Newsletter
Newsletter 370
Monday, December 21st, 2020 Newsletter,As the end of the year approaches things are not winding up for me but becoming rather more hectic. Apologies once more for the lateness of this newsletter, which had to be put aside while I paid my first visit to Melbourne in 10 months and got through some pressured work to deadline. Time is […]
Newsletter 369
Monday, December 14th, 2020 Newsletter,This week has been too pressured for me to write a long, discursive newsletter harping on all the problems of the world. I’ve been immersed in a long essay, which is a rare pleasure nowadays, when most of my writing has to respect the amount of space the newspapers will allow for esoteric reviews on […]
Newsletter 368
Monday, December 7th, 2020 Newsletter,As someone with a longterm interest in China it’s depressing to see the depths to which the relationship with Australia has sunk. Things were already pretty rocky when Scummo made his bold call for an international investigation into China’s handling of the Coronavirus in an effort to show Donald Trump we were his loyalest of […]
Newsletter 367
Monday, November 30th, 2020 Newsletter,When the NSW State Treasurer writes an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about all the buildings in the city he’d like to bulldoze, one can only marvel at his brazen attitude. Dominic Perrottet’s jokey tone doesn’t convince me he’s really joking when he says he’d like to knock down building such as the MLC Centre […]
Newsletter 366
Monday, November 23rd, 2020 Newsletter,COVID-19 has obliged us to reconsider many aspects of the world we live in, but some things make me feel as if I’m from another planet. Listening to Radio National I was struck by an interview with ‘Mickey’, a 32-year-old habitual drug user, who complained that the pandemic had interfered with her usual supply of […]
Newsletter 365
Monday, November 16th, 2020 Newsletter,Although Donald Trump is still keeping us entertained with his Guinness-Book-of-Records-busting sulkathon in the White House, Joe Biden surprised the world with a sudden burst of vitality as soon as he’d won the election. With two powerful speeches in two days, and a quick jog to the podium, Biden looked like a man rejuvenated. It’s […]
Newsletter 364
Monday, November 9th, 2020 Newsletter,This week there’s only been one big story: the downfall of Mad King Donald, but oh.. what a painful, bloody process. I’m less addicted to the TV screen than most, but I found myself watching CNN for hours while virtually nothing was happening. And yet, it was gripping. I’ve been holding off this newsletter until […]
Newsletter 363
Monday, November 2nd, 2020 Newsletter,Nietzsche says somewhere we have not got rid of God so long as we still believe in grammar. I thought of this when reading the accounts of Melbourne performance artist, Casey Jenkins, who was given a $25,000 grant from the Australia Council, only to have it rescinded after a media storm blew up about the […]
Newsletter 362
Monday, October 26th, 2020 Newsletter,I’m running a little late again, partly because I’ve had a week of non-stop writing, but also because I was transfixed by the final debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It wasn’t because of the dazzling eloquence on display. It was fascinating just to see Trump trying to act responsibly – even though he […]
Newsletter 361
Friday, October 23rd, 2020 Newsletter,It’s strange there aren’t more comments on Donald Trump’s choice of music for his superspreader rallies. If I were a QAnon conspiracy theorist I’d think there was something fishy about a orange-tinted, bouffant-headed President dancing around to the Village People song, The YMCA – a frothy gay anthem from pre-AIDS days. Is Trump hinting that […]