Hieronymous the Anonymous

The players to watch

Having spent a lifetime watching Australian cricket I have come to recognise it's prime characteristics. You can count on a committed effort in the field, the batting aggressive, the fielding athletic, the bowling hostile, the attitude unrelenting. I doubt any of our rivals would dispute that. I've been witness to a great era of success that has bordered on dominance. I'm old enough to remember the great West Indian teams of the eighties, but what was fleeting success for them has been sustained by an Australian team from one generation to the next.

Looking back over the last 20 years Australia has probably won about 70% of all the contests they've been in, a great rate when you consider that cricket is one sport where draws are a frequent occurrence. When they've won it seems to me they've won in one of two ways: dominating from start to finish and cantering away; or overcoming a tough opponent, a difficult situation, gritting their teeth and fighting to the last. Some teams lose games in those situations; Australia wins them.

Today I watched the final of the U19 Cricket World Cup from New Zealand. Australia were playing Pakistan. Australia has won this twice before, but it's never really been big in the public's consciousness. In an interesting article today Peter Roebuck made the point correctly that in the Australian mind winning a junior tournament is nice, but it's really the grown up stuff that counts. To a degree that has been the cricketing administrations view also: they were quoted going into the tournament that the first priority was to develop players who can progress to the senior team in years to come. The trophy would be nice, but this is all about the future and ensuring the success of our senior team continues far into the future.

That said you always want to win, and no kid walking onto the ground today would have had any other thought than that. In the end it was a very good, tight game. Australia batted first and struggled along to a mediocre score, but kept going when they might have been bowled out. Pakistan looked good early but then Australia in their inimitable way put the screws on with excellent fielding, smart bowling, and astute captaincy. As the game went on the screws were further tightened as Pakistan slowly lost their way and succumbed to the pressure. In the end Australia comfortably won a match they should have lost, very much in the manner of the senior team.

Now they have the trophy that's the end of that team. They'll go back to their states and make their way, progressing individually or falling away. One thing is certain that there are players we saw today who will one day play test cricket for Australia. For me their are two leading candidates. Josh Hazlewood is six and half feet tall and was the match-winning bowler today. I think he's a special. In fact I think one day we'll be speaking of him in the same breath as Glen McGrath.

The other is the skipper of today's team, Mitch Marsh. Son of a former player and the brother of Australias's one day opening batsman, I think Mitch Marsh is a good chance to captain the senior team too one day. Tall, powerful, aggressive, confident he possesses that intangible quality that separates the good from the great. If I was a selector I'd be inclined to fast track him because I think he's one of those rare players without limit. The harder you put it to him, the better he'll go.

Other than those also impressed with Jason Flores, Luke Doran and Tom Triffitt , the wicketkeeper. The other one to remember is Darren Pattinson, playing for Victoria - in fact bowling stocks look pretty good. Look out for them.

On a sort of related note I saw highlights last night of a match in the early nineties between  the senior Australian side and Australia A, made up of the young up and comers. The senior side was good, the best in the world, and they beat Australia A on the night. It was a good contest though, and fascinating to look back at the A team and those players who would bridge the gap and be integral members of what was to become probably the best team of all time: Ponting, Hayden, Martyn, Blewett to add to McGrath, Warne, the Waugh's in the senior team.

We've been very spoiled.

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The Mystery Man

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Neither Cheeseboy or I mentioned J.D. Salinger the other night when we speculated on the next famous person to go, and yet barely 24 hours later the news came that the author of The Catcher in the Rye was dead at 91.

Fame, as it happens, is a very apt topic when it comes to Salinger. If fame is measured by the number of column inches a person receives in the daily papers, or how widely and commonly known he is then Salinger may fall short of being the real and famous McCoy, something that suited him very well - but he’s certainly famous to me.

There was a time Salinger he was one of America’s most celebrated authors. The Catcher in the Rye was a sensation when it was published and is still read today. In Holden Caulfield he created one of the most distinctive and iconic characters in the literary canon. It’s a great book, but Salinger was also the author of many other charming stories and novellas, mostly featuring the various members of the Glass family. They were a fascinating variety of precocious children to adults, famous for appearing on a fictional talk show called It's a Wise Child. The stories explored their different experiences, their arcane interests, their relationships as well as their personal idiosyncrasies and travails.

