You don't know me...

I pass you on the street and I want to say 'hello', but you don't actually know me. You see, you're sort of famous. You were on that panel, the one with the funny guy who ran late. You spell well. You wrote a zine I thought was the best thing I read in 2004. You have a byline in a magazine that people have actually heard of. You've been published in Voiceworks.

I struggle a little when I go to the This is Not Art Festival (TiNA) in Newcastle. I've been to almost every one since 2000 when it was the National Young Writers' Festival (NYWF) and I was a young writer. I was a university student then. I commuted from Sydney twice because I didn't have accommodation and I remember teaching some cute guy how to make origami cranes.

I've been to NYWFs that were held in Newcastle Town Hall, the PAN building, a train yard. There were zine fairs in Auckland Street and Civic Park and panels held in abandoned arcades. I walk up past the lighthouse every year, sometimes in the windy night, sometimes in the blazing heat of the day. It's customary. Occasionally I make it to the obelisk too.

Before the Spelling Bee became a mainstay there were poetry slams, literary debates decided by Shantaram shotput, and Wriron Chef cook-offs.

I've called the YHA my second home while flirting with Noah's and Backpackers by the Beach and The Oriental when my preferred hostel booked out. Sometimes I bring friends and/or boyfriends. Sometimes I attend alone and make friends for a day.

I used to have Newcastle seasons: winter was The Shoot Out and spring was NYWF. The only year I've missed NYWF since 2000 was when I went overseas in 2005.

Unsurprisingly, I see a lot of the same people year-in, year-out. The hairstyles and clothes may change but in context they are instantly familiar. Some are NYWF legends: festival father Marcus Westbury, Geoff Lemon, Marieke Hardy, Benjamin Law, Dr Ianto Ware, Lee Tran Lam and Lisa Dempster. Others are panellists that I've come to recognise: Michaela McGuire, Elizabeth Redman, Cameron Pegg, Alex O'Neill, Zoe Barron.

The problem is that I suffer from a very particular kind of shyness that makes it impossible to treat many of these people as real people. Because they're famous. Because they're panellists. Because they publish zines. Meanwhile, I'm quite at home introducing myself to people at random events, such as other audience members or sharing a table at the Spelling Bee or, as was the case this year, being a ring-in of a literary trivia team.

I don't want to bowl up to these NYWF stalwarts and interrupt them. Or feel pressure to impress them. Or treat them as equals (they are special). And yet the NYWF is probably one of the flattest, most accessible festivals I've ever been to, where panellists from one session are gazing reverently at panellists of the next and audience members chat congenially to moderators over a post-panel tea.

For some reason I tend to forget that I'm not without credentials myself. Just editing a uni arts publication should've gotten me some cred in the beginning. Follow that with a diverse career in custom publishing, feature writing, magazine editing and freelancing and all the other odd writing jobs I've done and surely I'm not nobody.

But what am I supposed to do? Nod at these people who I don't quite know in acknowledgement and walk on by? Introduce myself and stand awkwardly fishing for an excuse not to stand awkwardly? You don't know me and I don't really know you but...

***

I have met these people before:

Marcus Westbury: Interviewed him in person about Renew Newcastle for a magazine I once edited, witnessed his and his wife Narinda's signature for their son Louin's passport at that meeting. Once bought him a panda hat and gave it to him at the Sydney Writers' Festival where I was volunteering. He probably finds me vaguely familiar.

Geoff Lemon: Once shared a stage with him at the Spelling Bee in 2010. I was second runner-up after Geoff and that year's winner Garth. Wouldn't know me from Adam.

Benjamin Law: He signed my copy of The Family Law after a panel at the Melbourne Writers' Festival and said my name was familiar. Probably doesn't remember what I look like, though.

Lee Tran Lam: For some years we met once a month as part of a writing group she initiated, which has since died. I used to go to university with her; we were never in the same tutorial but we did share an office: she co-edited the 8-issue/year Passing Show and I co-edited the annual Soma. We later met as junior journos at some PR thing. We exchange hellos but we don't hang out.

Lisa Dempster: Had her sign my copy of Neon Pilgrim. Later became an Emerging Writers' Festival Penpal (sponsor) when she was festival director. I like to think she has a passing interest in what I do. She knows my partner Boff as 'the dinosaur guy' after a brief nerdy stint on stage during a Spelling Bee sideshow he won by correctly naming a dinosaur or some such.

