Dear reader, we kick off where we didn’t last time, wth our trio of heroes stuck beneath the desert sands of Maralinga debating, just what it takes to find freedom, and arguing over the vexed issue of Australia’s take on climate. Is this a climate high water mark? Or as the Great Barrier Reef and other natural wonders are improved by desertification and other ‘Clean-Coal’ initiatives from the coal and gas lobby, is it enough to get us over the line?

Is this the man who will save us from the lunacy of carbon credits?

With Ces and Quent debating what it takes to be a politician, and what policy has  to do with anything remotely more interesting than reality tv and the environment, we slough off to another episode and hope that whatever the conundrum, they find a way out and get to the bottom of who defiled our Tea-lady Ms. Culthorpe as an in intern in our Federal parliament. 

Knowing that Scomo knows nothing about that heinous act is a source of some comfort, and being a religious man, certainty that an all loving God exists to prove climate scientists and an informed press WRONG!. 

Benny had become an intellectual giant, he reflected;

‘Is staying in power, long enough to be a winner, and being on the board of Crown or the Fair Work Commission all they’re interested in?  I thought it was helping ordinary folk getting a toe- hold on the rungs of the ladder of opportunity.  Or is  just creating a sinecure post politic  of investment properties all that politics is about these days?

And dying of boredom’, I enthused, 

Or are there more rounds left in the Coalition’s conundrum?

‘Nup simpler than that, (Ces qualified with surgical exactitude) just watching your house go up by squillions and being safe is what it’s really all about. 

Is that all there is?

Yup, it’s what makes the world go round. 

So, that’s it boys’, Benny enthused;  ‘we might as well just wait, See what turns up, and find a way out. We cant go up and we cant go down. Either way we’re skewered’. 

‘No we aint’, piped Ces; ‘there’s only one person who knows a way outta here and that’s, ( he pointed to the writhing ball of gaffer taped humanity) right here. Only she would know, a way out, You didn’t think she’d bother about the hundreds of functionaries doing her bidding upstairs, they’d be just collateral to her damage. In the end, she came down here to slot us and she knew, just as she knows the cards are stacked against a fair an equitable wage system that she had a way out. 

And I betchya there’s only one way out. 

And that is.. (Benny had us spell-bound. by his analytical  depth and understanding), 

is keeping face with the coal-face gonna be enough?

And that is to take the gag off her mouth and let her speak’. 

‘Let her speak’!

We both ghasped, Do you know what that could do to your psyche? the tongue lashing, the character assassination, the bile, the invective!! 

No worries mate you sissies can close your ears, but I’ve heard much worse at the Fat Lady’s Arms, and besides, if she goes on too much I can just put the tape back on. 

Are you with me? 

Will this be the face of adaptation to a warmer climate?

Stuck perhaps miles down what could we do but agree. 

‘Y yyyesss Benny, we’ll give it a go’. 

‘Right then when I give the word, you pull the tape off her gob, and the other one of youse grab this towel and be prepared to wrap it around her If the swearing gets outta control’!

It seemed like a plan, the only plan, to be embedded down in this tomb to become the next putative Amenhotep 3 or just dry out and wither alone and unrequited, we had no other choice but to obey. 

And stealthily we took up our allotted positions and waited for the word. 

What will our heroes do? Will they get Sophie to make sense? Will she know of a secret passage, and a way out? Is there a way out from Sophies secret passage? Is There way OUT when there is no IN-TRAY?  What has this got to do with Australia dragging its coal impregnated saggy-arse across the floor at Glasgow?  Find out in the next indexicational episode, 

Is black-face enough policy commitment in our woke era?

“A fools errand for clean coal”  or ‘a heart of coal aint all black’.