Recent Posts
Winmar and Goodes: Their Gifts to the Game
Nicky Winmar’s stand against racism in 1993 led to the AFL publicly drawing the line at on-field racial abuse. Sadly, there was a loud minority of public protest at the time about the support the AFL gave Winmar. It was most obvious on talkback radio. The indignant logic of too many callers was simple-minded and […]
Is It a Dog-Eat-Barbie World?
In times past it was fairly easy to read omens and portents. Instructions for reading tea leaves could be found in plenty of glossies. Fortune-cookie forecasts were available to anyone with basic literacy. And no-one needed any sort of education to understand the more direct symbolism of horse heads in beds. But I puzzled over […]
Khe Sanh: Winning a Battle, Losing a War
Pouring sweat in Da Nang, Vietnam. Standing in a four-storey war museum loaded with historic photos, old machine-guns, tanks and fighter jets but no air-con. And not a single fan working. No other tourists here today. Obviously smarter than me. Two bored female soldiers are guarding the entrance and exit on the ground floor. This […]
“A Day at the Park”
A Day at the Park, written by Lucas Di Quinzio, is a picture book for grown-up kids. The ebook edition is FREE to download for a LIMITED TIME. You may even want to view a special reading of it on YouTube. See the links at the end of this blog. If you are easily offended, […]
AC/DC Lane – Another Hidden Melbourne Gem
The key members of AC/DC didn’t come from Melbourne, but they made this city the band’s launch pad to the world. Melbourne was the home of Countdown, the top-rating national TV music show of the mid to late 1970s. At the same time, the city’s pub circuit for rock bands was booming. Bands like AC/DC […]
The Music of Bells
This is the swell the organisers would have liked for last Easter’s Bells Beach pro surfing competition. Pity it arrived on Wednesday 6 May. Yes, it’s grey. Yes, it’s cold. Yes, a large, shiny black seal did a spontaneous sideways leap out of the water in front of us. Why wouldn’t you? It’s mid-week and […]
Anzac Humour
An unwritten law in Australia and New Zealand is “Don’t make jokes about the Anzacs.” You can make jokes about almost anything except the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Particularly on the centenary of their ill-fated storming of Gallipoli in Turkey on 25 April 1915. Likewise, corporations are not allowed to exploit the Anzac “brand”. […]
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