Week Beginning 28 June 2023

The book I review this week, America’s Black Capital How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy, was given to me by NetGalley as an uncorrected proof. It is reviewed after a tribute to Simon Crean, former Leader of the Australian Labor Party.

I was very sad to hear of Simon Crean’s sudden death. We were friends and colleagues for more than 30 years. He will be remembered for his strong stance against the war in Iraq and for a lifetime of commitment to the interests of the least advantaged in Australia. My sympathy to Carole, David and all his friends and family.  Bob McMullan

Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar America’s Black Capital How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy Basic Books, November 2023.

Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar has written such an illuminating book, one that I have been gratified to have read, and one that I encourage others to read. Ogbar’s history, cultural studies, political and personal understanding of the way in which race has dominated the Atlanta scene permeates the book, making it one that needs to be read to enhance an understanding of the way in which race/economics/politics and utter courage have come together since the American Civil War to bring America to where it is today. Ogbar does not eschew mention of Birth of a Nation (based on The Clansman), Gone With the Wind, the Uncle Remus stories and confederate icons such as statues, songs and societies, but dissects them and their impact. Rather than dismiss them, he powerfully demonstrates how such works continue the efforts of those who supported slavery and were critical of the changes attempted after the end of the war.  This book helps develop an understanding of the racism that is so powerfully operating to undermine African Americans’ access to political power today. But it also begins with reference to the amazing Stacey Abrams, and the wonderful success of Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock to the Senate in 2021, and more recently, for a six-year term. It is a book of horror and hope, gripping and uplifting. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.

After the Covid Update: Bendigo Art Gallery – Australiana Designing a Nation and some of the Women’s Weekly exhibits; ice-creams from Secret London; and Friday essay: ‘the problem is that my success seems to get in his way’ – the fraught terrain of literary marriages- article in The Conversation.

Covid update

At 23 June the total number of cases of Covid -19 for the ACT was 243,455. There were 357 new cases this week with 19 people in hospital suffering from Covid. Two are in ICU, none are ventilated. Four lives were lost to Covid this week.

 

Bendigo Art Gallery

We thought that the two-hour train trip from Melbourne to Bendigo would be worth the time during our short stay in Melbourne. The Australiana: Designing a Nation Exhibition was the initial drawcard, but we were also interested to see that part of the current exhibition The Australian Women’s Weekly was also in situ.

The Australiana: Designing a Nation was stunning in its variety of sources and artists, and display. Paintings depicting humor, ‘typical aussie’ scenes, overpowering artifacts and lyrical bush scenes were well curated; the gallery is light and provides for plenty of space in which to enjoy the works at leisure; and entry is free. The gallery is a reasonable walk from the railway station.

From: Secret London

Secret London provides a surprise every time it appears in my in box. The list of secret sites to visit around London, listed in a previous post, has provided me with some excellent venues to visit while I am there. I am not sure about the ice-cream flavours described below, but more adventuresome people might find them appealing. The opportunity to subscribe to find out more is below.

Not subscribed yet? It only takes two seconds! Subscribe →Thanks for reading and sharing! We’ll be back next week with more plans. Have a great day and see you in London.
The Ice Cream Shop With Brain-Freezingly Terrifying Flavours Returns To London This Month

Usually, when you can’t decide which flavour of ice cream you want, it’s because they all sound too good to choose…

 SAM BARKER – STAFF WRITER • 19 JUNE, 2023

Last year British fashion designer Anya Hindmarch decided to serve up some of the most Willy Wonka-esque flavours of ice cream and sorbet. And it was such a hit that she’s bringing them all back – and more!

The flavours didn’t just come from nowhere. Instead, their inspiration could be traced to previous releases from the brand. The pop-up, described as a “minimalist temple to the joy of ice cream and sorbet, with a twist,” served up tubs of dessert whose flavours mirrored the Anya Brands accessories collection. These included the likes of a gloriously glittery Heinz Baked Beans bag, to name one example.

Now, about those flavours

All of the flavours have been developed to actually be rather delicious, no matter how bizarre they sound. For example, the Heinz Baked Beans flavour is a rich, sweet ice cream packed full of protein. And supposedly it counts as one of your five-a-day!

The Heinz Mayonnaise flavour, meanwhile, is rich and creamy with the zesty and bright addition of a touch of lemon and vinegar. And the Lea & Perrins flavour? Well, that’s tomato sorbet with a dash of Worcestershire sauce thrown in. Yeah. We’re still not sure about that one…

More flavours from The Ice Cream Project
Credit: Anya Hindmarch

The Ice Cream Project is returning for the summer and opens its doors on June 29. Don’t miss out on this year’s opening – especially if you couldn’t make it down last year! And don’t worry, there are also some delicious-sounding flavours. Kellogg’s Coco Pop ice cream anyone? Lyle’s golden syrup? Come on! Or what about the Bird’s Custard flavour?

With some intriguing flavours and some downright baffling ones, we’d be lying if we said we didn’t want to try them all. We just have to figure out how much that will cost…

Read more: The Sweetest Spots In The City To Find The Best Dessert In London.

The Conversation

We believe in the free flow of information. Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.

I read the article below with mixed feelings! That is, until the last sentence – an excellent response to a sexist interviewer.

 

Friday essay: ‘the problem is that my success seems to get in his way’ – the fraught terrain of literary marriages

Published: June 23, 2023 6.07am AEST

“It’s true to say that writers are selfish people,” the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard once said. “But it’s not quite enough of an excuse.”

Howard was married to British author Kingsley Amis. Novelist Martin Amis, Kingsley’s son, credited his stepmother for encouraging his own writing career – not his father. But exhausted by the biggest child in the house – Kingsley – Howard often felt “too worn down by insecurity and fatigue to write”. “He got up and wrote,” Howard recalled. “Then he ate lunch, had a walk or sleep, and then he wrote again.”

Writes Carmela Ciuraru, in her book Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages: “It was an idyllic existence – for him.” Howard, she notes, published three novels in the 18-year marriage; Amis published nearly 20.

Elsa Morante, the Italian author who inspired Elena Ferrante, once wrote, “literary couples are a plague”. Married to novelist Alberto Moravia, her partnership (like that of Howard and Amis) is chronicled in Ciuraru’s book – along with Roald Dahl and actor Patricia Neal, sculptor and translator Una Troubridge and author Radclyffe Hall, and author Elaine Dundy, married to British theatre critic Kenneth Tynan.

When both people in a relationship are writers, creative space is a faultline. So are matters such as who looks after the kids, inspiration turf wars, and yes, jealousy about success. As Ciaruru shows, it’s often the wives who ultimately choose writing over wedded bliss.

Rooms – or tables – of their own

The tension starts with writing space. Virginia Woolf famously observed that money and time is required for a room of one’s own. At Monk House, Woolf built a new writing lodge after she was irritated by her publisher husband Leonard and their dog. “The little noise upsets me; I can’t think what I was going to say.”

Most writing couples don’t have Monk House and its grounds to divide, especially in the early years. Instead they scrap over who gets the dining room table, or share it – as Charmian Clift and George Johnston did while writing The Sponge Divers together on the Greek island of Kalymnos in the early 1950s. They later upgraded to a shared home studio on the island of Hydra.

Clift’s biographer, Nadia Wheatley, writes:

The image of Charmian and George writing together is a potent one: two people bashing away at two typewriters on the one table. Stacks of typescript – his spilling over into hers; hers ending up in the middle of his – the air wreathed in cigarette smoke […]

Novelist Kristin Williamson and her playwright husband David also started out table sharing, less harmoniously. In her biography of David, Behind the Scenes, she remembers that compared to David’s typing, she felt like a “slug on tranquilisers”. They since always ensured each has a room of their own in later houses. But as Kristin quips, “David’s is larger. His rooms always have been.”

When Australian authors Ruth Park (originally a New Zealander) and D’Arcy Niland lived in a rented inner-city room in Sydney’s Surry Hills, the suburb that inspired her novel, The Harp in the South (1948), they wrote story ideas on each other’s palms in bed. Park recalls that when they finally moved into a flat that had more room, Niland:

made a beeline for the dining room table, excitedly opened the typewriter, and spread out his dictionaries, papers, and reference books. “Look!” he cried. “I’ve a proper place to work at last”.

Park tried to share the table. But “gradually his papers encroached, files ostentatiously fell to the floor; the carriage of my typewriter constantly hit things […]” She gave up. Park reflects in her second memoir, Fishing in the Styx, that she should have fought harder for space to write, but “the ironing board was a minuscule price to pay for all the good things in his character and our relationship”. They eventually moved into a large but decaying house.

Kenneth Tynan, by contrast, made his wife plain uncomfortable when she turned from acting to writing after they married in 1951. Observes Ciuraru,

Whereas he had his study as a refuge […] Elaine (Dundy) wrote each day “slowly but steadily” on the living room sofa with a typewriter propped up on her knees. Her back hurt.

Space causes friction between established writers too. Murray Bail demanded total solitude while writing Eucalyptus (1998). Garner diarised her exile from their apartment that was his workspace in the third volume of her published diaries, How to End a Story.

Garner felt forced to rent a bland office. Even on weekends, or with the flu, she felt unwelcome at home:

With a friend who is married to a painter, I compared notes about our respective husbands and their demands […] Like me she is expected to run the house, do the shopping and cooking, and keep the home fires burning, all this without being permitted on the premises during work hours. I saw in her face my unhappiness. We did not know whether, or how, we could go tolerating their regimes.

She fears she will “wither away with loneliness”. After the office lease ends, Garner moves out to a new apartment of her own, and separation.

Separate spaces, however, kept the Morante-Moravia union together. Morante, who died in 1985, published four Italian novels, including the acclaimed House of Liars and Arturo’s Island, and volumes of essays, short stories and poetry.

Elsa Morante.

Her husband said: “Writing was her life”; she called her characters “my people”. Morante preferred cats, who did not criticise her work or interrupt her.

Moravia was an Italian literary lion after his 1929 debut, The Time of Indifference. She and Morante hid in a one-room hut in the mountains for nine months during World War II (which later inspired Moravia’s 1957 novel, Two Women.)

Ciaruru quotes Moravia as recalling this time together as “their greatest intimacy”. After the war, Moravia bought Morante a small apartment to use as a writing studio, largely funded by his bestselling novel, The Woman of Rome (1947).

“She says I am too noisy, too nervous, that she needs privacy,” he said. “I can write in a hotel lobby or with someone playing (the bass) in the chair near me.”

Morante admitted she was a “a little ashamed” about insisting on solitude. But, “if I had to write near Alberto I probably would not write at all. And I would be unhappy.” Moravia understood, and was happy and prolific amid his noise in their villa, publishing classics including The Conformist (1951), adapted into a film by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1970.

Domestic tensions

If kids come along, things get more fraught. Pregnant again in 1948, with her first child only seven months old, Clift was frustrated. She and Johnston had just won a Sydney Morning Herald novel prize for their collaboration, High Valley. Clift recalled:

At this point I should have taken wings and started to fly but […] I was involved in having children […] I think those are terribly difficult years for any young woman and for a young woman who wants to write or paint or anything else, even more so.

After they moved to Kalymnos in 1954, she gratefully paid a local woman to help. She did the same on Hydra, when their third child was born on the island. Later, back in Australia, Clift applied for a literary grant for “domestic help”.

Something has to give – and it’s the housework or childcare, not writing, if they can afford it.

D’Arcy Niland and Ruth Park.

Others muddle through. A single mother, Garner grabbed precious school hours at a library to write her debut novel, Monkey Grip.

It is telling that Ruth Park wrote Harp in the South while visiting her parents in New Zealand, so had family help. Soon after its release, back in Sydney, her husband left for a research trip for his novel, The Shiralee, and she was left with the three children and no mother to help – Park couldn’t afford childcare, despite her success.

She then devised the Muddle-Headed Wombat series while her now five children had chicken pox and D’Arcy was on another research trip. Park recalls,

I again pondered bitterly the question of which one of us it was who carried the Shiralee, which I now understood meant burden.

Domestic tensions are not restricted to childcare. Elaine Dundy’s daughter, Tracy, had a nanny but Elaine still declined invitations to attend opening nights with her critic husband. Instead, she would stay home to write her novels. In response, Tynan was “embarrassed and angered” that his wife put her writing before appearances to support his work.

Garner writes that she was upset Bail did not welcome her now-adult daughter and fiancee at their home, seeing their presence as another imposition on his writing life. Nor did she feel free to “be messing around at home”.

Elizabeth Jane Howard. Wikipedia

Prior to meeting Kingsley Amis, Howard, an established novelist, had left her first husband and daughter, Nicola, as she was “selfishly determined to be a writer”. Nicola called her mother “a very beautiful stranger” in her childhood.

Ironically, Amis’s own selfishness overwhelmed Howard’s. She managed his moods and meals. She was his secretary and chauffeur and regularly catered dinner parties for up to 12 people where Amis could hold court, as well being a stepmother to her two stepsons, who lived with them.

Her complaints were met with Amis’s decree, “I’m older, heavier and earn more money”.

Morante did not have children, though Ciuraru suggests this was not by choice. While she adored children, Ciararu wonders if the reality would have been challenging given “daily life made her lose patience and become difficult”.

Literary ambition

Fights over space and the kids set the scene for the most ferocious faultline: literary ambition. Ciaruru sums up the creative competition when describing Amis and Howard: “both were ambitious writers, only one could achieve success”.

Tynan’s toxic jealousy fully emerged after the successful release of Dundy’s debut novel, The Dud Avocado, in 1958. “He confronted Elaine, warning if she ever dared to write another book, he would divorce her.” She began writing a new novel the next morning. They divorced four years later in 1964.

Some literary couples share success – to a point. Though possessive of the table, Niland encouraged Park to write Harp in the South. Wheatley notes of Clift-Johnston: “one of the common misconceptions about the relationship was that Charmian was perennially jealous of George’s output and success.”

Similarly, Wheatley recounts that Johnston “recognised [his wife] as a fellow writer, and indeed for many years he even publicly acknowledged that by literary standards she was a better writer than he was.”

According to Ciuraru, Moravia “spoke often and admiringly of Elsa’s genius, no matter the state of their marriage”, which he described as “a man and a woman in a very difficult, very personal relationship”.

But sharing in success has its limits. After the Sponge Divers collaboration, Clift carved creative space of her own:

“Actually of course, [The Sponge Divers] was a phoney [sic] collaboration because I was beyond the stage where I could collaborate any longer. I wanted to work in my own way. This was probably very egotistical, but most writers have this.”

As well as her Island memoirs and essays, Clift later published a novel, Honour’s Mimic, under her own name.

Williamson, the author of Tanglewood and other novels, quotes David’s reaction to her turning to creative writing from journalism: “Hey, this is my patch. But after I saw the work she was doing I was very impressed.” She qualifies, “I was writing novels rather than plays – imagine If I had dared to write a play!”

