Juvenal Urbino's hat

Two things happened at the beginning of last week. First, I visited the library and reacquired two books that I'd borrowed but not finished earlier in the year. Secondly, fresh in the realisation that last week's wedding (which merits its own post) was to be held on a Queensland beach in a Queensland summer, I resolved to buy a hat.

Hats are back, or so the story goes, and I was fortunate to have a friend who I knew had bought a hat not that long ago, so I leant on him to give me a lead on where I might find a hat that could be worn with a suit. He supplied me with such, and on the Wednesday I swung by said vendor, knowing that my unrefined requirements would be insufficient but hoping for the grace of a helpful salesman. I found one, who directed me not towards the trilbies and fedoras that I expected, but towards a bewildering range of panamas. After a lengthy discussion of the why, which and how much of his selection, I walked away with a black-banded white number, which time would paint as either dapper-cool, or gangster-pretentious.

So what on earth does all this have to do with books? Well, one of the neglected-but-revisited borrowings from earlier in the year was Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. The story, vividly painted by presumably both the author and his very adept translator, is set on the Caribbean coast of Colombia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Its three characters are Dr Juvenal Urbino, a very civilised and socially elevated type, Florentino Ariza, a socially awkward romantic who flickers between unrequited love and wild promiscuity, and Fermina Daza, a sketchily drawn parvenue who is pursued by Ariza as a girl, but finds social respectability by marrying Urbino.

As far as the story itself goes, I could take it or leave it. What I did like was the romantic combination of the place and time, which came through so vividly for me. This was most true, I think, in the early part of the book, with Dr Urbino tripping around the city dressed up to the nines with his suits and carriage. And, in my mind anyway, in his hat. My hat. Whenever I get dressed up and wear it, I shall think of myself of Juvenal Urbino. At some point, I may get myself a cane. Of course, he's also a devout catholic who dies falling out of a mango tree, but we get to pick and choose what we like in a character.

Talking with friends, its probable that the book has, in the relationships between its central characters, symbolism for the nature of love in changing times, with Florentino the romantic impractical and Urbino the stable and practical, but I really didn't feel the need to break down the prose to extract drier meaning. I focussed on hats.

Heart of Darkness

I just finished a book, for the first time in what seems ages.

When I got my iPad, one of the things I was looking forward to was trying it as an e-reader. I had tried this briefly on my laptop years ago (I read some Cory Doctorow, and Kipling's Kim), but it didn't really stick, and I went back to paper (aided by the added adventure of having my reading guided by whatever was available in Rennes' bouquineries). The iPad's screen, and Apple's iBooks app, represents an opportunity to re-explore the medium. For now, iBooks only has copyright-free books available (I am taking this up with Apple as we speak, actually), but given my sketchy experience with the english-language "canon", this leaves plenty of scope. I grabbed a bunch of books, by Dickens, Defoe, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Joyce, and Conrad (as well as some "big" french names, although I expect to struggle mightily with those, and might wait until Apple add a french dictionary to the iBooks app). My first attempt was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

My experience with Conrad has been limited. I think it was last year (ed: 2 years; time flies) I bought and read Lord Jim. I enjoyed it (and find myself relating to it from time to time), perhaps more in hindsight than at the time; it took a long time to read. That story was about a young man's journey to Sulawesi (not explicitly, but I like to think of it as Sulawesi) in order to seek redemption, and for me was a lot about the difference between a person's intrinsic character or potential as perceived by others, and a person's actions, and how one influences the other.

Heart of Darkness, again from my perspective, was also a lot about intrinsic character and how it interacts with one's environment. The story is told by an old seaman, about his trip on a steamer up a river in the Congo (I believe; again, never made clear), to retrieve ivory from a colonial trader named Kurtz, who has been left alone deep in the wild for, apparently, too long. When the steamer reaches Kurtz' camp, they find him at death's door, and driven by overlong exposure to the wildnerness into a kind of madness. The book does a lovely job of building anticipation of Kurtz; he probably only features in person for a dozen pages. The other 100 pages (this is a novella, not a novel), though, all revolve around him, and his relationships with and effects on others, as a man of immense charisma and promise, but stripped raw from living too long away from civilisastion.

