2021
Scouts

While chatting to Peter Fitzsimons about his book Breaker Morant the name of Baden-Powell came up. ‘The Hero of Mafeking’ who, after leading British soldiers against unruly Zulus and Boers returned home to establish his ‘broomstick warriors’, to whom, decades later, I’d belong. Until, like the Breaker I’d be court-martialled and drummed from the regiment.

While Morant was as guilty as hell my trial was a travesty. Though spared the firing squad, and though now 81, I was planning to sue the Scouts for dosh and reputational damage. For embarrassing reasons they dropped ‘Boy’ from ‘Boy Scouts’ years ago. But my timing’s out. I now discover Baden-Powell is broke.

Well, at least in the US where they’ve declared bankruptcy – because they’re facing claims from almost 90,000 Scouts reporting sexual molestation. Those figures make the Scouts second only to the Roman Catholic Church when it comes to paedophilia.

Notwithstanding the Scouts’ legal manoeuvrings, I demand justice in 2021. Let me tell you what happened to young Phillip.

After being a member of the prepubescent cubs in East Kew my family decamped to East Melbourne where I was promoted to a Boy Scout troop that met in the basement of a massive bluestone Anglican Church. Here we earned badges for tying knots – something very difficult for a left-hander. We also went on camping trips with weren’t camp in the least. No Scoutmasters misbehaved. But we Scouts did, in all sorts of ways. Which takes me back to the bluestone basement.

Officialdom, i.e the Scoutmaster, hadn’t arrived so my fellow scouts were sharing a packet of Turf, then the cheapest cigarette brand. Ten of us, one each. Puffing away and coughing like mad. When we heard the Scoutmaster on the stairs. Being prepared – Baden-Powell’s instruction to Scouts the world over – I grabbed our ciggies and shoved them in the drawer of his desk. And we lined up, all innocence, for ‘inspection’. This involved standing at attention whilst the superior officer checked our uniforms and woggles, whatever they were.

Then the Scoutmaster stiffened, if you’ll forgive the expression, and sniffed the air. As well he might, given it stank of smoke. The smoke coming out of his drawer. The smoke caused by the burning smokes I’d shoved into it. And suddenly the desk was ablaze. With smoke billowing the Anglican Reverent, having called the fire brigade, thundered into the basement and demanded the name of the arsonist.

All the scouts – and the scoutmaster – pointed at Adams. I was forced then and there to hand over my woggle and shown the door as the fire brigade arrived. One of their easier jobs. The blaze was extinguished in a few second. The only damage was the desk and my previously pristine reputation.

Out of the Scouts at 13 I’d join the Communist Party at 15 – to become the only child with an ASIO file, though I wouldn’t get to see it for another 40 years. Naturally I expected ASIO to have all the dirt, my full criminal record with my attempt to incinerate an Anglican church linked to my intention to raze Australian democracy. But that section, like much in my ASIO file, seems heavily redacted.

Back to my trial. Note that I had no legal representation. I couldn’t call character witnesses. Not even mum knew I was on charges. Given the Scouts are bust I’ll not demand a big payout. It’s not about money. All I want is an apology and the return of my woggle. OK, OK, I confess. Like Breaker Morant I was as guilty as hell. But aren’t we all?

It is interesting to observe organised religions challenging governments whenever attempting to dilute the institution of marriage by making divorce more readily available. Religions rely on the scripture and tenets of their faith to justify their stance against the inexorable march of the many who seek marriage equality for all.

You may be asking yourself, what has this got to do with divorce and more importantly, what has this got to do with me? Th s didactic Cook’s tour of modern love is aimed at putting love, marriage, and divorce into a societal perspective. It is aimed at helping you understand why you may not have been able to pull off one of the most difficult relationships you are likely to enter into in your lifetime and to persuade you to be kinder to yourself if you are the one leaving and help you understand why you might have been left y your ‘life’ partner.

I am encouraging you to go easy on yourself and instead of focusing on the ‘failed’ relationship and marriage, focus on what you did well together – particularly as parents and what you may be able to replicate from that grab bag of parenting tools into the future. You may not be a couple, but you are still parents. You need to ask – what sort of parents were we and what sort do we want to be post separation?

Disneyland

Today's theme? Theme parks. In popular culture the most famous is Disneyland but they have, of course, a more venerable history.

Long before the Walt Dynasty founded their first in Anaheim the Egyptian dynasties built whoppers from Aswan to Alexandria, via Karnak and the Great Pyramids.

And what else is London than a theme park? For the British Monarchy, from Buckingham m and Windsor Palaces to the Tower of London. The Vatican? A theme park for Roman Catholicism’s sins of the fathers. . Wall Street? A theme park for the sins of capitalism. Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance? A theme park for the mythologizing of the military.

Welcome first to Disneyland, aka the Magic Kingdom, ruled over by a royal mouse and dukedoms of both ducks (Donald etc) of dogs (Goofy and Pluto}. Plus Snow White and her seven diminutive disciples and a collection of audio-animatronic robots vaguely resembling dead and dying Presidents. More of them later.

