Month: June 2015

  • Terry Pratchett and the random life we live

    Terry Pratchett and the random life we live

    About the time of Terry Pratchett’s death earlier this year I came across a blog written by one of his fans. The author of the blog set out on a mission to read and critique every one of Pratchett books, with the target of one book every week. Here’s the blog: http://pratchettjob.wordpress.com The latest post in the blog…

  • More convict ancestors

    More convict ancestors

    I’ve known for many years I was a descendant of a convict, Isabella Tyson. She was my 3rd great grandmother. What I didn’t know until recently was there were two other convicts in my ancestry: William Henry Diogenes Herring, my 2nd great grandfather, and James Hill, another 2nd great grandfather. Isabella Tyson (nee Coulson) was transported to…

  • Wind farm sickness versus global warming – Abbott

    Wind farm sickness versus global warming – Abbott

    Our Prime Minister Mr Abbott yesterday described wind farms as “visually awful”. He went on to say, “Up close, they’re ugly, they’re noisy and they may have all sorts of other impacts.” Referring to a current parliamentary inquiry, he added, “It’s right and proper that we’re having an inquiry into the health impacts of these…

  • Post-fact politics

    Post-fact politics

    Last week while listening to the radio I heard a term that was new to me: post-fact politics I think I was listening to Jonathan Green, host of Sunday Extra on Radio National. Googling the phrase, I found just 1,890 results, suggesting it has only recently been coined. The interesting thing was