There's a bit of a stoush in Sydney at the moment. Barry O'Farrell, a man in no position to issue proclamations along such lines, has branded the City of Sydney's support of Buy Nothing New Day as "nuts". Retailers in the CBD are making noises about rates strikes. The commentariat are split, predictably, on what all this means. It's all, apparently, quite controversial.  Lefties don't know where to put their faces. The right-wing are all too decided on where their faces ought to be, and that's right in the public eye, which as a result is full of spittle. For my part,...

Well, it's done and dusted. My first bike race in about 14 years and I didn't disgrace myself by coming last, or, as in the last event I rode, getting censured by the marshalls and losing my position for the day* The Careflight Oaks Classic for 2012, down 25km of the extremely popular Oaks Firetrail, featured somewhere in the region of 400 mountain bikers and started out, in the cold of a mountains morning, from Woodford Station. I travelled up in the company of Gaby Mayo and James Taylor, both fit riders who've raced before, and Jo, who was playing the role of support driver for the day....

The Lord's My Shepherd; I shall not Want Psalm 23 Few phrases from christianity are so abhorrent for me while at the same time being beloved of the faithful, as Psalm 23, known to generations of long-suffering british school kids and boy scouts as "The Lord's my Shepherd", a dreary hymn to the tune "Crimond", attributed to Jessie Seymour Irvine. This torturous dirge is the archetype of an exercise in tedium, especially if led by an aging church organist who insists on the full metred arrangement, at shuffling pace, pauses and all. Dressed in stiff and uncomfortable Sunday best, dragged to a cold building filled with strange...

In a blogging exclusive, I am today able to reveal a hitherto unseen Scooby Doo screenplay, from the writers of the original, and superior, "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" series. It was discovered in, of all places, a garage sale in Cootamundra, NSW, and has made its way to me through a network of contacts. As with all Scooby Doo, Where Are You? episodes, the screenplay is a sophisticated allegory playing on larger societal themes, often bringing cultural morés into sharp relief in order that the audience may have their  frontiers expanded by the dénouement. Anyway, here's the episode, in full,...

If there's a common thread that runs through the ranks of antivaxers, chiropractors, homeopaths and general fucktwats that I've blogged about over the years, it's an inability to quantify or even recognise their own incompetence that stands out most clearly for me. Enter Professor Brian Martin, Faculty member in Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong, a regional centre some 85km or so south of Sydney. Brian has reared his head in support of Meryl Dorey and her Anti-Vaccination Network a few times in recent years. Brian sees himself as a champion of "whistleblowers", and sees Dorey and her band of...

It's been a couple of months since I last blogged about Sydney's bike lane traffic light problem. As I hinted in the last series of blogs, I've largely stopped using the Sydney Cycleways, due mainly to the appalling performance of the detection loops, but also due to some other factors, not all of which apply to all riders, among them being it often takes longer to get from A to B via cyleway than by using the road (due mainly to very short, unreliable light sequences, but also due to the next item) It's almost impossible to...

There's a report doing the rounds that an Indian town has been overrun by "poisonous spiders". It's been reported all over. Let's get something straight right out of the box. In this context, spiders are not poisonous. They are venomous. Big difference. Secondly, I'm disinclined to believe the reports for a couple of slightly better reasons than outright grammatical hatred.  Here are some quotes from the article "similar to the tarantula, but it could be a whole new species." "leaps at anything that comes close,"  "latched onto them after biting."  If it's "similar to the tarantula" - which isn't a species of spider at all but a...