Monthly Archives: October 2012

The federal government announced an initiative last weekend to get all schoolkids to learn an Asian language. While laudable I suspect it won’t work. Chris Rau has an excellent piece in this morning’s SMH explaining one set of reasons. I’ve … Continue reading →

We’re beginning to get serious about our attempt to travel the trans siberian. Technology is the easy part – either our old Asus netbook, which has the virtue of being light and robust, or possibly the windows netbook – which … Continue reading →

Even though we’ve had a cold winter, the garden is already producing with the first chilli of the year …

As we’ve said we’re tentatively planning a trip along the Trans Siberian from east to west. As part of the planning process we’re putting together a wiki with links and planning information while we try and sort out what we … Continue reading →

Here in Canberra, we moved into summer time a couple of weeks ago, suddenly making it light to half past seven in the evening, and suddenly the heating hardly comes on in the evening. One of the supposed benefits of … Continue reading →

No, not another long post about the the post October 1917 civil war in Russia or the importance of early twentieth century East Asian history. I have, over the past couple of years, accumulated too much leave. So much that … Continue reading →

I’ve been watching Rory Stewart’s programs on the new great game on SBS. Yes, I know they were on over a month ago but as we watch very little television we tend to accumulate shows – for example we’ll probably … Continue reading →

I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading around the history of the Russian civil war, renewing my fascination with that period. Given the upcoming centenary of the first world war, and the probable emphasis in anglophone countries on the … Continue reading →

Truth be told I’m a little squeamish about eating rabbit.  No matter how well disguised I have a definite withdrawal response about it. Totally irrational, I know. I put it down to being told that skinned, deheaded, defooted and detailed … Continue reading →

What seems a long time ago I bought myself an e-reader, and I’ve used successfully over the last two or so years with books from Project Gutenberg and with books bought through Borders (when they existed) and BookDepository (when they … Continue reading →