A big bunch of thumbs ups for all these, from the past couple of months. The First Casualty by Ben Elton — a mystery set close to a century ago, a bit like Julian Barnes’ Arthur and George, and also very reminiscent of Black Adder 4, but with a much more serious look at the ... [More]
Is airconditioning turning us into wimps? We (and I’m as guilty of this as anybody) go from our sometimes-airconditioned houses in our airconditioned cars or our airconditioned trains to airconditioned offices or airconditioned shopping centres. If it’s not 20 degrees indoors, we’re complaining. If the train is not airconditioned, we’re complaining. If we have to ... [More]
The mouse in my house previously spurned the poison put down for it. Last week it managed to get bait out of the mouse trap without setting it off. Then it managed to nibble away at bread that was left hanging in a shopping bag from a door handle. From the trail it left behind, ... [More]
Summer rolls on, with several hot days this week leaving us sweating. On Thursday night we had an evening session of street cricket, always good when it’s warm and the sun goes down late. It’s not exactly The Ashes, and some fielding slip-ups meant one tennis ball went down a drain. Oh well. If we’d ... [More]
A stone’s throw from the exclusive boutiques of Chapel Street, South Yarra, next to the railway line near the underpass, between a set of signalling control boxes, and sheltered by an overhead structure, is a pile of mattresses, pillows, bedclothes, and assorted objects. Occasionally you’ll see someone there, sleeping or awake, apparently as oblivious to ... [More]
Just occasionally I feel like researching something to the Nth degree, gathering some stats, working it all out. Sometimes it’s useful; sometimes it’s really not. This probably falls into the latter camp. Some may recall one day in December 2005 when I got 28 pieces of junk mail in my mailbox on a single day. ... [More]
Happy New Year! The last one seems to have gone pretty quickly. Must be because I’ve been so busy. Some followups from 2006: After driving a Prius a few weeks ago, I note Bill Shorten in The Age called for the car companies locally to work on hybrid cars. At the start of the Christmas ... [More]