I just finished reading Land Of The Long Weekend, the late Ronald Conway’s 1978 critique of 1970s Australian society, culture and consumerism. It was heavy going. Whilst I am quite well read, Conway was even more read, in the way of an autodidact, and fond of quoting his interpretations of many famed authors and philosophers …
Author Archives: Ernest Zanatta
In Which I Deeply Regret Installing Solar Panels
I have just finished emailing a preliminary enquiry to Consumer Affairs Victoria about my recently installed white elephant solar panels. I deeply regret getting solar panels now, two months on, as they have still not been attached to my electricity account due to the failure of the solar installation company to provide Jemena (ie the …
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Trump On Greenland: The Return Of Manifest Destiny (or is it Manifest Insanity?)
In the first half of the 19th Century, many Americans were gripped with a sense of Manifest Destiny, an idea that they were destined to control the entire North American continent. This led them in the 1840s to provoke a war with Mexico as a pretense to conquer large and valuable tracts of land, including …
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Vale Charlie of Charlie’s Pizza
There is very little left of the Footscray that I remember as a child. Growing up on Gordon Street, we were forced to move north when the hospital expanded when I was seven. That side of the street got bulldozed. Years later, the Baptist Church over the street closed down and then got redeveloped as …
Adding Wesfarmers To My Share Portfolio
A few years ago, during the years of Plague and the isolation that ensued, a close friend of mine emailed me with the suggestion that I don’t need to bother with shares. Unlike most people, he pointed out, I belong to a defined benefit superannuation fund with a generous pension on offer, and in which …
Bernie Finn Returns – Yet Again!
I have written about former local state upper house MP Bernie Finn on various occasions in the past, particularly when I suggested he get given a knighthood (I was being facetious, if you don’t quite know how to read my tone!). I will be honest and concede that his first coming as an MP in …
Puneet Puneet Redux
When walking to the bus stop this morning, I saw the front page of the Herald Sun – a shrink wrapped copy lying on the driveway of a house somewhere around the corner. ‘Bring Him Back!’ was the headline. Having grown up reading The Sun News Pictorial in the morning and The Herald in the …
The Upcoming War On Home Owners – How Victoria’s Debt Can Be Repaid
When I was much, much, much younger than I am now, and actively used to read books on Libertarianism and the like, I remember one libertarian writer observing that if everyone lived in mobile homes and could move wherever and whenever they liked, they could hold governments accountable simply by voting with their feet (or …
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Why It Is Unwise To Try Persecuting Comedians
I’m expecting some friends over tonight for a few pre-Christmas drinks. Whilst idling around my lounge room with my iPad in the meantime, I was distracted from my original plan to either watch something on Netflix or read something of dubious literary merit on the kindle app by a push notice on You Tube. It …
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The Father Christmas Letters
I suppose a few of my primary school teachers were potentially great, but flawed. My grade five teacher (let’s call her Miss T) was a quite accomplished, well read, and well travelled woman who taught us how to knit, to play a bit of piano, and lots on nutrition. Unfortunately, she was not very good …
Lost For Words! 