Prince Crispian – Chapter the First

Guest Author Uncategorized

It is nearly three months since our last visit to the Land of Nadir under the aegis of the late Malcolm B. Duncan. Time, methinks, for another sojourn in that fair and mysterious land.

(Image Credit: Prince Caspian Movie Trailer)

An election was looming and the children had decided to leave politics altogether rather than face either defeat or bleak years on the Opposition benches. Little Johnnie was staying on and things were looking increasingly dismal. They’d tried children overboard, they’d tried the mortgage rate scare, they’d tried the no-one votes for the fat bloke anyway (and even that had now been taken away from them), and now it was looking like bipartisan support for old growth forest logging and nuclear power. Short of manufacturing a major terrorist attack in the lead-up to the election, prospects didn’t look good and – since the job of manufacturing was Brendan’s responsibility, given Brendan’s recent experience with manufacturing which made the fat man’s Collins submarine deal look like nothing more than a delayed delivery because the address got smudged in the mail – things were starting to look very grim indeed.

As they sat on the platform at Canberra Railway Station, gold passes in hand, they realised that they were the only passengers waiting for the train. After all, members of the public not only had to pay for the children’s travel but for their own as well which rather priced them out of the market really. The only other object on the platform was a piece of rail freight which had been waiting to be transported from Canberra to Goulburn since 1946. If only the children had known that it was a crate of mothballed Bren guns with 30,000 rounds of ammunition, they could have supplemented their anticipated super quite considerably as well as helping Brendan out.

As they waited and waited and waited (they were waiting for a train after all) and the hours turned into days and the vending machine was slowly running out of goodies, Alexander decided on one big stock-up. Then it began: not like the rush of wind from an approaching train or the increasing sound thrumming through the rails; rather it was a tugging like iron filings being drawn to a magnet. As the children were drawn into that familiar circular pattern that your old science teacher used to demonstrate with a piece of paper and explained was the magnetic field (and let’s face it with the current drought, a magnetic field was about the most productive anyone could get), Little Lucy said, “It’s as though we were being drawn away somewhere.”

“Yes,” said Amanda, “I can feel it quite strongly.”

Peter explained the inverse square law and gravitational attraction while Alexander rather unkindly, as was his wont, said something about gravity and mass.

“You should talk you, you, you … fat boy,” Amanda said.

“Now, now,” said Little Lucy, “It’s probably just the Adelaide water. Although Malcolm did say that at this rate there won’t be any water in Adelaide come Easter. Ouch,” she exclaimed suddenly. [Although this is a children’s story, the author is trying to discourage the use of exclamation marks as being entirely unnecessary even if Jane Austen did use them.]

There was a sudden popping sound and the platform disappeared.

The children found themselves, minus luggage and, most mortifying of all, without their gold passes, in a dense forest where, in spots, an incredibly harsh light shone down through the leaves. The humidity was unbearable.

“Where are we?” asked Little Lucy in a stunned and apprehensive voice.

“My guess,” said Amanda “is that we have just been magically transported into Book the Second.”

“Does this mean I can’t commute my super?” asked Peter petulantly.

“Looks like it,” said Alexander. “I think we’d better explore.”

The children set off through thick forest and finally came to water from which, they could see, in the distance, a facing shoreline.

“I wonder if we’re on an island,” said Peter.

“I’ll look after affairs in the region thanks,” said Alexander.

“Well, as long as there are no boat people,” said Amanda apprehensively.

She didn’t know how prophetic her words were to be.

436 thoughts on “Prince Crispian – Chapter the First”

  2. WE may be in a situation where the Australian government of the day is ignored by the governments of other countries who only deal with the permanent secretaries (do we have those?) and other high ranking public servants because they are more consistent and trust-able than the flakes who are poncing around in front of the media.

    *sighs*

  3. There is a Henry Lawson story (I forget which one) about a farmer who loses everything in a fire or flood and he stands at his door gazing across the ruin with that “thousand mile gaze”…and an old German friend makes the observation to himself ; ” That man, he’s got to cry…” .

    I think this nation must find it’s soul again as soon as possible and do a bit of “crying” for those who have been crushed by this cruel govt’.

  4. We need to have that crying soon, before this government turns us all into monsters.

    Two pieces about hatred I came across this morning which I think should be read together. Howard encouraged hatred, Abbott is building on that. If we don’t stop and look at what is being done to us then it won’t be long before the things discussed in the second article begin to happen here.

