The Vanishing Place, by Zoe Rankin, Hachette Okay, you emerge from the deep bush of New Zealand as a young girl after fleeing a mad/bad, abusive/loving dad who kept you, your siblings and your mum apart from the world. Mum’s dead, dad’s clean off his rocker, a serious and paranoid boozehound killing blokes with shovels, […]
Odd, the things that can come your way unexpectedly. A late aunt some years ago presented me a large envelope of unusual sketches and prints. A swag of etchings and proofs of rural scenes in New South Wales. All rustic radiance, bucolic beauty and pastoral pulchritude if I can labour the alliterative allusions. Lots of […]
Hard to watch, hear or read anything of politics without thinking of the razor-sharp wisdom peppered through TV’s Yes Minister. “Never believe anything until it’s been officially denied’.” “I don’t think we need to bring the truth in at this stage.” Sir Humphrey, Bernard and Jim Hacker possessed an unerring ability to confuse and manipulate issues, […]
God awful how so many musicians were chewed up and spat out by Covid and its merciless lockdowns and frightening threats. No quarter for them in that scrap. Curious that some said the pandemic allowed them to collaborate with their muses, to plumb their creativity. Don’t know that many actually did. The yoke of raw […]
Summer’s here and it’s time to get your beach on. Whether it’s the thumping, cranking, millpond smooth, rugged cliff-faced or idyllically picturesque beach that takes your fancy, Surf Coast, Bellarine and Geelong beaches have you covered. Admirably. While they’re in hot demand for sun-lovers, surfers, sandcastles and swimmers, for paddlers and paragliders, indeed for all […]
Couldn’t help being reminded of Maynard G. Krebs, the hapless beatnik from the Dobie Gillis Show years back, when I saw our Albo losing it in a Johannes Leak Qantas upgrade cartoon. If you remember Maynard, he went to water at any mention of employment. “Work!” he’d shriek in a high-pitched panic. In the Qantas […]
Nothing quite like throwing yourself to the not-so-gentle vicissitudes of jungle-bashing. Never any shortage of geography, critters, climes or circumstances waiting to assail you. The Amazon’s a nice place to start, not that I’m any kind of authority on these things. Its bushmasters, jaguars, fire-ants and piranha and non-stop rain thrumming from the dripping condensation […]
Art takes a never-ending variety of guises. Given the number of artists extolled for their drafting skills, it seems only reasonable that good drafting might itself be considered a legitimate art form. This is especially so when, as in so many artistic representations, a tale of some note accompanies the work. It is even […]
Peculiar pre-match entertainment for a Cats-Tigers clash when you’re kicking back peanuts and Bintangs in the Bali mountain jungle town of Ubud. A dozen or so Barbary macaques parading alongside the bar – upside-down infants clutching their mothers, cocksure males trooping the colour – suggested a peculiar cheer squad on the march. Perhaps not that […]
Review: A Mapmaker’s Dream by James Cowan Fra Mauro is a 16th century monk on a magnificent journey around the world without leaving the clustered confines of his cell on an island in Venice. A cartographer devoted to drafting a definitive map of the world, he gathers his knowledge from a steady stream of travellers […]
