Qantas Frequent Flyer spams during the Corona-crisis

I am not exactly enamoured of Frequent Flyer programs. The collapse of Ansett Airlines in mid 2001 cost me almost 60,000 points, which had been earned mostly through spending on my linked credit card. Ever since then, I have made sure to cash out my credit card reward points regularly, originally as gift cards, but …

Despatches from the trenches in the Toilet Paper Apocalypse

Whilst I am well stocked for toilet paper, and have been for many years, I am troubled by the predicament that may be faced by some of my family and friends and colleagues, so I have been sharing from my stash in the past week. I decided that, rather than hope that supermarkets replenish their …

We’re not in Kansas, but we keep writing about it

Right now, I am 95% of the way through Dorothy Must Die, the first of a series of dystopian novels about Oz, by Danielle Paige. In short, it imagines what if Dorothy and her trio of henchmen had turned to evil and tyrannised Oz, through the eyes of a modern day Kansas girl the tornado …

Which will end first – the Bear Market or my toilet paper supply?

When the Australian Stock Exchange closed this afternoon, it was officially down 20% from the record high in February. A 20% decline from a peak is officially regarded as a bear market. How long will this last? I think the distance in the GFC from peak to bottom was about 16 months – November 2007 …

Waiting for the Zombie Apocalypse….

As I have indicated before, I consider that all the paranoia about the Coronavirus stems from the hard wiring we have from the 1600 plus years of eschatological conditioning from the time when Christianity become compulsory in the Roman Empire. However, I cannot help but notice the effect on my share portfolio. Is someone who …

Forget about Toilet Paper – Coronavirus is now causing panic buying of Bibles!

The above photo was taken a couple of hours ago at my local bookshop at Highpoint Shopping Centre. This section is the Spirituality section where you buy the Bibles. As you can see, the shelves here are almost empty. It appears that the threat of Coronavirus has now caused people to move on from panic …

Upstart Crow – how best to debunk the Shakespearean authorship myths

As you might guess from some of what I occasionally post on this blog, I am a bit of a Shakespeare fan. And I am both fascinated by and appalled by the theories that the plays were not written by Shakespeare. Ben Elton, in writing a recently broadcast episode of Upstart Crow (a sitcom about …