ThinkingShift

I was fairly staggered to read in the Sydney Morning Herald that a municipal library here in Sydney was “visited” by counter-terrorism police. What for? Well, the library in question - Leichhardt Municipal Library - was planning to host an exhibition of photos and poems of a local community group, Friends of Hebron. The pictorial display, Al-Nakba, was to be launched on May 9th. That was the plan. But on May 8th, things went pear-shaped.

As the library prepared the exhibits the night before the launch, the secret-squirrel squad arrived just before the library closed at 8.00pm. Now back in the mists of time, before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I was a librarian. I remember many an exhibition being held by the libraries I worked in: historical photos of the neighbourhood, photos from WWII, an exhibition of famous Australian women writers, and I even remember that the libraries often hosted exhibitions by community groups. Last time I looked, that’s what libraries did: they support and educate the local community.

So why shouldn’t Friends of Hebron be allowed to have an exhibition? According to the article, the counter-terrorism police had only dropped by the library to say “hi”. Yeah? They just happened to be cruising through Leichhardt on their way to pick up a yummy cannoli or two! A police spokesperson said: “They went to introduce themselves just to let them know who they are and what they are about. {Speaking with community groups] is part of their charter… When they got there the librarian was the only one there … they just had a quick chat to the librarian.”

Why not show up at the launch then? Drop by to see the photos, press the flesh with the community? Dropping by the night before the exhibition is to open reminds me very much of Nazi Germany - people whisked off in the middle of the night. Or strong arm tactics.

So what the heck is going on here? A Friends of Hebron member’s view is that they wanted to put the fear of God into the librarian and drop a huge hint about not holding the exhibition. Now if the Friends of Hebron photos were to depict detailed instructions on how to build a bomb or if their poems exhorted people to take up arms, then I can understand the secret squirrel dudes might wish to have a word or two about it.

The librarian has not spoken publicly about this from what I can tell. And the very next morning, the decision was taken to can the exhibition. Naturally, this has led to comments about “this is the censorship of Palestine” and you have to wonder if the secret squirrel police are now deciding what can and what can not be placed on public walls in Australia. And of course the Local Council and the library are taking the stiff upper lip route and saying the decision to blow off the exhibition had nothing to do with the police dropping in for a chat.

This doesn’t wash with me. Apparently the librarian had already approved the exhibition and said it could be viewed by children and library patrons. I doubt she’s an idiot. She would have discussed this with her superiors. You don’t mount an exhibition in 10 nano-seconds, so there would have been plenty of pre-planning, discussions with the community group and so on. In other words, people knew this exhibition would be happening and they saw no reason to not go ahead with it. There’s been some bleating about a “breakdown of managerial process” in that the council is saying that all exhibitions need to be assessed by a panel of councillors and that the Al-Nakba exhibition fell through the cracks. Well, I reckon the librarian and library staff would be aware if that had happened and would not have gone ahead.

Any librarian with a couple of brain cells would ensure that how the photos were described, the captions used and so on would not offend other community groups. A library’s role is to promote and champion all community groups, not just favour one. So I doubt very much that the library was busy secretly planning to launch the Friends of Hebron onto the whole community and shove what they stand for down collective throats.

So…what do we have here? Censorship? Clearly, the exhibition had something to do with Palestine and the dispossession of people there. Is this a topic the Australian people cannot hear or learn about? Are we now living in a country that actively promotes censorship??

I think I’m hyperventilating; off for a quick lie down!

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the shocking case of Megan Meier, the poor 13 year old American teenager driven to commit suicide. If you’ve been living on Pluto (demoted as it is) and missed hearing about this tragedy, go here. But to give this post some context, we’ll need some background details.

Megan was cyberbullied, taunted, inflicted with emotional distress (take your pick of any of these) by a non-existent 16 year old boy named “Josh Evans”. A phony MySpace page was set up by the mother (yes, mother) of one of Megan’s friends. This woman’s name is Lori Drew and apparently Megan had a falling-out with Drew’s daughter. Megan suffered from depression and ADD. Allegedly, Drew used the MySpace account to initially have “Josh” flirt with Megan. But the messages took a nasty turn with “Josh” suggesting he didn’t wish to be her friend anymore. The last message Megan allegedly received was “the world would be a better place without you”. Shortly after this, Megan was found dead in her bedroom, having taken her own life.

