The Beautiful, Passionate Revolutionary

I always criticise Christianity — the Catholic Church in particular — and that’s because in my view they operate like a criminal organisation protecting paedophiles as they do.

I also question the story of Jesus itself; I used to think it was a tale of “I told you so.”

What I mean is this: he was asked to defend and prove that he was the Son of God, and he refused — which, in its own way, was both defiant and unreasonable. But the point is, he was crucified, and then came back to life, and in doing so it almost feels like he was saying, “I told you so.” And there’s something about that I don’t like.

But on the flip side of that, he was the poor carpenter’s son from Galilee who spent his short life turning the world upside down with radical love — love that crossed boundaries, defied power, and saw dignity where others saw none.

He sought out the people everyone else ignored — the sick, the poor, women, foreigners, and outcasts — and sat with them as equals. He preached that the kingdom of God belonged not to the powerful but to the meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers.

He was fierce against hypocrisy and wealth, gentle with the broken, and utterly uncompromising in his compassion. He owned nothing, feared no authority, and left behind no institution — just a way of living that challenged injustice and lifted the forgotten.

I know a lot of Christians turn to Jesus as the Son of God — or even as God himself. They ask for things in prayer, they seek forgiveness, they want eternal life. It all seems to be about what people can get from Jesus.

But if you stop and think about it, even if he couldn’t give you a single thing — no miracles, no promises, no afterlife — Jesus, on his own, was simply a pretty good bloke.  In fact, he was the best kind of bloke. Everything that he stands for is what I hold true in this life. Not the divine Christ but Jesus the man. 

The man, the beautiful, passionate revolutionary, the rebel. I don't know how I missed this. I spent my whole life thinking about the equality of man and the value of each life, and he was right in front of me, teaching me that we are all the same.

I’ll never become part of a structured Christian church. I’ve been to many, and when I was younger I had this real sense of arrogance, thinking I knew better than what they were preaching or teaching. I also don’t like organised religion. I think someone should start a religion just about Jesus the man. People should teach about the example he set for us all while he was alive, and not talk about what we want from him.

Something I always used to say was that crucifixion was simply the form of capital punishment used in Roman-occupied Palestine at the time. By crucifying Jesus, they weren’t doing anything special; they were just doing what they did to countless others.

But maybe that’s what makes it so extraordinary — that he was, on the surface, just any old guy. A carpenter’s son, making up stories that he was the Son of God, claiming powers that could raise the dead. And yet he went through all that physical and emotional agony for us. He took on the weight of human cruelty, the full measure of suffering, and died a violent, humiliating death — so that, according to the story, we could all go to heaven.

But there’s a reason Jesus did that for us. And even if none of it were true — even if he wasn’t the Son of God — he believed he was taking on the sins of the world for the sake of something better, for the hope of redemption. He carried that burden because he thought it might save everyone else. It takes a pretty extraordinary person to do that — or at the very least, a heart big enough to try.

Jesus was a good man. He was a rebel and I like that.

Tonight Mum told me that when she was a journalist at Channel 7, her chief of staff was a devout Catholic. She said Catholics aren’t supposed to eat meat on Fridays — not just Good Friday, but every Friday — and she and her colleagues used to invite him to join them for lunch, knowing full well what they were doing. They’d bring beautiful plates of meat he couldn’t touch. In other words, they antagonised the poor man.

I actually think that’s a pretty shitty thing to do, but Mum said he had a good sense of humour about it all.

I’ll close by saying this about Jesus: he was a teacher of radical compassion, a companion of the poor. He challenged hypocrisy, and he told the powerful that they had forgotten love. He lived a humble, rebellious life — and after he died, the Catholic Church turned his story into the very thing he stood against.

Free, Free Palestine!

Today I went to my first real rally for Palestine and it was also my first real rally for anything, for that matter. It started on the steps of Parliament House, and we marched down North Terrace, took a right hand turn onto Pulteney Street, and ended up at Hindmarsh Square. The rally started at 2:00pm, so I asked Mum to drop me off, which she did. I stood at the base of the steps of Parliament House as different people began arriving.

I took the following photo of a group from SA Socialists. I like this photo because there’s a man behind them holding up a handmade sign that says, “Israel: The New Holocaust Deniers.”

More and more people started to arrive with all sorts of signs. Some were shocking, like the one below:

And this one:

I thought the printed signs were incredibly effective, but I really liked the handmade ones. Here are a few I spotted below:

I particularly liked this one:

I took the following photo of people sitting on the steps of Parliament House with their signs, waiting for the speakers.

While I was waiting to meet up with a group I’m involved with, a deaf woman asked me to take a photo of her holding up a sign. I took the photo, and since I can sign letters, I spelled out a few words for her, which I think she appreciated. I finally met up with the group, and we all sat on some steps that were quite low down.

The speakers got the crowd revved up, and everyone was yelling and shouting things like “Free, free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as well as responses like “Shame.” People were beating drums, and it was loud. One of the women I was with was a speaker, and she made a powerful speech, ending with a poem she’d written about the situation in Gaza. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have sat on the steps—we couldn’t see the speakers, and I got really self-conscious, like people were looking at me. I know they weren’t; there was such a large crowd and they were focused on the speakers, but all the same I felt like a bit of a goose. I took the following two photos from my spot on the steps:

The photos I took might not make it look like there were that many people, but I’d say the crowd was a few thousand strong. After the speakers, we all got up and started walking down North Terrace toward Pulteney Street and then to Hindmarsh Square. The group I was with handed me a flag, and I held it over my shoulder. There were police everywhere. People—myself included—were chanting all sorts of things, and I felt very at home among them. You can see three photos I took of the march to Hindmarsh Square.

When we reached Hindmarsh Square, people were chanting through loudspeakers and everyone stood around for a while. I then left with my group and we went to The Griffins for a drink. I didn’t stay long—just a quick chat—and then I came home. At the moment our gas heater isn’t working, and even though it isn’t too cold outside, it’s absolutely freezing inside. We’ve got the bar heater and the radiator on full blast in the lounge room, and we are currently huddled up next to them to try to keep warm. We’re going to get the gas heater serviced, hopefully this week.

