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    Sydney Under Siege: As It Happened 15 December 2014
    Sydney Under Siege: As It Happened 15 December 2014
    Sydney Under Siege: As It Happened 15 December 2014
    Ebook23 pages20 minutes

    Sydney Under Siege: As It Happened 15 December 2014

    By Justin Cahill

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    About this ebook

    I work in the building next to the Lindt Café. Shortly after news of the Siege broke, I found myself locked out. Gradually, I realised my usual day had been pulled out from under me. For the first time, I had become a witness to history. This is my account of the day terrorism returned to Sydney. It is based partly on contemporaneous notes I scribbled on the day.

    I thought about writing this as ‘gonzo journalism’, the form pioneered by Hunter S Thompson where events and thoughts are supposedly written down as they happen with no revision. But it’s too artificial: there is always revision. Simply typing out my notes wasn’t enough. They left out a lot, especially what I felt and things I remembered later.

    So this is part-recollection and part-reconstruction. I’ve included some afterthoughts in parentheses, but kept them to a minimum.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJustin Cahill
    Release dateDec 16, 2014
    ISBN9781310161247
    Sydney Under Siege: As It Happened 15 December 2014
    Author

    Justin Cahill

    Welcome to my Smashwords profile.I am a New Zealand-born writer, based in Sydney. My main interests are nature and history.My thesis was on the negotiations between the British and Chinese governments over the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It was used as a source in Dr John Wong’s Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, the standard work on that conflict.I wrote a column on the natural history of the Wolli Creek Valley for the Earlwood News (sadly, now defunct) between 1992 and 1998.My short biography of the leading Australian ornithologist, Alfred North (1855-1917), was published in 1998.I write regular reviews on books about history for my blog,’ Justin Cahill Reviews’ and Booktopia. I’m also a regular contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald's 'Heckler' column.My current projects include completing the first history of European settlement in Australia and New Zealand told from the perspective of ordinary people and a study of the extinction of Sydney’s native birds.After much thought, I decided to make my work available on Smashwords. Australia and New Zealand both have reasonably healthy print publishing industries. But, like it or not, the future lies with digital publishing.So I’m grateful to Mark Coker for having the vision to establish Smashwords and for the opportunity to distribute my work on it.

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      Book preview

      Sydney Under Siege - Justin Cahill

      Sydney Under Siege

      As It Happened

      15 December 2015

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2014 Justin Cahill

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Discover other titles by Justin Cahill at Smashwords.com

      Please direct all inquiries to Justin Cahill at

      PO Box 108, Lindfield, 2070

      New South Wales, Australia

      or e-mail to jpjc@ozemail.com.au

      "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." – Winston Churchill, speech at the Lord Mayor’s Day luncheon, London, 9 November 1942.

      Preface

      I work in the building next to the Lindt Café. Shortly after news of the Siege broke, I found myself locked out. Gradually, I realised my usual day had been pulled out from under me. For the first time, I had become a witness to history. This is my account of the day terrorism returned to Sydney. It is based partly on contemporaneous notes I scribbled on the day.

      I thought about writing this as ‘gonzo journalism’, the form pioneered by Hunter S Thompson where events and thoughts are

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