Election Day Snaps

1. It is very cold outside the Korean Church at 8 o'clock in the morning. We arrange a few boards and posters. Christopher Pyne rocks up in his big election car. I don't think the Korean Church will like your poster on their railing, he says. Won't they? I say. No, he says making a scowly-Pyney face.

2. It is icy cold, and getting colder. I hop back and forth over a puddle to keep warm, and shuffle the How to Vote cards.

3. The Greens man greets everyone with: "Smile at the future?" An old lady says angrily: No way! Later he tries to hang his poster in a tree. It falls down. The sun comes out momentarily. He asks me if I want to borrow a hat. I say no thanks, even though I would like to see his hat.

4. A small boy is sobbing on the pillion of a parked motor bike. His mother addresses him loudly from the voting queue: I should have made it clearer, Darren. It's not time for the Museum yet. Darren's sobs become increasingly theatrical.

5. In the afternoon, we are at Surrey Downs. The Greens man there thinks that he knows me. Did your kids used to go to Irish Dancing lessons? he asks. No, I say, they didn't.

6. It is still freezing cold in the shade outside the polling booth. Round the corner, in the sun, four children are playing. One has a bike. Run us over! shout the other three. They stand with their legs apart and their arms wide open, pelvises thrust forward tauntingly, even the little sister in her short pink coat. The one on the bike rides towards them, but turns at the last minute. Chicken, says one of the boys.

7. Nina has left us sandwiches and a drink. The drink is Diet Blood Orange.

8. At the after party, in the Bowling Clubrooms at the Paddocks, it gets hotter and hotter. We watch the results on a screen. They show misleading sets of numbers and we can't hear what anyone's saying, but the local candidate seems to have won. Everyone claps. But he's on his phone. It's not looking good for Labor.

9. We probably have a hung parliament. Now I'm in bed, wondering whether today really happened.

Excellent Women

Pliny's nose was buried in his book.

How's it going, Pliny? I asked.

He looked up, wiping a tear from his eye.

Ah, he said. My nephew was an excellent young man. This book is all about the various women mentioned in his letters. And it would seem he hardly had a bad word to say of any of them. Indeed, he seems to have been quite famous for his descriptions of ideal Roman women.

Oh that's lovely, Pliny, I said. Tell me more.

Well, he said, my nephew was married three times, but it was his last wife, Calpurnia, to whom he was the most devoted, and she to him. She was very young when they married, and she was very interested in his career. She used to send for news of how his speeches were received, and at home she would sit behind a curtain during readings of his works, listening eagerly to the comments and the praises of his friends.

Did she indeed?

She did. And when she had to go to the country for her health he used to write to her most tenderly of how he missed her.

That's really nice.

It is. And furthermore, he wote of a Roman woman called Arria, who was a model of Roman courage and restraint.

What did she do?

Her husband and son were dying at the same time. The son died first. but she did not tell her dying husband, wishing to spare him the sad knowledge. She cried in private, but kept a cheerful face in front of him. When it became evident that her husband wished to kill himself to avoid further agony, she took a sword and plunged it into her own breast, saying to him as she died, Paetus, it does not hurt. This gave him the courage to do the same.

Good gracious, Pliny. Such behaviour would not be viewed as admirable today. What she did was totally demented.

That may well be. She did have a history of threatening to do away with herself. But you know we Romans were rather obsessed with dying a noble death.

So I've heard. Anyway, I'm glad you're pleased with Pliny the Younger's women. Now you can write that review and earn your banana points towards the poster.

Oh yes! I had forgotten about the poster!

Pliny's Women

But Pliny couldn't get those banana points out of his head. He hadn't gained his reputation as an intrepid researcher for nothing. Besides he was very curious to know why a book had been written about his nephew's women. What on earth had the lad got up to after his uncle had all too prematurely left the scene?

So he googled up the Mighty Ape again. He discovered there that readers could buy certain items with the banana points earned from writing customer reviews. He looked at the list of items. Many of them were posters. There was one entitled The Elder Scrolls. I wouldn't mind that one, he thought to himself. He was also quite intrigued by The Ark of Truth poster, and one that depicted a knowing-looking young couple called Edward and Bella. The first two posters cost 3200 banana points each, and Edward and Bella cost 2200 banana points.

The Edward and Bella poster reminded him of his nephew, Pliny the Younger. Perhaps he would enjoy having that one on his wall. It depended really on what Pliny's Women turned out to be about.

He hesitated. He thought, why not?

It cost eighty five dollars plus shipping, but he could afford it.

He ordered the book.