Back to Palestine. Australia, the UK, Canada, Portugal, France, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, and San Marino all recognised Palestine as a state at the latest United Nations General Assembly meeting this September.

They were saying at the rally today that it’s a little too late for all of that, but I think it’s a positive thing.

On Friday night Mum and I watched Benjamin Netanyahu address the UN to an almost entirely empty house. Some delegates didn’t rock up at all, and most of those who did staged a walkout.

He was defiant, though. He said the states that recognised Palestine had done a bad thing, he said there would be no Palestinian state, and he seemed to patronise what little audience there was with pop quizzes and by asking them to zoom in on a QR code he was wearing on his jacket.

But what I found morally and ethically repugnant was this: he said he had speakers placed around Gaza so the hostages could hear him during that very speech. He addressed them and said some crap—I can’t remember exactly, but from memory it was about how they hadn’t been forgotten. He also said he had arranged for his speech to go through to Palestinian phones.

If you think about that, it’s a kind of cruel and inhumane torment. I don’t know how true it was that he had speakers set up so the hostages could hear, but if he did, it wouldn’t have been just the hostages who heard him.

Scared, vulnerable, completely shattered Palestinians would have heard it too. That would have scared them, intimidated them, and inflicted what I’m sure could only be described as a form of terror. He really is a megalomaniacal, sociopathic maniac.

Since I last wrote in this blog, I have applied for a job—not just any job, but a job at my beloved Red Cross in their Lifeblood call centre. The role involves dealing with donors and possibly potential donors; I’m not entirely sure. I want the job so badly, because, as I’ve written here before, I believe in the mission of the Red Cross.

When I did my résumé, I realised I have no chance at this job. I pretty much have no formal qualifications, I haven’t worked in ten years, and I’m not sure there’s anything employable about me. I applied through SEEK; you had to attach a cover letter and résumé, and you also had to fill out a questionnaire. There were some basic questions, and then came the one I wasn’t expecting but when I saw it, I wasn’t surprised: “Do you have a criminal conviction?”

My conviction is technically spent, and it came up in my volunteer application with the organisation because I deal with aged care and vulnerable people. In a normal police check it should be recorded as spent. I didn’t know how to answer, because I thought if I said no it might still come up, so I said yes.

That really upset me. I didn’t cry, but I realised this conviction is going to haunt me for the rest of my natural born life. I thought it would exclude me from the shortlist, so I felt I had nothing to lose. There was a contact name in the Red Cross material, so I emailed her: I explained that my conviction is a traffic offence from 2013 and she emailed back and thanked me for letting her know.

The next day I received an email saying I’d made it to the next round and asking me to do an audio interview through a website. I did it, and now I’m waiting to hear if I’ve made it through. I highly doubt I will—I’d bet my life I won’t get this job—but I had to try. If I don’t get it, I’m going to temp and study online.

I’m going through a transformational period in my life.I’ve mentioned before that I’m dealing with a very adult problem, and I'm very much an adult. To be honest, I’m not far from being a senior citizen. Very soon I’ll be forced to confront this problem.

I’ve also become incredibly reflective, thinking about my future—what’s left of it. I don’t know how I’m going to spend the rest of my life living with this criminal conviction.

I got it in the first place because of my fear of judges. That fear isn’t so much about the judge himself as about what he represents to me—the person I was when I had the audacity to leave a Post-it note on a District Court judge’s bench; the person I was when, so out of it, I sent him an absolutely fucking insane letter exposing myself as the fake, the phoney that I am.

So I Googled our Chief Justice, who I’m currently having my book of oaths rebound for. I hoped I might read something that would inspire me to finally let go of my judge issues.

I did find something: His Honour is giving an oration in Melbourne on 6 November for the Hellenic Australian Lawyers Association. I booked a ticket and I’m going to fly to Melbourne to see him.

I am hoping to meet him after the speech, as I often have with other speakers. It will be one of the most confronting things I’ll ever challenge myself to do. I don’t know if it will work, but I feel this experience may help me let it go. I’m the sort of person who is into creative ways of dealing with problems, and I think this is both creative and practical at the same time.

I don’t know if it will be a big or small event, but I do know there is a high chance I could say hello to His Honour and get a selfie with him after he speaks. Regardless of what happens, I will see the judge up close and personal. It will force me to face the stark reality that judges are just human beings. And whilst they aren’t all good, they aren’t all bad either. And if I ever find myself in a position where I want to contest a traffic fine again, I need to have the courage to step up to the plate and go to court.

Lock Them Up!

It’s Monday, and last Friday Mum and I met my brother’s wife, Julie, and her mother for coffee at Burnside Village. Julie lives in London with my brother and their two children, but she was in Adelaide for her dad’s 80th birthday. She was also here because a close friend’s husband had recently died of oesophageal cancer — he was only 40. I don’t know the family, but it’s so sad.

I don’t have a close relationship with Julie. I’ve known her for about twenty years because she and my brother dated in their late teens and early twenties, then they got back together in their early thirties. We’ve known each other that long, but there’s no spark between us. It’s a shame — my brother used to date and be friends with a woman called Holly, who I got on with really well; she was outgoing and friendly and we’d hang out socially. Julie, to be perfectly honest, is cold.

Mum and I arrived at Burnside early, so I wandered around the outdoor area and had a look at some of the fountains. You can see two photos below of one of them — it has colourful balls for children to play with.

The photo above shows a tiny brass frog — a cute addition to the stone. Below is another little brass critter on the fountain, a gecko.

There is a cafe with seats inside and outside and I grabbed a seat outside while Mum went to Haighs Chocolates to get some choccys for Julie to take home for my brother and their kids.

Julie and her mother Maria joined me and they were freezing cold so we went and sat underneath some heaters.

Mum joined us and gave the chocolates to Julie, and she didn't seem overly thrilled. She didn't seem disappointed — just ambivalent to it all.

We made general chit chat. I told Maria and Julie about how my brother told me he had extensive knowledge of conceptual artwork and my letter projects weren't unique or appealing artistically. Everyone laughed and I told them that I intended to prove him wrong.

This was one of those conversations where it was all so artificial and polite. I hate that kind of thing. I want to get down to the nitty gritty. Julie was quite rude to her mother a few times and I didn't like that.

