© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Endgame for a plague species?

Doomsday messages are thick on the ground these days. And no wonder. While people argue about whether continuing to alter the composition of the atmosphere is harmful or not, undeniable damage is piling up all around. The latest UN report on biodiversity, with its sombre warning of millions more species extinctions on the way, is just the latest signpost on a long bad road. Human activity is stripping the globe of its remaining forests at a rapid rate. The oceans have been mined of much of their living inhabitants and are still being used as sewers…

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Read more about the article Bushland find a missing link for a vintage car project
The builder's plate from the vintage Crossley tourer

Bushland find a missing link for a vintage car project

In April 2008 I took my son Oliver metal-detecting. We'd been to beaches a few times, but this particular weekend we decided to go to bushland near the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond. We chose the spot of a former settlement named "Hollywood" where people built shacks during the Great Depression of the 1930s. There isn't much left of Hollywood now, and I guess when they build the next stage of Highway 23 there will be even less. But I remember stumbling on some old hearthstones, chimneys and fruit trees when I was a kid, and learning…

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There’s more to life than books, you know, but not much more . . .

When I heard Morissey sing those lines, "There's more to life than books you know, but not much more" (they are in The Smiths song Handsome Devil) I felt I might have found a motto for my life. Because I'm a fiend for books and always have been. When I visit somebody for the first time I can't help myself. My eyes are drawn almost against my will to their bookshelves, as if I can make some kind of assessment of their character by what I see there. I dream about browsing in bookshops. I read…

Continue ReadingThere’s more to life than books, you know, but not much more . . .
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