Salinger created one of the most distinctive and iconic characters in the literary canon. It’s a great book, but Salinger was also the author of many other charming stories and novellas, mostly featuring the various members of the Nobody else wrote like at him at the time, and none since that I can think of. His was a bright and attractive voice that revealed a quirky perspective separate from all other writers of the time – the fifties to early sixties – and an inquiring mind. Some of his stories are gorgeous reading. They are so easy and buoyant and often outright funny, a maestro with the language. The best of them have charming surfaces beneath which is subtly revealed the torment and conflict of complex characters making their way in the world.

Perhaps that explains why Salinger withdrew from society. Rich and celebrated he retired from public life and became a virtual recluse. By all accounts he led reasonably conventional life as husband and father behind the high walls of his estate, but not another word of his has been published in the forty odd years since the day he closed the door.

While his public fame has diminished over the years with his withdrawal, the mystery surrounding him has deepened. The odd literary critic or journalist will wonder aloud what everyone wonders: what caused him to withdraw? Was he still writing? A flurry of activity will follow, then die down of its own accord. Otherwise it’s all whispers and gossip about supposed sightings and alleged writings. His fame has gone underground.

Underground is where he has stayed. Whenever anyone has tried to sniff him out he’s fought them off strenuously, and all the way to court occasionally. Whatever his reasons his privacy is sacrosanct to him. Now he has taken it to his grave.

It makes me sad to think that he has now gone. He was part of my formative years. Like so many others I was compelled to read Catcher for school – and found it one of the few books on the curriculum I actually enjoyed. As a kid going through puberty the story resonates with you, and whatever quirks Holden exhibited it was impossible not to like and identify with him. In later years I read his other books one by one, carrying them around in the back pocket of my jeans to be read on trams or trains or the couch at home, and re-read. For a period of about 8 years Salinger was one of the key literary influences in my life. This was a time I read Hemingway and Sartre, Camus and St Exupery, when I was trying to figure out who I was, where I was going, and what everything met. His books were a companion and sometimes a guide. Now, with his death, I feel another connection broken to my younger days. I guess it goes to show that I too am getting older, and that nothing remains forever.

For years it has been rumoured that Salinger had never stopped writing, and that in a safe deposit box somewhere there are reams of new stories. It’s lovely to think that he continued to write simply for his own pleasure if that’s true. I hope it is – I want to read them. In terms of literary fame he is already assured a spot, not as a great perhaps, but maybe as the talented performer who might have been anything. That’ll change if ever his lost stories are unearthed and published. No matter how you measure it his fame will be undisputed, and it will be the literary event of the century, and no exaggeration.

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Next to go?

I caught up with Cheeseboy last night for an impromptu session of wine and cheese at Gibson’s bar around the corner from where I live. We sampled a pinot and a cab sav, plus a piquant blue, a creamy brie, and some spicy marinated olives to go with them. Our kind of fare.

The conversation was the usual stuff, work, money, women, children, gossip, a wide-ranging discussion on the cricket, the Australian Open, Melbourne Victory and the new Melbourne Heart team starting up next year, as well as a cursory preview of the Winter Olympics. Are we interested? Will Australia win more medals than Holland? And do you remember Johan Olaf Koss? What Australian swimmer did he hook-up with (anyone)?

In other words really, nothing remarkable, but all in good fun.

We then happened across a conversation we’ve had at the beginning of the last few years: who’s for the knackers this year? It’s surprising how popular this topic is: there’s even a website or two dedicated to it. It may be a little irreverent, even bad taste, but what the hell, you can’t take things so seriously that you never say anything impolite. Besides, y’all welcome to speculate till the cows come about my longevity.

In any case we hemmed and hawed a bit. I wanted to avoid the obvious candidates and stipulated that someone under 50 had to be among the nominations. You know there’s going to be some left field malfunction that’ll leave everyone surprised. Who’d have picked Brittany Murphy, after all? 

Cheeseboy selected Fidel Castro, a good get I think, Kirk Douglas, a perennial favourite who manages to somehow keep on keeping on, and Dennis Hopper. He was unwilling to commit to anything bolder than that. I picked out a couple of pollies, Margaret Thatcher (demented as she is I think she might actually get through the year), and Gough Whitlam (which would make me sad). I also suggested Robert Downey Junior (sorry Rob), which Cheeseboy scoffed at. “Why would he die”, he exclaimed, “when he’s riding so high?” 

I made the simple point that he wouldn’t choose to die and it could be as random as being clunked on the head by a piano falling from the sky. In many ways his current success and popularity makes him a prime candidate for the tragic early death scenario. It’s almost poetic really, though I doubt he would appreciate that.

