Mahon Biography - "Breaking Ranks" - James McNeish

[ampan]

As someone who boasts of having read every published word on the Erebus accident, I had little choice but to spend NZD34.99 buying “Breaking Ranks” by James McNeish, which includes a biography of Justice Mahon. I loath that late Honourable gentleman so was delighted with the beginning at page 211:


"Sam Mahon tells the story of a family Christmas in Auckland during which … his father took out a thin cigar and lit it. ‘Father, it isn’t polite to smoke between courses,’ Janet chided. Whereupon Judge Mahon blew out a stream of smoke towards the ceiling, rested the cigar on a plate and skipped nimbly around the table, tapping his wife and daughter lightly on the breast as he passed, then sat down and picked up his cigar where he had left it. ‘Gracious, Peter, what on earth was that about?’ said Margarita, mystified, as they all were. ‘That? That, Mother,” the judge said, after a pause, ‘was the titter that ran around the crowd."

It was all downhill after that: After Mahon resigned as a judge he was engaged as a guest lecturer at the Auckland University’s Law School. It was there that he was befriended by other fatuous windbags, one of whom was Stuart Macfarlane. Another was Bernard Brown, who has written the epilogue to Mr McNeish’s book – so it appears that McNeish might be just another of Mahon’s camp followers. He clearly did not bother with any research: “… just before they took off, someone at Air New Zealand had punched the wrong digits into the plane’s navigational computer …” (page 299). Whoever punched the digits into the navigational computer is not a matter of much importance but as everyone who has researched the accident will know, and that group does not include Mr McNeish, the digits were punched in by the pilots. The purported justification for McNeish's intellectual laziness is at page 238:

“There are several ‘truths’. Mine is based in part on the book Mahon wrote shortly before he died, 'Verdict on Erebus'. No one else talked to experts on three continents, plumbed the enigma of ‘whiteout’ and the navigational issue, pored over 284 documents and exhibits and sifted through3000 papers after listening to evidence for 75 days. I make no apology for taking sides.”

Pathetic.


Thirty-five bucks. For what? Nothing, except the daughter and the tit-tapping.

[megan]

Give it a rest.

[27/09]

Give it a rest.

Plus one to that.

[BernLagan]

The two degrees of longitude change made by Air New Zealand's navigation section to the flight path - not made known to the flight crew -was the fundamental, obvious and effective cause of the disaster. Peter Mahon exposed the massive holes in the report of the Inspector of Air Accidents which wrongly blamed the flight crew. I suggest you read the Mahon Report cover to cover than Peter Mahon's book.

[ampan]

I assume that “give it a rest” is directed at this McNeish person. Megan need not worry, because on the back of the book, above the “Whitcoulls $34.99”sticker, appears the following: “A master of tone and a warrior of words, Sir James McNeish is one of New Zealand’s literary greats. He died in November 2016 after handing in the manuscript for ‘Breaking Ranks’, which became his final work, and is destined to become a classic of New Zealand non-fiction.” At least Captain Holmes had a go. This pathetic “literary great” did not. He was either too lazy, too thick, or too concerned about offending “Bernard Brown, Parnell. A friend” - and an acquaintance of Mahon from the Auckland University Law School and the creator of the strange rambling epilogue.

BernLagen: The device that you’re referring to was one of several navigation aids. Its role was to get the aircraft across the Southern Ocean, which it did. The particular navigation aid was not to be used to go below the height of a nearby mountain, because the navigation aid might be wrong, and the plane might hit the mountain. Jim Collins knew that the navigation aid was not to be used to go below the height of a nearby mountain but he did so nevertheless. The navigation aid was wrong. The plane hit the mountain.

