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Darwin is not exactly known for being the cultural centre of Australia, but it does its best during its Festival and Fringe Festival. It's a particularly good time to visit in the dry season, where every day is 30 degrees, blue skies and a cool morning breeze, especially as a break from Melbourne's wintery touch (which I also love). The past several days have been in the fine company of Lara and Adam at MrBlueSky, where I also had the delight of catching up with Gary, Mon, Jac, and Shu on different occasions, and every evening there was an opportunity to soak up some fine entertainment.

A personal highlight was "John Schumann & The Vagabond Crew" performing the songs of Redgum. It's not my usual style of music, but they are the most notable radical Australian folk band that has ever walked in the country, and the musicianship was utterly superb. I felt like a teenager getting John to sign my copy of "If You Don't Fight You Lose", but I justified it on the grounds that I have been listening to this album since my teenage years; this will be a Rocknerd review. Another event also worthy of special note was "Duck Pond", a fusion of acrobatics, ballet, and theatre and a fusion story of Swan Lake and The Ugly Duckling. Understandably, I couldn't help but think of the RuneQuest scenario of the same name. Further, there is the excellent musicianship and storytelling of Fred Leone, whose self-taught upside-down southpaw guitar-playing is just a small testimony to his abilities.

Other events included a visit to the Northern Territory Art Gallery and Museum (MAGNT) which was hosting the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA), the video artistry of Shundori", the impressive and moving Zhangke Jia film Caught by the Tides, and the impressive aerialist performance of "La Ronde". In contrast, I was less taken by Bangarra Dance Theatre's "Illume", mainly because it didn't provide what was said on the tin, or the Sydney alternative-improv "Party Dozen", although kudos to the young punk local support act "Tang" who had plenty of energy and style.

The time seemed to go quickly, and the view of the Darwin harbour from my co-owned apartment always gives the opportunity for reflection, consolidation of thoughts, and quiet strategic preparation for the future. It is, without a doubt, one of the finest places for a short visit, and I can certainly understand why some people feel the desire to move on a more permanent basis, although I am a long way from such considerations myself. I will, once again, take this opportunity to thank Lara and Adam for their absolutely superb hosting and care of this Southerner's visit and for showing me many highlights of their home town. Doubtless, I will return again soon.
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A little less than a year ago, after receiving confirmation of a second parent when I'm travelling, I decided to reintroduce rats as "animales de companie" into my life after a hiatus of several years. Fortunately, The Happy Rattery (FB) had tracked their birthdays and, I am pleased to announce, brothers Mayday and Mayhem have celebrated their first birthday, which makes them about 30 in human years. As an example of nominative determinism, their assigned names proved to be prescient. Mayhem, the larger of the two and with an appropriate bandit mask, is gregarious and boisterous, whereas the smaller Mayday is a lot more circumspect and a little even nervous about the world. Typical of their behaviour, these little brothers have provided a great deal of joy to my life with their antics, especially their remarkable rat-engineering projects; I was very surprised when they tried to add a bag of pegs to their home construction.

Currently 3.7K kilometres away, I am very thankful to Kate R., for looking after the rats in my absence. Delightfully, she provided them a little bit of cupcake for their birthday, complete with a candle. Meanwhile, at the top-end, Lara D. has purchased some Banksy-rat decals for our apartment, MrBlueSky, which we installed this evening in honour of Mayday and Mayhem. Further, because it must be mentioned, a few days ago the Australian water rat, the Rakali (Hydromys chrysogaster) won the ABC award for Australia's under-rated animal as part of National Science Week (I give honourable mention to the marsupial mole). Common in Melbourne's waterway, I derive a great deal of delight watching rakali, especially as they swim at speed, their white-tipped tail hoisted like a flag.

My advocacy for rats can now be measured in decades, and I like to think this has had some effect on their reputation and welfare. There is an excellent essay from Aeon ("Rats are Us") which highly the juxtaposition between the rat and animal welfare laws (essentially non-existent in the United States, it can be harrowing reading) and the scientific evidence that I have raised many times over the decades; they are social animals with communication, they are capable of past memories and future prediction, they are dreamers, they have a highly developed sense of empathy (even for strangers), they love to play, they like to learn (even driving rat-sized cars). With their sentience ("sentus", to feel) certain, and their sapience ("to know") evident, what of their consciousness ("shared knowledge")? The rat is us.
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I've boarded the silver bird and landed in Darwin, where I'll be staying in Mr Blue Sky in Darwin City, which I still have to remind myself that I am a co-owner. Co-owner Lara and tenant Adam have been wonderful hosts to me, with Cocoa rabbit, the 11-year-old spritely dwarf, providing great entertainment as always. The weather here is of magnificent quality; consistently in the high twenties, clear skies, and gentle cool breezes off Darwin harbour with delightful views across to the National Park. From this vantage point, it's all rather idyllic.

There are nominal household matters to sort out, but it is a convenient time for the Darwin Festival. I have a lifelong interest in aesthetics, which I have to grudgingly accord myself a modest analytical ability. From metaphor, referentiality, creativity, technique, persistence, and connections, I must also confess some apparent predictive skill when evaluating the future success of self-proclaimed artists. Darwin's contribution to the fine arts is not exactly famous, being small and distant, but there are plenty of opportunities in the programme which will receive a fair review in the week to come.