For the record I hope none of them go, even Thatcher. And given my track record with Amy Winehouse, they have every chance to go on for years to come.

iWant

After a lot of intrigue, gossip and anticipation details of the much awaited Apple ‘tablet’ was announced overnight. The iPad as they’re calling it, is a predictably gorgeous piece of hardware. It’s got the same touch screen functionality of the iPod and iPhone, and is clearly their big brother. Judging by what I've seen and read it's about the size of a trade paperback I figure, and about the thickness of a 80 page novella – it’s less than a centimetre thick. It’s got all the functionality and connectivity of the iPhone, except you can’t make a call on it (which, less face it, is the most boring of the iPhone functionality), and like the iPhone and iPod uses the iTunes store as the one stop shop for all manner of goodies, from the plethora of apps, to music and movies, and, I presume, soon to be ebooks.

In actual fact the iPad rides the crest of a fair to middling wave for ebook readers. Amazon’s Kindle has been out a few years and is a reasonably elegant if plain piece of work. Sony has been in the market for a while also, and by all reports there is about to be an explosion of ebook readers hitting the market.

It’s hard to believe that they haven’t missed their chance. The iPad is about to blow them all out of the water you would think, with only the low-cost models having a market. 

The iPad isn’t a PC, but it’s not far short of it. You can browse the web and read your email and listen to your music – and read ebooks – while taking advantage of the myriad apps you can download to it. Unlike the specialised ebook readers this is multi-functional, and therefore likely to be used more more widely and more often, making it better value for money in the long term. And it’s prettied up in that beautiful Apple way.

In terms of the ebook market,l you would have to think given their experience and expertise that iTunes will soon become the pre-eminent portal for ebooks across the web.  Seriously, I don’t know how the likes of Amazon can compete unless they corner the cheap end of the market, or they value-add somehow.

In actual fact this is the product I’ve been after for years. Yonks ago the Apple Newton came out – a very rough predecessor – and died in the arse in a big way. The time wasn’t right then, it is now. For years I’ve been travelling OS with a laptop in my bag. Even the lightest are towards 2 kilograms, and all that for a few basic functions I wanted to perform away. The iPad has all I need for my travel needs, and more, and is 0.7 of a kilo, with inbuilt connectivity. I want one, I want one bad, but I’m going to try and restrain myself from being first in. Won’t be long after though.

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WhatchutalkinboutWillis?

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One of the signs that I’m getting older is that the cultural signposts I grew up with are no longer current or relevant. Furthermore, and I’m embarrassed to admit this, I suspect that I am oblivious to many of the more recent signposts that everyone 20 years younger is intimately attuned to. I think I’m reasonably with it. I read widely, I have a Facebook account after all and I occasionally Twitter. Still and all, the reality is that I don’t watch half the TV programs that I hear people talking about, and I’m indifferent, at best, to many of the recent cultural trends.

It’s sad and strange to find that what you have always thought of as ‘yours’ is as obscure as renaissance poetry to today’s hipsters. More and more the odd cultural reference I throw into my conversation is met by a blank stare. The connection is fraying because the verbal shorthand I’ve grown up with does not translate today.

Back in the day I watched every Seinfeld episode and know them pretty well back to front, just like most of my friends do. Our conversation is sprinkled with references to the show as they apply to current events, and every time the reference is met with a knowing grin or nod of the head. We know what a Soup Nazi is, a low-talker, what it means to re-gift, all about the Penske File and the risks of colliding worlds, and ad infinitum. Get us together and you’ll hear our conversation peppered with these references, just as my conversation is often sprinkled with references to the TV programs and cultural references I absorbed growing up. It’s our lingo, our linguistic home base if you like, but recognised it seems by an ever dwindling section of the population.

When I first saw my osteopath I explained to her that I was so stiff that I was running like Hymie – a reference I’m now uncertain whether she understood. And just a few minutes ago I responded to someone talking about a person who always got their way by describing him as Simon the likeable. Huh? Who? To explain was pointless, but I hung up the phone feeling myself more and more of a quickly receding past.

It hit home. I suddenly realised that what I thought was common ground was actually a chasm between us. What’s a Get Smart after all? Sure, it’s a sixties show, but it’s a seminal TV program that has been repeated more often than I’ve had hot dinners. It’s not current, but it is classic. I spent much of my youth coming home from school to watch that, and Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched, Lost in Space, I Dream of Jeannie, and so on. When I was supposed to be doing my homework I’d be watching agent 13 stationed in a trashcan or a washing machine complaining about his lot in life, or Siegfried getting all Germanically up-tight. I reckon I saw every episode of GS and LiS about 6 times minimum, and have happily echoed much of them in my conversation ever since (the cone of silence; “Missed me by that much”; “Would you believe...”; “Does not compute”).