The book at times comes across perhaps not as racist per se, but with a note in its discussion of the native tribes that would not be palatable from a modern author. Even the central theme, that a white man in this "heart of darkness" cannot sustain without losing his sanity, has an overtone that today perhaps isn't a widely accepted view. (Having said that, I suspect one could write a very interesting book today about the Congo as a heart of a very different kind of darkness).

One of my reasons for choosing this, of all Conrad's short stories, was because it was returned to prominence through its adaptation by Coppola from a British ivory trader in colonial central Africa to an American commando in war-torn Indochina, in Apocalypse Now. It's been a long time since I watched the film, and less than 24 hours since I finished reading the book, but it actually feels to me like the adaptation was remarkably faithful. The same air of mystique, the same suspense by talking about but never meeting Kurtz, the same almost indifferent relationship between narrator and Kurtz. My appreciation for the film has grown.

I'm not sure what my next book will be. I've started reading A Thousand Plateaus, by Deleuze and Guattari, based on a recommendation from someone at work, but after a few pages, I'm already getting a little fed up by the pretentious prose style, so I'm not sure if I'll get through it.

papering over cracks

My academic publication record in recent years has not been what I would have liked it to be. Still, last week was a good week. Our paper "Model Interoperability in Building Information Modeling" went up on the SoSyM journal web site. It had been almost 3 years since my previous journal paper. I don't normally blog about work stuff here (I have another rarely-used blog for that), but its something that made me happy, and assuaged, however fleetingly, my concerns about my job.

nostalgia again

My last blog post was long, so here's a short one.

When I was in France, my stories always seemed to start with "In Australia...".

Now I'm back in Australia, my stories always seem to start with "When I was in France..."

What's up with that? This isn't a rhetorical question - the comments section is there for a reason :)

Trying CityCycle

While I was living in Rennes (a lot of my stories seem to start this way nowadays), the local council had a city-wide bicycle hire scheme, called Velo a la Carte, run by a large advertising company (Clear Channel). I never used it, but the parking stations were everywhere, and I saw people riding the clunky bikes around town fairly often, and trucks moving them around balancing load across stations. It turns out (and perhaps someone will correct me on this) that this was one of the first cities to have such a scheme in recent times, in many cases bankrolled by advertising companies. Since it launched in 1998, there have been dozens of cities, among them Paris, Dublin, Vienna, and this year Melbourne, the first in Australia. Last week, Brisbane joined them.

Australia offers some challenges for this kind of system, as does Brisbane. Australian cities are much, much sparser than European cities, where apartment living is much more common. Our climate is much warmer. Most significantly, we are the first country to implement this kind of system in conjunction with mandatory helmet laws. I've read that Melbourne has had significant teething problems. In Brisbane, which has the additional problem of being much hillier than Melbourne, the city council and JC Decaux (the French company running the scheme) have gone in boots and all. Walking around the city and my neighbourhood, there are bike ranks every block or two, and construction sites for more springing up all the time. If it fails here, its going to fail spectacularly.

I mostly live and circulate in the inner suburbs of Brisbane to which the scheme presently limits itself, presumably for reasons of population density and demographics. I'm not, however, its idea target. I already own a bike, and I already use it for commuting (albeit not as much as I should) and for getting around to visit friends. However, I can see situations - one way or mixed mode trips - where it would be nice to not have to find somewhere to park a bike. So, although I didn't sign up at launch, I did sign up pretty quickly (actually, the only thing that stopped me signing up at launch was probably that the parking station nearest me wasn't open at launch).

I tried it this morning to get into work. The machine to hire a bike is a little clunky; it took me two attempts to get the bike (timeout), and there were some vestiges of french language on the machine, which was cute. Once I did get the bike I was struck by how heavy it was - at a guess at least 3 or 4 times the weight of my bike. I adjusted the seat up as high as it would go, but it was still a bit too short for me. The basket got me some looks as I was riding, but not having a backpack sweating onto my back was worth it.

My route was problematic. I have two routes I can cycle to work. The first is 7km, and flat, but has a few traffic lights, and takes me about 20 minutes on my normal bike. The second is 5km but quite hilly, and takes me about 15 minutes on my bike, but is more tiring. With CityCycle, journeys over 30 minutes cost money so, being worried that a 20 minute trip could well turn out longer, I opted for the hilly route. I regretted it almost immediately. Having three gears instead of 18 is fine, until you need to up a hill (Kent street, in my case). Being in the wrong gear, combined with the great weight of the bike, meant I was pretty tired after the first hill. Still, I got to work (there is a station about 50m from my building) in about 20 minutes, and returning the bike was pretty easy.

