Peter A Clarke

All of the adulation in the press about Wee willy Shorten taking on a seat and ultimately leadership of the Parliamentary wing of the ALP is nauseating.  The guy is connected and gets plenty of coverage but what has he actually done?  What does he believe in?  The  Daily Flute had an opening salvo against him last Friday.  And fair enough. 

I had dealings with Shorten at Monash and found him to be a less than impressive machine operator straight out of central casting.  Said all the things right wing wannabees said and pulled all the undergrad tricks in the eternal but ultimately unproductive factional fights Uni labor politics is famous for.  But the thing is that Bill, of Xavier heritage and blue blood tradition, believed in a lot of not very much but power.  His soundings in the press has been a lift from US management books.  At least his MBA has been put to goodish use.  He markets himself as a Tony Blair/Bill Clinton for Australia, the new brand of social democrat who will outmaneuvre the conservatives by being friends of the middle class while keeping a foot in the working class camp. 

An empty suit who knows how to hustle the contacts. 

It was always a treat to catch the Munsters.  As I was growing up it was classic Saturday morning fare.  It was just great slapstick non message comedy.  Not as good as the Three stooges but great fun. 

So it is sad to read that Grandpa Munster has died at age 82. 

Vale Al Lewis.  From a better era in television. 

Nothing like 3 hours in a plane from Zagreb to Paris, 8 hours in Paris, another 12 hours from Paris to Singapore and another 6 hours from Singapore to home to make yesterday a total blur.  I sorta remember getting home and then it was time for a fall down, get up, fall down, have a shower, fall down and get up in the wee hours today.

So back in the saddle in chambers and ready to contribute to the legal world of Melbourne.

Cheers all and keep watching the blog.

Yet again the god of travel acts as he promised.  The flight left right on time, which I guess isnt that big a deal for Praguers.  Being sandwiched between Germany and Austria has given it some germanic qualities.  Pulled in at 8.20pm and here I am a little before 10pm tapping away in an internet cafe across from Bonbons.

Despite my demands Zagreb hasnt mended its evil ways.  It is still a flea bitten, plague blighted heap of unreconstructed neo realist rubble of uncertain provenance.  To combat the evilness that lies within I came well prepared; sacred Armani aftershave courtesy of those humanitarians at Duty Free and in the absence of incense I have settled on a packet of Vuegeros Cuban cigars, again with the comfort and support of the Duty Free.  I have been chanting Druidish incantations (or maybe it is just my drunken ramblings to the voices).  Anyway so far so good.  But Bonbon is full to the gills and I know of no other place for asylum.  There is an upside.  In my directionless wanderings I have beheld, and approved of, the Croatian womens penchant for wearing skin tight jeans and knee length boots.  They are seriously cute into the bargain.  Like Poles with a bit of an edge.  Sweeeeet.

Anyhow the hunt continues for a sanctuary. 

Flying out tomorrow on a little after midday.  Hope the cigars last till then.  Will keep puffing till then.

A fairly desultory sort of day.  And very enjoyable in its own way.  I didn’t do much of note beyond buying one or two presenty things and a bottle of booze.  Had my final Czech meal at my favourite local restaurant and had my final perv at the girls at the hostel, this time some seriously gorgeous South American girls who were booking in as I was checking out. Always the way.  Then it was down to drinking coffee and just hanging out. 

I board in about 40 minutes and with luck will be touching down in Zagreb at about 8pm local time . Then I tackle the BEAST.  First, set up HQ at the Central Hotel.  Second, drink heavily till I board that flight tomorrow at 12.20pm for Australia via Paris and Singapore.  Its going to be tough but I ain’g going to let Zagreb bring me down. I’ll probably spend a fair amount of tonight at Bonbon, the only decent place of refuge in that godforsaken place. 

