Sting is in Melbourne tomorrow to do his Dowland thing. Any reservations one might have about this coupling should be set at nought by the companion thought that it is wonderful to have such lovely music so lovingly restored. That said, I think I’ll always be a Deller man. Although Sting has much nicer teeth.
Kevin Rudd missed his party’s party, as Bernard Keane pens in today’s Crikey (for subscribing people). But we didn’t miss the program — excerpts below — complete with ads from the likes of Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.
The menu — organic eggs and truffle oil (happily not sponsored by the APPEA) — looks delightful. Read more »
Good old Rolf Harris. Pleading “the times” for the questionable race politics of Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, while accusing abos (as he might have had it way back) of being innately disposed to turning their immediate surrounds into a tip. So, we get this:
Rolf Harris regrets the racist verse on Aborigines in Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, the song that made him famous in Britain and launched the wobbleboard on an unsuspecting music world.
Read more »
Read more »Overall, how would you rate John Howard’s record as Prime Minister? Would you say he was?
One of Australia’s best Prime Ministers A better than average Prime Minister
There are moments as an editor - I’ve had a few - when you realise you’ve made a bad, bad call. This happens as often through the things you miss, or stumble over, or fail to give appropriate attention to, as it does thanks to the things you do resolutely, but wrongly, on purpose. Read more »
Melbourne trains … so neat. So orderly. a place for everything, and everything in its place.
A fitting place to consider the wonder of apple genius … only it could juxtapose this: Read more »
I am, I guess a Bond child. All the films have been made in my lifetime .. all of them. I own all the books of course. In well-thumbed Pan paperback. Rather fond of Bond, wise cracking, oddly worldly/naive. A character rather out of time to modern eyes. The books are rather anchored in their moment, documents of their time and the strange obsessions, excitements and prejudices of their author. The films are something else. 22 of them from Dr No in 1962 Read more »
It’s raining in Melbourne. Thunder at dawn. On the street the gutters are blocked, puddles stretched across the path, the railway underspass awash. Silly me in suede shoes and no umbrella. Sadly out of practice.
OK. So, when $60billion is wiped off the value of the local sharemarket (like today), where does it go?
All Ords plunge as recession fears grip
The PM’s off to G20 (”What?” “George don’t be silly.”) and according to that nice Bernard Keane a new mood of lighthearted levity came to the federal parilament this afternoon. A mood, it needs to be said, that left Warren Truss untouched. It was he, po-faced, who drew the attention of an oblivious nation to the issue of regional doctors having to borrow “urinary dipstricks” from veterinarians. Warren is right to bring this matter to the notice of the House and truly Something Must Be Done. Read more »
Malcolm Turnbull in Question Time musing on the Armistice. He quotes a Psalm “which when you read it in the orioginal Hebrew …”
WTF!! Is there no end to this man’s talents and learning?
This is pretty unedifying.
Now we have an individual journalist deciding to keep from the world the certain proof that Sarah Palin was a candidate of limited schooling, restraint and intellect. That’s not a decision that any journalist worth their salt should take. If the consequence of breaking an off-the-record agreement is ostracism from the campaign or the opprobrium of one’s peers than that is a price the ought in any conscience be paid for revealing the truth Read more »
Of all the hundreds of images in dozens of photogalleries published in this post-Obama world, this single frame from deep in the Huffington Post struck me as having a grounding poignancy. Somewhere in Afghanistan, US soldiers watch the election of their new commander in chief. Read more »
7.50am. Degraves St Subway out of Flinders Sty Station, Melbourne. Barack Oabama is president. We all decide to go off to work regardless.
2.33pm First Dog calls it for Obama. Woof.
First Dog found this. It’s very funny.
The dollar has all but halved, neo-Nazis are plotting to decapitate sundry black people including a certain Democrat Senator from Illinois and I saw something funny on the train this morning.
I’d never travelled in the carriage set aside for this sort of activity before. But it’s nice to know it’s there. Read more »
I heard Johnny Cash’s version of this for the first time last night, and it took a moment of two to place it. That’s such a funny sense, that nagging unresolved familiarity. Sort of an “I know that face” feeling. This fits into some general theory of music, how musicality is a notion that can transcend centuries, never mind the not particularly deep chasm between Nick Cave and Johnny Cash, who, when you think of it, should really have shared some sort of father son bond. Read more »
Am I missing something in the Britt Lapthorne story? Any child’s death is undoubtedly an appalling tragedy for the parents involved …. but candlelit vigils? Public memorial services? Weeks of breathless coverage in the Australian media? Why no state funeral? Read more »
Did you read the Rolling Stone Sarah Palin yarn? Zounds! Read more »
I’m excited …. word has it that tomorrow - Wednesday - Andrew “The Xenophobic Battler’s Clever Friend’ Bolt will at last deliver his long-hand verdict on Baz Luhrmann’s Australia.