There was a time when everyone knew of those programs, even if second-hand, much as everyone knew of Creedence Clearwater Revival or Jimmy Carter. Not so anymore, and the other side of that is that I don’t know what the equivalent shows are these days, and I don’t know if I ever will (but figure they can’t be as much fun). I wonder if there will come a time when all we share is the news of the day and the latest footy score?

I realise as I write that times have changed more fundamentally than what our viewing choices suggest. I grew up watching re-hashed sit-coms from the sixties moved from prime time to after school viewing. These were quality shows (Mel Brooks and Buck Henry wrote Get Smart), funny and innocuous. Today’s kids get a far different diet of TV pap because the world now is more sanitised than the world I grew up in. In the same way as there is no adult fare on TV after school playgrounds today have been stripped of the ‘dangerous’ equipment I loved playing on growing up. We live in different times and there’s no getting around that.

What am I to conclude from this? The usual really, that everything always changes, not just our language but our cultural mores and the modes of our communication. Things change but I guess this has always been the case one way or another. The first cavemen probably wondered what their grandkids were getting up to drawing on the walls of the cave. It’s just a bit more sophisticated these days, and maybe a little more obvious. I just wonder what would happen if we took a chance and exposed our kids to Curb Your Enthusiasm after school. Now that would be a cool generation, and one I’d be happy to know.

T-Shirt 2.0

I used to have a pale blue t-shirt which had a dark square in the middle of the chest and a cut-out of a cat with a tail curling in the air, the tag beneath proclaiming I Love My Pussy. That was a favourite.

Still I have mixed feelings about t-shirts with anything written across them. There is a very thin line between the crass, the geeky and the downright stupid. Most cross this line in my estimation, and I even though I now avoid them in general there are still a couple in my closet. One states that Pirates and Ninjas Agree: Cowboys Suck. 

What prompted this rumination was spotting a character at work wearing a white t-shirt with black script claiming that :  This is my clone. Mmm, clever. Maybe. He was an IT guy, so suitably geeky, and maybe a tad too clever. That’s the thing about message t-shirts, they may not get you pondering about the meaning of life, but they’ll likely divert you a moment or two while you figure out if you approve or not.

In a way message t-shirts are much like Facebook status updates: you can tell a lot about a person by the proclamation across their chest. Is it smart? Is it political? Is it sexy or cute; glib or solemn? Is it a rant to the world in general, or a private existential inquiry? Is it cryptic or straight to the point?

There’s a marketing idea there somewhere which I give freely to the world: a t-shirt you can write your messages on as they occur to you and erase for the next update. T-shirt 2.0.

What does it mean?

I had a very disturbing and out of character dream the other night. I’ve been sitting on it since trying to work out what it meant, and somewhat afraid of finding out. Anyway, this is it.

There are two teams of people, and I’m the leader of one. We’re both a loose conglomeration of people, adults, children, people from all walks of life competing over something much smaller than a sheep station. I go into the competition expecting us to win. It might be my natural confidence, or it might be that I think that we have a natural advantage. In any case I’m feeling pretty cosy with the whole thing.

It is a shock then when we fall behind in this unspecified competition. We fall behind so badly that it becomes very clear that regardless what we do the cause is lost. There is some minor celebration of this on the other side, and some angst on my side. For me it is cause for some unexpected soul-searching, which even more surprising tips over into an act of stupid violence.

We share a communal fridge it seems, and in the door of the fridge is a glass bottle belonging to a young girl on the other side. On wild impulse I smash the bottle and walk away. At first nobody knows who smashed the bottle, and then they begin to point fingers at me and mutter, looking at me with an expression of surprised contempt.

I am feeling miserable, and more remorseful than I can explain. At the same time there is a sense of bewilderment. Did I really do that? How could I have done that? In the face of their accusations I don’t deny it, but find myself wanting to make an excuse, to explain that it was an accident when I knew it wasn’t. To my credit I don’t, but when another child, a boy of about 10, comes to taunt me over it I snap again. This time I lash out at him making him cry. He is whisked away by adults. Everyone, including my own team, look upon me with disgust, and the boy’s father quite rightly has a go at me.

