The day before the Sydney Writer's Festival (May 22 - yes I'm horribly behind in my blog postings) my friend Lisa and I were trying to decide which sessions we should see. As that week's hot news was the resignation of the New South Wales Minister of Transportation due to a TV news show capturing video of the Minister of Transportation leaving an adult bar (interestingly he resigned not for the fact he was "publicly exposed on TV" for departing an adult bar but for using a tax-payer paid vehicle to goto this adult bar), I thought the session on "Forgiveness" with the New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally as one of the panelists would be interesting.
In this Flip Video you'll hear the Premier share that in the press conference the day prior where she announced accepting the Minister of Transportation's resignation she used the word "unforgiveable" and now regretted using that word because it wasn't her place to make that judgement.
After this session on "Forgiveness", Lisa and I went to The Rocks to check out the market and on our way back we saw this injured flying bat on the ground barely moving. Lisa - who has the kindest most beautiful heart - called the Wildlife Information and Rescue Service (WIRE) to report this injured bat. We stayed there until a WIRE volunteer came to check out the bat. In the end she said the bat would most likely be euthanized because its spine was broken. Lisa and I both thanked the volunteer and made a donation to WIRE as it was most impressive that this is what she volunteers her time to do on her weekends for injured wildlife.
Back at the Sydney Writer's Festival, the last session we attended was a panel on True Crime which focused on the challenges facing writers of true crime as they attempt to chronicle the underbelly of urban life. One of Lisa's former colleagues - Roger Maynard - was on the panel as he's written books on the "backpack murderer", the Falconio mystery (a murder in the outback) and a book on the worst POW camp in Japan.
For my sister-in-law Ellen who loves true crime books, I got her an autographed copy of Roger's "Where's Peter: Unravelling the Falconio Mystery". Note to Ellen, I hope you don't mind if I read it first before sending it your way.
After the panel, Lisa and I had coffee with Roger and one of the other panelists Richard Shear (who was also a UK journalist that specialised in true crime stories) and learned that there was something that looking back Roger wished that he had included in his book "Where's Peter". This "something" was that according to the girlfriend, Peter was reading Catcher in the Rye before he disappeared (presumed murdered) yet in all the list of contents of the camper van the book was never found. Leading Roger to believe that Peter was not in fact murdered, but devised his own escape and took the book he was nearly finished reading with him.
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That is so cool that you met the author. Ellen She tears through the Ann Rule books and will love the book! Thanks! I haven't read Catcher in the Rye in a while- but its always seems to be come up in murders and suicides, didn't know that included escapes. hmmm.
ReplyDeleteSaving that bat is very cool- right out of an episode of "Keeping up with the Kardashians"- not that I watch it- Ellen just has it on. haha