Port Arthur, Coastal Scenery, Convicts, and the Silence That Still Hangs in the Air
We visit the UNESCO world heritage site at Port Arthur with side trips to the Tasman Arch and the Devil’s kitchen, then the tesselated pavement
-
-
Tinsel in Tasmania begins
After the steamy Queensland climate Hobart is showery and cold with a wind coming off the ice. We start our Tinsel in Tasmania tour.
-
Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate
A light look at Thanksgiving from an Australian Friday. Why Americans roast giant birds, why Canadians do it better in October, and why Black Friday feels like our Boxing Day. A quick chat about gratitude, turning seventy five, beaches, whales, writing joy, and a cheeky note about my US$0.99 book sale.
-
How Black Friday Took Over The Planet
Black Friday used to be a very American thing, the sort of chaotic retail ritual you watched on the news while clutching your morning tea and wondering why anyone would sprint through a department store for a discounted blender. Now it has become a global shopping season, stretching from a single manic day into a…
-
A Golden anniversay
It has been 50 years since The Dismissal, that climactic day the Governor General sacked the Whitlam government. Since it’s a golden anniversary, the press has been full of it, telling stories from (elderly) people who were there. Our Dear Leader, current PM Anthony Albanese, has had much to say about that sacked prime minister…
-
Seventeenth Century Torture
In the seventeenth century the use of torture to extract confessions and the like was de rigeur. Everybody did it. The rack, thumb screws, weights on chest – you name it. You’ve all seen these things in the horror movies. In these more enlightened times we don’t do things like that, restricting ourselves to more…
-
Christmas in the Big Smoke
After what has been a pretty tumultuous year, Pete and I decided Christmas would be a different sort of break – a few days in a hotel in Queensland’s capital city, Brisbane. With a population of just over 2.5 million, it is the third most populous city in Australia (after Sydney and Melbourne). It is…
-
It’s time ‘white’ Australians stopped with the virtue signalling
There’s been a move in Australia that’s gathering pace to rename places from European names to Aboriginal names. Generally speaking, it’s a great idea, especially because the European name tended to be the name of the person who ‘discovered’ the location, or the person who paid for the expedition that did. A good example is…
-
Who blinked first?
It’s a week on from the Great Facebook Blockade, and the Australian papers are trumpeting headlines announcing that Zuckerberg ‘backed down’ or that he ‘blinked first’ and all the world was watching.