Now, I refrained at the time from blogging about this because I would have been up for defamation. What on earth is a 49 year old woman thinking by creating a phony MySpace account for the specific purpose of taunting and messing with the head of a poor innocent 13 year old girl?? Frankly, the law book should be thrown at her and she should be locked up with the key thrown away.

And it seems this might be happening because the law has found a way to pin Drew to the wall. I’m not sorry about this at all; but I am a bit worried about the precedent being set. When police traced the MySpace account back to Drew, she and her daughter laughed it all off by saying it was a “joke”. Clearly, Drew was involved in cyberbullying but, under the law, she had committed no crime. A community and nationwide backlash in the US I reckon put pressure on the FBI (who investigated the “hoax” for over a year) and authorities to find some way to get Drew legally.

But how they’ve done this has me worried. For the lawyers amongst us, here is the indictment. As a lawyer, what Federal prosecutors have come up with I find extremely imaginative. As I understand it, Drew lives in Missouri and there are no Federal laws in the US to get her on a charge of cyberbaiting. But MySpace is owned by Fox Interactive Media and its servers are based in California. Because Drew created, used and monitored a MySpace account that required a prospective member to sign up with a profile, this person had to comply with the Terms of Service (TOS) outlined by MySpace/Fox Media Interactive. Clause 12 (a) of the indictment is where they start to pin Drew down:

“12. Among other things, the MySpace TOS required prospective members, members and users of the website to:

a. Provide truthful and accurate registration information;

b. Refrain from using any information obtained from MySpace services to harass, abuse or harm other people”.

Clause 14 of the indictment outlines a charge of conspiracy in that Drew (and her co-conspirators) allegedly knowingly and intentionally accessed a computer used in interstate and foreign commerce (ie a social network) without authorisation and obtained information from the MySpace computers “to further a tortuous act, namely, intentional infliction of emotional distress”. So not only was fraud committed across State boundaries but so was cyberbullying.

So essentially, California prosecutors are charging Drew with criminal trespass of the MySpace social network, computers and servers because, it is alleged, she knowingly created a false MySpace account and therefore violated the TOS or contract. I’m not sure if they are likening this to hacking as well. But this indictment is probably setting out a dangerous legal path I don’t think we would want to go down. Basically, what’s being said is this - if you knowingly create an account under a false name on any website, you are violating the TOS and you’re toast. If that’s right: then I’m burnt toast already!!

Relying on TOS to create a legal precedent to address cyberbullying is stretching the law too far IMHO. It’s also an attack on privacy surely - should we wish to participate in a social network under a different name to protect anonymity, we should have that freedom. I don’t particularly wish to have my real details like DOB, address and so on sitting on numerous servers waiting for hackers to come along and steal my identity.

From what I can tell, Federal prosecutors are using decades old legislation - Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030. One real weakness I can see (apart from using this legislation to make all of us into criminals when we violate TOS on websites) is that the prosecution must show that Drew intentionally violated the TOS. How on earth are they going to show that? How will they show that she read the TOS let alone intentionally violated it? Sure, the TOS is on the MySpace site, so I guess the prosecution will attempt to argue that the TOS was posted and if Drew clicked Agree, she intentionally violated. But I think this is a weak legal argument because the legislation requires “intent”.

And I’m confused over the clause about obtaining information for the purposes of a tortuous act. Seems to me that Drew and her co-conspirators were trying to harass and upset a poor 13 year-old girl, rather than purposely obtain information.

And I don’t understand why Megan’s family didn’t try to get Drew under tort law or why authorities didn’t charge Drew with sexual harassment of a minor (since many of the messages were apparently sexual in nature).

