A gentle kiss on the lips of the Inquisitor

Note: This article was published on my new Substack newsletter this morning. All articles are still open to everyone, so please hop over there and check out what I'm doing. If you like what you see, feel free to subscribe to stay up-to-date with my new stuff, or take out a paid subscription to keep …

Watching the party through the window

This is the first post of my new newsletter on Substack. Please check it out here. For a long time, the story I’ve told most often to define who I am — or who I think I am — is the account of a cliff collapse in the southwest of Western Australia, back when I was a newspaper editor …

Turmoil + soul = jazz

So I’m lying in bed, unable to sleep. Some years back. And I’m thinking about money. Not thinking so much as fretting. Probably panicking. So I go downstairs and for some reason stand in front of my bookshelf, looking up at the books I hadn’t looked at or considered or opened for a long time. …

Elliptical faith: Religion in the dots and thin spaces

On Saturdays, I do a few hours of subediting work on the News Corp Australia metro newspapers, such as the Sunday Telegraph in Sydney and the Herald Sun in Melbourne. This weekend I subbed a couple of stories that contained some bad language; the conventions we follow on the newspapers to deal with such words …

Beauty and the beast: Some thoughts about Jacinda Ardern

You should never trust a person wearing a mask ... unless you’re in the middle of a pandemic and that person is Jacinda Ardern. I interviewed Jacinda Ardern in Crave cafe last Thursday in what was a surreal and somewhat discomfiting experience. Surreal because after two years of trying to get this interview, and after …

Who wants normal? Not me

I’m starting to grieve the idea of going back to normal. Not that I think ‘normal’—meaning the way things were—is achievable, ever again. We won’t come out of this and return to what we had, ever. But some things will return, for sure. Some I’m happy about. Others I’m not looking forward to at all. …

“He is risen”? I’m not convinced

I just wasn't into the whole "He is risen" thing this Easter.Don't get me wrong, I still believe. At least I think I do. Maybe I don't—not in the way I'm supposed to, anyway. I saw friends posting the typical messages on Facebook on Easter Sunday and I just didn't feel it. I don't blame …

Emojis in the age of the rona lockdown

😀 Grinning FaceThe look you’re able to pull on the first day of lockdown when the daughters who previously said they would never live at home again decide to move back for the four weeks.😃 Grinning Face with Big EyesThe look you pull when those same daughters say, “Are you sure it’s okay? You don’t …

We all lived in bubbles long before COVID-19 came along

The truth is, we’re going to come through this four-week period of social isolation with flying colours, because, let’s face it, most of us live in states of social isolation in the course of our daily lives anyway. Seriously, what will we miss over the next month? Spending time in cafes? Hanging out in pubs? …