I’m not really familiar with the work of Bill Henson. I’m more familiar with Jim Henson. But I do know this: Nudity is not necessarily sexuality. Context is critical. Which is why Mal Day’s comments on Lateline were so stupid: If I was to take those – take similar photos and display ’em in any ... [More]
My sister and her family are moving from gentrified East Brighton to the wilds of Cheltenham. They bought a house there on a huge block of land, with a pool in the backyard. They don’t expect to keep the pool (what, in this day and age, and with Waves about 5 minutes’ walk away?) but ... [More]
An email went around noting that today is World Environment Day, and it provided a list of tips for reducing your impact on the planet. It made for some interesting reading. Turn down the heat – reducing the thermostat by 1 degree can save 5 – 10% of energy When I use the heat, I ... [More]
Having never been a clubbing-type disco person, I don’t pretend to know enough about the CBD club 2am lockout to know if it’ll work in reducing alcohol abuse and street violence. But I do know that protesters seem to be making out that it means every night at 2am, people will be kicked out onto ... [More]
There was some discussion on this recently in the comments, and now it’s become reality: From tomorrow, most Australian credit cards will offer you the choice of using the PIN instead of signing, at most shops. Details on the Pen Or Pin web site. Wouldn’t surprise me if it had been pushed by those retailers ... [More]
Amusing sight the other morning: a group of tourists lining up along a tram stop platform in Flinders Street to take photos of a passing fire engine, zooming by with lights and sirens blaring. Sorry, I didn’t get a pic of them. I admit, I’ve done similar in foreign cities. It’s what’s different about every ... [More]
Something I remember my driving instructor telling me all those years ago was that mounting the kerb was a big no-no during a driving test. It would result in instant failure. It sticks in my mind, particularly when I see something like this: This was the second attempt at parking for this guy. I watched ... [More]
Just following-up the post the other day about high fuel prices, more than anything, hopefully forcing action on public transport. TonyH pointed me to this excellent article by George Monboit, who notes that so far there is no such action, and that high fuel prices are in fact the biggest thing currently helping to reducing ... [More]
Public transport is by its very nature a social experience. Which probably explains the number of Overheard in Melbourne posts from PT. It’s not all people with noisy phone ringtones, those with annoyingly sniffly noses, and raucous teenagers. These are the people I’ve randomly run into on the train/tram/at stations in the last couple of ... [More]
Sometimes I’m up late. Sometimes it’s close to midnight. And sometimes, I decide to stay up just that little bit longer, to midnight, to check tomorrow’s newspaper. Because The Age usually pushes its new stories onto their web site at midnight. The front page may not be updated, but the National news page is. I ... [More]
I was helping on a PTUA stall back in January, at the Sustainable Living Festival. It was interesting to talk to the different people coming by. One guy expressed disappointment about car pollution. He said some people would never want to part with their cars. This is not an opinion I entirely agree with. People ... [More]
I’m a St George Bank customer. Given the proposed merger, it seems that soon I’ll be a Westpac customer, despite what Westpac management are saying. During yesterday’s briefing, Ms Kelly was adamant the branch network would be maintained, saying even when a St George branch and a Westpac branch were side by side in the ... [More]
On the grade 5 class contact list, there are 19 kids. Of those 3 (including mine) have two home phone numbers.
Doctor Who fans, rejoice. Acclaimed writer Steven Moffat, who wrote some of the most memorable (and Hugo-award-winning) recent stories such as Blink and The Empty Child, has been appointed the next Lead Writer and Executive Producer of the show, taking over from sometimes-loved, sometimes-loathed Russell T Davies. “My entire career has been a Secret Plan ... [More]
Is the fact that your car is not in your driveway an advertisement to potential burglars that you’re not home? A lot of people drive every day. So if the car isn’t there, it may be a good sign that nobody’s there. One exception might be in a one-car family where there are often people ... [More]