I'm old enough to know that I don't have any answers, but that won't stop me talking
I first was introduced to George Orwell at age 13. There was that favourite older cousin the English teacher who kept recommending things (although I think that Orwell is on a different level to John Wyndham really…) who encouraged me to read 1984 and Animal Farm. I fear 13 year olds are still too young …
Continue reading “Zadie Smith – An Essayist on the Hitchens/Orwell Plain?”
I just saw an ad for Big Brother – a very nasty and narcissistic reality TV show which makes its way around the networks like a virus. First Ten, then Nine, now Seven. The people are not shy physically, and they are not exactly shy emotionally. People want to be on that show, fine. People …
“Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft, Not for the people’s praise. Only because our Goddess made us her own, and laughed, Claiming us all our days.” Thus starts Song of the Pen, a short but beautiful autobiographical poem written by one of Australia’s greatest poets, Banjo Patterson. It is …
Continue reading “Not My Darling Clementine…. (What is good for the gander is good for the goose)”
As a child, I used to watch a lot of old Warner Brothers cartoons on the TV. Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies etc. Mostly they were organised into either The Bugs Bunny Show or The Porky Pig Show. And some were The Road Runner Show. Wile E Coyote, the hapless protagonist of the Road Runner Show, …
Continue reading “The Wile E Coyote Syndrome – Making Sense of the Share Market”
Since the age of seventeen, when Suzanne Vega was on the charts with her debut single Marlene on the wall and then the Pretty In Pink soundtrack song Left of Centre, I have been a fan of her music. When I acquired her debut album and played it constantly during swot-vac before my HSC exams, …
Continue reading “Discovering Some Old Long Forgotten Suzanne Vega Songs….”
“Marxism consists of thousands of truths, but they all boil down to one sentence, ‘it is right to rebel!’ For thousands of years, it has been said that it was right to oppress, it was right to exploit, and it was wrong to rebel. This old verdict was only reversed with the appearance of Marxism…. …
Continue reading “It Is Right To Rebel: Why The University Of Queensland Is Wrong”
Every few years my CD player stops working properly and I need to go buy another one. After all, I have a library of about 300 CDs that I have paid good money for and should listen to more often. However, this is 2020, not 1990. I bought myself this iMac almost 18 months ago …
In one of the early seasons of The Simpsons, there is an episode ‘Lisa The Beauty Queen’ where Lisa is runner up for the Little Miss Springfield pageant and then becomes Little Miss Springfield after the winner gets struck by lightning. Lisa being Lisa, she is not content to be a figurehead for the powerful …
Continue reading “Love (or Trade War) in the Time of Cholera (or Coronavirus)”
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”
Lost For Words!