Commonwealth

Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
The Bahamas
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belize
Botswana
Brunei Darussalam
Cameroon
Canada
Cyprus
Dominica
Fiji Islands
The Gambia
Ghana
Grenada
Guyana
India
Jamaica
Kenya
Kiribati
Lesotho
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Malta
Mauritius


Mozambique
Namibia
Nauru
New Zealand
Nigeria
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
St Kitts and Nevis
St Lucia
St Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Solomon Islands
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Swaziland
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Tuvalu
Uganda
United Kingdom
United Republic of Tanzania
Vanuatu
Zambia
*Gibraltar



*Associated members

Buzzwords

You'll take your place with buzzwords
You'll share your faith with buzzwords
You'll smash his face for buzzwords
And in the construct of their being
Free from thought you'll find their freeing
Jest adjust your way of seeing
It begins to really grate
Patterns fattened upon fate
Precursor cursin just you wait
Make a beeline with your beetle brow
For the furrow frequent plowed
And oft repeated out loud
It's trite and true
Blight the blighters blue
It's only right you do

Cold Ghost

I don't know if you've ever been to a marketing seminar, but the pinnacle of achievement is often an apartment on the Gold Coast. Years ago when I was hitching in South Australia, the travelling salesman who picked me up also lauded the place.

It must be a commercial thing because to me it seems like the perfect ruination of a beachfront: skyscrapers that block the sun out and stop you from getting a tan. Soulless tourism without the simple pleasures that the ocean could otherwise provide. The perfect realisation of Queensland's long reign of conservative gerrymander government and white shoe developers. But that's just me, you go on to Surfer's Paradise and leave the unspoilt fishing shacks and small coastal villages to us.

Rent Asunder

Now that I no longer rent it is perhaps timely to ruminate on what an unpleasant and ghastly enterprise it is. When I look back at all the rentals I've lived in - and we're going back more than twenty-five years - I am reminded of the times that frantic calls to real estate agents met with a glacial response and we'd have to shower in cold water or figure out how to prepare meals with no stove, houses would be sold up under us (with the added nuisance of constantly being bombarded by prospective buyers and having our right to peace trampled, despite still paying full rent), owners or their reps doing inspections and giving the all clear only to magically produce some damage to justify a chunk out of the bond. I have developed somewhat of a healthy aversion to real estate agents and landlords as a result, even though some were very friendly and/or attentive to their tenants' needs.

It does run the other way and I've been a helpless witness to outrageous acts of malicious destruction and careless commotion committed by fellow residents. It's a risky business for all concerned it seems.