The Story of the Aardvark, the highest ski lodge in Australia
I was there from the start and this is my version of events. As I was there, some latitude must be afforded for reasons that become clear as you read …
This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends …
If Life Feels Bleak, It’s Because Our Civilization is Beginning to Collapse 2030 Will Be Even Worse than 2020. And 2040 Will Be Even Worse than That. Unless. There’s an …
Fluff and Snarl … or Azaria?
The camping area at Glen Helen in the West Macdonnells was crowded. It was mid-winter, school holidays in much of the country and holidaying school-teachers with their families, as well …
Blokes at a BBQ, a blokey place to be, so why was Leanne there?
These blokes didn’t call out ‘Ducks on the pond’. Marinating Leanne in barbeque smoke was less kind than would have been just plain exclusion in this all-too-familiar example of bloke bonding. When it comes to such behaviour, me mate ‘Plate’ would say, ‘I resemble that comment”.
Robert Manne listened to Mahler and then listened to Paul Keating – and so did we.
Paul Keating thinks over the broadest range of issues, intelligently, deeply, strategically. We miss in our public life thinkers of his calibre and we and our country are the poorer. He had the thousand plus people fortunate to be in the room with him spell-bound at his wit, his humour and believe it or not, his humility. After all, he has so little about which to be humble.
The Ferret Affair summed up everything that was edgy and wonderful about Brunswick Street in the 1970s
Brunswick Street was the street of dissolution when I was young. The TF Much Ballrroom was the epicentre when the Ferret Affair drew the wierdest and most wonderful crowd. My article appeared in Brunswick Street, Art & Revolution, Ed. Anne Rittman and Maz Wilson, published by Black Pepper. Check blackpepperpublishing.com/RittmanAndWilson
I’m not sure of the company I keep – RFK Jnr was good on waterkeeping
Bobby Kennedy Jnr was a powerful community advocate for care and protection of waterways. I have real trouble with the issues for which he advocates now.
Travelling to ‘Silken Samarkand’
A boyhood dream is realised when 40 years later I journeyed to Silken Samarkand. John Keats and Dot Roche, I thank you.
When I hit the town with Bobby Kennedy Jr.
Robert F Kennedy Jnr, then President of the Waterkeeper Alliance, treated us to oratory as we rarely hear it. His message on the importance of being organised for protecting the environment, particularly riverine and marine environments, was the basis for the formation of Waterkeepers Australia
Pine mushrooms – and the scientists got it right with the specific name ‘deliciosus’
Lactarius deliciosus When the calendar indicates April or May, it is time to start combing the Mornington Peninsula for Pine mushrooms. Unsurprisingly, they grow under pine trees, often in association …