A few parting thoughts about Prague.  It has been a terrific city to visit and spend some time in.  I spent a total of 9 days here and enjoyed myself.  I am museumed and sited out and could probably have spent a few days less and still enjoyed the experience just as much.  That said it is nice to get to know a city to the point where I don’t need to use a map and at the same time don’t get lost.  It is cheap, clean and very diverse.  It has something for all tastes and tends to take an easygoing approach to most things.  Praguers are so used to tourists that they tend to indifference.  The service is polite and reasonably efficient but not particularly warm.  Then again I could say much the same about Vienna.  That stands in contrast to the usual treatment throughout Croatia.  That tends to be a generalisation, both ways, but overall reasonably accurate.  The Czech Republic, like Poland, is easy on the pocket.  If you want to make it really cheap that is not hard to do. 

 Things I would bring from Prague to Melbourne:

1. The beer.  Czech beer is head and shoulders over all the others.  Austrian beer isn’t bad and some Polish beer is very good, especially Zywiecz, but there is something about Czech pilsener.  Very tasty and cheap.  Turkish beer is pretty ordinary.  Stick to Raki in Turkey, if you like getting knocked off your stool that is.
2. The women. Czech women range from cute to seriously out of this world gorgeous.  Many are tallish, thin and have that drop dead gorgeous slavonic ovel face, wide set eyes and lusterous long blond hair.  Even rugged up in winter coats they look seriously sexy.  The only thing better than Czech women are Polish women.  In Poland they constitute serious eye candy.  I was gobsmacked how stunning they were.  The Australian/Polish girls will need a serious amount of plastic surgery to catch up.  It was quite an eye opener. A pleasant one.
3. The open all hours approach to eating and drinking establishments.  The restauarants serve from the minute the doors open till they close.  The notion of a set lunch or breakfast is not the norm. There are breakfast menus but it is more a nod to tourist tastes.  The food is fantastic.  Most shops are open till 8pm on most nights. 
4. The beer
5. The women.

Things I would leave in Prague

1. Museum attendants. I have ranted long and loud on the subject so no more needs be said.
2.  The beggars.  The beggars, of which there are more than a few, have a protocol.  They place themselves in a kneeling position, lean forward and rest their forearms on the pavement and place a bowl before them or in their cupped outstretched hands.  I initially thought they were praying to Mecca.  This is unacceptable in Australia because that is the well known Barrister position we take up waiting for briefs.  If beggars took up that practice in Oz how would you know the beggars from the barristers?  I guess the beggars would be better dressed.
3. The ticket inspectors.  I have banged on enough about this.
4. The Czech girls boyfriends, of which there seems to be many.  They are on them like white on rice.
5. Some of the creepy crawly types who hang around Prague square in the early morning hours.  Not dangerous just serious pains, touting for this and that and general pimping. It is the same in most big cities with a high tourist population, including Vienna, but I guess I noticed them more in Prague.

 Time to board.  I am definitely coming back but probably at a more clement time.

Last night was a bit quiet which was probably for the best.  The hostel bar was closed for the night so the supply of really cheap beer dried up.  Of course that didn’t stop me imbibing over a very nice dinner of pork knuckle, white cabbage and potato pancake.  Back to a decent restaurant. 

Most of the day was a general wander through the shops and back streets.  Nothing too heavy and covering old ground mostly.  Thats cool.  Always something new to see.  I thought I’d give the movies one last chance and up came a winner, of sorts.  Fun with Dick and Jane was pretty good.  Brilliant compared to the dross I have been seeing of late.  A comedy with Jim Carey and Tea Leoni.   Apparently based on a George Segal (one of my all time favourite light comedy actors) film from the seventies.  It was light, frothy, hilarious in parts and generally pretty good.  As always Alec Baldwin puts in a top performance even if it was a two dimensional role.  He wears his middle age well.  In a way he is better now than 10 years ago.  Tea Leoni used to be one of the best, not to mention seriously gorgeous, female comedy actors. Her performance here was a bit ordinary and she isn’t as cute (harsh but that’s the way of the world in this day and age).  Then again trying to strut your stuff next to Carey is hard yards.  He chews through the scenery at supersonic speed. 

