I can't say I give a damn

Melbourne has been named 'World's best sporting city'.

Is this even a good thing? Possibly not. For example, the news cycle this week has gone something like this: Tiger Woods is coming; Tiger Woods is here; Tiger Woods says he 'likes Melbourne' - well of course he 'likes Melbourne', we've payed him $3 million just to show up here! He ought to like the place.

I don't care if we're the world's best city for sport. Not even a little bit. As far as I'm concerned, the place would be a lot more pleasant if we were the world's best city for almost anything else.

I am tired of the moronic boasting too, the phony arrogance which is more about hiding deep feelings of inferiority than anything else. I'm talking about the way everything in this city has to be described as 'World Class' or 'The best in the world' - it's pathetic and embarrassing.

The Walls that remain

While I was in Berlin, I heard little about the approaching 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Perhaps this is because I spoke little German; perhaps that's just how the Germans are, I don't know.

But I think it is important to remember that there are still walls that separate the free from the enslaved throughout the world. In particular, I like to remember the North Koreans, who still suffer under a communist regime, and who remain separated from the free people of the South.

"His throw was pathetic and was easily stopped"

A student at Cambridge University, who is believed to be an Australian, joined in the shoe throwing craze by throwing a work boot at John Howard, during a speech the former Australian Prime Minister made on 'Leadership and the next generation'.

It is unlikely that this will make headline news around the world, not only because Howard has probably already been forgotten as an international figure, but because, according to one witness, the "throw was pathetic and was easily stopped".

Perhaps with this pathetic attempt the craze will finally die down.

I hope Mourilyan runs last

Nothing against the horse, though. I just happen to despise it's owner.

And yes, I agree with Greens Senator Bob Brown, who says if Kadyrov's horse wins the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday it will be the lowest day in Australia's sporting history.

You really have to wonder what kind of person would be willing to train or ride this horse to victory. But, as always, there are plenty of people willing to do such things in this world. All too many.

Shanghai

Feelings

my friend

wrote Schumann

are stars that

guide us only

in the brightest daylight

From Unrecounted

W.G. Sebald

In Shanghai I rode the Maglev demonstration line from Pudong Airport into the city. Travelling at a maximum speed of 431 km per hour, the 30 km trip took just eight minutes - roughly the amount of time it takes for the sun's light to reach the earth.

Let's go back a little. I was stuck in Shanghai with my luggage for seven hours, and, tired of reading Seneca, found I desperately needed some activity to occupy my mind. For a while I gazed listlessly out through the great glass windows at the airport. I had thought Hong Kong polluted; it was, but this was something else: Pudong seemed to have been plunged into a moist grey cloud. It was an unpleasant environment, and when I walked outside and for the first time breathed in the Shanghai air, a rather shady fellow offered to sell me an iPhone. What a welcome! Ni hao, China...

I wandered around the airport, wondering whether I should catch a bus or a taxi into the city, but having no idea where the city was or how long it would take to get there, I decided to venture into the airport's 'Business information centre' and get some, ah, information. When I said I wanted to use the internet, the woman behind the counter asked me if I had Chinese money on me. I said truthfully that I did, but the woman made it clear that she didn't believe me. Anyway, it was in the business information centre that I discovered that, somewhere around Pudong, there was a Maglev train line into the city. I knew I had no choice but to take the ride.

It was ridiculous travelling a mere 30 km at that speed, and half-way through the driver had no choice to start breaking. But it was an extraordinary thing to watch this enormous city, previously obscured by the heavy smog, come into view from my train window. Curiously, my fellow passengers were more interested in watching the train's speed, which was displayed in every carriage, rise to world record levels, than stare out at the suburbs and the city.

Exactly what Shanghai had to offer I never found out. For a while I walked around the city, but I failed to come across anything remotely interesting, and soon I returned to the Maglev station and then left for the airport, where I waited another two hours in the darkness for my flight to leave.

Hong Kong

I merely stopped over at Hong Kong, but the memory will live with me for a long time.

Surreal is the first word that comes to mind: The airport staff wore face masks and didn't speak, using hand gestures to demonstrate the way. They also put stickers of the Qantas logo on us, and funneled us through the airport as if to make sure nobody got themselves lost. Most strange of all, I saw Andrew Bolt and his family at Hong Kong. I didn't speak to him and tell him how I'd criticised him on my blog though.

I arrived at dawn, and watched as the sky (as white as clay, with no sun) grew light. Soon I could recognise a great mountain and a sea, with green islands in the bay and what looked like oil rigs and huge ships. Somewhere in the gray haze was a city, but I couldn't make it out until I flew over it on the flight out, and then I could see a dense and sprawling metropolis, polluted and crowded, with many of the tall apartment buildings identical and repeated next to each other. What kind of people lived there, I couldn't say.

World's worst airports

I've been to two of the worst airports in the world: Heathrow and Frankfurt. I have been through three airports in London alone, but the ordeal at Healthrow will stay with me a long time. I don't like being yelled at by customs officials for, firstly, being too slow, and then for appearing 'stressed'. Yelling at someone for appearing stressed is hardly going to make them feel less stressed. But that's how you're treated in that horrible place.

Frankfurt, by contrast, had plenty of helpful staff around, one of whom kindly alerted me to some problems with my ticket and baggage, which the geniuses at Berlin-Tegel had inflicted on me. But the airport itself is a labyrinthine nightmare I thought I'd never escape from.