The Invisible Story
Meet Monty. One of many nephews. Can’t recall the date – but about 1996 or thereabouts. 33,005 total views, 83 views today
33,005 total views, 83 views today
Thanks for reading. This blog is an opportunity for me to capture some of the diversity of my writing interests. My muse tend to appear on my shoulder as I board an international flight although not all of my writing is inspired by travel and foreign places. These blogs have been the basis of a novel (Flowers of Baghdad) but there are a few other writing projects in progress besides. Please feel free to leave a comment. Or two.
Kebab Book review
BB King is twanging in the ceiling, largely drowned out by the chatter of customers, the clatter of the kitchen, and the hum of extractor fans over the ovens. The hooting laughter from an elderly couple in the corner, lubricated by a bottle of red and another of white, punctuate the din. Chairs scrape. A…
33,025 total views, 83 views today
Green Red Zone
There was something unsettling sitting in the offices of a certain government department in Baghdad and hearing senior civil servants, some with PhDs from US and European universities, cynically observe that they had swapped their home grown dictator for Dictator Bremer of Washington DC. Perhaps most disturbing was their discussion about how they were poised…
33,248 total views, 83 views today
Turns out Albert Priest was…
…the town clerk (not sure which town) in the 1920s or so who thought it would be good for all in that part of the bush to have some water delivered via the channel that now bears his name. Once can only suspect he well earned the naming rights since, as a town clerk,…
33,001 total views, 83 views today
The Hurt Locker
What the heck was I thinking, watching Wolfsissie during the week? What a hopeless movie, starting with so much promise and fizzing half way through. Anthony Hopkins must need to pay off a credit card or something to be dragged into something as bad as this. Anyway, more than offset by The Hurt Locker which…
33,258 total views, 83 views today
Who was Albert Priest?
Who was Albert Priest? We cross the Albert Priest Channel 26km south of Nyngan. Not such a luminary that a town or desert is named after him. No mountains either of course, this part of the country being billiard table flat. Perhaps it is appropriate that landmarks out here are subsurface ones such as a…
33,035 total views, 83 views today
Oodla Wirra – Where?
A (very sharp) boning knife protruding backwards from hip pocket, mad scramble through thorn bush hunting jittery goats and a forearm inadvertently connecting with aforementioned knife had us do a quick (one hour) run to the hospital at Peterborough (that’s not a real wound – gotta love those country nurses) through Oodla Wirra. A name…
33,035 total views, 83 views today
The Devil’s Shilling
In the deserts of South Australia there are numerous monuments to failed enterprises and settlements. Standing at an old crossroads in the middle of saltbush country is a derelict hotel with flowery wallpaper slowly peeling off the walls, floors caving in and a cellar blown into the street. It became the scene for a gothic…
33,003 total views, 87 views today
Two Men and a Dog
Cast: Buzz. Old kelpie dog. 74 years of dust matted into his pelt. Eyes set way too close together. Thinks he runs the farm. Silver. Mongrel something. 73 years of dust. Forehead as wide as a tanker’s bow – eyes way too far apart. Thinks he runs the farm. Two kelpie bitches in heat. Know…
33,015 total views, 83 views today
Cactus is Fractus
Well, it is fractus (there is one for your Scrabble games) out on Miss Betty’s place, even if you do see it flourishing elsewhere in the state. Over the years prickly pear has been managed quite well and the family property is pretty much free of it. But given she is now managing it on…
33,041 total views, 83 views today