But Kristin declares that she first thought of the idea for David’s play, Siren, borne out of his affair: she planned to write it as a novel. The couple fought over the idea, arguing it was both their “lived experience”. Kristin capitulated, but “felt somewhat bitter about it for a while”. David later publicly gave her credit, and their marriage survived the literary explosion.

Vacating the field
Kristin Williamson says she first thought of the idea for David’s play Sirens, borne out of his affair: they fought over the idea. Lisa French/AAP

Not so Garner and Bail. Her fifth work of fiction Cosmo Cosmolino, was published the year she and Bail married (1992). But during the marriage she published her first book-length work of non-fiction, The First Stone, and the anthology, True Stories.

As Bail wrote his novel, in her diary, Garner realises:

All this jabber I carry on with lately, about how I’m heading for non-fiction, leaving fiction behind […] suddenly it strikes me that what I’m doing is vacating the field.

Garner adds:

He is generous as he can possibly be about my book and its success, but if I had success like that with a novel there’d be serious trouble […] Maybe it is true then. A woman artist who wants to develop as far as she can needs to live alone […] The problem is that my success seems to get in his way.

The marriage ended in 1998, after Eucalyptus was published. Garner returned to fiction in 2008 with The Spare Room..

After divorcing Tynan, Dundy wrote two novels, as well as biographies of Elvis Presley’s mother and Peter Finch. Howard’s literary output also rocketed after divorcing Amis in 1983. She was encouraged by her stepson, Martin Amis, to write The Cazalet Chronicles, a series of novels that drew on her family story,that were later adapted for television as The Cazalets.

With all these faultlines, it’s no wonder married authors keep their own names for continuous identity within and beyond a marriage. Morante “could not stand being called by her married name”, and could not fathom how other women “could tolerate this elision of their identity”.

Asked once in an interview if Moravia had influenced her work, Morante stiffened. “No,” she said. “He has an identity and I have an identity. Basta.”

She stopped the interview.

Week Beginning 21 June 2023

The book review this week is The Bedroom Window by K.L. Slater. However, I am also referring to the work I reviewed last week as that post had a very short time online as it was posted so late. Besides, I really love the cover of Plague Searchers and it deserves another airing .

K.L. Slater The Bedroom Window Bookouture, 2023.

Thank you, NetGalley, for this uncorrected proof for review.

Although I have given this novel 3* as I did for the previous K.L. Slater I reviewed (The Narrator) this is an instance of where a half * would have helped provide  a true star assessment.  I found The Bedroom Window disappointing in comparison with The Narrator and would have liked to give it less than the 3*, but it does not deserve only 2* .

My disappointment is partly based on the unappealing nature of the characters. Lottie, Neil and their son Alby move to Whitsend where Neil is to begin working as the manager of a beautiful estate. This is a new start for the three of them: Neil has recovered from a devastating accident; Lottie is no longer responsible for his care and can begin thinking of returning to work; and Albie has a new start away from a school in which he was bullied. The location is beautiful, the cottage in which they will live picturesque, Neil’s employers friendly and the job everything he wishes. What could go wrong? See Books: Reviews for the complete review.

 .

Rob Wills Plague Searchers Volumes 1 and 2 Arcadia 2022.

The description ‘immense’ has been at the forefront of my feelings about Rob Wills’ Plague Searchers, Volume 1, Red Wands and Volume 2, Flee Quick, Go Far. It is possible that such a description usually applies to novels that reach far into the past and future, that it implies that large characters will perform amazing deeds and that huge events will thunder across the pages and geographical expanses. Instead, Plague Searchers begins in London on Wednesday, 7 June 1665 with the last chapter set in London on Sunday, 29 October 1665. See Books: Reviews

After the Covid Report: Fremantle Arts Centre Exhibition; The Voice to Parliament; Glenda Jackson; Barbara Kingsolver and Demon Copperhead – prize; LWNC Breakout Sessions.

Covid Update Around Australia – ABC Report 16 June 2023

New South Wales

The state has recorded 6,906 new COVID-19 cases, down significantly from last week’s total of 11,719.

There are 1,412 cases in hospital with the virus, 35 of those in intensive care.

There were 53 new deaths announced today.

Victoria

There have been 3,956 new COVID-19 cases in Victoria this week, down significantly from last week’s total of 6,135 cases.

The state has 313 people in hospital with COVID-19, and 17 in intensive care.

There were 113 new deaths recorded.

Northern Territory

There have been 80 new COVID-19 cases recorded in the Northern Territory, down from 136 last week.

The Northern Territory currently has six patients in hospital.

South Australia

There have been 1,592 new COVID-19 cases recorded in South Australia, down from 2,593 cases last week.

There are currently 118 people in hospital, with five in ICU.

South Australia has reported 12 new deaths.

Queensland

Queensland’s new COVID-19 reporting process now works on a seven-day rolling average system, which differs from the other states and territories.

The state recorded 541 average daily cases as of June 19, down from an average of 782 the previous week.

There is a seven-day rolling average of two deaths as of May 29, with 322 patients in hospital with the virus, and eight in intensive care.

Australian Capital Territory

There were 478 new COVID-19 cases recorded in ACT, down from 811 cases last week.

There are currently 22 people in hospital with the virus, with one in intensive care and one ventilated.

The state recorded three new deaths.

Tasmania

There have been 624 new COVID-19 cases recorded in Tasmania, down from 964 cases last week.

There were 14 people admitted to hospital with the virus this week, with one in intensive care.

Tasmania has recorded 296 deaths since 2020.

Western Australia

WA Health has 2,344 recorded new COVID-19 cases, down from 3,014 cases last week.

As of 4pm Thursday, 191 people are in hospital with the virus, with three in intensive care.

This week’s report includes seven deaths.

Fremantle Arts Centre

I visited the Fremantle Arts Centre with a friend with whom I worked at the Western Australian Correspondence School in the early 1970s. There we illustrated the books that were used by high school level students in remote areas in Western Australia. Teachers who had retired from the classroom wrote the material. We were in a large room with windows across the wall against which our desks were placed. Plenty of light for our endeavours, and plenty of space for us to chat without disturbing the two teachers with whom we shared. Our work was in pen and ink with plenty of cross hatching from recall. None of the glorious colour we observed in our wandering around the Fremantle Arts Centre exhibition.

We were suitably impressed with the exciting exhibition at the Fremantle Arts Centre, and not all surprised about the large number of red spots beside these amazing works.

Similarly to the children’s space at the Western Australian Art Gallery in Perth, this smaller gallery had an attractive children’s section.

The Voice to Parliament

Anthony Albanese

Now the Australian people will have a chance to say yes.

Together, we can make history by enshrining recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our constitution.

The Constitution Alteration has passed the Senate!

Let’s deliver constitutional recognition through a Voice, together.

Inside Story – Losing ground?

Support for the Voice may not have dropped as much as the latest Newspoll suggests

MURRAY GOOT 9 JUNE 2023 

A number game: AFL player Michael Long (centre) during his Long Walk to the MCG last month promoting the Voice. Joel Carrett/AAP Image

The latest Newspoll — headlined “Less Than Half Aussies Intend to Vote ‘Yes’ on Voice” on the Australian’s front page — has created something of a stir.

At the beginning of April, when Newspoll last reported on support for putting a Voice into the Constitution, it estimated the level of approval at 53 per cent and opposition at 39 per cent; 8 per cent said “Don’t know.” Two months later, the corresponding figures are rather different: 46–43–11.

On the face of it, this looks like support has declined by seven points, the opposition has risen by four points, and the “Don’t knows” have gone up by three. And it looks like that’s the result of a couple of months in which the No side has campaigned hard and the Yes side has been on the back foot, with some of its erstwhile supporters either switching to No or putting off a firm decision and “parking” their vote, as Newspoll’s former boss Sol Lebovic used to say, under “Don’t know.”

Thus, Dennis Shanahan, in a comment for the Australian: “The latest Newspoll figures… suggest there is an across-the-board movement against the voice and a surge in uncertainty.”

Not so fast. There are two reasons for caution when comparing the June results with the April results: a change in Newspoll’s question and a change in what we might call, borrowing a phrase from Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s Nudge, its “choice architecture.”

The question: The Australian notes that the question asked in its latest poll is not the same as the question asked in its previous polls. The obvious implication is that its figures need to be interpreted with care.

In April, Newspoll explained that “There is a proposal to alter the Australian constitution to establish an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.” It then asked: “Are you personally in favour or against this proposal?”

In its latest poll, Newspoll used a slightly different preamble: “Later this year, Australians will decide at a referendum whether to alter the Australian Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice”(with those italicised words underlined in the questionnaire). It then asked: “Do you approve this proposed alteration?” This made it “the first Newspoll survey to present voters with the precise question they will be asked at the ballot box when the referendum is held later this year.”

If the differences in the wording of the two questions explains, at least in part, the differences in the two sets of responses, it is not clear how it does. Did the reference to “recognition” deflate support? That seems unlikely: since “recognition” has wide public support, its inclusion is more likely to have boosted support than deflated it. Did the prospect of having to vote at a referendum boost opposition? Again, that seems unlikely, though at a time when voters may have more pressing things to worry about, it’s probably the better bet. Perhaps the heavy black underlining of the proposal caused concern.

According to a quote in the Daily Telegraph, another News Corp masthead, polling analyst Kevin Bonham believes Newspoll is “likely more accurate” than many other polls because it has been the first to use the exact wording of the referendum proposal. However commendable that might have been, we cannot assume that the wording necessarily makes a difference to respondents.

A polling purist might baulk at Newspoll’s switch from: (a) asking respondents whether they are “in favour or against” (balanced alternatives) a proposal to alter the Constitution to establish a Voice; to (b) asking respondents whether they “approve” this proposed alteration, with no balancing alternative (“disapprove”). It might also have been better practice to ask respondents how they intended to act (that is, vote) rather than how they felt (“in favour or against”; “approve”).

The choice architecture: What the Australian overlooks — and what Newspoll itself fails to note — may be something more important than the change in the question: the change in the poll’s choice architecture. In April, Newspoll not just posed a different question; it also offered a different array of response options: “Strongly in favour,” “Partly in favour,” “Partly against,” “Strongly against,” “Don’t know.” In its most recent poll, by contrast, the options offered to respondents were simply: “Yes,” “No,” “Don’t know” — a set of responses, it should be acknowledged, better suited to a referendum than the set Newspoll previously offered.

How might this change have affected the results? With a wider number of response options, the proportion that chose “Don’t know” was relatively small; in April’s Newspoll, it was 8 per cent, with the numbers in February (7 per cent) and in March (9 per cent) having been almost the same. Polls by other companies in February, March or April that offered the same sort of choices as Newspoll offered in its latest poll reported higher figures for “Don’t know,” just as Newspoll now does.

The assumption that we can compare polls that use different architectures (Yes/No/Don’t know as against Strongly in favour/Partly in favour/Partly against/Strongly against/Don’t know) simply by collapsing categories (Yes = Strongly in favour + Partly in favour) is mistaken.

It is difficult to say how much the change in the Yes and No responses can be explained as an effect of the change in the choice architecture. But this doesn’t leave us without any bearings. As we would expect, the “Don’t know” number in June (11 per cent) is higher than it was in April (8 per cent); the “surge in uncertainty” is therefore almost certainly an illusion — an effect of changes in the response categories.

If the “Don’t know” number is higher, then the Yes and/or No vote has to be lower. In this Newspoll, the Yes vote is lower but it is also lower than we might have expected on the basis of a switch in choice options alone. And the No vote, far from being lower, is higher.

Allowing for changes in the choice architecture, this suggests that, over the two months since Newspoll’s last survey, the Yes side has lost support and the No side has gained support.

This is hardly news: a tightening of the contest is what almost all the polling has shown for some time. The intriguing question is how much of a tightening would Newspoll have shown — with or without its new question — had it not changed its response options.

Nor is it news that fewer than half of those polled intend to vote Yes. Since March, none of the polls that use the standard architecture (Yes/No/Don’t know) — Freshwater, Morgan, Resolve — have reported Yes majorities. The only way of conjuring Yes majorities from these polls has been by assuming either that the “Don’t knows” won’t vote or that enough of them will vote — and vote Yes — to get the proposal over the line.

According to Simon Benson, who wrote the Australian’s main story, the Newspoll results “suggest the debate is now shaping up as one being led by elites on one side and everybody else on the other.” What this means is unclear. There are “elites” in both camps. But even if the “elites” were only on the Yes side, the polls don’t show “everybody else” on the other. Benson has reprised a dichotomy, pushed by some on the No side, without thinking it through. The poll results, he says, “stand as a warning sign for advocate business leaders that their customer base and employees may not necessarily be signed up to the inevitability of the referendum’s assumed success.”

Is the Australian’s clearest contribution to the debate its headline? In February, the website run by Fair Australia, the name under which senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s Advance is campaigning against the Voice, advertised its plans to “build an army of Aussies” to “defend our nation.” Now, told by the Australian that most “Aussies” don’t intend to vote Yes, the undecided may draw some reassurance that it’s okay to vote No. •

MURRAY GOOT Murray Goot is an Emeritus Professor of Politics at Macquarie University.

Glenda Jackson obituary 
Many leading British actors have mixed art and politics, but no great actor ever made such a decisive break from one to the other as Glenda Jackson, who has died aged 87, when she was elected Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 1992. For the previous 30 years, she had been an outstanding, ferocious presence in theatre and on screen, a leading light of the Royal Shakespeare Company in its most radical phase, and as memorable in film comedies with George Segal and Walter Matthau as she was in more tempestuous movies by Ken Russell. She never had to prove a point about her politics: she was known for having concerns rather than ideas, and these were rooted in her background of Lancastrian working-class poverty, and her belief that the arts had both a higher purpose and a responsibility to educate and inform. 
Michael Coveney and Julia Langdon, The Guardian.

Barbara Kingsolver. Photograph: Jessica Tezak/The Guardian

Barbara Kingsolver wins the Women’s prize for fiction for second time * **

Winning for Demon Copperhead, a ‘deeply powerful’, US-set Dickens update, the American novelist becomes the first writer to win the contest for a second time.

Barbara Kingsolver has won the 2023 Women’s prize for fiction, making her the first person to win the award twice in its 28-year history.

Kingsolver was chosen as the winner for her Pulitzer prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead, which is set in the Appalachian mountains in Virginia in the US, and is a reimagining of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. It follows the title character as he navigates foster care, labour exploitation, addiction and more in a culture that neglects rural communities.

The writer previously won the prize in 2010 for The Lacuna. She was also shortlisted in 2013 for Flight Behaviour. The Women’s prize, worth £30,000, is awarded for the best full-length novel of the year written by a woman and published in the UK.

This year’s judging panel was chaired by broadcaster and writer Louise Minchin, who was joined by novelist Rachel Joyce, journalist, podcaster and writer Bella Mackie, novelist and short story writer Irenosen Okojie and Labour MP Tulip Siddiq.