It's funny Julie, and even her friend who's husband died are both in very high management positions. They are two years younger than me so around 42 and it's hard not to compare myself to them. But I have to say, I'd rather be a broke struggling artist than a stuck up witch who is rude to their mother.

We stayed for around an hour and then Mum said we had to go. We didn't have anywhere to be but I think Mum had had enough of the crap as well. 

We stopped at Norwood on the way home to pick up a few things, and I went and had a look out the front of Metrofresh and Petals on Parade. This is the kind of commercial flower display I like: ready made bouquets and poseys in buckets of water out the front of a shop. You can see photos below.

I love the colours of the arrangements below. Seeing them out the front in the heart of the shopping centre reminds me of how florists display flowers in Europe.

Later in the day I took my badly bound book for the Chief Justice to the post office and sent it to a new bookbinder in Melbourne. I’ve had an extensive conversation with the administrative assistant at the bindery and I’m confident the binder’s work will meet the standard I expect for the Chief Justice. I ordered a clamshell box to house the book; in total it cost $1,188. Altogether the whole project, including the bad binding, has cost me $2,000. That’s a lot of money, but it’s worth it to me — I would do it again in a heartbeat. I’m also considering having my book for the Speaker rebound as well.

Here’s the book all packed up — getting weighed before it heads off to the bindery.

I was just watching the news and reading on The Advertiser online about a 19 year old rapper, Logan Cudarans, professionally known as “SkuX”. He is also a self confessed youth street gang member and has pleaded guilty to knocking two people off their motorbike in a high speed collision at the Gilles Plains McDonald’s. Apparently, all parties had mistakenly taken the fast food outlet’s driveway for the exit to a car park. The man and the woman SkuX hit were injured and hospitalised.

His lawyer, Travis Moran, said that “He was on his L plates with another man in the car who did not have a full licence … he panicked and drove off.” He then went on to say “Given his circumstances, relative youth and the unique nature of his employment, we ask the court to release him on a bond.”

After SkuX was arrested on 11 May he was charged with leaving an accident scene after causing harm, driving in a reckless or dangerous manner, and one aggravated count of driving without due care.

The Advertiser online reported that SkuX pleaded guilty to leaving an accident scene and driving without due care, after which prosecutors withdrew the remaining charge.

The Advertiser went on to say that Mr Moran said Cudarans continued to enjoy the support of both his label and his family, each of whom had provided character references.

Then I read the words I wish a lawyer had one day advocated for me with:

“With regard to a conviction, we are in Your Honour’s hands … he does need to travel for his employment.”

In sentencing, Magistrate Roderick Jensen told Cudarans his panic had led to as much of a criminal offence as had his poor driving. However, he accepted the offending was isolated and the references stressed Cudarans’ genuine remorse and contrition.

“Sometimes events like this can actually have a positive effect,” he said.
“They might encourage you to understand that being an adult will sometimes be a difficult thing, in that it’s very important to take responsibility for your actions.
“I have no doubt that, if you had your time again, you would probably do things differently.”

Magistrate Jensen elected not to record convictions, placed Cudarans on a $200, two year bond, and disqualified him from driving for 18 months.

This story really struck a chord with me because 19 year old SkuX dodged a conviction for leaving an accident scene after causing harm, driving in a reckless or dangerous manner, and an aggravated count of driving without due care — while I have a conviction for using my mobile phone while driving. I don’t diminish the significance of what I did. I actually can’t remember doing it, but I need to take responsibility for it and own up to the fact that I most likely did. It’s funny how the world works.

He’s lucky he didn’t get a conviction — as I’ve said before on this blog, they never truly go away. After ten years they may not appear in a basic search, but if you’re working with vulnerable people they can still show up on the more detailed checks. I’ll bet you have to declare past convictions when travelling to the USA or other countries. So I have made the decision that I am only going to travel to countries that let common criminals like me have safe passage.

Albo just formally recognised Palestinian statehood in New York before he speaks at the UN tonight — it’s about time. I can imagine the Liberals will make a fuss, but the fact he’s officially done it makes my heart happy. I can’t wait till tomorrow to watch everything that happens at the UN on YouTube. 

You know what I was just thinking — Netanyahu, Putin and Trump are all men in their 70s trying to keep out of jail. I say: lock them up!

A Cowardly Act

Yesterday Mum wasn’t feeling well, so I sent her a bunch of roses from Tynte Street Flowers. You can see them below. If you look closely at the second close-up photo, there’s a rose that I’m convinced must be genetically engineered — it has stripes. Nanny used to grow some like that in her garden, and she once mentioned they were artificial. Whatever they are, I love them.

On 9 September 2025, Israel carried out an airstrike in Doha, Qatar — an unprecedented violation. The strike targeted Hamas political leadership, including residences of the Political Bureau, right in the heart of Qatar’s capital.

I reject this — with every fibre of what feels just — because this strike is not just militarily or politically dangerous. It is morally destructive. By launching a strike inside a sovereign state known to act as mediator, Israel shows itself not merely as frightened or bold, but as arrogant — believing itself immune from consequence. It treats international borders and norms as suggestions.

The audacity is staggering. To attack while ceasefire negotiations are on the table, in part brokered with Qatar’s involvement, is to spit in the face of diplomacy and hope. Israel lives with impunity — striking with precision it claims, knowing there may be condemnation, but seeming unwilling to bear any genuine accountability.

Qatar condemned the assault in the strongest terms, calling it a cowardly act, a violation of law and sovereignty.

If we accept this kind of action — an airstrike inside another country working toward peace — without real consequences, what message does that send? That might makes right. That diplomacy is optional. That law, borders, sovereignty are only barriers if the stronger choose them to be.

The whole thing makes me so angry. So much of the world condemned the attack but the United States just fell short of it. 

The United States called the Israeli strike in Doha an “unfortunate incident” that does not advance the goals of either Israel or America. President Trump said he felt “very badly” about the attack, especially as Qatar is a close ally and a key mediator in regional peace talks.

Washington stressed that it had only been warned at the last minute, too late to intervene, though a message was passed to Qatar through a U.S. envoy. While reaffirming its support for Israel’s broader security concerns, the U.S. made clear that carrying out such an attack inside the territory of a sovereign ally was deeply troubling and risks undermining diplomacy at a critical moment.