The only thing that might be argued with in the above is the navigational status of a 1970s inertial navigation system. I’ll leave it to Gordon Vette:

"Left alone to fly at 35000 feet, the three inertial boxes and their computer would take them unerringly to McMurdo, turn around and bring them home. But this was certainly not the trip the passengers had paid for. The machine would need to descend soon after it passed the Cape Hallett corner, and continue descending near high land masses until it reached the McMurdo waypoint at the head of the sound. The high altitude reliance they placed on the Area [Inertial] Navigation [System] would revert to more complex and time-consuming methods; radio beacons including Distance Measuring Equipment, gyro compass, grid navigation and most importantly, visual flight. … Like any good pilot, Collins would certainly have made up his mind that unless visual conditions were good,there was no way he would take the aircraft below Minimum Safe Altitude (MSA) of 16000 feet. MSA constitutes a platform for pilots. Once below it they leave behind the self-sufficiency of the inertial navigation system and commit themselves once more to guidance from aids on mother earth, and to visual flying – ‘eyeballing’ in pilot jargon." (‘Impact Erebus’ pp118, 119)

Were it not for the errors made by the navigator in the cockpit, the errors made by the navigators on the ground would not have mattered. Data-entry mistakes in internal navigation systems had occurred throughout the 1970s and the possibility was widely known ,hence Vette’s remarks.

I suspect that Mahon thought himself to be very clever in heaping praise on the accuracy of the DC-10’s top-of-the-range three-platform inertial navigation system. But in doing so, he forgets what happened: The top-of-the-range three-platform inertial navigation system was wrong, and the place hit the mountain.

[megan]

Mods, could you please close. It's been done to death, and always devolves into acrimony. I beg of you.

[Dark Knight]

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/robofq/ScatteredPebbles%202_zpsdssk3qw2.jpg

[ampan]

For the sake of completeness I should point out that 'Breaking Ranks" also contains biographies of John Saxby and Reginald Miles, neither of which I've read and neither of whom I've heard of. According to the back of the book, the former was a doctor and the latter was a soldier. Both must have 'broken ranks' in some way, although the back of the book does not say how, leaving one to assume they were homos*xuals. Sir James McNeish, as Dark Knight points out, intended finishing things off and cementing his place in New Zealand's literary history by describing the life of a stone that broke ranks by being a slightly different colour to the stones around him. Unfortunately, Sir James changed his mind and wrote about Mahon instead. Then, like Captain Holmes before him, he died.


Let that be a warning to those others out there who might be contemplating ignoring Megan's plea to give this thing a rest. Sure, there'll be a knighthood - but there'll be no time to enjoy it.

[AerialPerspective]

This is all very academic but none of it excuses the fact that certain Air NZ management lied through their damn teeth to the inquiry and tried to cover up anything that might have contributed to the disaster from a company perspective. A random break in at the Collins' residence might be explained away but not the theft of documents, the disappearance of the pages of a manual found at the crash site and numerous other 'odd' occurrences that paint the picture of a company that was scared it would disappear so prevaricated about the facts to try and get out from under. Mahon exposed that and he was the subject of a drawn out campaign to destroy him by those that were affected by his commission.

I echo the previous poster who said "give it a rest" - or re-adjust your tin-foil hat.

[TWT]

The Undead Thread: Like a zombie that refuses to die it has risen once again.

Whatever your (firmly held) opinions are,let it go.For good.The only party benefiting from yet another reprise are the proprietors of this site who will get more 'eyes on' advertising.

[C441]

Suffice to say that subsequent Antarctic scenic flights have heeded the lessons learnt from this sad event.

Isn't that all that really matters 40-odd years after the event?

[ampan]

ArialPerspective just couldn’thelp himself, could he? With one hand he gives it a rest, while flogging it with the other. The things he refers to are also referred to in Chapter 25 at page 255 of ‘Verdict on Erebus’, this book being the sole source of McNeish’s biography, as least as regards the Erebus accident- (he got the daughter's titty stuff from Mahon’s son). As regards the burglary, it all sounds very sinister. You can almost see the silhouette of the Air New Zealand spy creeping around and you can definitely hear the violin but then, right at the end, the side is completely let down, with this:

“My own impression of the incident was that of someone who had lost a relative or friend in the disaster had become aware from the newspapers that the aircrew were being blamed, and by reason, probably, of emotional disturbance might have searched the Collins home for any documents relating to the disaster.” (p274)

So Air New Zealand had nothing to do with it? Why, then, do ArialPerspective and others think they might have? Far from being the brave character who broke ranks and paid for it with his life, Mahon was just a slimey weasel. All of his conspiracy theories were wrong and I would behappy to explain why, if any NZALPA lacky out there would care to nominate one. By way of an example, let’s take “the gap in the passengers photograph" at pages 258 and 259 of Mahon’s book:

“When, at an early stage of the enquiry, I had surveyed the available range of passengers’ photographs, I had become concerned, to some degree, that there was a sequence of photographs which seemed to me to be missing. Many hundreds of the photographic prints had been developed from the cameras found on the crash site. The photographs produced at the hearing showed views to the east, west and north. But there was not a single photograph which showed the view to the south, that is to say, towards Ross Island. If you looked at the flight path of the aircraft as it completed its two orbits, it was obvious that there had been four occasions upon which the aircraft had been side-on to Ross Island. On the two most southern aspects of the orbits the aircraft had been only five to ten miles from the ultimate impact position. Each of these turning sequences had meant the passengers on one side of the aircraft or the other had been able to take photographs to the south from a fairly short range."

The same silhouette then appears, with more violin, ending with this:


"So this was another of the unresolved mysteries of the inquiry. I would have given a great deal to have seen what the passengers had seen when they looked to the south because that would have been what the flightcrew had seen. And I had the uneasy impression that, somewhere or other, during this highly complicated and difficult process of sorting through hundreds of photographs, evidence of a vital nature might have been unidentified or mislaid."

All made-up nonsense: If Mahon had this uneasy impression “at an early stage in the inquiry” he would surely have raised the matter. He did not. If he had, it would have been pointed that the aircraft was travelling with its flaps retracted at well over two hundred knots, so would have had to be banked quite steeply to complete the orbits. The passengers would not have seen what the flight crew saw. The aircraft was never side-on to Ross Island - hence the lack of photographs.

The Honourable gentleman was actually a dishonourable ignoramus. He did not let the truth get in the way of a good story and its associated royalties. There are other examples: Chapter 18 at page 204 - “My Visit To The Crash Site” - is largely fictional and when it gets on to the subject of Beaufort Island, a demonstrable load of bull****. For confirmation, compare what is written there to Mahon’s report, also written after his visit to the crash site. The inconsistencies are so glaring that it looks like he visited Antarctica on two different occasions. For the avoidance of doubt, he only went once.

[Dark Knight]

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/robofq/Head-Out-of-Ass_zpsovlblajz.jpg

[3 Holer]

Most TROLLS only last about 10 posts. 400 plus, ampan, I'm impressed !
;);)

[ampan]

Royal Commission Report p118

“… although no direct reference is made to [Beaufort Island] in the CVR transcript apart from Mr Mulgrew’s “land ahead”, the five persons on the flight deck undoubtedly saw Beaufort Island, and mistook it for a different island altogether …”


‘Verdict on Erebus’ p202

"Mulgrew had been to Antarctica on previous occasions and he would have identified Beaufort Island without hesitation at low altitude during the orbiting sequences. But he had not seen it. "

So the Honourable bull****-artist completely contradicts himself, but then goes on to the point where an informed reader becomes embarrassed:

"As the aircraft straightened up and resumed its Nav track, Beaufort Island was now about four miles behind, and there could be no doubt , on this reconstruction, that as the DC10 flew onwrds towards disaster, Mulgrew had never had the chance to see that Beaufort Island was on the right of the aircraft instead of on the left, and to reaslise, with his past experience of the region, that they were flying directly at Ross Island. …

In later days, I though over again what I have just described. I tried to imagine Peter Mulgrew making his way forward along the aisle, moving a little slowly with his artificial legs, anxious to reach the flight deck …

Perhaps as he neared the flight deck a passenger detained him for a minute or two. Perhaps he stopped to converse with a group of people standing in the aisle. …

If only Mulgrew had reached the flight deck two minutes earlier …

I could not escape the conclusion that a delay of only two minutes in reaching the flight deck … had prevented him from averting disaster. And I reflected, as I had done so often before, upon the malignity of the hovering fates which had shadowed throughout its journey the flight path ofTW901."


He visits the ice, concludes that Mulgrew never saw Beaufort Island but never says so in his subsequent report and actually says the opposite. The phrase "bull****-artist" is overly flattering.

[747-419]

[QUOTE= I loath that late Honourable gentleman [/QUOTE]

So how can any of your previous 400 odd posts have any credibility when you have a prejudice like that.

I don't want to discourage you from this topic as your posts always give me a good laugh.