On another wander through the Australian press I see that our Nic Kidman is to be a UN Ambassador for Peace.  Another argument to send the UN to the bottom of the East River.  She has been remarkably consistent in starring in absolute turkeys, (Bewitched, The Interpreter, Stepford Wives to name but a few) and when she comes up from under the blanket of PR cover she comes across as, what is the technical term, dumb.  Vacuous at least.  Sure she has presence but that is about it.  Then again the same can be said for the UN these days. 

Things are fairly mellow in ye olde Prague.  Nothing exciting happening.  The Czech way, moderate and uneventful.  I did a bit of window shopping last night and had a late lunch.  The first below par meal in Prague.  Had to happen sooner or later. 

After moving about “doing stuff” it was nice to get into a few more mundane tasks, starting with a laundry run.  Gave me a chance to finish my novel, Michael Connelly’s The Black Echo.  Not a bad cops and robbers read.   Because it was written in the early nineties and set in 1990 the characters are rushing off to pay phones here, there and everywhere.  I kept screaming at the pages for him or her to just use the mobile. Then I have my DOH! moment.  No mobiles, or at least ones that weren’t bricks.  Just shows how acclimatised we are to our times. 

To keep the mood of the day I had another ordinary meal at dinner.  Both were spontaneous picks not attributable to any book or recommendation.  I guess the law of averages caught up with me.  That said, 2 misses in 8 days in Prague is not a bad record.  The slight irritation of a poor meal was overcome when I accidentally came by the Ungelt Jazz Club and decided to have a squizz.  I spent a couple of hours listening to a seriously good modern jazz band riffing away to a crowd of affiicianados (and me).  I tend to have a low tolerance threshold to jazz.  It is the chronic introspection and pretension that gets up my nose a bit.  That changed last night.  The bad were a bunch of seriously daggy types who worked absolute magic.  Some seriously gorgeous women there too.

As a nod to culture and so as to feel I am achieving something I went to the Mucha museum.  He was a modern artist and poster painter in the tradition of Toulouse La Trec (sic ?) and a promoter of the Slavic dream, from about 1900 until the beginning of WWII.  His poster work is interesting ( I bought 4 prints) but his paintings are way too serious and border on pretentious.  He painted a stylised and romantic version of slavonic history.  It has a hint of the nonsense of Soviet neo realism or whatever the name is for that crap that was called Eastern Bloc art in the 1950s.  But his is a favourite son of Prague so there is plenty of his work around.

In my relaxed mode I spent a bit of time reading the various Australian news sites.  Interesting to see Julian McGauran joining the Liberals.  I had some dealings with him when I was a university student and he was making his first run at the Senate.  I was none too impressed with him then and his performance since then hardly inspires.  Average back bench material.  It is always interesting to see when something like this happening to hear predictions of the end of the Nationals.  Yeah right.  They will stagger on and slowly run out of puff.  At worst they will be replaced by another rural based and seriously conservative party.  But they have serious muscle in Qld and NSW so why would one non descript senator’s defection in Victoria cause the Nats there concern.  Talk about a merger between the Liberals and the Nats has been doing the rounds for 30 years.  Why the Liberal Party would want to have conservative bomb throwers whose politics are a bizarre mixture of socialist wealth distribution (agrarian socialism), corrupt pork barrelling  and extreme social conservatism inside the tent is beyond me.  But at times like this the merger article gets taken out of columnists’ top drawers, the names are changed and a few sentences are added to the intro and voila someone can make this weeks deadline without breaking a sweat.  They sound topical and serious and of course it brings a shrill reaction from National MPs which gives the story a bit of oxygen for a few more days.  It’ll go nowhere till the next stumble by a Nat.