Cameron Pegg: Flattered when he recognised me (he was wearing a mask, so I had no chance) and tapped me on the shoulder at the circus-themed ball in 2011 and invited me to join his group to dance. We follow each other on Twitter. Does that count?

Alex O'Neill: After following her on Twitter for a year we finally met in person at the zine fair this year. She follows me too. (No really, does that count?)

If any of you have made it here, leave your mark below!

This Is Not Art (festival)

Or, as I accidentally read the program, 'This is no tart'.

It started awesomely when we missed the train. The 7.20am from Artarmon that would get us to Hornsby for the train that would get us to Newcastle by 10am-ish, that is. I resigned myself to the fact that we would just have to get into Newcastle an hour later. We caught the next train, which was to Hornsby via Epping, then realised that the Newcastle train stopped at Epping too. We agreed to dash to the platform and hope for the best; research indicated that the Newcastle train was due to arrive at Epping at 7.46am and that the train we were on was due to arrive at 7.48am. By some miracle our train was slightly ahead and the Newcastle train was slightly behind and we made it. Best train story ever.

So we got to Newcastle. My 'home away from home' ie the Newcastle YHA, had been booked out so we found ourselves at The Oriental, a nice place above a pub in Cooks Hill. I'd definitely consider staying there again if the YHA was unavailable. Clean, with modern fixtures, good location and the pub shuts at midnight.

So, TINA. I didn't feel like I went to many panels this year, but here's a summary of what I got up to...

SATURDAY

Words that sell: About successful freelancing. Unfortunately didn't tell me anything I didn't already know (except maybe to beware of writing for Reader's Digest). Cameron Pegg was entertaining, though, and said some reaffirming things about writing to a niche.

How to get along with your editor or writer: Interesting exchange of anecdotes and a few tips for working with both, which will be helpful for my day job as a editor (and *fingers crossed* my future career as a novelist). Always nice to hear contributions from all ends of the publishing spectrum.

I'm a writer but nothing's ever happened to me: This was debunking the fallacy 'write what you know'. I've always wanted to tell younger writers (I mean the 10-14 year olds) that 'what you know' isn't just about the things that happen in your life. It's about the feelings that you feel that can be transposed onto any number of characters one can invent. Quote of the session: "Life doesn't have to be exciting to be interesting."

Breaking the rules: Writing exercises for tangential thinking. But, as Boff said, "It didn't actually break any rules." I felt this could've been taken to another level, which I probably will take it to with my writing group.

SUNDAY

Sunday Fair: I love the Sunday Fair! I do tend to stick to zines and publication-based wares because while all the clothes and jewellery are great to look at, I really don't need another Scrabble pendant. Also, I set myself a budget and the non-zine wares tend to be more expensive, which means I can't buy as many zines.

Finds of the fair: 'Lifted Brow' (I've heard about this compilation for ages but can never find it), 'One girl and her brother 210' (also online) and 'Just Quit It'. Honourable mention to poet and spoken word artist Mandy Beaumont.

I should have read that by now: Essentially a help group for people who think they should read certain things. Cure: recognise you're an individual and that you have individual reading tastes.

Books I keep meaning to read: 'My Brilliant Career' (have started it three times and just can't get past the first few pages), 'Great Expectations' (own it but forget it's there. Funnily enough, have read its 'prequel', 'Wide Sargasso Sea'), anything by Dostoevsky (to see what all the fuss is about).

Three: Radio play done specifically incorporating visual performance. The work itself was too poetic to be a cohesive narrative, but the discussion at the end was a really interesting insight into the working relationship of three poets producing one work and the collaboration required for the final entity. Could you work with a no-holds-barred editng process?

Authenticity vs Experience: Promised to be a helpful panel for YA novelists trying to capture a YA voice but strayed off-topic quite a bit. Picked up a couple of tips and was quite entertained by the rest of it. Basically, if you have a YA character, s/he is a character first before a youth. Build the character and the rest will come.

Spelling Bee: Oh god. Boff put my name in the jar and I was up first round. Came third in the end (beating last year's winner Geoff Lemon!). Words I had to spell to get there: 'brooch', 'jurisprudence', 'euchre' and (the one I didn't get because I've never encountered it before) 'abecedarian'. Minor fame ensued. In between rounds they did a 'Who am I?' with dinosaurs and Boff managed to win a schooner of beer, which he gave to me (mistake). He and Mr Newcastle also argued about paleontology. *sigh*

Is it time to go home yet? The set presenters were a good mix. Will Kostakis talked about doing a school visit following a big night out; Rochelle Jackson spoke about rubbing shoulders with crims as an investigative journalist; Mandy Beaumont read some pieces about how a relationship ends if the sex isn't good enough; and Patrick O'Neil, well, his recent travels were made for this session.

