Forgetting Tom Clancy

You see lots of crazy stuff on social media. My Facebook feed (and I am a relative newcomer to FB) alternates between regaling me with AI generated stories of family conflict which approach Greek tragedy in their proportions (who would have thought spending one kid’s college fund on another or wearing white to your stepsister’s …

Not Everyone Likes Rock N Roll….

I just finished reading Land Of The Long Weekend, the late Ronald Conway’s 1978 critique of 1970s Australian society, culture and consumerism. It was heavy going. Whilst I am quite well read, Conway was even more read, in the way of an autodidact, and fond of quoting his interpretations of many famed authors and philosophers …

The Father Christmas Letters

I suppose a few of my primary school teachers were potentially great, but flawed. My grade five teacher (let’s call her Miss T) was a quite accomplished, well read, and well travelled woman who taught us how to knit, to play a bit of piano, and lots on nutrition. Unfortunately, she was not very good …

The Stultification Of Literature: The Real Threat From Artificial Intelligence

Not that anyone can tell too closely from my library (which is sorted in what I call ‘autobiographical order’), but I have a marked preference for the works of Anthony Trollope over those of Charles Dickens. I am pretty sure that I have read all of his novels and most of his short stories, although …

Rise Of The Street Libraries

I’ve always been a bit of a Tom Wolfe fan, back since I read The Right Stuff at age 16. The movie, which was made around that time, remains one of my all time favourite films (indeed, you might have read something I wrote here a few years ago comparing the movie to the new …