Newsletter

  • The War of the Worlds

    HG Wells? But surely he was a 19th century writer? What on earth could be relevant to today in his prognostications? Well, he was incredibly prolific and popular in his day and his books continue to inspire film-makers today. The War of the Worlds was probably his most famous piece of fiction but The Time…

  • Leadership

    .. book and a glass of wine. Or immersed in some permutation of social media their noses glued to the screen of their choice oblivious to their fate. This may not be a good description of the state of the world, its politics and economy but if you are feeling a bit depressed it just…

  • Moving

    ..know I’m pro-procrastination as a lifestyle, but the practised procrastinator has to have a steady nerve to hold firm to his or her course of inaction. I did get badly stung in one respect, and that can be directly attributed to hanging on just that little bit too long. About a month before I was…

  • Sporting News

    ..it couldn’t win under the old coach and team it wasn’t going to let anyone win. Previous captains, victims of a diverse inflictions ranging from a herniated cerebellum to trench mouth, gave their unwanted and irrelevant opinions. Books written by previous chairman’s wives that were fulsome in the praise of their husband’s genius in winning…

  • Panic in the Precinct

    .. (with zero response) that we would like a comprehensive soundcheck starting earlier than usual and to that end we were on the point of leaving for the venue in the van and FIFO hire car when I suddenly remembered that I’d left my custom-made ear plugs in the room. I darted out of the…

  • More about wine

    .. I thought, the best. Perhaps this is the fate of all wines being tasted last in a line-up. For those interested it was a Chateau Decru-Beaucaillou – which you have never heard of – and I hadn’t either until then. Whilst you could probably get it now for less than I paid for it…

  • Australian Rules

    ..countries, which makes it more anodyne and less interesting. Low scores and fans with attention deficit disorder don’t help the cause either American Gridiron has the maniacal belief in logistics and tactical overkill that characterises American diplomacy or warfare. Multiple specialist teams composed of specially bred enormous and largely expendable grunts clad in full body…

  • Two words

    ..subject to the fashions of the day and it’s only the occasional performer who manages to transcend fashion. Dutch’s pithy advice to Geoff Achison to ‘play what you know’ is all you really need to know, but Dutch’s bigger-than-life personality surely played a part in his becoming the quintessential expression of Aussie blues. It’s a…

  • Anzac Day 2011

    Anthems are sung – New Zealand gets three verses one in Maori and two in English to Australia’s single chorus. Hymns are sung with embarrassed and tremulous Australian accents. The service, my first for about 60 years, is lead without apparent irony by a Vietnamese minister; there is a moving address in a Scottish accent,…

  • Poswitive spin

    ..bodies from work place accidents, car accidents etc. putting viewers off their late night snacks and giving their children nightmares for weeks. Drink-driving is one issue that could do with some positivity in its treatment. While I tend to agree that some cultural revision of young people’s attitude to drinking in this country is overdue,…

  • Not what it seems

    ..furniture that some lad from East Cheam paid thousands of dollars for was actually knocked up out of an old Ikea wardrobe by a disreputable Chinese merchant two years ago. My own humble opinion is that the reason for Antiques Roadshow’s success is not the thrill of the antique but the satisfaction of participating in…

  • Double vision

    ..projected was the be all and end all of their personalities, and never imagined there was another dimension to their lives, let alone that they might exhibit a subtly, or even radically different persona in that other dimension. The only exception was my housemaster at College, one Mr Jim (or was it John?) Pine, whom…

  • Capitalism

    .. been levelled and replaced by a housing estate. We’d played the gig, which was bizarre enough, with our performance being repeatedly interrupted by stinking trucks laden with doomed cattle driving in between us and the workers listening to us stony-faced in their blood-spattered work clothes, when we were asked by a union official if…

  • Dear Rupert

    .. from the ‘New York Post’ and ‘The Wall Street Journal’, he runs controls six community newspaper groups. Internationally he controls Dow Jones, ‘Barron’s’ and ‘The Far Eastern Review’ amongst other news organisations and enterprises. But it is the media assets that are the jewels in the Murdoch empire crown, providing cash and increasing influence….

  • Pithed again..

    Mike’s Pith & Wind cont. David Porter was at all the TF Much Ballrooms, he was at the Sunburys – in fact David was at everything that was going on in this town. I think that was perhaps what distinguished David from some of the other photographers of the era – he was a fan….

  • Deep sleep

    ..such a hideous social faux pas that I’ve been known to clench manfully and sit on it for the entire evening, squeaking surreptitiously, no doubt.. But, back to Sleep. At a dinner party the other night I was obliged to pitch my rock opera, The Jellabad Mutant. It’s a palpable deficiency, given the business that…