That is simply not good enough. While the United States stands idly by, international law is continually broken and Israel’s behaviour flies in the face of decency and common humanity. By giving Israel impunity for this strike, the United States is effectively saying: you can do anything, and we will not abandon you. This silence is not neutrality — it is complicity.

Israel has a pattern of striking just as negotiations begin to gather momentum. It happened in Doha this September, and it has happened before. The timing is not accidental — it signals a refusal to allow diplomacy to settle. They do not want a ceasefire, not truly. Instead, they reach for force whenever talks are on the table, undermining the very possibility of peace.

We saw this same behaviour in the past with Iran and the United States. At moments when dialogue seemed possible, Israel’s strikes shattered the fragile ground of negotiation. This is not self-defence; it is sabotage of diplomacy, a deliberate breaking of hope before it has a chance to take root.

The whole thing makes me furious. There is nothing anyone can do to stop Israel. Back in 1947, they listened when the United Nations passed Resolution 181, the Partition Plan, because it suited them. Then the UN carried legitimacy. But now, as the UN condemns their actions, as it pleads with them to end the genocide, the apartheid, the violations of international law — it means nothing. They no longer recognise the UN. How can this be?

I follow world politics, not in an academic or formal way, but through my own eyes. I’ve always liked the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, but since the bombing of Qatar someone else has captured my attention and deeply inspired me: His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the Prime Minister of Qatar.

He is only a year older than me, yet he has achieved so much in his life. What I admire most is his drive to mediate. He has stepped into conflicts across the world, but most significantly he has worked tirelessly between Hamas and Israel. Under his leadership, Qatar has negotiated fragile ceasefires, facilitated the release of hostages, and carried messages between sides when no one else would.

I often wonder what drives people like him. Is there something in it for them? But with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, I genuinely believe it comes from decency. I think he believes in peace — and that makes me believe he is a very special person.

Qatar itself seems like a just and righteous country. Small, but so useful and important on the world stage. Its population is only about 3.12 million people, yet its significance is immeasurable, built on a willingness to negotiate with those no one else will — for example, Hamas. And something else I find pretty cool is that Qatar has one of the world’s best airlines, Qatar Airways, and Al Jazeera, which I watch every day.

His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has inspired me simply through his role as a mediator. The way he contributes to the world is by his genuine hunger to broker peace. He seems to live and breathe it, and it feels like his destiny to take on that role — both for Qatar and internationally.

That realisation has made me turn inward and ask what I can contribute. For me, it has to be through letters and artwork. I now identify as an emerging epistolary artist, and I will use my passion for letter writing to draw attention to the genocide in Palestine, to Aboriginal deaths in custody here in Australia, and to our history of Blackbirding.

I believe traditional letter writing is the most powerful medium of communication. My work will be to write these letters, exhibit the responses, and let that exchange itself become art. I know there are legal questions I will need to explore in time, but I trust that part of the journey will unfold as it should.

In other news, my Botswana trip is off. In the end, Maiki had to stay in Tanzania to finish his PhD early, and I didn’t want to go alone, so I contacted the travel agent to cancel. I was worried they might be annoyed, but I’m sure they see that sort of thing every day. I’m hoping to get some of the money back, which I’ll put towards another trip to Cambodia, probably mid next year, to see my two buddies Thy and Tim and finish off my book.

I am sad not to be going to Botswana, but in a way I’m almost glad not to be leaving Mum home alone for three weeks.

I decided to have my oaths book for the Chief Justice rebound. I simply couldn’t give it to him in the state it’s in now. I’ve found a few other bookbinders, more than I realised, and I’ve spoken with three of them.

The first is a traditional bookbinder by trade. He doesn’t have a website, which puts me off because I want to see examples of his work, but he clearly knows everything about bookbinding. When I told him I had paid nearly $800 for the bad binding, he was shocked. He said it was far too much, especially for such poor quality.

The second option is a bookbinding business in Sydney. They seem competent, but they can’t emboss too many words on the cover, which concerns me. That said, I’ve decided to change the words anyway, so perhaps it doesn’t matter. I went back and forth with her yesterday, and she seemed good. She promised to call me this morning but instead emailed to delay until tomorrow, and that put me off — I want someone who will prioritise this job.

The third bookbinder appears traditional as well, and all I’ve seen is their website. But they said they could finish the work urgently, which is what I want — I need the book in the Chief’s hands by December. I feel he may become Chancellor of Adelaide University, and I don’t want to send it to him once he has taken on that role. For that reason, I’ll probably choose the third bookbinder, and I’m just waiting to hear back.

It’s the right thing to do to have the book rebound. I want only the best for him. As for the original book I had done for the Speaker, I’ll give that to him — it’s not as bad as the Chief’s copy and looks reasonably standard.

I’ve had a break from writing, but I just got back from the steps of Parliament House where I went for another vigil for Palestine. I caught an Uber into town and had the chattiest driver I’ve ever met in any taxi or ride. Normally I just want to sit quietly and get from A to B, but today I found something comforting about this man who really was a motor mouth.

He talked about life as an Uber driver — his shifts, women in the industry — and when he asked where I was going, I told him to a vigil. He didn’t know what it was for, but he said it was good that I was doing what I wanted to do. He really was a positive soul.

When I arrived at Parliament House, the woman who organises the vigil was there setting up. I took a photo of a “Stop the Genocide” sign. I know I took one last time, but this one is a little different — it has a photo of the press on it.

I really like the organiser — she’s a cool chick. I don’t know how old she is, probably younger than me, but I admire her. Today she said she wasn’t sure what the turnout would be, but that she didn’t care; she would stand there by herself waving a Palestinian flag if she had to. She also mentioned that they have to book the steps of Parliament House to hold a vigil. I didn’t realise that — I thought anyone could just turn up and stand there.

Today was good. The response from people walking past was mostly positive. There was one woman who kept saying “God bless Israel” quite loudly, but apart from that most people walked past with a thumbs up or a fist pump. Below you can see the view from where I was standing.

I was holding up the same sign as last time, the one about Israel killing journalists. Towards the end of the vigil a young Middle Eastern man came over and asked if he could stand with us for a while. He picked up a sign that said “Free Gaza” and held it up for about five minutes before leaving. I was glad I went again this evening.