I, like 3 Holer am impressed that you have stuck at it so long when everybody else has let it go.

[AerialPerspective]

ArialPerspective just couldn’thelp himself, could he? With one hand he gives it a rest, while flogging it with the other. The things he refers to are also referred to in Chapter 25 at page 255 of ‘Verdict on Erebus’, this book being the sole source of McNeish’s biography, as least as regards the Erebus accident- (he got the daughter's titty stuff from Mahon’s son). As regards the burglary, it all sounds very sinister. You can almost see the silhouette of the Air New Zealand spy creeping around and you can definitely hear the violin but then, right at the end, the side is completely let down, with this:

“My own impression of the incident was that of someone who had lost a relative or friend in the disaster had become aware from the newspapers that the aircrew were being blamed, and by reason, probably, of emotional disturbance might have searched the Collins home for any documents relating to the disaster.” (p274)

So Air New Zealand had nothing to do with it? Why, then, do ArialPerspective and others think they might have? Far from being the brave character who broke ranks and paid for it with his life, Mahon was just a slimey weasel. All of his conspiracy theories were wrong and I would behappy to explain why, if any NZALPA lacky out there would care to nominate one. By way of an example, let’s take “the gap in the passengers photograph" at pages 258 and 259 of Mahon’s book:

“When, at an early stage of the enquiry, I had surveyed the available range of passengers’ photographs, I had become concerned, to some degree, that there was a sequence of photographs which seemed to me to be missing. Many hundreds of the photographic prints had been developed from the cameras found on the crash site. The photographs produced at the hearing showed views to the east, west and north. But there was not a single photograph which showed the view to the south, that is to say, towards Ross Island. If you looked at the flight path of the aircraft as it completed its two orbits, it was obvious that there had been four occasions upon which the aircraft had been side-on to Ross Island. On the two most southern aspects of the orbits the aircraft had been only five to ten miles from the ultimate impact position. Each of these turning sequences had meant the passengers on one side of the aircraft or the other had been able to take photographs to the south from a fairly short range."

The same silhouette then appears, with more violin, ending with this:


"So this was another of the unresolved mysteries of the inquiry. I would have given a great deal to have seen what the passengers had seen when they looked to the south because that would have been what the flightcrew had seen. And I had the uneasy impression that, somewhere or other, during this highly complicated and difficult process of sorting through hundreds of photographs, evidence of a vital nature might have been unidentified or mislaid."

All made-up nonsense: If Mahon had this uneasy impression “at an early stage in the inquiry” he would surely have raised the matter. He did not. If he had, it would have been pointed that the aircraft was travelling with its flaps retracted at well over two hundred knots, so would have had to be banked quite steeply to complete the orbits. The passengers would not have seen what the flight crew saw. The aircraft was never side-on to Ross Island - hence the lack of photographs.

The Honourable gentleman was actually a dishonourable ignoramus. He did not let the truth get in the way of a good story and its associated royalties. There are other examples: Chapter 18 at page 204 - “My Visit To The Crash Site” - is largely fictional and when it gets on to the subject of Beaufort Island, a demonstrable load of bull****. For confirmation, compare what is written there to Mahon’s report, also written after his visit to the crash site. The inconsistencies are so glaring that it looks like he visited Antarctica on two different occasions. For the avoidance of doubt, he only went once.
Gee... what a tool. For a start it's Aerial not 'Arial' - also making your typeface different doesn't impress us any more than your first load of drivel. By the way, aside from getting my name wrong, what does Trans-World Airlines have to do with this... I thought the flight number was TE901 not TW901... small thing yes, but it betrays the frantic, troll like, angry way you must type your posts.

A single issue moron. Nothing more. Get over yourself and stop wasting everyone's time. My post by the way was just pointing out that you totally ignore the lies from the airline... I knew people there at the time and they were embarrassed by the conduct of the company, one was a person who'd been with them for 25+ years and wouldn't normally hear a bad word said about his company.

[AerialPerspective]

So how can any of your previous 400 odd posts have any credibility when you have a prejudice like that.

I don't want to discourage you from this topic as your posts always give me a good laugh.

I, like 3 Holer am impressed that you have stuck at it so long when everybody else has let it go.
Bravo 747-419... most sensible comment on this thread so far.

