Taxi Story - The Iraqi (II)

(Slunk down in his seat, a quiet night on Macquarie Street). Hey, where do you want to go? St Leonards eh? Strange place. You had a long day? 5.30 in the morning start? You are crazy. It is  long enough for me starting to drive at 3pm.  I finish at 11pm. That is respectable. But not respectable enough Read more

Sunday At Collaroy

On a day like today we are not in any winter thrall to speak of. Wave after flat wave softly slushes into the sand and dies in a sigh, to be gently gathered up again and returned to the white hot glitter of blue sea diamonds which are spread out today under a clear sky and bright sun. Read more

Tourist in Sydney

Occasionally we have attempted to be a tourist in our own town but we usually stagger to a hotel, collapse, have a late breakfast on the sidewalk and then head home feeling somewhat cheated and resolved to be more “touristy”next time. This morning I walked with some friends along 10km of track only minutes from home. It’s perhaps the best result of checking out my own town in a long time. Read more

I Fell in Love with A Cemetery

Yup, you read that correctly. In the middle of a busy Sydney suburb, next to the Pacific Highway, is a snapshot of Victoriana, the discovery of which was totally startling. Read more

Sydney Has itself An Indian Summer

Memories of summers in younger years always include rounds of cricket. In the driveway. On the beach. At a picnic. School days. Games against Waitaki Boys High or St Kevins where more passion than technical skill invariably led the play. Later it was getting down to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) Read more

One Unnatural Way to Die in Australia

You can call it Macho Drowning. Pigheaded Drowning. I know Better Drowning. Don’t tell me What to Do Drowning. I Am Stronger than the Rules Drowning. Or just Plain Dumb Drowning. OK, it is not as exotic as a Taipan bite or being bitten by a Red Back Spider while on the toilet (I have a friend who suffered that recently - that Post coming!) Read more

Best City in the World

We all want to claim that title for our home towns but on a day like today, when Sydney is at its humid, sunny, sparkling best, it is hard to not want to say that we live in a pretty neat part of the scrub. Read more

Sydney Storm

Some dogs smell them coming and hide under the hedge. Others smell them coming and spin on their chains in insane, barely comprehensible excitement. I relate to the latter. Read more

What are the Churches Not Doing?

I am no social commentator, not do I have aspirations to be one. But as a “member” occasionally things just leap out and slap you when they point at our society and highlight our shortcomings. In the Sydney Morning Herald this weekend there was an interesting article about a small company which has built its business around the cleanup required after a death (accidental or otherwise) or where a site is so filthy no regular cleaner will go near it. Council contracts for abandoned apartments and that sort of thing. They do a good job I am sure. But their observation about cleaning up the apartment of a derelict struck home. One of the cleaners said “…no one should live like that(in a “pigsty”) It is great to be able to help make his life a little better. Rightly or wrongly the reporter went on to say “This sort of work used to be done by charities or nuns or concerned people in the community. It is now done by cleaning contractors such as Gabby Simpson.”

Well I am not sure about you but it strikes me as a pretty sad state of affairs that our social safety net, our network of care, is reduced to not only contractors but to cleaning contractors!! Come on! Good on Gabby and her cleaning contractors for having the attitude they do. But shame on the rest of us for letting things get to a point where a reporter observes that in our community one of the key groups we expect to be best tuned into the needs of the poor and needy - the church - is not so tuned in. OK, there is a reasonable argument that plenty of churches are pulling their weight (here is one I know). But church or no church, our community is confronted by the fact that too many in our community live and die alone and none of us are aware until their lonely deaths hit the press - usually salaciously since some have rotted in situ for months and in one case for more than a year. Too many of these in Sydney these last couple of years. I sincerely hope we can do better than leaving these people up to our forensic cleaning contractors. Who incidentally, are usually on site when it is far too late!

Sydney Turns it On

It must be Sunday - time to get back into the Blog! There is always a temptation to go searching for inspiration outside this town but the fact of the matter is there is enough material in this town to inspire and convict - you don’t always see what is right under your nose. A small thing that always captures my imagination happens every year and is a case of the “bleedin’ obvious” in terms of things that make you slow down and put things in perspective a little - the suburb grow a purple mantle and a slow rain of purple litter covers the footpaths, the garden shed and our backyards as the bare branches of the Jacaranda announce the end of the winter months (we don’t really have a winter of course). The Jacaranda does that with a vengeance. And if that does not catch our eye the Bougainvillea is at its blushing and fiery, flamboyant best. On the odd occasion a mix of Jacaranda and Bougainvillea happens in the same space and the blend of colours is enough to have you want to stop the drive to work and simply soak it all up. To top it all off the harbingers of these spring explosions are the amazing magnolias, some which remain in bloom if it has been cool enough - though not this year. Nothing profound in any of this, simply an acknowledgment that we are blessed to live where we do for a whole range of reasons. One reason is our environment.

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