Minchin called Demon Copperhead a “towering, deeply powerful and significant book” and an “exposé of modern America, its opioid crisis and the detrimental treatment of deprived and maligned communities”.

The judges unanimously decided on Kingsolver’s novel as the winner, with Minchin saying the panel was “deeply moved by Demon, his gentle optimism, resilience and determination despite everything being set against him”.

Demon Copperhead, said Minchin, “packs a triumphant emotional punch, and it is a novel that will withstand the test of time”.

Reviewing the book in the Guardian, Elizabeth Lowry said Demon Copperhead “feels in many ways like the book” Kingsolver was “born to write”.

* edited article from The Guardian

** I reviewed Demon Copperhead in the post for December 7, 2022. I was not nearly as positive about the novel as the accolades suggest I should have been. I’ll give some thought to re-reading the novel…but maybe I should stay with my positive responses to so many of Barbara Kingsolver’s other novels and hope that for me the next one meets my expectations.

Breakout Sessions at the National Labor Women’s Conference 2023

Lenda Oshalem – an impressive speaker in this session

The Voice to Parliament – How to Engage Communities and Campaign for a Yes Vote.

This session began with Lenda Oshalem engaging the delegates by asking for their contributions – questions they would like to explore, and comments, before giving her own talk. What a tremendous beginning.

Several breakout sessions were held, where delegates were able to contribute, usually through questions rather than commentary. In most cases panels or individual presenters opened the discussion. On Saturday these were: Muklticultural and First Nations Women in the Machine; The Power of Social Media in Politics, Affirmative Action in 2023; Organising Women in Feminised Industries; Working for Wins for Women with Caring Responsibilities; Enough is Enough – Findings and Ways Forward for Women in the Mining Industry; Bringing to Light to the Depth of Work in Allied Health; A Seat at the Table for Regional Women in Labor; Providing a Safe Place for Women – Implementing Our New National code of Conduct; Labor in CALD Communities; Women in mining; and Spotlight on Mental Health Policy – Government Responses to Eating Disorders; Working Mums – Striving for Work/Life Balance; Women Working in Male dominated Industries; Beyond the boring Meeting – Creating a Child-Friendly Branch; and Respect @ Work Report – Recommendations and Reforms to Make Australian Workplaces Safe for Women. Six such sessions were held on Sunday, before the Motion Session: ‘Jobs for the Girls’: How Labor Governments are supporting women and girls to access quality training and vocational education; Women’s Reproductive Health Reform – What We’re Doing and Where We Need to Go; Women of the Machine – Being a Party Official; Recruiting Women to Our Party – Towards 50; Gender Based Wage Claims in Feminised Industries; and The Voice to Parliament – How to Engage Communities and Campaign for a Yes Vote.

Week beginning 14 June 2023*

Rob Wills’ two volume Plague Searchers is reviewed this week. It seems particularly appropriate to review a book that gives women’s place such a high priority in the week I also comment on the National Labor Women’s Conference held in Western Australia.

Rob Wills Plague Searchers Volumes 1 and 2 Arcadia 2022.

The description ‘immense’ has been at the forefront of my feelings about Rob Wills’ Plague Searchers, Volume 1, Red Wands and Volume 2, Flee Quick, Go Far. It is possible that such a description usually applies to novels that reach far into the past and future, that it implies that large characters will perform amazing deeds and that huge events will thunder across the pages and geographical expanses. Instead, Plague Searchers begins in London on Wednesday, 7 June 1665 with the last chapter set in London on Sunday, 29 October 1665. The characters with which the book begins, the plague searchers, Widow Margaret Hazard and Goodwife Joan Brokefild, are again together at the end. Their immediate whereabouts has changed, and so too, has Goodwife Joan Brokefild’s marital status – at the end of the book she is Widow Joan Brokefild.

The scenes in which Joan Brokefild changes her status are wonderful. They are a splendid example of the immensity of the concept Rob Wills has brought to these months in London during the plague. Not least is the gentle sisterhood Widow Margaret Hazard exhibits towards her companion. But the way in which sisterhood is juxtaposed with the gruesome details of how the change in status was facilitated, laid out through Joan Brokefild’s ruminations and the conversation between the women, are absolute jewels.  And this is but one example of the way in which Wills uses his characters, those who are so often overlooked, to bring immense ideas to his story. Looking at each paragraph as a weaving together of a multitude of ideas, events and beliefs is one of the joys of reading (and re-reading) this work. Where a novel goes into two volumes as seamlessly as does this one, the question might be asked – why? Why not cull? The answer must be – how? When the layers are so thoughtful and give so much, why not just enjoy, and think about the ideas that are so convincingly conveyed through each paragraph, indeed relish every sentence – and sometimes every word, as crude as they might be at times! See Books: Reviews for the complete review.

After the covid report: National Labor Women’s Conference 2023; Cindy Lou; further on LWNC.

Covid update

At June 16 there were 478 new cases, with 22 people suffering from covid in hospital. One person is in ICU and 1 ventilated. Three lives were lost this week.

Labor Women’s National Conference 2023

The Conference Welcome to Country by Colleen Hayward was inspirational, and this is the only word that can be used for the Indigenous speakers who featured throughout the two days of Conference. Nova Peris was a particularly strong presence, not only in her keynote speaking role and, on a panel, discussing The Voice, but in wonderful videos of her sporting prowess and carrying the Olympic Flag. Nova Peris’ bare feet featured here, as they did many years later in her Parliamentary portrait.

Cindy Lou has coffee in Fremantle

We arrived at Duck Duck Bruce rather late so only coffee and cake were on offer. Both were delicious and served efficiently and pleasantly. The pecan banana bread was warmed, served with lashings of butter, and in one case, with whipped cream. The coffees were very good indeed. Yest another coffee place that was happy to concoct my weak, skinny latte – almost like my experience in Bagni di Lucca, where they were prepared to serve such coffee even in the afternoon. I do not dare to request it in Rome!

The lunch menu at Duck Duck Bruce is quite exciting, and I must get there early enough next time.

 DUCK DUCK BRUCE menus * include dishes such as :

DDB+Avo.jpg
APPLE GRANOLA, POMEGRANATE, PISTACHIOS, CARDAMOM COCONUT WHIP / 16
PARSI STYLE CHILLI SCRAMBLED EGGS, GARAM MASALA, KACHUMBER, PICKLED CHILLI, RELISH, TOAST / 19
SMASHED AVO, MINTED PEAS, POMEGRANATE, SHEEP’S FETA, PRESERVED LEMON, SUMAC SALT, TOAST / 20
CRISPY POTATO STRAWS, SPINACH, ALMONDS, GOAN EGGPLANT, ROTI, COCONUT SAMBAL, EGGS, PICKLED CHILLI, CUMIN RAITA / 25
SPICED SAUSAGE & CHORIZO KROMESKI BURGER, PRETZEL BUN, FRIED EGG, PICKLES, TAMARIND HP BURGER CHEESE, CHORIZO MAYO, LASER DUST / 22
TOAST, GREENS, POACHED EGGS, BRUCE’S FAMOUS BURNT BUTTER HOLLANDAISE / 20
SIDEKICKS : EGGS / BURNT BUTTER HOLLANDAISE / RED LENTIL HUMMUS / SHEEP’S FETA / GREENS / AVO / MUSHROOMS / TOMATOES / RED CABBAGE SAUERKRAUT / BACON / SAUSAGES / SMOKY BEANS / HASH BROWNS / CHORIZO / BEET CURED SALMON / KERALAN FRIED CHICKEN
DDB+Granola.jpg
BANANA & PECAN BREAD, TOASTED AND BUTTERED / 6
BACON & EGG ROLL : PRETZEL BUN, PLENTY OF BACON, EGG, TOMATO RELISH / 10
SAUSAGE & CHORIZO KROMESKI BURGER : FRIED EGG, TAMARIND HP, PICKLES, CHORIZO AIOLI, BURGER CHEESE, LASER DUST, PRETZEL BUN / 19
*edited.

The Bistrot

The Bistrot is a marvellous coffee place – for a start they managed to serve a long queue from the Labor Women’s Conference promptly with take away drinks and food. The woman had found that the morning break between sessions did not include the usual urns that work not at all, or so furiously that they spew water everywhere, the ubiquitous cream selection of biscuits that appear so often, not even the dreary custard cream!

Bistros rose so well to the occasion I returned to have my coffee before the next morning’s sessions. Again they had to deal with the unexpected. The free dog treats on the counter reminded me that I had left my Labor Women’s bag with a Tim Tam in it within the dog’s reach. The staff changed their work midstream, made the coffees takeaway, and bagged the delicious pastry.

Bistrot will become a favourite on future visits to Fremantle.

Labor Women’s National Conference

As I have mentioned the lack of tea, coffee and biscuits at the tea breaks, I must also note some of the real positives about the conference.

There were over 400 delegates – demonstrating the immense interest in this first National Labor Women’s Conference since 2017.

Pre-Conference drinks were held on the beach front – a wonderful beginning to the conference in this interesting city. Not only were the speeches a good introduction to conference, but the conversation amongst delegates was enthusiastic. Again, re my comments on the morning breaks – the food and drink here were generous and delicious! Penny Wong gave much of herself to the conference, not only hosting this event and making a speech, but giving a keynote speech the next day.

The tributes to women all over Australia through videos and music was tremendous. This feature demonstrated the magnificence of Labor women and their contributions all over Australia. They provided exciting ‘interjections’ to the serious and information filled speeches.

Keynote speeches were well received, with Sally McManus making a particularly positive contribution to debate about the way in which steps forward, or even seeming failures to advance, can be built upon to achieve our aims.

Katy Gallaher’s speech appears online. She began her work towards improving the representation of women in the ACT Assembly and the Federal Parliament in 2000. Katy followed in the very able steps of Maureen Horder and Robyn Walmsley who were members of the ACT Assembly, Senator Susan Ryan who began in the Assembly and then entered the Senate, and Ros Kelly MHR who also began in the Assembly and then became the Member for Canberra. Rosemary Follett became the first woman leader of the ALP to lead a government when she became Chief Minister of the ACT.

I was unable to stay for the resolutions. However, I shall post those of significance when the results are available.

  • This post is late due to ill health.

Week Beginning 7 June 2023

The Four Corners of the Heart An Unfinished Novel, Françoise Sagan, Amazon Crossing  2023.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

How I wish that I had originally known Françoise Sagan’s work through this clever, comic, sensitive and thoughtful novel rather than the one with which I understood her work until now. Bonjour Tristesse was, to me, a self-absorbed work which left me with a feeling of antipathy and distress that I have carried over to my much later reading of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. The Four Corners of the Heart, unfinished though it is, is such a satisfying read, with enough information to speculate about if you want a resolution. If this is not your only reason for reading a book, and I acknowledge it is not mine, this novel is something to be savoured, with its complex characters, edifying and unedifying moments, comedy and fully developed writing. Se complete review at Books: Reviews.

Articles after Covid update: The Garage Girls and their secret war machine; review of Anna Stuart’s The Bletchley Girls and reference to Bletchley associated books reviewed previously; Divisions Gallery at the Pentridge Complex; meeting Caroline Petit, author of The Natural History of Love.

Covid in Canberra since Lockdown ended.

On the 2nd of June there were 241,523 cases recorded since March 2020. The new cases this week number 964, with 50 people in hospital suffering from Covid. One person is in ICU, but not ventilated. Two lives were lost this week. Covid restrictions are being upgraded in Canberra Health Service facilities, with mask wearing mandatory again.

The Garage Girls and their secret war machine *

In a suburban Brisbane garage, young women decoded radio transmissions that changed the course of World War II. For the first time, their top-secret work on a panicked Japanese cable about a new type of weapon can be revealed. 

By political editor Andrew Probyn Updated 3 Jun 2023, 2:14pm Published 3 Jun 2023, 5:00am

Not long after an American atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, a horrified Japanese officer radioed back to Imperial Navy headquarters in Tokyo to report what he had witnessed.

The tone of the officer’s report didn’t seem to particularly reflect the constrained emotion one might expect of a buttoned-up Japanese man of war.

But that day, August 6, 1945, his extraordinary witness account was intercepted by an Australian signalman stationed near the Philippines.

From there, it passed into the hands of a secret unit of women codebreakers whose work in a garage at the back of a Brisbane mansion was kept top secret for decades.

The never-before-released cable – declassified for the ABC by the Australian Signals Directorate – was decrypted, revealing the Japanese officer’s account of what happened when three B-29s flew over Hiroshima that morning.

It was one of first reports of the apocalyptic destruction that would soon become familiar around the world.

“A terrific explosion accompanied by flame and smoke occurred at an altitude of 500 to 600 metres. The concussion was beyond imagination and demolished practically every house in the city,” his cable read.

“About 80 per cent of the city was wiped out, destroyed or burnt. Only a portion of the western section escaped the disaster. Casualties have been estimated at 100,000 persons.”

The officer concluded his message with these chilling words: “Please investigate and report any information concerning this new type of bomb.”

The Garage Girls and their secret war machine

Thousands of kilometres away, Central Bureau was a top-secret intelligence agency hiding in plain sight.

It was given a beige name to disguise its thorny work handling the most sensitive military communications.

And inside were young Australian women who had heeded the call and stepped into a world of interception and intrigue that they could have barely imagined.

Joyce Grace and Joan Eldred at work at the draper C. Winn in Ashfield in 1940.

Joyce Grace was a 19-year-old working in a Sydney haberdashery store in 1943 when she received a letter from the Manpower Directorate, an agency of the Australian government tasked with conscripting civilians to fill labour shortages in the latter half of World War II.

“The letter said that I wasn’t working in an essential industry,” Joyce told the ABC. “And they put it to me that if I left my job, the boss would have to take me back and give me the exact same job that I had when I left him.

Joyce was sent for six weeks’ basic military training at Ingleburn Army Camp where she was asked what type of army work took her interest.

“I hadn’t given much thought to what I might do, but anyhow, I said, ‘Well, my father was a naval signalman in the First World War, and he seemed to enjoy the job — I’ll give signals a go’.”

Joyce Grace was dispatched to Bonegilla near the Victoria-NSW border for a signals course, training in morse code and wireless messaging.

It was here that she met lifelong friend Coral Hinds.

“My friend Joy,” Coral remembers wistfully. “She was tall, her hair was straight, a no-nonsense person. Joy and I seemed to just migrate together into doing things. And look, we’ve been friends all these years.”

Coral left school at 14 and worked in a cake shop and then a grocer’s. Not having a brother old enough to serve in the war, Coral and her younger sister Ruth decided to join up instead.

Shortly after turning 18, Coral enlisted in the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS).

“The boss wasn’t very happy about it. But that didn’t make any difference — I still went,” she said.

After Bonegilla and then a stint in Melbourne for more intense training in communications, Coral and Joyce were put on a train to Brisbane.

Their new place of work was at 21 Henry Street, Ascot, in a hot garage at the back of Nyrambla, an impressive 1880s mansion.

