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Two groups are organising mass meetings on Mt Ainslie in combat for the spiritual well-being of Canberrans. I didn't know we were so important, to be honest.

October the 17th is the day. One is Christian. A pastor believes Canberra is becoming something evil and has called a rally for our souls.

The Wiccan/Pagan response is just that - people who don't like what's happening and are encouraging folks to go up the mountain on the same day. I don't blame them for not liking what's happening - they've been accused of blood sacrifice*. This is wrong on so many fronts! Pastor What'shisname should get his head out of the Malleus Maleficarum and actually talk to some practising Wiccans and Pagans. I know... talking... so modern, so ecumenical.

With Christians battling against Wiccans and Pagans on the hilltops, I'm going to stay quietly in my valley and remain Jewish. Although I admit it's tempting to take a picnic to Mt Ainslie and sing them "They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat." I think it's a good response to religious intolerance, myself, as long as I invite everyone to the picnic.



*What looks to the rest of us like winestains from a hilltop notorious for parties and people making out in cars, looks to this particular out-of-town pastor like the dribbles of evil. If someone wrote a short story called "The dribbles of evil," I would read it.

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In more news, if I go by the bookie response to forthcoming announcements I have a one in four chance of having had a serious crush on a Nobel prizewinner.

I was in my twenties and I was on a student camp. Amos Oz was outstandingly good with students and treated us very gently. He told us we didn't have to be scared of saying politically tough things. And he is a mesmerising writer.

Around the same time, the writer I didn't get a crush on was Chaim Potok. The poor guy had no idea of how rabidly indepedent-thinking Australian students can be and was used to there being a diffidence and respect from admiring throngs. We had a very curious conversation where he muddled his Roman history (a really obvious date thing) and I asked about his sources. He became very "You don't know anything," and from that moment we had a problem. I may never have developed a crush on him, but I suspect I would have admired him much more if I had gone to a regular lecture by him rather than meeting him on a student arts' camp.

Not liking Potok was more life-changing than liking Oz. It was partly due to avoiding Potok and more of those futile conversations that I got my very first fiction publication. But that's another story, and I'm supposed to be working, not wandering in memory lane.