Holding the Man

I am at City Extra on Circular Quay and just had a wake-up call at the Customs House.

I dropped in there to have a look at the newspapers, the New Zealand one especially, and when I was about to leave I put my hand in my pocket and felt no cell phone. Disaster had struck -  the worst thing that one can experience today is losing one's phone. In my case, unlocked and full of all my essential materials of course, credit cards etc.  I quickly looked around to see where I had been and immediately a woman saw me and said 'Is this yours?'

 She had my blue phone and had just called Gail, the last person to call me with a 'missed call'. The lady was a Maori and we chatted and I spoke to her of the Living ECK Master whose photo is in my i-phone, protecting me and it, but only as far as my responsibility goes. It was a salutary experience and one that I will learn from. Thank you again Mahanata for this timely lesson.

Tony Abbott, hiding behind these beautiful souls, his arms folded in a gesture of intransigence. He is a bad PM and should be replaced asap.

Michael Kelly's fabulous bookon being gay and a Catholic

How FaceBook can be used for good purposesin Spain, where a neighbourhood gets together because of it.

My movie of today...which I will be seeing on its first day of release at the Dendy Quay, a harrowing and true tale of society's failings in recognising homosexuality. 

This movie is going to win awards in Australia at least. Beautifully acted by the two protagonists, Tim Conigrave's poignant coming of age story and subsequent sad death, along with his lover of fifteen years John Caleo, is accurately rendered and shows the hypocrisy of the Church in all its vain glory in the heart of Jesuit land, Xavier College in Melbourne. It was sometimes hard for me to watch as it showed the awful human wreckage brought about by the AIDS epidemic in the early eighties in Melbourne and Sydney. 

One of my colleagues made a cameo appearance as an AIDS patient, showing his wasted legs and pallid face, he too, still suffering collateral damage from all the medications which were distributed in the early ignorant years of the epidemic. I emerged from the cinema in a quiet state of recollection, as were many of the other cinema visitors. It was a sad era and moment in this ongoing war against AIDS.  

The regular scene at the Quaytoday with the Elephant God holding court.

This evening my bro and I are to meet sister Paddy at the airport, a somewhat fraught situation as things never seem to be simple with her. I must remember to HU all the afternoon on the way to the airport and all will be OK. One miracle today has happened, perhaps another will also come my way.

Another classic poster at the Dendy