The entrance to Nyrambla in Ascot, Brisbane — suburban mansion turned war base. From left, Joyce Grace, Helen Kenny and Betty Paterson approaching the guard. Supplied: Diana Mathews

It had been requisitioned by United States General Douglas MacArthur, the Allies’ supreme commander in the south-west Pacific, for his headquarters.

“That’s how I became a Garage Girl,” chuckles Joyce.

Inside the Central Bureau

Joyce and Coral found themselves working in the cipher unit of Central Bureau, a signals intelligence organisation tasked with decrypting intercepted messages from the Imperial Japanese Army.

“Everything was so secret. ‘Don’t talk about it outside. Don’t tell anybody. You can tell them you’re in signals, but don’t go any further than that’. And we sort of knew that there was something special about it,” Joyce says.

“You couldn’t talk about it,” Coral recalls. “See, mum and dad didn’t know what I did. I used to just tell people I was in signals. So, you know, it really just gets a way of life.”

Working around-the-clock in eight-hour shifts, the Garage Girls used 12 British-made TypeX coding machines to both decode and encrypt highly classified material.

The Japanese signals were in Kana, or syllabic characters, which meant that once intercepted messages were decrypted, they still had to be translated into English by Central Bureau linguists.

If the TypeX machine was not generating recognisable Japanese syllables, the Garage Girls knew that the rotors in the machine, which were key to decryption, likely needed adjustment.

“On the whole, you just got to and plonked away on the TypeX and if it didn’t work you stayed there and fiddled around with it until it did work,” Coral explains.

“It was our secret machine,” Joyce says of the TypeX.

“You had to set them up, before you could sit down and type, whether you’re going to type for a message to be decoded, or when you’re going to encode a message, and the machine did either one of those things.”

Love and war

Despite spending the war in a repurposed suburban house, for the  Garage Girls the experience was far removed from their pre-war lives working in shops or going to school.

Some moved away from home for the first time for basic training, and enjoyed the camaraderie and shore leave that came with their freedom. And of course, for many that led to finding love. 

Joyce Grace, far right, at Luna Park in 1944 on home leave from Bonegilla with some army friends. Supplied: Joyce Grace

A hockey team set up during a training camp in Graceville, Brisbane. Supplied: Joyce Grace

The Garage Girls had developed a technique called “padding”, where messages were lengthened with scraps of irrelevant information to confuse the enemy.

“If you had the message too short, it was easy for them to work it out,” Coral explains. “But by putting this padding on … it just put the enemy off the scent.”

It also had the side effect of letting them pass messages to friends and lovers far from home.

Coral met her husband Sandy Hinds at Central Bureau. He was a signaller and was waiting to be sent north to New Guinea.

“Meeting Sandy — that was the most important thing in my life,” she says.

“I met him in the May, he went away in the June and in the October, the 20th of October 1944, he asked me to marry him. A faint heart never won a fair lady, somebody said.”

Sandy and Coral eventually got married on June 2, 1945.

Coral Osborne and Sandy Hinds’s wedding in 1945. Supplied: Anthony Hinds

But during the war, Coral fell ill during Sandy’s deployment and the Garage Girls were keen to tell him how she was faring by using the TypeX machine.

When Coral ended up in hospital, Joyce decided to get a message to Sandy in the jungle.

“I made it short, but it was just to let Sandy know that Coral was doing alright, she was coming out of hospital.

“Well, Sandy got that little message that I sent. And he carried it around with him I believe for a long time.”

Taking down an admiral

The work of Central Bureau contributed to one of the big strategic strikes against Japan in April 1943: Operation Vengeance.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was architect of the December 1941 Pearl Harbour attack, making him a top military target for Washington.

An Australian wireless unit picked up Japanese radio signals which, when decrypted, revealed that Yamamoto would be visiting troops in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea.

The Japanese cable not only detailed the admiral’s itinerary, but also the type of Mitsubishi Betty bombers he and his officers would be flying in, as well as the six Mitsubishi Zero fighters that would be accompanying them.

“They had everything, the whole lot,” Joyce says. “And sure enough, they were waiting for him — our boys, and the Americans — and they got him.”

US fighter planes intercepted Yamamoto’s plane over Bougainville, downing on April 18, 1943.

“They shot the big boy down,” Coral says. “Oh, it was quite a thrill.”

The wreckage of Yamamoto’s plane still rusts in the jungle about 9 kilometres from the Panguna copper mine.

The admiral’s death was a blow to Japanese morale but it would be another two and a half years before the war in the Pacific ended.

A chance discovery

The Allies had been split over the strategic wisdom of Operation Vengeance; the British believed that in exacting revenge against Yamamoto, the US had risked revealing their joint code-breaking ability which had broader strategic value.

Decoding Japanese signals had proven valuable in the war against Germany, insofar as Japanese diplomatic cables from Europe helped inform the Allies of Germany’s evolving military strategy.

While the Allies’ ability to decode encrypted Japanese signals had steadily improved, it was aided immeasurably by an Australian sapper’s chance discovery of a steel trunk buried in soggy ground by retreating Japanese troops in January 1944 at Sio in New Guinea.

The trunk contained sodden code books from the Japanese 20th Army division.

Dispatched back to Central Bureau, the code books were carefully prised apart, page by page, and then dried on clothes lines and heaters.

Joyce remembers her friend Helen Kenny, a fellow Garage Girl, helping in that delicate operation. (Kenny later had a long and successful career in journalism, including as literary editor for the Sydney Morning Herald.)

But with the Japanese code books now photographed and distributed among Allied codebreakers, the enemy’s signals were terribly compromised – they could be decoded and read by Allied intelligence almost as quickly as the Japanese received it themselves.

So when a Japanese officer sent his grim cable from the port of Kure, south-east of Hiroshima, to Tokyo headquarters on August 6, 1945, it was able to be decoded almost word-for-word.

Seeing the message

Joyce and Coral, like the rest of the Garage Girls, did not speak Japanese, so the first time they saw the translated Hiroshima cable was when the ABC showed it to them.

A document marked "top secret" that recounts the bombing of hiroshima
The translated Hiroshima cable was declassified for the ABC documentary Breaking the Code: Cyber Secrets Revealed.(Supplied: Australian Signals Directorate)

Joyce was struck particularly by the cable’s last line: Please investigate and report any information concerning this new type of bomb.

“I don’t like the sound of it,” Joyce says, adding that the first she’d known about the atomic bomb was when she read it in the newspapers.

“I was shocked. Horrible. Terrible business.”

Coral says she too finds the nuclear attack on Hiroshima confronting to consider.

“I know it was dreadful. But if it hadn’t been them, it would’ve been us. I know it sounds dreadful but, I mean, when I think of what they did to our servicemen, the dreadful lives that they ended up with because of their cruelty…”

Coral doesn’t quite finish the sentence. Instead, she starts another: “Yes, well, see they tried to kill our boys off in prisoner of war camps and some of them are still paying for it.

“I suppose we felt sorry for the Japanese, for the ordinary people. But you know, when you think some of the things that they did to our POWs and things … it was just a blessing when it was all over.”

And, according to the American general at Nyrambla at least, the work of the Garage Girls significantly shortened hostilities in the Pacific.

“Douglas MacArthur, I think it was, that put the news out that we reduced the war time by two years with the work that we done – so we must have done something special, and I feel very proud about it,” Joyce Grace says.

The lesson in war?

“Keep it peaceful,” Joyce concludes. “Help to keep it peaceful, if you can. Do whatever you can. War’s terrible.”

Recognition

Joyce Grace received the Australian Intelligence Medal from Governor-General David Hurley in April. Supplied: Government House

Coral Hinds, Joyce Grace and Ailsa Hale, the last surviving Garage Girls, were awarded the Australian Intelligence Medal in January 2023.

Coral died on February 10. Joyce Grace turned 100 on March 4. She and Coral Hinds’s son Anthony were presented their medals by the Governor-General on April 18.  

The story of the Garage Girls will be featured in ABC TV’s documentary Breaking the Code: Cyber Secrets Revealed on News Channel, June 4 at 7:30pm and on ABC1, June 5 at 10:30pm. It is also on ABC iview.

Credits

Words: Andrew Probyn Production and editing: Leigh Tonkin ODYSSEY FORMAT BY ABC NEWS STORY LAB

*The original article includes videos clips and some additional stills.

The women who worked at Bletchley have been honoured in fiction, both in a television series, and in novels. Two novels on this topic which make really interesting reading are:

Anna Stuart The Bletchley Girls Bookouture 2022. The introduction to the review is below.

Kathleen McGurl The Girl from Bletchley Park HQ Digital 2021. Reviewed December 2021.

A non-fiction book which is also worth reading is:

Peter Hoare Bletchley Park’s Secret Source Churchill’s Wrens and the Y Service in World War II 2021. Reviewed May 2021.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-9.png

Anna Stuart The Bletchley Girls Bookouture 2022.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

Anna Stuart has taken two real events, and devised a warm, human, and fascinating plot and characters to bring to life these events.

Three young women meet at the station at which they are deposited to begin their new lives working at Bletchley Park in the early years of WW2.

Steffie, Stephania Carmichael, has arrived from Europe, with copious cases of luxurious garments, an Italian fiancé and parents who differ as to her future. Her mother is distressed that Steffie is twenty-one, and the fiancé is Italian rather than a man of her choosing; Steffie’s father has a more up to date outlook, and has ensured that she has this opportunity at a career. Fran, Frances Morgan, is of sterner stuff, with her background of a medical family attempting to force her away from her love of English literature into their chosen field, and her determination to evade the family profession. Her research and administrative talents have been recognised by a mentor, who has recommended her for work at Bletchley Park. Ailsa McIver has spent her life on a Scottish island, beholden to her loving parents, and their expectations and hope that she will marry on the island and remain there. She has escaped a proposal of marriage, and is suffering the strong reaction from her parents, a constant source of distress for her while she uses her radio skills to become one of the most sought-after technicians in understanding the coded messages that the Bletchley Park recruits receive night after night, day after day. See complete review Books: Reviews.

More from Melbourne

The markets near the Adina Apartments in Pentridge were ready to close by the time we arrived. However, they appear to have had several interesting stalls, and we were fortunate to catch up with the Greyhounds Rescue organisation.

Divisions Gallery at the Pentridge Complex

This gallery is light and bright, with its innovative exhibition well displayed and signed. The staff member at the door was pleasant, entry is free, and there is an informative catalogue.

Artists on display at Divisions Gallery – Bettina Willner, Hamura Rimene, Te Kahuwhero Alexander – Tu’inukuafe, Luke Neil, Abbey Rich and Nanou Dupois.

Cindy Lou eats at the Lamb and Flag and meets the author of The Natural History of Love

The Lamb and Flag is a friendly cafe in Brunswick. Last time I was there I enjoyed the food and coffee. This time, a coffee was enough for me. However, everyone else thoroughly enjoyed their bacon butties, lamb toasted sandwiches, tricolore toasted sandwich (cheese, tomato, and herbs) amongst the offerings, and splendid coffees.

I was so fortunate in being seated next to Caroline Petit, whose perspective on publishing added to the contributions from other authors to this blog. Caroline is in the prestigious position of receiving an advance for her work. She also has an agent, and happily publishes with Affirm Press.

From Caroline Petit’s site:

The Natural History of Love is a historical novel loosely based on the 19th century lives of French explorer, naturalist and diplomat the Count de Castelnau and his lover Carolina Fonçeca. Only 16, Carolina’s life changes forever when the dangerously ill Count is left on her remote plantation. With a head full of Balzac and dreams of Parisian life, she is beguiled by the middle-aged Frenchman. What Carolina doesn’t know is that François has a wife and son back in France. Desperate for a new life, she makes a decision that will follow her in Brazil, the salons of Paris and the early days of Melbourne.

Week beginning 31 May

This week the second of the books in Kerry Wilkinson’s Whitecliff Bay series is reviewed. NetGalley provided me with the uncorrected proof.

Kerry Wilkinson The One Who Was Taken (A Whitecliff Bay Mystery Book 2) Bookouture 2023.

The One Who Was Taken continues this series in which more information about the appealing  main character, Millie,  is divulged. At the same time a mystery is solved, and the relationships with her journalist friend, and her former husband and their son, move forward. Ingrid, from The One Who Fell, reappears, maintaining Wilkinson’s commitment to strengthening the image of older people. While long term personal relationships are developed, Millie’s school days are revisited with a mystery and a community concern about housing to be resolved. Nothing happens at a fast pace. However, for me, this is part of the charm of this series. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.

After the Covid Update: Cindy Lou eats out in Melbourne; Grace A., guest reviewer, talks about eating at Sunda; Neryssa Asland reports on racist social media related to Q+A; Reconciliation Week; Heather Cox Richardson’s American Letter.

Covid update for Canberra

Total cases since March 2020 number 240,574, with the total number of lives lost over that time, 237. There were 996 new cases this week (26 May 2023), with 32 people with Covid hospitalised. Two are in ICU, with 1 ventilated. No lives have been lost this week.

Cindy Lou continues eating out in Melbourne

Alytanya  

Melbourne friends suggested that this was a restaurant not to be missed if we wanted authentic Turkish food. I have to agree about the baba ghanoush in particular – it was the smokiest I have tasted since being in Turkey. The bread with the five dips with which we began was hot, crisp on the crust and chewy (in the best possible way) on the inside. A truly delightful beginning to a very good meal. The dishes were generous in size and flavorsome. My chicken skewers, not pictured, were beautifully moist and tender. The salad and rice, with a lovely pepper were excellent accompaniments.

The atmosphere was lively – and even more so when a charming belly dancer appeared. She made a delightful addition to what was already a very pleasant evening. She was sensitive to the crowd, encouraging some brave people to join her, and leaving the not so brave to quietly enjoy. One of our companions was amongst the former and was magnificent in her smilingly enthusiastic approach to the dancing. She was excellent, and we certainly did not tell her to keep her day job!

Unfortunately, the meals were so generous we were unable to have dessert. Next time we might see if it’s possible to share some of the main meals and be able to indulge in some baklava or Turkish delight.

Our first culinary experience was in the Pentridge Complex, where the Boot Factory was an excellent beginning to our six-person group eating in Melbourne. It is part of the Pentridge Complex, which includes the Adina Apartments, and a small shopping mall with two other coffee venues (one serving breakfasts and pastries, the other beautifully elegant pastries and cakes). The mall includes an art gallery (more on this next week) and a frieze telling the story of Pentridge Goal use to which the site has now been put. Sydney Road and the tram are close by, and the Coburg Station is a reasonable walk.

The Boot Factory

This is a lively eating place with a large and interesting menu. The coffee is good, the meals substantial, and the service competent and pleasant. The large breakfast and the Mexican inspired meals were the most interesting. However, the kale addition to poached eggs was a nice innovation, and my mushroom toastie resplendent with mushrooms.

Cobrick Cafe

This cafe has a cosy section entered through the mall, and a light and lovely section with huge glass windows which can be entered from outside. We enjoyed the later, with its sunny spots interspersed with a few raindrops. And why should we have expected anything different in Melbourne?