[ampan]

AerialPerspective; You're 19 years of age and live with your mother in Adelaide. Last year, you were going to join ISIS but chickened out.


Prove me wrong by quoting a piece of evidence given by an Air New Zealand witness and then explaining why its a lie.

[AerialPerspective]

AerialPerspective; You're 19 years of age and live with your mother in Adelaide. Last year, you were going to join ISIS but chickened out.


Prove me wrong by quoting a piece of evidence given by an Air New Zealand witness and then explaining why its a lie.
Oh for goodness sake, go away. You have serious problems obviously and I'm not going to debate a serious accident where many people lost their lives with a person obviously suffering from some form of mental illness.. ISIS, Adelaide, p l e a s e ... get some help.

You fit every definition of a troll and a person who argues for the sake of arguing, you simply cannot leave something alone, you must have the last word always, when you don't get that or think you're being defeated you resort to making things up about the other poster. I'm not going to respond again because that's what your psyche wants, an enemy to argue with, a post to respond to, ad infinitum-ad nauseum - responding just keeps you going. Better to just ignore you and give you nothing to come back at.

Moderator - please shut this down, it serves no purpose whatsoever in the context of this site - let this person start their own blog if they wish.

[ampan]

The address to write to is: Harper Collins Publishers (New Zealand), Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand, who advise that “The pages used by Harper Collins in the manufacture of this book are a natural, recyclable product … ”. In other words, you can wipe your arse with the stuff, which is handy to know. The ISBN reference number of the publication is 978-1-7755-4090-8. I’d never heardof this McNeish fellow but he appears to have written many books and Harper Collins reckon his Mahon biography will become a classic of New Zealand literature. I would have thought that its publication would meet the topicality threshold for this website.

I don’t need to worry about AerialPerspective any more but another chap said he found it difficult to accept criticism of Mahon from someone who despises the honourable judge. Let me make it easy: Focus on what is said, not who says it. Isn’t that the whole point of these anonymous forums? If I were to say that smoking was bad for one’s health whilst half-way through a Benson & Hedges Special Filter (from the 25s packet, not the 20s) does that mean I’m wrong about smoking and that everyone should take it up?

[jack red]

you've been smoking mate but I don't think they are B&H Special Filters

[ampan]

Not as strong as the as the stuff the writer of the following was on:

“The pictorial representations showed the observers that the flight path was down McMurdo Sound and those displays would, not unnaturally, take precedence over the spoken words indicating a direct track from Cape Hallett to McMurdo Station and indicating the NDB as the destination waypoint.” (Mahon Report p60)

Not even the most deranged of the believers could accept that Captains Collins and Simpson, and First Officers Cassin, Gabriel and Irvine, sat through this briefing, heard the audio stating that the nav track went to McMurdo Station, saw a couple of photos suggesting otherwise, and then took their pick without asking a question. Mahon was so whacked out by either the chemo drugs or the head tumour that he added the phrase “not unnaturally” to his ridiculous finding, which was one of the most crucial.

[Chris2303]

[/INDENT]Not even the most deranged of the believers could accept that Captains Collins and Simpson, and First Officers Cassin, Gabriel and Irvine, sat through this briefing, heard the audio stating that the nav track went to McMurdo Station, saw a couple of photos suggesting otherwise, and then took their pick without asking a question. Mahon was so whacked out by either the chemo drugs or the head tumour that he added the phrase “not unnaturally” to his ridiculous finding, which was one of the most crucial.

Where was F/O Lucas then?

[ampan]

F/O Lucas did not attend the briefing. Neither did one of the co-pilots on the other flight, who was given an informal briefing by F/O Gabriel. Presumably, something similar happened with F/O Lucas.


On the flight south F/O Lucas was in the cabin. He heard the captain's PA announcement that they were going to descend using the radar at McMurdo Station so he would not have been concerned when the aircraft started going down, because he would have assumed, wrongly, that their position had been confirmed by the ground radar. (But he would have started to get curious about the way the aircraft was descending, via orbits instead of going straight down.)


