Bob’s taking a week off as we are booked to perform at a folk festival this weekend. More about that next week. It seemed the right time to give this contribution a run. Norm originally presented this as a talk to a U3A group in Brisbane. We thought it merited wider exposure as the subject is a journalist who reported vital news from the frontline yet was suspected of being a spy. This should remind…
I think I already knew that 80% of Australians were dependent on digital news. Last week I was asked to give a talk at a business breakfast on ‘The past and future of newspapers’. It was a bit of a revelation, drawing on historical data and reflecting on my experience as a regional journalist in the early 1980s. At the time, the old technology (Linotype, lithography, telex, hand subbing) was making way for the computer revolution….
Today I thought it wise to mostly bypass the relentless onslaught of negative news about Covid-19. Instead, let’s talk about Advance Care Directives, Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders and organ donation. I can’t imagine anyone under 50 who has given these topics a moment’s thought, but read on. Twenty years from now you’ll say to your partner – ‘Remember that piece Bob wrote about DNRs? Maybe the time has come?’ The topic arose as the…
Last week, Friday the 13th, I intended to write about International Left Handers’ Day. Apparently it’s been a thing since 1976 – a clever way of making people aware of this difference, at least once a year. Clearly the organisers of International Left Handers’ Day do not suffer from Triskaidekaphobia, a fear of Friday the 13th. Phobias are an irrational fear of one or more of hundreds of strange things that induce panic attacks in…