Lowland Games

Inspired by the Highland Games, we spent countless hours tossing our schoolbags as far and as high as our little schoolboy arms would take them. This is my best attempt at training after school on October 17th 1985.

Swim Star

From my family roadtrip to Spain and Portugal in the mid 80s. This was when I was at the absolute peak of my swimming prowess.

Ned Kelly

From 1985, here's a scene from my Ned Kelly phase. 

Note the classic combination of Walker's roast chicken crisps and a Whizzer and Chips comic on the right.

Cover Art

Back in the 80s when I released my first collection of metaphysical poetry, my photographer friend created this for the paperback cover. This shot was taken from a second floor classroom at Langley Senior School in Solihull, and developed in the school's own darkroom, in the Chemistry department.

Cat Awakenings

Have you seen the film Awakenings (based on the Oliver Sacks book) ? Victims of a mysterious disease spend their whole day in a catatonic state of minimal consciousness, but with medical intervention, they awaken for a short burst of activity before returning to their normal immobile existence. This exactly describes my cats. A whole day of lying around is interrupted only twice a day. Firstly before brekky, there's the morning frenzy involving much miaowing and jumping on people's heads and "accidental" knocking over of stacks of CDs, which only ends when the tins of cat food are opened up. And a similar scene unfolds before teatime, whereby magazines and books on the coffee tables are "accidentally" pushed off, or ripped to shreds in a claw-sharpening exercise.

But now that I've made this connection, I know not to be upset. Instead I'll be writing to Oliver Sacks for advice on this serious medical condition afflicting not one but two of my felines.

Bushfire sun

Today's proscribed burn in Bullsbrook filled the northern suburbs' sky with smoke and an eerie red glow. Here's the view west from Lake Monger. By the way, my new School of Subtle Photography will be opening for enrolments soon.

Note the red sun in the centre.

And here's the scene to the north.

And a final shot of the sun before it was obscured forever, and our nightmare ordeal of life on a sunless earth began. Luckily there's a stockpile of 30 cans of salmon in the pantry.

Spectacular Fly-Past

While raking leaves from my back lawn just now, a spectacular fly-past of military aircraft went past, not just once but three times. They looped around so many times I began to lose interest, but I did manage to muster up enough enthusiasm to take a photo with my iPhone.

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If you need help locating the planes, see the photo at the bottom.

Announcing a New Festival

Having been an avid participant of Perth's endless summer of festivals, I have an idea for my own new one.

Since the Perth International Arts Festival film programme started in late November, followed by the Fringe Festival and PIAF and then the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, there's been hardly an evening when I've been free to chill out in the lounge room. Therefore I'm proud to announce today the Perth Evening-In Festival. Participants need not enrol, but they're encouraged to follow the official programme of events. Here's a sample, showing the activities for tonight.

Day 1 

7pm - assemble in your lounge room. Shoes off please.

7.15pm - start drinking. Cider or dessert wine is recommended to start.

7.30pm - watch Letterman's show from last night.

8.30pm - stick in a DVD from one of the following series (Game of Thrones, Penny Dreadful or House of Cards)

9.30pm - open up the liqueur chocolates, and start DVD number 2.

11.30pm - end of Day 1

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Compared to the existing festivals, this one lacks overpriced drinks, and there's no difficulty in finding parking. Also, nobody cares if you fall asleep halfway into a boring show.