I was at a friend's house when the television happened to be paying tribute to that flower of Australian music genius, Slim Dusty. Life in exile is making me Antipodean more and more, because I found the death of Slim unbearably painful. I had to hold the tears as memories of my old pub, Wilston Hill Hotel, flooded in....Lauren's salty eyes were staring at TV with an expression of real pain...Slim Dusty was a global citizen well before the weblog was even invented!

The Final Earthy Campfire
This blog starts and ends with Daily Dose of Dust...
Oh it's-a lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the campfire at night we'll hear the wild dingos call
But there's nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer ...
· A Pub With no Beer is about mateship, the friendship of drinking together as equals contrasted with the misery of loneliness in exile [Cold Ashes]

Frail Pope still inspires
IN THE MOST WATCHED event last week in Slovakia, Pope John Paul II, completing his third visit to the post-communist country, attracted hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, who attended the three masses that he celebrated.
· The Last Slavic Mass [SlovakSpectator]
· Cardinal George Pell(Australian)