    From Eureka Street – read the comments too.
    http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=43767#.VXohd_mqpBc

    From The Guardian – pommy version – horrifying stuff.
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/10/lee-irving-murder-disability-hate-crime-increase?CMP=share_btn_tw

  7. Front page headline from a UK paper. Don’t it make a proud to have the Blood Oaf as PM ?

    It could be a world leader in renewable energy – instead Australia’s PM claims coal is ‘good for humanity’ and brags about halting wind farms

    While Tony Abbott now claims to accept the science behind man-made climate change, his government is considered one of the most environmentally hostile in living memory

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/tony-abbott-brags-that-he-halted-the-spread-of-visually-awful-wind-farms-10314422.html

  9. God!..it’s awful!!…we don’t have a govt’..all we have is a motley collection of delinquents, vandals, spielers, ponces and slappers strutting about talking the most god-awful bullshit anyone who has lived over thirty years has ever heard!

    Is there no-one to rid us of these muddleing freaks?

  11. And now Abbott will not deny that officials had paid for asylum seekers to be taken back to Indonesia…We are truly living now in the territory of the “glass-bottom boat”, where there is no depth we cannot see into.

  14. Razz and I have decided that only people that can stop this horror of a thing we call ‘government’ is big big businesses. Unfortunately, they are the ones that are benefiting from them so that leaves us no where to go. Now I’m wondering how they’ll rig the next election, because if they don’t get kicked out in 2016, that will well and truly be the end of Australia as we know it.

  22. Perhaps we can promote a ; “Dob in the LNP. voter” and then charge such proven idiots for the damage they helped inflict on the rest of us!

  23. BK

    [Michael Pascoe sees some vindictive repercussions headed Glen Stevens’ way.]

    HoJo resigns from Parliament and is appointed RBA Governor. 😆

  24. No member of the press gallery asked abbott whether he thinks open-cut coal mines are visually attractive and whether he might consider coal dust etc could possibly be a health risk…funny that.

  26. Abbott has had a bit of a think about his windfarm comments yesterday – the part where he said “I do take your point about the potential health impact of these things. When I’ve been up close to these windfarms, not only are they visually awful but they make a lot of noise,”.

    THESE windfarms, he said.

    Turns out the only one he has allegedly been anywhere near is the single wind turbine on Rottnest Island – and that couild be just another lie. The best bit – that turbine was funded by the Howard government.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/the-one-wind-turbine-tony-abbott-has-ever-seen-up-close-was-funded-by-the-howard-government-20150612-ghmfno.html

    I hope someone here who is familiar with Rottnest Island can tell us how likely this ‘explanation’ might be.

    Extra –
    http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/pages/StatementDetails.aspx?listName=StatementsGallop&StatId=5873

  29. How long will it be before the Australian people get to know just exactly how much taxpayer money has been spent by abbott to ‘stop the boats’? Exactly how much taxpayer money is being forked out each year to Nauru and PNG (and now Cambodia) for ‘hosting’ the detention of asylum seekers? When, if ever, will the Australian people demand transparency and put an end to abbott’s secrecy, dishonesty and cruelty?

  30. leonetwo

    I can’t remember any publicity about NE visiting Rotto let alone him staying for several days. As for his noise claim , rubbish ! For a start the road gets no closer than about 200 meters from the turbine.

  33. How dumb can you be? Handing $10 million worth of new vehicles – Jeeps, Fiats, Alfa Romeos and Chryslers – to ‘celebrities’ and failing to keep a record of who had the cars. Clyde Campbell and Veronica Johns might like to consider new careers as Liberal Party MPS. With that level of incompetence they would have to be ministerial material.

    Jeep trying to track down $10 million worth of cars loaned to big-name celebrities
    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/technology/jeep-trying-to-track-down-10-million-worth-of-cars-loaned-to-big-name-celebrities/story-fnjwq1p2-1227393621797

    It would be a hoot if all those free-loading ‘celebrities’ were done for driving unregistered vehicles.

  35. Alright..this is it ; I’m going to have a kip now..and when I wake up, this whole silly dream of Tony and Julie and Peta and the LNP. loony show will be nothing more than a silly dream and I will wake to a glorious afternoon where Australia is basking in the good fortune of it’s kind and gentle people…

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