More tales of Aussieness that make you proud and cringe to be Australian all at the same time — Dear reader, by popular demand (from myself), here are some more of the Aussiest things that have happened in Australia. 1. When a cockatoo named Eric the Legend called a dog a “f***en’ c***” Eric the Legend is an ugly-looking cockatoo owned by Aussie battlers, Sharon and Lester. …

What hurts most is they made my writing look bad — I used to run a music website called unknown-original.com and now some nitwit has re-registered the domain name and posted botted-up versions of my old stories. Grrr! Before I started writing here, I wrote about original versions of songs that weren’t as famous as their covers on my own website…

Roland S Howard and “Shivers” — Written by iconic post-punk guitarist Roland S Howard at the age of just 16, “Shivers” is one of the most popular cult hits in Australian music. It’s my favourite Australian song and has nothing to do with Ed Sheeran’s song of the same name. Many consider “Shivers” the reason for…

Tales of Aussieness that make you proud and cringe to be Australian all at the same time — There are shit things about Australia and there are bloody awesome things. And then there are downright Aussie things about Australia. The kind of things that make you exclaim, “By jingo, the wild west’s got nothing on this place!” Here, dear reader, are some of the Aussiest things that have…

My responses to “BJ’s This or That New Year’s Challenge” — The This or That Writing Challenge came to me by way of the great Pierce McIntyre but it was Brett Jenae Tomlin who started the whole thing. BJ’s This or That Challenge: New Year’s Edition Raise a glass to the next ToT challengemedium.com If you want to join BJ’s New Year’s Challenge, get on to it fast because responses are due by 11:59 pm on the…

A small poem, written in Spanish with an English translation — Soy animal, Lo mismo que cualquier otro, Sin pelo y débil, es verdad, Pero soy depredador, Si me dejas en la naturaleza, Voy a capturar mi presa, retorcer su cuello y desgarra su carne de sus huesos con mis dientes, La sangre estará corriendo por mi barbilla, Soy más peligroso…

The band who sold “Hanging on the Telephone” to Blondie to pay their power bill — In 1973, American songwriter and musician Jack Lee wrote a song called “Hanging on the Telephone” for his band, the Nerves. The Nerves released “Hanging on the Telephone” on their self-titled 1976 EP, but it was a commercial failure. Despite their limited lifespan and success, the Nerves were ahead of…

Note: that’s best books read but not necessarily written in 2022 — I read 37 books in 2022. That’s 15 fewer than 2021 but I didn’t want to rush through my reading so much. For 2023, I’ve challenged myself to read 40 books. I’ve already finished one, which I sneakily started at the end of 2022. Here are the books I read…

‘Tis the season for eating — Every pretentious foodie knows that winter is a great season for eating. The freezing weather, divisive politics and outrageous inflation makes winter (or Melbourne summers) the perfect time to get cosy with your favourite food. …