The banging rain against the window kept me up most of the night. It turns out it was once-in-a-hundred-years sort of weather event. I'm beyond perturbed in experiencing once-in-a-very-long-time weather events in my time. I've certainly witnessed more than my fair share. Living through them a couple of times makes you realise that the increasing frequencies of these things are telling us that the rare has become common and mundane. This much is according to the prognostications made about weather evens on the extension of climate change trends. We're now living to see those predictions borne out but of course global warming doesn't exist according to the Abbott 'Denialista' Government.
Not that one should expect to hear anything sensible out of the government. Facts and reality don't figure into these people's 'thinking'. But you knew that. You knew I'd write that. It's only been a year and it's already tired. Writing all that just feels hackneyed and tired because plenty of others have made these observations - and they all knew nothing would change. And it hasn't.
The evidence is more than in. We are well and truly into our climate dystopia.
People Complain Too Much
A little over a month ago, Apple released its new iPhone 6, and with it came an automated download wherein just like that we were in possession of the latest U2 album. Rather quickly it turned into the pinyata-du-jour as everybody with a mouthpiece decided to deride the album's appearance in people's iTunes. It was unseemly if you ask me, because it is ungracious to complain about a gift - which is essentially what Apple had done.
Today Bono apologised for the whole thing.
"Umm, I had this beautiful idea, [we] might have got carried away with ourselves, artists are prone to that kind of thing."
He could have stopped there, but Bono wanted to clear the air and explained that a little insecurity may have been behind the move.
"[The reasons were a] drop of megalomania, touch of generosity, dash of self promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years mightn't be heard. There's a lot of noise out there.
"I guess we got a bit noisy ourselves to get through it."It's been a long time since U2 were the 'it' band. Of course at the moment they reached that pinnacle, they put out 'Rattle and Hum' which immediately showed they were not quite as savvy as the monolithic rock gods of the 70s before them. They seemed to arrive there by careful marketing rather than the sort of galvanising generational shout. The predominantly Gen-X audience stood up to be counted as U2 fans because there simply had to be a somebody like that and nothing else was going. Through the Live Aid years and Amnesty International concerts, rock became mainstream and super-tame. Even Johnny Rotten went back to being Johnny Lydon. In short, the once wonderful, amazing, historic, profound, meaningful sort of Rock music, decayed into commerce. What we loved so much sold itself out so hard to so many people it lost its power.
But U2 were there. Still earnest, meaningful and energetic. That had to mean something to somebody, way back then.
U2 did go on to achieve quite a bit more in subsequent forays but they stepped back from owning the mantle as rock's-biggest-something-or-other'. The artistic maturity obscured them and allowed them to drift out of the glare. It's a bit sad that quarter of a century later, that all that stature got squandered to the point where, when they gave people a free album the people complained.
You've Got A Platform, Have A Swing!
Freshly minted Man Booker prize winner, Robert Flanagan took his shot at the Federal Government.
"I'm very saddened because Australia has the most extraordinary environment and I don't understand why our government seems committed to destroying what we have that's unique in the world," Mr Flanagan told the BBC.
When asked about Prime Minister Tony Abbott's comment earlier this week that "coal is good for humanity" Mr Flanagan said: "To be frank, I'm ashamed to be Australian when you bring this up."
Mr Flanagan was also critical of the Tasmanian government's recent decision to abolish a forestry peace deal between environmentalists and forestry companies that was four years in the making.
The end of the deal meant 400,000 hectares of native forests that were to have been protected were instead reclassified for potential future logging.
"I genuinely believe that people of Australia want to see these beautiful places, these sacred places, preserved, [but] the politics of the day is so foolishly going ahead and seeking to destroy them when there isn't even an economic base to it, when there is no market for the woodchips that would result from the destruction of these forests," Mr Flanagan said.
"I think it's unnecessary and I think it's just politics being used to divide people that could otherwise be brought together on all that is best and most extraordinary in our country."Such joy. The first time an Australian wins the prestigious prize in a very long time, he wins it with a novel about the Burma Railway in World War II. I can hear the whippings and beatings from where I sit. Well, I guess I won't be reading that book, lest I ruin a weekend.
Anyway, it's a still good thing that he's taking a hack at the Federal Government. He bloody well should take his hacks because you don't often get given platforms from whence you can launch meaningful attacks on bad government policy- and by that I mean any policy from a very bad government.
It's hard to get any kind of meaningful platform. Just look at this miserable blog. So when you get one, just flail away, I say. Good on you Richard Flanagan, tell them what for!
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