Mark Of Shame

I have a positive update about my Auntie — my mum’s sister. Not long ago, she was in a really bad way after a serious fall, and both Mum and I truly thought we were going to lose her. She’s been at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and today we got some good news: she’s been moved to the rehabilitation ward, which is such an encouraging sign. Below, you can see the flowers Mum and I sent her today from Tynte Flowers.

This evening, I got a call from a mobile number. I assumed it was a sales call, so I ignored it — but then the caller left a message, which a salesperson never does. The message was from a man who greeted me by name and asked me to call him back urgently.

I had no idea who it was — he didn’t identify himself. I sent him a message asking who he was, but he didn’t respond, so I thought, stuff it, and called him back.

When he answered, he said he didn’t want to tell me his name for his privacy, but he explained that he was an NDIS provider and that he was running from the government. Straight away, I knew exactly who it was: Dr Lewis Clements, the schizophrenic man who contacted me earlier this year and scared the shit out of me. Back then, I was convinced he was going to show up at our house and kill Mum and me in a frenzy.

He started asking me questions — how we knew each other, details about myself — all while using my name, yet he seemed to have no real idea who I actually was. Then he said he had me listed under his “Adelaide contacts.” That annoyed me. I wanted to tell him I was not his “contact” — I was someone who used his services years ago, and it was unbelievably inappropriate for him to reach out to me like this. But I didn’t want to stir him up more than he already was.

He said he needed somewhere to stay, and I told him he couldn’t stay with me because I had to think about my family. I suggested he look at some of the homelessness services available. He said they would refuse him because he had evidence of corruption against the government. As annoyed as I was that he’d contacted me again, I still really felt for him. I told him I’d look up some places overnight and get back to him tomorrow.

My intention was to find details for a few shelters where he might be able to stay, but before I could, he sent me another message saying he couldn’t wait until tomorrow and that people were outside his car calling him a faggot, a rapist, and a pedophile. I sent him the number for Mental Health Triage and told him that, while I knew it wasn’t necessarily a mental health crisis, they would be able to get him somewhere safe for the night.

He told me he couldn’t go anywhere because of his service dog, but I’m sure they could find someone to look after the dog while he was in safe accommodation. Since then, he’s sent me more messages about the evidence he claims to have against the government, but I’ve decided I’m not going to engage.

I could easily get pulled into this rabbit hole with him, wanting to help, but he isn’t like the beautiful homeless man I gave $100 to earlier in the week. Dr Clements feels unpredictable, maybe even predatory, and I can’t ignore the fact that people are calling him a rapist and a pedophile. What if there’s something in that? Still, in saying that, even monsters like that still deserve a warm bed for the night.

Aside from the very real temptation to help him, I cannot express how angry it makes me that he contacted me at all. We spoke once, for about an hour, during what I believed was a professional conversation — and for him to keep my mobile number and reach out so long afterwards feels like a violation of my privacy. It’s intrusive, and I don’t like the way it makes me feel.

That said, I’m also glad I spoke to him, because it reassured me that he doesn’t actually know anything about me apart from my number and my first name.

Yesterday, I received the two bound books I ordered — one for the Chief Justice of South Australia and one for the Speaker of the House of Assembly. For the Chief Justice, I had oaths from Supreme Courts around the world bound together, and for the Speaker, I collected the oaths used in parliaments across the globe.

I’ve spoken about this project before on this blog, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been able to capture just how significant, important, and personal the Supreme Court Oaths project is to me. I started collecting the oaths back in 2012, when I wrote to a handful of Chief Justices, and then in 2024 I wrote to every single Supreme Court in the world.

If I tried to put a price on this work, I couldn’t. You can’t put a value on the hours spent sourcing names and addresses for Chief Justices and Supreme Courts across the globe. You can’t put a price on what it has meant to me — a disgraced former court officer searching for meaning in the very oaths I once administered myself, oaths that carried no weight at the time because I was never sworn in by my own Chief Justice.

The oaths became more than words to me. I associate them with the idea of Lady Justice being blind, with love being blind, and with the promises made in courtrooms around the world every day. They hold a weight and a beauty that can’t be measured, and I would never want to try. That’s why I made the decision to gift this book to the Chief Justice of South Australia.

For me, he represents something different. He defies my understanding of what it means to be a judge. He doesn’t carry the elitist attitude that so many of them seem to have, yet he’s grounded in the universal principles of law and justice. The oaths themselves are something I treasure deeply. Someone once asked me what I would take from the house if it was burning down, and I said I’d take the oaths.

They represent my own exploration of oaths, love, and justice, and they became my first challenge as an artist — to create a pristine, museum-quality book that I could present to the Chief Justice. I don’t want to engage with him or seek any kind of interaction, because that would make me feel weird. But it would have meant so much to me to know that he might have liked the book, and maybe even seen it as a meaningful piece of conceptual artwork.

However, yesterday my heart literally broke into a million pieces when I received both the book for the Chief Justice and the Speaker back from the bookbinder. They look amateur, flawed, and lacking the signature of satisfactory craftsmanship I had hoped for. I am so disappointed. It’s no exaggeration to say I can physically feel the pain of losing the idea that my oaths would be finished to a standard where I could present them to the Chief Justice with any sort of integrity or pride.

You can see below both books and the embossing of the words on the front cover for the Speaker of the House of Assembly and the Chief Justice. I’ve taken an extra photo to show that some of the letters didn’t even print properly. I honestly don’t know how the bookbinders could have done this job and held their head high.

I’d already had problems with them. I made several attempts to communicate about the lettering and spacing, and they would take days to respond — if they responded at all. In the end, I sent them a terse email saying, “I’ve never dealt with a business that operates like this” and “I don’t know what I’ve done as a consumer to deserve to be treated like this.” We eventually resolved the lack of communication, but after receiving the finished books, I can’t help wondering if my feedback prompted them to do a half-arsed job on something that meant so much to me personally.

I spent over $1200 on both books, with the Chief Justice’s costing the most, and I would have happily paid double that for quality grade, top-notch craftsmanship. Instead, I’ve been short-changed. I even thought about leaving a negative Google review, but that’s not who I am, and it’s not who I want to be. I don’t want to leave that kind of negativity floating around in the universe. But at the same time, these bookbinders have really messed up the most important creative project I have ever undertaken.

