OK look, I know I promised all those weird and wacky job stories, but stuff is happening in the here-and-now which makes much better blog material – or your author has ADD and can only get inspired by things happening in the immediate present. So as I write this, I’m seated comfortably on the 5:45pm …
We interrupt this unstarted sequence of my oddball jobs to tell you about something a little closer to home. While the odd jobs may turn out to be an interesting bunch of stories which will be fun to resurrect, it has very little to do with embracing life in Braidwood, which is what this blog …
Spring is in the process of springing: the magpies are engaging in aerial flirtations, the grey fantails are displaying, and today I snapped a new bird for my list, the tiny Spotted Pardalote, busily engaged in collecting nesting material. But with these hopeful signs, it seems the local raptors' habits are changing. This isn't based …
Irony alert! Remember Alanis Morissette, the Canuck chanteuse who sang emotively about irony? It's like raa-ainnn on your wedding day,It's a free ride when you've already paid, It's the good advice that you just didn't take,And who would have thought? It figures. Now many have pointed out that most of Alanis' examples aren't irony at …
You may recall that the previous raptor post drew heavily on pious English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins to relay the beauty and power of these birds. But there's enough to be said about mankind's fascination with raptors to fill a plethora of books -- the ancient sport of falconry, for a start, is one of …
It's winter now -- and following the freakishly wet summer we've just endured, we're experiencing some deep cold, such that Archie's water bowl freezes overnight and we keep the fire going all day. When it comes to local wildlife -- particularly the feathered kind -- I expected a bit of a dearth, with all the …
Anzac Day in Australia today, given all the more poignance by daily reports of bitter fighting in the Ukraine. We are never without war. Despite the two in the last century that were supposed to kill off war forever, the smaller ones happening now are just as terrible. But today we commemorate the young people …
Here's something my mate Matthew and I used to talk about sometimes over a couple of beers at the Railway Pub in West Hampstead, London, around 1995. When we weren't talking about cricket, or girls, or books, or history (he's a historian), we talked about music. Specifically, 'pop' or rock music, to use those inadequate …
Idly musing as Archie and I wended our way down the Commonwood path the other day, I had a minor epiphany. That's a way of saying I realised something I hadn't realised before and felt a bit silly that it hadn't occurred to me earlier as it should have been obvious. This can happen when …
You know the outtakes phenomenon, where if you stick around long enough at the end of some movies (usually comedies), they show all the bloopers and ad-libs that wouldn’t make it to the final cut, but are funnier than the final cut? I like those. I remember going to the Rainbow Ascot cinema in Bulawayo …
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