Ok… firstly a shout out to my readers in the Peoples Republic of China. It seems that I have more readers there right now than where I would like them or where I feel my words might make more of a difference (ie in the Commonwealth of Australia). I like having readers, regardless of their …
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Diplomatic Immunity
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/10/queensland-court-dismisses-student-activist-drew-pavlous-case-against-chinese-diplomat?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Drew Pavlou, the UQ student who has become a high profile human rights activist (at great personal cost) has lost a court case where he accused the PRC consul of inciting violence against him. The case was lost on the issue of diplomatic immunity. Like most people of my generation, the term diplomatic immunity …
Put this on a license plate….
In Which I Am Visited By A Kookaburra….
When I was walking to the supermarket this morning, I happened to hear a rather uncommon but strangely familiar bird call. I looked in the direction of the sound, and lo! it was a kookaburra on the antenna of the house opposite mine. This is pretty rare. Whilst I have read that kookaburras are occasionally …
Falling Towers and Modern Ghost Towns: What does the future hold for inner cities post COVID?
What is the city over the mountains Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air Falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London Unreal Friends and foes (alas) alike who have known me long enough will know that I have this tendency to quote T.S. Eliot, an intellectual pretension which I have yet to outgrow …
The West Melbourne Swamp and other reflections on local history
At the risk of sounding paternalistic, and possibly imperialistic, where I live in Avondale Heights was, for a brief moment in time, the very edge of the known world. In early February 1803, the naval officer James Fleming and the surveyor Charlies Grimes left their ship in the bay, and rowed up the Yarra mouth. …
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Uber Eats and Netflix: Bread and Circuses, 21st Century Style
iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. Writing at the time the Roman Empire was reaching its greatest extent, in his Satire X, the Roman poet Juvenal denounced the apathy …
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Hibernating during Pandemonium….
It is now mid-winter and I am in a state of semi-hibernation, which is strange because winter is usually one of the most academically and professionally active times of the year. I do my job on my laptop, and go into the office twice a week, but I see no point in taking holidays, and …
Why the musical Hamilton single handedly affirms American Exceptionalism and disproves the decline of America….
How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore And a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spotIn the Caribbean by providence impoverishedIn squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar? The ten-dollar founding father without a fatherGot a lot farther by working a lot harderBy being a lot smarter By being …
All Roads Lead To The Avondale Heights Cannoli Bar
Because it is in a more remote pocket of Avondale Heights, about 500 metres on the other side of Military Road, where the streets are all named after places in France, I rarely get along to the Cannoli Bar in Riviera Road. It opened about 2 years ago, in a former milk bar and is …
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Lost For Words! 