June 17

Today coming home from Chatswood via Redfern station I had some thoughts about begging, an extension of a prolonged disagreement I had with Evan on Australia Day, where he argued the They Should Do Something For their Money side of the debate and I said, they already are. He said that he was quite happy to give money to Greenpeace/ Save the Children etcetc but refused (on principle)to give anything to people begging on the street: it's a strange sort of morality which says that it's moral to fund some monstrous bureaucracy where most of the money goes into the pay- packets of public servants, but you must never give a penny to anybody who stands in your line of vision with their (usually well pigmented) hand outstretched and says, help me. In my opinion, however, begging is a job, an honest transaction but a delicate one.There are rules: don't look into the eyes of the mendicant: don't give such a puny amount that they will be forced to shout your stinginess after you as you scuttle off: don't give an amount you can't afford to give again next time to the same person. I don't know what they are from the other side, but I suspect you are forbidden from forming a personal relationship even with regular benefactors. The model beggar is friendly but not over- familiar, diplomatic but not obsequious, respectable- looking but doesn't drive a BMW (even if they own one as some are said to do.) And there is my Manual of Begging and Non Tax- Deductible Donation.

Anyway then I remembered Louise at Grandma's funeral who- when she found out I was still a student at the ripe old age of 27- said, well, just make sure you make a contribution to society, not like your father. (To which I responded exactly as my father would have, with an icy smile and a tell- tale rictus about the jaw which belies the effort it takes not to literally bite off the head of whoever has offended you. ) And then I thought, why is it that it isn't a Contribution to be intelligent, compassionate, and thoughtful, and to exploit all the resources that the natural and intellectual worlds have to offer, but you are a model citizen if you sit in an office all day for 30 years and sell your life for $25 an hour to somebody who probably doesn't even know your name? Conclusion: it's a sick old world.

In other news, the DG is in sole possession of my grey matter at the moment so that even when I am having guilty sex dreams about Nick it is within a functional grammar framework. Don't ask me to explain this but it's definitely the case. As for the guilty sex dreams it's that time of the month when I am in thrall to my hormones and I hope it will pass. The best bromide is thinking: OK, we go to bed (and I won't say it hasn't occurred to me in glorious technicolour)- what then? Answer: holocaust. It doesn't turn down my libido but it will definitely stop me from acting on it.