My other thought was to take the book to a book restorer and have it redone, but I set myself the goal of sending the oaths this year, and the bookbinding industry in Australia moves slowly. So, I’m still going to send it to him. I shouldn’t — in many ways, it’s so bad that it feels like it shows no regard for him personally. But I still think he might find something meaningful in the oaths themselves, so I’ll send it anyway and leave out my contact details so he can’t reach me to tell me about the low bar I’ve set for anyone who wants to bind letters and send them to him in the future.

And the thing is — he would know a thing or two about bound books. He would have shelves of those stunning law volumes, beautifully lettered, with flawless craftsmanship. And here I am, sending him these ruined oaths. 

The book for the Speaker isn’t as bad. It’s still deeply imperfect, but I suppose because it doesn’t matter as much to me, I’m not as upset about it. This whole experience, though, has taught me something about myself — about my own desire to master the art of neon glass bending and glass blowing. I want to develop a solid, high-quality skill set in both art forms, which are so closely connected. I want to create works that I can be proud of — proud to exhibit, proud to share, and proud to put my name on.

I’ve also learned that by trusting my oaths with a completely random and unknown bookbinder, I made myself vulnerable to imperfection — and in many ways, that’s my own fault. I should have sent a test or tried harder to find someone else, but I didn’t, and now I’m left without the result I was hoping for. I need to take responsibility for that, cut my losses, and send the book.

These bookbinders, though, should be ashamed of themselves. After delivering work like this, they somehow had the audacity to stick their sticker inside the front cover. To me, it doesn’t feel like a signature of craftsmanship — it feels like they’ve left a mark of shame.

Across The Border

In 2013, I had a life-changing and devastating medical issue — the thing that, in many ways, became my flaw. At the time, I completely isolated myself from the world and from everyone in it. I had my friend Rebecca — Nanny’s granddaughter — and, of course, my mum, but really… I was very much alone.

For years, I stayed there — hiding away. Even now, twelve years later, I’m still pulling myself out of the rabbit hole I went down and slowly learning to meet new people and socialise again.

In 2015, still isolated and withdrawn, I reconnected with Maiki, who had been my former boyfriend Kijanda’s best friend back in Tanzania. Kijanda had been tragically shot dead while working as a detective for the local police force, and somehow, Maiki and I found our way back into contact. I can’t even remember exactly how we reconnected — maybe Facebook, maybe something else — but once we started talking, we never really stopped.

At first, it was just casual chats on Facebook Messenger. Then we moved to Skype. And now, ten years on, we talk on WhatsApp almost every single day.

When Maiki and I started speaking, he was also working as a detective in the police force while finishing his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. He was a dreamer — and I liked that about him. I felt comfortable talking to him in a way I didn’t with anyone else. He was so far removed from my life here in Adelaide, and most importantly, he didn’t care about my medical issue. He never made it a thing. We just talked.

I’d spent a lot of time in Tanzania before, but through my friendship with Maiki, I learned so much more about what life was really like there — about poverty, survival, and scraping by.

Maiki had — and still has — a wife and two boys. His wife is an awful, awful woman. At one point, she beat their pet dog with a large rock after it destroyed part of her garden. To me, that’s unforgivable. I have no guilt whatsoever about spending so much time talking to her husband, purely based on the fact that I strongly suspect she might actually be a serial killer.

By 2018, Maiki and I had been speaking every single day for almost three years. That year, I decided to go back to Tanzania to visit him. I was extremely apprehensive about returning after the terrible experience I’d had there back in the 2000s — but I was so grateful for my friendship with Maiki that I knew I had to go.

Because of my flaw, even back then, I made a decision: if I was going to travel the world, I would only travel business class. It wasn’t about luxury — it was about security and protection.

What I mean by that is this: if something happened while I was overseas and I needed to get home urgently, all I’d have to do is get myself into a taxi, make my way to the airport, approach the airline, and from there they would look after me.

I’d travelled business class once before — from Adelaide to Chile on our big Antarctic trip — but my mum had paid for that as a special gift. This time, though, I needed to pay my own way for a business class trip from Adelaide to Arusha, Tanzania.

After a lot of searching, I found a reasonably priced business class ticket from Adelaide to Nairobi with Etihad Airways. From there, I planned to take a bus from Nairobi to Arusha — only about four hours across the border.

I took out a loan. I booked the trip. And just like that, it was happening.

My journey began just after Christmas in 2018. Back then, I didn’t take photos the way I do now, and I only had a handful on my phone — but I still wanted to share my trip with you and the few memories I managed to capture.

Below, you can see my business class seat from Adelaide to Abu Dhabi. It felt so much more opulent and comfortable than the business class flight I’d taken before — the one Mum had gifted me for our Antarctic trip. This time, it felt different. It was mine.

The flight was incredibly turbulent — the bumpiest I had ever been on — and I was genuinely terrified. By the time we landed in Abu Dhabi, my body still felt rattled, and when I got up to walk through the airport, I couldn’t get my balance right. The turbulence had stayed in me.

Thankfully, the stopover wasn’t long, and soon I was boarding my next flight — from Abu Dhabi to Nairobi in Kenya. After the experience I’d just had, I wasn’t looking forward to flying again, but from memory, that leg of the journey was much smoother and far less traumatic.

But Nairobi itself… that was different.

Tanzania has its dangers — like many other African countries — but Kenya has its own very specific concerns. The city has long been affected by Al Shabab terrorist cells, and I felt a quiet, silent terror stepping off the plane. On top of that, there’s also significant local criminal activity, including violent crimes against travellers.

I had to catch a taxi from the airport to the hotel where Maiki would meet me later that day. I can’t remember the name of the hotel now, but it would have been a four or five-star place, not far from the airport. I was exhausted, but back then, I could still control my sleep better than I can now, so I waited up for him.

Maiki had driven from Arusha to the Tanzania–Kenya border, left his car there, and then caught a bus into Nairobi to meet me. When he arrived, it was wonderful to see him after so many years. We sat, talked, and reminisced — and then he let me sleep, which I did, deeply, until morning.

