In 1981 the Queen opened CHOGM in Melbourne. The RAF VC10 aircraft and those other planes of visiting dignitaries were parked at RAAF East Sale where a handful of newly graduated dog handlers worked their first ever night shifts guarding them. Then in October 1982 I found myself looking after a RAAF 707 which had…
I inherited an eclectic array of postage stamps from Dad. ‘I didn’t even know he collected them’ was my first response. But then vague memories from my teen years of a friendship with the local post office manager in the gritty suburb of Reservoir, Melbourne. A chap who would hand over folded, crisp sleeves of…
In 1990 in a conversation with my colleagues in the ‘China team’ I took a deep breath and proposed the dramatic rise in the Chinese underground church would have to have an impact on the leadership of the country, in particular addressing the moral vacuum which derived from Mao’s ideology. I had no data, only…
Writing is a pleasure. No question. But a particularly enjoyable element to writing fiction is the visualisation and ‘ground truthing’ into which you graft the story. Lights of Rue Catinat is a working title of a narrative I have been tweaking for quite some time now. Two French servicemen have spent time in the trenches…
Monday 22 Nov 21 Diary: Roosters crow in the distance. Finches chit in the bushes near the feeder. Residual water from the second rain this season (the wet is late and may not actually arrive) plops from foliage stirred into action by a light breeze. Back in Africa to sights and sounds which get into…
A Sunday afternoon connection which meant the traffic at the airport was light. We comment on that as we clear the car park. The usual light chatter with which to warm up. You came in from Sydney? I did How long? That first leg is 15 hours. Then a few hours in Dubai then just…
A very interesting take on the China Taiwan situation. Not the sort of input I would have ever seen in my former analyst days. How influential is this? With 30million views in a month it is clearly making a mark. And of course Beijing is not too keen on its messaging – it’s blocked. Not…
Saigon 1951 Prologue to Lights on Rue Catinat, a work of fiction which explores the ethics and morality of human intelligence operations The weed that slushed past in the swirl of muddy water was no longer visible as the falling, soft evening light fused with the deep green shadow that lifted from the jungle…
Guy Fawkes night which no one here ever remembers. But is the 5th of November and that was once the highlight of a small boy’s year as detonated and lanced as many fireworks as we possibly could, often at the expense of a brothers military models and dioramas. But tonight there are no fireworks. Right…
What sound do flames make? It’s a flubbery whipple happening beside me after the crackling and snapping of the kindling sealed down to the serious business of providing light and heat. No blue flame – we are the only ones here and I do hope at this time of the night that remains the case.…