The quality of columns in the Australian press is depressingly poor.  Take two recent pieces of nonsense by Ms Right and Mrs Left, Albrechtson and Marr, as typical examples.  Janet Albrechtson, the Leni Reifenstal of the non thinking right, has a stock of standard shrill pieces which she cuts and pastes and spits out to fill her Wednesday space.  The most recent burnt offering (it should be have been burnt full stop) has her batting on about how judge made law is ipso facto bad (based on assertion and a simplistic and usually wrong analysis) and human rights generally and the bill of rights in particular constitutes the legal version of barbarians at the gate.  What simplistic nonsense which defies overseas evidence.  Her antidote is the legislature, that sacred band of chosen wise men and women working magic for the benefit of us all while sipping from the font of wisdom.  And we all know how well the primacy of the legislature has been in protecting citizens rights.  On the left David Marr, at the Sydney Morning Herald screams conspiracy about the supposed continuing attack on the ABC and coup in the offing.  Gawd, haven’t heard that one for I guess it has to be at least a  month.  To get paid serious dollars for rehashing the same old article is a bigger scandal than what might happen to the ABC. Phillip Adams is not much better as he writes about the end of society as we know it, all wrought by those ‘orrid Libs. So many opinion pieces are just rehashes of previously written and oft stated comments by the same old usual suspects; Henderson, Manne and the list goes on.  How dreary these people are and how poorly we are served.  I guess I have become spoilt reading the International Herald Tribune and the Economist in my travels.  Yeah, columnists wear their teams colours there but at least in the US and the UK they do sometimes mix it up, see shades of grey and actually venture into new fields from time to time.  They also tend to be better wordsmiths.  Even Maureen Dowd, a dyed in the wool predictable lefty can push words around a page with a witty deftness that our sledgehammer scribes can’t manage.  Grrrrr…. There I go, on that damn soap box.

Tommorrow night, at 7pm, I fly out of Prague and an hour I return to the belly of the beast, Zagreb.  The next day I catch the 12.25pm flight and head to ye olde country.  Try to keep the huge homecoming crowd to just that.  

I am back in the happy hunting ground of Prague’s old town.  Pulled in a little after 3pm, parked my gear at the Dlouhas Hostel and found this internet cafe. 

I hardly set a cracking pace in the last few days at Wroclaw.  The day before yesterday Kaisha took me to the premier tourist attraction, the Panoroma Radowice.  She is a generous host and has a seriously impressive computer set up.  The Panorama seemed so much bigger when I saw it all those years ago.  It is still impressive.  Definitely worth a look at if you come by Wroclaw.  We then went to the Cathedral, an imposing structure which was badly damaged during the war.  A feature of Polish churches I still find a little unsettling is the overt signs of nationalism.  In one of the alcoves there is a martial flag and two suits of armour of winged hussars, with lances.  Perhaps I am being a bit too low church but that seems somewhat incongruous in a church.  Then again the Cathedral in Buenos Aries has a full honour guard, with shouldered arms, at the tomb of Simon Bolivar (I think).  Different cultural sensibilities I guess. I had a simple but very enjoyable meal later at the Utniks and headed back to the hostel.  Had to be back by 11pm because it had a curfew.  Go figure.  Nobody was in a party hard mood so it didn’t matter but a curfew does rankle.  After night one I decided on a change of pace. Time to go upmarket.

I stayed there the one night because it was seriously cheap, at 50 zl it cost a little over $20 for the night, and it was less than a black from the town square.  It is a teachers dorm.  Very much built in the 1950s ne above ground fallout shelter Stalinist cubist style.  Very blocky with plenty of concrete tiles and that spongey linoleum as a floor covering.  The room was basic but comfortable.  The shower and bathroom was, however, another story.  Designed by the same sick bastard who designed just about every boarding school’s shower facility.  Designed for discomfort.  That did it for me.  It worked but way too many cold and clammy moments. 

