The Undoing

The Undoing

I recently found myself in front of a mirror making a response that had been conditioned in front of a screen. I was deciding what to wear for the day. I’d already donned a skirt and long-sleeved top… skivvy-ish. I was mooting a second top over the first… sleeveless....
Building Secure Bridges

Building Secure Bridges

My four-year-old grandson is fascinated by the Tasman Bridge. This towering structure with its scary and risky stories draws his little mind and its curiosity. Thirty years ago, the same fascination dwelt in his father. I’m regularly caught up in déjà vu as I drive...
Literate Australia

Literate Australia

There has never been a time in Australia’s history at which everybody could read and write. Think about it. Before the 20th Century wars, universal education was haphazard. It was the domain primarily of the privileged. Things continued that way during the 1940s and...
Liquid Manure

Liquid Manure

When I was a kid growing up on the farm, my mum and dad regularly made a concoction that they called liquid manure. The first time I read Roald Dahl’s fabulous ‘George’s Marvelous Medicine’ to my kids, it made me think of the liquid manure – except that mum and dad’s...
The Cup & Communication

The Cup & Communication

Michael Leunig is a national treasure. A few strokes of his uniquely wielded brush, some spare and scruffy words… and suddenly a gentle ‘hey presto’ appears out of nowhere and opens us to depths of our yearning and heights of our hope. I was recently struck with...