The next day, we made our way to the bus station, caught a ride back to the border, collected the car Maiki had hired, and drove into Arusha, Tanzania — the place where the next chapter of my journey would begin.

In Arusha, I had booked an apartment at a compound I’d stayed in before. It was safe, comfortable, and I settled in quickly — it felt almost like a second home to me. The apartments, called Kundayo Serviced Apartments, were completely secure, but the truth is, it doesn’t matter where I am in the world — I still feel unsafe at night.

I asked Maiki if he would stay with me, and he agreed.

On our first night staying together in the apartment, we kissed!! It was a complete surprise because our friendship had never been heading in that direction. But almost as soon as the thought crossed our minds… it disappeared. We sort of looked at each other and were like, “Nah.” And then we laughed.

And that’s exactly what it’s like now.

We shared the same bed while I was at the apartments, and I won’t say it was like brother and sister — because, well, brothers and sisters don’t do that — but it was so innocent, sweet, and childlike. More than anything else, I felt safe.

I talked to Maiki a lot about the turbulence on my first flight from Adelaide to Abu Dhabi. Not long after, I started having nightmares about flying — vivid, terrifying dreams that felt so real I would physically wake up in shock.

I spent some time online looking to see if there was someone in Arusha I could talk to about my new fear of flying, and I found a psychologist, Dr Joshi. Maiki took me to see her. At first, I told her about the turbulence and my sudden fear of flying… but then we drifted onto other topics, and before I knew it, I was in full-blown therapy in the heart of East Africa.

Dr Joshi was an Indian woman, and by Tanzanian standards, she would have been considered very wealthy. Our sessions were often held in a little space built specifically out the back of her home. Looking back now, it feels almost farcical: this woman flies into Tanzania on a business class ticket and ends up lying on a couch in a third-world country, talking about her first-world problems — problems that might be preventing her from getting back into another business class seat to go home again.

And yet… it was comforting. It was transformational.

I’m not usually one for psychologists, but there was something about Dr Joshi — the way she was completely removed from my life in Adelaide, yet understood the world through an entirely different lens. Somehow, it made me open up in ways I hadn’t expected.

Of course, my time in Tanzania wasn’t all spent lying on the couch of a foreign shrink. Maiki and I would often drive out of town to Lake Duluti. It became one of our little rituals — sitting quietly, looking out over the still water, letting the silence do the talking.

Below, you can see a photo I took of Lake Duluti.

Another place we visited a few times was Shanga. Shanga is a social enterprise that employs people with disabilities to create beautiful handmade jewellery, glassware, and homewares, all incorporating recycled materials. The products are sold in the onsite shop and around the world, with profits reinvested into supporting disability employment.

We spent some time browsing the shop, but the real spectacle was the hotshop — the glassblowing studio set up there. Watching the process was mesmerising: the heat of the furnace, the glowing molten glass, the steady rhythm of the tools, and the precision of every movement.

I wish I had taken better photos of it, but unfortunately, the two below are all I’ve got. Still, you can see the furnace and some of the equipment used to blow glass.

There wasn’t any particular purpose or meaning to the trip other than catching up with Maiki — and, I suppose, going back to a place where I’d left a bit of a trail in my wake back in the 2000s.

We quickly fell into a routine: driving out to Lake Duluti, visiting Shanga, eating at the same little restaurant every day. At night, I loved driving around Arusha with Maiki. It was probably a little bit dangerous — but it didn't feel like it at the time.

One day, I asked Maiki if he could drive us to Moshi, which is about 80km from Arusha — roughly a 1.5 to 2-hour drive. I wanted to go back because that’s where my story with Tanzania began; Moshi was the first place I stayed when I came to volunteer all those years ago.

We spent some time wandering around the town, taking it all in. The most spectacular thing about Moshi is that, if the clouds are kind, you can sometimes catch a glimpse of Mount Kilimanjaro — and we were lucky. One afternoon while we were there, the clouds parted just enough for us to see it rising above the horizon, and it was breathtaking.

You can see it in the photo below.

I’d been in Tanzania for a number of weeks when I decided to extend my stay — but not long after, I became incredibly unwell. Maiki took me to a local doctor he knows, and I think I’ve written elsewhere in this blog about how difficult it was… taking tests in the dark, in a dirty toilet, trying to hold myself together.

Dr Joshi then recommended another doctor to me — and when I walked into his office, there was a photo of the Ayatollah on the wall. Now, I’m not discriminatory or racist in any way, but I’ll be honest — it didn’t exactly thrill me. My immediate thought was: “If he follows the Ayatollah, he’s probably not going to be in a rush to cure me.”

It’s hard to describe exactly what I had. I felt fluey, but there was also this strange, detached feeling in my head. I was faint, weak, and so nauseous I could barely move without thinking I was about to throw up everywhere — but I didn’t. It felt like I had some exotic illness that no one could diagnose, and it terrified me.

I was so sick I became convinced I was going to die. And with very little real help from the local doctors, I did what any terrified person would do — I went online and convinced myself I had every rare parasite, virus, cancer, and disease known to humanity.

I stayed in regular contact with Mum, who was becoming increasingly worried about me, and at one point, I even thought about using my travel insurance to get home. But in the end, I decided against it. I was tested for everything they could test me for, and nothing came back. Nothing.

It was a scary, surreal time.

But in the midst of all of this, I had booked a few nights at the Serena Lodge in Lake Manyara National Park — a stunning wildlife reserve where you can see all the animals. I didn’t want to cancel, so Maiki hired a 4WD and I forced myself to go.

I took pillows into the car, put the seat back, and lay down for the entire drive, which took a couple of hours out of town. When we arrived at the lodge, I dragged myself up the stairs to our room and collapsed on the bed.

The next day, when we planned to visit the national park, I packed my pillows again and set myself up in the car so I’d be comfortable — but I made sure I could still see the animals.

You can see the car below:

When we arrived at Lake Manyara National Park, we hired a guide at the gate and he joined us in the car. I still felt physically awful, but as soon as we entered the park, something shifted. Being back in a national park brought back so many memories — that familiar rush of excitement, the quiet anticipation, and the sheer wonder of seeing the animals in their own world again.