I decided to stay a fourth night in Wroclaw and booked into the Hotel Patio for the last night ( ul Kielbasnicza 24-25).  It is a typical businessman/salesman haunt.  In fact when I was booking in a few of them were checking out.  Middle ranking company men dress the same way no matter what language they speak; blue or grey suits, a palm/organiser in one hand and a mobile in the other, pulling a trolley case and treating each hotel receipt like it is gold.  Not flash but comfy, with a shower, cable and a few other creature comforts.  I can do maybe one or two days in dorm living at a time but then it gets a bit tough.  The itch for creature comforts kicks in. 

Yesterday I saw the Museum Narodowne (the National Museum) and was surprised how good it was.  None of the big artistic names were there but a lot of Polish painters from the 16th century onwards.  It was interesting to see the very different style that developed in the East.  As time went on it got all a bit too melodramatic and overblown for me but it was worth seeing.  The modern art section was, however, another story.  That was dross aspiring to be drivel.  Modern art, like its predecessor, has a lot chaff and a little wheat.  I was caught in a chaff storm here.  When the artist couldn’t be shocking he (as it usually was) aimed to send a message.  Most of the work just ended up being pretentious.  I also saw the Museum of Wroclaw which was OK but quite limited.  A lot of it was shut off for some military celebration.

I tried seeing a few other museums but they were closed, despite the advertised opening hours.  I think the Poles should import a few Czechs and Austrians and get a bit of fine tuning on tourism management.  That said, the level of co operation has been quite good and fantastic compared to all those years ago.  With no more gallery watching I did a bit of window shopping.  And I passed a pen store…. and walked back and looked in the window…. and thought I’d just go in and have a quick browse….and….well you can fill in the blanks.  Also looked at a few other places.  The prices are very reasonable here. 

Had a drink with Patrick Utnik, Helena’s son, and his fiance last night. Lovely people.  We knocked over a few at the Irish Pub and then they took me to PRL.  It is a student place full of communist memorabilia.  I have had a say about Communist badging so won’t repeat but this was done to mock not support.  Quite a funky bar.  I called it a night early, being seriously beat and having to catch an early train this AM.  He is a thoroughly nice fella.  He must think Aussies are total wimps.  But hell I put 2 beers away at lunch and another few later on.  It added up after a while.

The train trip from Wroclaw to Prague was long, almost 7 hours.  Quite a long time for a relatively short distance.  But it was one of those stop all stations numbers.  Got a lot of reading and sleeping done.  What continues to amaze me is how simple and straightforward travel is here.  I keep building in a buffer for things going wrong and end up waiting on platforms or at airports for trains and planes that arrive and leave exactly when they are supposed to.  This is very UnPolish.  Even the locals comment how things usually run late.  Hell I must be the lucky charm then.  I thought of heading off to Dresden or elsewhere but the numbers didn’t add up.  I would have spent most of my time on a train, packing and then unpacking.  Not worth it. 

I’ll take it easy doing a bit shopping tonight and see if I have missed anything in Prague tomorrow.  After that it is off to Zagreb and then to Australia.  

Happy Australia day all.  It is almost Australian temperature today, only a little below 0 degrees. 

This post comes from the regal home of the Utniks. 

In the traditional manner I have been given a full breakfast and now a huge lunch all inside an hour and a half.  Some Polish traditions never die.  I can’t believe it was 17 years ago that Damian and I were here. We spend one of the all time great nights of that trip drinking and eating, talking revolution, passing along gossip (some of it true) until the early morning hours.  The room seemed so much bigger then.  I vividly remember collapsing into a bed with the world whirling round.  The night felt like a scene out of Potop (for those non Polish readers it won’t mean much and I ain’t explaining), larger than life. It remains a very fond memory.  

