Friday, May 21 2010 (diary, Australian politics)

To my great relief I find that I am not the only one who absolutely deplored the highly disrespectful and truly childish attitude of the Australian media towards Shadow Treasurer's Joe Hockey presentation at the Canberra Press Club on Wednesday. Ian Smith voiced similar strong feelings against the "ill- mannered journalists" in yesterday's The Australian newspaper (page 12), branding them with the cliche "all care and no responsibility".

What had been Joe Hockey's crime would you believe (and don't laugh) ?
Hockey had opted to present his verbal speech about the broader issues and ideas of his party's fiscal policy before handing out the details of the (Opposition's proposed) Budget spending cuts in writing at the end of the discussion.
Realising (from long experience) the trivial nature and interests of the press gallery Hockey knew full well that if he would hand out the notes before his speech, nobody would listen to him as all would be reading the notes instead.
By reversing this procedure he hoped to start a mature discussion about overarching political principles rather than the usual trivial arguments about secondary details. Predictably, his parochial audience would not have this.

It are at moments like this that my heart goes out with overwhelming and enormous pride towards the political debate in my native country The Netherlands. And I vividly remember watching the Dutch political crisis of 1980 (about car pollution measures) unfold on TV. The debate in Parliament was conducted with so much style, dignity and sincere intelligence that I was watching it with tears in my eyes.

Thirty years on Parliamentary debate in Australian politics is still (as it was before) a disgraceful spectacle of shouting abuses at one another with little or no display of intelligent argument. And there can be no doubt that this country's journalists, eager to grab shallow headlines by stirring up this frenzy, rather than acting responsibly by deploring such immature behaviour, have much to do with prolonging it. Any improvement, sadly, is nowhere near in sight and Australian politics and the public in general are much the poorer for it.

Saturday, May 22 2010 (diary, rail travel in Europe)

The Aussie dollar has been in free fall this week. It dropped 10% against the Euro (more against the US dollar), from 72 to 65 Euro cents, then stabilised yesterday afternoon just above 66 Euro cents. Just in case this is not the end of it I decided to quickly purchase my Eurail Pass online for my travels in Germany and Holland.
Fortunately the Eurail Pass price had not gone up since a week ago, so I have purchased one for 6 days of unlimited 1st Class rail travel through Germany, France and the Benelux for just AU$ 549.- (€360). This is a good deal when you consider that a single fare 2nd Class Freiburg to Arnhem costs already about $200.-   So I am all set for my trip to Europe and now only need to get my Travel insurance organised.

This traveling by rail is an experiment for me. Hiring a car has of course its advantages and convenience, but in Europe it also has its frustrations. Frequent long car cues on the autobahns and problems with parking. Many of the smaller hotels don't have parking facilities, and if they do you need to pay €5 or 10 extra per day for it. I also found last time (in 2008) that once I was staying at a place the car just sat there for the duration while I did everything on foot. The Eurail pass is certainly a lot cheaper so I will see how I go. Public transport in Germany and Holland is very good.

Sunday - Tuesday, May 23 - 25 2010 (diary)

Sunday morning at 4 AM I watch the European Champions League final between Beiern Müich and Inter Milan in Madrid. On SBS TV, where else ? Inter wins 2-0 and deservedly so.
SBS is Australia's cultural lifeline for its millions of migrants, especially those like me, from Europe.

It is wonderful to still be able to watch those events which were so important in the daily lives of my friends and me when we grew up, like European soccer and the Tour de France. SBS also shows great European movies (I especially like the French ones) and superb Scandinavian detective dramas (Unit One, The Eagle, The Killing).

A very eventful schedule is starting next Friday with the 2010 Eurovision Song Festival, the platform from which so many famous European stars launched their glittering careers : Clif Richard, Julio Iglessias, Nana Mouskouri, Francoise Hardy, Abba, and many more. Then on the 11th of June the World Soccer Championships in Africa, immediately followed by the Tour de France. When that finally finishes I am just about in Europe myself.