Should We Really Consider Katy Perry An Astronaut Now?

A former friend of mine liked Star Trek too much, to say nothing of Babylon 5 and other science fiction shows. Whilst he did not mention this to me, he did confide in a mutual friend that one of his dreams was to go into space. I don’t think it would have happened, even if …

It’s The Economy, Stupid….

It has been an interesting few days since the tariff announcements and retractions by the Trumpster. Share market fluctuations have been sufficiently volatile as to resemble the ‘Big Wednesday’ which that stable of share market commentary newsletters has been predicting. I have been sitting tight though. I know that my ability to predict the market …

In Which I Join Treasury Wine Estate’s Shareholder Online Wine Shop

Apologies in advance if this post reads a bit like a kid in a candy store, but wine is one of my favourite subjects, and it gets exciting to make some new discoveries or rediscoveries. My Treasury Wine Estate dividend was paid on Wednesday – $200. When I read the email notice of the dividend …

Some Reflections On Trumpist Tariffs

I am vaguely acquainted with someone whose grandfather was, in the era of the Bolte Premiership, a politician and a major protectionist. From what I have been told about this chap, the nicest thing that could be said about him was that he owned a company which made radios and TVs locally in Australia. That …

Are We About To Have A Share Market Crash? I Really Wish I Knew!

I’m not quite old enough to remember when the surfer movie Big Wednesday was in the cinemas. I think it might have been in 1978, when I was still in primary school. I did see it in the last week of school in 1982, where study for the year ceased and the teachers offered us …

Behold Your False Profit!

In the late 1980s, some local film makers produced a rather silly film about a computer nerd who summons a future sharkish version of himself to the present. It was called Future Past. Most of the film then consists of him trying to suppress his demonic future self (some sort of insider trading stock broker with …

Will My Solar Panels Ever Break Even? Very Unlikely – They Will Probably Break Down First

I have been grumbling about my huge mistake in getting solar panels five months ago since I realised in mid December that I would have to do all the Kafkasque legwork to get them added to my meter and count towards my bill (by Kafkasque, I am referring to Kafka’s novel The Trial, which is …

Footscray Football Club Marks 100 Years In The VFL/AFL

For Friday night’s game against Collingwood, my beloved football club temporarily resumed its actual and traditional name, Footscray. The reason for this was to mark 100 years since the Footscray Football Club (Western Bulldogs since 1997) entered the AFL’s predecessor league, the Victorian Football League. At the time, in 1925, the entry of Footscray, the …

My Solar Panels – Is There Finally An End In Sight To This Debacle?

Semi regular readers of this blog will know that at a couple of points over the summer I have had reason to bemoan my not so recently installed solar panels (it is now five months since those white elephants were placed on my roof). Two weeks ago, some 4 plus months after installation, the cowboy …