I'm old enough to know that I don't have any answers, but that won't stop me talking
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”
In any Anglo-phonic democracy, particularly those based on the Westminster system, the role of the loyal Opposition is important. It is there to scrutinise the behaviour of the government of the day and to constructively criticise it’s policies. If it does a good job of that, and the government of the day does a poor …
In the early 2000s, there were a couple of Chinese restaurants in Little Bourke Street named after Mao and Deng. They did not last long, because the food was not very good (the Post Mao Cafe based it’s menu on what apparently was Mao’s favourite dishes, which appears to have been the Chinese answer to …
Continue reading “Communist Kitsch rescued from the Trash Can of History”
A couple of weeks ago, I headed to the local bottle shop to buy a six pack of beer for a Friday night drinking session with some colleagues over Zoom (I need not have bothered, as I decided to switch after a couple of stubbies to red wine – which is my poison of choice …
Mark Twain is oft quoted as writing: ‘There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are statistics.’ I follow the Wikipedia page on the Corona Virus outbreak very closely, and I have expressed considerable concern twice about the accuracy of some of the numbers given on that page, particularly in relation to the …
As I walk the streets of central Melbourne on my lunch break on the two days each week I work in the office now rather than at home, I do reflect on how (as I like to say) almost On The Beach empty they are. Nevil Shute is one of my very favourite novelists, and …
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