The food was substantial, and the service efficient. Although the range of pastries was limited to the usual almond croissants, banana bread, and pumpkin and walnut bread, they were very good indeed. The breakfast meals were nicely cooked and presented. They were beyond the usual cafe fare, with a tremendous breakfast bagel, and a lovely eggs benedict amongst the offerings.

Guest Reviewer at Sunda

Although I left Melbourne on Sunday some of our group remained. I was so pleased to have received the following about an excellent Melbourne restaurant, Sunda.

Grace A. says, ‘My friend and I agreed without any reservations that it is the best meal we’ve had together. We even had his vegemite dish!

It’s a curious surprising and delightful experience. Asian and native Australian ingredients aren’t a combination you would expect to work, but Sunda marries them together in a harmonious but equally fun way.

The venue was clearly brought together by ambition and passion for food – pared back in its industrial design, letting the food and service shine through.

The experience was all tied together by the knowledgeable and friendly staff. I cannot recommend Sunda enough!

I work on Q+A’s social media and I see racist abuse every day. You might be shocked by who’s writing it

By Neryssa Azlan

A woman in a black dress and a purple headscarf sitting with a laptop on her lap
Neryssa Azlan sifts through hundreds of comments on the Q+A social accounts each week. (Supplied)

For the past few years, I’ve worked as the social media producer for a high-profile show, one that has made headlines the past couple of weeks after our beloved presenter had to take a break.

During my time at Q+A, I can tell you one thing: If you’re surprised by the conversations about racism, then you might be part of the problem.

My role involves creating content and moderating the Q+A social media pages, and sometimes even ABC News.

Stan isn’t on social media, so his critics often come to our page to express their rage. 

Q+A encourages open debates and conversations, but the vile things I see on a regular basis are astounding.

On Monday I’ll present Q+A, then walk away

Although I try to shield myself from the racist abuse I’m frequently subjected to, the fact it is out there poisons the air I breathe. Now I have had enough – so on Monday night I will present Q+A, then walk away.

Stan Grant speaks about not being seen as a human being image

Read more

Politicians and public figures call out Twitter and call it a cesspool, but for the hundreds of vile comments that appear on Twitter, there are thousands more on Facebook and YouTube and other platforms.

You have the faceless trolls, but you also see profiles that use photos of their dogs or children making racist remarks on the colour of Stan’s skin; or accounts who post about “spreading kindness” and the like also spitting out bigoted takes when we have someone Indigenous or queer on the panel.

If you knew what some of your relatives and close friends are saying behind the comfort of their screens, you would be horrified.

ABC boss weighs in over Stan Grant exit
What does it mean to be anti-racist?

“Racism can have the kindest face,” writes Stan Grant in his book, The Queen is Dead, at one of the sections where he speaks about his experience as a Wiradjuri man growing up.

It is a lesson I already know, but it’s a constant reminder whenever I’m moderating these comments.

You could blame it on the anonymity that social media brings that allows people to express views that they would never be brave enough to utter in real life.

Or maybe the algorithms that keep people in their bubble, especially ones like Facebook where there’s hardly any accountability since it’s not so public-facing.

The truth is few people call out those they know,  because it is easier to hold strangers or organisations accountable.

A true ally of is someone who speaks up against injustice, even when the person they’re making uncomfortable is someone they know.

Sometimes the people who commit acts of racism are people you love — and isn’t it a true testimony of how much you care for a person when you support them to become better people instead of enabling or ignoring bad behaviour?

‘Casual racism’ is still racism

Some people have this idea that racism is a thing of the past because they don’t see the aggressive kinds of racism or segregation happening at the same scale.

But everyday racism (or “casual racism”) is the kind that isn’t overt. It can be hidden behind smiles and jokes, but it is still racism.

For me, personally, it comes in the form of the people speaking to me slowly, and then becoming surprised that I know English or that I’m articulate and outspoken despite the scarf around my head.

It’s the friends whose partners make and laugh at jokes about non-white people, or claim that their parents don’t like their partners because “our cultures are just too different” (when you know that they wouldn’t be as critical if their partners were “white”).

It is the editors and supervisors who reduce us to our identities and relegate us to  writing about our communities, while whispering in the background that “it’s not going to rate well”.

It’s having journos my age, mainly women of colour, sharing stories of their anguish because their own supervisors don’t take their ideas seriously and hide behind kind smiles and condescending words, or speak to them differently when there’s no one around.

This form of racism is just as insidious, in fact maybe even more so

People get defensive when their “harmless” words and actions are called out and hide behind good intentions and words like “political correctness”, “woke-ism” and “people can’t take a joke”.

If you’ve reacted this way before, ask yourself why that was your response.

Bigotry is more than just hurt feelings or name-calling. As a person with privilege, you might have your feelings hurt, but you’re still living in a power structure built with you in mind.

White privilege doesn’t mean that you never go through challenges. But even in those spaces of hardships, whether it’s in terms of socio-economics, gender, sexuality, disability, white people still hold power and have the loudest voices.

Is the media to blame?

In his last address on Q+A before he took a break, Stan Grant says that he’s part of the problem and that “too often, we [the media] are the poison in the bloodstream of our society”.

“We in the media must ask if we are truly honouring a world worth living in.”

It’s interesting to see how media organisations have responded following Stan’s break. They’ve ranged from promises and apologies, to rival media organisations blaming each other.

ABC boss says broadcaster will work with other media companies to end racist abuse of staff

ABC executives have indicated they want to work with other media platforms to try and tackle racist abuse of their staff.

David Anderson reacting to questions at Senate Estimates. He is a balding white man with blue eyes, wearing a blue suit.

Read more

It’s annoying to see journalists and media organisations cheapen Stan’s story by using it as an excuse to get clicks instead of taking this moment to reflect on themselves.

Part of reporting with impartiality is looking into the biases within ourselves and the spaces we operate in.

As members of the media, it is our duty to do that for the people we write for.

We can’t just shift the blame to social media platforms and their owners. It’s our responsibility too, whether we’re a public broadcaster or privately owned.

It is not enough to hire diverse faces when our voices are either silenced, or are only seen as valid when they echo the status quo.

Too often diverse journalists and talents are reduced to quotas to reach and show companies are progressing.

The conversation needs to be about not just accountability but also the current structures within the spaces we operate in.

The reality is that newsrooms still become less diverse the higher up you go. Editors and other decision makers are still mainly straight, male and white.

Five hands on a table belonging to people of different skin tones
Saying ‘I don’t see colour’ sounds positive, but it could risk people not acknowledging the existence of racism(Unsplash: Clay Banks)
Don’t lie, you do see colour

Whether you’re someone who claims to be anti-racist and “not see colour”, or an editor or someone in a position of power in media, we are all complicit.

We all come with our own biases, ones that are sometimes unconscious. That’s mirrored in the systems and institutions we operate in.

When we’re confronted with the experiences of First Nations’ people or non-white people in Australia, the conversation can turn ugly, partly because it’s riddled with guilt.

Guilt isn’t a pleasant feeling, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be constructive.

Talking about race doesn’t have to be divisive – in fact, it could be what brings us together to healing and justice.

And we can never achieve that if our fingers are pointed at everyone else but ourselves.

And the horrible irony…

Reconciliation Australia Logo

NATIONAL RECONCILIATION WEEK 2023

27 MAY TO 3 JUNE

Banner reading Be a Voice for Generations

Keep up the momentum for change: the theme for National Reconciliation Week 2023 is Be a Voice for Generations.

The theme  encourages all Australians to be a voice for reconciliation in tangible ways in our everyday lives – where we live, work and socialise.

For the work of generations past, and the benefit of generations future, act today for a more just, equitable and reconciled country for all.

National Reconciliation Week – 27 May to 3 June – is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.

Heather Cox Richardson American Letter May 29, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S. Army personnel in the European theater of World War II. Titled Army Talks, the series was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.”

On March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!”

“You are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a civilian job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives,” the pamphlet explained, “because of a thing called fascism.” But, the publication asked, what is fascism? “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and analyze,” it said, “nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”

Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”

“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.

Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”

Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist principle of rule by the elite few,” it explained, “[s]o they fought democracy…. They played political, religious, social, and economic groups against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”

Americans should not be fooled into thinking that fascism could not come to America, the pamphlet warned; after all, “[w]e once laughed Hitler off as a harmless little clown with a funny mustache.” And indeed, the U.S. had experienced “sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror, and suppression of civil liberties. We have had our hooded gangs, Black Legions, Silver Shirts, and racial and religious bigots. All of them, in the name of Americanism, have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which…can be properly identified as ‘fascist.’”

The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try to gain power “under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ and ‘super-Americanism.’” And they would use three techniques:

First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.”

Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.”

Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.”

It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”

The only way to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, the document said, “is by making our democracy work and by actively cooperating to preserve world peace and security.” In the midst of the insecurity of the modern world, the hatred at the root of fascism “fulfills a triple mission.” By dividing people, it weakens democracy. “By getting men to hate rather than to think,” it prevents them “from seeking the real cause and a democratic solution to the problem.” By falsely promising prosperity, it lures people to embrace its security.

“Fascism thrives on indifference and ignorance,” it warned. Freedom requires “being alert and on guard against the infringement not only of our own freedom but the freedom of every American. If we permit discrimination, prejudice, or hate to rob anyone of his democratic rights, our own freedom and all democracy is threatened.” And if “we want to make certain that fascism does not come to America, we must make certain that it does not thrive anywhere in the world.”

Seventy-eight years after the publication of “FASCISM!” with its program for recognizing that political system and stopping it from taking over the United States, President Joe Biden today at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, honored those who gave their lives fighting to preserve democracy. “On this day, we come together again to reflect, to remember, but above all, to recommit to the future our fallen heroes fought for, …a future grounded in freedom, democracy, equality, tolerance, opportunity, and…justice.”

“[T]he truest memorial to their lives,” the president said, is to act “every day to ensure that our democracy endures, our Constitution endures, and the soul of our nation and our decency endures.”

—

Notes:

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=armytalks

War Department, “Army Talk 64: FASCISM!” March 24, 1945, at https://archive.org/details/ArmyTalkOrientationFactSheet64-Fascism/mode/2up

“[T]he truest memorial to their lives,” the president said, is to act “every day to ensure that our democracy endures, our Constitution endures, and the soul of our nation and our decency endures.”

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/05/29/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-155th-national-memorial-day-observance/

Week beginning 24 May 2023

Victoria Jenkins Happily Married Bookouture 2023.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with the uncorrected proof for review.

Happily Married begins with a prologue which, as the book progresses, could apply to several of the characters and plots. Certainly, the reader is shown early in the novel that the married couple at the centre of the story, Natalie and Jake,  are far from happily married. They do not communicate, loving gestures are repudiated, their small daughter has had a health crisis, and their dairy farm and the associated ice cream parlour are in financial straits. There is some clever writing that ensures that the twist in part two of the book is unexpected, but plausible. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.

19 may 2023

There were 1005 new cases reported this week. People in hospital with covid number 53, with 4 in ICU. No-one is ventilated and no lives have been lost this week.

100 best Children’s Books According to the BBC

Philip Pullman, CS Lewis and Roald Dahl feature in top 10

Isabel Lewis

Where The Wild Things Are has been named the greatest children’s book of all time, according to a poll by the BBC.

Voted for by children’s authors, illustrators, editors, publishers, academics, librarians, writers and readers* from across the world, the top 100 were unveiled on Tuesday (23 May) afternoon.

Maurice Sendak’s 1963 adventure took the top spot in BBC Culture’s list, with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Pippi Longstocking, The Little Prince and The Hobbit making up the top five.

Respondents were able to choose from more than 1000 different books, with each picking and ranking their 10 favourite children’s books. More than a fifth of respondents included Where The Wild Things Are in their top 10, with seven per cent choosing it as their top-ranked book.

Philip Pullman is the highest-ranked living author on the list, for his 1995 book Northern Lights from the His Dark Materials series.

The 76-year-old writer said: “I’m delighted to hear the result of this poll, it has taken me completely by surprise, and I’m not entirely sure I can find the words to respond to it.

“Children’s books are important because we still think about them when we’re grown up, because they have an effect on our way of seeing the world and our way of thinking about other people… That’s why they’re important to grown-ups as well as to children, and that’s why the best grown-up books are important, for the same sorts of reasons I think.”

You can find the full list below.

  1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
  2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
  3. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
  4. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
  5. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
  6. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
  7. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
  8. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
  9. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
  10. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
  11. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
  12. Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1827)
  13. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
  14. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
  15. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
  16. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
  17. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
  18. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
  19. Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
  20. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
  21. The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
  22. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
  23. Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)
  24. I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen, 2011)
  25. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
  26. Duck, Death and the Tulip (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
  27. The Brothers Lionheart (Astrid Lindgren, 1973)
  28. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling, 1999)
  29. Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson, 2014)
  30. The Three Robbers (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
  31. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
  32. The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr, 1968)
  33. Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones, 1986)
  34. A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle, 1962)
  35. Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972)
  36. Tom’s Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958)
  37. Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Brothers Grimm, 1812)
  38. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1902)
  39. The Railway Children (Edith Nesbit, 1906)
  40. Noughts and Crosses (Malorie Blackman, 2001)
  41. The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
  42. Rules of Summer (Shaun Tan, 2013)
  43. Momo (Michael Ende, 1973)
  44. The Story of Ferdinand (Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, 1936)
  45. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)
  46. The Owl Service (Alan Garner, 1967)
  47. Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter (Astrid Lindgren, 1981)
  48. The Neverending Story (Michael Ende, 1979)
  49. The Panchatantra (Anonymous / folk, -200)
  50. Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883)
  51. Mary Poppins (PL Travers, 1934)
  52. Ballet Shoes (Noel Streafield, 1936)
  53. So Much! (Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury, 1994)
  54. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, 1989)
  55. The Adventures of Cipollino (Gianni Rodari, 1951)
  56. The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein, 1964)
  57. The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, 1999)
  58. Julián Is a Mermaid (Jessica Love, 2018)
  59. Comet in Moominland (Tove Jansson, 1946)
  60. Finn Family Moomintroll (Tove Jansson, 1948)
  61. The Witches (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1983)
  62. A Bear Called Paddington (Michael Bond, 1958)
  63. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
  64. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Mildred D Taylor, 1977)
  65. Karlsson-on-the-Roof (Astrid Lindgren, 1955)
  66. The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer, 1961)
  67. The Cat in the Hat (Dr Seuss, 1957)
  68. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Kate DiCamillo and Bagram Ibatoulline, 2006)
  69. Peter and Wendy (JM Barrie, 1911)
  70. One Thousand and One Nights (Anonymous / folk)
  71. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler (EL Konigsburg, 1967)
  72. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Judith Kerr, 1971)
  73. Shum bola (G’afur G’ulоm, 1936)
  74. Ernest and Celestine (Gabrielle Vincent, 1981)
  75. A Kind of Spark (Elle McNicoll, 2020)
  76. Little Nicholas (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, 1959)
  77. Black Beauty (Anna Sewell, 1877)
  78. Daddy-Long-Legs (Jean Webster, 1912)
  79. No Kiss for Mother (Tomi Ungerer, 1973)
  80. My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell, 1956)
  81. Jacob Have I Loved (Katherine Paterson, 1980)
  82. The Lorax (Dr Seuss, 1971)
  83. Fairy Tales/The Tales of Mother Goose (Charles Perrault, 1697)
  84. The Moomins and the Great Flood (Tove Jansson, 1945)
  85. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (L Frank Baum, 1900)
  86. Just William (Richmal Crompton, 1922)
  87. The Twits (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1980)
  88. The Mouse and His Child (Russell Hoban, 1967)
  89. Out of My Mind (Sharon M Draper, 2010)
  90. Moominvalley in November (Tove Jansson, 1970)
  91. Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1932)
  92. Danny the Champion of the World (Roald Dahl, 1975)
  93. The Snowman (Raymond Briggs, 1978)
  94. Wave (Suzy Lee, 2008)
  95. The Black Brothers (Lisa Tetzner, 1940)
  96. The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams, 1921)
  97. The Bad Beginning (Lemony Snicket, 1999)
  98. The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman, 2008)
  99. American Born Chinese (Gene Luen Yang and Lark Pien, 2006)
  100. Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie, 1990)

*I am left wondering if the ‘readers’ who contributed to this list were children. I would like to know that the people for whom the books are written were given the opportunity to express an opinion.