I am astounded, embarrassed, ashamed. I can’t understand anything. This is not what I am, this is not what I do...and yet here I am, guilty as charged. How can this be I wonder desperately. I am dignified, measured, I don’t get emotional, I don’t take things to heart, I don’t lose control. But now. I’m in the centre of this storm, despised even by my own team and unable to blame them, the pathetic character who takes his frustrations out on children.

I try to apologise but no-one wants anything of it. I’ve lost it I think. I’ve lost.

I woke with this dream in me. It was Tuesday morning in Sydney. As I got myself ready for work and packed up my things I wondered what I was doing here. How did I end up here? In those moments I believed I had taken the wrong turn. I was living the wrong life.

Did I feel that because of the dream? Or was the dream the reflection of some deep-seated frustration? A warning perhaps? Or is it nothing at all? In the days since I can’t disavow the dream, but I can reject the content of it as being foreign to who I am and what I believe.

Way to go

It’s time I went travelling again. The days are over when I’ll take off for months on end, but my life doesn’t feel normal unless I get away every couple of years at the max. I went to Bali last year, but that hardly counts. Before that was my jaunt to North Africa in late 2007. That’s too long.

I’m not going anywhere in a hurry, but I’m happy to begin planning. Realistically with work and a few other things I can’t really manage to get away anywhere serious before the end of the year. I might manage a short holiday before that, and maybe just sitting on a beach on an island resort in Oz. I could handle that, but the real business is jetting abroad.

Right now I’m tossing up options. Japan has been on the list for a long while, but I really I want to get there in the March/April period. The latter part of that is cherry blossom season, and I would be hopeful to get some skiing in at the start of it. So Japan’s out. Ireland has been on the list for a few years too, so is an option. Rightly or wrongly though I figure that’s one of those places best seen with a romantic interest. I don’t doubt you could have a lot of fun solo, but I imagine a romantic visit to the Emerald Isles would leave you with many happy memories.

The Trans Siberian Express has been on my list for many years, ever since I was a kid. I had romantic notions of sharing the journey with the rugged locals and passing the vodka bottle along. My views on it may be slightly more sophisticated these days, but I’m still keen to do it. In actual fact I very nearly booked a trip last year when it was on special. I kind of wish I had now. I think you have to go at particular times of the year. The depth of the Russian winter might be too rugged, but I don’t believe it’s the same experience unless you see some snow on the tundra. Maybe it’s an option around October, Beijing to St Petersburg.

Over a drink or two last week Whisky and I discussed hiring a yacht to sail around Croatian waters. It sounded nice, and something I’ve long been keen to do. But that’s next year at earliest, if it happens at all.

The final option is the states, and the one I’m leaning towards. I’ve never really done it properly, and given that I probably can’t allow any longer than 3 weeks away doing it ‘properly’ is unlikely this time too – but it’s better than nothing. Seems pretty tough though, and I think realistically I can only do one coast. That’d be the east coast. Do New York, Boston, maybe Montreal, check out DC, and I’d like to get somewhere down south, preferably by car – maybe Charleston. I’ve a yen to check out Chicago too. Then home, spending maybe a day in LA to do something trashily touristy.

Who knows, lot to happen between now and then, but you gotta hope. Figure something will happen. I’ll know when I set foot on some foreign shore that my life is back to normal and everything’s good.

Hotel world

I lay in my hotel bed last night doing as I’m sure hundreds of other business travellers were doing at the same time: I watched the golf. This seems typical of the strange in-between world the business traveller lives in. You bounce between airport and work and hotel. You have breakfast from a buffet and in the evening dine out on the expense account. Eventually you wind up in your hotel room, which, if you’re anything like me, is the last place you want to be.

Far from home, alone, and in unfamiliar surroundings you search for things that ‘normalise’ your life. That’s why some bring little mementoes from home, to brighten up the bland hotel decor and give some semblance of a home environment. The most I’ve ever done in that regard is to bring some iPod speakers so I can play my music.  More often I pack light with the basic necessities.

Last night I had drinks at a Bavarian bar across the road from my hotel. My Dad joined me there and we went searching for somewhere to eat. After quite a journey we ended up at Circular Quay. Catching a glimpse of the quay as we walked along I was struck once again by the great beauty of the vista, the ferries coming in and out, the Harbour Bridge arching between the shorelines like a wedge of lemon, and the sun golden bathing the genteel homes of Kirribilli on the far shore. If not for greedy developers and corrupt politicians that vista would include the Opera House, now sadly blocked to view. That would be an unbeatable view.