The best part, however, was the audience participation at the end. We had Brisbanites doing an interpretive dance of West End domestic violence (see below), an anecdote about visiting a floating strip club in Serbia, a runaway story and, my favourite, a guy who wrote about an encounter with some suspect cops in Victoria Park (Sydney): "Like the human body, the pond in Victoria Park is made up of 70% water. The other 30% consists of broken glass and eels." Too true...



MONDAY

So you think you can pitch? Straightforward advice about pitching to a publishing house, a session by Text editor Caro Cooper. Most of it was fairly sensible, more or less things I would have done anyway (i.e. if the publishing house offers guidelines, follow them; don't do gimmicks; make it as easy as possible for them to like you). However, some of it was helpful advice on how to jump the slush pile: for example, get an existing author's endorsement, use an agent, pitch to a specific publication date to tie in with an event (< this goes for non-fiction, mainly).

Bio Bootcamp: A lot of don'ts for writing an author bio. Boff spent the entire time wondering what the purpose of an author bio was; I had to straighten him out later because it turns out he never reads author bios, therefore doesn't understand their function.

I had a great time, as usual, but I have started to feel that I've outgrown a lot of it. I'm not saying that I've accomplished everything I need to accomplish in the world of writing/art, but I think in the main, TINA has taken me as far as it can. Next year, I'll still be going up, but I might pick more discussion panels about topical issues rather than writing how-to sessions.

Festival rating: 8/10
Enjoyment rating: 9/10

This is Not Art (festival)

Above: The All-Star Literary Smackdown

This is Not Art
Various venues, Newcastle (1-5th October, 2009)

Despite having half a dozen unfinished reviews sitting in the drafts folder on the back end of this blog, I've decided to come through with this one because of the profound effect TINA has on me every time I go.

I'll start by saying that I go to TINA primarily for the National Young Writers' Festival but occasionally (though not this year) go to other sessions under the TINA umbrella. But I have to say it's all about 'the vibe of the thing'.

I drifted in at 1.30pm on Saturday on account of train trouble, which I won't go into (a whole separate blog post) and left on the 2.35pm train to Sydney on Monday, so this is my account of the parts of TINA I did actually attend.

SESSIONS
Adaptation (Sat): For a panel that has been in the making for several years, it was surprising to find this tucked away in a pocket room of the Newcastle City Hall, with predictable audience spillovers. As someone who has often been in debates about book vs movie vs play, I found the overall conclusion to this rather satisfying: that a creation needs to fit the medium, not concern itself with what's left in or left out.

I also liked Marieke Hardy's answer to my question on 'definitive' versions, which was (roughly) 'the medium that best tells the story to an individual', though Philip Gwynne emphatically said: "The book, always the book."

Give me Cleo over Kerouac (Sat): This was a pop culture vs literary panel. I have to admit I've read neither Cleo magazine nor Kerouac's work (though considering the number of times Kerouac kept being mentioned through the weekend I've since picked up 'Windblown World'). Despite the excessive number of panellists, the message came through clearly: it doesn't have to be literary to be good, and pop culture is 'consumed' differently to literature so stop bloody well comparing apples with oranges.

Journalistic Ethics (Sun): Some thought this an oxymoronic title but to that I say: you should have been there. You would have encountered an intelligent discussion of the commercial, political and temporal pressures compromising journalists these days, with the upshot being that we need more transparency, and we need to educate readers so they can identify agendas and read between the lines.

Life in a Lonely Planet (Sun): Travel writing fascinates me, mostly because I'm terrible at it. I'm a decent writer and an enthusiastic traveller, but after this panel, my self-diagnosis is that there's not enough of an internal journey in my travel writing. A lot of the panel focused on how to make a journey your own, which I found a nice contrast to those bland travel articles in mainstream newspapers that pay badly anyway.

'Neon Pilgrim'/'Apply Within' launch (Sun): Caught only the end of this on account of being at the Zine Fair but I did get my copy of 'Neon Pilgrim' signed by Lisa Dempster and learnt that it was actually more difficult to write the book than do the henro michi.