I'm not sure how much I'll end up using the scheme. The 30 minute limit is a real nuisance - if I'm visiting friends in West End, then it will probably take me more than 30 minutes on those bikes, depending on traffic. At $2.20 for the second half hour, I'm better off on a bus. I'll probably try it for popping down the shops though, where I don't want to take my bike because I'm coming back loaded up with groceries.

blowing my own trumpet

There have probably been a dozen or so occasions over the last dozen or so years that I have resolved to get back into playing music.

Throughout primary and high school, I was basically never not involved in some sort of musical group, mostly on trumpet, but with brief forays into french horn and even tuba. I was never going to make a career of it - I was good at some things like sight reading and time, but my tone and range were never up to snuff - but I wasn't bad. Probably my high point was playing Handel's trumpet concerto near the end of high school (although I also have fond memories of my french horn stuff).

Anyway, since then I basically haven't played. Every 6 months or year, I pick up the trumpet and practice, but then I get discouraged by my lack of range and endurance (trumpet is very demanding on the condition of the player's lip), and put it away again.

Well, I practiced Monday, and Tuesday, and again last night, and enjoyed it. I've transcribed a (bad) arrangement of Alfonsina y El Mar, and I've been trying to get that sounding OK. I've been playing lots of scales. I even pulled out my sheets from the Handel concerto and gave that a try, although I'm still a way off having a lip capable of doing it any sort of justice. We'll see if this lasts longer than my previous attempts.

an early look at candidates

In past years I've gone into some detail on the candidates available to me for the federal election. I'll probably do the same this year. I may be somewhat less engaged in the politics this time around (or maybe not), but the choice I have in my local electorate is much, much more interesting than it has been in the past. The official list of candidates won't be out for a couple of weeks, but there are three significant candidates each with more than 10 years experience as elected representatives in federal politics.

Arch Bevis has been the sitting ALP member for 20 years, but was marginalised at the last election being demoted from a high-profile shadow cabinet post to a minor role as a subcommittee chair.

Teresa Gambaro was the Liberal member for Petrie between 1996 and 2000, and was an assistant minister when she lost her seat.

Andrew Bartlett took the Queensland Democrats seat in 1997, then won it in his own right in 2001, before being defeated in 2007 when the party was wiped out. He is running this year for the Greens.

Last time around, Bevis grabbed 45%, the Libs 39%, and the Greens polled 12%, with Bevis winning the 2PP by 6.8%. Redistribution has narrowed that to 4.6%, and both the Libs and Greens are (in my opinion) fielding much stronger candidates than last time, so the seat promises to be very interesting in the primary. Having said that, I would expect a bump for the Greens, which might actually make Bevis safer on 2PP, even if his primary drops).

My first instinct is to go for Bartlett (West Wing indoctrination?). I don't like the Greens as a party - I think they're unconstructive - but I do like him as a candidate. I will have to look more closely at policy positions, though.

charity ride

I'm doing a charity ride this weekend, 50km out to the beach and back with a few friends. If you haven't made your annual donation to the MS people, feel free to use me as an excuse to do so.

The Quiet American

It was a long time between novels this time. I've said that before, right?

The other day I finished reading The Quiet American, the first novel I've read by Graham Greene. Its a story set in the latter days of French colonial Vietnam, just as the US started getting involved. The central characters, the English reporter Fowler, the eponymous American Pyle, and the Vietnamese Phuong, feel very much like metaphors for the old colonial powers, for the US, and for Vietnam itself, although I was never very sure whether this analogy was intended as an analogy or just the way the whole scene was seen by Pyle.

The story, which isn't very long (it could probably be classed as a novella), is fairly simple, and well-told. Although I haven't been to southeast Asia (one of the conspicuous holes in my travel experience), it felt evocative of the place and time in which the story is set, although it really doesn't explore or even expose the French point of view. I get the feeling, too, that the book, which was written before the real buildup of US involvement in the country, has proven more prophetic than the author could possibly have imagined.

After finishing the book, I watched Philip Noyce's 2002 adaptation, with Michael Caine as Fowler and Brendan Fraser in a very subdued mode as Pyle. The movie was faithful in its adaptation (other than conflating Fowler's Indian assistant with his local Communist contact/s, in order to reduce the number of characters), but lacked a spark. I certainly enjoyed the book more, and felt the movie would have been a bit bland seen in ignorance of the book.

