Landscapes

When the fish aren't biting

2012-01-29T17:50:00.000+11:00

I find camping grounds scary places. You wonder why people didn’t just stay at home – with tents the size of McMansions, BBQs bigger than the average stove and enough fishing gear to send Lake Jindabyne dry.

So we normally avoid them at all costs.

That’s why I’ve discovered the Snowy Mountains in summer is not a bad alternative to the beach. The clime is slightly cooler and in Kosciuszko National Park you can camp anywhere you like so long as you can’t be seen from the road.

Our aim on our five-day trip was to do a major Alpine walk, explore a bit, try our hand at freshwater fishing and camp out. I’ve since realised it pays to be organised on such expeditions.

Many years ago when I lived in the Kimberley and Northern Territory my ute was equipped with a tin box full of camping utensils, including a couple of billies, a swag and water bottles. All have disappeared over the years. So into the back of the trusty Subaru we packed a couple of sleeping bags, a tent, the fishing lines and hooks, a bag of plastic plates and cups, knives and forks and a thermos.

After a magic day of walking from Thredbo to Charlotte Pass, we headed off on our camping adventure. It was years since I’d been to the Snowies in summer and it was exciting to see the wildflowers out in bloom and the mountains green from all the rain. The unexpected part was also seeing people had lit fires at their camping spots – no bushfire ban so far these holidays.

Mmm, some matches might be a good idea, I thought as we stopped in Khancoban to buy supplies, including a torch at a rather under-equipped store. At the petrol station we were able to get fishing hooks.

“Do you have bait?” we asked.

“No, you have to go to 42 Alpine Way for that,” we were told and we headed back past the store.

An enterprising local had a thriving business selling worms from the neatest shed I’ve ever seen – with rows of caps and stubby holders displaying his collecting habits.

We asked if he knew where we could buy a billy – and he suggested the local op shop.

No billies there but decent frying pans and some more plastic plates.

“You need something good and deep for frying the trout you’re going to catch,” the woman in the store said hopefully.

Back up the road we found a good little picnic spot for our lunch and a possible place to throw in the line but then I realised we’d forgotten to get a license. Having been stopped before by a Hot Lips Houlihan lookalike when fishing on the south coast, we didn’t think it was worth the risk.

At Cabraumurra we swapped yarns with ruddy-faced men from Merimbula who’d been exploring back roads and finally picked up a licence as well as emergency food of tinned tuna and fresh bread. We were directed to Three Mile Dam opposite the Selwyn Snowfields as a good place to camp and fish.

It wasn’t long before we found a spot and took the tent out. Problem was it was missing a part and was therefore useless and anyway I thought we’d be warmer and more comfortable sleeping in the car. Then the March flies struck, stinging even through layers of clothes. Lucky the one thing I hadn’t forgotten was the Aeroguard.

Down at the dam the late afternoon sun was warm, leftover Christmas cake and luke-warm tea tasted heavenly as I read a novel and my husband fished. I could hear the wack wack of him hitting something with an empty bottle but ignored it.

But the fish weren’t biting, even with all that fresh worm bait. All he’d managed to catch was a pile of March flies.

“Don’t worry we’ll go into Kiandra tomorrow and have a big brekky,” I said.

It wasn’t till the next morning as I stood at the Kiandra cemetery eating my bread and tinned tuna, since we also discovered the historic town had no shop or café, it dawned on me what would have made perfect bait: March flies.

A country pub joke

2012-01-10T10:39:00.000+11:00

I was in the tiny hamlet of Wee Jasper recently, having taken a back road from Tumut to Yass (NSW).

After winding our way down the mountain on a rough, potholed road through part of the Brindabella Ranges, we stopped for a drink at the pub overlooking the Goodradigbee River. You can usually find a few jokes and funny comments on walls or in posters at such pubs, if not from patrons sitting at the bar.

I thought the one I found tacked to the wall worth sharing but can only paraphrase it:

Well Julia Guillard and Bob Brown decided it was time they visited the "country", talked to country folk and hopefully drummed up a few country votes. They dressed in their moleskins and Akubras and headed bush. Just for good measure they took a blue cattle dog with them.

Finding a nice country pub they wandered in to the bar.

"A couple of middies," Bob asked the bartender and they settled in the corner with their dog, waiting for likely constituents.

The next thing an old farmer came into the bar. He looked at the dog, picked up its hind leg, put it down, looked puzzled then walked up to the bar and asked for a drink.

About ten minutes later another farmer came in. He also looked at the dog, picked up its hind leg, put it down, with a very puzzled look and walked out again.

Yet another ten minutes and another farmer came in. This time he also did what the others had done but Bob could stand it no longer.

"Hey mate, why are you all looking under our dog like that?" he asked.

"Well," the farmer said. "I was told there was a cattle dog in here with a couple of arseholes."

Cowgirls and Indians

2011-12-20T16:58:00.001+11:00

Anybody interested in pioneer women or colonial history has to visit at least some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder trail in the United States.

Since the initial publication of Little House in the Big Woods in 1931, Wilder’s books have been continually in print and have been translated into 40 different languages. And let's not forget the TV show which ran for nine seasons.

Several of her former homes, school houses and farms in Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota, Missouri and New York are on the trail.

When Wilder was in her 50s, her only daughter, Rose, who was herself a journalist, editor and ghost writer, urged her to write about her youth and the difficult pioneering days.

Rose herself had the pioneer spirit in huge quantities and was a world traveller. She wrote about America as well as countries such as Albania. But, according to Roger Lea MacBride, her lawyer, “Rose grew up at a time when ladies did not consciously seek fame”. She chose to shed light on the lives of others instead of her own.

Later under her married name of Rose Wilder Lane she wrote a number of magazine articles, some of which were published as the Woman’s Day Book of American Needlework. Incredibly, she was sent to Vietnam as a war correspondent in 1965 when she was 78 years old.

“Rose read constantly and knew more about any subject I can think of than any person I ever knew,” MacBride says in the introduction to The First Four Years by her mother.

But a week before she was to set off on a world tour at the age of 81 Rose’s heart stopped suddenly at her home of 30 years in Danbury, Connecticut. The night before, she had sat up in jovial and lively conversation with friends after making them a baking of her famous bread.

There’s some controversy around the “Little House” books, with some believing that Rose, then one of the highest paid journalists in the nation, had written them. She did know the publishers and editors and that would have helped get her mother’s books published and most probably collaborated with her or at least had a big hand in editing them.

Laura’s books aren’t as PC as some might imagine. When American Indian groups visit her former homes in De Smet, South Dakota, they tell the association running them to “be careful what you say about Indians” as in the books “Ma” was afraid of them. Yet Laura was fascinated by Native Americans and her descriptions of the way Indians rode along ancient trails past their cabin or came right inside demanding food makes really interesting reading.

In The First Four Years, Laura confronts some Indians who she thinks might take her pony and saddle. And when one lays his hand on her arm, she slaps his face.

Laura was the only one out of her sisters who had children – Rose was named for the prairie roses - but her next baby, a boy, died. Rose herself had a stillborn baby. And she was said to have been a lesbian. And so Rose was the last living descendant of this most pioneer of pioneer women.

Dances with Kevin

2011-11-18T10:05:00.001+11:00

Crazy Horse by Diana Plater

The world is divided into those who love Kevin Costner and those who don’t.

One friend describes him as “an archetypal spunk” but then she admits to a partiality to honey-hued hair on boys.

Others think he is a super dag and a bad actor.

I’m somewhere in between on this one.

While researching a recent story I watched Dances with Wolves again and I loved it.

A film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake, it tells of a Union Army lieutenant assigned to an abandoned army post who finds himself alone and beyond civilization. Only a wolf and some roving Lakota Indians provide distractions, as the back of the DVD cover puts it.

Winning an Oscar for best picture, apparently it was responsible for reigniting the western genre in films when it came out in 1990. Three hours long it was also pretty entertaining, funny, sad and moving. And I liked the way Lieutenant Dunbar danced around the fire and rode his trusty horse.

At least he attempted to make it a bilingual movie – with much of the movie in Lakota.

But one Native American activist and actor described it as Lawrence of the Plains.

He said a woman taught the actors the Lakota language, which was a problem because Lakota has a male-gendered language and a female-gendered language. So some of the Indians and Costner were speaking in the feminine way.

This brought on a flood of giggles by male Lakotans everytime they saw the movie in local cinemas.

Really, you can’t win.

Well old Two Socks, the wolf, loved him.

But Kev’s $100 million Dunbar Resort in Deadwood has also been surrounded with controversy since the early 90s when he and his brother Dan first proposed it.

The project hinged on a change in state gaming laws. The state of South Dakota voted to raise the betting limit at Deadwood casinos from $5 to $100 and reportedly gave the brothers $14 million to develop their plan.

It was to be built on land next to the Black Hills National Forest and would have had a golf course and a railroad right of way. But Native American groups view the Black Hills as sacred, the resort as desecration, and said the land was deeded to the Lakota in treaties.

Also previously in these states only Indian reservations had had the rights to run casinos - a way to boost the local economy.

Despite spending millions, Costner's resort has never materialised.

Still he does have his small casino, Midnight Star, in Deadwood and the staff think he’s a good guy and pretty laid back, despite all the troubles and bad reviews over the years..

All over the walls of his casino are memorabilia, costumes and props from his movies including the one I loved because it was just SO kitsch – The Bodyguard. Oh Whitney, how far have you fallen since then?

The night we visit it’s quiet with only a table of card players - probably playing the Dead Man's Hand, I think to myself. Upstairs a barmaid tells me Costner comes “about twice a year”.

“He’s kinda mellow and down to earth,” she says.

And you could tell that was all she wanted to say on the subject of Kevin Costner.

Writing, Cooking and Eating

2011-11-07T20:19:00.001+11:00

There's still a couple of vacancies for my next LANDSCAPES Travel Writing Workshop on Sunday November 13.

10.30am to 3.30pm.

$150 per person including lunch.

Held at my home in Sydney's eastern suburbs the class is small and friendly with plenty of time to write and also get feedback. You take home a kit of articles and tips for successful travel writing.

While we're writing and talking my husband, Budi, cooks a great Balinese lunch for us to enjoy after our short excursion. The class is all about "making something from nothing".

Past participants have described it as inspiring and fun. So you should go home full of ideas and great food!

Another class will be held in early December. And more are planned for upcoming months in Bali.

More information/bookings: plater@optusnet.com.au

Powwow Posts - greetings from North Dakota

2011-10-29T16:08:00.000+11:00

EAT, LOVE and PRAY TO GET OUT OF THE TRAFFIC

2011-10-04T22:18:00.000+11:00

I saw something that I really wished I hadn’t seen as I walked the beach of Kuta yesterday.

Yes it was a woman lying in the sun reading Eat, Love, Pray.

As everybody in the world knows the book and film of the same name was partly set in Bali.

And floods of divorced and single women have rushed to Ubud, the “cultured” and “spiritual” town in the mountains, ever since to have their fortunes told and their problems solved by the toothless healer also depicted in the book and film.

They are probably hoping to meet a Balinese prince who will dress them in a sarong and kebaya and marry them in his local temple. Why is it that every second foreign woman you meet here is married to a prince? There’s so many princes there’s no room for the commoners.

Julia Roberts might have ridden around on a bicycle in the movie but I wouldn’t recommend it in the bumper to bumper traffic that now besets the island of the Gods.

