Year: 2026

  • Happy moments

    ..where you might be going. A period, or even a singularity, when one realises that this is as good as it gets. When you have achieved the right balance between youthful folly and the wisdom of age – a brief moment in time – such as when Goldilocks found the best porridge, chair and bed…

  • Charisma

    ..smile and a good word for everybody does not qualify, I’m sorry. I’m talking about real charisma, the sort that makes a room fall silent and the hairs rise at the back of your neck. Politics is a fertile ground for charismatics – and, of course, now that I’ve used that particular derivation of the…

  • Deathsweat

    Bearing in mind this is taken out of context, here’s what Michael Marissen had to say on the subject in his discussion with John Kleinig and Robin Leaver – I think you’ll get the gist: I mean there are two kinds of texts that people are uncomfortable with these days, no matter what their background….

  • Flying the Flag

    .. is a Canadian citizen and Matt Canavan is an Italian citizen, claim that they did not know that had dual citizenship. Waters was born in Canada and moved to Australia as an infant. After Scott Ludlum, also another Green Senator discovered that he not actually given up his ability to carry both and Australian…

  • Excruciation

    .. Paris and Spain, to which end Dick purchased the latest in trendy back packs, which he proudly showed me on the night I visited them recently in Warrandyte. (See Dick’s Toolbox). I said it looked very fine, but one should be careful when wielding such an item in polite society, and told him this…

  • I’m with stupid..

    .. a nice fellow but he spent too much time playing football without a helmet.” Not that being on the wrong side of clever means all that much as it is apparent that most people can be convinced to believe anything no matter how ridiculous. You may be with me in thinking that anybody who…

  • High anxiety

    ..simple, but in any case I’m generally pleased with the result. It seems that a lot of second-guessing has been replaced with an instinctive but apparently reliable certainty about what is required and how to get it. I don’t know if it’s a style exactly, but it’s a good starting point. No thought yet as…

  • Forward

    ..the diary I note down odd words and phrases that catch my attention and one of them was a comment on a popular bit of Newspeak. i.e. ‘forward’ is the new black. This touches on another gripe that probably falls into the realm of yer Grumpy Old Men, but just as the notion of progress…

  • Fucking Rain

    .. sound of rain relentlessly thundering down on my roof – and filtering down through the loungeroom ceiling into my now inadequate symphony of pots and pans and thudding damply onto the attractive pooh-brown carpet. I realised that I was far too annoyed to go back to sleep, and concluded that the light was only…