National Gallery of Australia

‘Tuesday’s federal budget has seen funding of $535 million allocated to secure and restore some of Australia’s cultural and historical institutions, many of which are located in Canberra.’

Jackson Pollock – Blue Poles

See story below.

Various artworks to be enjoyed while walking through the galley.

Views from the National Australian Gallery

Blue poles shows why Australia must get serious about its arts spending

The Herald’s View January 30, 2023 — 5.00am

If proof was needed that spending public money on the arts can be a good investment, the once controversial purchase of Jackson Pollock’s Blue poles provides a great example.

When the National Gallery of Australia purchased the abstract expressionist painting for $1.3 million in 1973, the Philistine tabloid papers splashed headlines claiming the artist painted it while drunk.

Gough Whitlam visiting Blue poles, which was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in 1973.
Gough Whitlam visiting Blue poles, which was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in 1973.CREDIT:DAVID BARTHO.

Yet as Herald reporter Linda Morris reports today, the painting is now an unquestioned masterpiece and has increased in value to $500 million.

This bumper return should be on Arts Minister Tony Burke’s mind on Monday when he releases a long-awaited national cultural policy.

After a decade in which the Coalition ran the arts down and sometimes traduced them as the playground of left-wing cultural elites, Burke has a chance to spur a renaissance of sorts.

The new policy will be welcome, but he should also back it up with cash because, like Blue poles, the investment will be repaid in spades.

Some of the benefits, such as those to the tourist industry and from the cultural exports of film and music, are fairly clear. Others, such as their contribution to our national identity, our global soft power and domestic social cohesion, are harder to reduce to dollars and cents.

The NGA in Canberra provides a great example of the urgent need to spend more, but also of the challenges.

The NGA says it faces a financial crisis from July when it loses a short-term funding injection of $24.77 million. The National Library of Australia’s invaluable Trove digital collection is also facing the same deadline.

Without help, the NGA says it might have to resort to forced redundancies, the closure of the Canberra building two days a week and the possible reintroduction of entry fees.

National Gallery of Australia’s most valuable artworks.
Exclusive
Arts
Jackson Pollock’s controversial Blue poles valued at $500 million

Even those drastic measures will never cover the $265 million cost over the next 10 years to waterproof the 40-year-old building and bring it up to standard.

It is shameful that there is no money to fix the roof that protects Blue poles and other pieces in the NGA’s $6.9-billion collection.

Of course, the NGA cannot simply cry poor and take for granted continued public support. It is not clear why it failed to anticipate the financial problems and engineer a solution sooner. If the government provides long-term support it should be on the basis that the NGA presents a clear long-term plan.

When Gough Whitlam bought Blue poles, the NGA was trying to drag Australia’s conservative state-based art galleries into the world of modern art.

National Gallery of Australia faces $67 million black hole

Yet the NGA’s role is changing, and it must change to stay relevant. Rather than compete with the museums of Europe or the US, it must focus on building a collection that resonates here, such as the art of First Nations people, art created in Australia and in our region.

It must also distinguish itself from and co-ordinate better with state-based galleries such as the new Sydney Modern which have similar missions. Part of the answer is touring exhibitions that share its extraordinary collection with state, regional and international galleries, but they cost money.

The NGA has suggested in its submission to the national cultural policy consultation that school groups should receive the same financial support to visit the gallery as the War Memorial or the National Museum.

That should be a no-brainer. Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series in the NGA offers a unique lesson about Australia’s identity.

Australians love the arts. But the federal government must provide the vision and the funding to institutions like the NGA so they can bring art to the people.

Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.

Cindy Lou Eats Out in Melbourne

Bienvenue Chez Choukette

A splendid array of savoury and sweet eats is the hallmark of this coffee shop on Sydney Road Brunswick. The coffee is good, and made to order – a weak skinny latte was treated with the same respect as a coffee with the full complement of granules. Thank you, Choukette staff.

Mamasita

Having enjoyed – more than enjoyed – a meal here the last time I was in Melbourne I was thrilled to be able to visit this Mexican restaurant in Collins Street again. I have taken some photos from the website, as i was so busy eating that I forgot to take some of my own! The pumpkin was the only dish where I had my sits about me, and I wonder why, as it is certainly the star of the lunch time menu for me. The salad is also a great addition to the meal. We were also served a lovely guacamole and delicious (baked in house? it certainly seemed that this was so) corn chips.

The vegetarian tacos are delicious. As attested to by the results below.

Week Beginning 16 May 2023

The book this week is relevant to the E. Jean Carroll case against the former American president, and is a good read for people interested in the legal system, the way in which judges were appointed to the American Supreme Court, as well as the subject in general.

This week’s blog is very late because of technical problems. I apologise.

Leigh Gilmore The #MeToo Effect What Happens When We Believe Women Columbia University Press, 2023.

Thankyou NetGalley for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

Leigh Gilmore has written a clear and understandable argument, underpinned by thoughtful discussion, on the impact of Me Too and its relevance to all debate about sexual harassment and rape.

She gives value to survivors’ narratives that underpin the arguments to apply the law without the sexism apparent in its application to sexual harassment and rape. These stories are shown to have been instrumental in producing a social environment in which believing women, making their stories part of the authority on which law is based has propelled changes in which demands for sexual justice includes women’s right to be heard. Again, the thoughtfulness Gilmore applies to her assertions gives them a weighty impact – they must be heard, they cannot be easily dismissed. Speaking out is studied in depth, drawing attention to all the factors that prevent women from doing so and reiterating the importance of recognising a woman’s right to be heard. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.

Covid update for Canberra: At 12 May there were 870 new cases, with 36 hospitalised and 1 in ICU. Rat cases numbered 721. There were 3 deaths in this period. Vaccinations numbered 8,963, with 5,910 boosters. Recoveries numbered 828 in this period. The results of PCR tests are not available. These now require more than just going to get the test, possibly making them less likely to be undertaken unless the person has serious symptoms. The encouragement for people with symptoms to remain at home, social distance, and wear masks remains an important way of dealing with Covid in Canberra.

Cindy Lou has breakfast at Edgar’s, Ainslie

Edgar’s options were very nice indeed – creamy scrambled eggs on nicely buttered sourdough for one and a warm scone with jam and cream for the other. The latter would have been improved with thick rather than whipped cream. However, nothing was as deserving of the pained looks from Leah. She clearly disapproves of her home baked apple and peanut oat biscuits, and kibble! Even the froth from Edgar’s coffee was licked up half-heartedly with some remaining on the ground.

E. Jean Carroll

Leigh Gilmore suggests that the legal system will not help (but outlines very effectively how it can be changed to do so). E. Jean Carroll’s civil case demonstrates that in her case the law worked well. The following excerpts are an indication of some of the media responses to the trial and aftermath.

ISABEL FATTAL
Isabel Fattal

Isabel Fattal is a senior editor at The Atlantic.

Could last week’s verdict in E. Jean Carroll’s sexual-violence case affect Donald Trump’s standing with primary voters? I checked in with the Atlantic staff writer David Frum, who has been thinking for the past few weeks about what he calls “the X factors of the 2024 presidential race.” …

… week, David followed up on that essay by thinking through some of the unexpected “X factors” that could derail the “conventional wisdom” of Joe Biden being reelected. He reminds us that the 2016 election cycle was punctuated by two last-minute surprises—Trump’s Access Hollywood tape and FBI Director James Comey’s announcement that he was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices. “One proved damaging; one did not,” David writes.

What are 2024’s possible X factors? Biden’s health could certainly be one, David notes. Only about a third of Americans are confident that Biden is up to the physical and mental tasks of the presidency, according to recent polling. And Trump, should he maintain his current position as the GOP front-runner, has X factors of his own—primarily legal ones. David writes:

Trump’s indictments have, thus far, generated a rally effect among his co-partisans, widening his lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to 30 points in the month after … But the emphasis here is on thus far. More indictments may be coming … As president, Trump could rely on some political cover because the sheer number of allegations of wrongdoing got jumbled together, confused people, and often canceled one another out. Whether accumulating indictments will now cancel out in the same way is not so clear—even less so if they turn into accumulating convictions, followed by sentences.

After David wrote that article, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. It would be fair to wonder if this verdict could be its own potential X factor for Trump’s candidacy; as David noted in his story, an April 2023 poll showed that a quarter of Republicans want a nominee who isn’t distracted by his personal legal issues, and although that isn’t a majority, Trump doesn’t start this presidential contest with a large margin to spare.  However, the New Hampshire audience for Trump’s CNN town hall following the Carroll verdict last week—which consisted of New Hampshire GOP and undecided voters—laughed and cheered at Trump’s performance, including his mockery of Carroll, suggesting that his base is still holding strong.

David is unconvinced that Trump’s primary-election supporters would necessarily be deterred by the Carroll verdict. “It’s a civil, not a criminal, action; Trump was found liable, not convicted,” David told me today. “But a jury finding of sexual abuse is now inscribed on the Trump record—and opponents can remind voters that another two dozen accusations never got their hearing in court. And still there’s more to come.”

Although David acknowledged that “we may never know” if the verdict will hurt Trump’s prospects in the primaries, he noted that this is largely because “Trump’s primary opponents are terrified to talk to voters about it.” As Trump’s legal battles continue to unfold, the general election may prove to be a different story.

“In 2016, we were talking about allegations against Trump,” David continued. “In 2020, he’d been impeached, but not removed. Now he’s indicted. He’s been found liable. Very possibly, by November 2024, he could be convicted and sentenced.” And with 18 months until Election Day, new X factors for any of the candidates could still surprise us.

Heather Cox Richardson

From HeatheIsabel Fattalr Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American May 10th 2023

…Trump was speaking at what CNN billed as a “Town Hall” in front of a crowd of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, but the event quickly turned into a Trump rally. Trump played to the audience, which laughed at his attacks on E. Jean Carroll and cheered on the constant stream of lies that are by now a set performance. He steamrolled journalist Kaitlan Collins, who tried but could not counter his stream of lies.  When he finished, the audience gave him a standing ovation. 

A CNN media personality told Daily Beast media reporter Justin Baragona, “It is so bad. I was cautiously optimistic despite the criticism. It is awful. It’s a Trump infomercial. We’re going to get crushed.” A senior Trump advisor told senior NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake that the campaign team “is thrilled with how the night went.” The person called the event a “home run” and said “when the lefts melting down, we know it was a good day.”  

Maybe. But according to legal analyst Andrew Weissman, Trump’s embrace of the January 6 rioters and promise to pardon them if he’s reelected feeds a potential case against him. He made similarly revealing comments about his theft and retention of documents marked classified. It was that very kind of indiscretion that enabled Carroll’s lawyers to beat him in court…

A fantastic night at The Mousetrap (Commentary in a later blog).

By the time the play began, this section of the theatre was filled to capacity.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sunflowers-.jpg

Week beginning 16 May 2023

Leigh Gilmore The #MeToo Effect What Happens When We Believe Women Columbia University Press, 2023.

Thankyou NetGalley for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

Leigh Gilmore has written a clear and understandable argument, underpinned by thoughtful discussion, on the impact of Me Too and its relevance to all debate about sexual harassment and rape.

She gives value to survivors’ narratives that underpin the arguments to apply the law without the sexism apparent in its application to sexual harassment and rape. These stories are shown to have been instrumental in producing a social environment in which believing women, making their stories part of the authority on which law is based has propelled changes in which demands for sexual justice includes women’s right to be heard. Again, the thoughtfulness Gilmore applies to her assertions gives them a weighty impact – they must be heard, they cannot be easily dismissed. Speaking out is studied in depth, drawing attention to all the factors that prevent women from doing so and reiterating the importance of recognising a woman’s right to be heard. See Books: Reviews for the complete review.

Covid update for Canberra: At 12 May there were 870 new cases, with 36 hospitalised and 1 in ICU. Rat cases numbered 721. There were 3 deaths in this period. Vaccinations numbered 8,963, with 5,910 boosters. Recoveries numbered 828 in this period. The results of PCR tests are not available. These now require more than just going to get the test, possibly making them less likely to be undertaken unless the person has serious symptoms. The encouragement for people with symptoms to remain at home, social distance, and wear masks remains an important way of dealing with Covid in Canberra.

Cindy Lou has breakfast at Edgar’s, Ainslie

Edgar’s options were very nice indeed – creamy scrambled eggs on nicely buttered sourdough for one and a warm scone with jam and cream for the other. The latter would have been improved with thick rather than whipped cream. However, nothing was as deserving of the pained looks from Leah. She clearly disapproves of her home baked apple and peanut oat biscuits, and kibble! Even the froth from Edgar’s coffee was licked up half-heartedly with some remaining on the ground.

Leigh Gilmore suggests that the legal system will not help (but outlines very effectively how it can be changed to do so). E. Jean Carroll’s civil case demonstrates that in her case the law worked well. The following excerpts are an indication of some of the media responses to her case.

ISABEL FATTAL
Isabel Fattal

Isabel Fattal is a senior editor at The Atlantic.

Could last week’s verdict in E. Jean Carroll’s sexual-violence case affect Donald Trump’s standing with primary voters? I checked in with the Atlantic staff writer David Frum, who has been thinking for the past few weeks about what he calls “the X factors of the 2024 presidential race.” …

… week, David followed up on that essay by thinking through some of the unexpected “X factors” that could derail the “conventional wisdom” of Joe Biden being reelected. He reminds us that the 2016 election cycle was punctuated by two last-minute surprises—Trump’s Access Hollywood tape and FBI Director James Comey’s announcement that he was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices. “One proved damaging; one did not,” David writes.

