18 January... Happy 70th Birthday Mr Paul Keating



Following the phone call I received yesterday my bookwork feels far more urgent.  I began tackling it earnest last night.  It honestly bores me stupid though...  I have lots of good intentions of doing a little bit of data entry into my book working system everyday but never seem to get around to it.  Because I am rotten at doing a little bit each day I end up with piles and piles of the wretched things to enter when things get desperate.  I have a few (ok perhaps quite a few) bad habits.   This is definitely one of them.  

I often wish I could be one of those micro manager type of people.  Their life seems to be so organised.  I guess this is easier though if you have nothing to do instead of what I've been experiencing lately, which is way too much to do.  So I'm trying to stop stalling and am about to dutifully open up my "Spend Money" window in MYOB (wretchedly and stupidly boring program that it is!!!!) and get into it.  So why are you writing on your Blog????  Stop delaying and get into it!!!!! Do I hear you suggest this ever so gently??? I sigh and agree that alas and woe you are right...

Today I'm going to the races at Randwick.  It's not much of a meeting but it's good to keep busy.  Today is also former Prime Minister Paul Keating's 70th birthday.  Mr Keating is one of my heroes. I watched the Kerry O'Brien "Keating" interviews absolutely transfixed although the move made me miss the last episode.  I want to buy the DVD though.  I think he'd be a fascinating subject to photograph and that in his political heyday he'd have been a greatly interesting and entertaining subject to observe behind the lens.  Incidentally today is also my now deceased step father's birthday Dick Klugman.  He would have been 90 today. 

I thought these revelations from Mr Keating in "The Keating Interviews" with Kerry O'Brien were fascinating.  A little window to his soul?
"They invested a ton of love in me… she thought I was the bees knees..  I walked around with that love. It kind of radiates for you, it gives you that inner confidence…  You go through the fire but you don’t get burned because someone loves you.  You are complete…
If someone puts you on a pedestal, something sticks with you all your life..   You've got to go through your life with someone thinking you're really special.  When you’ve gotta get the sword out for real combat, to have a love quotient working for you, it is very, very powerful..  ".
“You never get over it, but you don’t want to get over it. There is a place for sadness and melancholy … we don’t want to be sparkling and happy all the time … we need the inner sadness. It’s what rounds you out".
I know what Mr Keating means when he talks about the glow that love gives.  There is a genuine glow that radiates out of people when they are genuinely in love or loved and happy.  The happiness truly does radiate and glow in people's faces.  Happiness radiates out of their eyes.  I've photographed it and I've seen it.  Just as I have photographed or seen photographs of people when that same glow or happiness has gone or is not present.  Somehow their eyes and the glow that once existed in them has died.  Emotion is one of the reasons I love photographing people.

His words remind me of one of my favourite songs called A Minor Incident.   

"There's nothing I could say to make you try to feel ok
And nothing you could do to stop me feeling the way I do
And if the chance should happen that I never see you again
Just remember that I'll always love you
....  I just wish I could be there to see you through"

And before you think I've turned into a hopeless sop, here are some other classic lines from Mr Keating that have nothing to do with being in love!  He certainly was, and remains, a person who has never been afraid to speak his mind.  According to the article written in today's SMH by Jacqueline Maley, Keating 'has never written an auto-biography and insists he never will.  "If you're any good, someone else will write about you" - to Kerry O'Brien ...   2011'.  I got these fantastic quotes from the same article:

On Tony Abbot:  "If Tony Abbott ends up as the prime minister of Australia, you've got to say, God help us.  [He is] truly an intellectual nobody [and has] no policy ambition".

On Peter Costello:  "The thing about poor old Costello is he is all tip and no iceberg".

On John Hewson:  "It was the limpest performance I have ever seen..  it was like being flogged with a warm lettuce".

The stable say that this 2yo is very very good.  His name is Fighting Sun (Northern Meteor of course!).  He defeated Boomwaa a couple of weeks ago.  He had a swim in the Randwick pool yesterday.

"I do NOT trust you..  You are dangerous looking!".
Fiorente walking before his swim


Comments

  1. Happy New Year Bronwen.

    I will have to introduce myself to you and say hello the next time I'm at the races - I too lament the fact that Australian Politics is so bereft of talent ~ I loved Paul Keating's stinging wit and his Passion to make a difference ~ Red Kezza's interview of Keating was the television highlight of my year

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    1. Happy New Year to you as well Paul. It's always lovely to hear from you. He was my hero. I was talking to a friend and colleague at the track yesterday and we talked about it being Keating's birthday. We both loved the interviews and he was our hero. I miss him too! Bronnie

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