Funny how random things can spark random thoughts. The picture of Spud standing in the rain in Martin Place sparked thoughts over the last couple of days about a good friend I used to serve with. He was an Airfield Defence Guard. For those of us serving in relative comfort in the Air Force he…
I love this photo, taken by Steven Siewert, in the early morning rain which dumped on Sydney yesterday. Wednesday the 25th of April is ANZAC Day and war memorials all over the country, and in New Zealand, have crowds gather around to remember our war dead, and living. For a period through the late seventies…
Bangladesh is the last place in which you want to be afflicted with giardia (this blog refers). Especially when the toilets are usually a hole in the ground. While recovering under some unknown medicine administered by my friend Zia, I kept within a short sprint of the hotel toilets, or at least something civil. I…
The limestone escarpments drop like a blunt forehead from under a sharply cut fringe of tall timber and dense undergrowth to a gently sloping easement that runs out to the coast a couple of miles away and on which more grass grows than the dairy cows know what to do with. In this humid weather,…
The conversation started out in a humourous way, something like this: “Good morning where would you like to go?” “I have no idea.” He laughs. “Actually I need to get to the new Westpac (bank) HQ, do you know where that is?” “Yes. Actually I had a passenger once who asked me to take him…
Sometimes you are just in the right place at the right time with the camera (most times you are not) and in this case I was also in the right seat. We had just taken off from Sydney and then turned right with an angle of bank that allowed a couple of nice shots up…
That tattoo? That! I think I made a mistake with that. No, it is not the Great Wall of China. When I hold it out you can see it is a castle (on his inner forearm). It is an old crumbling castle near where I was born. I was born in Serbia, can’t you tell…
Last week when it was raining I enjoyed the soft warble of a magpie wallowing in a warm shower. On most days the rainbow lorikeets keep up their colourful chatter outside the window. For a busy Sydney suburb the bird life is quite active. But today the bird in the sky that caught my ear…
Visas tell their own story. I love the Stalinist overtones in the art that remain in the Vietnam visa. Those from the Middle East reflect their fascination with “bling” – they love foils in their documents. But this visa from Zimbabwe has its own little story. As you may know this country, once the bread…
Back in 1984 I was sent for a month to a remote airbase called Learmonth (sounds like a prison sentence and it was – the base is located in the desert (Google Earth 22°13’22.43″S 114° 5’12.81″E) with no nearby townships) for a combined military exercise with the USAF 8th Tactical Fighter Wing out of Kunsan,…