We ate at a Chinese restaurant on the quay leading to the Opera House. I had fears that it might the usual tourist trap, the million dollar view offset by ordinary food and steep prices, but I was pleasantly surprised. People wandered to and fro on the quay. It was a balmy night, we sat and watched an old fashioned paddle steamer depart the quay, and looked out at a luxury cruise liner docked at the pier.

But then it was back to the hotel. I walked into my room at about 9.45. I considered just going to sleep – I felt tired from an early start. Instead I read a little while lying in bed, unable to settle. I flicked on the TV and after surfing the channels settled on the golf being broadcast from Hawaii. I lay in bed watching, interested but lacking the will or energy to do anything more – even to switch it off. I guess I was in the human equivalent of stand-by, which I think is very true to the corporate travel paradigm. Walk back into the office and fully on again – in the meantime it’s half power.

Return to memory

I’m was in Sydney again the last couple of days, and unlike my last visit felt the memories coming back.

I went for a walk at lunchtime Monday and checked into my hotel. Though the office I am working at is more towards Circular Quay than what I’m used to I found my bearings very quickly and without really needing to think about it. Through the years I have spent a lot of time in Sydney and over a period have got to know the city itself, many of the inner suburbs, and some of the outlying suburbs – particularly north and east – very well. I know the place sub-consciously, which is really the best way to know anything.

As I walked to my hotel I noted things I had missed on my previous visit. I had walked down Spring Street on that occasion and looked out for the Swire Building, where my aunt had worked and which I had visited – and once worked at – umpteen times. On that occasion I had looked at the entrance trying to recall it particularly to mind, but it was not there to be found. In my mind’s eye I could see the wood panelled offices very clearly, and my aunt’s desk outside the door of the MD. Was that 20 years ago I wondered? Near enough.

As I walked down O’Connell street I spied the rear entrance to Swire House. After checking in I went for a further walk. I stopped at the Dymocks store that has been there forever, and where I bought many books during my time in Sydney. Nearby there is Australia Square where I had stopped for lunch many a time by myself or with my aunt. Other memories returned. I remembered Johnny Walkers, a bar in a side street we went to again and again for lunch, and the year I was there watching the Melbourne Cup. What year was that? It's now a recital hall of all things.

As I did the circuit I recalled another time having a drink with my aunt sitting outdoors at a bar nearby one Friday night. I remembered it very well, without any particular reason why I should do so. Memory is funny like that. I don’t know about you but my memory is mainly just information. I know the how’s, the when’s, and sometimes the whys. If I put my mind to it I can remember and see a particular time and place, as if it is stored there in my head for ready reference. Most of it is general impressions, like slides, or a camera that takes a shot every 10 seconds or so. My memories are in 2D.

But some aren’t, and I can’t explain this. Some moments seem to have been preserved whole in my memory, well, almost whole. If I cast my mind back to those drinks 20 odd years ago I can’t really remember what we spoke of, but I can recall the weather, which was fine, and I can remember speculating over a woman at a nearby table, whose face now is lost to memory. What I remember best is how I felt: that what a life this was. I sat there with a drink in front of me and the general hubbub of Friday night drinks around me, and release of tension that comes hand in hand with that. I imagined this is something I might do again and again, and I enjoyed the prospect. There was a sense of quiet satisfaction, curiosity and anticipation – as if I was on the cusp of much more. I wonder if that is why the memory is so vivid; or if it is vivid because the memory engaged more than time and place.

I began my walk back to work, and this time I remembered the buses I used to take, as if these memories where all of a piece, one thing leading to another...

What were the bus numbers I asked myself? 323 I thought. And 325. From Watsons Bay via the new and Old South Head roads going by the lovely homes and fashionable eastern suburbs to Edgecliffe station where I would get a train into the city, alighting normally at Martin Place. I knew those buses so well, like you know anything you take for granted.

There was a time I did a cocktail bartending course in Kings Cross. I was very young, it must have been 1983. I became friendly with the guy running the course, a cool Englishman who had lived and travelled all over the world. I remember one day we left together and caught the same bus – he lived in Watsons Bay then, as I did. We walked to his place, a small and stylish cottage that overlooked the beach, beyond Doyles and the normally accessible parts of the suburb. There we had a beer, funnily enough, and talked sitting in the sunshine from our separate perspectives, him with a fun and well lived life he was halfway through, and me sitting there, callow I guess though I never believed that, with all of this ahead of me. Then his girlfriend came home, a beautiful Asian woman with an Australian accent. He teased playfully while she laughed fondly, before being introduced to me. This is the life, I thought, this is how to be. And that I remember too.