don’t really ever have them in front of me.
“I don’t walk in with a notebook. “From the first second the cameras roll, I try to engage them in conversation in such an absorbing way that they forget that there are cameras there, and, weirdly enough, even though it’s an incredibly awkward set up it’s amazing how quickly they do relax.”
What helps is the politician’s choice of cuisine. They’re advised to choose something they feel comfortable cooking and has some meaning to them.
“You don’t want somebody to undertake to make a souffle and then have a meltdown on camera because it’s flopped,” Crabb says. “You want them to feel like they’re going to pull this off. “We don’t expect people to be brilliant cooks in fact, sometimes it’s hilarious when they aren’t.
“Joe Hockey was highly under qualified to be in the kitchen but that was quite amusing. “Mind you, I think the world has a different view of men who can’t cook from women who can’t cook. “Often the women politicians I talk to are much more anxious about whether the meal works because they know they’ll be judged for not being able to cook much more than men will be. “But that’s a conversation for another time!”
When the dinner and filming is finished, Crabb and the crew help do the dishes and pack up. As she tidies up production of this series, Crabb contemplates what could make a delicious dream episode – all eight guests breaking bread together around her dinner table.
“I think this series is the most interesting one we’ve made, there are so many revelations,” she says. “There are two of my guests, who have never had a conversation with each other which I find absolutely stunning — two very high-profile people, I can’t tell you who because it’s a hilarious moment in the series. “But this is something that is weird about parliament. “Sometimes people who disagree with each other, and even people who agree with each other on some things, do not have conversations with each other. “And I think that’s madness.
“I would have anybody on this series over to my house and preferably all of them at once because it would be a great night.”
Kitchen Cabinet begins Tuesday, August 15, at 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview
- edited – the quotes have been run together in the same paragraph in some cases for space purposes. An unnecessary apostrophe was removed (!)
Heather Cox Richardson American Letter
As I try to cover the news tonight, I am struck by how completely the Republican Party, which began in the 1850s as a noble endeavor to keep the United States government intact and to rebuild it to work for ordinary people, has devolved into a group of chaos agents feeding voters a fantasy world.
The big news today was the hearing in Washington, D.C., where Department of Justice prosecutors argued for a protective order to stop former president Trump from intimidating witnesses and tainting the jury pool in the case against him for trying to stop the counting of electoral votes that would decide the 2020 presidential election.
Trump appears to have given up on winning the cases against him on the legal merits and is instead trying to win by whipping up a political base to reelect him, or even to fight for him. He has filled his Truth Social account with unhinged rants attacking the justice system and the president, and on Sunday his lawyer, John Lauro, echoed Trump as he made a tour of the Sunday talk shows, misleadingly suggesting that Trump had been indicted for free speech. In fact, the indictment says up front that even Trump’s lies are protected by the First Amendment, but what isn’t protected is a conspiracy that stops an official proceeding and deprives the rest of us of our right to vote and to have our votes counted.
A grand jury indicted Trump on August 1; when he was arraigned on August 3, the magistrate judge warned him that it is a crime to “influence a juror or try to threaten or bribe a witness or retaliate against anyone” connected to the case. Trump said he understood.
The next day, he posted on Truth Social: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
Justice Department lawyers promptly sought a protective order to limit what information Trump and his lawyers can release. Trump has a longstanding pattern of releasing misleading information to bolster his position among his base, and lawyers are concerned that he will continue to intimidate witnesses and try to taint the jury pool in hopes of getting the trial venue moved.
Days later, Trump told an audience in New Hampshire that he would not stop talking about the case, and called Special Counsel Jack Smith a “thug” and “deranged.” He has continued to post such messages on social media.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan reinforced that Trump’s focus on politics had no relevance in her court of law. Justice reporter for NBC News Ryan Reilly noted: “The word of the Trump hearing today: yield. Came up six times, as in: ‘the fact that he’s running a political campaign currently has to yield to the orderly administration of justice.’”
Chutkan agreed to the protective order but agreed with Trump’s team that it would not include any material already in the public domain. She also prohibited Trump from reviewing materials with “any device capable of photocopying, recording, or otherwise replicating the Sensitive Materials, including a smart cellular device.”
