Club Troppo

... can be found here , for new readers. The exam will be on Friday at 9am sharp. Bring a 2B lead pencil, as your chief examiner/Grand Inquisitor, Rafe Champion , will be setting a multi-choice test. Seriously, I'd love to post more on my literary obsessions like Kit Marlowe,...

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I posed a question on Sophie's thread which is yet to be answered - if Nelson's mooted enquiry decides to turn English teaching on its head, how will it achieve its aims? The accreditation of teachers and the framing of curricula are state responsibilities. Getting away from t...

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A propos of my post yesterday, on English in school, I'd like to present to you the assignment my son brought home yesterday afternoon from school, an assignment which exemplifies everything I've been talking about. he was, by the way, in a state of wild revolt about it. It's...

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Troppo has been filled with sometimes fairly arcane discussion about the merits or otherwise of postmodernism in recent days, sparked off by the Sawyer Affair (there are multiple posts but follow the links from the most recent one). I don't want to revisit the questions of Eng...

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Ok, although we're doing the poll thing on Troppo a lot of late (on recent popular music and children's books that influenced us ), it's been a while since we've had a good old fashioned Troppo contest. The topic is David Lynch's Mulholland Drive . The usual prizes will be awa...

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The usual stoush over education guarantees the usual old left wing/right wing divide, arguments about po-mo, deconstruction, etc. I'd like to bring the matter back to a more realistic level--the level of schools themselves. I have contact with schools all over Australia, on a...

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Hendo (who may or may not be a Republican, it's hard to tell) thinks Camilla will become the Queen of Australia under Australian constitutional law . In other revelations, Hendo predicts that "Charles will never be Governor-General of Australia". Ho hum. Oh, Hendo would rather...

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As Mark Bahnisch observes below , the confected furore over Wayne Sawyer's silly editorial has now given federal Education Minister Brendon Nelson a pretext to launch an enquiry into teacher education. Readers will recall from multiple previous posts ( here and here and here )...

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A staple of state oppositions' rhetoric is to accuse the incumbent government of holding too many enquiries and not taking decisions. I wonder why nobody's been saying that about Brendan Nelson. Last year, we got the enquiry into phonics, graced with the presence of Miranda De...

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Scott's post on Tintin inspired me to get a move on with a post I've been meaning to do for a little while--on the contrasting joys of the two great Belgian comic-strip adventures, the Tintin books and the Asterix books. Like fellow Belgian, the fabulous singer/songwriter Jacq...

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A cabbie told me the other night that it's really difficult to get people to work as drivers at the moment because there are so many more pleasant and better paid jobs on offer. This, he claimed, was the reason so many recent Sudanese immigrants are driving cabs in Brissie. We...

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We interrupt this blog temporalily to announce the first meeting (well, in a while) of the (grandiloquently titled) Brisbane Weblogger Meetup Group . We're meeting at Rics Bar in the Valley on Friday 25th at 6pm . Any visiting or resident bloggers, commenters or blog readers a...

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I was delighted as well as surprised to see the picture of Tintin in Mark's post below today. I had a passion for the Tintin comics when I was a child. It was John Quiggin who inadvertently re-ignited my old passion. He made a request for civil discussion . That provoked some...

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Aside from two entries at Troppo by Sophie and me , there's been some other commentary on the Charles/Camilla nuptials around the blogosphere (for a sample, try Tim , Currency and saint .) There is no doubt - aside from the constitutional/legal arguments previously advanced at...

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At the suggestion of sundry commenters, Troppo is pleased to present a poll on books that you read as a kid that had a great impact on you. It's quite a nice exercise in nostalgia and reflection, and seems appropriate to me because today's my birthday! Please nominate ten. If...

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American playwright Arthur Miller has passed away at the age of 89. A writer who helped shape the face of American theatre, Miller's voice will be a continual presence for many generations to come and will probably remain on the HSC curriculum for many more years. Like many sc...

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We're getting far too serious and polite here at Troppo. Something needs to be done about it. Other bloggers don't labour under the dead weight of deep civility, and this week has seen some vintage fearless and full-bodied opinions: Currency Lad (on abortion): In [ Emma ] Tom'...

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Or, RWDB Political Correctness Run Wild Observa asked on Ken's comment thread below with respect to Associate Professor Wayne Sawyer, whose ill-chosen comments about school English and voting for the Coalition have provoked vigorous debate (at least here at Troppo ) and sundry...

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I know Mark Bahnisch has already focused on the RWDBs who've been ranting in the opinion columns of The Australian ( here and here ) about the teaching of English in secondary schools. But I reckon it's worth another post from me as well. This topic is beginning to look very m...

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Mark's post on Troppo re the 'republican debate revived' apparently because of the news of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles's impending wedding, prompts me to put forward a few provocative thoughts of my own. The main one being that I think the optimum time for a repub...

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