No one speaks English and everything’s broken – Tom Waits Trains are great places for reflecting (if you can stop yourself nodding off to the rocking). Am on eurostar. At the risk of being a know-all aussie abroad, the following observations spring to mind about England and France. Newcastle’s multiculturalism is very European. You immediately notice the difference when you get to Sydney. Sydney is polyglot. England and France are similar. When we got on the metro this evening there was a young girl wearing full fitted head scarf. She also had on skin tight jeans, was wearing rings and spent most of her time on her mobile phone. Her friend was a young woman of African descent. There was no doubting this young girl's religious conviction. Equally there was no doubting her membership of the ... read more

Thursday It’s only when you get there that you realise the scale of the D day landings. Imagine landings at 5 different points each of about 20km in length between Woy Woy and Nelson Bay. Imagine the planning needed to organise for 2 artificial harbours made of concrete to be constructed and floated over from Britain by the 3rd day so that supplies for the more than 1 million men who were put ashore in the first month can be maintained. And imagine the horror of the first wave of men as they moved ashore. This has been quite a profound experience. As we drove around, the most moving moment i think was to visit the war cemetery at Bayeux. There are mostly Canadians and brits there but a sprinkling of Australians. Most poignantly those airmen ... read more

Friday We went to the mother of parliaments today. Got to sit in both the commons & lords. The lords had a labour (note spelling) lord speaking eloquently and coherently without notes. The commons had a conservative speaker who exemplified the typical English twit!!! What was interesting was the good natured banter which seems to have disappeared from our parliament. The houses of parlt are nearly 1000 years old. Interesting that the mother of parliaments has plaques on the floor indicating where both Charles 1 and William Wallace were brought to be sentenced to death. Maybe we needed all of those thousand years for parliamentary democracy to evolve. In turn we mock and rage against, and are disgusted by our politicians. They let us down with unerring regularity. They behave with a cynicism which is breathtaking ... read more