What are 2024’s possible X factors? Biden’s health could certainly be one, David notes. Only about a third of Americans are confident that Biden is up to the physical and mental tasks of the presidency, according to recent polling. And Trump, should he maintain his current position as the GOP front-runner, has X factors of his own—primarily legal ones. David writes:

Trump’s indictments have, thus far, generated a rally effect among his co-partisans, widening his lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to 30 points in the month after … But the emphasis here is on thus far. More indictments may be coming … As president, Trump could rely on some political cover because the sheer number of allegations of wrongdoing got jumbled together, confused people, and often canceled one another out. Whether accumulating indictments will now cancel out in the same way is not so clear—even less so if they turn into accumulating convictions, followed by sentences.

After David wrote that article, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. It would be fair to wonder if this verdict could be its own potential X factor for Trump’s candidacy; as David noted in his story, an April 2023 poll showed that a quarter of Republicans want a nominee who isn’t distracted by his personal legal issues, and although that isn’t a majority, Trump doesn’t start this presidential contest with a large margin to spare.  However, the New Hampshire audience for Trump’s CNN town hall following the Carroll verdict last week—which consisted of New Hampshire GOP and undecided voters—laughed and cheered at Trump’s performance, including his mockery of Carroll, suggesting that his base is still holding strong.

David is unconvinced that Trump’s primary-election supporters would necessarily be deterred by the Carroll verdict. “It’s a civil, not a criminal, action; Trump was found liable, not convicted,” David told me today. “But a jury finding of sexual abuse is now inscribed on the Trump record—and opponents can remind voters that another two dozen accusations never got their hearing in court. And still there’s more to come.”

Although David acknowledged that “we may never know” if the verdict will hurt Trump’s prospects in the primaries, he noted that this is largely because “Trump’s primary opponents are terrified to talk to voters about it.” As Trump’s legal battles continue to unfold, the general election may prove to be a different story.

“In 2016, we were talking about allegations against Trump,” David continued. “In 2020, he’d been impeached, but not removed. Now he’s indicted. He’s been found liable. Very possibly, by November 2024, he could be convicted and sentenced.” And with 18 months until Election Day, new X factors for any of the candidates could still surprise us.

Heather Cox Richardson

From Heathr Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American May 10th 2023

…Trump was speaking at what CNN billed as a “Town Hall” in front of a crowd of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, but the event quickly turned into a Trump rally. Trump played to the audience, which laughed at his attacks on E. Jean Carroll and cheered on the constant stream of lies that are by now a set performance. He steamrolled journalist Kaitlan Collins, who tried but could not counter his stream of lies.  When he finished, the audience gave him a standing ovation. 

A CNN media personality told Daily Beast media reporter Justin Baragona, “It is so bad. I was cautiously optimistic despite the criticism. It is awful. It’s a Trump infomercial. We’re going to get crushed.” A senior Trump advisor told senior NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake that the campaign team “is thrilled with how the night went.” The person called the event a “home run” and said “when the lefts melting down, we know it was a good day.”  

Maybe. But according to legal analyst Andrew Weissman, Trump’s embrace of the January 6 rioters and promise to pardon them if he’s reelected feeds a potential case against him. He made similarly revealing comments about his theft and retention of documents marked classified. It was that very kind of indiscretion that enabled Carroll’s lawyers to beat him in court…

A fantastic night at The Mousetrap

robrjo's avatarRobin's Room

Ayeesha Inoon UntetheredHarlequin Australia, HQ (Fiction, Non Fiction, YA) & MIRA, 2023

Thank you, NetGalley and Harlequin Australia, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

I am even more grateful to Ayesha Inoon for writing this book – it’s a story that remains long after reading, creating the emotion and some of the understanding that is so essential to gaining any insight of a life lived through two cultures. In my Goodreads review I gave Ayesha Inoon an additional half star in appreciation for her wonderful rendering of Australia’s capital city, Canberra. I have not fed swans at Lake Ginninderra but have felt guilty at turning on the heating before the Canberra designated date – after Anzac Day! The descriptions of the streets, quiet but then birdsongs filling the air, Floriade, shopping in Belconnen at the mall, and more bring alive an Australian city. And, before this…

View original post 1,746 more words

Week beginning 10 May 2023

Ayesha Inoon Untethered Harlequin Australia, HQ (Fiction, Non Fiction, YA) & MIRA, 2023 

Thank you, NetGalley and Harlequin Australia, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

I am even more grateful to Ayesha Inoon for writing this book – it’s a story that remains long after reading, creating the emotion and some of the understanding that is so essential to gaining any insight of a life lived through two cultures. In my Goodreads review I gave Ayesha Inoon an additional half star in appreciation for her wonderful rendering of Australia’s capital city, Canberra. I have not fed swans at Lake Ginninderra but have felt guilty at turning on the heating before the Canberra designated date – after Anzac Day! The descriptions of the streets, quiet but then birdsongs filling the air, Floriade, shopping in Belconnen at the mall, and more bring alive an Australian city. And, before this, the life in Colombo is colourful, family oriented and more – a picture unknown to me until the descriptions permeated not only Zia’s life, but mine as I read.

Zia is an appealing and endearing character whose strength helps her make such a success of both lives. She arrives in Canberra with her and Rashid’s daughter, Farah, joining him in a new life. She has had to leave behind her the results of the first choices she has had to make before embarking on the journey from Sri Lanka. She has lost closeness with her large extended family of not only parents, parents in law, sibling and sister-in-law but other relatives, their friends, and her friends. Belongings are left. Memories bound up in these are a source of regret, and it will take time, effort, and acceptance to make new memories. Unfamiliar is the environment, her new home, and more seriously, Rashid. Close to her relationship with Rashid in importance and unfamiliarity is learning to be by herself, be responsible for Farah alone, learning the isolation of a new Australian life in contrast with the past. See complete review at Books: Reviews.

Covid Update

ACT summary on 5 May shows that there were 826 new cases, with 38 in hospital and 3 in ICU. One life was lost.

1

16–20 AUGUST The 2023 Canberra Writers Festival returns

FIND OUT MORE

THE CANBERRA WRITERS FESTIVAL RETURNS
16–20 AUGUST 2023

In the spirit of our passion for words and ideas, we are delighted to announce that the 2023 Canberra Writers Festival will be staged from Wednesday 16 August through to Sunday 20 August, with Artistic Director, Beejay Silcox at the helm.

As is the Canberra Writers Festival tradition, the driving theme is ‘Power Politics Passion’. It is a theme that begs big questions: What do we value? Whose stories are heard? How do we reckon with the past and imagine the future? It is our hope that CWF will provide a space to explore these questions, and to celebrate the heft and craft of Australian storytellers — a joyful collision of art-makers, big thinkers, big dreamers and readers.

Welcome to Canberra’s Biggest Book ClubThank you all for all the wonderful messages of support we received when we announced Beejay Silcox as our new Artistic Director.  Beejay is working at a cracking pace to create a magnificent festival for us, opening on August 16th this year.  


We are thrilled to announce her first initiative – Canberra’s Biggest Book Club – featuring one of the finest novels published in the last year, Bad Art Mother by Edwina Preston.  Shortlisted for both the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and the Stella Prize, Bad Art Mother is redolent of the cultural life in 1960s Melbourne inhabited by luminaries such as Georges and Mirka Mora, John and Sunday Reed and the writers and artists in their orbit.

Good mothers are expected to be selfless. Artists are seen as selfish. So what does this mean for a mother with artistic ambitions? Enter: frustrated poet Veda Gray, who is offered a Faustian bargain when a wealthy childless couple, the Parishes, invite her to exchange her young son Owen for time to write. Bad Art Mother is inspired – to a degree – by the life of Australian poet Gwen Harwood who Preston describes as a mischievous, daring, hilarious, flawed, and brave writer.

Beejay chose Bad Art Mother because it is evocative, ambitious and rich with questions. “Who gets to be an art-maker? At what cost? Whose artistic voices are valued, and whose are lost? These questions are as relevant today as they were half a century ago. This novel defies easy answers – that’s why it’s so beguiling. Edwina Preston invites us – she dares us – to make up our own minds.” 

As part of Canberra’s Biggest Book Club, you and your reading buddies will have access to exclusive content including a reading guide and book club questions.  

Over the next three months we will send you updates on the novel, insights into its creation and naturally you will have priority booking for Canberra’s Big Book Club with Edwina Preston on August 19.  You can submit questions for the author in advance on behalf of yourself or your whole book club.  And we will give you a sneak peak at the full festival program to give you more time to plan what you want to see.

Both Preston’s novel and her life as a writer in contemporary Australia will provide rich fodder for a lively discussion. 

You have plenty of time to read the book, receive regular updates and then come along on Saturday 19th August for a Spoiler-tastic session with Preston and book clubbers across Canberra.  The Festival Team
Visit canberawritersfestival.com.au for more festival information.
Follow the Canberra Writers Festival on Facebook or Instagram.We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the ACT, the Ngunnawal people.
We acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of Canberra and this region.
Copyright © 2023 Canberra Writers Festival, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you subscribed to our mailing list on our website.

Our mailing address is:
Canberra Writers Festival
GPO Box 2495
Canberra City ACT 2601
Australia

Two Responses to American gun violence

Joe Scarborough MSNBC

A combination of graphics and commentary made this special program from Joe Scarborough a telling contribution to debate – one in which Republicans and those who vote for them engage in only with superficial responses.

Heather Cox Richardson’s information might be widely known in America. However, it rarely overcomes the platitudes about gun violence and the Second Amendment which air after a shooting – oh, I forgot, the thoughts and prayers.

May 6, 2023 HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Heather Cox Richardson @HEATHERCOXRICHARDSON

Letters from an American By Heather Cox Richardson A newsletter about the history behind today’s politics.

For years now, after one massacre or another, I have written some version of the same article, explaining that the nation’s current gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of the takeover of our nation by a radical extremist minority. The idea that massacres are “the price of freedom,” as right-wing personality Bill O’Reilly said in 2017 after the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution, on which modern-day arguments for widespread gun ownership rest, is one simple sentence: “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” There’s not a lot to go on about what the Framers meant, although in their day, to “bear arms” meant to be part of an organized militia.

As the Tennessee Supreme Court wrote in 1840, “A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.”

Today’s insistence that the Second Amendment gives individuals a broad right to own guns comes from two places.

One is the establishment of the National Rifle Association in New York in 1871, in part to improve the marksmanship skills of American citizens who might be called on to fight in another war, and in part to promote in America the British sport of elite shooting, complete with hefty cash prizes in newly organized tournaments. Just a decade after the Civil War, veterans jumped at the chance to hone their former skills. Rifle clubs sprang up across the nation.

By the 1920s, rifle shooting was a popular American sport. “Riflemen” competed in the Olympics, in colleges, and in local, state, and national tournaments organized by the NRA. Being a good marksman was a source of pride, mentioned in public biographies, like being a good golfer. In 1925, when the secretary of the NRA apparently took money from ammunition and arms manufacturers, the organization tossed him out and sued him.

NRA officers insisted on the right of citizens to own rifles and handguns but worked hard to distinguish between law-abiding citizens who should have access to guns for hunting and target shooting and protection, and criminals and mentally ill people, who should not. In 1931, amid fears of bootlegger gangs, the NRA backed federal legislation to limit concealed weapons; prevent possession by criminals, the mentally ill and children; to require all dealers to be licensed; and to require background checks before delivery. It backed the 1934 National Firearms Act, and parts of the 1968 Gun Control Act, designed to stop what seemed to be America’s hurtle toward violence in that turbulent decade.

But in the mid-1970s a faction in the NRA forced the organization away from sports and toward opposing “gun control.” It formed a political action committee (PAC) in 1975, and two years later it elected an organization president who abandoned sporting culture and focused instead on “gun rights.”

This was the second thing that led us to where we are today: leaders of the NRA embraced the politics of Movement Conservatism, the political movement that rose to combat the business regulations and social welfare programs that both Democrats and Republicans embraced after World War II.

Movement Conservatives embraced the myth of the American cowboy as a white man standing against the “socialism” of the federal government as it sought to level the economic playing field between Black Americans and their white neighbors.

Leaders like Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater personified the American cowboy, with his cowboy hat and opposition to government regulation, while television Westerns showed good guys putting down bad guys without the interference of the government.

In 1972 the Republican platform had called for gun control to restrict the sale of “cheap handguns,” but in 1975, as he geared up to challenge President Gerald R. Ford for the 1976 presidential nomination, Movement Conservative hero Ronald Reagan took a stand against gun control. In 1980, the Republican platform opposed the federal registration of firearms, and the NRA endorsed a presidential candidate—Reagan—for the first time.

E. Jean Carroll – congratulations E. Jean. More next week, together with a review of The Me Too Effect by Leigh Gilmore.

Week beginning 3 May 2023

Kerry Wilkinson The One Who Fell (A Whitecliff Bay Mystery Book 1) Bookouture, April 2023.

Thank you, Net Galley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

The One Who Fell, the first in a series, is thoroughly enjoyable. The novels that follow are further evidence that I have found a new series to value. In The One Who Fell Kerry Wilkinson brings together an appealing group of characters, some gentle but effective social commentary, a mystery to be solved and an interesting location.  The first chapter is a delight – an introduction that has its comic moments, but then draws the reader into the serious nature of an interchange that impacts the main character’s life. Cheese has its moments, serious and funny along with its consumer, throughout the series. But here, it is while pursuing a choice amongst the many varieties that Millie Westlake is accosted with the question, ‘Did you kill your mum and dad?’ Books: Reviews – see for complete review.

After the Covid update: 10 Extraordinary Places around London; Tasmanian wilderness and film locations; Cindy Lou at Courgette.

Covid Update

On 28 April there were 626 new cases, with 37 people with Covid hospitalised, and 4 in ICU. There were 2 deaths due to Covid.

10 Extraordinary Places That You Won’t Believe Are In London* +

London is full of surprises, but nothing will shock you quite as much as the fact that these places are actually within the boundaries of the M25.

 GEORGIE HOOLE • 10 MARCH, 2023

a woman in a pink dress standing in front of BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir temple in Neasden
Photo: @madamelena_

Our city isn’t all concrete and chaos. Believe it or not, we also have castles, caves and calm. Here are ten places that, rather astonishingly, are actually in London (featured image by @madamelena_). What a wonderful world.

10 places you won’t believe are in London

1. Kyoto Garden, Kensington
The lovely Kyoto Garden in Holland Park – a great spot for a first date in London
Photo: @shutterstock

The beautiful Kyoto Garden is an oasis of calm in the heart of Kensington’s Holland Park. Originally built to celebrate the 1992 Japan Festival in London, this garden is a thing of pure beauty. Who needs a plane ticket to Japan when this is so damn convincing?