Sitting on a bike drinking in truck fumes is not my idea of Paradise. And how many Maccas, circle Ks and Starbucks does Bali really need? Let alone giant hotels and shopping malls.

Yet only a few metres away you can enjoy the late afternoon sun at a warung right on the beach, drinking Bintangs and eating tipat cantok while watching the fishermen come in from the sea loaded with fish they throw straight on the coals.

We’re heading to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival tomorrow. Hope we don’t run into too many princes, healers or women looking for luuuuve there. But I’m looking forward to the babi gulung.

Bali is a land of contrasts – and that’s the beauty of it.

Whatever happened to theatre etiquette?

2011-08-04T21:24:00.000+10:00

Once when going to the theatre in San Francisco I read a booklet that had a guide to theatre etiquette.

It was full of sound advice, such as suggesting patrons not wear heavy perfume or beehive hairstyles.

I wish I had a copy of this booklet as I believe it should be given out as compulsory reading to all theatre and concert-goers.

You often get the impression when you go to the theatre these days that most of the audience have never been before.

Why would they talk to each other throughout a performance if they knew that it was extremely rude and unthoughtful?

I went to a dance performance recently and the couple in front of me blocked the view the whole time as they kept moving their heads towards each other to whisper sweet nothings or something.

Another night at the opera a man near me was commenting and talking the whole way through. Now opera goers do not like to be disturbed. They’ve paid up to $200 or more for their ticket and they want to hear the damn music. So this man was very loudly and forcefully asked: “Are you going to talk the whole way through this opera?”

That shut him up for awhile. But then he got the noisy lolly wrappers out and continued to non stop unravel lollies and eat them.

Others may not mean to disturb their fellow audience members – but why do they have to clap whenever they think they should and so ruin the aria for somebody else?

Leave the applause to the end. It goes on for long enough then anyway.

A friend told me that she once sat behind a woman with extremely thick hair that was left out and therefore also blocked her view. She eventually had to ask this person to tie her hair up, which obligingly she did.

What are your pet hates? And what should be done to improve the situation?

Pass laws for a paseo

2011-07-05T14:23:00.001+10:00

The world should follow the Spanish paseo.

This is what is defined as a slow, easy stroll or walk outdoors. It’s also the street, series of streets, or walkway along which such a walk is taken.

I believe it’s the same word for the bullfighting expression: the formal procession into the ring of the players, including the matadors, banderilleros, and horses, that occurs just before the first bull is fought.

And people out walking on a summer’s evening in Barcelona or Malaga or Madrid can take on the look of a bullfighter. A walker checking out which bar to sit at and take an aperitif can be a little like a matador looking over the bull. Is it good enough? Is it worth his time? Will the enjoyment of the kill (or the drink and tapas) be worth the wait at the bar or table? Will the conversation be as good as the blood-letting?

Perhaps I’m taking the metaphor too far.

Issues are probably as innocent as, should we stop for an ice-cream this time?

But to walk out in a European town and join the hundreds of others – from babies to grandmothers – is refreshing and fun and makes you feel glad to be alive.

I come from a country where the paseo is not a national pastime. Even in good weather people lock themselves behind doors and watch TV and conversation is a dying art, apart from “where’s the remote?” and “what’s for dinner?”. It might expand to, “when will dinner be ready?” but rarely to the politics of the day or the logistics of the next protest march.

We’re dying in the southern, apathetic climes, especially in winter.

Even in winter in Europe the paseo is not neglected – window shopping, stopping for hot coffee,

watching buskers, sipping on wine. All ages enjoy getting out of the house and into the life of the town. Bars are full and tapas are still, in many, included in the price, although sadly that is changing.

The next government who brings in a compulsory paseo should win. I vote for an international paseo.

Somewhere over the rainbow

2011-06-12T16:27:00.000+10:00

Photo by: Michelle Day

Somewhere over the Rainbow was the joke of the night on Saturday at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

A very popular Mark Nadler was doing his thing in the Piano Bar at the Festival Centre, "menacing the keyboards" in Broadway Hootenanny and introducing special guests. He explained that the night before after the "gala performance" one of his guests had sung Somewhere over the Rainbow and then maybe not aware of this 2012 artistic director Kate Ceberano dressed up to look like Princess Leia or maybe a Grecian goddess sang the same classic number from The Wizard of Oz.

So on Saturday night Nadler begged his guests to pick another tune.

"Even Olivia sang it during her show tonight," he said, referring of course to Our Livvie (or Olivia Newton John) and pointing out that being a pop singer she only sang the chorus and not the verses.

Nadler's guests were formidable - for example Simon Burke in town for a show and a bevy of women singers including a lesbian (as he put it) he'd seen in a Fringe Cabaret act called Libby O'Donovan. Sporting a white Mohawk she threw off her mock fur coat to reveal a tightly-fitting plastic nurse's uniform and sang about being on a slut walk for love.

And then came the Magnets, a British boy band, who are a six-man sound machine - making all their music with their mouths alone. After a couple of songs they burst forth with a jammed uptempo version, with the outrageous Nadler on the piano, of you guessed it - that rainbow song.

Meanwhile a very sparkly Olivia performed all the old favourites to an adoring audience- standing and clapping away with her and her American backing band and the Adelaide Art Orchestra. She can still "get physical" and shake her beautiful body better than people half her age. Must be all that tea she drinks on stage - no bourbon and coke for her.

The night before at the gala she'd done the final number - Xanadu - surrounded by drag queens covered in yellow feathers.

After the show it was a bit hard to tell who were the drags and who were Adelaide matrons decked out in their 70s sparkly numbers they obviously keep in the back of the cupboard for such occasions. The fashion was not the high point of the night. At one stage, I wondered if a wedding party had got lost and wandered into the bar. Some people seemed to be dressed in their bridesmaids outfits.

Changing the mood somewhat, for an hour on Saturday afternoon I was mesmerised by the performance of Ansuya Nathan, in her show Long Live the King, telling the story of her Indian parents' arrival in Adelaide on the day of the death of Elvis, her mother's idol. Weaving in and out of their past and 70s present, she told a moving tale that linked Elvis intimately with her mother. Both Ansuya's mother and Elvis's lost one of their twins at birth. And she can sing Elvis songs too. Beautiful.

For David Campbell this is his last cabaret festival as artistic director - he made the most of it by getting up on stage and singing You're the One that I Want with a leather-jacketed Olivia in her show.

Ceberano was asked on opening night what she plans to do for next year and she said she would just make sure she had good acts. Doesn't look like it will be hard.

Adelaide can be rather dreary at times - I know I have lived there and also spent two long weeks there last year - but during cabaret festival time it shines.

Masai Warriors and Goosebump Trails

2011-05-29T11:41:00.010+10:00

They say those who know do and those who don’t teach. But I can’t see why you can’t do both.

I love travelling, I love travel writing, I love journalism but I also love to teach. It’s fun to impart what little knowledge you might have come across to other people. And it’s even more fun to see what they come up with. And with this in mind I have started teaching travel writing.

In the past few years, I’ve been to around 20 international destinations and scores in Australia and New Zealand.. I’ve interviewed everybody from Masai warriors to Republican voters in the US to Irish genealogists to Albanian professors to Indonesian villagers. And I’ve written hundreds of travel stories.

But I didn’t start out as a travel writer. I did a pretty traditional journalism cadetship on a newspaper and worked in the Press Gallery in Canberra before heading to the Kimberley in Western Australia and then the Northern Territory to cover the burgeoning land rights movements there.

It wasn’t really until I worked in Central America in the mid 80s that I started writing travel stories. It was a way of getting stories published that you couldn’t get into the world news or features pages. One I remember was about the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua and what an evocative destination that was, even with a war going on there at the time.

We went over to cover the autonomy movement and elections. We sailed up the coast on a cargo ship and climbed into canoes which crashed over waves before landing on the beach. Everybody was green with seasickness but that didn't stop one girl carrying a birthday cake for her family the whole way. On the beach we were met by long-haired, wild-looking soldiers. I thought I’d arrived for the filming of Apocalypse Now.

The female Nicaraguan journalist and I slept head to toe in a mosquito-netted hammock, down with the soldiers. We thought we were safer there. It seems strange now reading about Nicaragua as the newest tourist destination.

When I was there they used to blow up the ferry to Bluefields on the Atlantic Coast every second Friday.

Times change and so do politics and people. What was a war zone regularly becomes a tourist destination and vice versa.

That’s what makes it so fascinating to write about.

Come to one of my courses held in my Sydney home where you can also enjoy beautiful Balinese food cooked by my husband, Budi Arsana, and get some travel writing tips.

I also teach regional and family history writing. Nearly every story is enriched by historical background, I believe. And some of my favourites have been about tracing my family history in Scotland and Ireland, what’s known as the “goosebump trail”.

Email me on plater@optusnet.com.au for course dates, times and prices.

Lionel and Elvis

2011-05-10T16:09:00.009+10:00

Sadly, great Australian boxer Lionel Rose died this week.

At the age of 19 Rose became the first Aboriginal person to win a world title – when he defeated Masahiko “Fighting” Harada in Tokyo in 1968 to win the world bantamweight belt.

Rose grew up in a bark shed at Jackson’s Track, a poor settlement near the Gippsland town of Drouin in Victoria but became a champion.

Rose represented a positive figure for Australian indigenous people. He was a part of my childhood, in a way as he was the first famous Aboriginal person I'd heard of as a teenager.

As a Victorian friend said to me, "he was a superb sportsman and someone that I looked up to at the time, and still do. Plus, he was very cute".

I was intrigued to read in his obituary by Gerry Carman that Rose gathered a glittering array of admirers around Australia and overseas and his biggest American fan was Elvis Presley. Rose and his trainer Jack Rennie apparently were the only outsiders allowed on to the set of a Presley film (Roustabout) and spent three hours with the king of rock’n’roll, who insisted on a brief “spar” with him.

“Elvis never forgot his raisin’” is one of the many tributes to Elvis Presley on a story wall at the shotgun shack he was born in at Tupelo, Mississippi, now a museum, which I visited in 2006. It was thus named because a shotgun bullet could pass from the front to the back.

The tribute was written by Annie Presley, a cousin by marriage and a dear friend of Elvis’s mother, Gladys.

Another tribute tells of Elvis sneaking away to the local black Baptist church to listen to gospel music.

The shack is not that different to back in 1934 when Elvis’s dad Vernon borrowed $180 for materials to build it with Elvis’s grandfather and uncle on land he sharecropped.

In 1948, Vernon moved the family to Memphis, about 160km north, to look for work. What they couldn’t load in their 1939 Plymouth, they left behind. But it was Graceland, the home he moved into after he became a star, when he was 22, that most people associate with Elvis.

On the way to the recent Byron Bay Bluesfest I listened in the car to Paul Simon’s Graceland:

"The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war

I'm going to Graceland
Graceland
In Memphis Tennessee..."

With the civil war always as the backdrop, the U S of A is the land that created rock’n’roll – and before that gospel, jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, bluegrass and country. Elvis and later the Beatles and the Rolling Stones unashamedly turned black music into white music for a wider audience.

Rose, on the other hand, recorded country/pop music singles such as I Thank You.

I wonder if during those three hours together Elvis and Rose jammed or just talked about coming from the wrong side of the tracks – something they shared although from different countries and backgrounds.

They were both stars.

10am check-out time

2011-04-29T18:42:00.008+10:00

I'd forgotten the joy of country town motels during the time I'd been working as a fulltime travel writer.

I'd spent many a night in them in years gone by, overnighting on long road trips all over Australia. They made a change from bunking on friends' couches, or camping out under the stars.

