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Yearly Archives: 2022

Read more about the article Still quiet on the western front

Still quiet on the western front

The appearance in 2022 of a new screen version of All Quiet on the Western Front has brought many of my thoughts on this extraordinary book back to mind. All Quiet on the Western Front was, strangely, a book that I deliberately skipped reading for a very long time. Even though I keenly hoovered up scores of books about The Great War of 1914-1918, I had a prejudice against Erich Maria Remarque’s book that wasn’t based on anything sensible. I guess, for a start, I wasn’t so interested in looking at the war through the eyes…

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Read more about the article Old King Coal was a merry old liar and cheat

Old King Coal was a merry old liar and cheat

A friend of mine had a job once at a grain silo in western NSW, testing wheat for its gluten content. Farmers were paid according to the gluten content of the grain, so the results he got from grinding and analysing his test portion were very important to them. Some farmers, my friend said, offered him bribes of alcohol and other presents to falsify his test results. Needless to say, he refused. Not unlike a story that resurfaced this week, when independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the multinational corporations that run Australia’s export coal industry of…

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Read more about the article Ed Tonks: lessons from local history

Ed Tonks: lessons from local history

I like to flatter myself that I'm a little bit like my friend Ed Tonks. We're both very interested in good beer and in local history and geography. Both of us sometimes also get highly focused on narrow topics which we then follow in whatever odd directions chance dictates. Ed and I are both comfortable with the idea that many people would say we are "on the spectrum". That's fine. As Ed smilingly says: "The world should be thankful for enthusiasts". Enthusiasm is one of Ed's defining characteristics, and it's what has made him such a…

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