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    Re: Many thanks Margo - terrific strength from Shipton.. Archived Message

    Posted by margo on August 6, 2019, 3:17 pm, in reply to "Many thanks Margo - terrific strength from Shipton.."

    Pity they don't give Shipton a voice. A man Australia should be proud of...

    I enjoyed Julian Assange's description of renewing acquaintance with his father John in Sydney, in his 20s - after he'd been raised by his mother Christine and step-father Brett Assange whilst moving around the country and attending many different schools:

    From Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography (Canongate) 2011 - worth buying and sharing:

    excerpts, p 126, 127

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    J.A: "In puberty... I was a father to myself, and I taught myself with books. The books had become special to me, all that Dostoevsky, Koestler, Kafka... During those years it seemed an unnecessary emotional complication, the idea of seeking out my father... After a little correspondence, we spoke on the phone. And then I went to Sydney to see him. It was odd. They came to the airport to meet me - my father, his partner and a son. I had brought my bike with me, which my father decided to ride back to their house in New Town, while we went ahead in the car.... It was poignant to be in the house and see him.
    And I had a weird experience there.
    In the evening I walked around the house looking at his bookshelves.
    I found myself getting sort of angry as I did so because there, on shelf after shelf, were the exact same books as those I had bought and read myself.
    I suddenly realised I had started from the bottom of myself, on the first rung, and built myself up during many trials and tribulations when, all the time, if I had only known him, I might just have picked his books down from the shelf...

    "The feeling was powerful. It galvanised me, somehow. I suddenly knew there was this genetic connection between us, an intellectual temper as much as anything, and that I had missed out by not having him to refer to or to learn from. ...
    He had a kind of cultivated graciousness that made you warm to him and I found it easy to talk to him, even though he could sometimes be aloof.
    We still have that ability to talk to each other very easily, having this instant access to one another's mental make-up..."


    Note:
    Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography carries a note from the publisher:
    "On 20 December 2010, Julian Assange signed a contract with Canongate Books to write a book - part memoir, part manifesto - for publication the following year...
    In the end the work was to prove too personal...
    Julian became increasingly troubled by the thought of publishing an autobiography. After reading the first draft of the book that was delivered at the end of March, Julian declared: "All memoir is prostitution".
    "We disagree.....What follows is the unauthorised first draft. it is passionate provocative and opiniated - like its author. We are proud to publish it"

    Interesting that the UK Crown Services Judge who sent Assange to Belmarsh on 23-hour-a-day lockdown called him "a narcissist".
    Surely "a narcissist" would've been dead keen to publish an autobiography, not to try and suppress its release?

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