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 2 First published in Overland Issue 228 3 February 20233 February 2023 Fiction Fiction | Romeo and Juliet II: Haunted rentals Georgia Symons The hauntings are actually quite flamboyant here, though. Yeah, come in, come in. Not like my friend Moya’s house—it just has a tool shed that sometimes isn’t there and that’s it. So boring. Yes, you can keep your shoes on. 2 First published in Overland Issue 228 2 February 20233 February 2023 The university Deadly word games: universities and defining antisemitism Nick Riemer In a few weeks, Vice-Chancellors will be discussing a request by a group of federal politicians to endorse the latest weapon in Zionists’ longstanding bid to suppress criticism of Israeli apartheid on campus—the highly controversial definition of antisemitism produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Their decision will constitute a watershed moment for universities’ already somewhat threatened credibility as centres of independent analysis and truth-telling.