The NBN and latency

I blogged some thoughts about latency and the NBN over at my other blog. Having separate work and personal blogs made more sense 5 years ago, when I wanted to separate boring technical stuff from whining about being homesick (for the benefit of both sets of readers). Now it seems kind of redundant. Especially since I hardly post to either of them any more :)

respect

I went for a run on Sunday afternoon. I covered 5.38km in 30 minutes, which is a little slower than I'd like to be going, but I hope a good start to running more often.

On the same day, the Australian leader of the opposition, who more than 20 years my senior, completed an iron man triathlon. That's a 3.8km swim, followed by a 180km bike ride, followed by a 42.2km run. In my life, the most I've ever managed of each, on separate days, is I reckon a 2km swim, a 110km bike ride, and a 10km run. Doing them on the same day is just crazy.

I disagree pretty vehemently with most of Tony Abbott's politics (and have been known to describe him as "dangerous"), and there's no way in hell I'd ever vote for him (and I don't get to), but I respect and admire him for getting out and doing the Iron Man. It was very disappointing to see at least one Labor politician (Roxon) using it to score political points..

adapting books to films

I was just browsing the TV tonight, and stumbled on a special edition of the First Tuesday Book Club, talking about adapting books to films. I found myself trying very hard to participate in the panel, but somewhat frustrated that they didn't respond to what I was saying. So, I thought I'd write down some of my thoughts here about 5 of the books whose adaptations I've found interesting. I've done it in a roughly chronological order.

Perhaps one of my first experiences with adaptation was with what remains one of my favourite films, The Sweet Hereafter. I saw the film in my second year of university, and I have no hesitation in admitting that I teared up. Atom Egoyan's film is stark, and paints its characters so viscerally. After I'd seen the film, I chased up a copy of Russell Banks' book, from which it was made. I can only imagine that the task of adapting the book must have been extremely daunting. The book is atmospheric, very slow moving (as is the way of Russell Banks) as it tries to paint an impression of the community. Watching the film and liking it before reading the book makes it very hard to assess the adaptation objectively, but this was a fine book that I think was made into a better film, that did a great job of capturing the stark desperation of the town.

The next adaptation was another where I saw the film before reading the book. Mary Harron's American Psycho was a black, black comedy that I really enjoyed, and indeed bought on DVD. Years after I'd seen it, someone (I can't remember who) gave me a copy of the book, which I suspect was actually banned in Queensland at the time (and may still be). I read it slowly, and have to say that I didn't care for it. I found that the book really belaboured the stylistic elements that were its signature, and that I had liked in the film. The lasting impression that I gained was the whoever adapted the book to film did a great job of summarizing the stylistic elements of the book to a point where they didn't grate.

The third adaptation was the first in this list where I read the book before seeing the film. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas remains one of my favourite books - its first chapter might be the best first chapter ever written - and surely loomed as an enormous task for adaptation, with its extravagant writing style and madcap storylines. Terry Gilliam might have been the perfect choice as director (one suspects that given his career since then he would no longer be given the opportunity), with his flare for style in telling unconventional stories. The film, which isn't a great film (in my opinion), does an admirable job of staying faithful to Thompson's book, in a way that works on the screen.

The Constant Gardener was a book that I read closely, and discussed with a number of friends who had read it at the same time. In this case I don't come to praise the film, but just to note the impact that having very recently read the book (I think I finished the book the week before I saw the film in the cinema) had on my experience watching the film. I found myself thinking more about the choices that the adaptation made in adapting the story (which roams much too wide in the book to reproduced in a film), than immersing myself in the film in the way I normally would. That perspective forever changed my experience of that film, which I did nonetheless like a lot.

Perhaps the most disappointing adaptation (in keeping with the structure of the Jennifer Byrne show) for me was Watchmen. I read the graphic novel and greatly admired it as the best I'd seen of the genre, and was intrigued to see how it would be adapted to the screen. Visually, a graphic novel offers some advantages - it has already been made visual, for one. The parallel threads that had been used to build the story in the printed form were lost, as they had to be, and I missed that. More problematically, though, I think the director was much too faithful to the original story elements, and as a result made a film which was too long, in which too much happened, and that really failed to capture the essence of the book.

