Two faces
Two faces DM 24th April 2026 Cue the frown. The local paper has just lobbed onto my driveway, and without picking it up, I bet I can predict what picture will grace the front cover. It will be a group of people frowning, and the cause of their frowning? A cracked footpath, a tree illegally […]
Super-social behaviour
Super-social behaviour DM 17th April 2026 Phubbing may well become the word of the century. It describes the act of phone-snubbing, where a person deliberately looks at their phone and refuses to engage the person who is trying to serve them. Many in the hospitality and service industry are now reporting feeling diminished and dehumanized. […]
Brain freeze
Brain freeze DM 10th April 2026 I’ve had them before. Brain-freezes. And usually from consuming an icy drink too quickly. The secret to relieve the pain is to place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth. I’m not sure why that works – probably the Second Law of Thermodynamics. But today […]
Easter traditions
Easter traditions DM 30th March 2026 Sometimes I wonder where I’ve been all my life. Today I stumbled on the recipe for an Easter lamb cake. I’d never heard of that before, but the blurb went: “Easter is a time for celebration, and what better way to mark the occasion than with a charming lamb […]
Playing with fire
Playing with fire DM 19th March 2026 Sometimes a news story seems too good to be true, not regarding the veracity of what happened, but regarding the breath-taking stupidity of the action reported. Like the story of the man who recently tried to steal a length of copper cable by attempting to sever it with […]
How far for love
How far for love DM 12th March 2026 A blurb on the radio invited listeners to ring in and report the song that annoyed them most. To some suggestions, I readily agreed. But then someone mentioned that classic and much-loved Scottish ballad, by those talented troubadour twins, the Proclaimers – ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)’. […]
Total eclipse
Total eclipse DM 7th March 2026 It was the last blood-red moon to be seen from earth for three years, so I thought I’d better see it. Apparently the red-moon phenomenon can only occur when an eclipse is total, not partial, and so the sun, earth, and moon need to be perfectly aligned. The result, […]
Yes Sir, Yes Sir
Yes Sir, Yes Sir DM 28th February 2026 The picture on our home-calendar for February has been of shearers at Rokeby in Tasmania. Three rugged men in blue singlets, shears in hand, stand astride their wooly projects, skillfully going about their sweaty work. Just where they are up to in the day is not revealed, […]
Eye candy
Eye candy DM 21st February 2026 Those Brothers Grimm were well-named. I grew up on their fables, and recently purchased the full canon. But my eyeballs nearly popped at some of the tales I’d never read. Like ‘Clever Hans’. The story is about a boy, who, I think, likes a girl called Gretel. But after […]
Star talk
Star talk DM 14th February 2026 For all its stellar beauty, the North Star (Polaris) has its limits. It can point close enough to true north, and therefore to all points of the compass, but it cannot point to heaven. Englishman George Herbert, in his famous anthology of poems called The Temple, expressed it well […]