0018:05 (GMT) - McMurdo - “… If you have copied our latest weatherwe have a low overcast in the area (at) about 2000 feet and right now we’re having some snow but our visibility is still about 40 miles and if you like I can give you an update on wheare the clear areas are around the local area

0018:11 - Captain - "Clouds come down a bit *** may not be able to** McMurdo. Very hard to tell the difference between the cloud and the ice **
" ** better conditions ** before"

0018:52 - McMurdo - "901 this is the forecaster again it looks like the clearareas around McMurdo are at approximately between 75 to 100 miles to the northwest of us (but) right over McMurdo we have a pretty extensive low overcast over"

0019:39 Captain - "Doesn’t look very promising does it?" Co-pilot - "No" Flight enginner - "No"

0019:56 - McMurdo - "... within a range of 40 miles of McMurdo we have a radar that will, if you desire, we can let you down to one thousand five hundred feet on radar vectors over"

0020:07 - Co-Pilot - "Roger New Zealand 901 that’s acceptable"

0020:17 - Captain -" * that’s what we want *** "

0020:30 Captain on PA - "Gents we’re going initially to eighteen thousand and the cloud cover in the McMurdo area has increased although the visibility is forty kilometres so ground visibility is good and we - - - will be taking advantage of the radar facilities at McMurdo for letdown which should take us below the cloud and give us a view of the McMurdo area, that is always likely to change of course depending on any variations in the weather but we’re hopeful we’ll be able to give you a look at McMurdo today. Thank you."




That couple of minutes from the transcript chops out most of the irrelevant garbage generated by the Mahon team. Sector whiteout? Known about well before Mahon and Vette were born. Known about by anyone who has been skiing and obviously known about by Captain Collins. Air New Zealand’s failure to warn him therefore had no relevance - as was the failure to warn him of the risks to passenger safety of flying the aircraft into the side of a mountain. 40 miles visibility? All that meant was that you could see a black object 40 miles away and Captain Collins clearly knew that, because after getting the ’40 miles’ information he was still going to go someone else. The visibility under the cloud was zero, which he knew full well.

[3 Holer]

Air New Zealand’s failure to warn him therefore had no relevance
What a shame he wasn't warned about the track change the night before. Air New Zealand appeared to believe that to be irrelevant too, that was until the Honourable Justice Peter Mahon entered the stage and proved otherwise.

[ampan]

He was told at the briefing that the track went to McMurdo Station.
The track went to McMurdo Station.

[3 Holer]

He said, she said, who said, what said........................and so it goes on.

Fact is, the track was changed the night before the flight, and NO ONE told the crew.:=:=:=

[ampan]

Why bother? The track was going to the same place that the crew were told it would go.

[wishiwasupthere]

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/1/1e/Stickerline-elsa-let-it-go.png/revision/latest?cb=20140528072653

[ampan]

Not while you lot keep this **** up:

Unit Plans (http://www.erebusforkids.co.nz/Teachers/UnitPlans/tabid/367/language/en-US/Default.aspx)




By the way, whose inside that igloo? A penguin? Maybe a Falcon?

[Bull at a Gate]

Please please please can we either have this thread closed or can we leave ampan to carry on all by himself. We all have our views about this and no-one is going to change his or her mind. If we don't reply to ampan he or she has no on-one to argue with.

It's just like any discussion about the pilots' strike. All that happens is that heat and nastiness is generated as old wounds are opened (sorry for the mixed metaphor).

[ampan]

"Please please please can we either have this thread closed orcan we leave ampan to carry on all by himself. "

The latter is a good idea: I won't have to waste time reading posts other than my own.
"We all have our views about thisand no-one is going to change his or her mind."

Why not? If your view is that the captain was blameless then you should seriously consider changing your mind. There are some good second-hand ones on EBay.
"If we don't reply to ampan he or she has no on-one to argue with."

Again, check out Ebay, or get someone else to: You've just done the very thing you recommend not to.
"It's just like any discussion about the pilots' strike. All that happens is that heat and nastiness is generated as old wounds are opened (sorry for the mixed metaphor)."

Don't apologise for something you haven't done: To mix metaphors you need at least two. Again, get onto EBay, or Trade Me if in New Zealand.

[slice]

Anyone hazard a guess as to who ampan might actually be? They are holding on far too tightly just to be a casual troll. AirNZ senior mgmt or flight ops mgmt individual from that time perhaps? Their visceral hatred of McMahon transcends any reasonable criticism you might have of his report or methods used to produce it. In addition, regardless of how much responsibility is sheeted home to Captain Collins and his crew, the behaviour of AirNZ Senior Management post accident was plaintively dishonest and criminal.