In the meantime, I was blessed yesterday with a second opportunity to visit to the Menzies School of Health Research (Charles Darwin University) (not to be confused with the Menzies Institute for Medical Research (University of Tasmania), let alone the Menzies Research Centre of the Liberal Party. The Darwin Menzies centre particularly interests me as they have a small high performance computing system, which has a few file system and management issues, but nevertheless great to see that it's there! I was hosted by Anto Trimarsanto, a medical researcher in malaria (specifically Plasmodium vivax), who also dutifully informed me that Menzies has an outpost in Timor-Leste. My brain is now working on how to combine these multiple interests.
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What Fassbinder film is it? The one-armed man comes into the flower shop and says: "What flower expresses days go by, and they just keep going by endlessly, endlessly pulling you into the future. Days go by endlessly, endlessly pulling you into the future?" And the florist says: "White Lily."

The film is Berlin Alexanderplatz, and the flowers are white carnations. But I think Laurie Anderson cast a better metaphor than Fassbinder in this case. For there is a language of flowers (the best English-language book wit this title is "The Language of Flowers; with Illustrative Poetry") which provides encoded messages between sender and recipient. "By all the token-flowers that tell. What words can never speak so well... Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ!" (Lord Byron, "The Maid of Athens"). It is a well-known convention that white lilies are for funerals, and many may know that it has a symbolic value of remembrance, and fewer still that it is for restoration. But "The Language of Flowers" (p148) says something different. It speaks of, in the continental tradition (fleur-de-lis), of the lily representing nothing less than majesty.

Another tradition which I have become familiar with during my time in Timor-Leste was "hatais metan" ("wear black"). From the information I have received, it is used for those in mourning, in remembrance of those no longer with us, an often expressed in wearing a small square of fabric attached to one's clothes. After a year, the item is removed, "kore metan" ("untying the black") and typically a reflective party is held for those who shared the loss, not unlike the Celtic ceremonial wake. The tradition made a lot of sense to me; it is deeply respectful to mourn a person for a year, but even a departed spirit would want someone to continue to live their life. Besides, as the Sufi comic Nasreddin Hodja pointed out, a lot can happen in a year. Maybe the horse will even learn to sing!

Indeed, a lot has happened in my life since last August. I have travelled to China three times (including visiting Qomolangma-Everest and The Great Wall) and New Zealand once, and presented at three international conferences. I have run 17 workshops on high performance computing and parallel programming, along with additional guest lectures at the University of Melbourne. I've started a climatology doctorate, which I am powering my way through, purchased (half) a property in Darwin and paid off my apartment in Southbank. I conducted a fundraising campaign for the Isla Bell Charitable Fund through the RPG Review Cooperative and also published three issues of the namesake journal. My health has improved "somewhat" with a very strong exercise and diet regimen. And, at the point of being a little ridiculous in my sensitivities, I have two new pet rats in my life.

It all adds to the metaphor; the idea of the days pulling us to the future, a trajectory from remembrance, through restoration, toward majesty. At least it is the wish of the sender of white lilies to their departed recipient. As for the memory? I have also untied my own version of the black cloth. I once received a little cartoon self-portrait that was delightful and beautiful, drawn on a reminder note (just to add to the narrative) with a declaration of affection that I took with the seriousness I accord to such stuff ("dreams are made of"). It has adorned my wall for a year, and every day I looked upon it in remembrance, gratitude, and respect. But now the portraiture has been taken down. The black band has been untied, and today I bought white lillies.
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I find myself in the situation where I have a number of "almost finished" diverse projects nearing completion and several social activities worthy of mention, but without a common and unifying theme. The first involves an essay I'm composing out of pure love following several Shakespearean events which my mind raises the question: "Why Shakespeare?" After all, there were many excellent playwrights and other artists during the English Renaissance, but here we are still looking toward The Bard almost five hundred years later. It is an extraordinary achievement by any measure, and I have a few thoughts on the matter which I will circulate in the near future. Also in the "coming soon" category is a review of "Bleak Squad" at the Queenscliff Town Hall, a sort of 90s supergroup made up from members of Dirty Three, The Bad Seeds, Magic Dirt, and Art of Fighting, which I attended with Kate R., who rather delightfully took me out to see them and spend an evening at the 19th century Vue Grand Hotel (their website is so bad I won't link it). Band member Mick Harvey was also present at the lodgings, and I took the opportunity to mention how much I liked his work in "The Birthday Party". The overnight stay was also an opportunity to visit my old friend Lyle A., who now lives in the region, and also to see the famous "Black Lighthouse", apparently one of only four in the world to have such a hue.

On the RPG side of things, I notably joined Liz, Karl, Gavin, Phil, and Dan for an in-person session of "Dragonbane" on Sunday. This game is derived from the almost-mythic "Drakar och Demoner" Swedish RPG from the early 1980s, which itself was "very heavily" derived from Chaosium's Magic World booklet from Worlds of Wonder. The latest incarnation still shows these roots, albeit with some newer innovations, but still with a great deal of style and design elegance. The day previous, my dear friend from Ningxia, Dr Yanping, graced my home for lunch with Kate R., and Mel S., as well (why am I always surrounded by such fabulous women?), where I experimented with an Italian-Chinese fusion cuisine. Yanping has been away from Australia for over a year, so it was a real delight to see her again, and I'm very pleased that she'll be here for an extended period, having acquired some gainful employment at Monash University. Somehow I neglected to mention attendance at Brenda L's birthday gathering in recent entries where I played the role of waiter and provider of cocktails; especially excellent conversation with Brenda, Fiona C., Matthew C. and others. This all does sound like an extensive social life, and to be fair, that has taken a good portion of the past several days. Journaling does provide a gentle reminder that I do have other serious ("boring but important") work to catch up on; the batteries have been recharged.
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A couple of weeks ago, I made initial preparations for an upcoming trip to South America and Antarctica with my friendly neighbour Kate R., and last week, payments were made for said voyage. In addition to the tour's planned route to Lima, Cusco, Machu Picchu, Buenos Aires, Punta Arenas, Ushuaia, the Antarctic Peninsula, the Falkland Islands, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires (again), we've added a couple of nights in Santiago. To say the least, the trip isn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but there is a great deal of ruggedness involved on the itinerary, and volume makes a difference as well. There are many practical tasks to be undertaken between now and December, including improving my questionable competence in the Spanish language. I have smashed my way through the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile introductory course in Spanish over the past fortnight, at least in part helped by an existing "fairly good" B1 level on Duolingo.