But my recent road trip to Byron Bay in northern NSW for the annual BluesFest reminded me that things haven't changed that much - once you get away from the big cities and the country five-star resorts and even boutique B and Bs.

The windscreen wipers worked hard against the splashing rain and I tried to keep my eyes prised open as my son's iPod played rock and roll. The close-up lights of huge trucks reflected in my rear window as they bore down on me even when I moved into the left lane, hoping they'd overtake.

Why hadn't my husband sorted out his Australian drivers' licence, I kept asking myself, remembering to keep to 60 or 80km in the road work areas on the lovely strip we call a national highway. And when would my son or even his friend be old enough to get their Ls? Why was I always the lone driver on these trips? And was I really going over 100km when the traffic cop beamed his radar at me?

We finally made it into Coffs Harbour where I'd booked a room in a motel.

As The Weight's lyrics say, I was "feelin' about half past dead" and I just needed a place where I could lay my head (after pulling into Nazareth). They'd kindly added a folding bed for my son's friend and all was well. I was even excited when I read the photocopied breakfast menu. Cardboard cereal and greasy eggs and bacon - yum.

But sick of takeaway food, crisps and Easter eggs, we headed across the highway to a local tavern for dinner. As we waited and waited for our meals and the kids finished their pink lemonades, I enjoyed some people watching.

A forlorn-looking wedding table covered in pink and white balloons was empty except for one kissing couple as the rest of the wedding couple smoked outside or danced to disco music.

Back to the motel room. After a fitful night's sleep I was woken by the sound of a father yelling at his children below our window. (Hadn't I left Sydney to get away from noisy neighbours?)

But the shower was hot and strong. Just as I was enjoying it and my hair was full of shampoo though I was interrupted by a loud banging on the motel room door.

"Ten am check-out time," an even louder voice proclaimed.

It was 10am on the dot but we hurriedly dressed and packed. I didn't want them to add another night to my credit card bill.

As we left, I smiled at the male cleaner who had so politely informed us it was time to leave. But he didn't smile back.

And up the highway we headed.

I believe, I believe in Ita...yes I do!

2011-04-19T15:58:00.005+10:00

Christopher Lee, scriptwriter of Paper Giants.

It was great to see Paper Giants which was written by Christopher Lee about the heady days of the early 1970s and the Australian women's magazine, Cleo, on TV this week.

It brought back those days really clearly and reminded me of the sorts of stories that were then considered ground-breaking and how so many believed in Ita Buttrose. ("I believe, I believe, at the end of the day, Her magazine'll get me through" as the words of Don Walker's song, Ita, tells us.) He was talking about the Women's Weekly, which she went on to edit.

My only contact with Ita was a few years later when she started her own magazine, Ita (ofcourse) and I wrote a freelance story for her about an incredible woman photographer Hedda Morrison who worked in China before World War Two. I was pregnant with my first child and had Amelia just before the story came out. Ita gave me mothering advice, which I thought at the time was hilarious, remembering all those Women's Weekly editorials mentioning her kids Kate and Ben.

It wasn't until I watched the TV drama that I realised some of her own personal background and what an incredible struggle it must have been to bring up the kids on her own and do that job, and then become an ACP board member (under Kerry Packer).

Good on ya, Ita.

I interviewed Chris a few years ago for Spectrum in the Sydney Morning Herald and he reminded me he was a former journalist.

Chris was also one of the originating writers of the hit series, Secret Life of Us and has long worked with Southern Star producer John Edwards.

He said his first novel, Bush Week, had led to a year's fellowship by the Literature Board of the Australia Council in 1981. This gave him the "permission to get out" of journalism, having worked for eight years for AAP, including stints in Sydney, Darwin, Papua New Guinea and London.

But he abandoned the new novel when he got into the Australian Film and Television School and found scriptwriting was his forte.

Chris told me during the interview that the script is the most important ingredient of a good TV drama:

"It's the script initially, that's what we writers claim, and we're not going to be talked out of it," he said."I find that, immediately after episodes in my life, I can't turn them into fiction because it's too close, but after a few years something happens and I think, 'That's a good story.' It's finally got into a fictional perspective and I'm able to write it."

Although back then he said he was not too sure journalists worked well as TV and film characters, he'd found his own journalistic training has been beneficial for his scriptwriting. In fact, he wished there were more former journalists in the television industry rather than fresh-out-of-film-school writers.

"You meet prime ministers and criminals and desperadoes and injured people. So it seems to me really good background for screen fiction. And the other thing it teaches is the value of a deadline.

"When I arrived, I always delivered on time, always. And [as head writer] I got calls from writers saying, 'I can't deliver because the dog ate my homework' [or] 'because I'm blocked'.

"I thought: 'Imagine if a journalist rang the editor and said, 'I can't deliver my copy, I'm blocked.' The editor would say, 'Well, block yourself out the door.' "

Gotta go now...I'm on a deadline.

Spiked Stilettos

2011-04-12T12:35:00.006+10:00

I don't know but young women these days are enough to make a feminist roll in her grave (if she's dead).

Overheard conversations about upcoming nuptials make the Windsor Knot look like a simple garden tea party. Will and Kate may be inviting thousands including their exes but are they fighting over what colour the napkins should be?

I'm not against people having the wedding of their dreams but do they need to spend every cent they'll ever make in their life on it? Are they worried they'll look cheap?

And why do women think they need to be proposed to? In some "romantic" place like Hawaii too? Shouldn't marriage be a joint discussion?

And what is this propensity to give away your name and take your husband's? Didn't we fight for years to keep our own names? Overheard: Young woman telling IT to make sure they change her name when she weds. She won't be X anymore. (I can imagine IT's groan at this.)
But even worse overheard conversation: If he wants me to stop working, I will – I already deposit my pay in his account and he withdraws money for me when I need it. EEEK!

And while we're on the subject of going back to the 50s... those shoes young women these days are wearing are not only bad for their feet and backs, they're UGLY! Stilettos can look OK on certain occasions but those strappy ones that look like bandages should be banned.

I made a fool of myself once when I sat next to an actor who was going out with some famous shoe designer who he spoke lovingly about and I didn't have a clue who she was. Only a few months later they broke up. Maybe her stilettos were just too spiked.

When light-skinned means coloured

2011-04-05T13:19:00.010+10:00

Nine Aboriginal people are part of a Federal Court class action started by Aboriginal woman Pat Eatock against (Melbourne) Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt over articles and blogs on Aboriginal identity. After writing about so-called light-skinned people of mixed heritage who identify as Aboriginal, he has been accused of racial discrimination. Bolt has given evidence that he was being tried for exercising his right to free speech, and for raising topics that were "little discussed" because of intimidation.

Years ago I met Pat Eatock and interviewed her with student Samantha Weir for an oral history project. She spoke about her life including her early days and her involvement in the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra. I'm telling you now, she goes way back!

Whatever you think of the matter, the discussion in court reminded me about how being light-skinned doesn't make it any easier for Aboriginal people.

Here's a story, told to me a few years back by Vincent Wenberg, a member of the Stolen Generations. One day he showed me a photo, one of those you often find in albums of the 1940s - a snapshot of a man and woman, sometimes with children, walking down the main street.

They're usually wearing their best clothes, gloves and hat and possibly carrying a parcel or two.

They've been in town shopping and some anonymous photographer has snapped them, then sold them the photo.

This one depicts a soldier, complete with slouch hat and a cigarette in his mouth, holding the hand of a little boy, wearing shorts, long sleeved white shirt and a tie and panama hat.

Next to him is a slim, pretty Aboriginal woman clutching a purse and wearing a cotton dress and flowered hat.

The man is Private John Wenberg, who was then with the Second AIF based in Tamworth.

His skin is dark, because Wenberg explains, he was English but with possibly some African blood.

The woman is his wife, Lily Wenberg, nee Mercy, and Vince's mother, a Bundjalong woman from the northern rivers region of NSW. The boy is Vince's younger brother, Johnnie.

On the back, in black fountain pen, Lily has written, "father and mother and son John Wenberg 1940".

Johnnie never had the opportunity to display this photo in an album.

Like Vince and another brother, Gus, Johnnie was a member of the Stolen Generations.

The three boys were taken from their parents and spent the war years in the Kinchela Boys Home near Kempsey on the NSW mid north coast.

While there, Johnnie's complaints of stomach aches were ignored until it was too late. He was taken to hospital where he died of appendicitis. He was seven years old.

"The people in the home didn't let Gus and me go to see him in hospital," Vince remembers.

"If he'd seen us or had his mother there to comfort him he would have been happier."

After the funeral service the brothers and the other boys from the home were made to march through the main street of Kempsey.

From on top of the hill, remarks such as "Blacks go home!" were yelled at them. In the meantime, the Welfare Board wrote to Mr Wenberg asking for the details of the Mutual Life and Citizens Association insurance policy he had taken out for Johnnie, in the hope that it would cover the funeral costs.

The Wenberg girls - Rita, Adelaide, Amy, Pat, Valerie and Dorothy - were also removed from their parents and taken to Cootamundra and to Bomaderry Children's Home.

According to the Bringing Them Home report, the Aborigines Protection (later known as
Welfare) Board's main aim was to rescue Aboriginal children from what were considered neglectful family lives, and to assimilate them into the wider community as menial workers.

Yet of the estimated 400 boys who went through Kinchela between 1924 and 1970, many became alcoholics and homeless, unable to identify as either white or black.

In contrast, Vincent gained a job with the Railways in Sydney after his four years at the home and worked there until his retirement.

But he is still bitter about the policies that took him there.

He asks how the Welfare Board could claim to have been protecting Aboriginal children from neglectful parents, when his sister Dorothy, then around 18 months, died in the Bomaderry Childrens Home when her head became caught between the bars of her cot.

Pat was deemed uncontrollable by the authorities and received shock treatment in Callan Park, the Sydney psychiatric institution.

When her younger sister, Valerie, went to visit her she was upset to find her wearing a straight jacket. Not long afterwards Pat died. She was 18.

Valerie, herself, has distressing memories of the Cootamundra home and life as a domestic on farms, including a series of sexual assaults. She was the first member of the Stolen Generations to win monetary compensation for her treatment, winning $35,000 from the NSW Victims Compensation Tribunal in 2002.

While the Wenberg boys kept in contact with their sisters by visiting them at Cootamundra after they left Kinchela, what became of Lily and John, the parents?

Vincent opens the concertina files holding the official documents of his life that he has collected, urged on by his children. He discovered that he was born out of wedlock when Lily was 16 and that his real father was Wally Randall. He has also discovered many new half brothers and sisters.

He shows me the letters that for many years John and Lily continued to write to the Board, begging that their children be returned.

One letter from Lily, written in 1948, suggests "I think it time he (Vincent) came home now. Will you let me know. I think it time he was home now."

A letter written to Lily by the Acting Secretary of the Welfare Board in 1947 insists that Vincent must stay under its care until he is 14 and points out that "you and your husband badly neglected your children". Vincent denies this.

In 1948, the year Vincent was released from the home as a 14-year-old to find work on farms and in the bush, Lily died of pulmonary tuberculosis. She was buried in the Methodist Cemetery at Bellingen. She was 34 years old.

*The Wenbergs are mentioned in the book I wrote with Ollie Smith, Raging Partners: Two Worlds, One Friendship (Magabala Books, 2000). I met Vince while working for the Sorry Day Committee several years ago, when the issue of an apology to the Stolen Generations first arose, but I was well acquainted with his sisters and nephew before that.

