Category Archives: Uncategorized

Last night I was idly watching Michael Portillo’s Great British Railway journeys (SBS has bought a load of these years old and shows them after the news as an antidote to the lunacy of the world), and in the episode … Continue reading →

Well, today happens to be the 25th of April or ANZAC day, the anniversary of the Galipolli landings and a solemn day in the Australian calendar, perhaps too solemn, but that’s a different discussion. Anyway, after my success with open … Continue reading →

I’ve been reading John Bossy’s Under the Molehill, about the identification of a mole in Mary Queen of Scots household who leaked information about  various plots to Walsingham’s office during her detention in England. In the book, Bossy repeats a … Continue reading →

One aspect of life in Australia is the domination of overseas anglophone media. Our bookshops are full of books by overseas authors, our tv of overseas shows, all reviewed in our newspapers, which also recycle work by by overseas reviewers. … Continue reading →

I’ve been rereading Charles Miller’s The Lunatic Express, which is ostensibly a history of the building of what is now the Mombasa Nairobi railway, but is much more than that – essentially a history of the early days of British … Continue reading →

Quite some time ago, we took a long trip out round by Grenfell to look at some sites associated with the bushranger Ben Hall. Well happenstance is a wonderful thing. Yesterday on our way back from Canberra we stopped in … Continue reading →

despite all the years I worked for ANU, I never once visited the Classics Museum. Well, today I did –  it’s a nice but small collection of Greek and Roman pottery, some rather nice Roman glass, the inevitable selection of … Continue reading →

In 1876, Turgenev wrote a poem Croquet in Windsor about the Bulgarian atrocities in which he imagines Queen Victoria watching a croquet game at Windsor in which the balls were the heads of massacred bulgarian christians. A very powerful image, … Continue reading →

In Australia, we have a system whereby if a local publisher acquires the rights to a book and publishes an Australian edition, distributors are barred from selling overseas editions, except as remainders or as second hand books. This is supposed … Continue reading →

Next weekend marks a year since I retired. Not that I actually retired then, I had some sabbatical leave owing, meaning that formally I retired at the end of April, but this time last year I was saying my goodbyes … Continue reading →