His Mum a teacher, his Dad a teacher, Lindsay Thompson had little choice but to enter the blackboard jungle. Until his early 30s when the man relinquished his chalk for a calling in politics, winning a seat in State Parliament in 1955.
Tenacious, loyal, Thompson stuck to the Spring Street ruckus for 27 years, winning the […]
+ Jeanette Weeden of Epping in Sydney confesses to owning a 32-year-old jar of paprika in her pantry.
+ WINNIE THE PHEW is a nappy wash service on the Gold Coast.
+William McManus, aged 4 of Yass, spent the day at preschool “learning about Bart Simpson and his donkey.”
So read the random treasures of Column 8, […]
Film star Guy Pearce rankles at the phrase ‘film star’. That’s what you label matinee idols who deliver the same cleft-jawed performance project after project. Pearce is a different animal – in many respects a character actor trapped inside a matinee idol’s body.
Just look at the guy’s run of roles in the last ten […]
If you’d rather not surf on a 35-knot tailwind inside a real 40-foot yacht, then hop on board the vicarious version.
To celebrate the Sydney-Hobart race, kicking off every Boxing Day, I’ve just attached a feature from a few years back, the result of a mad voyage I took in 1999, the year after the lethal […]
Your daughter plays Frere Jacques in E Minor on the flute. The tune dwindles to its natural death. She looks you in the eye and says, “Did you like that?”
Instead of no, you say “I love how you did that first bit.” This is Lying by Evasion.
Your boss wants to know if you’ve finished the […]
One of my favourite road signs in Australia is planted in a coal-mining service town called Biloela. Marking the corner of the Inland and Dawson Highways, the sign promises two of Queensland’s more make-believe destinations: Banana and Dululu.
So enrapt, I took a snap in 2003, when passing through Biloela on the Great Cassowary Safari, […]
Tarzan swings, Tarzan falls,
Jane hangs onto Tarzan’s balls.
Now we know why Tarzan calls aaaaaaaaarrrrghh.
Anthropology is just one topic covered by kids’ rhymes, as I discovered the other week. The young poets also tackle ethnology, sex, hypocrisy, TV and brutality – all with a clap, a skip and a tempo allegro.
To find out more about the […]
Jimmy Barnes is part of Australia’s rock furniture. The former frontman for Cold Chisel has wailed a surplus of national anthems, from Khe Sanh to Flame Trees, from Cheap Wine to Working Class Man. Once that Glaswegian shrill breaks the silence, you can’t mistake the sound for any other creature.
Even after double-heart surgery this year […]
Just supply your gut response to the ten scenarios below, each one cropped from Richard Wiseman’s fascinating book - The Luck Factor (Arrow Books, 2004).
Because luck you’ll discover is as much attitude as a bouncing roulette ball. The mystic power, asserts Professor Wiseman, is less mystic as a cocktail of confidence, optimism and resilience, […]
Nearly a year ago, I heard about a guy called Tony. A Scottish animator. Late 20s. He took a working holiday in Hong Kong to create cute goblins for Asian TV.
Gig done, he flew into Oz to catch up with an old schoolmate, a brief stopover on his way home to Aberdeen. And that’s when […]