Where's George?

2011-03-30T12:11:00.004+11:00

Everybody in Como has a story about George Clooney.

Even the local brochures list the fact that the Hollywood star lives in Laglio on Lake Como, although others say he actually resides in the nearby town of Carate Urio. Perhaps his villa is in between the two.

And a Nespresso ad with Clooney jumping into a cab driven by God - played by John Malkovich - always seems to be on TV.

Once spotted all over the place, he's become a bit more illusive in the past few months - not surprising considering the slew of YouTube videos depicting people aimlessly searching for him.

The local tourist office told us that he likes to go for lunch at Harry's Bar. Not that we knew where Harry's Bar was, or had the slightest interest in finding it.

We spent a wet weekend in this most beautiful of areas, an hour or so by train north of Milan and close to the Swiss border.

Como is a place where the rich Milanese have holidayed for centuries - escaping the heat of the city to boat, swim and drink coffee in the sun.

May is meant to be the best month but even in winter rain it's still gorgeous.

The first thing tourists do when they land here is take a boat trip around the lake - before heading up the hill on the steep funicular to take in the magnificent view.

The boat trip takes about an hour and is refreshingly free of commentary. You can just sit and stare at the massive and beautiful villas that dot the landscape.

We did just that and jumped off at a random stop along the way, Cernobbio, knowing we could get back on the boat around an hour later.

And what was the first thing we saw but Harry's Bar.

Running through the rain (we'd declined offers by a sea of barters to buy an umbrella in town) we pushed the door open and entered a little world of its own.

Harry's Bar is an elegant restaurant with windows looking out on the lake and a good old fashioned bar - just the sort of place George would love.

That area was closed for a party of adults with precocious children, who annoyed the waiters no end. (I was so glad to see that precocious children don't just live in Australia these days.)

Our beautifully presented waitress languidly handed us a menu and suggested an aperitif as we peered around. Of course we pretended to have never heard of the actor.

I ordered a glass of champagne, which was the perfect start to one of the most pleasant Sunday lunches I've ever had. It included thin pieces of rare roast beef with sublime mashed potatoes - not what you would expect to eat in Italy.

The service was laid back but efficient. It was on the pricey side but it was worth it - the bill came to around 64 Euros ($A86.60) for two people.

Giordano, the bar manager (who previously worked in Perth), chatted to us before offering a free glass of dessert wine to perfectly end the meal.

He told us the restaurant was owned by "people in Venice" but it was not a franchise and no relation to the franchise chain, Harry's Bar, including the less than salubrious one at the airport.

He said not only Clooney but Robert de Niro ate and drank there regularly.

"George Clooney is nicer," he said. "He smiles and jokes a lot."

He always came with his Sardinian model girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis.

"But he hasn't come for six months," he said. "Because of the paparazzi."

(I'd also read in a local magazine Hugh Grant saying he remembered having dinner at a "retro" restaurant in Como but I'm not sure if was talking about Harry's Bar.)

We were lucky. The restaurant was about to close for Winter. We got there at 2pm and the closed sign was put on the door at 3pm, disappointing a group of people who knocked on it.

Usually guests of the luxurious hotel, Villa D'Este, around the corner are directed here by the concierge but the resort closes in November so we were also free of rich Americans.

Feeling satisfied by our delicious lunch and slightly tipsy, we jumped back on the boat which was heading in the other direction but looped back to Como in the rain.

A line from the Guns N'Roses rock anthem, "Nothin' lasts forever even cold November rain", filled my head on the way back.

We never did spot George but we felt as if he was there in spirit. We knew he would have loved to have met us, anyway.

Fijian freedoms

2011-03-23T11:08:00.005+11:00

Bula

When somebody needs to be buried in Suva, Fiji’s capital, they call on the prisoners from the jail to dig the graves.

Or at least that’s what I was told.

They wear bright orange jumpsuits and are big and hefty.

Who knows what they’re in for.

They used to try and escape, running up the many paths that criss-cross the hills behind Suva but the guards can run fast too. When they were caught they were often beaten to a pulp.

So now they have just one skinny guard with a baton watching over them as they dig the graves. They know it’s not worth escaping.

While families enjoy the sunshine and the blue skies at Fijian resorts, my thoughts were on how much we take our freedom for granted.

We travellers drop in and drop out – parachuting into trouble spots so long as they have good resorts and happy hours, usually paying little heed to political prisoners or prisoners of any kind.

In Fiji, it’s particularly apt when you realise how many journalists have been jailed or deported since the present administration of Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama took over, not to mention the censoring of the media there.

Fijians and expats have mixed feelings about Bainimarama and his government and eight days in the country isn’t long enough to make a final judgement. Some say a western form of democracy doesn’t work for Fiji. Others are worried about the lack of investment in the country now, except by the Chinese. Most certainly don’t want to go on the record about their feelings.

My driver to the airport in Suva says at least roads are being built and schools improved. (The thought, and Mussolini made the trains run on time entered my head.) But you can see his point.

When I pick up the local papers including The Fiji Sun (no longer owned by Murdoch) there’s photos of a smiling Bainimarama on almost every page.

Over at Savusavu on Fiji’s northern island of Vanua Levu, you can understand why it’s known as the Hidden Paradise. It’s remote, beautiful and has a post-colonial feel about it.

We’re in a Methodist church in a village just down the road from motivational guru Anthony Robbins’ resort Namale, where guests pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of being told how to make thousands when they leave. We're waiting for the villagers to perform. And then out of nowhere we’re given an impromptu sermon about men’s rights and Adam’s rib – a lesson on misogyny, perhaps?

First we’re told missionaries brought the light to Fiji and then that men should always rule the roost, as the Bible showed.

Fijians are deeply religious and I respect this but when the giver of the sermon later jokes that "you come from my ribs" I want to run for the hills. I just hope a prison warden doesn’t chase after me.

Vinaka.

Feeling Foolish or the Blind Barber

2011-03-07T09:54:00.018+11:00

One of the most endearing characters I came across during my travels in India was a barber in the village of Kheradergarh in Rajasthan.

He told us he was a “travelling barber”, and he carried an old bag, a former armaments case, to prove it. As we sat under a neem tree worshipped for its medicinal value in healing wounds, he took out his various instruments used in his day to day work.

And then he proceeded to show us how he cut nose hair and cleaned ears.

We wondered how he managed, because he wore thick government-issue glasses, and complained that as his eyesight deteriorated nobody wanted to have him cut their hair or shave them any more.

“What about your children? Do they help?” we asked.

“Hmph, my children, they are useless,” he said. We dubbed him the blind barber, which wasn’t very kind. With no governmental social services, he was doomed in his old age to the care of the local Hindu temple.

We’d earlier visited a potter, who showed us how he made pots on his wheel. When his son knocked his new creation over and broke it he muttered in Hindi: “Here we go again!”

He lived mainly by bartering, exchanging his pots for milk from the shepherd, who we had earlier visited. In his humble abode, a huge poster of Bollywood star Ajay Devgan held pride of place.

I joked that he looked like Devgan and was given a withering look as if to say, “You are a bloody idiot”.

As we arrived in the village a group of women wearing vibrantly coloured saris walked towards us, singing a welcome song.

"That's nice," I said.

“Well they’re actually being quite cheeky and making fun of you,” our guide explained.

"It's a bit like somebody singing the wedding waltz as you walk in the door."

Again I felt foolish.

Earlier that day we had visited the Sirilar Prajapat Government Upper Primary School in nearby Nimaj.

We had started by telling the kids about Australian native animals, with one of the group drawing a platypus on the board in chalk.

"Sir, sir, it's a seahorse," one child called out.

But it wasn't Australian animals they were interested in. This year eight group had more pressing matters in mind.

"Does your country have the nuclear bomb?" one fresh-faced youth asked.

"Why is your country with such a small population so developed?" asked another.

"Does your country have a caste system?" (They looked perplexed when we tried to explain that we didn't, and status was based more on money rather than what group you were born into.)

"What is your marriage system? How does it work?"

"What is the name of your prime minister?" (They of course knew the name of our cricket captain and several players.)

The girls were shyer, although one stood up and sang for us. Another asked us to sing an Australian song, and probably regretted it, as we embarrassed ourselves by performing a bad rendition of Waltzing Matilda.

One thing you have to get used to when travelling in countries such as India is looking like a fool. But meeting these kids and eve the blind barber with his familiar tale of familial exasperation brought another thought. We're all the same under the skin - pretty damn funny.

Dressing for success

2011-02-28T17:53:00.006+11:00

I’ve often been astounded by the inappropriate way people dress depending on where they are going.

For example, the opera. Many wear jeans and T shirts and don’t bother to dress up at all. Being a favourite tourist activity while in Sydney, as it’s on at the Opera House, many come in what they have been wearing to tramp around the city all day – shorts and runners. (Listen, short shorts on old legs ain’t a good look and I’m talking about the men here.)

Then on the other hand, there’s those patrons who over-dress. Dinner suits and bow ties are not really necessary unless it’s a gala occasion. The same goes for women wearing long dresses, furs and a lot of jewellery.

Last time I went to the opera, daaaarling, I saw a woman wearing a striking red and black dress, red stockings and…red gloves up to her elbows. Such get-up doesn’t make any difference to the music appreciation.

And by the way, you are allowed to laugh at the opera. They’re not all serious. In fact, many of them are meant to be FUNNY.

I’m even more shocked by what people wear on aeroplanes. Tiny little shorts and super high heels can’t be that comfortable on a long-haul flight. You don’t have to dress for the destination. You can change when you get there. And don’t these passengers realise it can get very cold on planes. This may be the only time you can get away with wearing a track suit in public – and jiffies and thick socks.

It’s come to my attention that several airlines have dress codes – and that’s not for the flight attendants. They have them for Economy as well as First Class and Business Class.

For example, one Business Class dress code I read says men should wear: trousers, collared shirt (no jeans, shorts, trainers, t-shirts) and women: dress, skirt, trousers, business shirt / blouse (no jeans, singlet, shorts). Passengers are told on this airline they will not be accepted for travel if airport staff consider them to be inappropriately dressed.

But forgetting style for once and in the interests of making people feel more at home on a plane here are some dress codes for a variety of airlines:

Garuda - braided hair, a very bad suntan, tiny shorts, mid drift tops and thongs (if female). If male, stubby shorts and tats are fine or sun-bleached hair and board shorts and of course a Bintang t-shirt.

Gulf Air – very good Kohl eyeliner, which I can never find in Australia.

Virgin – a clown suit so you can repeat all those hysterical jokes they make and at least look like a clown (but they’ve cut most of them out now).

Air Asia – something in batik.

Air France – something very chic like a black pencil skirt, a classic white shirt and matching jacket.

Tiger - a mullet.

Singapore Airlines – big sunglasses, cheong san dress. Men in badly-made business suit.

Air New Zealand – ski gear and a nice, small but discrete face tattoo and dreadlocks.

Thai Airways – something soft, silky and flowing and always speak in a very, very quiet voice.

Qantas – a flak jacket and a set of safety regulations.

Say no to shopping

2011-02-19T19:16:00.009+11:00

There's nothing more likely to send me screaming out the door than the announcement on a trip that "yes ladies, you are going ..... shoppinnnnnnng!".

Why is it taken as gospel that all women love shopping? I don't. And I'm a woman.

I don't mind doing a bit of leisurely strolling past windows and perhaps ducking in and looking at one or two items. But the leisurely stroll has to be en route to a cafe.

