Bruce Springsteen -- a songwriter and performer I feel I could spend some time going on about, if there wasn't a slight sense that a lot of time would be spend defending his ouvre against that tiresome "ew! so shouty and sweaty!" reaction you get since 1985's Born in the USA. It's better to adopt …
When priapic songster Sting, in his pretentious post-Police lite-jazz phase, sang that love is the seventh wave, he was of course referencing the myth that in the sea, waves travel in groups of seven, with the seventh being the largest. This idea comes up quite a lot in our culture. Henri Charriere, otherwise known as …
Living out here in the NSW country, free of the rigid limits of that 9-5, five days a week existence, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between the days. That’s really OK, most of the time, but sometimes you do wake up in the morning and struggle to remember whether it’s a weekend or not. …
Ah language . . . without you we’d be as to the beasts, ravening in the wilderness, red in tooth and claw. Well, that and opposable thumbs, as we know. Just think of the word ‘pants’. Depending where you are in the world, this simple monosyllable can denote subtle but very significant things. In the …
Atop a ladder the other day, working on restoring the finial to the gable of the shed – I mean ‘studio’ – I couldn’t help but notice that the roof was in sore need of a lick of paint. It’s a nice corrugated-iron roof, with a gentle pitch, but it’s definitely seen better days: the …
Braidwood owes its existence largely to mankind's lust for easy and unreasonably abundant wealth. As previously mentioned, gold was discovered around these parts in 1851, leading to an influx of adventurers with dollar signs in their eyes, fixated on scoring big and setting themselves up for a life of leisure and luxury. The contrast between …
Back into the bathroom this weekend for some DIY, this time the shower in the shed – or ‘studio’ – where I have my office. We noted months ago that the silicone sealant around the junction between wall and floor was mottling with mould, and it seemed like the kind of simple job that’s within …
Burying yourself in the countryside to wait out the odd pandemic is all well and good – and we’re grateful for our lot, believe me – but every now and then, you feel the need for a bit of a break. You know: crisp white tablecloths, polished silverware, a glass or two of champers, and …
Frankly it’s a miracle that we’ve made it this far with the blog without so much as a mention of cricket. I blame COVID-19 and the fact that it’s put the kybosh on pretty much all sport in front of a large audience. But with Test Match Cricket resuming in the UK today, perhaps now’s …
Isambard Kingdom Brunel -- what an engineer. This bloke didn't design his way into the history books with just one innovation, or even two -- he just kept coming up with bold new material: tunnels, steel ships, suspension bridges. All brilliantly conceived and executed with due consideration of function driving form and such. It would …
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