Saturday Morning Meander

The post I brought up this morning, The New England populist tradition, was not intended to be today's post, simply a statement of personal position to which I could link a change on the sidebar.

I made the change because there is something discomforting about so often writing posts that don't quite fit in to current discourse, that in aggregate can actually appear inconsistent. They are not, in fact, but they can appear that way because they shift so much in terms of placement on today's opinion spectrum.

My intent in writing the post and in putting the statement on the sidebar is partly to alert readers to my position, more to assert that that position, while different, is still legitimate.

Yesterday blogger was down all day. I found this quite frustrating. Bloggers' technical reliability is very good, so when something goes wrong one feels it. More importantly, it  slowed me on two key projects.

The first is a longer term project, Introducing New England Aboriginal life. I have so far written seven posts in this series, with at least twenty to go. After that, it will slow down. By writing on New England's Aboriginal peoples past and present, I hope to show them as a living identity with a past, present and future.

Of course, the very idea of New England is a European construct, as is Australia or NSW. However, geography as well as history  provides a continuity. By writing in depth I am hoping to create a resource not available elsewhere, as well as showing a living present.

Something of the same thing applies with another project, New England's Aborigines stocktake May 2011.

This one is simply a total stocktake on of all the posts I have written to this point on all blogs on the history of New England's Aboriginal peoples. So far I have links to fifteen posts up, with a lot to go. Again, I hope that this will help create a resource.

In The WA Premier's ANZAC tour I wrote about the visit of a group of WA kids to Athens and Crete to experience something of what the ANZAC diggers experienced. The post was triggered by one of those nice things about blogging, a very kind email from Robyn Cleaver of the WA Department of Educations answering a query I raised in an earlier post.

In date terms, the German invasion of Crete in 1941 is just six days away. You can expect more Greek stuff in the next week, specially since eldest is going there.

Speaking of Greece & eldest. Ah, the wonders of Facebook! From Wednesday, slightly edited:

Eldest: Ok people who will be in Croatia, Turkey or Greece in June??
AW: Me! Croatia!
JG: Dude, remember when i wanted to come visit you for the specific reason to come to these countries, to party on the islands! grrrr
Eldest: I do. And yet? Still no j!! tut tut
MB: I'll be in Italy?
Eldest: question mark m?
HL: Yes :) Ill be in croatia, greece and italy.. when r u guys there? a and ma too?
MB: question mark yoself helly welly! I'm at a symposium in Italy 22 June-24 July so conference in the week but weekends offffffff!

Here am I, stuck in Sydney!

Also on Facebook, I thought of Neil when I saw this badge courtesy of Dave Lee. I really thought that it would strike a chord with him.

Youngest came in while I was writing this to tell me about last night's medical student's review at the University of New south Wales. She has a great ear for dialogue. I wish I did.

Revues always catch current topics, parodying student's views of current aspects of Australian life.

Chinese student: Dad, my blood test was AB negative.
Father: Why couldn't you at least get a plus!

Changing platforms, this one from Thomas on Twitter: "Late, late last night I was informed that there was a whole family BBQ on today. I was told late because it left me no way to get out of it."

Thomas, Thomas!

Yesterday while blogger was off, I did some tidying up trying to get things from the move back into filing cabinets. In so doing, I actually found some stuff that I thought I had lost.

Triggered by that, I am thinking of trying my hand at some short story style stuff on this blog, partly my own, partly excerpts from others. Not too much, maybe once a week or a fortnight. I have been jotting down thoughts because the idea excited me as a way of doing some new things.

What do you think?   

Postscript

Just a short postscript on the last point.

One of the problems I find in writing about some things is that if I am writing them as fact or analysis I have to check my facts, qualify and be cautious. Sometimes I don't write because I can't be sure. At other times, the emotional content is removed.

By writing of some things as a story, as fiction, I can capture the story and emotion without worrying about the factual content. That way I can tell the story as it stands in my memory, not as it was.