Eschewing the numerous optional activities offered by the tour company that are not really to my taste, I am scanning attractions that suit my inclinations toward museums, art galleries, archaeology, natural beauty, and, in the South American style, anything relating to their surrealist and magical realist literary traditions. I already have firmly marked out "La Chascona", built by Pablo Neruda, who, apart from winning the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature for his surrealist love poems, was also a career diplomat and politician. Another site of this ilk to visit will be the "Centro Cultural Borges" in Buenos Aires, dedicated to the mythologist, writer, and poet Jorge Luis Borges. This said, the pair of them come with certain controversies, as if often the case, the art and the artist make a troublesome union.

It seems fitting that so much of the trip will be an exploration of wondrous landscapes in reality, history, archeology, and the literary tradition of surrealism and magical realism, and, I readily admit, I will be drawing a great deal of this travel experience in writing my "Call of Cthulhu" project "Fragments of Time, Slices of Mind". As that is being written, I have decided to run a short campaign using "ElfQuest", based on the comic series by Wendy and Richard Pini with their palaeolithic and telepathic characters. In the most recent months, I have been quite involved in a game run by Andrew D., "Night's Dark Agents", which is a story involving modern European special operations teams versus vampires. Finally, on this trajectory and of marginal interest to anyone not deeply into the lore, I have picked up (at an incredibly cheap price) an unpunched copy of Chaosium's "Dragon Pass", close to fifty years old and in "almost new" condition.
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The past couple of weeks have resulted in some rather pleasing work-related events. The first followed a meeting with representatives of the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Western Australia which has resulted in me acquiring a test account and becoming the responsible person for approving projects that are seeking to upgrade from UniMelb's Spartan to systems like Setonix, which is the most powerful in the country and number 59 in the world (this time last year it was 28 - the landscape moves quickly!). The architecture is somewhat different to what I am used to (HPE Cray OS, HPE Cray MPI), so I'll be doing some additional learning myself and some hand-holding for researchers as they navigate and migrate data and code to this system. At the other end of the scale for the newcomers on Spartan I conducted two introductory workshops last week with some fifty attenedees. Quite a few times now, I have met researchers several years after taking my introductory courses who express their significant gratitude that I led them on the path of using high performance computing to process their data with efficiency, and hopefully, there will be a few of that nature from this cohort.

I often make the point of how supercomputers are utterly critical for current economic development with an ROI of 7:1 almost all through positive externalities, and literally save millions of lives. Could you imagine COVID-19 vaccines without HPC systems to do the simulations? We'd still be living under lockdown. Well, on a smaller scale, I was very proud to organise a researcher presentation last week for Research Computing Services (RCS) and Melbourne Data Analytics Platform (MDAP) with Dr Debjyoti Karmakar who is developing a non-invasive fetal monitoring device to prevent perinatal asphyxia for high-risk pregnancies. Dr Deb's presentation was very well received, even if he had to take a brief emergency call in the midst of it! He has been making extensive use of both the Spartan supercomputer and our Mediaflux-based data storage system, which dovetailed quite nicely with a virtual meeting a few days later with several representative from Princeton University who also are interested in integrating the HPC systems with Mediaflux, which is not as simple as it should be, but that is the nature of our work.

In my own research, I am still making good progress on studies in the psychology and sociology of climate change denial and have recently made contact with a long-standing member of the UNFCCC Accreditation Panel of Experts and Methodology Panel of Experts who shares this interest. Over the next two months or so, I am hoping to elaborate from this member's own interest on the psychological need for "belonging" and "club membership" which leads to climate science denial being strongly correlated with ideology rather than scientific evidence, and to draw a stronger correlation between this and vested interests in political economy. Ideological positions are usually strongly associated with political economy, so it should not surprise me to find such a connection, and when it comes to the damage done, there are those who are responsible, and one thing we do know from institutional and individual analysis, very few people like to take responsibility.
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On the weekend, I hosted a "Midwinter Day's Awakening", where once again I proved I can squeeze around 25 people into my apartment when dispersed over several hours. It has a cross between a "Christmas in July" southern-hemisphere provision of food and drink (lashings of mulled wine), and Elizabethan music (William Byrd, John Bull, John Bull et al), along with readings from Shakespeare, and the dulcet operatic tones of Angela L. (whose capacity to recite paragraphs from Shakespeare from memory is second to none). As featured attendees, the rodents Mayday and Mayhem were a big hit; "As I would serve a rat". But most of it was the outstanding company and wide-ranging, brilliant conversation that kept the event going from noon to the witching hour. As is often the case, I overcatered and now found myself in the enviable and challenging position of many delicacies. For example, what does one do with 1.5kg of Shropshire Blue cheese?

