One Tuesday morning recently I tiptoed into an auditorium and onto the stage, threading my way through the U3A ukulele group to take the one vacant seat. I arrived at the Senior Citizens rooms at 10am but we were supposed to be there at 9.30am. The group was up to song three (Maggie) by then. So I calmly set up my music stand, took the baritone uke out of the bag and joined in at…
Life goes on, amid news reports of panic buying and hoarding, as reporting of the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to terrify the masses. We have seen manifestations of this terror in the past fortnight with an (ongoing) share market correction, led by the US and blindly followed by investors in Australia and elsewhere. So far it is no more dire than the corrections during the GFC. The popular theory is that global share market investors fear…
Every four years we get to wish our friend (let’s call her Hannah), a very real birthday, as she was born on February 29. Hannah was born in a Leap Year, so officially celebrates her birthday every four years. Leaplings, as they are known, are a rare breed. There have been only 2,470 Australians born on February 29 over the past 10 years, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. There are, however, 4.8 million…
I never owned a Holden motor car but I did drive one in the late 1970s. It was a 1971 HQ Holden Premier , owned by a woman I’d just met. She displayed her political colours early on, telling me she named the car Elizabeth because Joh (Bjelke-Petersen) was Queensland’s Premier at the time. As she said, you wouldn’t want to name your car after a man who said indefensible things like (apropos industrial relations):…