Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Uncategorized The PM and me Mark O'Flynn As a boy with Keating just after the Redfern Speech he looks as soft and innocent as a three day old chick. Keating doesn’t look bad either. He calls me uncle, but that’s a joke. I’m no uncle, though who else is there to ask? He wants to know what the word rapport means, pronouncing the ‘t’. I explain. He asks: ‘So can you have a bad rapport with someone?’ ‘If it was bad then you’d probably have no rapport.’ ‘So rapport is a good thing? Do we have rapport uncle?’ I am startled by the question. ‘I think so. Don’t you?’ ‘Shit yeah,’ and he answers seven across. He tells me when he worked for the fish market they paid him in crabs, which is why he went back and robbed them. Never earned an honest dollar in his life, he declares with misplaced pride in the rite of passage of these years. I find the Keating photo and print it out. He shows it to everyone. Me and the PM. The PM and me. It’s a where are they now moment. A star struck boy ignoring the gravitas and the weighty advice, looking at the PM’s suit. In his mugshot the hardened man, and the eyes of the boy who has seen too much go to waste who wouldn’t be paid in crabs. Mark O'Flynn Mark O’Flynn has published three novels, most recently The Forgotten World (2013), as well as four collections of poetry. His most recent book is White Light (2013), a collection of short stories. More by Mark O'Flynn › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 25 September 202326 September 2023 · The university Solidarity but only among managers, or the future of the university sector Hannah Forsyth The process continued during Covid. Jobs were being cut due to the threats posed by the pandemic, yet more scholars were being recruited. Nice people, good at their job. But why are we doing this, we kept asking. Management kept telling us we have a funding crisis (which often turned to a surplus in the end), so why are we also on a hiring spree? All along it looked like it could end badly, for all of us. First published in Overland Issue 228 15 September 202326 September 2023 · Friday Features Activating the poetic spirit as friendship John Kinsella I’ve always had the aching feeling that—as a text to be shared among friends and maybe eventually ‘enemies’—the soul-body dialogue poem is a way of arguing towards spiritual certainty in the face of earthly corruption and doubt.