First Articulate Graffiti Sighted In Years!

I just spotted this fresh graffiti in Footscray this morning. It makes a refreshing change from the illiterate and mostly untalented scribbles which have infested Melbourne in recent years. However, WTF? Whilst as an amateur classist I know that Artemis is a virgin goddess, but no one worships her anymore, thanks to the Emperor Theodosius …

A Stage Adaptation of On The Beach – with a subtle difference….

‘Do you think that the Faith has conquered the World And that lions no longer need keepers? TS Eliot – “Choruses from the Rock” Around twenty years ago, I got on a crowded city bound train at Footscray Station. Standing close by me were a group of private school kids – I am not so …

Play Gloria! (In Which I Explain Why And Whom I Have Adopted As My NHL Team)

Like many teen aged boys in the 1980s, I had a thing for Laura Branigan, she of the sequinned body suit and awesome wiggle who sang various hits, including the English language version cover of the Italian hit Gloria (with modified lyrics and addition of a post disco dance sound). Recently, when idly browsing Wikipedia …

Armstrong Creek Aquatic Centre – Pork Barrelling or Electoral Fraud?

The Age has written, since the cancellation of the 2026 Regional Commonwealth Games, about the intended Aquatic Centre in Armstrong Creek, a recently built suburb south of Geelong in a marginally held Labor seat. Apparently the plan was to build temporary stadia around two 50 metre racing pools, and one diving pool. After the Games, …

Remembering the Doha Airport Incident: Why Qatar Airways do not deserve any flights to Australia, let alone an increase

For those who came in late, in early October 2020 a premature baby was found abandoned in a bathroom in Doha Airport in Qatar. The reaction of the airport authorities was to remove 13 Australian women from a Qatar Airways flight and subject 7 of them to invasive genital examinations. This could well be considered …

Things Fall Apart – Cancellation Of The Commonwealth Games Is Merely A Symptom Of A Deeper Malaise

Many years ago, I read a book about the final collapse of the Cain-Kirner government. It was a collection of essays. by then-prominent journalists and academics. Essentially it was a laudatory panegyric by committed Keynesians who saw nothing wrong in the many fiscal and governance failures by Cain-Kirner and their ministers. Instead, they placed the …

My New Bookcases Used To Be Owned By A Communist!

Let’s face it, there is no political philosophy more obsessed with money and its possession (or lack thereof) than Communism (and its slightly watered down version – Socialism). Karl Marx did invent the term ‘Capitalism’ to describe the existing socio-economic status quo, and he was always obsessed with money – because he had little of …

Crown Casino Gives Us A Fine Example Of Irony

I am a proud member of Generation X, far more virtuous and responsible than the Baby Boomers, and far less self-entitled than the Millennials (ie Gen Y). I would say that the main flaw with my Generation is that we have a bit of a problem understanding Irony. I will give you two examples. One …