Finally, she warned Trump’s lawyers: “I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements in this case…. I will take whatever measures are necessary to protect the integrity of these proceedings.” If Trump repeats “inflammatory” statements, she said, she will have to speed up his trial to protect witnesses and keep the jury pool untainted.
Just what that might mean was illustrated today when a judge revoked the bail of former FTX cryptocurrency chief executive officer Sam Bankman-Fried for witness tampering and sent him to jail. Prosecutors say Bankman-Fried was leaking the private diary entries of his former girlfriend to the New York Times to discredit her testimony against him.
In Ohio, where voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected the attempt of the Republicans in the legislature to stop a November vote on an amendment to the state constitution protecting abortion rights, Republicans tried to stop the inclusion of that amendment by challenging its form. Today the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously rejected that lawsuit. The proposed amendment will be on the ballot in November.
After demanding that David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in charge of investigating and charging Hunter Biden, be named a special counsel and then charging that Weiss had asked for and been denied that status—both he and Attorney General Merrick Garland denied that allegation—Republicans are now angry that Garland today gave Weiss that status.
Weiss requested that status for the first time earlier this week, and Garland granted it, although both Weiss and Garland had previously said Weiss had all the authority that status carries. Now House Republicans say appointing Weiss a special counsel is an attempt to obstruct Congress from investigating the Bidens. For all that Republicans are in front of the cameras every day insisting President Biden is corrupt, there is no evidence that President Biden has been party to any wrongdoing.
One of the things such behavior accomplishes is to distract from the party’s own troubles, including the inability of House Republicans to agree to measures to fund the government after September. Far-right extremists are still angry at the spending levels to which House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) agreed in a deal to raise the debt ceiling last June, and are threatening to refuse to agree to any funding measures until they get cuts that the Senate will never accept.
The House left for its August break after passing only one of the twelve bills it needs to pass, and when it gets back, it will have only twelve work days before the September 30 deadline. This chaos takes a toll: when the Fitch rating system downgraded the U.S. long-term rating last week, the first reason it cited was “a steady deterioration in standards of governance.” It explained: “The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management.”
Another thing this chaos does is convince individuals that the entire government is corrupt. On Wednesday, as Biden was to visit Utah, FBI agents shot and killed an armed man there who made threats against him, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other officials who have been associated with Trump’s legal troubles: Attorney General Garland, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, and New York attorney general Letitia James. Craig Deleeuw Robertson described himself as a “MAGA Trumper.”
It seems we are reaping the fruits of the political system planted in 1968, when the staff of Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon reworked American politics to package their leader for the election. “Voters are basically lazy,” one of Nixon’s media advisors wrote. “Reason requires a high degree of discipline, of concentration; impression is easier. Reason pushes the viewer back, it assaults him, it demands that he agree or disagree; impression can envelop him, invite him in, without making an intellectual demand…. When we argue with him, we…seek to engage his intellect…. The emotions are more easily roused, closer to the surface, more malleable.”
The confusion also takes up so much oxygen it’s hard for the Democrats, who are actually trying to govern in the usual ways, to get any attention. Today was the one-year anniversary of the PACT Act, officially known as the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022. The law improves access to healthcare and funding for veterans who were exposed to burn pits, the military’s waste disposal method for everything from tires to chemicals and jet fuel from the 1990s into the new century.
According to Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the PACT Act has already enabled more than 4 million veterans to be screened for toxic exposure, more than 744,000 PACT Act claims have been filed, and hundreds of thousands of veterans have been approved for expanded benefits.
Biden spoke in Utah about the government’s protections for veterans and why they’re important. In addition to the PACT Act, he talked about his recent executive order moving the authority for addressing claims of sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, and murder outside the chain of command to a specialized independent military unit—a move long championed by survivors and members of Congress.
Today the White House released a detailed explanation of “Bidenomics” along with resources explaining why the administration has focused on certain areas for public investment and how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act have supported that investment. That collection explains why the administration is overturning forty years of political economy to return to the system on which the U.S. relied from 1933 to 1981, and yet it got far less traction than the fight over the protective order designed to keep Trump from attacking witnesses.
