Category Archives: Uncategorized

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 →

I’m an obsessive about notebooks. As well as obsessing about suitable devices for taking notes, I use notebooks extensively, and I’m picky, very picky. Moleskine or Rhodia for bound notebooks for use as travel journals, and Clairefontaine, Rhodia or Moleskine … Continue reading →

Supermoon over Woragee from Factory Lane Ok, most definitely not the best photograph, taken on a Samsung Galaxy at about 2010 AEDT last night, but we had fun driving round the back roads to get a decent view of the … Continue reading →

Last Tuesday, we needed to go to the city (actually St Kilda, but never mind) and instead of driving we caught the train to celebrate our becoming eligible for Seniors’ travel cards. In a lot of places, a 500 km … Continue reading →