So I made it to work today and survived the experience with minimal discomfort. Am still not fully recovered however. Certainly I'm not fit enough to use this computer while sitting. Still, worse things than having to kneel here. I could be the new leader of Western Australia's Liberal Party, Matt Birney ( Read more... )

The trouble with stress is that it results in muscles too tense to allow me to sit before the computer for as long as usual. After I broke a few years ago (exactly how has never been determined by medical science) I've not been able to sit in an office type chair for extended periods. Which isn't that much of a problem given I'm happy to stick to ( Read more... )

Since I visited Civic this afternoon I dropped into the ACT Library branch there so as to look at a different set of books. I note that sitting on the shelf above various books about orphans and adoption was a fat volume, The History of Landmines. Did mean to ask at the counter if they had noticed this unfortunate juxtaposition themselves but ( Read more... )

Spicks & Specks might be just another music trivia show but the panellists do have a tendency to get off the point and ramble at times. Which is probably not appreciated by everybody but I find that sort of thing entertaining. Last night the most interesting sidetrack revolved around the frequency with which famous musicians give their children ( Read more... )

Lesson OneIt is a little understood fact that big cats, and by that I mean lions and the like rather than the heftier examples of housecat you see lounging around the suburbs, are fascinated by bicycles. I have seen fully grown cheetahs, who are generally very sensible animals, go all round eyed and tail a quiver at the sight of a moving bicycle. ( Read more... )

I don't pine for the fifties, no not at all. Partly because I wasn't even born till they were over and so consequently have nothing to miss. More so though because from where I sit the fifties look like a brutal, grey, and repressive time to have lived in. What's more this repression appears to have been applied in ways that make no sense to me. ( Read more... )

Still suffering from more random aches than usual but at least the antiseptic throat lozenges seem to have seen off the sore throat. Is it just me or is it really time that medical researches stopped pissing about and came up with nanobots that can clean and repair your body? They're in the novel I'm currently reading, Chuck McKenzie's Worlds Apart ( Read more... )

It may surprise you to learn that I too was saddened to learn of John Brosnan's death. We had never met in person after all and our correspondence wasn't especially voluminous. We did however send each other occasional letters and later on emails after I had contacted John about contributing to the twentieth anniversary mailing of Anzapa years ago ( Read more... )

1. Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass

2. Almost adequate.

3. Quite like Stephen Donaldson but without the predilection for obscure words, but with the same tendency towards turgid and unconvincing plotting.

4. The lack of a character I could empathise with made finishing the trilogy harder work than it might otherwise ( Read more... )

Apparently it is the intention of the New Zealand government to take out of circulation their five-cent piece. At least so it was claimed on ABC radio this afternoon. The presenter who mentioned this story also asked if perhaps Australia should follow New Zealand's lead and scrap our own smallest silver coin. Which at first glance appears to be a ( Read more... )