John Clare Writings

I am for France right now. We do not recruit teenagers to kill.

The X Factor has a great deal to recommend it of course. I faint without fail whenever Danni Minogue throws her arms up above her head to reveal her fragrant armpits.

I am sure that many readers – and I hear this posting is going positively bubonic! – have wondered why I continue, though stricken in years, to body surf. What ho! Have I not noticed the advent of the board? Yes, yes, but when I began to surf at ancient Maroubra, home of iron man and surf swimming champ Barry Rogers and English Channel swimmer Des Renford, I was far too small to carry let alone manoeuver, the great boards of that era, which stood far taller than I did and were made of sturdy laminations of varnished marine ply with a brass loop to drag it through the shallows and sharp brass casing at the bow end to kill anything in the way.

A long time ago – when Malcolm Turnbull’s hair was black – I went home with a woman who shared a house in Paddington, Sydney, with either Malcolm Turnbull’s sister or his future wife, who was related to the art critic Robert Hughes and the famous lawyer Tom Hughes. I could look this up, but […]

Continue reading » Breakfast With Malcom Turnbull (When His Hair Was Black)

His belly holds a certain fascination, though I would not like to see it bare. It is solid and tight, and though not flabby as far as one can determine, is big enough to wobble disgustingly. Not huge, but well rounded, like his calves, it is clad as usual in a leather waistcoat the colour […]

Continue reading » Apparitions

First I should say that in those old days I did not object to religious instructors. Some were very funny without even trying… And some of their moral dictums were common sense and probably made us less barbaric and self-absorbed… The idea of a God who was enraged much of the time with certain electoral districts within his own Creation was hard to understand, however, but we’ll let that pass.

Gurgling, plopping, dribbling, pattering, splashing – and now only the sound of rain that has accumulated, dropping from roofs, running in gutters. And behind everything a soothing hooshing susurrus. Soft rain has started again.

Once upon a time there was a time just before I was, nor most of you were either. And there was a time when that time held a considerable fascination. Why was that? The time just before you were. In a way it was like the last days of history. When I came, and you […]

Continue reading » The Dark Time

I was concerned. I think that is the word. Concerned, as I watched the torpedo-like head advance swiftly across the clean white sand. It is amazing how fearless we can be when we think we are invulnerable, that we have the answer, the secret formula. And what was that? Why, to bellow into the water.

When it is remorselessly hot; when you have to race across the street as on hot coals because the tar is melting under your bare feet, a plunge into the sea is anticipated as a moment of delicious transition: a luxuriously complex rush of sensations, a nanosecond in in which unbearable heat and luscious cold […]

Continue reading » Midwinter Summer