Snap and Scribble

My garden’s starting to look fairly convincing now, as you can hopefully see in the picture below. This is a couple of beds - there are a couple more too.

In this photo, you can see basil, tomatoes, pak choi, lemon grass, beans, spring onions (grown from the cut off bottoms of shop bought ones), more basil (a variety with very tiny leaves), sweet potatoes, kang kong, Vietnamese mint, pineapple, banana (in the background), rosemary (except you can’t really see that - but it’s there!), taro (same). … Read more »

Tags: Life by will
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At the end of November, i will have been in Australia for 22 years. Within three months of arriving in Sydney, i got involved with Radio Skid Row - the inner Sydney community radio station. There, i met all sorts of people - blackfellas, crims, migrants, feminists, anarchists, communists, weirdoes, agitators and general ratbags. The people i got to know during that period - some of whom are still close friends today - largely defined the course of my life over the years that were to come. Directly and indirectly, being involved with Radio Skid Row then has led me to where i am right now. … Read more »

Tags: Book Review by will
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This place is getting more and more like Afghanistan - now there are military planes landing at the airport!

The army arrived in Maningrida today. They’re part of Howard’s “emergency” intervention task force that’s going round Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. I think they’ve got a medical team with them and they’re setting up camp in town to do health checks on children. … Read more »

Tags: Travel and Places by will
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I went to Darwin again this weekend. Rohan and Liza have had problems with the roof of their house and it’s practically impossible to get anyone to fix that sort of thing nowadays - tradesmen have become a very rare species! The wet season’s not too far away and a leaking roof really isn’t good for an old timber house, so i said i’d go over there and fix it for them.

I caught the 5.05pm plane on Friday again. It was full and i was the last one on board - as usual - and i ended up squashed up in the middle seat in the back row. The planes are 19-seaters and all rows except the back are just single seats either side of the aisle. But the back row is three seats - and there ain’t much space! But the flight only lasts an hour, so it wasn’t really much of a hassle. … Read more »

Tags: Travel and Places by will
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My mum’s father was Australian and, as well as him, she grew up with two Aussie aunts and a grandmother who’d lived most of her life in Australia too. There were a couple of bits of Australian cultural heritage that came down through our family - pavlovas and the expression “up a gum tree”.

I’ve never heard that expression anywhere else, so i guess it’s an archaic Aussie one - it couldn’t have been British, cos there ain’t any gum trees there (well, there are a few these days, but there didn’t used to be…) It means something along the lines of “up the creek without a paddle”. … Read more »

Tags: Travel and Places by will
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