Okay, I’m not a lawyer trained in US law, so if any ThinkingShift reader has further information, leave a comment. I’ll be keeping a close eye on this because if it becomes legal precedent then here’s what happens:

* if you’ve ever used an alias or false birth date when joining a social network or website, you’re toast, a criminal;

* even if you’ve done this with the intention of avoiding being a victim of identity fraud (ie innocent reason) you’re toast, a criminal;

* can all MySpace users or Facebook users truthfully say they have not twigged their information a bit or posted a false profile? If you’ve given any false information to a website, you’re toast, a criminal.

Source: New York Times

As a change of pace, today’s post shows you some of my recent photos. I’ve been obsessing over the play of light on certain objects, particularly everyday objects around the house. Guess at least this diverts me (somewhat) from obsessing over privacy or fretting over how dark our global future is going to be.  And yes, the last photo is of a feather duster

I’m very happy about this: Google has agreed to blur facial images appearing in Street View photographs taken whilst they’ve been busying mapping highways and by-ways around the US and Australia. Regular ThinkingShift readers will know that I’ve been less than impressed with the potential for people to be identified as they go about their daily business. I know a lot of you could care less but something has made Google change its mind. Google says they’ve only received a handful of complaints since they rolled out Street View about a year ago. So why change then? I guess if I were in their shoes I’d be thinking about all the law suits I might face from running up against the European Union’s privacy laws or Canada’s privacy laws for example.

Whatever the reason, Google will apply face-blurring technology to any images of people captured by Street View - so pedestrians, drivers and car registration plates will be made fuzzy. And interestingly this blurring will be retrospectively applied to all Street View images. Google will also remove any offensive images - like numbers 3, 4, 5 and 2 here. So thankfully, some poor dude who is just passing by an adult book shop will not have to explain this to his wife.

In a really smart move, Google has been working with the Australian Privacy Foundation to ensure that mapping images do not step on Australian privacy laws. So for once I can say: Go Google!

Source: SMH

Due to teaching over the last few weeks, I’m WAY behind on bringing you stuff. So you may have seen this already but maybe not! The New York Times recently had a ‘green issue‘ that includes advice on how to make your carbon footprint smaller. The issue is divided into 7 sections that you can browse: Act, Eat, Invent, Learn, Live, Move and Build. Each section is stuffed full of great articles and advice. I must say I hadn’t considered Pig Power before (in the Invent section). There are 150,000 pigs in Reynolds, Indiana doing their bit for the environment by eating, sleeping and…eliminating their waste, which is collected into a massive, US $15 million “anaerobic digester” where the pig’s waste is converted to methane, synthetic gas and biodiesel. Reynolds is hoping that the pigs’ efforts will generate 100% of the town’s electricity demands and part of its transport-fuel.

You know, we need to educate ourselves around how to live more sustainably so check out the green issue. At the same time, arm yourself with information about rising food costs - this is going to be the real dark age ahead I think - riots over scarcity of food and a global food crisis. There have already been food riots in Haiti, Egypt and the Philippines. Basic food stuff is going to become unaffordable and forget about purchasing organic food because it will be too pricey. The UN recently named 36 countries as staggering under a food crisis, of which 21 are in Africa.

A ThinkingShift reader in Thailand says that the price of B grade rice has increased to AU $950 per ton, rising from $383 per ton at the beginning of 2008. According to stuff I’ve been reading, the rice crisis is being caused by a variety of factors: support and financing for agriculture has been neglected whilst Asian countries build cities; overpopulation; climate change; the credit crisis. But the crisis has hit us fast. In the last 18 months, a commodities super-cycle has risen its ugly head. This means that investors who used to plough their money into equities and mortgage bonds (and who have been spooked by the sub-prime mortgage debacle) are now taking their money and investing in food and commodities: gold and oil, sugar, wheat and rice, cocoa and cattle. So investors reap a profit out of the very basic food stuff and commodities that those who live on $2.00 per day depend on. Poor people simply will not be able to afford the basics of sugar, rice, wheat and so on. The World Bank estimates food prices have risen by an average of 83% in the past three years and is warning that at least 100 million people could be tipped into poverty as a result.