The Sound of One Hand Clapping

So my reading effort of the year has its first milestone. A week ago I finished reading The Sound of One Hand Clapping, by Richard Flanagan. I got this on a whim, based on author name recognition, during a trip to the library, although when I visited Mum in Toowoomba, I remembered that she had recommended him to me a while back, partly on the historical links between her family history and his interest in Tasmania. That he is an Australian author also fits with my goal of reading more of my country's literature.

Unfortunately though, I can't really say that I loved this book. I found, especially in the first half of the book, that he really wallowed in the misery of the characters, without any sense of balance or, I suspect, realism. It felt like stacks on, and I wasn't into it. To an extent the first of these gripes was mitigated by the redemptive second half and conclusion of the book, but even so I never really developed any great affinity for or empathy with the characters. I also felt like his writing style was at times contrived and laboured. Perhaps that is partly a consequence of coming to the book having read Vonnegut, whose style is quite the opposite, but I didn't enjoy it as much. That all sounds very negative, which perhaps isn't a fair representation, since at times I did really enjoy the book, and some of the moments near the end are evocative and even emotional. I guess, though, that I had hoped for more.

2009, I hardly read you

One of my resolutions for 2009 was to read more than I had in the preceding year. Looking back now, I think I accomplished that, albeit marginally (I think I read maybe one or two more books), although it bears mentioning that I did achieve the difficult constituent ambition of reading a novel in French. I'm a little unsure as to which books I had read by the end of 2008 and which I read in 2009, but a best estimate puts the list as follows:

• I, Claudius (Robert Graves). This historical dramatisation/embellishment was recommended (and indeed given) to me many years ago by either or both of my mother and my sister, but it took me a long time to get around to it. I am glad I did - the characters, though numerous, are interesting, the research impressive, and the stories captivating.
• Underground (Andrew McGahan). This book was given to me when I left NICTA at the end of 2007. The story and writing are diverting enough, although not of the standard of some of the other books I read this year. Significantly, it reminded me how few Australian novels I have read.
• Le Lion (Joseph Kessel). This book, en francais, was given to me by a french girl from a french conversation group that I was going along to. Although not particularly long, it took me many months and countless hours to read. I read it assiduously, trying to understand every word, dictionary in hand. This attention probably detracted from my opinions of the characterisation, but the setting of the story was interesting, and it is by far the best french-language novel I have read ;-)
• FreeDarko Presents the Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac (The FreeDarko Collective). I have been a FreeDarko reader for many years now, and although my enthusiasm for the blog waxes and wanes over time, my opinion of their significance in what might be a new age for sports writing, does not. The book is a lovely distillation of their manifesto, and beautifully presented. Anyone with a love of ambitious writing, and of the zen of sport, should read this, if for no other reason than to reassure themselves that these two can be reconciled.
• Cloudstreet (Tim Winton). I suspect this might be the first significant adult Australian novel I had read in my life. I got it from Lee, and have since passed it on to Mum. Winton's evocation of place and time reminded me of Steinbeck, and the quality of his writing and storytelling has given me a desire to better explore my country's body of literature.
• Great Expectations (Charles Dickens). I have a strong skepticism of things both British (courtesy in no small part of my national broadcaster's infatuation with British content) and of writing more than, say, 150 years old. I refuse to read Austen, for example; I find her characterisation of both men and women to be infuriating, even if it was an accurate reflection of the times. Dickens, though, holds a stature only a rung down from the Bard in english literature, and my exposure to his works through film adaptations had given me faith that he dealt with bigger and more timeless issues. This book, of which I had seen 2 adaptations (by Mills and by Cuaron), vindicated that faith.
• All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy). Lee lent me this book, too. I am considerably less skeptical about both American 20th century "classics", and I greatly enjoyed this one. Again, I had seen a film adaptation of this (by Billy Bob Thornton), which probably makes for a different reading experience (I knew what was going to happen), but like Cloudstreet, the writing was very good, and it had a very strong sense of place and time.
• Anathem (Neal Stephenson). I've been a Stephenson fan for a while now, so I bought this before heading to NZ for a holiday. While it is neither as ambitious nor as good as Stephenson's preceding books (The Baroque Cycle, and Cryptonomicon), he does a pretty good job of both spinning a good fantasy yarn, and of imparting to the reader his enthusiasm for the philosophical and mathematical history that he analogizes.
• Mother Night (Kurt Vonnegut). I am rapidly becoming a Vonnegut fan. I read one of his more recent books many years ago, but reading Cat's Cradle, this book, and more recently Slaughterhouse 5, I am learning to appreciate his succinctness, the humanity of his characters (including his remarkably passive "protagonists"), and his lightness of touch in dealing with weighty issues. I have hopes, too, that I will succeed in introducing his writing to my sisters.
• Of The Farm (John Updike). This was one of a pile of books I borrowed from the library for the summer holiday. Updike is a big name to which I had no associations of style or subject. Although I did enjoy this novella (a format I'm coming to like), I will look for more of his stuff not because I found this a great book, but because I did not.
• Slaughterhouse 5 (Kurt Vonnegut). What a great way to end the year. We unearthed this (among other books) from our late uncle's remarkable collection, while visiting Mullum, and I can see why it has its reputation as Vonnegut's most significant book. It is a remarkable story that led him to write this, and it is equally remarkable that the story lead to this book, which deals with Dresden in a truly unexpected, and yet very genuine way. I really like the way he can tell such strange yet very telling stories, in so few pages of seemingly very simple writing.