It was the second gathering of such nature recently as well; last week, I organised, through the Australia-China Friendship Society, a social dinner at Song's Dumplings, a glorious hidden gem in South Melbourne. Inexpensive, superb food in generous portions, and an amazing 1960s-style Chinese feature wall, the dinner was attended by a range of people from their 20s to their 80s. Everyone in the room was, of course, a bit of a worldly traveller, even the (relative) youngsters, and were able to discuss a variety of matters of Australia-China relations with great acumen, all whilst retaining a sharp sense of humour. I find it important that, with the exception of one person, the attendees of the ACFS dinner were completely different to the attendees of the Midwinter Day. I think it's important for a person's sanity to have diverse groups of friends - otherwise, you end up spending twenty years talking to the same people about the same things and wondering why you've ended up in an echo chamber.

As delightful as these two social occasions have been there is several other vectors in my life; Spanish studies for the impending trip, University teaching in supercomputing and researcher presentations, progress in my doctoral studies that cross climatological science and the psychology of denial, producer roles in the arts, poetry matters, and even some interesting news in the gaming hobby. Some of these will be raised in my next entry; I keep many irons in the fire of life, and most have been chosen well. But for now, gentle readers, I can only offer tantalising hints.
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Several years ago, I was visited by John August of the Pirate Party as I was hosting a special dinner for visitors, and he watched with keen interest as I put together a four-course French dinner with paired drinks, music, and a multi-layered laminated menu. "You have a very organised mind", he observed kindly. Cue last Friday, and I find myself in the company of Liza D., at a multi-narrative arthouse theatrical production, "Art, War, and Other Catastrophes". It was quite an interesting show, with unexpected convergence of the past (hello Helen!) afterwards, with our discussion venturing to a slightly wayward younger friend and my consistent efforts to encourage their intellectual insight. "You would make a good father", Liza remarked, which is probably one of the nicest things that one could say to a man of my vintage. Between the two events, a moment burned in my mind is Karl B., discussing life-skills referred to what he called "shit-togetherness", the ability to manage everything from one's own mental states, to personal and household budgets, to community groups, and beyond. Karl was expressing some concern that many don't seem to acquire this skill and knowledge until their thirties, if at all.

I suggested to Karl (inspired by the skill in the Pendragon RPG, no less) that the most appropriate term was "stewardship". The word, from Old English (stigweard) itself, originally means "hall guardian". It has semi-religious overtones as well, an trend in the Judeo-Christian tradition that represents an active and responsible engagement with the environment, a point I strenously made in an address to the Unitarian Church some eight years ago, and one which our political and economic leaders have manifestly failed; we are supposed to "serve the garden in which we have been placed" (Genesis 2:15). There is a grim irony that an rational atheist and emotional pantheist finds himself appealing to Biblical verse when our nominal leaders profess a faith that they do not seem to even aspire to practise. But of course, there are very profound secular reasons as well why stewardship is the right noun to describe human interaction with our environment, rather than a protectionist laissez-faire or indifferent exploitation.

Stewardship most of all entails a sense of responsibility. Starting from oneself, it entails a sense that one will not engage in self-sabotating behaviour and put effort in making the best use of one's mind ("the mind is a terrible thing to waste") and time ("Life is short, death is long, use your time wisely"). Extended to households, whether shared or singular, it means being responsible for creating an home that is both stimulating and a sanctuary, and extended to the social world, to paraphrase Hannah Arendt, it is engagement in the public realm where social freedom, through action and dialogue, becomes manifest, within the context of the natural world as a whole. Ultimately, stewardship is the responsible and ethical planning and management of resources, whether personal, social, or environmental, and as Lamb pointed out, the greater the power, the greater the responsibility. How careless are our rulers! As Frankl remarked, without responsibility, freedom degenerates into arbitrary whims, these rampaging childish pathological monsters who crush others underfoot with their indifference.
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Two nights ago, the Chinese consulate in Melbourne hosted a dinner for committee members of the Australia-China Friendship Society. It was held with no particular agenda in mind, but with less than ten people participating in the wide-ranging conversation, as one could expect, it did include a rather pointed look at a certain powerful but irresponsible world leader. The Consul-General was, of course, very diplomatic in his words and I could be a little more blunt (ironically, through understatements), but that is our respective positions. It was also an opportunity to send our farewells to the Vice Consul General who has served here for four years and welcome their replacement, who I am sure will do very well. On a directly related matter, the following night I attended the spectacular "Folk Reimagined" concert at the Melbourne Recital Centre, which was performed by members of the Guizhou Chinese Orchestra and the Australia Orchestra, which was a rather brilliant performance. I attended with Susie C., an old friend from Perth who has recently moved to Melbourne, and Fiona P., who recently spoke at the ACFS on bi-cultural experiences and history. On a much more modest scale, the Australia-China Friendship Society is holding a social dinner next Tuesday at Song's Dumplings; delicious food, inexpensive, and very good company.