We should all be arming ourselves with information on this global food crisis because it will threaten global security. So check out the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN - their website has two reports looking at crop prospects and the food situation in 2008. Read the recent speech by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, delivered in Bern on April 29, 2008. As a result of the impending food crisis, the UN has established a task force.

Are we going to witness a revolution of the hungry? In the Ivory Coast, for example, thousands of hungry people marched on the home of President Laurent Gbagbo, chanting “we are hungry” and “life is too expensive, you are going to kill us”. In Egypt, at least 10 people have died over the past two weeks, in riots that erupted at government-subsidised bakeries. According to the UN, 1 out of every 80 people relies on somebody else to provide for basic food requirements.

We have basic rights as humans: the right to privacy (which as you know I think is stuffed in our society) and the right to food. How dark is our future going to be?

I’m really shocked by an article that has appeared on ABC News (not!). Doubts have been raised about the usefulness of CCTV cameras in preventing crime. The dude who heads up Scotland Yard’s Visual Images, Identifications and Detections section (and who should know a thing or two I’d think about visual identification) is saying that billions of dollars have been wasted on a crime prevention tool that is ineffective.

Detective Chief Inspector Mike Neville says only 3% of London street robberies have been solved through using CCTV cams. Worse: he maintains that no thought has been given to how the CCTV images should be used or analysed by police and he goes on to describe London’s CCTV system as an “utter fiasco”. And before we jump up and down and suggest that the Brits don’t know what they’re talking about, Australian criminologists are agreeing with Neville.

Millions of dollars that could have been put toward (let’s see: better hospital and old age care or education) have been thrown down the gurgler in Australia. A police official said: “There is no national database of images of people. So whilst we might have the images, the difficulty we then have is trying to identify who it is and sometimes that isn’t easy and clearly we can do better.”

Professor Paul Wilson is one of Australia’s best known criminologists and he has conducted an extensive study of CCTV cams in Australia (and you know how irate I get about them because there are so many!). Wilson says“It can work as a device to detect criminals in some cases but often the images are not very clear and do not provide material which is good enough to detect or even prosecute people who have committed crimes. We have people suffering mortgage-stress thanks to the sub-prime mortgage debacle. We have homeless people in Australia. We have a hospital system that is a worry - read this article to see why there might be cause for concern. So I really shake my head wondering why we throw away millions in installing these blind eyes on city streets, around ATMs and in office buildings when extensive studies consistently point to the ineffectiveness of CCTV.

Prof Wilson (clearly a smart dude) says: “I think it’s a great tragedy that Australian politicians at the local and state and federal level believe that crime and terrorism and antisocial activity generally, can be stopped by having more and more CCTV cameras. The evidence is very clear that it can’t be and what we’re doing is pouring literally millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money into a crime prevention technique which only has very limited results and ignoring other methods of reducing crime“.

We have far more things in society to worry about and address. You can read an interesting e-journal article by Wilson and others on the relationship between crime and CCTV here.

The British motorist is under threat. Not from another British motorist sidelining a car, although that may indeed happen. Nope, the British motorist, happily exploring the back roads of the British countryside on a Sunday afternoon, is threatened by US enforcement agencies keen to spy on them. I’m sure Mum and Dad cruising down the country roads of the UK will be a fascinating subject for the snoops in our surveillance society.

Images of private cars captured by public/street cams and personal data that can be gleaned from these images (such as licence plate number, driver details and so on) are to be exported to the US under a secret squirrel proposal by the Home Secretary (Jacqui Smith). Under the guise of the usual “anti-terrorism” mantra, the Home Secretary seemed to forget to mention, when saying the police could access “real time” images from cameras, that she was also proposing to ship the data offshore to the US (and other enforcement agencies around the world). A spokesperson for the Home Secretary has declined to say how many images have already been sent to the US. But the spokesperson said that: “We would like to reassure the public that robust controls have been put in place to control and safeguard access to, and use of, the information.” Yeah? Like what?

This is the pattern of the future: huge databases stuffed full of private information about YOU and ME, being data mined by powerful computers looking for patterns and profiling behaviours. This is insidious enough but when we find that personal data is being “exported” to the US through “forgetting to mention” or keeping plans secret from the UK Parliament, then this just an abuse of civil liberties.

