I have a ton of material to edit and get posted over the next 48 hours, which will be fun. A podcast and at least three articles are still coming.

As Guy Rundle said in Crikey only a few days ago:

The Kogarah blowhard was well on the way to being the most appalling man ever, with his post 9/11 dullard conservatis jeremiads on terrorism etc, his return to serious poetry – which amounted to terrorism – all capped off with Cultural Amnesia, a 1000-page groaner in which the world was berated for falling short of the standards of Sophie Scholl and Aung Sung Suu Kyi, who were, unbelievably, its dedicatees.

Yes, Clive James’ poetry is terrorism. Rundle drinks more than I do. And he owes me a bottle of scotch.

Must go track down that Clive James book.

As for burglars while I’m away from home, I also rely on the relative lack of crime in the Blue Mountains, but also there is almost nothing I don’t carry with me that can’t be replaced.

The only exceptions I make are that I don’t publicly announce that the family will be away on holidays and I don’t have luggage tags with my address on the outside of checked bags when travelling.

That said, a similar risk analysis for myself would differentiate between opportunistic and targeted burglary. Opportunistic burglars are unlikely in the remoter parts of the Blue Mountains, and my time elsewhere is usually spent in hotels with video surveillance. A targeted burglar would find far richer pickings elsewhere, since the only things of value are items I generally have with me at all times. My dirty socks and underwear they can go for with my blessing.

I’ve been a victim of burglary twice, if I remember correctly. I might post about those and the lessons learned another time.

Exactly, if we wanted to do you harm, it’d just be a matter of getting at you when you’re at your current residence with some explosives…….