As much as I would dearly love to visit Guizhou as soon as possible with its incredible landscapes (there is a very enticing trip on offer in early 2026), it is increasingly likely that I am going on a more distant (and much more expensive) adventure at the end of the year. Kate R., and I are plotting (following plenty of conversation over three extensive visits to the National Gallery of Victoria over three days) about taking a trip to South America and Antarctica at the end of the year, which would include Lima, Machu Picchu, Buenos Aires (where I can satiate my Jose Luis Borge needs), Tierra del Fuego, the Antarctic peninsula, and Montevideo. All of this is, somewhat, a result of having accumulated long-service leave (which I skipped in my last job to take this current one) and a dearth of international travel in my youth, albeit with a few interstate visits. Speaking of which, a quick trip to the top-end is planned in a month to visit Lara D., check out the apartment I helped purchase, and attend some events of the Darwin Festival.
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Yesterday was the aphelion when the Earth reached the furthest distance from the sun at 157 million km (the closest distance, the perihelion, is 146 million km). It seemed appropriate on that day to describe the relatively flat shape of the solar system and how "flat earthers" need to think bigger. Interestingly, the aphelion and perihelion change with some regularity measured as Milankovitch cycles, which is a driver of long-term climate change. On that topic, I had an interview this week concerning my doctoral progress and grades to date ("mention très bien", to use the Université de Paris system). The next part of my studies is "Climate Change Denialism", which I am sure will be absolutely fascinating, having missed out on doing climate change psychology at the University of Wellington. Speaking of which, I attended a University of Wellingto alumni event on during the week with a Professor of Statistics, Peter Smith, talking on "Fluids in your phones?", about the development of liquid antenna for the next generation of mobile devices. And, to continue the theme, I have been recently offered the role to coordinate alumni events for Murdoch University here in Melbourne.

The week has also witnessed some activities in the aesthetic dimension as well. With an early submission made for Midsumma Festival, I have officially become a producer with my inaugural effort being for Liza Dezfouli's comedy-cabaret "Binosaur". Also, I have ventured out locally with Kate R., twice with aesthetics in mind, once was for Lightscape at the Botanic Gardens, which was beautiful, but rather low numbers due to drizzle, and today for a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria. This evening, I attended the awards ceremony for the Melbourne Poet's Union International Poetry Competition, which featured a marvellous and insightful speech by the well-known anarchist poet, Pi O. Finally, last night I visited ACMI for millihertz producing a rather raw and politically challenging audio-visual production with the descriptive title "Cruise Missile Intersectionality".

To finish the alliterative headings, I will conclude with some reflections on "athletics". Last week, I posted an announcement and a couple of photos of my significant weight loss over the past year (117 to 82 kgs), along with a descriptive essay on how I achieved it. I will point out that I'm not planning to lose anymore, although body composition still has room to change. I've had to hunt through my high school records - four decades in the past - to find when I had a similar weight and, in the process, have discovered my athletic records of the time, which were "quite good". I was among the best in the school for medium and long-distance running, plus I played cricket, rugby, football, and volleyball at an interschool level. But ultimately, I couldn't stand the aggressive competitiveness and the yobbish fans, and dropped out of all those activities. I hope that I can avoid all that in this rejuvenated period of my life.
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My weekend started on Thursday evening, venturing out with Kate R., to the deco Sun Theatre in Yarraville, where a 20th anniversary screening of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" was showing with the making of the film, and with a Q&A session with the director and the producer. It was an especially clever low-budget film, deciding to produce in a 1920s style; black-and-white, silent, and with inexpensive but real special effects. Distacted by dinner, we ended up entering the cinema a good twenty minutes late, so on Monday we decided to watch again at my very local cinema (i.e., my place).

It was all a prelude for Chaosium Con, held at the Moonee Valley Racing Club with some 250 people in attendance. Chaosium is quite a fascinating company, as a producer of board games and role-playing games. Established fifty years ago this year, they have produced a great number of games which are very well received by aficionados, including the high fantasy "RuneQuest" once considered a serious rival to Dungeons & Dragons, "Stormbringer" from the world of Michael Moorcock, Larry Niven's "Ringworld", the highly acclaimed "Call of Cthulhu", and the literary brilliance of the Arthurian "Pendragon", and so many more. The company is "just right" in terms of size; large enough to be a successful global publisher, small enough to have personal connections with the fan base. This probably the right time to mention that my main RPG project for the second half of this year will be writing a campaign for "Call of Cthulhu" with the working title "Fragments of Time, Slices of Mind"; it involves "The Great Race of Yith", and that's all you need to know.

I was there to look after the RPG Review Cooperative stall, which did quite well because RPG fans love rummaging through old games from the 80s, 90s, and 00s. I became good friends with our neighbouring stall run by a blacksmith (Morgan F) and a 3D printer (Ash M). It also turns out that our Cooperative was also the only non-Chaosium sponsor of the convention, albeit with a modest sum. Also from the Cooperative, Liz B., worked on the registration desk, Karl B., ran several sessions of his post-apocalyptic Australian-setting RPG, and Chris McC., ran a session of "Superworld" set in Perth. I am encouraging the committee to release a double-issue of RPG Review for Chaosium games, new and old, this year. They have made an incredible contribution to the gaming world, and it will certainly be a real pleasure to explore and publish with the incredible and creative energy.
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I must prefix this entry with a note of appreciation to Kate R., for looking after "mes animaux de compagnie", Mayhem and Mayday, during my first recent trip to China and Rafe EC for the second. It's good to have such excellent neighbours in my life. My companion ratties are now approaching an entire year of age, which, by a rule-of-thumb, is about 30 years on a human scale. As always, I prefer to let my rodent friends a free-range lifestyle and in this case the study is their home. Poor Mayday, however, is currently in protective custody as his larger brother has power-groomed him a little too much, and his back has too many bite marks. Whilst he disagrees, I assure him it's for his own good, and he seems to be recovering in his relative solitude, spending most evenings snuggled up on my shoulder; it's good to be a rat in my home.