—
Notes:
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/03/1191901829/trump-indictment-arraignment-news
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-indictment-campaign-election-interference-11cc4d1015c36e6ba078c00805d99838 ; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/judge-largely-sides-with-trump-defense-on-protective-order-in-2020-election-case; https://www.npr.org/2023/08/11/1191362886/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-sbf-crypto-fraud;https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-lawyer-john-lauro-indictment-defense-rcna98509;https://www.politico.com/interactives/2023/trump-criminal-investigations-cases-tracker-list/#jan- six; https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/fitch-downgrades-united-states-long-term-ratings-to-aa-from-aaa-outlook-stable-01-08-2023; https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/08-11-2023/gop-funding-meeting/https://apnews.com/article/utah-biden-fbi-assassination-threat-f9b31d6cd8e432870e4f8949cdb45b92; https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/08/10/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-one-year-anniversary-of-the-pact-act-salt-lake-city-ut/; https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/28/politics/biden-executive-order-sexual-assault-military/index.ht; https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-details-on-guy-who-threatened-to-assassinate-biden; https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/11/judge-warns-trump-speed-trial-00110870; Joe McGinnis, The Selling of the President, 1968 (London: Andre Deutsch, 1970), pp. 36, 41–45; https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/blog/2023/08/11/iia-resources/; https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/09/comer-biden-analysis/Twitter (X):
From The Guardian Live
| In conversation with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
| The award-winning Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will join us for a special livestreamed event to talk about her new children’s book, Mama’s Sleeping Scarf. A warm celebration of mother-daughter relationships and family life, the book is a joyous journey through an ordinary day in Lagos. Accompanied by beautiful illustrations by Joelle Avelino, Adichie shares the story of Chino, who plays with her mama’s scarf. She previously opened up conversations about mothers and daughters and what it means to be a woman today in the bestselling Dear Ijeawele: A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, which explored how mothers can empower their daughters to become strong and independent. Join her with the Guardian’s Lisa Allardice for a wide-ranging conversation about her first book for children, her writing about her family and how we can be feminist role models for our children. She will also be answering your questions in this livestreamed event. |
| Wednesday 6 September, 8pm–9pm |
| Book tickets |
Hillary Clinton on MSNBC
Hillary Clinton appeared on MSNBC on Tuesday afternoon (Australian time) interviewed by Rachel Maddow. This was an excellent interview and worth following up. In the meantime, some of the coverage:
Posted By Ian Schwartz Real Clear Politics On Date August 14, 2023
Hillary Clinton: When You Look At The People That Support Trump’s Attitudes, It Is So “Anti-American” In Every Way
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow discuss former President Donald Trump trashing the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team.
“When you really look at the whole network of people organizations and money that supports the kind of attitudes that Trump and those like him express, it is so anti-American in every way. And that is what shocks me, because people walk around with flags on talking about how they support him or one of his wannabe followers,” Clinton said.
The Independent – David Taintor
Hillary Clinton reveals one ‘satisfaction’ she gets from Trump’s indictment.
‘This is a terrible moment for our country, to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes,’ Hillary Clinton says.
Hillary Clinton responded in real-time to the news of Donald Trump’s likely fourth indictment in Georgia, revealing the one “satisfaction” she feels.
“I don’t know that anybody should be satisfied,” Ms Clinton told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow late Monday. “This is a terrible moment for our country, to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes. The only satisfaction may be that the system is working. Justice is being pursued.”
Deadline
Hillary Clinton’s Reaction To Trump 2020 Election Case Indictments On ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ Goes Viral*
By Armando Tinoco Night & Weekend Editor@armietinoco
…’Clinton had been set to appear on Maddow’s show to talk about an opinion piece she wrote for The Atlantic in which she talks about the politicization of social issues. The former First Lady of the United States and Secretary of State wound up giving her take on the latest indictments surrounding Trump.
“I don’t know that anybody should be satisfied. This is a terrible moment for our country to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes,” Clinton said. “The only satisfaction is that the system is working. That all of the efforts by Trump and his allies and enablers to try and silence the truth and undermine democracy have been brought into the light. And justice is being pursued.”
Trump was Clinton’s opponent in the 2016 presidential race which she ultimately lost. During his campaign, Trump incited his crowd of followers to chant “Lock her up,” in reference to Clinton using a personal e-mail system to handle classified information.
“I hope that we won’t have accountability just for Donald Trump and if there are others named in these indictments along with him for their behavior but we will also have accountability for a political party that has just thrown in with all the lies and the divisiveness and the lack of any conscience about what has been done to the country,” Clinton also said tonight.
*edited.
Robin's Room 