Tag: writing
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Dadirri
What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done? Years ago, my wife and I were driving home from a weekend away when we stopped at an art gallery and café. I saw a painting I liked and bought it immediately. That was very unusual for me. Normally I would think carefully about something like that.…
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The Myth of the Maintenance-Free Life
How do you make time for self-care? When I was younger, I did not really understand the importance of maintaining a car. At the time I was a student and had very little money. I put petrol in the car, checked the oil and water every so often, and more or less assumed the rest…
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And Yet It Felt Like Home
What’s a place you visited that felt like home? Moshi in Tanzania felt like home. That is strange, because it is nothing like my home in Australia. Mount Kilimanjaro rises only about 30 kilometres away, so close that it seems to preside over the town. You glimpse it above buildings and along ordinary streets, its…
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Muttley
If you could pick any fictional animal to be your lifelong companion,what would it be? If I could choose any fictional animal as a lifelong companion, I’m not sure I’d go for a dragon, a Pokémon, or some majestic creature from a fantasy world. I think I’d choose Muttley. Muttley is the scruffy cartoon dog…
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The Shipping News
If you had to switch lives with a fictional character for a week,who would you choose? I was asked an unusual question by an international student this week. They had identified Canada and Australia as two popular study destinations. Then came the personal question: If you could live anywhere, would you choose Australia or Canada?…
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Hannibal Lecter
Have you ever liked a villain more than the hero? Who and why? I found The Silence of the Lambs fascinating. Fascinating, and frightening. I’m not normally drawn to psychological thrillers, but Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins are brilliant in it. There is something about Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter that is difficult to look away from.…
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Voss
What’s the longest book you’ve ever read? I read Patrick White’s Voss many years ago. At around 450 pages, it is not especially long. But Patrick White is not light reading. His writing is dense, demanding and full of things to think about. I loved it. Every spare minute I could find, I was reading…
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When the Work Is Done
What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you? I was strangely moved by a story our minister told recently. He had spoken with a 97-year-old man who had lived an extraordinary public life. He was a highly decorated naval officer, had served in several wars, and had eventually risen to senior leadership.…
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A Big Country
What’s the longest trip you’ve ever taken? Australia is a big country and a long way from almost everywhere, so Australians become used to travelling long distances. We do it because we have to. Distance becomes part inconvenience, part adventure. The longest trip I have ever taken, at least in terms of time on the…
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Pepé Le Pew
Who is your favourite cartoon character? It seems strange to admit now, but when I was a kid, I loved Pepé Le Pew. There was something irresistibly funny about an overly amorous French skunk who couldn’t tell the difference between a cat and a fellow skunk, and who launched himself into romantic pursuit with absolute,…
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When Courage Becomes Contagious
What’s the most annoying trope in books or movies? I must admit that I am conflicted. When I was younger, I enjoyed the Dirty Harry movies. Harry Callahan is the lone, morally certain cop who sees what the system cannot or will not see. Bureaucrats, courts, procedures and superiors get in the way. Harry acts.…
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Brave or Foolish?
What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done when no one was watching? I don’t know whether it was the bravest thing I’ve done or one of the silliest. I was walking along the main street of an inner-city suburb when I heard someone yell, “Stop!” I turned and saw a man running towards us, with…
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From Pet to Companion
What’s something you do completely differently from how you were raised? We are dog people and have had dogs for most of our married life. Not all of it. There was a ten-year stretch when we were renting and persuading a landlord to accept a dog was almost impossible. That was before the laws changed.…
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Five Apps, One Common Thread
What are your favourite 5 apps on your phone? These are the five apps that get the biggest workout on my phone: Kindle, AntennaPod, Australian Newspapers, BBC Sport and YT Music. Looking at the list, I realise they have something in common. They are not primarily endless feeds engineered to keep me there. They all…
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A Miniature Philosophy of Justice
What’s the best thing you’ve ever found randomly on the street? When I was eight, a friend and I were walking to school when we found a banknote lying on the ground. In today’s money it would probably be worth about $30. Not exactly a fortune. But when you are eight, $30 is enormous. It…
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A Platform of Kindness
What’s the kindest thing someone has ever done for you? Every Sunday my grandmother arrived with lollies. There were enough for all of us, and they were divided with great precision. At the time, that was probably what I noticed most. Grandmother had arrived. Grandmother had lollies. Life was good. I understood much less about…
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Work Worth Giving Yourself To
If the salary was the same, what job would you be doing right now and why? If the salary were the same, what job would I be doing right now? The same one. That answer is easy for me because money has never been the main reason I have chosen a job. Of course salary…
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The Week Someone Else Became Me
What’s the weirdest coincidence you’ve ever experienced? I have always had a fairly naïve faith that if you tell the truth, things will eventually sort themselves out. One small and stupid episode from many years ago shook that confidence. I received a court summons for fare evasion. Apparently, I had caught a train into the…
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The Book That Beat Me
What’s a book you never finished but still think about? Many years ago I took The Brothers Karamazov on holidays because I thought this was what holidays were for. I imagined lazy afternoons with Dostoyevsky. A chair somewhere quiet. Maybe a cup of coffee. Enough uninterrupted time to wrestle with God and freedom and suffering…
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Happy Feet
Which fictional world would be the most fun to vacation in? If I could vacation in any fictional world, I think I’d choose Happy Feet. Partly because it would be fun. Antarctica, but with dancing penguins. Vast sheets of ice, deep blue water, enormous skies, music everywhere. There would be something wonderfully ridiculous about sliding…
