Early last year, I wrote in this blog that I had chosen to adopt the NFL’s perpetual underachiever, the Cleveland Browns, as my NFL team. After all, as a lifetime supporter of the Footscray Football Club (aka Western Bulldogs), I find underdog teams quite endearing. Well, perhaps my decision to adopt them has proven lucky, …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Stop Laughing – This is Serious! Why ‘Haha’ is not funny.
As a small child, my parents took me each year to have my photo taken with the Santa enthroned in the (now long gone) Forges of Footscray department store. I suspect it (like my baptism, first communion and confirmation) were things that were more for my parents’ benefit than for me – a photo of …
Continue reading “Stop Laughing – This is Serious! Why ‘Haha’ is not funny.”
2021: 2020 without the novelty?
A lot of memes have been sent to me over the past few days marking the end of the old year and the start of the new year. Most of them farewell 2020 with some profanities of some sort – I will not repeat them because, as Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, swearing gives people an …
Preparing for yet another wave….
You can probably surmise that I am a fan of Tolkien.
My Lizard Tenant
Nature-wise, 2020 has been a good year for sighting native animals in my street. I saw a kookaburra across the road in August, and in autumn I sighted an owl in my gum tree on two separate nights. There have been various sightings of marbled geckos, mostly around the BBQ. And on the weekend, I …
An $880,000 Question
During the current trade crisis with Communist China, I have been reading a lot about Chinese ownership of various Australian interests. Aside from wineries (an issue very close to my heart), Chinese Communist interests own Ansell, Swisse, Bellamys, Altinta Energy, and Energy Australia. Landbridge, a Chinese company closely aligned to the communist regime, has a …
Et Tu Kilikanoon? Is There A Problem With Chinese Ownership Of Australian Wineries?
Let me start by saying that I like the wines made at Kilikanoon. A few years ago, I had a half dozen wines delivered to me by the then Wine Society (a cooperative which tries to save money for its members by bulk buying wines at deep discounts to the recommended retail price and on …
There was an Old Lady, who lived in a shoe….
A couple of years ago, in an unexpected display of Walkey Award-worthy investigative journalism, the writers of gossip magazine New Idea (commonly called ‘No Idea’ by those who do not read it) ended the political career of National Party MP Andrew Broad. Mr Broad, it transpired, had been trying to pick up women (whilst married) …
Continue reading “There was an Old Lady, who lived in a shoe….”
Fake Photos and Real Bodies – How Communist China Really Behaves
Have you ever seen a real dead body? Relatively few people do, and hopefully very rarely. I have only three times – just after my father died, at the open casket rosary reading for an uncle, and at an open casket funeral for the father of a close colleague. It is not something you really …
Continue reading “Fake Photos and Real Bodies – How Communist China Really Behaves”
The Ghost Of Breaker Morant
Australians are not always good at picking their folk heroes. Ned Kelly is still seen by many, and not just by the bogan element, as a rebel against oppressive authority, rather than as a petty criminal from a family of petty criminals who turned into a cold blooded murderer and hostage taker. Similarly, Breaker Morant, …
Lost For Words! 