Below, you can see a photo I took of a baboon we spotted near the gate:

I didn’t like the way I must have looked in front of our guide. He was a young guy, and he was so good at his job — knowledgeable, attentive, patient. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I looked like some rich tourist — which I absolutely wasn’t — who was sick and fulfilling their last wish of going on safari.

Despite how awful I felt, the wildlife was incredible. We saw cranes, wildebeest, warthogs, buffalo, tiny dik-diks, and, most spectacularly, the elephants you can see in the photos below:

We also saw a number of other species of animals that day, though I can’t remember them all now. In Tanzania, and I’m sure in other Swahili-speaking countries, when you’re young and someone refers to you, they’ll often use “dada” for sister or “kaka” for brother. So someone might say to me, “Thank you, dada,” if they thought I was about their age. Back in the 2000s, I heard it all the time.

So when I paid the guide and gave him a tip, he smiled at Maiki and said, “Please thank Madam for me.”

In Swahili, “Madam” is reserved for older women. Maiki tried to soften it, laughing and insisting it wasn’t what I thought — but honestly, in that moment, not only did I feel like I was literally dying, I also felt like my youth died right there with me.

We made it back to Arusha without any issues, and I immediately crawled back into bed. The next thing on our agenda was a trip to Dar es Salaam — Tanzania’s commercial capital, much like Sydney is to Australia.

I was terrified to fly because of the nightmares I’d been having, but I decided to suck it up and get on the plane anyway, even though I was still deathly, deathly sick. I can’t put it into words properly — I’ve had the worst flus, viruses, and illnesses before, but this was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

The flight, thankfully, wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d worked myself up to believe. When we landed in Dar es Salaam, we made our way to the Holiday Inn, where we were staying. I remember eating something small and then going straight to bed.

The next morning, I dragged myself up to take a shower… and there was no water. Not a dribble. I called reception, and they apologised and offered to send me up a bucket of water to wash with. I actually said no. I should have said yes — but I wasn’t thinking straight.

Even though I felt like death on legs, I managed to get around here and there. I leaned on Maiki a lot for mobility, but I also spent plenty of time resting in bed. I spoke to Mum often, and she kept urging me to come home, telling me to force myself onto a plane. But the thought of such a long flight — plus a connection — was overwhelming, and I couldn’t imagine getting through it.

We didn’t manage to see too much of Dar es Salaam, but there was one thing I absolutely wanted to check out while I was there: some Tinga Tinga artwork.

Tinga Tinga artwork is one of the most vibrant, playful, and culturally iconic art styles to come out of East Africa — especially Tanzania, where it originated in the late 1960s. Known for its bright, bold colours, stylised depictions of animals like giraffes, elephants, zebras, and birds, and its decorative, repetitive patterns, Tinga Tinga paintings are instantly recognisable. The style often exaggerates features in a whimsical way — long-legged giraffes, huge-eyed birds, and surreal, hybrid creatures — all finished with a smooth, high-gloss enamel shine. It’s joyful, chaotic, and deeply rooted in African storytelling traditions, which is why it has become such a beloved style worldwide.

While we were in Dar es Salaam, Maiki and I found a Tinga Tinga studio and spent time talking to some of the artists. They were warm and welcoming, proudly showing us their work and explaining their process. You can see some of their pieces below:

Below, you can see inside the gallery and studio.

At this point, we were still staying at the Holiday Inn — the one with no running water — and while, in retrospect, I probably should have just embraced it, I remember thinking to myself:

“If I’m going to die here, I want to die somewhere beautiful.”

So I asked Maiki to take me to the Hyatt Regency. I didn’t have much money left in my bank account, but in that moment, I thought, “This is it.”

I booked a room, and it had the most beautiful view over the water.

Below, you can see the view from my room:

When we were checking in, I started chatting to the hotel manager, who mentioned that the President of another East African country was staying at the hotel, which explained all the extra security everywhere. I asked him if it was Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda — and he subtly confirmed that it was.

My heart sank.

I’ve had a deep interest in the Rwandan genocide for years, and over time, I came to the conclusion that Paul Kagame both started and stopped it. I had wanted to meet him for over 15 years. And there he was — in the same hotel, possibly even on the same floor. But I was so sick, and so depleted, that I didn’t have the energy — or the health — to even try.

I remember lying on my bed, looking out at the most beautiful view, feeling like life was happening around me while I wasn’t truly a participant in it.

Then Mum called. She told me to come home. She’d spoken to our doctor about my health, and he wanted to help me. And in that moment, I agreed. I’d leave Dar es Salaam in a couple of days.

I’d already forced myself to go to Moshi. I’d made it on safari. I’d managed the flight to Dar es Salaam. I decided I could manage one more flight — I’d sit in business class, hold my breath, and just make it home.

I remember lying there, watching President Kagame’s motorcade come and go outside my window, wishing I could have had even the briefest conversation with him. But who was I? A flawed nobody.

I actually think he was staying on our floor — there was security everywhere, even right outside my door.

A couple of days later, I forced myself onto a flight to Doha, Qatar. Below, you can see my seat.

It wasn’t a flatbed — it wasn’t a long flight — but the flatbed came in handy on the next leg from Doha to Adelaide, where I put it down and didn’t raise it again until the wheels touched down safely at home. 

The first thing I did when I got home was go and see our family doctor. He ordered every test known to man, and every single one came back clear. I stayed sick for months, but to this day, it’s still a mystery as to what was actually wrong with me.

I was so convinced I was going to die that I started going to classes at Buddha House, thinking they’d help make the dying process easier. Boy, was I wrong about that.

The very first thing they taught us was to wake up every morning, look at the wall, and shout:

“I might die today!”

I never really understood that. They talked a lot about suffering, and I kept going for a little while, searching for answers, but eventually, as I started to feel better, I stopped. Somewhere along the way, I also remembered that the Dalai Lama is a fuckwit and that Buddhism isn’t nearly as peaceful or gentle as it sounds.

But the thing that still frustrates me most about getting sick in Tanzania is this: it was the first time I’d been away on my own since my medical issue — since my flaw came to light. I know no one in my family has ever said it, but I’ve always felt like some of them believed my “illness” was actually my flaw.

And that’s the thing about being flawed: you spend your whole life defending your right to be “just sick” — to be normal.