Whether you love or hate the MONA, at least its advertising is honest

I was at the cinemas today for a bit of a treat, and one of the advertisements before the movie was a reel for the Museum of Old and New Art (aka the MONA) in Hobart. It consisted of quoting the one star reviews which the MONA has received. One, featuring a tear rolling down …

Putin rides a bear from which he dare not dismount

‘Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers from which they dare not dismount. Discuss’ From memory, 3 decades later, my Politics Honours General Paper (an exam prerequisite to pass to get my Honours degree but which did not cover a particular topic I had studied as an undergrad), was an open question very similar to …

The Return of History? Russia’s Invasion of the Ukraine

‘Do you think that the Faith has conquered the World And that lions no longer need keepers?’ T.S. Eliot – Choruses From The Rock It is a long time since I read any Fukuyama. His neo-Hegelian take on ‘The End of History’ was all in vogue in the early 1990s, when we in the free …

Pot and Kettle and related Hypocrisies

We obviously have some reds under the beds at the moment. Our Prime Minister has described the deputy opposition leader as a Manchurian candidate. I assume that he expects that most people actually have seen that 1950s movie – personally I have not. Let me put on record that (surprise surprise) I dislike Richard Marles. …

Ageing 1970s Rockers Resist Attempts To Make Them Relevant In The 2020s

Let’s face it, ScoMo’s ukulele solo on 60 Minutes last night was rather cringeworthy. Besides which, he and his advisors might not have thought through the common associations most people have with the words ‘ukulele’ and ‘Hawaii’, as in ‘Hawaiian Holiday’, as in ‘Hawaiian Holiday during the January 2020 bushfires’, as in ‘Nero fiddles while …

The Maribyrnong Explosives Factory Site

I have lived in Avondale Heights about 19 years now. I like it – and whilst I am not particularly Italian, I feel comfortable living in the most Italian suburb in Australia (20% of people here claim Italian descent – compared to 3% in Australia and 4% in Victoria overall). Just over the Canning Street …