… in vaulting stories and in our imagination as author (and former Australian Rugby rep) Peter FitzSimons regales us with anecdotes about Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, from the volume he is launching about the life and times of this Australian (and global) aviation legend. The lunchtime crowd were mainly, well I think mainly retirees, who…
49,879 total views, 105 views today
Each day this last week the fog has lifted off the harbour in early morning mists and the suburbs have been shrouded in rain. Seattle weather never sits well on a Sydneysider and even though we grumble at water restrictions when the dam levels drop, we do prefer our sunny days and sparkling harbour. But…
49,845 total views, 105 views today
Remembrances of events can be two edged. Was it really twenty years since Tiananmen? Hard to believe all right. Twenty years ago those of us in the various “China watchers” groups in governments around the world were starting to think that the winds of change in China were spring rather than winter zephyrs, and that…
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Impressive for their precision but I do wonder if there was an anesthetic! National Geographic (where else?) story here. 49,769 total views, 105 views today
49,769 total views, 105 views today
Soft pink waist coats and mole grey jackets suggest something refined and gentle. The galah is anything but, especially when when it is jinking up the street with five its mates, showing off clever manoeuvres like teenage boys in their new cars. But they are the only signs and raucous sounds of life for a…
49,847 total views, 105 views today
“You on channel Miss Betty?” The silence out of the radio is accompaniment for the empty horizon. “You on channel Miss Betty?” Nothing. The microphone is dropped back into the console and we drive on, dust erupting and billowing behind us, saltbush blurring beside us. This expedition started with a sit in the sun on…
49,833 total views, 105 views today
Last weekend I watched my brother play with his son and thought “Thirty years apart is far too long”. There is pain in the realisation that it has been so long. Years never recovered. Years not shared. All valuable and constructive in their own way, and all filled with light and drama and satisfaction and…
50,121 total views, 109 views today
As much as I despise the culture of obsequious kowtowing to “the Empire” there are some icons that connect me to it in a more positive yet strange way. Some are old history books. Biggles stories are another connection – they formed up some perspectives as a ten year old which seem humourous now. Winston…
49,829 total views, 107 views today
As we walk up to an old stone Quorn church built in 1880… “Owyer goin Ron?” “Really well for an old bloke.” “Nah, you ain’t old, just slow moving. Meet my brother. He is here to help repair this guttering.” “Oh yeah? Where are you from?” “Sydney?” “Sydney?! To repair the gutter.” “All the way.”…
49,841 total views, 105 views today
Pronounced “corn”. No, I did not know that either. A dot on the arid landscape in South Australia ( 32°20’46.93″S 138° 2’23.85″E). I walk around the streets wondering what keeps people here. Maybe the clue lies with Gary and his wife who sit in the late autumn sun and sing out a cheery “owyergoing mate?”…
49,855 total views, 105 views today