Author Archives: dgm

Amanda, J’s niece, has a daughter who’s just turned three. Old enough to appreciate that she’s had a birthday so we sent her a card (we also have a glove puppet for her but we were totally disorganised, so we … Continue reading →

Way back in June, we rode the Sunlander from Brisbane to Cairns, knowing that it was the last year we could make such a trip, as the sleeper service was being withdrawn in December. Turns out that Queensland Rail are … Continue reading →

We’ve been having a little panic over the appearance of a Russian battle group in the Coral Sea – this isn’t the first time we’ve had one – Cooktown town council panicked in the 1880’s about the need to defend … Continue reading →

 Yesterday, I went to Brisbane for a work thing – it wasn’t all work – I managed to snap this rather fine bit of 1890’s architecture in Edward Street just down from QUT in the old core of the city … Continue reading →

I’ve written before about the Portuguese and Spanish voyages of exploration in East Asia, including the possibility of a group of Portuguese sailors being the first Europeans to land in Australia. These early european sailors had in part been driven … Continue reading →

Before I go to sleep in the evening I like to read for twenty or thirty minutes with a hot drink – probably a sign of growing old. I usually read stuff I find entertaining and relaxing rather than serious … Continue reading →

Beechworth, in Victoria, is an old gold town, and quite historical. Hidden in plain sight is a little bit of world war one history. If you go to the public loos from the main street you walk down the side … Continue reading →

A week or three ago I blogged about the great selfie crisis. Since then I’ve come across an interesting little problem. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that one of my interests is that chaotic period … Continue reading →

If you have read any British Victorian era literature, you’ll have come across references to a Bradshaw – a guide to train times. So named because George Bradshaw compiled a compendium of the various and often competing companies train timetables … Continue reading →

Well this week we’ve had a bit of a moral panic over selfies of clothing challenged people, not in the least because a number of pictures of media starlets have been stolen from Apple iCloud servers, perhaps by brute force … Continue reading →