© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Sweden

Read more about the article Doubly foreign: vintage photographic souvenirs

Doubly foreign: vintage photographic souvenirs

If the past is another country, then the past of another country might be doubly foreign, I guess. When I travel overseas I'm naturally drawn to flea markets and vintage stores and among the things I like to buy are photographs and negatives. In dusty cabinets in old stores, on cluttered blankets on the ground at flea markets, at fetes and village yard sale days I hope to see them: tatty paper pouches of old negs and snapshots, cardboard boxes full of glass plate negs or old photo albums. Sometimes particular photo albums excite me enough…

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Read more about the article Sweden’s shocking Covid-19 mistakes
Sweden's flag, and Anders Tegnell. Photo by Frankie Fouganthin

Sweden’s shocking Covid-19 mistakes

Living in Australia, and with loved ones in Sweden, it’s hard not to be confronted by the extraordinary differences in the approach of the two nations’ governments to the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Australia, after a wobbly start and a period during which I thought our government was giving up without a fight (unmonitored airport arrivals, the cruise ship stuff-up, the happy clapper conference that got the nod), knuckled down to take advantage of its island status and keep infections low – so far. Frankly, I still credit the political nous of state premiers…

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Read more about the article Three’s a crowd in a matchbox

Three’s a crowd in a matchbox

What is it with matches and the number three? Always a sucker for brightly coloured bits of paper, I've managed to accumulate a small collection of matchbox labels. I like these odd little works of art that flourished for years in a seemingly unlikely niche. They are like postage stamps, I suppose, in that they had strictly utilitarian beginnings but soon became a field for fertile design imaginations. I'm often baffled as to why certain designs were chosen to decorate the outsides of matchboxes, and some are nothing short of weird. Threes. Three of them. But…

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