You’ll get so lost in the pretty trees and Japanese features that you’ll forget you’re just a stone’s throw away from High Street Kensington. More info here.

2. BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Neasden
a view of the neasden temple on a sunny day from underneath the arch
Credit: BAPS

Sure, most people wouldn’t put Neasden on their London bucket list — but that’s where they’d be wrong. This north-west neighbourhood is actually home to one of the most breathtaking buildings in the city.

Shri Swaminarayan Mandir is a beautiful, traditional Hindu temple carved entirely out of stone. For a time, when it was first completed in the mid-90s, it was the largest Hindu temple outside of India. Read all about it here.

3. Eel Pie Island, Twickenham
eel pie island
Photo: @littlelollytravels

Eel Pie Island is a private island accessible only via footbridge, and it has many stories to tell. It was once a hub for jazz, blues and rock ‘n’ roll and many famous artists played within the ballroom at the legendary Eel Pie Island Hotel, including Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton and The Who. In 1963, there was a period where you could come and see The Rolling Stones play at the Eel Pie Island Hotel every week. Read all about it here.

4. Painshill Park, Cobham
Crystal Grotto London
Photo: @buckyrockz

Painshill Park is a gorgeous, landscaped garden that dates back to the 1730s. It was in fact the life’s work of Charles Hamilton; a well-to-do member of the Irish aristocracy.

Inspired by his travels around Europe, Hamilton filled his garden with eccentric follies, Renaissance architecture and a beautiful grotto that you’d never guess was so close to the city. The grounds are well worth a visit, but note that the Crystal Grotto is only open at weekends. More info here.

5. Highgate Cemetery, Highgate
Photo: Nick Garrod

Highgate Cemetery is the resting place of 170,000 people, and that number is continuously growing. But the graveyard, somewhat surprisingly, is full of some impressive sights! In the West Cemetery, Victorian fascination with the Egyptians resulted in the stunning Egyptian Avenue, as well as numerous impressive tombs.

Meanwhile, the equally impressive Lebanon Circle has appeared in many a ‘gram over the years. Less beautiful, but a lot more spooky, are the subterranean Terrace Catacombs; enter if you dare. More info here.

6. St Dunstan-in-the-East, the City of London

First built nearly a thousand years ago, St-Dunstan-in-the-East is now a lovely, secret garden situated amongst the ruins of the former Church of St Dunstan. The church is a Grade I listed building that was severely damaged in the Blitz of 1941 but, instead of being rebuilt, the remains are now open to the public. More info here.

7. Hampstead Heath Pergola & Hill Gardens, Hampstead
Photo: @georgiehoole

Hampstead Pergola is the outcome of a very rich man’s dream to host extravagant summer parties. That man is Lord Leverhulme, who made his fortune selling soap. However, after his death, the Pergola suffered.

And, when the City of London took it under their wing in 1989, the place was nearly falling apart. They’re still in the process of resurrecting it, but it remains a beautiful spot for a wander. More info here.

8. Strawberry Hill House & Garden, Twickenham
strawberry hill house
@julies_explorations

I told you we had castles! (Don’t be fooled by ‘House’). This majestic building dates back to 1747 when Horace Walpole decided to purchase the empty Thames-side land and build his very own fairytale castle. As you would if you could, Walpole created a Gothic masterpiece, complete with battlements, towers and all. More info here.

9. Leighton House Museum, Kensington
Leighton House in Kensington
Image: Will Pryce

Deep in the heart of Kensington, you’ll find the incredible Leighton House Museum.

From the outside, you would never suspect that it’s actually a magnificent palace filled with breathtaking art. Lo and behold, the museum is crammed with brilliant paintings, sculptures and beautifully tiled rooms. More info here.

10. Crossness Pumping Station, Abbey Wood
the colourful Crossness Pumping Station in Abbey Wood
Photo: Peter Scrimshaw

Okay, I’m going to be honest here: this is a Victorian sewage system. But it’s not all sh*t. Known as the ‘Cathedral of Sewage’, Crossness Pumping Station first opened after The Great Stink of 1858, and it’s really rather beautiful. More info here.

* I have visited only two of these, despite living in London for over four years, and making many trips as a tourist. I visited Leighton House early in my stay in London and feel very ready to visit again. It was sumptuous, easily navigated (as long as you do not mind the stairs) and featured dark mysterious rooms as well as the well-lit entrance seen above. Strawberry Hill House and Garden, from recall, was at the end of a tube and bus ride – and well worth the effort. The featured gardens at Holland Park and Hampstead Heath are possibly not well signed as I have been to both Holland Park and Hampstead Heath and seen neither. They present a great option for my future visits to London. My review Victorian Obsession at Leighton House Leighton House Reviewed 26 February 2015 “Leighton house is always worth a visit and even more so with this sumptuous exhibition. At the same time as enjoying the exhibition I again delighted in the decorative rooms with elegant tiling, glorious fabrics and interesting furnishings. I now receive newsletters advising me of special exhibitions or night time viewings and have found it really worthwhile being on the mailing list.”

+ This is a wonderful site for information about London. However, I am not sure that the audience of this blog wants to know about the pubs that are open after 2am in London – another article in the series.

Tasmanian wilderness beckons filmmakers beyond the beaten track

The IF Team· Screen Tasmaniasponsored-content-1 ·April 26, 2023

The view approaching Horsetail Falls, set amongst the mountainous outskirts of Queenstown. Credit: Jess Bonde

Rugged beauty; a wild nature; a captivating coastline; a rich and storied history. Tasmania’s west coast presents as a remote and mostly untouched wilderness dotted with film-worthy towns and welcoming communities.

The road into Queenstown is bordered by rocky mountainscapes that are mostly devoid of vegetation.
Credit: Jason Charles Hill

Stretching from Arthur River in the north, south to Strahan and inland to the foot of Cradle Mountain, Tasmania’s west coast lends itself brilliantly to diverse film projects that seek an “off the beaten track” element.

Aptly dubbed Tasmania’s “western wilds”, this enchanting wilderness is within a few hours’ drive of Australia’s southernmost capital city of Hobart and offers all the essentials for on-location filming.

Bay of Fires filming in Zeehan’s main street.
Credit: Brook Rushton

With its ability to conjure a sense of isolation and remoteness, despite its accessibility to a capital city, the west coast offered the ideal setting for ITV Studios Australia’s reality series Alone Australia, which recently premiered on SBS Television.

But it’s the diversity of locations and the collaborative and welcoming attitude that makes Tasmania’s west coast a truly special filming destination. Other major production credits include reality program The Bridge Australia, drama series The Tailings, and the highly anticipated upcoming Archipelago Productions/FremantleMedia drama series Bay of Fires.

Bay of Fires filming on the Henty River, between Strahan and Zeehan.
Credit: Brook Rushton

The jewel in the west coast’s crown is Strahan, situated on the banks of Macquarie Harbour. The often-mirrored waters offer an idyllic lakeside setting, contrasting with the diverse landscapes that lay at the town’s doorstep.

Mirrored waterways can often be found along the Gordon River, which leads into Macquarie Harbour and the town of Strahan.
Credit: Tourism Australia

For a location shoot, Strahan offers a comfortable and convenient base, with ample accommodation and easy access to film-friendly location options ranging from the starkness of the Henty Sand Dunes that stand up to 30 metres above the beach at the mouth of the Henty River, to the deep greens of the mossy rainforests with spectacular towering waterfalls.

The Henty Sand Dunes, located just outside of Strahan, tower 30 metres above the beach.
Credit: Ollie Khedun and West Coast Council

Less than an hour’s drive inland from Strahan is Queenstown – a former mining town where Australian Rules footballers are “so hardcore they play on gravel”, as noted by Cate Blanchett on an episode of the Jimmy Kimmel Show earlier this year.

Queenstown has retained many links to its brutal yet fascinating history. Heritage buildings – including the Empire Hotel with its National Trust-listed Tasmanian blackwood staircase – line the main street of a town that was built solely for the purpose of mining the surrounding hillsides. The rugged slopes are predominantly stripped of vegetation as a result of this mining past, instead offering an other-worldly display of colours in a unique “moonscape” terrain with deep gullies and occasionally snow-capped peaks.

Queenstown has retained many links to its mining history.
Credit: Flow Mountain Bike

The emergence of Queenstown as an arts hub in more recent years has brought new life and a contrasting element to the town, with murals adorning shop walls and the presence of a renewed energy that is primed to inspire any filmmaker.

Australian drama series Bay of Fires, due to air on ABC later this year, filmed much of its content in Queenstown and Strahan, as well as the small historical mining town of Zeehan and in Hobart.

Marta Dusseldorp as Stella in Bay of Fires
Credit: Brook Rushton

Bay of Fires co-creator, actor and producer Marta Dusseldorp said her first sighting of the tiny town of Zeehan made a lasting impression.

“I was writing the series and I didn’t have the location yet. I knew I wanted a remote place that looked out of the way but I was warned not to go too remote because of the costs involved,” Dusseldorp said. “I heard about Zeehan and we went for a drive and hit the main street and we saw the place that was in my imagination. I thought ‘I can’t believe a place like this exists’.”

“We went to Queenstown, which I’d always been fascinated by, and it’s the most magical place; the cultural impact of the artists that are living there now. 

“I asked the council if I could base a series there and they asked what they could do to help. We were talking about bringing 100-150 cast and crew for 16 weeks in the dead of winter. There was this camaraderie (in the community), with people who just wanted to unlock the doors to this wonderful place.

“Then we went out to Strahan to get that other look that’s not landlocked. Even though we were there in the dead of winter, it was just so beautiful. Everything is close together and easy to get to. I can’t imagine (filming the series) in any other place – our lead character in our series is the west coast. Our show is basically a love letter to Tasmania.”

Bay of Fires utilised Queentown’s airstrip.
Credit: Brook Rushton

For screenwriter Caitlin Richardson, Tasmania’s west coast provided the perfect inspiration when penning the storyline for her 2021 SBS drama series The Tailings.

“The West Coast as the setting for The Tailings came about because it was where my parents started their careers as teachers,” Richardson explained. “They met in the tiny mining town of Savage River and went on to work in Queenstown and later Burnie. They have such fond memories of their years living and working on the west coast, primarily because of the strong sense of community there.

“I think, for this reason, I have always associated the West Coast with formative, coming of age experiences. Exploring a couple of transformational moments in the lives of two young women was a central focus in The Tailings, so I was interested in setting our story on the West Coast.”

Both Strahan and Queenstown are served by airports that allow for small fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter access. Hobart’s major commercial airport is located 260 kilometres from Queenstown.

A steam engine operates on the West Coast Wilderness Railway, giving a small glimpse into the region’s mining past.
Credit: Ollie Khedun and West Coast Council

The two primary townships of the West Coast are connected by a railway line through the dense temperate rainforest. Now existing only as a tourist attraction – with a scenic steam train journey operating daily – the railway was constructed in 1897 to transport minerals such as gold and copper to Strahan for export.

Mayor of West Coast Council Shane Pitt said the region had become popular with filmmakers seeking something a little different from their location choices.

“The West Coast has been busy, especially this past year, with many different filming projects being undertaken,” Mayor Pitt said. “The remoteness and uniqueness of this beautiful place we call home makes itself ideal for TV shows like the first ever Australian Alone and The Bridge.

Queenstown’s streetscape set against a mountain backdrop.
Credit: Rob Mulally

“Our spectacular roads are a match made in heaven for Subaru WRX ads and the gravel oval for AFL ads and photo shoots by some of the best in the sports photography business, such as Steve Waugh Photography. The diverse landscape lends itself to just about anything you can think of.

“Being involved in so many different filming projects has been a fantastic way to showcase our region, and West Coast Council is proud to work alongside production crews who are brave enough to travel just outside their comfort zone.”

The Tailings Tegan Stimson (Jas) with Director Stevie Cruz-Martin filming at Mountain Heights High School in Queenstown.
Credit: SBS/Good Lark Pty Ltd

Screen Tasmania is happy to connect interstate and international production teams with experienced local creatives and crew, and has programs in place to support film development and production within the state. For more information contact Screen Tasmania on 03 6165 5070 or email info@screen.tas.gov.au or visit www.screen.tas.gov.au.

Cindy Lou at Courgette

Courgette has gone into voluntary administration but is continuing to trade as usual and is encouraging customers to keep their reservations. Cindy Lou thought she would join other Canberrans in trying to keep this restaurant going – it would be a terrible loss. After all, if Cindy Lou cannot get to Aria in Sydney Courgette currently provides a Canberra alternative.

The restaurant was full by 7.00 pm except for one three-person table, so it seems that other Canberrans feel that the restaurant should be supported.

As usual, the food was delicious and the service pleasant and attentive. It seems that the wonderful ash butter is no longer available, and this is a huge disappointment. However, the whipped butter was successful with the warmed rolls (but I wish the ash butter would return!) The three-course menu for a set price ($95) is inventive and comprises meat, fish and vegetarian dishes- and three choices of dessert as well as a cheese platter.

The dishes below are the chicken breast, the beef, fish, and two different desserts.

Kingsolver, O’Farrell among Women’s Prize fiction finalists

By JILL LAWLESS April 26, 2023 GMT

LONDON (AP) — An Appalachian update on Charles Dickens and a tale told by a dolphin are among the six finalists announced Wednesday for the prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction.

American writer Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead,” a reworking of “David Copperfield” set in modern-day Virginia, and U.K. novelist Laline Paull’s deep-sea drama “Pod” are among the contenders for the 30,000 pound ($37,000) award.

Kingsolver previously won the Women’s Prize in 2010 for “The Lacuna.” Britain’s Maggie O’Farrell, who won in 2020 for “Hamnet,” is a finalist again for Italian Renaissance tale “The Marriage Portrait.”

The finalists also include three debut novels: “Trespasses,” a love story by Irish writer Louise Kennedy that is set during Northern Ireland’s years of violence; “Fire Rush,” a dub reggae-drenched coming-of-age tale by Britain’s Jacqueline Crooks; and Sarajevo-set war saga “Black Butterflies” by Britain’s Priscilla Morris.

Broadcast journalist Louise Minchin, who is chairing the panel of judges, said the six finalists had an “amazing” imaginative scope.

“You’ve got 16th-century Florence, you’ve got the Indian Ocean told from the point of view of the creatures that live in it,” she said.

Minchin said that by giving personal voices to the opioid crisis in America, the siege of Sarajevo, late-1970s London riots and Northern Ireland’s conflict, other books on the list take readers behind the headlines in a way that is “very insightful and very moving.”

Founded in 1996, the prize is open to female English-language writers from any country. Previous winners include Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones and Susanna Clarke. Last year’s prize went to Canadian-American novelist Ruth Ozeki for “The Book of Form and Emptiness.”

The winner of the 2023 Women’s Prize will be unveiled June 14 at a ceremony in London.

Oh Dear… so I got it wrong?

See my review of Demon Copperhead in Books: Reviews December 7 2022.