The Tap

A little rural drama as related to a friend. It’s a good time to sit down and write to you. We had a leaking Flickmixer in the kitchen for more than three years and no plumber wanted to travel out that far, and the plumbing qualified dairy farmer genuinely had no time because they’re like …

Nowhereland

I’m an Australian biologist, conservationist, educator, writer and “doomer” who would like to take decent people on a journey. If you’re a “doomer” you will already understand and none of what I’m going to say will especially surprise you. You will already have seen all this in your own part of the world and you …

Same Old, Same Old

Letter written on behalf of GetUp to various government ministers regarding fracking in the Betaloo. The middle bullet-point section is the standard material suggested by GetUp, the rest is my own. Please write and add your voices. As usual, they will mostly ignore and “know better” – but they don’t deserve to do that without …

Off-Grid Thoughts

This serves as a second instalment for our off-grid article in The Owner Builder 209 (October 2018). I might put the jpgs of this article in here next time I’m at the desktop computer… Glossary of acronyms:FFs = fossil fuelsBAU = business as usual We’re in rural Western Australia and live off-grid on solar panels. …

Exploring the Back Catalogue: Pornography – First Impressions & Associations

I finally got around to listening to this album 40 years after its release. Just saying that gives me the bends. It was the year I arrived in Australia and within 12 months pre-teen me was hearing Boys Don’t Cry, and Let’s Go To Bed on 96fm in its 1980s relatively independent phase before it was sold to a mainstream entertainment company. Those were the days, say I in a mock creaky voice, because 96fm was a unique station staffed by music buffs who actively educated listeners on music history and kept their playlist both broad and deep, playing 60s, 70s and what was then contemporary 80s music, album cuts as well as singles, and regular live concerts – all of which was relevant in a pre-Internet world, where you were at the mercy of radio stations, your friends, and your own puny budget in what you would end up accessing.