Blog 25 - 18th August

A special edition of 'Woman with Seoul' with our Canberra correspondent Jacob - pictured above with his stylish 'inner-city latte-sipping socialist' beard - home in Adelaide to catch up with his trans-national family and offer an electionally contextual take on the travels of this blog's protagonist. Next to him is comrade Damien, ex Secretary of the Collingwood ALP, motto: dead members can vote.

[For our non-Australian readership, there is a federal election campaign occurring in Australia as we speak]

This week's travels take us to a regional Victorian electorate containing the beautiful coastal town, and home of the strong Mugavin voting block, Warrnambool.

Warrnambool involved the tried and tested election winning strategies of a broad divided campaigning approach, paired with several enjoyable meals and numerous cake and tea campaign meetings.

The notoriously fickle voters of the Port Fairy 'Belfast House' Aged Care Home received our extensive lobbying, particularly the matriarchal factional leader Muriel Mugavin.

The beachfront esplanade and the local skate park also received sustained political pressure.

Lunch with policy adviser Dot - with her anti-immigration makeshift machine gun - made from windmill parts - and community cabinet meeting with the extend Mugavin focus group also contributed to a successful Warrnambool campaign.

Here is Liam who is visiting from Japan, with Dorothy, his godmother, and afore mentioned comrade, examining the historical artifacts of her family farm.

With rain and wintry weather - there were record floods the day after we left - this part of the world is certainly lush and green, reminiscent of Ireland. The view of cows is from our bedroom window.

Thanks to Sandra and Julian for a wonderful stay and for inviting the family for pizza.


Back in Adelaide we maintained our dangerously high cake intake level in the interests of canvassing the success of campaign slogans beginning with 'In Korea...'. Various hard-working Australian families and politically unaligned friends were used as focus groups for this exercise.

Susan & Damien took some time from election campaigning to accompany our friend Eileen who invited us on a guided tour of South Australian galleries and an artist's studio. For a unique glimpse of an alternative view of Adelaide see her website www.artscout.com.au

With the electorates of Adelaide and Warrnambool successfully canvassed, there was nothing left but for a birthday debrief this morning with faceless trade union bosses, climate skeptic agitators and non-ideological political pragmatists all standing up and moving forward together.

This was followed by a surprise caucus meeting during comrade Susan's birthday breakfast

And in the evening, a caucus spill at Koolaman St., just to finish of the celebrations in true style. My sisters Anne and Maree

Check out the artichokes and spinach! And the new almond trees in flower. Our (really Liam's) dog Spook will have to mind the garden until our return to Adelaide. Thanks to Dominic for taking such good care of him.