[ampan]

I don't hate McMahon. As Australian Prime Ministers go, he was alright, as was the one that drowned. But Rudd was a b*tch.

"plaintively" isn't the word you're looking for - "plainly" might be, but it would be a very bad choice: After Mahon's report was released, numerous senior Air New Zealand managers were suspended while the police investigated the perjury allegations. No-one was even charged, let alone convicted. It should be noted that in New Zealand, as in Australia, anyone can lay a criminal charge, not just the Police. Mahon could have done it, or he could have got one his Law School buddies to do it, such as Bernard Brown, Associate-Professor of Criminal Law. And given that there's no time limit, that fatuous old windbag could waddle down to the Auckland District Court tomorrow and charge, for example, Captain Ross Johnson with perjury. But he wouldn't dare.

Yesterday I asked another stupid tosser to identify an incident of perjury. Nothing. I ask again.

[Dark Knight]

http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/robofq/fw%20firewall_zpslqvxotor.jpg

[ampan]

Translation: Can't find any incident of perjury.


The believers have been badly let down by their hero. One might think (said in Whitlam fashion) that the honourable gentleman would have taken the trouble it itemise those parts of the musical score that comprised this orchestrated litany of lies, so called. They may well say God Save the Queen, because nothing will save

[C441]

It's just like any discussion about the pilots' strike.
Pilot's strike?

Which Pilots went on strike? :rolleyes: :)

[Dark Knight]

.....The real test for a man is how he lives with himself, alone. Precious few men ever truly allow themselves to be alone and learn real independence and self-reliance.

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

Late in the early morning hours, in a Spanish cafe, an old man drinks brandy.

A young waiter is angry; he wishes that the old man would leave so that he and an older waiter could close the cafe and go home. He insults the deaf old man and is painfully indifferent to the older waiter's feelings when he states that "an old man is a nasty thing." The older waiter, however, realizes that the old man drinking brandy after brandy is not nasty; he is only lonely. No doubt, that's the reason why the old man tried to hang himself last week.

When the old man leaves, the waiters close the cafe. The young waiter leaves for home, and the older waiter walks to an all-night cafe where, thinking about the terrible emptiness of the old man's life which he keenly identifies with, he orders a cup of nada from the waiter. A cup of nothing. The man who takes the order thinks that the old waiter is just another crazy old man; he brings him coffee.

Finishing the coffee, the older waiter begins his trudge homeward. Sleep is hours away. Until then, he must try to cope bravely with the dark nothingness of the night.

What happens in this story? Nothing. What do the characters stand for?

Nothing. What is the plot? Nothing. In fact, because there is no plot, Hemingway enables us to focus absolutely on the story's meaning — that is, in a world characterized by nothingness, what possible action could take place? Likewise, that no character has a name and that there is no characterization emphasize the sterility of this world.

What then is the theme of this story? Nothing, or nothingness. This is exactly what the story is about: nothingness and the steps we take against it. When confronting a world that is meaningless, how is someone who has rejected all of the old values, someone who is now completely alone — how is that person supposed to face this barren world? How is that person able to avoid the darkness of nada, or nothingness?

The setting is a clean Spanish cafe, where two unnamed waiters — one old and one young — are discussing an old man (also unnamed) who comes every night, sits alone, and drinks brandy until past closing time. The young waiter mentions that the old man tried to commit suicide last week. When the old waiter asks why the old man tried to commit suicide, the young waiter tells him that the old man was consumed by despair. "Why?" asks the old waiter. "Nothing," answers the young waiter.

The young waiter reveals that there is absolutely no reason to commit suicide if one has money — which he's heard the old man has. For the young waiter, money solves all problems. For an old, rich man to try to commit suicide over the despair of confronting nothingness is beyond the young waiter's understanding. However, nothingness is the reason that the old man comes to the cafe every night and drinks until he is drunk.

In contrast, the old waiter knows all about despair, for he remains for some time after the lights have gone off at the clean, earlier well-lighted cafe. The old waiter also knows fear. "It was not fear or dread," Hemingway says of the old waiter, "it was a nothing that he knew too well. It was a nothing and a man was nothing too." After stopping for a drink at a cheap, all-night bar, the old waiter knows that he will not sleep until morning, when it is light.