Moving Units (Mon): Marketing has been a dirty word for a very long time but the practical nature of this advice panel was really good at dispelling the myth that you have to sell out to make sales. Among the best tips: choose your marketing medium (ie don't blog if you're not a blogger), don't be afraid to get out there and do as many things as possible, and don't associate yourself with The Chaser if they've just been nationally abused for a sketch they did on TV.

Writing the Big One (Mon): It was a nice insight into the working lives of some very different writers; juggling work, life, study and family with writing as well as dealing with agents and publishers. I think the best thing that came out of it was the message that there's no definitive way to complete a work, you just have to be aware of the issues and navigate them the best way you can. Sigh.

HIJINKS
The All-Star Literary Smackdown (Sat): Fiction vs non-fiction. Well, my bum got sore sitting on the fence as a journo who makes a living off non-fic, but also an aspiring novelist. However, the Smackdown was highly entertaining with both well constructed and ill-conceived point-scoring from both teams. I think the highlight of the night was Shantaram shot-put as the tie-break (followed by Philip Gwynne arm-wrestling Anna Krien for the second tie-break). Maybe use a hardcover copy of 'Shantaram' next time?

The Great Gatsby Ball (Sat): I had on my drop-waist dress, a string of beads around my neck and a ribbon wound around my head as a headband, but without a program or a map at this point I could not for the life of me find the damn venue (which I knew was on King/Thorn but that was it). When I eventually encountered it on the way back to the YHA (having more or less given up at this point) there was a massive line out the front, so I took a detour and went up to The Obelisk.

I did make it down the hill again, and into the venue, to catch the last set of The Civic Big Band that gave the partygoers a grand swing sound to jiggle to. I was mightily impressed with the amount of effort that went into costumes and accessories, with a suprising number of people competent at moving in a 1920s kinda way. Don't ever let anyone tell you that writers don't know how to party in different eras.

Zine Fair & Makers Market (Sun): Despite the Sydney Writers' Festival now hosting a zine fair component in its program, this is still my favourite part of TINA. I like talking to zinesters about their work and I like supporting them, even if it means I skip a meal (yes, once again I blew my entire budget at the fair, which meant I had to find a dinner venue with EFTPOS. It's fortunate the YHA makes me put down a $10 key deposit so I can get a train home).

Every year I think: THIS YEAR I WILL MAKE A ZINE I CAN SELL. And every year I get a little closer. One Side Only #3 will be ready in about 11 months...

Wriron Chef (Sun): A Rosie Pham, Benjamin Law and Lisa Dempster cook-off was always going to be a fun premise, but add Bryan Whalen's random hosting - and a healthy dose of audience participation - and this was a veritable funhouse. This included an audience poll about whether to keep peanut butter in the cupboard or the fridge (cupboard! der!) and Benjamin Law forging a third path: "Who has a nut allergy?"

He was also responsible for the best call of the session: "I'm just going to the toilet to drain my eggs." Maybe this contributed to his eventual win.

Spelling Bee (Sun): This took spelling (and other word nerd processes) to another level, made extremely palatable by beer. The world needs more entertaining competitions based around literary devices hosted by Lawrence Leung with a vendetta against a contestant named Patch.

The best part was the huge amount of audience participation (all the contestants were audience members who'd nominated themselves) and the fact that I learnt a little bit more about grammatical, cheese and font terminology.

Un-Erotic Erotica (Sun): A highly amusing, highly social night out. Loved the MC, Rebecca Meston, and the barrage of literary (an oh-so-un-literary) smut read/performed. Audience engagement was very high, which also makes for a great night out. I think the Mystery Meet followed this reading, which was not nearly as entertaining, especially as I was at that point wedged in a booth with six alternative types with questionable personal hygiene.

RENEW NEWCASTLE
Just also wanted to say a little about Renew Newcastle, a project that takes vacant premises and turns them into cool venues for shops or galleries and the like. Ever since my first TINA (hmm, that would be 2000, I think) I've viewed Newcastle as this dying phoenix, with only the arts to reignite it.

I'm possibly a lot biased because the only times I come to Newcastle are for creative pursuits (TINA as well as The Shoot Out), but thanks to Marcus Westbury, the godfather of Newcastle, the city is a place worth visiting. So, thank you Marcus, for reigniting Newcastle.

