An expanse of shimmering white paper lies before me. It is virgins cartridge, fresh from the box and unsoiled by human hands. The smell of ink rises to my nostrils and my hand trembles. Once I release this "blue black" genie from the ink bottle where he resides there will be no turning back. At the first touch of the nib, ink will forever scar the paper. it will permeate the fibers. The Blue/black against the white will appear like a bruise. The mark is indelible. I touch the paper, I write a few words, then I falter.

The bruise stars back at me like a coherent statement of my guilt. The words accuse me for a moment before being consigned to the bin. It is a difficult task I have undertaken. I am about to tell the truth and that is an arduous task for a liar. I have come to a stage where I must admit the indiscretions of youth and take on the mantle of journalistic responsibility. Although I do maintain anything written is subjective, truth (which is not absolute) is open to interpretation and one person's truth is someone else's big fat filthy poker.

In previous lives I have toyed with the media. I have lied outright on occasion. The sins of Helen Demidenko seem insignificant by comparison. What is a book with a couple of borrowed phrases when the greater part of my adult life has been a fabrication? Perhaps only expelled members of Cabinet with their business diaries "as work of fiction" can appreciate the true depth of the fib. We are all plagiarists, liars and cheats Some of us have the misfortune of being caught. I am making a clean breast of it, here and now, believing there will be sympathy. A few understanding people will say he is a liar but at least he is honest about it.

When it came to the interview I was compulsive. Imagine my joy at reading in The Times that Doug Anthony* was the assassinated prime Minister of Australia, killed on the 11th of the 11th '75 by members of the right wing. Or that Sir Joh was Australia's Nelson Mandela. Or that Pauline Hanson is a clever parody created by a university revue.

In all the years of lying, I never once picked up the paper and was disappointed. There is a moral in there somewhere but what message would I be sending to the youth of this country? Deceit is not only fun, it can be profitable as well- at least it always has been for me and it seems it may be a prerequisite in the political arena.

The media has been under a great amount of scrutiny of late, and it should be. There are thousands of hack journalists spewing forth mountains of litigious claptrap. Endless diatribes to wade through to get to one perverted juicy snap by the paparazzi. There a legions of investigative journos with non-existent code of practice beaming at us every night. The time has come to draw the line. I believe it is important, so that we understand each other, to set a guideline for this column. I will not take myself out of context. I will listen to what I am saying and transcribe it faithfully. I will not try to chase myself over a back fence to secure a breathless interview concerning my faulty electrical procedures, my inability to erect a house or stealing my old folks' super.

I will not use sex as a gimmick to promote or tempt the more rabid members of society. (Unless there are damn fine, high-quality graphics to accompany the text.) I will not blame the internet for every crime I committed by a youth. I will stick to the cold hard facts and not falsely romanticize a situation to gain favor. Finally, I will attempt to restrain my desire to lie** There is too much deceit in the world, too many excuses and too many clichés. Today we sail into a new future, a brave new world and this great nation of ours can once again hold her head up high and proclaim herself the lucky country.

*Doug Anthony is one of the most charismatic leaders this country has ever seen and he continues to inspire children all around the world.

**I work at a computer. There was no shimmering paper, no genie and I have absolutely no faith in the honesty of the Government and the men and women who work tirelessly, often in two places at once, to make the world a little bit better.

As the heaving beast of technology drags its marketable carcass into the new millennium, there is one statement we can make with absolute certainty- the internet is responsible for all crime in the late 20th century. Thousands of eye-witness accounts chronicle the abuse of the information superhighway. The accounts are from teachers, and High court judges, the most trusted members of our community- many of whom have done years of painstaking research into the net's more perverse activities. They realise, as we must, this technology is being corrupted for personal gain; credit-card fraud, get rich quick schemes, investment schemes, virtual casinos and our children are learning to make bombs. Bombs more complex and damaging than the ones we used to make. What gives them the right? Where will it end?

Every article in the paper seems to be accompanied by the phrase "from information taken from the Internet". Or, "a criminal mind inspired by the internet". Or "before the triple murder they met via the internet". From children's hobbies to small crimes to government-toppling conspiracies, the internet is always there. Where did the information about the travel rorts come from? Where do you think?