What’s up with the UK? They seem to be hell-bent on snooping and surveilling their citizens and sharing this data with the US. Homeland Security in the US is busy with its plans to collect all 10 fingerprints from international visitors rushing through American airports and the UK is following suit with its proposal to collect the 10 fingerprints of its citizens and residents for a massive central database. This will be achieved through the controversial national ID card scheme. Interesting to see that the UK Govt is currently proposing that biometric data be collected by the private sector (let’s not get our hands dirty they’re thinking) - further evidence of the strong alliance between the State and Big Business when it comes to snooping and tagging its citizens. So criminals and citizens get the same treatment. Collection of DNA will follow no doubt.

And who will be the first UK politician to get their paws printed in ink I wonder? Perhaps the UK Prime Minister or Home Secretary? I had to laugh when I saw this Wanted poster from Privacy International:
Privacy International are offering a reward for the first person to collect and submit the fingerprints of Brown or Smith.

Although I find the collection of biometric data offensive in itself, I could live with it if I had confidence that the data would be used responsibly and for the purposes it’s said to be collected for (which is the usual War on Terror drivel that I simply don’t believe). But I have no confidence that it will be safeguarded or used responsibly. Consider the recent publication (not a leakage, publication!) of Italian citizens’ tax details and incomes on the website of the Italian National Tax Office recently. I’m sure that finding out what your neighbour earns would be fascinating but it’s PRIVATE and we look to the State and its agencies to safeguard our private details. Not the poor Italians though: a list arranged alphabetically and by region was freely available until outraged citizens demanded its removal from the website (smart people those Italians!). The idiot (and now former) Tax Minister who authorised the publication defended his actions by saying: “This is an act of transparency, of democracy, similar to what happens elsewhere in the world”. Hello? Mr Tax Minister, democracy is supposed to protect privacy and not smack citizens in the face by publishing private details! This private right is of course tempered by the public’s right to security - I don’t see how publishing citizens’ private tax details aided the general public’s security. Even Australia hasn’t gone this far!

Well, the evolving form of democracy IMHO is the surveillance society. I met yet another person the other day who said he could care less whether he’s fingerprinted because he “has nothing to hide”. Sure, the usual response. That’s true, if you have nothing to hide why not get fingerprinted. But we need to look beyond this simple response and ask some serious questions:

• is a monitored and surveilled society in which our behaviours and actions are closely scrutinised really the world we wish to live in? Do we really want our biometric data, including DNA, stored in huge central databases (remember the film Gattaca?)
• can we be confident that our private data will not be abused by the State in cahoots with private companies?
• why are we standing back like submissive sheep and allowing monitoring technologies the control?
• even if we go down at the barricades, why aren’t we putting up a fight?

My answer to this last question I guess is because we are too busy living the good life in the selfish society - we are not noticing the gradual (actually, rapid) erosion of our basic right to privacy and our loss of civil liberties.

It’s one of those synchronicity things. Over the last week or so, I’ve come across Moonri.se several times, with people going into a twitter about it. As far I can see, it’s Twitter for those who wish to also tell us how they feel. At first, I thought Twitter was for the geeky types who like to demonstrate to all and sundry that they are cool, awesome (take your pick of the latest word) when it comes to what’s new in technology. I still can’t be bothered with tweets. Basically, it would limit me to 140 characters and there’s no way I can tackle privacy issues or control my rants to 140 characters! And who could really care where I am or what I’m doing (except me). But…I can get Twitter and I think (for those who can tweet succinctly) it’s pretty cool.

But Moonri.se - early days for me, but I’m not getting this need to display the emotions. It seems to be a social network for feelings. You can post photos or videos along with your feelings. Guess you could do that on your blog - hey, having a crappy day, here’s a photo. But with a blog, the fan base has to know of you and come to you (where are you fans?). With a social network, it’s the hive, the collective - and you congregate together.