This week, after returning from China, I have, as can be expected, caught up with a lot of work-related business. But I have not neglected my social life either. Kate took me out to the "Ballet of Lights: Sleeping Beauty". It was a very family-friendly affair and, as Kate described it, "P-plates for experiencing ballet". But it was at the Capitol Theatre, a venue I adore, and the costumes with embedded lights were attractive and effective. The following day I caught up with Mel during the day, whom I haven't seen for too long, and then Liza D. for dinner and discussion about her forthcoming performance. The following evening I found myself at Carla BL's Winter Soltice gathering where conversation was vibrant and diverse, but spent most time with Julie A., who joined me today at the Australia-China Friendship Society meeting which was addressed by Dr Fiona Swee-Lin Price on bi-cultural experiences, history, and understanding. Frankly, the presentation was nothing less than glorious, and all attendees thought very highly of the presentation and insights.

It has not been all smooth sailing on this return week, however. I have, unfortunately, experienced a couple of disappointments, one in the form of an otherwise knowledgeable person who stubbornly refused to accept a descriptive error on their own part that was objectively wrong. This occurs more often from political partisanship and typically results in increasingly aggressive responses as the cognitive dissonance kicks in. The other, which I look upon from the benefit of extensive lived experience, is a somewhat sub-optimal life-choice for the person, assuming they care about their future success, but normatively it's their prerogative. In situations like this, one can only offer future support, and then we will remember ("memories in future tense", as "The Church" described it decades ago).
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The third part of the conference proceedings involved two nights in the nearby city of Wuxi, which I had visited only several days prior on holiday. Staying at the rather impressive Juna Hubin Hotel, a morning was spent at an industrial park, specifically for electric scooters and bikes of various makes and models, which are widespread throughout the major cities. I was particularly impressed by one which had the capacity for self-driving! I can imagine a future where we'll simply zip around in a self-driving easychair with a coffee and book whilst our vehicle takes us to our destination. After that was a visit to a precision textiles company, which, whilst being the manufacturing centre for some major name brands, didn't quite interest me at the same level. In the afternoon, we finished our conference with a very enjoyable visit to Wuxi's Huishan Old Town and gardens.

With a car deciding to merge into our bus the previous day (our bus was scratched, the car lost three panels), it made narrative sense that, following a return to Nanjing, that the airline company cancelled my flight from to Guangzhou, and then couldn't find my initial booking when arranging a replacement. When I was finally booked on a late-night plane, we found ourselves stuck on the tarmac due to inclement weather. Never mind, everything sorted itself out and I finally made it in their air with a three-hour layover at Guangzhou airport in the middle of the night, before taking the nine-hour flight back to Melbourne town.

I took this window of opportunity to finish the final written requirements for the second course in my doctoral studies (I still find doctoral coursework strange at best). This was a major project on a public debate in New Zealand between two opposing views in climate science, with my former professor and IPCC lead author, James Renwick, debating a soil scientist and AGW "sceptic", Doug Edmeades. Whilst trying to be as charitable as possible, Edmeades engages in extremely sloppy cherry-picking of data and shows a profound lack of understanding of even the basics of climate physics. It is so bad that I am tempted to suggest that he is engaging in malice rather than ignorance, as it seems perplexing that one could complete a scientific doctorate whilst being at odds with scientific methodology. I think I will be writing to him to find out why.
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The second part of my visit to Nanjing was now more formally part of the Jiangsu People-to-People Conference. Whilst other conference attendees made their way to the truly impressive Nanjing City Wall and Zhonghua Gate I went to Zhongshan Mountain Park instead, as I visited the Wall the night before on my back to the hotel from the Confucian temple and academy area of Fuzi Miao. The evening visit was helped by meeting two young mechanical engineering students from Yunnan province, extra-memorable as we almost managed to get ourselves stuck on the wall's confines as we travelled so far engaging in excellent conversation on China, Australia, and scholarship.

The practical upshot was that I had a morning spare, and the visit to the Zhongshan Mountain Park was glorious in its beauty. There are several notable attractions at the Park, all of which are deserving a visit, but I had a particular priority to pay homage and go to the Mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, "father of modern China", first president of the Republic. Sun Yat-Sen was a practical revolutionary and a highly nuanced political, economic, and national theorist whose views, drawing on liberalism, socialism, and anarchism, have certainly been extremely influential on my own. The grounds of the Mausoleum, buried according to his wishes, provides an astounding view of Nanjing.

After our hosts provided a banquet lunch (which would be followed by a banquet dinner, and then another banquet dinner the following day), I rejoined the international guests for a visit to the Grand Baoen Museum Buddhist Temple. The museum part included a good number of relics and in situ archaeological digs, along with some delightful modern artworks. The reconstructed pagoda temple is an attraction in its own right, but it is difficult to capture the original porcelain beauty that captured the imagination of so many visitors; alas, it was destroyed in the Taiping Revolution.

