14 Aug 2013:
I’m sitting on the couch reading “Frommers Europe” and charging my phone in the Spike Milligan Memorial Reading Room of the Woy Woy Public Library.
This big grubby looking bloke with a half empty goon bag comes swaying through the doorway from the non-fiction section and stops short.
“I’m fucking sitting there” he says.
“Here?”   I say.
“Yeah.   Youre in my fucking seat!”
“Oh.   Right.” I say.
He can see I’m not going to move and he gets the shits.  He knocks over a couple of chairs, and plonks his arse down in the couch on the other side of the room.
“Fucking backpacker cunt.    Taking my fucking seat.”
He carries on bad mouthing me from across the room.    Son of a whore.   Arsehole.   White cunt.
“Are you  trying to start something with me?” I snap at him.
“I’m not scared of you cunt! ” he barks “I’ll fucking beat the shit out of you!”
The lady librarian sticks her head into the Spike Milligan Room.
“Excuse me, you can’t use language like that in the library.   Come on, you’ll have to go outside sir.”
“I’m fucking out of here you bitch” he yells, and stamps to the door.
He turns back to me as he goes out:
“I’ll be waiting for you outside arsehole!”
The  cops arrive a few minutes later, and collect him.   The Woy Woy Police Station is across the road from the library.
“I’m terribly sorry about that”, the lady librarian says to me after the police have left.
Gazing distractedly at the autographed photo hanging on the wall above my head she adds “Spike would have been tickled pink”.

 
15 Aug 2013:
I’ve got my thumb out on the M7 motorway outside of Campbelltown.   Its a sunny day and the traffic is whipping by at 110 Kph.
2 hours go by and I’m still there.   I decide its time to give something new a try so I get out a sign I made for this trip.   It just says “HOME”.   I stand there with the “HOME” sign for another 30 mins.    Not so much as a beep.
Time to walk.
I Shoulder my bag and start marching down the road.   A few meters later a car pull up behind me.
“Where you headed ?” the driver asks.
“Nowra”, I say.
“Please, get in.   I’ll take you to Nowra.    I’m going to Wollongong, but I  don’t mind being a bit late.
Moe is an Iraqui Immigrant.   He is a Hillsong Churcher and a thoroughly nice bloke.   He is on his way to University in Wollongong he says, and he passed me before and saw me holding my “HOME” sign.
“I drove past and I couldn’t get the picture of you with that sign out of my mind.   I got about a half hour down the road and I don’t know why, but something told me: ‘turn around Mouhannad, go back and give that gentleman a ride, and buy him lunch if he is hungry.”
Moe drives me 75 Km to Wollongong, then another 100-and-something km to Nowra, and then another 20 to Callala Bay.   I thank him for his generosity and he turns around and drives back to Wollongong again.

[ Spike Milligan’s mum and dad retired to Woy Woy.  Spike relentlessly mocked the little town, but, perversely, Woy Woy adopted the eccentric comedian as their own and named part of their library after him.  This signed drawing hangs in the “Spike Milligan Reading Room”.]

[ Me and Moe in Callala Bay after his 200+ km detour.   What a gentleman! ]