Well I am a bit of a tree nerd and my latest fascination is with gymnosperms, all kinds, but trees especially. I see them as an interesting kind of ancient artefact of the Mesozoic, and the times before there were really any leafy or flowery trees. They have some funny characteristics, like their odd cones … Read more
I was born in 1978 and although I don’t think i have any specific memories that i can be sure i can tie to the 1970s (when i was still under 2 years old), decades do tend to live on for a few years into the following one, and the general spirit of the 70’s … Read more
A large old Apple Box tree, (a variety of Eucalyptus), that grew beside the road near Lagoon in Burra, blew down in a storm last week. Large eucalypts like this one would be over 200 years old, their lives stretching back into pre-occupation times. The long memory of these trees drinks from the still, still … Read more
I find it is impossible not to feel a huge sense of loss when seeing how fragmentary are the records of Aboriginal languages from South East Australia. Even today Aboriginal languages are still slipping away very rapidly. Why is this not seen as a cultural emergency? Why has the task always fallen on so few … Read more
Spoke to a philosopher yesterday, a man with a quiet almost shy voice.. long pauses to think. I liked that. He’s trying to bring scientists and philosophers together – no easy feat. A lot of distrust on both sides he says. He spends three months every year in Oxford, a nice lifestyle.. Cold weekend, big … Read more
I was talking the other day to old Roger, at a Canberra Speleological Society trip to Wee Jasper, who was telling me about his first job in Australia working at the Orroral tracking station. I have long thought it is a tragedy that Orroral and Honeysuckle creek tracking stations, which were such an interesting piece … Read more
Having a coffee before my first Earth sciences lecture, I watch some workman cutting up bike racks with a battery powered angle grinder and hacksaw. The sulphry burnt smell of the blade cutting through steel reminds me of dad’s workshop and the pipe saw, a strangely pleasant smoke I have inhaled since earliest memory, awash … Read more
The Australian media somehow isn’t seeing the true significance of yesterday’s skirmish outside The Lobby restaurant following Tony Abott’s ignorant comments about the significance of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra. I unfortunately have no real connections to the Aboriginal community here. But only last year on a cool autumn morning I was walking through … Read more
Everyone who lives in Canberra should know about John Gale, who was the editor and founder of the Queanbeyan age in the second half of the 19th century, and whose pamphlet “Dalgety or Canberra – Which?” probably clinched the decision of the panel who were in charge of deciding where to put Australia’s new capital … Read more