We must judge and pass sentence on cyberspace. For too long have we allowed technology to rule our lives. Each and every technological advancement has been touted as an aid to communication, yet these advancements quickly become symbols of our failure to communicate. Around every home they are scattered like electronic corpses: the television is a life support for the fatigued, the radio thrives on nostalgia and rancid talk-back, the telephone is cradled in the iron lung of the answering machine and the mobile phone has become a digital albatross.

A casual trawl of the internet reveals many disturbing trends. Adolescent humor, pop groups, conspiracy theories, Meerkats, nuclear weaponry, and behind the fluffy facade is the ever present specter of pornography. Within its Borges-like labyrinth tasteless humor abound. imagine what could be achieved if the millions of minds that are typing in Diana and Dodi gags were used for good/ Imagine if those millions of minds wrote something nice. Something really nice. A few gentle lines that would enrich humanity, not the vicious puns about Di dying in the smirking Merc. This sort of material degrades us all and only produces the forced laughter of embarrassment and shame.

You may have a private giggle hours later, but this is merely a release of tension that subconsciously confirms an awareness of your own morality. Too much information is not a good thing. We only have to look at the Library of Alexandria- an ancient equivalent of the net. overflowing with plays, novels and epic poems it was a repository for centuries of Western thought. in the 3rd Century it was razed by well-meaning Christians who despised its liberal Greek texts- the collected knowledge of the world destroyed by fire.

What would the world be like if the library had survived? We would have a plethora of tests comparable to Shakespeare's finest. We would be forced to live in a state of perplectual anxiety- there would be too much choice. Should Year 12 study The Tempest or the Middle Comedies of Antiphanes? Amateur dramatic societies would be thrown into a tiz, choosing between not only Shakespeare and Marlowe but the lesser works of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Let's face it, it is time for another big fire. Than God that in the intervening 17 Centuries those well-meaning Christians have kept the torch alight. not the same Christians, of course, although He does move in mysterious ways.

It is possible to reach critical mass with information. A place where fact and fiction become confused and true meaning is lost. That would be the greatest crime of all. I cannot recall who said it but it may have been Nero playing the zither at the fire of Carthage "Burn, baby, Burn".

All of us have heard the phrase "ignorance is bliss", but do we comprehend it? To understand ignorance we need to look at America. The cornerstone of its Constitution is the "pursuit of happiness". However, the Americans don't just pursue happiness, they give it a head-high tackle. They pull happiness to the ground and brand it. How is it they can be so happy? They don't have to try hard, they just don't think about it. Eighty-seven per cent of Americans believe that Elvis is alive; 65 per cent believe Jesus was an alien; 15 per sent have been sodomised by a ghost, and 39 of them, in the Heaven's Gate cult, all wearing Nikes, went to join a spaceship in the tail of a comet. When the Yanks say "Just Do It" they really mean it.

In America, an executive decision is choosing between Coke and Pepsi, and "The X-Files" is a documentary. The truth is out there, and as far as the Americans are concerned it can stay out there. That is why they're so happy. Hillary Clinton said, "It takes a village." I'd say it takes a village idiot! And he became president. Speaking of Ronald Reagan, he is going through a difficult time. He is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and its reached a stage where he no longer recalls he was the president of the US, which isn't that surprising because I seem to have erased that period from my mind as well. But apart from being permanently confused he seems to be quite happy.

When were you last truly happy? Peel back the years of misery and you will find a time of unparalleled rapture. It was before you were educated in preschool. Preschool, before school, when the most intelligent thing you did was "quiet time". When you lay there on the heated floor cocooned in a world of silent wonder, beautifully stupid, blissfully ignorant. Preschool, just one year before the terrible realisation in 1st class that the world is a sham. Your parents were liars, Santa didn't exist, the Bionic Man was just a dream, and a single world currency would never be achieved in your lifetime. A little knowledge is a terrible thing. I cannot remember anyone saying "intelligence is bliss".