So I checked out Moonri.se and here’s what it says in the About section:

“Feelings matter the most, they make us human. In years to come, you remember your feelings - and you remember great moments in your life. At some sites, you can post whatever you want, and you end up posting too much. When you look back in years to come, there will be too much to read and only a few posts will bring back memories. If you post on moonrise, one day you can look back and say this was my life. moonrise will hold your true memories.”

Good marketing! I might be vaguely interested to look back in 40 years to check on how I felt on May 8 2008, but frankly I have more important things to do. I can see how some people will like this - accompanied by photos and videos, a more authentic social interaction could take place by including emotions. What sort of person will this appeal to I’m not sure yet.

A quick look at the front page and it reminds me of Flickr - photo with a word or a tag - in this case, the word is about emotions. So for example:

this rather cute photo was accompanied by the word sleepy. I’m tempted to say “profound”. I note that the photo came over from Flickr. Moonri.se is also peppered with quotations that uplift (or in one case, was mildly depressing).

A quick scan of the feelings so far on Moonri.se reveals that this budding social network feels:

• energy
• wistful
• happy x 2
• better
• frustrated
• tired
• sad
• detached
• refreshed
• in need of sun
• hyped
• hungry for lunch
• overworked unpaid
• pleased
• indifferent
• lost
• ill

okay you get the picture. Doesn’t do anything for me and I immediately consider it to be yet another indulgence of our self-obsessed society that feels the need to tell everyone everything. I don’t think the majority of people could give a rat’s **** about how you or I feel, photo or no photo, because we are too self-absorbed to care. But I’ll keep an eye on Moonri.se to see how it evolves.

Following a recent post, which in part highlighted a senseless act of cruelty against a defenseless animal, comes some good news for a change. But first: just imagine for a moment that you are confined to a small cage, with no room to simply turn around or stretch out your limbs. Any natural movement of your body is totally restricted. Day in day out you are in this cage. Artificial lights glare down on you relentlessly. Up to nine other tormented individuals probably occupy the cage with you. You get no exercise and you’re in this cage for up to 12 months, in a gloomy shed that holds maybe 100,000 other individuals living in the same conditions. You become increasingly stressed, anxious and depressed. And you’re in pain.

Are you a prisoner of war? Nope, you’re a battery hen. Probably debeaked cruelly with a hot machine when you were a day or so old and now forced to live out your life in miserable, cramped conditions. Or you might be a pig or calf or sow.

A couple of months back, I told you about a book I’d finished reading: Why Animals Matter by Erin Williams and Margo Demello. One of the co-authors, Erin Williams, contacted me and is keeping ThinkingShift up to date with latest developments in animal welfare. Erin works for the Humane Society in the US and has just alerted me to a Pew Commission Report on Industrial Farm Animal Production. You can read the Humane Society’s story about this report on their website. But in a nutshell, the report says:

• factory farms pose unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and animal welfare (anyone thinking bird flu?)
• a phase-out of inhumane practices such as battery cages is recommended
• the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act has qualified for the November ballot in California after 800,000 Californians signed petitions (go California!)
• the ballot initiative prescribes that cages and crates on factory farms get the boot so that the most basic right - the right to simply stretch and move about - is granted to animals

The Pew Commission report follows a two-year investigation and site visits to facilities across America and industry leaders, animal experts, scientists and so on were consulted. And it seems that Colorado, Florida, Arizona and Oregon are following California’s lead by gathering signatures to ban gestation crates and legislate against animal abuse.

So a good news story! If you’d like to inform yourself about how calves and pigs live out their sorry lives in inhumane conditions, then read this story from the Humane Society. Hint: don’t read while eating as you’ll probably throw up.

Let’s stop worrying about whether we have the latest designer handbag or whether we are paid enough to do our jobs so we can afford THE BRANDS and the McMansion- let’s spend a moment thinking about the sorry lives of some of our planet’s species. After all, it is us who inflict such pain and suffering on these poor creatures.

Thx to Erin and the Humane Society of the United States for the story.

This post will probably only interest the girls. So guys: sorry you might not be so interested, unless of course you are pondering why we are all looking and smelling alike these days. Regular ThinkingShift readers will be aware that I gave up THE BRANDS just before my trip to Hong Kong back in late March. So getting towards two months now and I have bought no “brand names”. Hasn’t been all that hard really.