The following day was a more formal part of the conference. Moderated by the vice-governor of Jiangsu Province, Fang Wei, an excellent opening speech was given by the governor, Xu Kunlin, and was followed by a variety of former politicians and ambassadors from around the world, because that's the sort of people I sometimes run with. There were over 40 countries represented by some 145 attendees, with 17 international speakers, including yours truly. I spoke about the history of the Australia-China Friendship Society, our work in building cultural ties and understanding, and the formal relationship that the state of Victoria has with Jiangsu Province. It was particularly notable that some speakers made a point of China's commitment to "green technology"; despite being the world's biggest manufacturer, and producer of greenhouse gases, China already has falling GHG emissions, along with massive implementation of renewable technologies, forestration, and electric vehicles. We could certainly learn from them.
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I have again taken the silver bird to China, this time to Nanjing in an official capacity, namely, for the Jiangsu People-to-People Conference and 70th Anniversary Commemoration of the JSPAFFC (Jiangsu Provincial People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries). Nanjing, all from my limited experience, is quite a different city from others I have visited in China. Famous for its scholarship, universities, and students, the tree-lined streets have a more gentle (but still vibrant) pace than other cities, and in many ways, it reminds me of inner-city Melbourne. Arriving a day earlier than other conference attendees at the slightly famous Jingling Hotel, I decided to visit the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, because I'm such a cherry bundle of joy, right? This event, which has haunted me for many decades since I first learned about the event, refers to the brutal Japanese fascist invasion in 1937 of what was then China's capital city. After the city fell, the invaders brutally killed more than 300,000 people (roughly a third of the population of the city at the time) in the next forty days in what has not-euphemistically been called "The Rape of Nanjing". If you can imagine the worst possible atrocities that humans are capable of carrying out, turn it up even higher on the dial, then maybe then you have the Nanjing Massacre.

The Memorial Hall is a vast complex dedicated to preserving the memory of these events and is perfectly organised, starting from the social and political environment prior to the invasion, the collapse of the seriously out-gunned defending Chinese army against the invasion, the occupation itself, the few foreigners who tried to protect civilians and record events, the international court cases following the war, and, interestingly, concluding exhibits on the importance of the memorial and the desire of peace with forgiveness. With written, photographic, and video records from the events, interviews of survivors, and even a hall of a mass grave unearthed in situ, the hundreds of other attendees made their way through with great quietude - I noticed four others of European background present at the time. If you ever find yourself in Nanjing, put aside a few hours at least to visit this "must-see" memorial and give homage to the victims.

It was a curious juxtaposition from horror to beauty that immediately afterwards I would visit the nearby Cloud Brocade Museum, dedicated to the silk weaving and Yun brocade style. It had some very charming pieces, and quite a good story to tell about the development of the craft, along with many quite superb examples and contemporary pieces for sale. Despite the size of the building, the entire museum can be easily completed within an hour, and I get the sense that the exhibition is still in development. Continuing a more aesthetic bent, that evening I ventured to the Confucian temple area of Fuzi Miao. This is pretty much what it says on the tin: a bustling area of vendors, restaurants, and, of course, temples, all beautiful in architecture, historical in content, and located alongside a river and surrounded by parkland. Of course, as is befitting such a place, it is a very popular haunt for numerous young women engaging in historical cosplay.
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I find myself in Melbourne for a mere several days between concluding my recent holiday to China and returning to said country for a conference, and intresting enough, a new city for me to visit (Nanjing) albeit one relatively close to the several just visited (Beijing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou, and Shanghai). The purpose of this upcoming visit is an international conference for the 70th anniversary of Jiangsu (Province) Friendship Associations and I'll be there in an official capacity and, so I've been told, I'm expected to give a brief speech on behalf of the small Australian delegation. Between work demands, and a furious effort to get in some substantial progress on my Euclid University doctoral studies, I've even managed to get a hint of a social life with a couple of enjoyable dinners with friends and a couple of gaming sessions (along with moving of the substantial RPG Review Cooperative library to my premises).

I'm also going to take this opportunity to express my valedictions to the recent passing of activist and author Tracy Sorensen. We knew each other quite well in the mid to late 1980s in Western Australia when we were both involved in the youth wing of what would be the Democratic Socialist Party. Fellow-comrade at the time, Neville Spencer has written a very good summary of Tracy's life for "Green Left Weekly" and, the day before she died, a rather heartfelt account of meeting her partner was published in "The Guardian". Although Tracy and I had not really been in contact for literally decades, I do have very fond memories of her excellent humour, steadfast commitment to justice and environmentalism, and her excellent organisational ability. The universe has been a bit unjust in taking her early, yet with her whimsical sense, she even managed to write about her illness from her organ's point-of-view. So fare well, old comrade and friend. It truly was a honour to know you.
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Leaving the canals and silk stores of Suzhou, the next part of the trip was the nearby city of Wuxi, which is a relatively small 7 million people, notable for the rather beautiful Taihu Lake and freshwater pearl production. After a day there, the next stop was Hangzhou, which, along with Wuxi, is rather notable as a scientific research hub. It is also a very convenient base to visit the rather astounding Longmen Ancient Town, famous for its Qing dynasty buildings. Inhabitants of the town like to claim that they're all descendants of the Emperor Sun Quan, who had Longmen as his hometown almost 2000 years ago. In many ways, it was like visiting some of the preserved medieval streets in some European cities (e.g., Barcelona, Freiburg), but it was superior to both those examples in authenticity. Hangzhou is also famous for its tea and tea research, so a visit to the Meijiawu Tea Village was also in order; delicious and educational.