The story emphasizes lateness — late not only in terms of the hour of the morning (it's almost 3 A.M.), but also in terms of the old man's and the old waiter's lives. Most important, however, is the emphasis on religious traditions — specifically, on the Spanish Catholic tradition, because faith in the promises of Catholicism can no longer support or console these old men.

Thus, suicide is inviting.

The old man who drinks brandy at the clean, well-lighted cafe is literally deaf, just as he is metaphorically deaf to the outmoded traditions of Christianity and Christian promises: He cannot hear them any more. He is alone, he is isolated, sitting in the shadow left by nature in the modern, artificial world. Additionally, all of the light remaining is artificial light — in this clean, "well-lighted" cafe.

What is important in the story is not only the condition of nothingness in the world but the way that the old man and the old waiter feel and respond to this nothingness. Thus, Hemingway's real subject matter is the feeling of man's condition of nothingness — and not the nothingness itself. Note, though, that neither of the old men is a passive victim. The old man has his dignity. And when the young waiter says that old men are nasty, the old waiter does not deny the general truth of this statement, but he does come to the defense of the old man by pointing out that this particular old man is clean and that he likes to drink brandy in a clean, well-lighted place. And the old man does leave with dignity. This is not much — this aged scrap of human dignity — in the face of the human condition of nothingness, but, Hemingway is saying, sometimes it is all that we have.

The young waiter wants the old man to go to one of the all-night cafes, but the old waiter objects because he believes in the importance of cleanliness and light. Here, in this well-lighted cafe, the light is a manmade symbol of man's attempt to hold off the darkness — not permanently, but as late as possible. The old man's essential loneliness is less intolerable in light, where there is dignity. The danger of being alone, in darkness, in nothingness, is suicide.

At this point, we can clearly see differences between the old waiter and the young waiter — especially in their antithetical attitudes toward the old man. Initially, however, the comments of both waiters concerning a passing soldier and a young girl seem very much alike; they both seem to be cynical. Yet when the young waiter says of the old man, "I wouldn't want to be that old. An old man is a nasty thing," then we see a clear difference between the two waiters because the old waiter defends the old man: "This old man is clean. He drinks without spilling. Even now, drunk."

The young waiter refuses to serve the old man another drink because he wants to get home to his wife, and, in contrast, the old waiter is resentful of the young waiter's behavior. The old waiter knows what it is like to have to go home in the dark; he himself will not go home to sleep until daybreak — when he will not have to fall asleep in the nothingness of darkness.

Thus, in a sense, the old waiter is partially Hemingway's spokesperson because he points out that the old man leaves the cafe walking with dignity; he affirms the cleanliness of the old man. Unlike the young waiter, who is impetuous and has a wife to go home to, the old waiter is unhurried because he has no one waiting for him; he has no place to go except to his empty room. The old waiter is wiser, more tolerant, and more sensitive than the young waiter.

What Hemingway is saying is this: In order to hold nothingness, darkness, nada at bay, we must have light, cleanliness, order (or discipline), and dignity. If everything else has failed, man must have something to resort to or else the only option is suicide — and that is the ultimate end of everything: "It is all nothing that he knew too well. It was all nothing and a man was nothing. It was only that and light . . . and a certain cleanness and order."

At the end of the story, the old waiter is alone in a cheap bar, a "bodega," which is well-lighted — but not clean. Because he has been contemplating the concept of nada, he says, when the barman asks for his order, "Nada," which prompts the barman to tell him (in Spanish) that he's crazy. Realizing the truth of what he has heard, the old waiter responds with the now-well-known parody of the Lord's Prayer: "Our nada who art in nada . . ."

Left alone, the old waiter is isolated with his knowledge that all is nothing. He is standing at a dirty, unpolished bar. He cannot achieve even the dignity that the old man at the cafe possessed; he also knows that he will not sleep. Perhaps he has insomnia, but we know better: The old waiter cannot sleep because he is afraid of the darkness, afraid of nothingness. Hemingway himself suffered severe bouts of insomnia, feeling alone and deserted in the universe.