Category: Australia
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Gardening in Australia, AKA Dancing With Death
With forty-eight hours and thirty minutes to go, no, I’m not the teeniest bit nervous about the arrival of the rellies for Christmas. While one half of me can’t wait to wrap myself up in dad’s arms again and beg him to take me home to let me be a child again, the other half…
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The Proudest Achievement Of The Modern World Should Be How We Break Down The Walls Of Inequality
If ever there was a period of time where it’s possible to believe that genuinely bad people do exist, it is probably right now. With daily mass shootings in the US, terrorist bombings all over the world, the ongoing abuse of women and the surge of a far-right movement – it is hard not to…
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Millennial Sickness, Hypochondria and Snot Levels
There is something vaguely ironic about the recent discovery that Kurt is allergic to grass. After years of watching his eyes stream and his chest heave at certain times of the year – symptoms I originally put down to Karma for abusing his body, (because I’m compassionate like that), and the sad reality that none…
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Help! I Had A Sex Dream About Malcolm Turnbull
I had a sex dream about our Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull the other night, which was particularly disappointing having forked out twenty dollars that afternoon to ogle see Chris Hemsworth in the latest Thor movie. For those of my international readers who don’t follow Australian politics religiously, and haven’t a clue what an understated sex…
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The Lost Opportunities Caused By ADHD
Sadly, the main take-home from the ADHD conference I attended last week was the pervading sadness in the room at the mention of “lost opportunities”. Unlike other neurological conditions, ADHD appears to leave a bad taste in the mouths of some, and as such, the condition attracts unfair criticism. There is some truth in the…
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Things I’m Too Old For – Music Gigs
This post is the first in a new series called “Things I’m Too Old for;” an idea I came up with the other night when we went into the city to watch a gig roughly two nights before we moved house – cos that’s what you do when you’re about to experience one of the…
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Memories, Friendship and On The Move Again
I might have mentioned that we’re about to embark upon our fourteenth house move. Reactions to the move have varied: the Princess has begun twitching so I will need to up her anxiety medication, and she and Kurt rock on her bed together whenever I pack a box. The old man has locked himself inside…
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Time to Tear Down Mia Freedman
I needed to write this piece in defense of Mia Freedman of Mamamia, because she has been an inspiration for my own writing. Whatever her detractors accuse her of in connection to the debacle yesterday with Roxane Gay, I refuse to accept that her intentions in her approach to their interview were anything but respectful…
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When You’re Still Going To The Zoo At Fifty!
Sydney holds its Vivid Festival at this time of the year – a two-week extravaganza where the city is lit up with, well…lights, and luckily for us, a friend of mine organised tickets for us to celebrate this year’s celebrations at Taronga Zoo. Crikey! Crocs!I I like zoos and the old man could hardly contain…
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I’m Sorry, Employers, But Resumes Don’t Tell The Whole Story
I’ve slipped off the wagon over the past few weeks and put my helicopter costume back on to help Kurt search for work, because unless the old man and I can both agree that we don’t need cereal in our life, ever again, we need to get the boy out of the house and into…
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I Hope I Go Doing Something I Love
Laeticia Brouwer, a seventeen-year-old surfer lost her life to a shark yesterday, and shortly afterwards her devastated parents were forced to give the press their thoughts about her life – presumably, so they’d leave them alone to begin the grieving process. ‘She died doing what she loved,’ is a comment we hear often after these…
LOUISA SIMMONDS 