This time last weekend I was starting my low fibre diet in preparation for a colonoscopy the following Tuesday. The very worst part of having a colonoscopy is the preparation, cleaning out your intestines so the doctor can see what’s happening up there. Steamed white fish, steamed chicken breast, peeled white potatoes, white bread… at…
I’m pleased to announce that the new house now has solar hot water and solar panels. We enjoyed solar at our previous house and these days it’s even more important to be able to reduce power costs. Despite living in a country with an abundance of quality coal, natural gas, and uranium, household power prices…
It’s been about two months since we moved into our new home and started to appreciate the… what can I say?… inadequacies of the house. Down-sizing became real in ways we hadn’t anticipated. Still, we’ve done quite a bit in those eight weeks. I mentioned some before – new bathroom cupboards, new lounge because the…
Australia is a unique place. It’s the only place on Earth that is at the same time a country, a continent, and an island. And that last property has helped to make it a haven for monotremes, marsupials, and other weird critters. Europeans ‘discovered’ the Great South Land several times over the centuries, usually by…
One of the most disgraceful things anyone can do in life is teach small children to hate. Adolf Hitler and his henchmen understood this well. That’s why they created the Hitler Youth. So what do we make of the pro-Palestinian (sounds much nicer than ‘anti-Israeli’) protest at the University of Sydney? ‘In a clip from…
It has been a busy week. We in Australia are lucky, living as we do in a stable, safe country. But that’s starting to change. As the world edges closer to war as Iran attacks Israel, here in Australia our comfortable lives, already disturbed by the rise of antisemitism and the rising prevalence of youth…
Parts of North America experienced a total solar eclipse the other day. You’re forgiven if you didn’t know about it, since it didn’t affect most of the rest of the world. But it was HUGE in the US. Facebook was full of people offering free or cheap eclipse glasses so people could look safely at…
I have to admit that it’s convenient to be able to pay bills online. No standing in queues at counters, no having to post paper cheques (remember them?). But as more and more of our lives are lived in the cloud, companies have had to take more and more actions to prevent the wrong people…
It’s that time of year again – spring in the northern hemisphere, when new growth pokes its head above the thawing ground and little lambies frolic in green pastures. We in the southern hemisphere, where it’s autumn, join Christians in the northern hemisphere to celebrate Easter, commemorating the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However,…
This post might be a bit… sciencey for some of you, but I told everybody that I’m a space nut, so you’ve been warned. I became interested in astronomy and cosmology at a time when the Big Bang theory was not completely accepted as the true origin of the universe. Yes, I’m that old 😊….