It’s no plot spolier to say that the film deals at length with the whole stolen generations thing, giving sympathetic flesh to something that was undoubdtedly a multi-generational agony, but remains a pretty abstract notion for most white Australians. Read more »
Is there anything spiffier (apologies Possum) than the Economist’s videographic mapping? Not much.
… and even though none of us are in the running for anything, we’ll be going. We might even live blog bits. Maybe.
There’s a bloke I’ve known for a few years who works for ANZ. He was my branch manager for a while and then moved on into head office. I saw him every now and then when I caught the train to work. He was always on the 7.25, regular as. Always caught it from the same spot on the platform. Last time we bumped into each other for the ride to the city, a few weeks back, he was wondering about whether he would be let go in the next round of bank redundancies. He thought it was a pretty good chance. The prospect clearly left him a little uneasy but resigned. Read more »
I’m tremendously fond of Mr Fish, the Harper’s cartoonist. I say this, in part because it’s true and in part to tease the absurdly fragile ego of First Dog On The Moon.
The economy is in a dire place, the RBA is feeling compelled to act as best it can to apply CPR to the twitching patient. Every cut in rates is just another clue to the depth of despair around the RBA board table. Of course, that’s not how they see it in tabloid newspaper land. Oh no. From each according to their capacity to pay, to each according to the newspaper they read. Here’s today’s Herald Sun, battler’s friend: Read more »
Melbourne trains … so neat. So orderly. a place for everything, and everything in its place.
A fitting place to consider the wonder of apple genius … only it could juxtapose this: Read more »
I am, I guess a Bond child. All the films have been made in my lifetime .. all of them. I own all the books of course. In well-thumbed Pan paperback. Rather fond of Bond, wise cracking, oddly worldly/naive. A character rather out of time to modern eyes. The books are rather anchored in their moment, documents of their time and the strange obsessions, excitements and prejudices of their author. The films are something else. 22 of them from Dr No in 1962 Read more »
Reg Varney eh. That’s a bit sad. And I hated On The Buses.
It’s raining in Melbourne. Thunder at dawn. On the street the gutters are blocked, puddles stretched across the path, the railway underpass awash. Silly me in suede shoes and no umbrella. Sadly out of practice.
OK. So, when $60billion is wiped off the value of the local sharemarket (like today), where does it go?
All Ords plunge as recession fears grip
The PM’s off to G20 (”What?” “George don’t be silly.”) and according to that nice Bernard Keane a new mood of lighthearted levity came to the federal parilament this afternoon. A mood, it needs to be said, that left Warren Truss untouched. It was he, po-faced, who drew the attention of an oblivious nation to the issue of regional doctors having to borrow “urinary dipstricks” from veterinarians. Warren is right to bring this matter to the notice of the House and truly Something Must Be Done. Read more »
Malcolm Turnbull in Question Time musing on the Armistice. He quotes a Psalm “which when you read it in the original Hebrew …”
WTF!! Is there no end to this man’s talents and learning?
This is pretty unedifying.
Now we have an individual journalist deciding to keep from the world the certain proof that Sarah Palin was a candidate of limited schooling, restraint and intellect. That’s not a decision that any journalist worth their salt should take. If the consequence of breaking an off-the-record agreement is ostracism from the campaign or the opprobrium of one’s peers than that is a price the ought in any conscience be paid for revealing the truth Read more »
Of all the hundreds of images in dozens of photogalleries published in this post-Obama world, this single frame from deep in the Huffington Post struck me as having a grounding poignancy. Somewhere in Afghanistan, US soldiers watch the election of their new commander in chief. Read more »
7.50am. Degraves St Subway out of Flinders Sty Station, Melbourne. Barack Oabama is president. We all decide to go off to work regardless.
The editorial from the Crikey email today. Just coz I kind of liked this one.
Had Kevin Rudd not had the good fortune to make an advantageous marriage, then we can probably assume that the considerable wealth of his would-be nemesis Malcolm Turnbull could be more of an issue in public discussion than it is.
Read more »
In all, the two men whom officials describe as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people — 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.
Read more »
Thomas Jefferson’s library held 6,487 volumes. In 1814, the 3,000 volumes then held by the Library of Congress were burned by the British. Jefferson sold his 6,487 to the Congress as a replacement. They too were burned in 1851. Read Harper’s and you will know these things.
Just watching treasury secretary Ken Henry copping the best that Helen Coonan has to offer in Senate Estimates …. it’s a clash of worlds, Coonan and Abetz grappling for points of pure politics, Henry struggling to keep his feet on a higher plane of policy and decisions. Coonan persists, Henry slaps down … ‘While I would not normally tolerate questions such as this one and in my 24 years of appearing at these committees I never have …’. The Governor of the RBA and the Secretary of the Treasury were on “one mind”. Read more »
It has … all things considered been quite the week. Read more »
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