In 2004-2007 I went to Iran three times. This is the story of what I saw on my first nine-day work trip, where I had three very different experiences in three different large cities. I suppose my lasting impression is of a very ancient culture undergoing its own process of modernisation while out of touch with the world, of a substantial divide in the population, and of a culture of risk-taking and conspiracy theories.

Oddly, when I first posted this story online,, it was instantly routed to a...

Flood, J (2024). “Big Dog and Man.” Hecate, vol. 47 no. 1/2, 2021 [2013], pp. 183–198.

Alf was the biggest dog, the most respected dog, and he would always win a fight. He was a loyal and fair companion, and a Pig Dog, there to cover your back fearlessly when the boars broke out of the brush. He was what Merv wanted to be, and never could be.

One of 70 or so posts that eventually ended up in the Unravelling the Code book. This 2007 piece tells the story of the Monmouth Rebellion, the Bloody Assizes, and John Coad who escaped hanging by being transported to the West Indies

Two days ago, I had a 45 minute radio interview on Community Radio Blue Mountains. "Rights, Rorts and Rants". I spoke on my work visits to Gaza (in "Buffalo Gals") and to Iran...

My last words to Dorothy Hewett

HAIL DOROTHY

I always loved you Joe.
We went through so much
together

Yes we did
I said

JF

Marilla and I spent yesterday putting in some short stories for a competition. Yes, competitions are a fundraising lottery for the journals, but it's good for us to smarten up...

The book has a great deal to say about conditions in Kenya and in many other countries Jack visited in 1994-96. Amid the joys and troubles of travel in Africa, the narrative runs through a number of quirky, sometimes hilarious incidents while Jack is working at UN-Gigiri. Yet the book is not called Africa at Large or Gigiri Gallop or See you in the Serengeti, it is Buffalo Gals.

Why alienate audiences interested in patrolling my complex observations by introducing challenging and intrusive...

Jack arrived in Africa in March 1994, in a watershed year for the continent. In April, the African National Congress won power in South Africa, ending 45 years of apartheid. The country had been in a turbulent transition period for several years, during a reform period that ended minority rule, and the collapse of the homeland system. A referendum of the white population in 1992 supported and accelerated the process.

That same month, the Hutu Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed when...

According to Orson Scott Card, “Who but adolescents are free to have adventures?” Jack Doe at 43 was enmeshed in a great adventure or three, therefore he was still an adolescent at heart.

He was an unlikely recruit to the UN. He was poorly equipped to handle any significant work on behalf of developing countries. He had never been to any, and certainly never worked in any. He came from an all-Anglo country, and by 1993, he had only ever met one African, no Arabs, and few Asians. He had no...