The idea of spending hours and hours walking around shops fills me with horror.

And even greater horror is supermarket shopping or...that scary of all scary places, Ikea. Get those trolleys away from me!

But it's this idea that women need to fit shopping in when they go on a trip that really annoys me. When shopping is suggested, it's often said with a cheeky glint in the eye, like "Ooo you're so naughty, going out and spending all that hard-earned cash" (or more likely credit).

Maybe men might want to shop while the women go and play golf, or hey even go and see an exhibition at a gallery or visit a museum. Or wait for this one, talk to locals.

I've been known to stand outside shops and wait for my companion rather than go in.

We're slaves enough to consumerism then why force more of it on us? I have enough things. I want to throw stuff out not buy more. (Unless it's a ruby ring or perhaps an incredible Kenyan wooden necklace. Everybody has their limits on not being able to say no.)

A few souvenirs or artifacts from interesting countries are allowed, and they might even get past Quarantine and a good pair of boots from Italy or even cowboy boots from the US can be sneaked into the suitcase. Yes that's OK but they should be bought in the process of doing OTHER things or right at the end before you're about to jump on the plane.

Not everybody will agree with me on this one and it's a free world - well when it comes to spending money it's not that free (and don't lets start about politics).

So do whatever you will. But please don't expect me to come with you. Just meet me at the bar.

Guilty consciences

2011-02-10T11:35:00.005+11:00

Tourism and travelling has become a serious business, of late.

You can’t go anywhere without being expected to volunteer for a charity, visit an orphanage, look after sick elephants, donate your services to a soup kitchen, vaccinate rabid dogs or give money to war victims.

You just can’t go anywhere without a guilty conscience.

Five star hotels in third world countries beg you to leave money for their local charity or do something to help.

Airlines ask for even more money on top of the taxes, fees and charges so they can offset their carbon by planting a tree in the middle of nowhere. Would you trust that person asking for that extra money? Even with that smile on their face? Would they be planting the right sort of tree for the environment anyway?

Call me cynical, but I don’t trust any of them. And yet we all want to give back to the places we’re taken a lot from. A few cents for victims of land mines in Cambodia is not too much to ask. Visiting an orphanage and collecting some money for the kids there isn’t going to kill you.

But today many have been bitten by the volunteer bug and often they have more volunteers than they can adequately deal with you. And you have to put your name on a waiting list, especially in the more exotic places.

Cambodia is especially popular. The South-East Asian country has one of the saddest histories of any country on earth. Because of the Khmer Rouge's fundamentalist Marxist polices pursuing increased rice productivity almost everybody was displaced and between one and two million people died in the period 1975 to 1979 and hundreds of thousands more died during a severe famine in the late 1970s after Vietnam invaded in 1978.

But since UN-sponsored elections in 1993 and the surrender of elements of the Khmer Rouge in the mid-1990s and the remaining forces in 1998 there has been some semblance of normality.

Today there seems to be almost as many NGOs in Cambodia as there are tourists, helping to get the country back on its feet. And it's impossible as a visitor - and as anybody involved in tourism including hotels - not to be aware of the fundamental dilemmas of heritage and cultural protection and the financial benefits that tourism brings.

And how can you not have your breath taken away by the enchanting children?

At what could loosely be described as an orphanage in Siem Reap right next to the amazing Angkor Wat I meet children, some of whom have been brought here by their parents because of poverty.

No, I'm not doing an Angelina Jolie or even a Madonna (more my type), but I can't help but cuddle them.

One little boy, freshly showered and hair combed, grabs my hand. "I have no mother, father. You be mother, him father," he points to the general manager of the hotel where I'm staying, who has been donating materials to the orphanage.

Well, I wasn’t going to go that far. I explain I have children back home.

Meanwhile, one child after another comes out with a drawing to give me to take back to Australia.

As I climb to the 10th century Bakheng temple to see Angkor Wat bathed in late afternoon sunlight, I pass a group of musicians maimed by landmines performing traditional music.

On the way back, one of the musicians hands me a pamphlet explaining that they are members of the Angkor Association for the Disabled. It says they are pursuing funding for an ecological farm in the Siem Reap area, where they can live and grow organic products.

Their main aim is to transition members from a life of begging on the streets into safe, adequate housing.

They say - despite campaigns to clear them - landmines continue to maim and kill thousands of Cambodians every year.

As well as money, people are urged to donate their time and skills, from everything from small business and funding proposals to promotional activities, to teaching and training.

Even at the airport, the proceeds of cards sold at the giftshop are said to go to NGOs.

Conscience tourism is alive and well here. But this is one place where my hard-core cynicism melts.

The Rain Stopper

2011-02-03T10:18:00.006+11:00

Photo by Chris Gleisner

All this terrible weather lately in the Southern Hemisphere reminded me of an interesting guy photographer Chris Gleisner and I met while in Indonesia a few years back. A person who could come in handy now.

It was pouring with rain and there was definitely no hint of a rainbow on the horizon. Early wet season in East Java, the main island of Indonesia.

Players in an Ernst and Young expat accountants golfing tournament at the Finna Golf and Country Club resort near Surabaya battled on regardless.

But next to the 18th green we came across a disheveled looking old man in a worn black suit, white shirt, and crumpled hat, smoking a large roll your own kretek cigarette and looking not the least bit perturbed about getting wet.

I noticed his fingers were covered in large, exotic rings as he handed me his card. Red writing on white, in Indonesian it said Pawang Hujan, dll, which translates as “rain stopper, etc”.

I learnt Mr P Anom Kartowiyono was the local magic man who comes up from his village whenever needed, to stop the rain spoiling a day’s play. The “etc” stood for his other talents – palm reading, fortune telling and so on (illustrated on his card by a genie emerging from an Aladdin’s lamp).

Many locals believe such rain stoppers have the power to move storms and they are hired by golf clubs and event organizers (such as weddings) throughout Indonesia’s 18,000 islands.

They are normally paid on commission, depending on whether the rain stops or not.

The club's manager at the time, Richard T.Wilson, who hailed originally from Texas, said s Mr Kartowiyono’s wife had complained to him during the previous particularly heavy rainy season that if the rain didn’t stop the family would starve. She begged for an out-of-season payment.

Normally rain stoppers use talismans that they place around an area where they don’t want rain and speak to the gods in a partly-Arabic mantra, despite their tradition being animist and pre-Muslim.

Mr Wilson said if he doesn’t hire a rain stopper and it rains, he’s in trouble. And he's castigated if he does hire one and it still rains. But to be on the safe side Mr Kartowiyono was invited back again.

What we could have done with recently, especially with the cyclone in northern Australia, though is a wind-stopper.

Strayaday at Maccas

2011-01-28T11:32:00.007+11:00

It’s Strayaday and I’m hurtling down the highway, in need of a coffee.

The big M sign comes towards me like a mirage.

Ah McCafe - the place we know from Oprah where every trendy Aussie goes for their morning macchiato.

Ah the half-way-to-the-country Maccas, saviour of many a school-holiday kids-filled car.

Ah a place to use the bathroom and grab a bite.

Outside the men with tats, shorts and Australia Day t-shirts are chatting as their dogs roam the backs of their flag-covered utes.

Inside it’s packed with Aussies celebrating their national day. A group of Chinese Aussies are eating coconut cake from their own plastic bags and drinking McCafe coffees from paper cups.

At another table a European mama Aussie and her son are eating tuna out of tins from a small esky.

It’s a new trend in such a trendy place: “bring-your-own McDonald’s”. But I don’t think people have quite realised yet that picnics are meant to be held outside.

Two kids with Aussie flags tied to them and their faces painted wander past in pursuit of Happy Meals.

I get into a conversation with an elderly woman while waiting for my cappuccino. She’s going to a family barbecue around the corner.

“My husband just had to pop out to make a bet on the horses,” she says. She points to the pub across the way. I imagine the scene inside and hope she doesn’t have to wait too long.

I push a pile of old Big Mac cartons across the table as I sit down to drink my coffee and enjoy the patriotic headlines in the Tele. But then I’m abused by sounds of kids screeching their way through pink and purple tunnels in the playground. Mum is squeezing her way through in pursuit of them.

The cacophony of sound and the smell of old hamburgers and fries is too much. I drink my lukewarm coffee and leave.

Next stop is the IGA store a bit further down the coast to pick up my supplies for my few days at the hermit’s lair. But I can’t get away from patriotism just yet. There’s a display of Strayaday paraphernalia including yellow velour shorts with stubby holders attached.

I ask the check-out bloke if he thinks they’re becoming. He suggests that road workers should wear them rather than their vests.

“That’d stop the traffic,” he jokes.

“If only,” I muse as I head back out on the highway.

Hair, glorious hair

2011-01-16T11:06:00.005+11:00

Why are so many men these days bald? Is it something to do with climate change?

My feelings go out to them as I struggle with frequent trips to the hairdresser to get my grey taken care of. But it seems like an epidemic, especially in Australia.

Nearly all men in Asia seem to have full heads of hair so is it a western thing? There are all sorts of theories about the reasons for it. But it definitely is a worry.

The other night I went to see A Life in Three Acts as part of the Sydney Festival which has English drag queen Bette Bourne relaying his life through an on-stage interview. Fantastic black and white photos of him and others at various times of their life are flashed on screens behind him. In the 1970s he and his fellow queens had thick, curly hair - and I'm not talking about their wigs - and were extremely spunky. Most of the gay men in that night's audience had shaved heads.

Now shaved heads are better than comb-overs or anything like that and these guys were still attractive. But really, what has happened to all that hair, glorious hair? (Memories of the cast of Hair singing about giving themselves a head of hair - could they do that today?) Is there a huge mountain of hair somewhere?

It's not just men - we're all losing hair. Everytime we comb, mounds of it come out.

I read an article this week that said too little protein, red meat, fish, eggs, chicken and so on can affect keratin levels and hair can become weaker and stop growing. Eating those foods and having breakfast is key - the morning meal is the most important of the day for boosting hair follicles.

A lack of dietary iron may also lead to hair loss, as levels of ferritin in your body may drop and disrupt the hair growth cycle and increase hair shedding, according to this article.

None of this has much to do with travel except that I do notice a lot more hair when I go to Asia than here or other western countries.Thick, black, luxuriant hair. So beautiful. So maybe it is to do with their diet. (The man in the photo above was at the Pushkar Camel Fair in India for the moustache competition.)

The worst thing here is when a bald head is accompanied by a bow tie around the neck. Bow ties are never a good look unless they are worn with a dinner suit. Extremely unsexy at any other time.

And then some people shave their heads for charity or for art. Geoffrey Rush and wonderful female actor Yael Stone have shaved theirs for Gogol's The Diary of A Madman playing at the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney. What sacrifice for art. And what amazing art too.

In a miracle we managed to get cancelled tickets for the Saturday matinee. What a privilege to see an actor like Rush "in the flesh" - more than 20 years after I saw him in another Neil Armfield-directed play at the same theatre.

Announcing a collection for the flood victims after the performance, he said Toowoomba and Brisbane were his childhaunt haunts. He was wearing white mad man's pants and no shirt at the time. And no bow tie.

Big Bang Theory or Keep it Local

2011-01-01T12:51:00.008+11:00

I'm not crazy about big, public events. The last time I went to a major one in Sydney - the opening night of the Sydney Festival last year - I was hit on the head by a flying bottle aimed at the rubbish bin. A spot next to the bin had been the only place I could find to sit.

