Occupy Melbourne (OMEL) is in a dire situation. For many reasons, some of which I shall go in to, we find ourselves in the situation where our numbers have been decimated, several of our most active members can not or will not come on-site and where a significant numbers of Occupiers are suffering malaise. If […]
Letters to My Daughter is a collection of letters written by former-Prime Minister Sir Robert “Bob” Menzies to his daughter, Heather Henderson, between 1955 and 1975. It might come as something of a surprise that someone of my political bent would have an interest in reading about Bob Menzies, father of the Australian Liberals, especially […]
The other day I went along to the cinema to see the new Tintin movie, my first cinema visit since Avatar. It’s rather a pity that movies are now so expensive that I can only go to ones that I know/hope are going to be worth the money but in this case I was more […]
Around this time last year my soon-to-be wife and I were finalising the preparations for our wedding. There are many questions that will be endlessly asked of newly-wed (or soon-to-be-wed) couples: How did you meet? How long have you known each other? Do the parents approve? But for me the worst question was “What do […]
In the past few days we have seen the issue of refugee processing rear its ugly head yet again in what I can only suspect is a bid to bury the issue during the Christmas/New Years season. It’s an incredibly clichéd topic but I think it warrants a revisit. Immigration has always been a problem […]
A friend recently made the observation that historians have been saying 2011 is a year which has completely changed the course of human history. While, on reflection, I think that he was pointing out the silliness of historians predicting the future, it is a point worth considering. On January 4th, almost a month after setting […]