Mike's Pith & Wind - Pinot dreams
I’ve just had lunch with my brother Richard in the city, (incidentally collecting a handsome parking fine for my trouble - I should never have ducked into JB Hi Fi on the way back to my parking spot). We had a wide-ranging and generally helpful discussion over lunch and an OK pinot at some ubiquitous Italian restaurant, (for a change we didn’t go to the Nostril), until the conversation inevitably turned to newspapers and politics.
We seem to agree on most things these days, so it was no surprise there was consensus on a) the dearth of quality newspapers, (that reflect our opinions anyway), and b) the chronic lack of vision in all levels of (Australian) politics.
Regarding the latter, we thought it possible that the Aussie landscape is somehow responsible for the lack of foresight and long-term planning, (which is not confined to just politics of course, but is an actual national characteristic), a correllation I first conjectured when I arrived here in the mid-sixties from the smugly verdant countryside of New Zealand.
This country is so degraded and fragile, but so vast, that the temptation is to simply move on to another patch when your existing one is rendered totally lifeless; the only significant difference between that and the cut-and-burn lifestyle of tropical forest dwellers being that the vegetation doesn’t grow back again in Australia. Well, not for an awfully long time.
I think I mentioned somewhere that driving back from Deniliquin not so long ago, I passed a number of rice paddies. I was gob-smacked. Of all the inappropriate farming activities, this has to be the most inappropriate for this big brown land. Totally unjustifiable. read more

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I've decided to dispense with the Odd Spot - too much trouble finding something odd or unusual every month. In its stead, as a result of the conversation beween my brother Richard and me catalogued in this monrth's P&W, I offer for your entertainment Richard's take on the minutiae of life, called, much to his chagrin..

Dick's Toolbox - Applauding movies
At the end of “Good Night and Good Luck” George Clooney’s latest film there was a remarkable pregnant pause as nobody clapped. In my opinion this was not because people didn’t think the film deserved it but because it is no longer cool to do so. Unlike live events where it is obligatory to go almost berserk at any performance where the orchestra doesn’t lose its way or the cast forget their lines.
In these fretful times, and given the sympathetic demographic of the audience, no film.. read more