On the way back home we passed a bloodied man with wounds to his head being chased out of a pub by some very scary looking women.

So it's kind of understandable why I preferred to stay local this year.

The idea of waiting for hours and hours in the sun to see New Year's Eve fireworks didn't inspire me at all. And then there was the countless rules and regulations, no alcohol and no ferries or trains to get back home. Being stranded somewhere on the other side of the Bridge or even Circular Quay with thousands of revellers sounded like a night from Hell.

Watching the spectacular fireworks on TV to the background sound of loud bangs outside your window was the way to go. And there was the added incentive of staying up for That's Entertainment featuring Fred Astaire and other Hollywood greats - and even Frank Sinatra - tap dancing. Perfect!

Well earlier we did walk down to Coogee and had a civilized drink in the pub there, before a woman who had had too much to drink starting abusing the bouncer and saying, "I'm not going to let some foreigner tell me what to do".

We moved and had a perfect spot next to the window for the local fireworks.

Then back home to the previously-mentioned TV. We managed to miss most of the annoying presenters and got the Jersey Boys singing hits from the show. One of the highlights of 2010 for me was interviewing Aussie performer Peter Saide, who plays Bob Gaudio in the Las Vegas version of this great musical. In a perfect example of people with talent being modest, Saide was adorable to interview - so full of life and enthusiasm.

(Ofcourse I wouldn't have minded being in Vegas for NY Eve!)

Here's to a low-key, keep-it-local, simple and modest 2011. Happy New Year everyone.

Leechy Leech

2010-12-27T18:53:00.006+11:00

Bushwalkers beware. Or that is, novice bushwalkers. Experienced ones are totally aware.

A fate worse than death awaits you.
Well, a bit of discomfit and creepiness awaits you.

Heavy rain and tropical temperatures have brought out the walker's enemy - the humble leech or R. australis. The blood-sucking animal variety.

Leeches have had an ignoble history. They've been worshipped as much as they've been despised. For hundreds of years doctors used them to suck the "bad" blood out of patients, and to try to cure everything from insomnia to cancer. Today they're back in fashion with some of the medical fraternity - who are using them to help with everything from microsurgery to plastic surgery.

But that doesn't help those of us who just want to go for a walk in the rain without having our appendages covered in the little blighters getting fat on our blood.

So here's a few tips:

If you're in a group walk at the front. It will only dawn on the leeches after you have passed that prey awaits and the second, third and fourth walker will only be attacked.

Don't walk barefoot. You're asking for trouble as my son and his friends discovered on a recent hike on the NSW South Coast. Their feet were totally covered in leeches within a few minutes.

Wear Rid (or some such similar insect repellant). Smother your legs in it.You can also use it to get the blighters off. Salt also works wonders. And boots aren't a bad idea either as a prevention although they're sure to crawl inside.

I've heard there's such a miraculous thing as socks that stop leeches as well although I haven't found them anywhere.

And then ofcourse smoking bushwalkers get it easy. They just have to put their cigarette near the slimy animal and it's gone. For once, smokers are popular with non-smokers.

If all else fails, throw the Tea Tree oil on later to stop the itching.

Have a great bushwalk!

Strut your stuff

2010-12-13T20:23:00.004+11:00

My number one advice to women travelling on their own is always sit at the bar.

First stop at your hotel after plonking your bags and checking out the movie list and the mini bar should be the hotel bar if it has one or a nearby establishment.

Don't let haughty waitresses fling you into a corner, where nobody - particularly eligible men - can see you.

They may think you're a high-class escort as you hold up the bar, but at least somebody will talk to you. And if they don't there's always the barman.

Discussion around women travelling on their own seems to centre on fear of being hassled by men. I'm going to go out on a limb now - but aren't many women travelling because they WANT to meet men?

OK nobody wants to be hassled or have crude comments made towards them as they walk down the street. But a little attention can be a good thing.

Once in New York I was walking past a building site and a workman whistled at me. (This was a few years - well, decades - ago.)

I turned round and said, "Say something nice, don't just whistle."

"Red's your colour," he announced as I was wearing a red shirt.

Well that made my day.

The best thing about travel is meeting people, although monuments like the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids and Angkor Wat surpass most you come across.

So get out there, order a Margarita or a Martini - not some silly cocktail for people who prefer dessert to alcohol - and strut your stuff.

P.S. The photo here is not of me in a bar but squeezing through a cave. It was the best I could find for the time being!

The Red Terror was a u beaut ute

2010-12-13T20:15:00.003+11:00

I felt like a bit of a goose driving a Toyota ute to the Deniliquin Ute Muster.

Not because it was a ute but because it had AVIS painted very boldly on the passenger door.

I'd jokingly suggested I rent a ute but didn't expect there'd be one waiting for me at the airport in Albury.

Anyway it was a lot easier to drive than the 1970 Falcoln ute I used to own when I lived in the Kimberley and the Northern Territory in the early 80s.

That one was red, although I later had to replace its tailgate with a yellow one. With the black tyres, my Red Terror represented the Aboriginal colours.

I'd bought it from a depot for old government cars in Derby.

It had a lot of things wrong with it, and enough rust to sink a battleship but I loved that ute.

The gears would get stuck and I'd have to open the bonnet, jump out of the car and wiggle them around. And it was hard when I was at the top of a hill!

Then jumping back in I'd wave to all the people laughing at me.

But my beast certainly wasn't the hotted-up version of a ute that you see at the ute muster - with bullbars, aerials, flags and massive headlights and stickers of cow horns and pubs the owners had drunk at stuck to the rear windscreen.

I doubt if I would have been let into a B and S country ute club.

And the burnouts and donuts I did in it were not intentional.

It could go almost anywhere a four wheel drive could go and I drove that ute all over the country - across the Kimberley several times, up the Tanami from Alice Springs to Wave Hill and then on to the Kimberley, and eventually from Darwin to Sydney via Mt Isa and western Queensland.

Many people - including scores of kids - got lifts with me, as they piled into the back. Those were the days when you were allowed to do that.

While dust streamed in through every crack, music blasted from my portable tape recorder. The tapes would be played until the dust got the better of them.

On the back, I had a tin box with my food and gear, another with tools and ofcourse a swag. You could live out of it.

But it wasn't secure. Several times I had things, including my spare tyre, stolen out of the back - usually when I was in town.

I also had a dog who sat in the back, but not as obediently as most you see. She had a habit of jumping off at traffic lights to hide in the shade.

She'd been given to me by Aboriginal people from Borroloola in the Northern Territory and her name, Iyupi, meant good. Bit of a misnomer. Bitsa may have been better.

I eventually sold the ute to somebody in Adelaide for a few hundred dollars who I think just wanted it for spare parts. I was sad to see it go, but relieved to buy a car that didn't need the gears unjammed everytime I got into it.

Fascist Snorkellers and Selfish Parents

2010-10-31T18:15:00.005+11:00

Two of my pet hates are people who hassle you to snorkel and parents who don't control their kids on planes.

I'm sitting on a flight to Uluru - heading there for the 25th anniversary of the handback of this incredible monolith and most Aussie icon to its traditional owners, the Anangu.

Behind me two little darlings are kicking their seats, screaming and yelling, turning their DVD off and on, commenting on everything and being normal kids, I guess except that I don't remember MY children yelling that loudly. I do recall my son as a one-year-old walking up and down the aisle on an overnight flight from London to Los Angeles and being tripped over by the flight attendant.

I think I was crying with tiredness at that point. And the steward suggested I buy some duty free perfume to take my mind off the horror.

Since then ipods have been invented and thank God today I have mine with me, since this flight offers no entertainment service and I need something to block out the noise.

On a recent cruise to the PNG islands when I stupidly left my ipod on the ship I was queried continuously about whether I was snorkelling or not. While I love swimming and will jump into a puddle on a hot day and occasionally will put a mask, goggles and flippers on to look at the fish, snorkelling is not my idea of fun. Must be all that saltwater up my nose and in my mouth after swallowing copious amounts of it, and memories of once being left to almost drown.

While I don't go up to my fellow travellers and ask them why they're not lying under a tree, reading a book like sensible people, many can't see anything wrong with berating me about not snorkelling.

On a tranquil PNG beach I watched the local kids sublimely paddle their outrigger canoes around islands waiting for a catch. Then I donned my flippers and surfed the gentle waves in a gorgeous turquoise swell. This made me happy enough.

Meanwhile mum behind me is reading her book and ignoring the children. I hope these charmers don't grow up to be snorkelling fascists. But I'm not holding my breath.

The Woman Behind The Man

2010-08-19T13:25:00.006+10:00

Discover the woman behind Fidel Castro in Havana, Harlem

Who was the woman behind Fidel Castro? Contrary to most accounts, Castro did not start the Cuban revolution. While he was languishing in jail a petite but incredibly brave Cuban woman, Celia Sanchez, was organizing the guerilla rebellion in the Sierra Maestra. Later she helped Castro become the leader of Cuba and was with him and Che Guevara as they took victory in Havana in 1959. But in 1980, Sanchez died of lung cancer, leaving a grief-stricken Castro.

My play, Havana, Harlem, part of this year’s Sydney Fringe, tells the story through the eyes of Celia Sanchez . It's a satire which is set during two momentous days in 1960 when the Cubans were holed up in a hotel in Harlem, New York. The play is particularly timely. As the Obama administration and the Miami Cubans wait for the frail Castro to die, the revolution is in the balance.

The director is Deborah Jones. Set Designer: Anna Gardiner.

With Zoe Velez, Shane Imbert, Felino Dolloso, Leon Richardson, Rebecca Martin and Brian Mott.

Dates: Saturday Sept 11 – 8pm, Sun Sept 12 – 8pm, Wed Sept 15 - 5pm, Sun Sept 19 - 2pm & 8pm.

Tickets on sale through http://thesydneyfringe.com.au. or by calling 02 9550 3666

La Casa de Blues

2010-05-30T16:55:00.001+10:00

Red polo tie, black hat with red ribbon and tight, tight black pants with red inserts.

Sounds cringy? No, it's pure sexo!

I feel like I'm at at a Doors concert with Jim Morrison upfront. Only he's singing in Spanish with a very Spanish accent. The other band members have velvet jackets, long sideburns, and are hammering out the music. Rock'n'roll a Espanol.

The audience at the House of Blues knows every Enrique Bunbury song before it starts.

Ol Jim, Janis Joplin (or Janet Joplin as I heard one museum visitor say) and Jimi Hendrix are the subject of an exhibition at the Grammy Museum in downtown LA.

Their music in the 60s spoke to my generation - and I believe still has something to say to us, evenif they all died young.

And now in America, a Spanish band where the lead singer has taken his name from The Importance of Being Earnest (by Oscar Wilde) comes to play in the House of Blues on the strip in West Hollywood.

It's a time when singers of Latin American background are demonstrating about new laws in Arizona which make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad powers to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.

So much today is celebrating the history of rock and its roots - much of it based on white musicians bringing black music to the rest of the world - it's great to be in a place just purely enjoying the music, whether in English, Spanish or Spanglish.

What happens in Vegas stays in...

2010-05-29T16:57:00.003+10:00

Elvis called it bright light city. Gonna set my soul on fire.

Nothing you could possibly say or write about Las Vegas, Nevada, USA has not been said or written before. There are no superlatives big enough to cover this strange city in the desert. As a shop attendant in a glamorous spacey, white shop told me in perfect understatement, "Whatever you say about Vegas, it's a crazy town".