But Walt’s enterprise is dwarfed by a mightier kingdom than his Magic Kingdom. – the biggest theme park of them all. Washington DC. Embodying ‘manifest destiny’ and the US’ version/vision/parody of democracy. The scale is meant to intimidate, its architecture borrowing heavily from Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt. Giant domes. Awesome temples. Mighty obelisks. But like Disneyland it turns out to be as fragile as a Hollywood set, ready to be destroyed by a few thousand over-acting extras.

Enter stage right – far right – Donald J. Trump. I haven’t been to a Disneyland for decades and there are branches in Florida, Japan, Europe and for all I know on the Gold Coast. So I don’t know if there are high- tech Tussaud’s boasting audio-animatronic Donald’s on display (Is this Donald perhaps a relative of Disney’s?) or whether he’s been removed from display as he was from Twitter.

Recently, as you may have heard, the actual Donald J Trump called upon his followers to destroy the DC theme park. If he couldn’t have it then nobody could. Followers dressed in silly suits (rather like the poor sweating staff of Disneyland dressed up as Goofy) charged the Capitol to wreak havoc, hang the Veep and kill the elected reps and staff.

Disneyland(s) offer a choice of wild rides, but none as wilder than those proposed by DJT. Come and destroy not the faux-imperial buildings but the very idea they’re meant to inspire. As Louis XV said ‘après moi le deluge’. Forget such minor events as the Storming of the Bastille or the Bolshevik’s Storming of the Winter Palace. From the President who gave us Stormy Daniels here’s an order to storm the citadel of the American Dream. I had a flashback to the Fall of Saigon, fully expecting to see desperate survivors fighting for that last helicopter ride from the roof. With Trump escaping in his last helicopter ride from the White House lawn, giving Nixon’s ‘V for victory’ finger signs.

Totally appropriate to a President fleeing a crime scene – with the 400,000 Corona deaths exceeding the US death toll in Vietnam. Ideas blur and overlap – Agent Orange and the Orange president.

Donald, we hardly knew you. And we will miss you and your delightful family dreadfully. Please come back soon. Please run again in 2024. Meantime we’ll make do with the audio-animatronic doppelganger.

Well, while it lasted the US was a bold experiment. Sad to see it just another ‘shithole country’ (to quote DJT) and by any measure a Failed State.

Masks

As you can see, I’m tapping out these words whilst wearing a mask. While you, beloved reader, are reading them masked. It is

more than a coincidence that we’ve chosen the same design favoured by our Prime Minister. The most patriotic of masks, based on the Australian flag, complete with Union Jack and Southern Cross worn, like the PM’s (for some reason that entirely escapes me) upside down. This may be a reference to the notion of ‘the antipodes’, (i.e. the direct opposite of everything) given our upside downness on the planet. I’d prefer to think so as it would be faintly embarrassing if the PM had simply made a mistake.

So as not to mask my intentions, today’s column is about masks. And before we start let us acknowledge that the very word mask is fraught and problematic. To ‘mask your intentions’ is to be deceitful. Traditionally the mask hides not only one’s appearance but one’s true nature. Little wonder that honest decent citizens shun them, going so far as to denounce them as an attack on their sovereignty.

Before Covid people who concealed their faces were seen as sinister.

You will recall Pauline Hanson wearing a burqa into Parliament to dramatise the dangers of Islam. And while today’s Victorian Police might demand that you surrender your sovereignty by wearing a facial covering it seems only yesterday, they shot Ned Kelly for wearing a metallic burqua. (Of course Ned’s full-metal-jacket has an ancient pedigree. In the royal sport of jousting both horse and jockey were armour-plated. Scaled down to the modern Olympics, behold the fencing mask.)

Masks were long favoured by those who share Ned Kelly’s interest in bank-robbing. Few self-respecting blokes making unlawful withdrawers were seen without them. They’re as important to proceedings as a sawn-off shotgun and a bag for the loot. Indeed we remember a time when banks were disinclined to welcome people wearing hoodies of crash helmets, let along masks. Now you can’t get into a supermarket, or a presidential inauguration, without one. Better still, two. ‘Double masking’ is the latest Covid fashion statement.

Prior to Ned K’s tin hat was that poor anonymous ‘Man in the Iron Mask’ – forced to wear it for 34 years in French prisons including the Bastille. A lighter model mask was also mandated for another unfortunate Frenchman, the Phantom of the Opera House. Given the French were such trend-setters it’s hardly surprising that the top French fashion houses are now producing diamond-studded masks for haute couture and pret-a-porter.

While top-to-toe masking has always been required by the KKK, In the US mask-wearing is seen by right-wing ratbags as a communist plot, reason enough to storm the Capitol and kill people. China? They’re

in two minds. Masks to slow the contagion of Covid are approved, even demanded. Yet they are seen as treasonable in Hong Kong where protestors seeking to slow China’s pandemic of totalitarianism use masks to escape facial recognition technology.

Transformative masks are central to many a ceremonial occasion: skull masks for Mexico’s Day of the Dead, carnival masks in Rio and Venice and African Fesima masks. And arguably Bali is totally a mask culture. (Margaret Mead believed that even when Balinese weren’t wearing them their smiles were masks).

Who was that masked man? The Lone Ranger – with Tonto? It seems we’re all masked-up now. It’s a big ask to wear a mask but it may avoid a death mask.