I said I would buy my winter coat at a vintage clothing shop. Well, I ended up with a snappy looking moss green coat from the late 1970s. It’s so well made I was rather stunned (ie we are inured these days to dodgy stuff that falls apart or doesn’t last long). This coat has a wonderful lining and it’s reversible, so two coats for the price of one. And much cheaper than one I saw in a major department store (brand new and made in China).

And so with perfumes. I’ve always loved the “old time” perfumes - Coriandre by Jean Couturier (definitely not for the shrinking violets amongst us ladies!). Or perfumes by Caron such as Coup de Fouet created in 1957. It used to be that a woman was known by her “signature perfume”. My mother loved Crepe de Chine by Millot (I think this was created in the mid-1920s). She also loved Bond Street No 9, which was popular during WWII. My grandmother wore something called Rosa Centifolia - I think this was a German perfume.

Anyway, these specialist perfumes are almost as rare as the Kohinoor diamond! These days, women are stuck with the designer brand perfumes or the watery-like perfumes of “celebrities”. I mean really: do you want to wear a perfume by Britney Spears?? Is she a “nose”? So it’s very easy (for me anyway due to my love-affair with perfume) to sniff out what a woman is wearing pretty quickly. It’s rare these days for me to sniff a unique smell from an old-time perfume house.

And so to the really sad news. My favourite perfumery in Sydney was Julia’s Perfumery. It was run by a woman with outstanding knowledge of perfumes, especially the old time classics. After years of going there for Coriandre, we were talking one day about where we grew up and in one of those very spooky moments, it turned out we’d been dance partners in ballet school when we were 5 years old or so. Way too spooky for me!

Anyway, I went last week to get another bottle of Coriandre. Quell horror! Julia’s Perfumery is shut. She’s apparently gone online but I can’t find her (Julia if you stumble onto this blog through some sort of miracle, tell me how to find you!!). So now I am left wondering if I will be forced to totter off to a department store and pick up a bottle of perfume by some celebrity or designer. Some of them aren’t that bad. But for me, it’s about individuality and not having a perfume that’s totally synthetic. The jewellery girls (and guys these days) wear is about wearing art and expressing your identity. Same with perfume. Whatever fragrance family you prefer - Greens, Florals, Aldehydics, Chypre, Oriental, Fougère & Tobacco/Leather - it says a lot about who you are as an individual. Have the old time perfumes been engulfed by the brand names? I know many women who simply haven’t heard of some of the classics of the perfume world.

If you’re like me, you prefer a strong mossy wood. Coriandre fits that with notes of (obviously) coriander but also orange blossom, angelica, jasmine and lily. (I’m doing this by memory so I might have some of that wrong). But it’s not the hideous overpowering gardenia that seems to be the main ingredient of perfumes of the 1990s onward. I well remember the perfumes of the “greed is good” 1980s. These perfumes were shoulder-padded to death, Opium being a stand-out. Can’t stand that perfume personally but it was symptomatic of the excess of the 1980s.

And so, dear reader, I need help. Am I to wade my way through DIY books on how to make perfumes? Will I have to swallow my pride and go off to buy a BRAND name perfume? Coriandre is available, for example, on some online perfume sites, but is it the real deal? How do you know it is truly Coriandre?

Whilst our choice of luxury brands continues to expand, those of us who don’t wish to smell like every other woman are facing a real problem. Where to find the unusual perfume? Where to find that old-time perfume that is still available? Where to find your individuality?

I decided to take a different route late last year. In Dubai, I checked out some of the very strong perfume oils they have there. I went into a perfume oil shop where some guy was a bit perplexed with a Western woman wanting something with sandalwood in it that would last all day. To his credit and after three hours of sniffing and exiting the shop with a headache, he found for me two perfume oils that I love.

But I can’t whip off to Dubai every few months to update my perfume wardrobe, so the dilemma still stands. I’d be really intrigued to know whether you share the same dilemma and what your favourite perfume is. And Julia: are you there?