The final leg of the trip was to Shanghai, a truly astounding metropolis with an estimated 27 million people. Situated at the mouth of the Yangtze River, astoundingly important for trade, the city is famous-notorious for being carved up by foreign powers (French, British, American) with extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction. If anything positive can be said of these impositions, it would be Shanghai's deserved reputation as a cosmopolitan city and the existence of some fine 19th-century Western colonial architecture alongside the very modern skyscrapers, many with their own truly innovative designs. Alas, my enjoyment of these surrounds was knocked down by a day when I was struck with a literal 24-hour 'flu. One evening, I was shaking, sweating, with joint-muscular pain, convinced that I had COVID or similar, and, after a day's complete rest, I was perfectly fine. Which was just in time for a meeting with representatives of the Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (they need a snappier title).

The following day was off to the airport for the overnight flight back to Melbourne. Capsule movie reviews for the journey back: "Panda Plan", Jackie Chan slapstick with an utterly improbable plot 1/5; "Los Tonos Mayores", a teenaged girl starts receiving coded messages through a metal plate in her arm, another superb example of Spanish-language magical realism, mystery, and psychodrama 4/5; "Complètement cramé!" French-English film starring John Malkovich pretending to be a butler for the nostalgia of where he and his recently deceased wife first met. The film location (Château du Bois-Cornillé, Bretagne) is beautiful, the characters and their interactions fascinating, but it's very weak on theme, 3/5. Thus ends a ten-day whirlwind trip to five eastern Chinese cities. The hotels were all excellent, the food is excellent, the Internet is terrible, and the country safe and pleasant. My next trip? In a week to Nanjing.
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The second part of our time in Beijing involved a visit to the Great Wall, an incredible example of human engineering, a series of connected fortifications with parallel protections that spans over 20,000kms in total. Specifically, we visited the Juyong Pass part of the wall, which is quite close to Beijing itself and served not just a defensive structure (if you controlled the pass you had an open door to Beijing) but also as a trading post. That evening we ventured into the old Beijing hutongs (winding laneways) where, as is our want, we spent most of the time in a local cat cafe with a dozen or so well-cared felines. The Scottish fold with different coloured eyes was quite enchanting.

The following day was a visit to the Forbidden City (forbidden to all but the imperial family and eunuchs). This was the former home of 24 Ming and Qing dynasty Emperors for over 500 years. The vast complex, roughly 1km by .75km and surrounded by a 50m moat, consists of almost 10,000 rooms and expresses its opulance through the vast courtyards in prime real estate. There are all sort of geomancy reasons for the layout and numerous temples that would require essay-length analysis to do it justice, but overall it's enough to say that this was the most important seat of power in traditional China and it shows.

After that it was a plane trip to Shanghai and a bus ride to Suzhou, a city I have visited before and remember fondly. Suzhou presents itself as "the Venice of China" which probably stretching it a bit, although I was delighted by a join Venetian-Suzhou conference paper on canal management last year. Last year I had the opportunity to visit the Humble Administrator's Garden; this year was the Lingering Garden, built with four distinct styles of foliage. Suzhou has over sixty classical gardens, which are recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Although busy, they are a good opportunity for quiet reflection.
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Last Saturday was my last day in Melbourne for the next two weeks, and it witnessed four significant events. The first was the Isocracy Annual General Meeting discussing the rather extraordinary results of the Federal election. Our guest speaker, John Bade, is a former Liberal Party member of some note (branch president, state council delegate etc) and spoke on how the party really has been taken over by extreme religious activists who think the rest of Australia must move to them, a major factor in that party's decline. Afterwards, I went to the Effective Altruism conference, which concluded with a public lecture by famous ethicist Peter Singer. I spent a bit of time in the company with Adam Ford, who was the official photographer for the event, and then conversed a bit with Prof Singer about his earlier publications and rats (he's a rat fancier himself and speaks highly of them as animal companions). To conclude the evening I went to final session of "Notre Dame After Dark" at the Immigration Museaum, because the opportunity to hear some fine music in such surroundings was quite enticing.

The next morning, Erica and I ventured out to the airport to take the big silver bird to China, where we are staying for the next ten days. The first day was pretty much entirely in transit, first to Shanghai, then taking a connecting flight to Beijing. There is not much to report on this, except to say that the flight was tolerable, the food fine, the staff excellent, and the in-house entertainment limited. "Sirrocco" is a surreal children's animated film of escapism of sisterly love which can appeal to adult viewers with good characterisation and plot, but the animation, whilst creative, lacked a little in technique; 4/5. "Dune 2" was well produced with a good soundtrack, but I felt no sense of appeal with the plot and characters all based around violence and machismo. I am tempted to give it another viewing as I was surprised by how bad it was; 2/5. "Solitude" started slowly, but developed into a grim and tragic tale of loneliness, generosity, and an intergenerational friendship with an ambiguous ending; 3/5.

The first day proper in Beijing started with a visit to Tian'anmen Square, which, of course, is flanked by several important national buildings (e.g., the parliament). The square itself is just a vast courtyard, and it's fascinating in its blandness, even if, with all the usual connotations of Chinese geomancy, it represents the head of the city's land dragon. After that, we went to Qianmen Avenue (the body), which has some rather charming alleyways running parallel to the main drag. In the evening, we were treated to a rather extraordinary theatrical piece, "The Golden Mask", a legendary tale. This show has, in my somewhat considerable experience, the most extraordinary set and costumes, including several performers with actual live white peacocks as part of their costumes and a literal flooding of the stage. Two more days in Beijing are planned, including an excursion to The Great Wall, an evening in the Old City, and finally a morning in the Museum Palace (aka the Forbidden City). But all that will have to wait for the next post on this adventure.

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