A special mention to my favourite Renew venue, Totoro's Teahouse (above) because I love tea and writing and art so very much.

Every time I go to Newcastle I feel inspired and connected (despite not going up with anyone on account of plentiful indifference from several regulars - yeh, I know Lee Tran Lam hosts a radio show on Sunday afternoon, whatever - but I did meet some great people). Can't wait for next year. Will definitely (definitely) have something for the zine fair.

Festival rating: 9/10
Enjoyment rating: 10/10

I heart TINA

THIS IS NOT ART...


The TINA Festival Club came furnished with pew-like seating and these delightful cardboard finishes. This year the club was located in the old rail holdings on the water side of Civic Station. It looks less dodgy than the PAN Building but it does seem to take the action away from the rest of the block, consisting of Civic Park, Watt Space Gallery, Octapod and Newcastle City Hall where a lot of the panels are.



Staple Manor where good zines go to be born.



Nobbys Head by night. The tripod was a good investment for night scenery like this. I have no idea why the sky turned out so red. The light was actually kind of yellow/orange.



Near Civic Station. I giggled for a while after I saw this. I just didn't realise you could get sheets of orange dot stickers the size of a tablecloths, nor did I realise those stickers could become a form of street art.

Is Not Art, Is Good

The National Young Writers' Festival turns 10! Now embraced by big mama, the This Is Not Art (TINA) festival enjoys five days of debate, inspiration, writing, drawing and pretty much anything else you can do with a writing implement (except that).

SATURDAY
9:05am: I'm waiting for Kid H, my partner on this adventure, at Central Station. I'm on the inside of the barriers because I've just changed trains, having bought a one-way ticket to Newcastle from my home station.

The guards at the gates keep looking at me, half-expecting that I will leave one of my many packages unattended, ready to presume I am a terrorist. I don't usually travel this heavily but it's my first time selling merchandise at the Sunday Fair and I have a box of Palimpsest books to flog while I'm north. Kid H arrives and we walk right up the platform armed with my knowledge that the exit at Newcastle is at the front of the train.

12:29pm: After three hours of chatting and poring over the TINA program, Kid H and I arrive in Newcastle and check into the YHA, my home away from home. I give her a short tour of the hostel and we head off in search of something to eat and a panel to catch.

After a feed at Juicy Beans we find ourselves sitting crosslegged like kindergarteners at the front of a packed house in the Festival Club for the 'You are all going to die' panel, which is more or less about generation-ism. The gist is that the whole generation thing is a bit of a crock cooked up by marketers and that there are more likely to be other things that people have to identify with others - race, gender, religion etc - than age.

2:36pm: A brief respite from the Festival Club sees us hanging around outside in everyone's way. Kid H recognises a couple of familiar faces despite never having been to a TINA festival before, some friends from Adelaide. I'm introduced and they chat briefly. Kid H and I head back in for the next panel, 'Untold Stories', which is okay, if a little wayward. A lot of the speakers didn't really address the notion of the ethics behind writing (or illustrating in the case of Shaun Tan) the unspeakable.

After the session we head out to Civic Park where three wedding parties are having their respective photos taken. I play with a ladybug, trying to get a photograph while Kid H haunts the fountain looking for a good photo op beyond the white satin and taffeta. It gets cold so we head back to the Festival Club and grab a meal from the Hare Krishna stall out front. The back area is free so we hike up to the stage and plonk down on the cushions, oddly scattered with straw, and chow down.

6:11pm: The 'Mega Mega Launch' begins. It is presented as an awards night where each highly specific award (e.g. Category: "Most graphic version of a novel by F Scott Fitzgerald" Winner: The Great Gatsby: a Graphic Adaptation by Nicki Greenberg) gives writers and artists a chance to say a little about their publication.

The best part is that there is a lucky door raffle and I win a packet of books and zines (including The Great Gatsby and an interesting publication called 'Nerds Gone Wild' which includes the cover line "Complete Guide to LAN Parties: Dos and Don'ts").

7:00pm: Regretfully we leave the 'Mega Mega Launch' and scoot across the road to the TPI building where Marcus Westbury debuts his doco 'Not Quite Art'. He's a bit nervous and makes a lot of self-deprecating remarks to the point where the audience interrupts his introduction by yelling "just play it!"

