Yes, I did say I’d write the occasional piece, but not always on a Friday. Just deal with it! Before and after the Voice referendum, I was reading an Australian classic, Coonardoo, by Katharine Sussanah Prichard. This dark novel resonated more as we left on the day of the referendum for a western Queensland caravan trip.. At that stage, we did not know that 60%+ of Australians would vote No to the Voice. Our first…
The last episode of this weekly essay was published on September 1, 2023. After nine years and three months of posting a 1200-word essay on random topics every Friday, we are taking a sabbatical. When I say ‘we’ I mean me and my trusty editor, Laurel Wilson. Many thanks to the very many academics and researchers who helped me out, whether they knew it or not! The database will be available here for the foreseeable…
Since this is now the way of the world, I decided to Google myself and ask ChatGPT to write a blog in the style of bobwords.com.au. The topic – ‘saying goodbye’. The following (in italics) was generated in 11 seconds. Hey there, lovely readers of BobWords.com.au! Today, we’re delving into a topic that resonates with all of us at some point in our lives: saying goodbye. Life is an ever-changing journey filled with moments of…
Sometimes when researching some arcane topic for this nine-year-old series of weekly essays, I get tired. No, not ‘tired of,’ as predictive text tried to anticipate. Just tired, much as political commentator Ronni Salt says in the ironic intro to her Twitter/X page – ‘I used to investigate stuff but got tired of it.’ While Ronni Salt continues (see The Shot), today I’m declaring this the penultimate (second-last) weekly FOMM. Don’t all go ‘Nooo’ at…