Author Archives: Ernest Zanatta

http://www.youtube.com/watch As a twelve year old I liked this song. As an awake (not ‘woke’) fifty one year old I love it! Postscript- not sure that the link works but the song is Pell Mell ‘No Word From China’ . YouTube, you are unfit for purpose.

I recently read Jarrod Diamond’s latest book, Catastrophe, in which he discusses how various countries he knows well have dealt with an existentialist crisis facing them. One of those is Australia. The first country he writes about in his book is far flung Finland, somewhere on the far side of the world close to the …

Continue reading “Australia Must Not Finlandize: Selling Our Birthright For Red Pottage”

Rodney Dangerfield was, in my view, rather intellectually underrated. His movie characters tended to be crass and nouveau rich, but rather than showing that money can’t buy you class, they showed up the posh snobs with inherited money, who might have more refined accents and manners, but who were far more ruthless and grasping. That …

Continue reading “They gave the Nobel Prize to the wrong Dylan”

Let me start by saying that despite the suggestiveness of the heading of this posting, I am not announcing a Road To Damascus style conversion to Marxism, socialism, or even social democracy. I remain a cultural conservative with a commitment to politically and economically libertarian values (much as I dislike the word ‘libertarian’). But I …

Continue reading “To the Barricades? A Pro-Free Market Capitalist Case for the Occupy Movement”

About seven years ago, I made a very speculative (and ultimately spectacularly unsuccessful) investment in a venture which was seeking to close a deal to clean up some of the abundant pollution in mainland China. As I trusted the friend who put me onto this (despite his starting to live a fantasy life approaching that …

Continue reading “Is it time to look a Gift Horse in the Mouth (or Mask)?”

There is a saying I read somewhere several years ago, but which I cannot attribute to any source (believe me, I tried to find one today), which goes along the lines of: ‘Blessed is the country without a history.’ This is because when you look at the details in history, you usually find the four …

Continue reading “The Upside of Living in a ‘Provincial’ City”

As a general rule (with a few exceptions like A Tale of Two Cities), I dislike reading Charles Dickens. I find him verbose and preachy and most of his characters are mere caricatures. When reading The Old Curiosity Shop, I found that I wanted to punch the grandfather in the face, he was so exasperating. …

Continue reading “The Strange and Highly Dickensian Case of Puneet Puneet”

I thought I would just give a shout out for Andew Buller Wines of Rutherglen, my favourite winery of all. My favourite wine, since the year 2000, was the RL Buller & Sons Calliope Shiraz, which Andrew Buller would make. Sadly, the winery has changed owners in recent years, but Andrew and his wife Wendy …

Continue reading “A Shout Out For My Favourite Winery – Andrew Buller Wines”

I got a few push notices just now indicating that Virgin Australia is going into voluntary administration, the latest victim of the coronavirus crisis. This does mean that a large number of people are likely to lose their jobs, which is a sad outcome. It also leaves Qantas without a competitor, which might not augur …

Continue reading “Put not your faith in Frequent Flyer Programs”