Seventeen years on and the Utniks remain the model hosts.  The sort of hosts I aspire to be, generous to a fault (not a tradition many Australians follow though).  Adam looks a little older but still very hale and hearty.  Pani Utnik is still a wonderful host and a lovely person into the bargain.  My Polish is barely up the the challenge but we get by.  They make an effort and I make an effort and, by and large, we understand each other.  There are gaps in the conversation but it doesn’t matter. They are such gregarious host that the the atmosphere is wonderful.  The parents Clarke should really make an effort to get to Wroclaw before it is too late. 

The Utnik grandchildren, two of them, are gorgeous and nice people, on the briefest exchange.   Kaisha will be taking me around the town for her sins.  Turns out that it is her day off.  She is a very generous host.  As a family they are first class.

Onto other, more venal, matters.  I have a coat.  It is a great coat.  It is an expensive, budget busting number but it is so damn warm it brings me to tears when I wear it.  Sheepskin with a fur lining. Take that lefty, anti fur wearing hippy woosy sorts. Burn in hell’s eternal coldness.  If those big girls blouses were here they would switch to killling everything on four legs and skinning them for warmth.  Today wasn’t so bad but with this new coat, and my dopey hat, I am ready to march to Siberia (if I was seriously drunk and only if).  The bad side is that the coat cost an absolute bundle.  I guess something had to bust the budget.  The hope was that it would be a woman but in this cold a coat is a better option.  For one thing it is on me all the time and there are no arguments.  I am taking back ye olde coat for last rights. I can’t bear tossing it.  It was my uncles and predates me by at least 20 years.  It has almost an antiquity quality to it.  It will need a major overhaul. One arm is almost sepearated from the body and the buttonholes and other parts are fraying.   

To get out of the cold last night and avoid a night of drinking I went and saw Jarhead, the new Same Mendes film.  It was Full Metal Jacket lite.  It could have been so much more.  Not a bad film in its own right but it really had no message beyond being a marine was great but it sucked as well.  Trying to make something dramatic over a pretty dull First Gulf War is no easy thing. Clint Eastwood had the same trouble with Heartbreak Ridge.  How do you make an exciting war movie over the invasion of Grenada. There were maybe 4 skirmishes in a 2 day operation.  Paleeeease.  The run of ordinary movies continues.  What is it about the current batch.  They lack that something that would lift them out of the also ran category.

Onto matters gastronomical, I had one of the all time great meals, solo, at Restauracja JaDka (Ul Rzezkiczna 24/25) last night.  It is a place owned by the Polish equivalent of Stephanie Alexander.  And the food was out of this world brilliant.  The menu is to die for.  The entre was black pudding pierogi.  As a lover, even worshipper, of the black sausage and great admirer of the pierogi this was a truly happy meeting of cuisines.  The outcome was brilliant.  The main course was Wild Boar loins with the polish equivalent of knocchi and a sauce to die for.  I didn’t venture into the desserts . There was too much damage by then.  The restaurant is set in an old meeting hall and it is a seriously swanky place to dig in.  Highly recommended.  The gastronomical faction of the family Clarke would die and go to heaven in this place.  Another good reason to venture to Wroclaw before it is too late.

Time to sign off. Getting taken around by a seriously gorgeous sort. A mans got to do what a mans got to do. 

One of the developing areas of prosecutions worldwide are offences of using the internet to disable businesses.  The best known offences relate to the production and dissemination of  viruses. 

A more subtle and concerning form of offence in England is the denial of use of a computer by a party sending another a stream of emials to disable a target computer or system.  That is the nub of the Computer Misuse Act.  Earlier this week a London Court cleared a British teenager of charges under the Computer Misuse Act.  The prosecution alleged that the teenager sent 5 million emails to a former employer.  The three possible offences are:

• unauthorised access to computer material
• unauthorised modification
• unauthorised access with the intent to commit or facilitation the commission of further offences

These offences have been labelled Dos (Denial of Service) attacks.  Outl-Law.com has a fascinating story on the most recent Dos prosecution.  

The next Dos trial is scheduled for 25 November.  Interesting days ahead.