The doco is an engaging look at places where art has come from the ashes of a downbeat town. Westbury looks at Glasgow (UK) and ponders whether the same could happen in Newcastle (Aus) given a good run of bureacratic licence. He also heads to Melbourne where the laneways, full of cafes, wine bars and/or graffiti are better known for their artistic and cultural value than the $500 million Federation Square. He also touches on arts funding, which he tackles in the (as yet unseen) third episode of the three part series.

The Q&A at the end is quite interesting, turning into a discussion about why such a large proportion of funding goes to 'high' arts like opera and theatre and orchestras while the rest of us (writers, artists and musicians) have to scrabble for the rest. Westbury says he doesn't know what to do about it but hopes that the doco reaches the kind of people who can bring that question to prominence so something can be done about it.

8:48pm: We head back to the YHA. Kid H tucks in for the night while I head down to the lounge room to eat gummi creatures and read the paper. Instead I end up watching Rush Hour 2 on TV with a bunch of other hostellers, skimming the paper in the ad breaks.


SUNDAY
I basically spend the whole day in Civic Park manning my stall. I've never had a stall before - in previous year's I'd blow a day's wages on other people's wares. This year I have Palimpsest books to sell (just $10 incl postage if anyone wants a copy).

There's a zombie protest ("zombies are people too", "save a cow, eat a brain" etc) and a DJ mixing it up on stage and a lot of people to talk to. For some reason I've been put in the market section, which means my neighbours are a tshirt seller (Tim from Toilet World) and a jewellery stall (Enak). They attract the people. I tend to repel them.

(Later I find out that zine stalls are FREE and market stalls cost $25 and that no one told me about this so I paid $25 and didn't get a good spot. Boo. I hope it was invested into next year's festival.)

Kid H comes by to mind the stall so I get a toilet break and a drinks break and have a wander around the vicinity. Thanks to winning a bunch of zines the night before, I feel compelled to blow $7.80 on a slim book of poetry (the girl wanted $8 but I only had $7.80 in change from buying a bottle of water for Kid H). My buying spree is thus short-lived so I return to my post at my stall.

I contribute to the Bad Writing Pinata of Cathartic Shame and watch the smashing from a distance, sell a total of five books and meet The Quote Generator aka Danielle Freakley in the flesh. Talking to her is a strange experience, especially after reading about her project. It's almost like talking to a media essay but in a real time context. But she buys a book so she must be cool.

Kid H and I eat dinner in the park (Hare Krishna again!) but the Electrofringe act - bleeps and strange electronic noises - is not our type of sound so we head to the YHA to dump some of our stuff and return to the Festival Club for The Night Air, broadcast on Radio National (I only listen to the cricket on Radio National so a TINA show is quite a step away from their general demographic). The show is really good and quite varied, bringing together different aspects of the festival.

I particularly liked Black Lung, who gatecrashed Bravo Child's alloted set (one of them may have been Bravo Child I don't know - he's a poet and I've never actually seen him) and found Toy Death disturbing and amusing. Toy Death used distorted sounds from various toys to make music, including a Darth Vader mask and a talking Barbie. Unfortunately a bunch of people started talking over Vanessa Berry's spoken word so that was a bit disrespectful.

We left before the closing party because we were both tired and probably too old to play with the young 'uns even though I'm only 26 and Kid H is 31.


MONDAY
Kid H leaves early in the morning as she has things to do at home. I check out of the YHA and leave my stuff in day storage and spend the morning wandering up to Nobbys Head soaking in the sunlight and watching dozens of dogs and their owners play on the beach. I realise I miss my dogs at the same time that I acknowledge that neither of them would have had that much fun on the beach, what with the sand and the water...

I rock up to see Ianto Ware present 'Zinevolution' at the Festival Lounge but a note on the door informs the waiting crowd that he is absent due to a hangover. Most of us dissipate downstairs to catch 'More than just a Label', a Sound Summit panel, which was better than I thought it would be, but I leave it halfway to take front row for PEN's 'Shooting the Messenger' about censorship.

Three of the panellists - an Australian artist, an Iranian writer and an Afghani poet - have experienced censorship directly while Sarah Maddison from the Australia Institute has many insightful things to say about how Australia sits on a freedom level (the prognosis is not good...). It runs half an hour over its 2pm finish (which is good because it solved the mystery of whether or not I should leg it to try and catch the 2:35pm train or dawdle and catch the 3:20pm train). I leave feeling both discouraged and pensive about Australia's future in this regard.

I tackle the SMH's Giant Crossword on the way home and fail miserably.