Club Troppo

One for Nicholas! As soon as I could safely toddle My parents handed me a Model; My brisk and energetic pater Provided the accelerator. My mother, with her kindly gumption, The function guiding my consumption; And every week I had from her A lovely new parameter, With lots of...

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One of the less attractive qualities of Melbourne is its inferiority complex vis a vis Sydney. I know that to my parents' generation they're very different cities, but I've always been skeptical that they're that different. But there are clearly differences. It may be a clich©...

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This match really looks like being the crux match of the Wallabies' 2006 campaign. Perhaps if we do win here then the final Bledisloe will get all the headlines, and if the Boks get their act together then winning in the Republic has traditionally been a hurdle for Australian...

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Yesterday's Crikey mail included a comment by Michael Pascoe about the seemingly endless stories about corporate shonks being able to retain profits from their dodgy dealings. He writes: One should always be wary of suggesting another legal penalty to Laura Norder-crazed polit...

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Long time reader, first time poster. Ken has kindly invited me to join the exalted ranks of posters at Club Troppo, so I thought I might briefly say hi and introduce myself. Floating in a google cache somewhere under a pseudonym is the remains of my former blog, which featured...

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D.H.LAWRENCE :GENIUS OR JOKE? A paper delivered at the annual general meeting of the D H Lawrence Society at the Julian Ashton Art School annexe at Georges Heights, Mosman on Sunday 20 July 2006. My theme is from Joseph Conrad and his tale, The Shadow Line: Only the young, he...

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I once put on a comedy sketch at my hall of residence - Burgmann College - whereupon the staff tutor, Robin Bell said to me. "That was good Nick. Surprisingly good". Ditto this piece by P.J. O'Rourke on Adam Smith. It draws contemporary lessons from Smith without doing anachro...

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People speak about their 'bullshit detector'. I reckon I've got one of those as well as a 'preciousness detector'. Where bullshitting is a particularly (though obviously not exclusively) male vice, preciousness is a particularly (though obviously not exclusively) female one. W...

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Curtesy of a piece in Crikey today I discovered a terrific writer. I guess it won't be news to many Troppodillians but in the course of making some 'what is the world coming to' comments about the media (to which I can only respond 'what indeed, and what did you expect?') she...

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It seems hard to believe but the 2006 NRL season is already at round 20. Only 7 games to go before the finals. And what an interesting final 7 rounds it is going to be. The only side that does not have a chance (mathematically) of making the final eight is South Sydney. There...

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This is Tony Harris's latest column. But I wanted to add by way of introduction that Tony removed a great joke from it - which I've resurrected for Troppodillians. Namely "The one good thing about Phillip Ruddock's recent setbacks is that the egg on his face improves his pallo...

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Courtesy of Slashdot, World Firefox Day calls for little old people like me - and you - to spread the word about Firefox - the open source webbrowser. It works well and has a range of features like tabbed browsing that are terrific. Microsoft is trying to catch up and seems to...

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Rex Ringshot, nice guy, one time solo blogger , now blogmeister for Labor First, a self styled 'grass roots' attempt to renew an ALP that could do with some renewing, has asked me to draw your attention to a Labor First function to launch their 'good branch handbook' on the 4t...

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I've always been interested in the motives which drive people to achievements of various kinds and of the sociological and rhetorical descriptions thereof. Keynes would have described his own motives as public spirited, though I don't think he would have denied the gratificati...

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When I last pointed to something I'd read which was of interest Rafe wrote "Thanks for Club Troppo Ken, where would we be without access to these great pieces that other people find. Thanks Nicholas!" Well, thanks Rafe. Here's another great piece in today's Age - on the relati...

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The following letter was published in the Canberra Times today. I sent it because I am very concerned about what is happening to political freedom in Australia. Am I being paranoic or do others share my concerns? Text of letter follows. Both Brian Toohey ("Eroding State power"...

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Despite the thousands of words written about the latest Costello versus Howard circus, I'm still at a loss to understand why it actually happened. One minute Costello was giving every appearance of waiting contentedly for the PM's retirement announcement, to the extent that ma...

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Well, were to start? With an expletive you say? Been there done that! More productively, let's start with the quick wrap: First, the media seem to have taken leave of their senses, and frankly I think that a lot of the criticism directed at the Wallabies by the Sydney papers w...

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A month or so ago I watched a video of an excellent and terrifying report on 4 Corners on youth suicide focusing on the story of one young boy who was good at everything, loved by all, with lots of friends. He got prodigious scores. Then at the age of about 16 he discovered th...

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Some of you will remember that John Singleton made a fortune by setting out to irritate his TV audience with his ads, the 'where d'ya git it' ad being the paradigm case. I listen to the ABC's Philosopher's Zone program not because it's particularly good (it's not) but because...

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