Welcome to London Bridge on the Great Ocean Road somewhere south and west of Melbourne.  It’s a coastline where erosion of limestone cliffs has left all sorts of dramatic free-standing rock formations.  London Bridge used to be two spans of rock across which tourists could walk.  Until … one day in Jaunary, 1990, when one of the spans suddenly collapsed leaving a couple marooned on what had now become an island.

The Rough Guide adopts an unusually censorious tone ..

‘The couple were eventually rescued from the far limestone cliff by helicopter.  As fate would have it, the couple were conducting an extra-marital affair and fled from the waiting media as soon as the helicopter arrived’

‘Makes you think, Dougal’

‘About what?’ Ted

Surfers look for the perfect wave.  I’ve spent the afternoon looking for the perfect shot of Koalas in the wild.  Unfortunately they tend to be a lump of fur against a bright sky so …    And of course I can’t say where we found them or you would all want to come and look!

This is Australia.  But it is very Scottish.  Dunkeld is just up the road.  And Melbourne has an Edinburgh Gardens.  We find people saying ‘See you later’ and ‘No/Nae worries’ – so it seems very familiar.

The local Anglicans here offer Eucharist at 9.15 and ‘Contemporary Worship’ at 5 pm.  Which seems to raise all those interesting questions about what it is if it is not contemporary – eternal or timeless or anachronistic? – rather like the issues raised by having Family Worship – but I’ll not risk suggesting what the corollary might be.

Temperature yesterday 34C.  Today 18C – what a relief!

G’Day

Easier in captivity, by the way

Continuing to ponder our various experiences .. some of which seemed to involve variations on the ‘Paradise Spoilt’ theme. 

We meet the smiling, slender and apparently contented Thai people .. and met a forthright American lady who said, in a way which brooked no contradiction, that 63% of all tourist visitors to Thailand came for prostitution.  True or not?  I have no idea but it seemed improbably high and induced a sort of ‘Lord is it I?’ feeling.  We saw no sign of the sex industry as such but noted the significant number of my-age-and-older western men with young Thai wives – and no couples the other way round.  Referred to by some as ‘walking ATM’s’, I found it a distressing sight – because of the power and wealth imbalance.  Tho’ some might say that there is a measure of exploitation on both sides?

And we sank into turquoise blue seas on pure white beaches .. but had to wear ungainly ‘stinger suits’ because of the box jellyfish and other hazards – which Bill Bryson delights in listing – which are a danger to swimmers through an increasing amount of the year.

Ah well – more about our Robinson Crusoe experiences another day.

Welcome to Blogstead Downunder – the view from the balcony of Simon and Hannah’s apartment in Melbourne.  We’re here for some R & R after our action-packed sailing trip round the Whitsunday Islands.  More of all of that in due course – it included some dreadful weather and a serious medical emergency for one of the party – now thankfully making a good recovery.  But we saw the beauty of the place and did the snorkelling so that we could see the beautiful fish over the coral and we were looked after by Reggie, Jacquie and the amazing crew.  And in and out of it all, we got to know the remarkable group of people with whom one thrown together  in these moments – a random group of 26 of whom only 5 were Irish!They became therapeutic community and friends – and through the internet will probably remain so!

A new sport this – blogging against time on a slow internet connection.  But the broadcaster in me always relishes the challenge of communication against the clock.

Interested to see that the Australian Government intends to make an apology to the Aboriginal people next week – ex-Prime Minister John Howard isn’t going to turn up to take part.  I have mixed feelings about the whole idea.  The right apology by the right people at the right time can surely shift deep-seated hurts and resentments like nothing else.  But it can easily be glib if overdone.  After all, in the nature of everybody’s tortured history, there are so many things for which apology might be made – the Irish Famine, slavery, etc.  And the apology will always seem somewhat inadequate.  And some things seem of such magnitude that any apology is likely to be inadequate.

On reflection – theological and otherwise – I wonder if the act of forgiveness – unsought and undeserved – is actually more powerful – the ‘Father, forgive them’ act.  After all, to take just one example, Gordon Wilson’s expression of forgiveness of the Provisional IRA after the Enniskillen bombing which claimed the life of his daughter was immensely powerful in demonstrating that their actions were utterly out of proportion to any injustice which they claimed to be setting right.  Without saying so.