A good year's reading. I hope to read more novels again in 2009, and will hopefully blog about the first of them soon.

thoughts on ETS

Since I'm not getting any work done, perhaps I'll jot down some thoughts on the current turmoil in Australian politics.

The Liberals (foreign readers should note that this is a liberal party in name only - they are the conservative side of Australian politics) changed leaders today, from Malcolm Turnbull to Tony Abbott. This all happened because the conservative side of the party couldn't stomach the negotiation on the Emissions Trading System, and behind Abbott and Nick Minchin, they organised a leadership spill. Abbott ran against Turnbull and Joe Hockey (who had been seen as the compromise candidate, each running different lines on the ETS senate vote - Abbott saying vote against, Turnbull saying vote for, Hockey saying vote conscience. After Hockey was knocked out in the first round, Abbott beat Turnbull by a single vote. Its made more controversial by one of the votes being informal, one of the Turnbull supporters being unable to attend due to illness (and unable to lodge a proxy since the Libs don't support such things), and the prospect that after this weekend's bi-elections, there will be two new Libs in the party room, both of whom project as Turnbull backers.

Anyway, Malcolm has gone to the backbench, and the Libs are once again led by a conservative (in fact, more socially conservative than any leader they've had in a long time). Its sad, because Turnbull offered much promise, based on his past and to a certain extent his stated intentions during his short-lived tenure as leader, of a transition for the party towards somewhat more progressive, small-"l" liberal politics. Feeling towards him was good amongst the Labor voters that the Libs hope to poach at the next election, but as was pointed out on Insiders this weekend, whether this would transition to votes remained to be seen, and he was understandably a bit on the nose for the conservative side of the party.

What does this mean for the unwitting cause of the drama, the ETS bill? Well, I think its stuffed. The Libs will, after a secret party-room ballot, try to send the bill to committee or, failing that, oppose it. They don't hold a majority, but nor does the government, so the likelihood is that (a) it won't go to committee (there have already been numerous senate committees on this topic, so I don't see how they could justify another), and (b) the ETS won't pass, barring at least a handful of Liberal senators crossing the floor. That's not as impossible as it sounds, but its a lot less likely now than it would have been 2 weeks ago - after all the division in their party, the last thing they want is more. The alternative negotiation position for the government, with the Greens, is even less viable. Winning the Greens over by strengthening the bill might be possible, but doing so definitely rules out getting Fielding (who is unlikely to support the bill anyway), and probably any rebel Libs who would already have crossed the floor in the above scenario. So my feeling is that the bill will go down, and Rudd/Wong will go to Copenhagen without any legislation. Rudd in particularly will be disappointed not to have his trophy, but by way of compensation, the government will get a trigger for a double dissolution.

They may take it. It has political advantages in terms of giving them a shot at Abbott before he either builds himself a more credible public image (the prevailing wisdom is that he is presently unelectable, due to past indiscretions and a huge image problem with women in particular), or they see sense and replace him, although having shot down Turnbull and forsaken Hockey, its hard to see to whom they might turn. Having failed to get the ETS before Copenhagen, I don't think it matters much (politically) one way or another whether the government gets it after an election in February/March, or the scheduled one at the end of next year.

So my feeling is that the bill gets tabled, at least until March, and possibly until 2011.