In 2005 David Paton, good friend, mentor, example, and inspiration died after experiencing an aggressive cancer. I flew to New Zealand to attend his funeral. On the flight back I started writing some notes that were intended to capture something of what David meant to me. Taking a deep breath I thought I would share…
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…
Many of you kindly voted for the Pickled Eel by clicking on the icon to the right. The 2008 Bloggers Choice Awards are now running so the counter has been reset. If you have a few spare moments I would be very grateful for a vote out there. Its not a bad way to get…
Where I grew up thongs were known as jandals. Who knows where that word ever came from – short for Japanese sandal apparently! Australians call them thongs while in the US they are flip flops. American thongs of course are much more attractive – though that always depends on who is wearing them. Same rule…
Like most I was appalled by the videos on YouTube showing the cavalier actions by Blackwater contractors engaging “targets” without any apparent rules of engagement which might have gone some way to determining if the vehicles bearing down on them on the highway were in fact a threat or not. I am not sure if…
Imagine there was a new Unabomber at work in the US, sending letter bombs out across the nation. Now imagine there was one in every state, so that 164 letter bombs went off in one year, killing 36 people, 15 of whom were children. Would that make headlines? So commences a review by Paul Byrne…
We arrived late into the port of Auki. The ferry slowed and the stern got caught in its own wake, lifted it up and tipping us forward in a slow motion pitch. Initially we could see nothing but eventually a row of lights on the dark water or hanging in the sky (each was not…
John “the Global Bedouin” has pointed me at Writer’s Cafe and otherwise encouraged me to get some of my writing up there. I have been dusting off some short stories to that end but thought I would start with recollections of my first attempt at a short story. The original is lost but the imagery…
He was wearing a small trenchcoat and looked a bit like a pint sized Robert Redford, with a clichéd shock of blond hair and an open and engaging impish face.But his shoes! His shoes were black, patent-leather-shiny treads with sharply pointed toes and impossibly long. At least a half size again and rising slightly at…
Eric over at Travel Blogs asked me a few questions recently – they are listed below. He posted my replies up on his quality Travel Blog site which he has managed to built into a rather good travel blog in a short period of time. The questions were: Pickled eel… Is that a delicacy you’d…