4 mins 30 secs.  Since you ask, the weather here is still ‘wit’

We managed a concert with Nigel Kennedy last night at Sydney Opera House.  I’d always known he was different – the grunge look, Aston Villa shirts, extraordinary language with words like ‘geezer’ more reminiscent of Alf Garnet’s era than anything spoken in England today.  One wonders whether this is a huge ego drawing attention to itself – or, more likely, a rather shy and vulnerable person putting up a smokescreen … and maybe it all gets in the way of the music ..

And then he plays.  And the magic is, as always, in the quiet passages and the silences.  I watched him hold 2000 people absolutely spellbound.  The programme offered about 75 minutes of Mozart and Beethoven.  The concert was actually a catholic experience which began with unaccompanied Bach, ended with Jimmy Hendrix and lasted nearly three hours.  He plays the notes on the page and then improvises as well.  He simply breaks apart the traditional and stuffy approach to music-making and refashions it in a way which allows him space to create moments of musical and spiritual intensity which are just extraordinary.

Things we might learn from?

He who has ears to hear …

Hello from a very wet Sydney.  We’ll look forward to finding out over the next few days whether it really deserves the ‘frappachino heaven’ accolade which Bill Bryson awarded to it.

We left Thailand behind with real regret.  Part of the fascination lay in the realisation that it was very Irish.  Smiling, charming, eager to please and totally confusing.  Particularly it was the desire to respond to all questions not with the appropriate answer but by working out what they thought you wanted to hear.  Wasan of Rainbow House described it as ‘Mai pen rai’ – meaning ‘No Problem’. 

This in turn meant that there was a constant need for simultaneous translation. 

‘Do you know where the restaurant is?’    Answer: ‘Yes of course.  I was born in the next street’   Translation: ‘Haven’t a clue.  But we’ll set out anyway.’

Sydney looks much more ‘straight up and down’ – indeed rather more Californian.  But time will tell.

One reason for going to Bangkok was to visit Rainbow House – part of CCD [Christian Care for Disabled Children] where our Mark worked as a volunteer for three months in 2006.  A number of families with whom Alison has worked have adopted children through the same organisation. 

Bangkok is amazing.  We have now learnt that all taxis and Tuk Tuks immediately declare themselves lost – and then default to bringing you to the Bangkok equivalent of the House of Bruar or to the driver’s uncle’s Liposuction Clinic.

I have also been reading Nick Thorpe’s ‘Adrift in Caledonia’ – a really charming book about his attempt to hitch hike on various boats around the coast of Scotland.  Although he failed to get a lift on a nuclear submarine, he did get a conducted tour.  He then had a think about how the mindset required to believe that nuclear submarines are relevant in the modern world might be similar to that of the rather scary fundamentalist Christians with whom he rowed to Iona.  A similar sort of narrowing and, indeed, suspension of disbelief!   His tour became a sort of pilgrimage in which he attempted to recapture the religious feelings of his youth – but with maturity and integrity.  Interesting.

Ah – the mind-stretching benefits of travel.  We visited the Jim Thompson House in Bangkok today – American architect who came to Bangkok and built a house in 1959 using traditional Thai materials and art.  He developed an entire industry in the craft of Thai hand-woven silk.  Sadly he took a walk in Malaysia in 1967 and was never seen again.  So I listened to the charming Thai guide – how can they be as delightful as that? – and found myself transported back to Glebe House in Donegal listening to a guide every bit as charming talking about the painter Derek Hill.  He was a noted portrait painter who came to Donegal and stimulated an entire school of primitive artists on ToryIsland.  How often it takes the outsider to appreciate and encourage what is precious.

My watch declared a holiday as I stepped off the plane.  I have replaced it with a fake, fake Casio.  I am now looking for the Bangkok branch of McMahons of Portadown.  I know it’s here somewhere.

Another couple of Thoughts for the Day for my old friends in the BBC in Belfast last week – about my ‘out of this world’ experiences in Mosque, Monastery and elsewhere.  You will have discovered by now that my thinking processes function only in 2 minute/325 word spasms.

Meanwhile a bit of a blogiday, I think, with sporadic antipodean surfacings.