It's the corner of my eye. It's the Stop sign. It's the lead singer of The Red Riders making his leather jacketed way into a pink terrace in Hordern Street. It's British India as the new Faker. I hate the way I look and despise the way I sing. It's turning up the clock radio. It's Brendan Cowell turning on every appliance in the house. It's wind and rain, rubber boots constantly under my desk and the harbour like dishwater. It's fluorescent tights strewn across the floor. And another time it's the tights as blue as the label on the beer is green. In harmony and in discord.

They're digging up the road and widening it just so you can suffocate at home. Which Tim? My Tim.

By nightfall on Sunday I'm ready for tele. I lift the kitchen blind and leave the light on. Obligingly it winks in welcome as I return from the supermarket with a bag full of rice and lime, smoked fish and a pale ale six pack.

A tiny, shiny man in a grey suit tells us the names of buildings in Hong Kong, and it's hilarious. Main Building, New Wing, Adjacent Building. Sky Scraper.

I don't observe much because I'm tired.

There are choc chips on the top of my biscuit but I wouldn't call it a choc chip biscuit. They melt and make me feel self conscious as I eat my sandwich.

Listening is the thing. Richard Flanagan crinkles, and is quietly hopeful, principled and unyielding. I admire him and his quietness, his twinkling eyes and his leaning forward but he makes me think Tasmania must be rigorous. Not frivolous enough for me. Still, I walk straight out and buy his damn book that, based on the cover alone, I would otherwise have avoided. The other Richard talks quietly of an America that just couldn't be bothered, especially enough to care about the election in 2000. He calls it America's greatest constitutional crisis. He keeps adjusting his jacket, pulling it open to reveal his plaid shirt and closing it tightly again. He imagines second marriages to be comical but he doesn't know for sure. He talks about friends that went Vietnam and came back...Democrats. All in the timing. I want him to read me the whole damn book. I want every sentence to say Great Falls too. And the references to other writers, if they were choc chips, would be sprinkled through just right.