The strip is surreal, lit up but still not as alive as it used to be. But it's getting back there.

Casinos filled with cigarette smoke. Men sitting in patisseries smoking cigars, old ladies puffing away as they pull at poker machines. It's about as non PC as you can get.

OK, there's the history...and don't let's forget the nuclear testing not so far away in the 1950s, the Rat Pack, the mafia, the music, the shows, the gambling, the economic crisis....Where else in the world are there poker machines in the baggage area of an airport?

But still women in tight as arse dresses they pull up as they cross the street, old ladies in track suits dragging their suitcases up to the lifts to save a few bucks in tips, squads of young black men in oversized t- shirts, jean-clad 40 somethings carrying their cocktails in plastic cups....they're all here to party.

At a slightly more upscale restaurant with a degustation menu a woman in a dress so tight it could be her second skin tells the waiter she's a vegetarian. He suggests the salmon.

Australian dancers and performers shine here. One tells me the Vegas air is so dry they need to drink gallons of water to be able to sing here. I think about Elvis...did he drink water?

All you needs a strong heart and a nerve of steel... Viva Las Vegas!

Chainsaw Beagles

2010-05-26T16:58:00.002+10:00

"Hisi'sk" is the word that means to be uneasy (as in sleep) in the Nez Perce language of north America.

I guess that means the sort of sleep where you have very strange dreams.

Out of 300 original Native languages here Nez Perce is one of only 175 still spoken and only by a handful. But people of this trible - famous for breeding the Appaloosa horse - are working hard to resurrect the language.

In Tahiti I was told that if you dream you are going to die, it actually means something postive and good is going to happen to you.

So when I had trouble sleeping after visiting a B and B in the shape of a giant beagle, I reassured myself that all would be well.

This accommodation and store is the work of a very happy couple who found each other in Idaho. They built it because "it's our land and we can do whatever we like on it".

They make small wooden beagles and other dogs and sell them through the internet. They love the openness of the prairies and pine tree wilderness in their beautiful county that has more black bears than people.

Earlier that day we'd ridden up a small mountain through some of that wilderness.

Then saddle sore we rode into another small, silent Idaho town, feeling like a posse in search of outlaws who'd robbed the railroad.

On our Appaloosas we passed a lone gardener.

"Your garden's looking might purdy," our host and lead rider said as he clipped clopped past.

"Yup," the grey pony-tailed gardener answered, not looking up as he weilded clippers the size of nail scissors on his immaculate lawn.

At the only saloon open in town we met a horsetrainer in a black leather waistcoat and a huge white moustache, who told me the secret to riding horses is you "just urge them on".

As food was done for the day, the barmaid suggested a diner a bit further up the highway for the best burgers around.

"It was just taken over by the tribe," she said, referring to the Nez Perce.

"New Zealanders?" the young man in the diner asked us, after he took our burger orders.

"No, Australians... I hear the tribe has just bought this place?"

"Oh that was a few years ago," he answered.

Time moves slowly in this part of the wild west, I realised as dreams of beagle chainsaw massacres drifted through my uneasy sleep.

Pink Mission

2010-05-22T20:56:00.000+10:00

The Calafia Hotel is built next to a 18th century Franciscan mission on cliffs overlooking the ocean, where dolphins surf the waves.

In Baja California, just south of Tijuana it's the sort of hotel that you stayed in when you were roughing it but decided to indulge for a night and pay more than $20 for a room. It's clean, simple and a little rundown. But it serves the best margaritas in the world made by the sweetest barman you've ever met. Breakfasts are also good.

It's also about 45 minutes from the notorious Mexico/US frontier, where border policemen ask you take off your sunglasses so they can see your face and then to, "pop the trunk".

Mexican tourism has suffered of late - swine flu, the drug wars, the economic crisis, poorest borders and a giant fence built to stop illegal immigrants getting into the land of milk and honey.

So what you to do increase tourism? Paint a formerly pristine white hotel bright pink and blue? Well, some of the walls at least.

And that's what the Calafia has done.

But never mind, if you ignore the multi-storey condominium block next door, it's still a gorgeous place to stay. Just don't take out your map on the way there in case the locals think you're a tourist.

Ladyboys and Honeymooners

2010-05-19T17:00:00.001+10:00

Well we're sitting in the Piano Bar chatting to a couple of French guys who used to live in Papeete and are back here on holidays and what looks like a very manly woman comes straight up to us, lifts her top and with an enticing wiggle shows her bare breasts. Interesting.

She's actually preening in front of a mirror and isn't interested in us at all. This is a bar frequented by Tahiti's own ladyboys, boys often brought up as girls who look a lot better than some of the women I've come across.

To get in we had to pass a convoy of angry-looking bouncers. One sits at a small table with what looks like a book of raffle tickets. But once inside the atmosphere is friendly, where the music is hip hop meets disco meets Hawaiian guitar.

It's OK for European men to be seen together, my new friend tells me, but not for Tahitians. It's taboo.

It struck me as kind of odd that today Tahiti and particularly resorts on islands like Bora Bora is a hotspot for honeymooners.

Ladyboys and honeymooners? Seedy clubs and overwater bungalows? There's parallels there, but I'm not quite sure what. Let me think about this.

Viva Mexico!

2010-05-15T17:01:00.001+10:00

Strangely for a travel writer and journalist I'm always nervous before a big trip. Tomorrow I take off for Tahiti and the US. Fear is part of travel, I guess. If there isn't a bit of adrenalin there then it's hardly worth it.

Usually the biggest fear is surviving the long flight, hoping you'll get an aisle seat (how does everybody else know how to sort that out way before they get to the airport?) and that all else goes well.

I'm hoping this time to visit Mexico - I haven't been there since the late 80s. It's been getting a bad rap lately and violence has increased. When I used to go through Mexico City frequently on the way to Nicaragua, it was a haven for people fleeing from political troubles, especially in Central America. It was a cultured, open, hospitable place and always great fun. Salsa bands, chats in cafes, bus rides to the pyramids. I loved it. I'm looking forward to going back, even if only briefly.

Viva Mexico!

Cougar and proud of it

2010-02-14T19:02:00.001+11:00

There's been a fair bit of publicity lately about cougars - older women who LUUUUVE their younger men.
That includes a new TV show focussing on this, cruises and events arranged at RSL clubs.
A cougar is a female mountain cat also known as a puma, mountain lion, catamount or panther, depending on the region, which gives the impression that such older women are aggressive
and .....on the make.
Apparently the new definition of a cougar is an older single woman who prefers younger men and isn't afraid to go after them.
(And I don't reckon a woman in her 30s is an older woman - that's ridiculous. Surely you have to be at least in your 40s for this definition.)
Well take it from a now-married cougar ... there's a reason why the numbers are up and the wildlife is waiting.
Younger men are much more attractive than older men - as in men in their 50s/60s and so on.
Who would not choose a young, energetic, spunky male over an older, embittered, misogynist, divorced, often balding and boring one?
Not that they're all like this - but the ones who aren't misogynist are already my friends anyway. And we all know it's a golden rule not to have relationships with your friends.
Funnily enough at a recent cougar event there were a lot more younger men than older women, so they obviously don't mind the attention either.
My younger man (now husband) goes to the gym and has muscles to prove it, is funny, energetic, helpful, caring and sexy.
I hate the term but I'm proud to be a cougar.

Sydney Summer Nights - sometimes

2009-12-10T19:03:00.000+11:00

Sometimes summer nights in Sydney are close to
perfection.
In the space of two weeks I attended two separate
events that couldn't be more different, but in some ways sum up what Sydney has
to offer.
One was dinner at Dunes restaurant at Palm Beach with
two Australian actor/filmmakers - Anna-Maria Monticelli and Yahoo
Serious.
The other event was the reunion one-off concert of much
as a I hate the word but it does fit - iconic Aussie band Cold
Chisel.
Held at ANZ Stadium at Olympic Park, the concert was the
culmination of the Sydney Telstra 500, which combined V-8 supercars with rock
and roll.
This turned out to be one of the best rock concerts
I've been to (and I've been to a lot), perhaps because it was unexpectedly
enjoyable. And I remember seeing now-grandfather-of-one Barnesy climbing up the
scaffolding at concerts when he was a much younger performer.

We''d already heard that Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss and co, who disbanded in 1983,
did an amazing warm-up gig at Clovelly Bowling Club earlier in the week, but the
energy and musicianship that night bowled us all over.
Chris Cheney, the lead singer of one of the earlier bands, The Living End, said they
were "honoured" to be playing at the same gig as Cold Chisel.

The enthusiastic crowd of around 80,000 was friendly and easy-going, singing
along with every well-known song.
They continued their good humour on the train home, even though we were packed in like
sardines.
On an earlier gloriously warm night, we sat in the open-air part of Dunes eating oysters and seafood as a jazz band entertained.
The restaurant sits in between the red sandhills that flow down to the surf beach and the grassy surrounds of the Pittwater side of the peninsula, overlooked by Barrenjoey Lighthouse.
Yahoo Serious and Monticelli are both northern beaches locals and love this beautiful
part of the world.
But it wasn't all sweetness and light.
Monticelli spoke with sadness about her film, Disgrace, not being selected for
an AFI Award nomination.
The AFIs have short listed a range of great films, including Balibo and Samson and Delilah but many are astounded that Disgrace based on the masterpiece by South African-turned-Australian writer J M
Coetzee got passed over.
Monticelli wrote the screenplay of the
film, starring John Malkovich, and directed by her husband Steve
Jacobs.
She says it's been sold to more than 20 countries
worldwide, received great reviews here but she still would have liked more
recognition from her peers, not just for the film itself but also for the
acting.
Is it because it's set in South Africa? I asked.
She shook her head, she really didn't know.

Walking the goosebump trail

2009-11-26T19:07:00.000+11:00

We're standing in the rain, trying to make out the words on the grave.We're in the cemetery next to the Killiter Presbyterian Church outside the village of Killeter in County Tyrone.
But yes the writing becomes clearer as we wipe the raindrops away - it is our great-great grandfather's final resting place - as well as that of our great-great grandmother and great-great uncle.
G g grandpa Joseph Love was minister at this church most of his life and was followed by one
of his sons, George Clarke Love, my great grandfather.
But in 1889 George for health reasons sought a more favourable climate in Australia and
set off for southern climes with his wife, Georgina Beattie, and their five-month-old baby Bob.
There's a convoy of us that have driven along the muddy narrow roads to get here - the church's clerk of sessions, our guide, and one of our possible distant relatives.
They're huddling in the shelter of the church door as my sister and I crouching under
her small purple umbrella pronounce that the grave is indeed that of our
forebears.
This crazy expedition all started with my idea to walk the ground of my ancestors or the "goosebump trail", which is how a genealogist I met in Dublin describes being able to return to the exact place
they came from.
I knew my mother's father's side of the family came from Northern Ireland, and I wanted to return there after a trip to Belfast two years ago - a city that despite its grim history - and perhaps because of
this edginess - I fell in love with.
My main piece of information was that my great uncle, anthropologist and linguist JRB Love (the
baby Bob), was born in Killeter - in the manse known as Lislaird. This county
borders Donegal, in the Republic of Ireland and is mainly rural with sheep and
dairy farms.
About 65 families still use the Killeter Presbyterian Church at Maghernageeragh (which means the playing of the sheep). They have to share a minister these days with another church and farmer and
congregation member Will Andrews has been left to look after the books.
After driving past the former manse, we go to his farm
house and sit down at his kitchen table as he and his wife bring out a roneoed
sheet "about a minister who is long dead" - which tells a bit about Joseph
Love.
Then out comes the Register of Marriages and we are
thrilled to see there are many that contain both Joseph's and George Clarke's
signatures.
They also have stipend lists - which include
donations from members of the family - and the roll of people who had attended
Communion - held then as now twice a year.
Now that Andrews has
the church key we head back to see the inside of the church.

