I just had a really nice visit with one of the last family members from my mother's side of the family and of her generation. A really nice person and sharp as a tack. He has that same sense of wickedness my mum had and which most don't notice, talk about a twinkle in the eye, missed if you are too busy thinking about your own self . I have so missed people like that. There was such a cleverness to their dry wit. Slapstick is fine, but the wit of an Oscar Wilde, maybe to a lesser degree resides in so few.

One thing which made me chuckle apart from his kindness old fashioned concern not to put us out, ( I always think of Mrs Doyle and her friend from father Ted who ended up in jail because they were both trying so hard not to "put the other one out" that they came to blows trying to insist thet they each paid for the bill in a tea shop...) but I digress. He bought me a copy of our family tree...I had given him all my stuff and he added his to it. Casting my eyes down he had marked in his eldest brother and wife and their children but what caught my eye was the fact that the pair of them worked for ASIO (thats the Australian secret service to your furringers).

I almost was unable to control my mirth at this considering the strong irish background he came from same as myself...and their own attitudes to a little sensible anarchy which never hurt anyone.

Thinking back on my own sordid past, (only things like trying to stop privatisation of our hospital and those sorts of issues)...we were quite effective on that one and cost the private company gadzillions almost because we forced the Gov. to investigate the contracts they signed, ...another digression...I had to wonder how often our own little groups and actions may have crossed my own second cousin's desk.

Heya cuz! Whose ya embarrassment of a relative? Seriously though the way we Australians ignored what the Indonesian gov was doing to the East Timorese for about 30 years is shameful... but they seem to have forgiven us. But both main political parties, and ASIO and all the other departments were the instruments which allowed the slaughter of so many of the East Timorese, and which made it possible that the world only found out right near the end, when Indonesia and the Australian, British and American Authorities could no longer hide it...because it had become so bloody obscene.

And you know what that was all about...OIL and GAS which rightfully belonged to the East Timorese because it was in their territory of the ocean but was carved up between Australia and Indonesia with the Indonesians getting the lion's share because we are such a nation of suck up lickspittles who are more worried that the rest of the world might imagine in their ivory towers that we are racist and bigots if we insist on decent treatment for those real minority groups suich as the East Timorese who helped us unbelievably bravely when Japan came so close to invading Australia.

How did we thank them? By allowing that most savage and criminal of regeimes in Indonesia to take over their country and rights and begin the slow slide intot he genocide of the East Timorese...using slaughter, rape and sterilisation and mass immigration.

But now finally the east Timorese have theior own country back no thanks to ASIO, The Australian Gov., nor the World community. The United Nations turned its back on the East Timorese because they are one of the most costly and ineffectual bodies on the planet.

Whew I needed to get THAT off my chest.