The greatest minds of the past few centuries have been stuck in a spiral of misery. You would think if they were so smart they could make themselves happy. Einstein was constantly complaining. His solution to saving energy was wearing the same shirt day in, day out. Artists, writers, scientists and intellectuals have suffered needlessly for their art. From Nietzshe to Hemingway, from Van Gogh to Satre, they all went mad, killed themselves or had funny-looking eyes. Our desperate search for knowledge and self-improvement is holding us back from true happiness. The truth is we think too much.

The Bible says the birds in the field are happy. You ever wonder why the birds in the field are so happy? It's because they're stupid. It's not because the Lord God gives them all they need. It's because they don't understand logarithmic progressions, systems of weights and pulleys or modern methods of amputation. Rhinos don't worry about the mortgage payments on the Serengeti. Dolphins don't think: "Gee, should have sent the kids to the private school." Pandas don't have to color co-ordinate the bathroom. They don't have to worry that they've just turned 45, their family has left them, there's no one to turn to, that they have no prospect of a job, that the big black lump growing on their flank is a malignant tumor.

In the popular film "Babe", a pig was happily ignorant of the fact he wasn't a sheep dog. He was unaware he was nothing more than leg ham and middle rashers. Ignorance is strength and that little pig proved it. So what if they roll around in their own shit, it's a small price to pay for happiness. The truth is out there, let's keep it out there. The way to a happier life is through ignorance, ask anyone, just ask them slowly. These statistics are falsified, yet this should not effect their credibility.

In a coffee shop crowded with cooing couples, a gentleman sits stoically by himself. As love-struck partners exchange pet names over Turkish bread, his face is buried in a book. Sunday morning oozes into Sunday afternoon. He sips his short black, -his brow furrowed, his eyes moist with tears. The attention of everyone in the coffee shop becomes fixed on this enigma. One by one we are sucked into the black hole of his pathos.

His fingers are splayed out over the edge of his book. They are tortured hands, bent and twisted. This has less to do with any physiological deformity and more to do with displaying the title. He holds the tome at an awkward angle, facing the busy street. If one was suspicious, one might say, he held the book so that anyone or everyone could read that cover:
How To Overcome The Hurt And Learn To Love Again.
While beneath in smaller print:
A guide for generous loving men whose lives have been destroyed by the whims of wily women.

If he had been reading the memoirs of Churchill or the Debbie Does Dallas pop-up picture book, no one would have cared: As it was, that book made him seem interesting (not interesting enough for anyone to stay with, but more interesting than without the book). He became a riddle that needed a solution. Who hurt him? Would he overcome the hurt? Would he learn to love again? Why on earth was he reading such tripe in a public place? Still there was something intoxicating about the vulnerability of the guy.

A tiny voice deep inside me cried out in, sympathy. Here’s a troubled man who is not afraid to bare his tormented soul to a group of strangers in a coffee shop on a Sunday morning. Sadly, that tiny voice was completely overpowered by another voice, a voice shouting and hurling abuse. This was a manipulative and insidious display. Here was a blatant attempt by an emotionally scarred trapdoor spider to lure an unsuspecting female fly to its doom.

That book sickened me. With the soothing pastel toning, it appeared like any number of generic no-name off-the-shelf self-help books. There was nothing on the cover apart from words, big words. There was no picture, no thoughtful design, just calming colors and the title screaming out in block letters. The subtext of which was: "You need me, buy me and I’ll make your mundane life bearable."

The day turned cool as evening approached. I had run up a bill of over $100 for tea, orange juice and Turkish bread. Trapdoor folded that fabulous book into the warmth of his jacket making sure to keep the title in plain view. He gave one last mournful look around to see if anyone would take the bait. There were no nilbbles. He sauntered off into the gathering dusk.

As the street lamps obscured him from view, I wondered: "What’s more pathetic? A man reading a self-help book in crowded coffee shop or, a man watching a man reading a self-help book in crowded coffee shop?" I was furious with him as I headed home. What was so fascinating? It wasn’t War And Peace. Why does there have to be 300 pages plus of life-affirming crap?

Here’s a solution to the question in two lines. "How to overcome hurt?" Just get over it. And on the more difficult topic of "Learning to love again" - give it a shot! As the night swallowed me I had a vision of his home. There on his bedside table sat another self-help book:
How to cope with rejection after a day of looking like a dill at a coffee shop in a desperate attempt to get a bit of attention.