It's then that the story of this ancient and beautiful valley emerges.
Killeter's closest town Castlederg was one of the "most bombed out" towns in the
province during the Troubles, the quaint name for the undeclared war between
Catholic Nationalists and Protestant Unionists, supported by the British
Army.
It's now 11 years since the leading antagonists,
republican Gerry Adams and Ulster loyalist the Reverend Ian Paisley, agreed to
power sharing in what became known as the 1998 Good Friday Peace
Agreement.
But for 30 years before that Castlederg and surrounds
like much of Northern Ireland had been the scene of bombings, razor wire and
gun-running.
Although it's a long and complicated story that
goes back three centuries, the most recent conflict began in 1969 after
predominantly Catholic marches inspired by the American civil rights movement
and counter-protests by Protestant loyalists turned violent.

It's not a history from the deep dark past. That morning we had driven into
Coalisland in the eastern part of the county. Huge orange and green graffiti
covered a wall on the way into town - Colin Duffy Framed!! Terry McCafferty
Interned. British Injustice 1969-2009.
At the church, I ask
Andrews how the peace settlement had affected him and others in the
village.
While he says "peace is great" there is still some
mistrust and tension.
"Things are getting better but it'll take
a long time before we forget," he says.
He takes us over to a
plaque on the wall dedicated to two young men, in their twenties, from the
congregation who had been killed while serving with the Ulster Defence
Regiment.
"All for nothing," he says shaking his head. "All for
nothing."
The next morning we have a cup of tea at Gordon
Speer's house in the village.
Asked to be our guide, he works
for an organisation, Border Arts 2000, which for the past 10 years as well as
doing arts projects has been working with Catholics, Anglicans and Presbyterians
to overcome their differences - helped by funding from the EU Programme for
Peace and Reconciliation.
He tells a little of the "bad old
days" of the 70s and 80s. Being right on the border, the army would blow up the
"unapproved" roads to stop the arms coming in and also block the escape routes
(also affecting smugglers). Never mind, the gun-runners would come in at night
and fill up the holes with gravel.
Castlederg's streets were
blocked by cement boulders and you had to pass the army checkpoints to get into
town.
Speer, a musician, tells how he used to play in a band in
the town's pubs, and would have to make complicated arrangements with the police
every time he had a gig.
People would hardly speak to their
neighbours because of fear and intimidation.
"Now it's much more
mixed," he says. "Ten years ago you wouldn't have seen a Protestant in a
Catholic bar. There's been a big change in the last three
years."
"It will all get down to money at the end of the day,"
he says when asked what he thinks of the future of the fragile
peace.
It's marching season and we're there for Black Saturday -
when the march of the Black Perceptory, a fraternal/religious lodge linked
to the Orange Order, is held and towns we drive through are covered in Union
Jack flags.
The vast majority of the parades in Northern Ireland
are Unionist but since the peace agreement marchers have to get permission
from the Parades Commission - and many marches have been cancelled when it
looked like they might lead to violence.
Speer has been getting
both sides round the table to discuss how to ensure the marches are peaceful;
he'd found solutions were simpler than he expected.
"Both sides
were amazed they both didn't want to have a heavy police presence," he
says.
Speer explains there's been a push by both Protestants and
Catholics to embrace their own cultures, music and language - and to change
cultural perceptions.
"A lot of people are more interested in
their culture and are now more comfortable about it," he says.

The Plantation of Ulster began in 1609 when the British brought over loyal
Presbyterian Scots - taking the most fertile land off the locals and
giving it to them, where they built their castles.
Even though
it was eight or nine generations ago it has still got a bearing on the landscape
today, Speer says, as it created two distinct cultures in Ulster and led to huge
resentment and discrimination.
Before I left home I'd been in
touch with my mother's first cousin, John Love, from Adelaide, the son of JRB
Love, the baby Bob who had come on that first long journey.
He'd
written that while some relatives had found records of people named Love and
Beattie who moved from Scotland to Ireland at the time of the Scottish
settlement nobody had traced an unbroken line of descent from those people to
us.
According to his family tree though Joseph's father was
James Love, a farmer from Bready, a town a little further north, where we
visited the next day. In pride of place is the new Bready Sollus Centre, built
by the Bready and District Ulster-Scots Development Association to promote an
interest in the area's culture and heritage.
My grandfather, George Love, was born in January 1892 in Dimboola, Victoria, the same year the
growing family moved to Strathalbyn in South Australia, where George Clarke Love
ministered until his death in 1929.
Moving to Australia and the
dry climate of SA must have worked, because "he lived to a ripe old age", John
Love says.
For me - a lapsed Presbyterian/Anglican - the
goosebump trail had led right back home again, with a stronger feeling of
connection and a desire to know more about my ancestors.

My great grandfather's signature

2009-11-26T19:05:00.001+11:00

The Democratic Convention (Last Year)

2009-03-07T19:10:00.000+11:00

Diana Plater was in Denver and St Paul for the US presidential conventions. Here she provides a day-by-day perspective on democracy at work, American-style.

Wednesday August 27:
I arrive in Denver, Colorado for the Democratic National Convention.
The town's hopping with delegates, lobbyists, congressmen and women, senators, observers, protesters, celebrities and media from all over the world. Down at the 16th Street Mall I'm handed a leaflet from a woman holding a "Bird Porn" sign, which says bird watchers are more sexually active than others, possibly the strangest of the literature I see distributed during four days of partying.
Outside a juice shop I meet Jarrot R Jordan, a political strategist from Atlanta, who's excited to be in town to see the first African American candidate for the White House - Barack Obama - accepting his nomination.
"For me it's historic," he says. "I had to be here."
I catch a shuttle bus to the Pepsi Centre with scores of others after walking past stall after stall of political paraphernalia - everything from T-shirts of Obama next to Martin Luther King saying Dreams Do Come True to laughing Hillary Clinton pens.
That afternoon, the traditional roll call showing how the states voted is suspended with the backing of a laughing Hillary Clinton, allowing Obama to be officially nominated. The Clintonistas are not so happy. I speak to several who feel the country has been robbed of the chance to have a woman president.
But as proceedings continue delegates appear united in support of Obama and his vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, with a choreographed holding up of "Biden", "Change" and other sloganed signs. Other speakers include former president Bill Clinton and an injured female helicopter pilot who complains that the "warriors" of Iraq are not being looked after by the government.
At the media bar in one of the tents in the grounds of the Pepsi Centre free alcohol flows and a black woman anthropologist from Minneapolis says she doesn't see any clash between a black and a woman candidate.
"Obama's the president America needs now, he reflects the diversity of the country. Can you imagine if an Aborigine ran for leader of your country, what kind of breakthrough that would be?"

Thursday August 28:
The event at Invesco Field, a football stadium outside the city centre where Obama delivers his acceptance speech, is more like a rock concert than a political gathering - except for the thousands of American flags. Obama reminds his audience it's 45 years to the day since people in Washington came to hear a "young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream". Confetti - an environmentally friendly alternative to balloons - rains down as fireworks blast the summer night sky.
Later an American colleague says the election on November 4 will come down to "who's afraid of the dark?".
"I believe race is really an excuse to mask the fears," he says. "Yet there's no logical explanation to these race fears."
On Friday August 29 Republican Presidential nominee John McCain announces his running mate - Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska - and the spotlight is immediately lifted off Obama. The debate begins about who has more executive experience - the hunter, fisher and "hockey mom" of five or the black senator.

Monday September 1:
I'm in St Paul, one half of the twin cities of Minnesota (the other's Minneapolis) where the Republican National Convention is to be held. Only the convention isn't happening - it's been postponed because of Hurricane Gustav. But everybody's saying that's an excuse not to have McCain seen on prime time television with the unpopular President George Bush.
It's Labor Day and the town is dead as we drive in from our Days Inn chain motel at Eagan, a suburb kilometres out near the airport and The Mall of America, one of many hotels to which delegate and media have been designated, with infrequent shuttle services into the city.
The contrast with Denver is almost surreal.
While first ladies Laura (Bush) and Cindy (McCain) speak to the almost empty convention, a radical group has broken away from a planned huge demonstration and is going wild in the streets. Police spray some of them with mace, which they attempt to wipe off with vinegar brought along for the occasion.
One of the protesters, Ragnar as he wants to be known, tells me he's 18 and this will be the first presidential election he can vote in.
"In the past eight years a lot of freedoms have been flushed away in the name of security," he says.
Lee Beauduy is one of several people holding red and white banners saying "Victory over terrorism. Let our soldiers win" who whistle and clap the police for their anti-protesters action.
"We have not been hit since 9/11 because of the war," he says.
Soon around 10,000 people start marching past, with banners covering every issue from anti-war to immigration.
Back at the Hilton Garden Inn I meet musician Al Williams III who is tinkling the ivories of a grand piano in one of the reception rooms. He's killing time because his gig - playing between speeches a the convention - has been cancelled.
"They're trying to fit me in tomorrow," the flautist and saxophonist says. He doesn't want to get into a political discussion.
At a bar in the hotel we watch CNN's news flash - Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant. (Later it emerges that Palin disclosed the pregnancy to rebut rumours that her Down Syndrome baby son, Trig, is actually Bristol's child.) Over and over on TV there's the same footage of the poor girl clutching the baby.
Is life imitating art? I wonder, as I have just seen a play written in the 60s by Gore Vidal, Weekend, which is all about a Republican presidential candidate finding out his son's black fiance is pregnant, which could ruin his chances of being nominated.
In the room with the piano a reception is starting for the Conservative Movements Leaders - the party heavies. Red and white "I Vote Pro-Life" badges are strewn across the tables and a priest wanders around drinking a glass of red wine.
Women in tight pencil skirts and stilettos are talking about how Palin has "energised" the election, admitting they thought they were on a loser until McCain's unorthodox choice of running partner.

Tuesday September 2
Breakfast at the Days Inn, Eagan. Portly Republican delegates choose between waffles and cereal and watch TV as outside rain threatens.
"It's no big deal, " says one, commenting on the by now famous pregnancy.
At the Foreign Press Centre at the convention centre congressman for Puerto Rico Luis G Fortuno, briefing journalists, says Hispanic women who loved Clinton may now vote for Palin because they believe she represents family values.
"It (the pregnancy) shows a typical family with typical issues," he says.
That night George Bush speaks to the convention via satellite and former presidential candidate Law and Order star Fred Thompson receives rapturous applause when he supports McCain and describes Palin as a breath of fresh air.
Al Williams' band finally gets to play.
Outside in the street pretty girls in yellow t-shirts give out badges advertising condoms, which "save lives". On the next corner a replica Guantanamo prison has been established and people in orange overalls give out leaflets.
At Minneapolis a fund-raising function for the Young Guns is being held at Brits Pub - an organisation of young people dedicated to targeting seats held by first-term Democrats.
Later that evening tango, flamenco and belly dancers entertain solar power industry lobbyists hoping a senator or two will drop in.
Next door a gay bar is almost empty except for two men on the dance floor.
"Maybe they're all at the Log Cabin reception," somebody quips - that's the group that represents Gay Republicans.
God Bless America!