In a back alley in Brunswick, a grown man is behaving like a kid. Dean Sunshine should be running his family textiles business. Instead, the lithe, curly-headed 50-year-old is darting about the bluestone lane behind […]
Category: Issues
Rebooting Picnic at Hanging rock is a missed opportunity
If, like me, you marvelled while your school bus rolled the wrong way up a hill and you then spent the day exploring the spooky, 6.25-million-year-old lava terrain of Hanging Rock in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges, […]
A matter of life and death: British comedian hopes show will spark more than laughs
British comedian, disability rights campaigner and actor, Liz Carr, is performing at the comedy festival in her new show Assisted Suicide: The Musical. Photo: Josh Robenstone. Liz Carr is an actor, comedian and disability rights activist […]
Pet owners warned to vaccinate against rabbit-killer virus
Indie Ladan and her lop ear rabbit Heffie. Photo: Pat Scala. Indie Ladan’s lop ear rabbit Heffie may not purr or wag his tail when she comes home but he still manages to show plenty of […]
Deaf dancer graces new seven-storey mural in Windsor
Strike a pose: artist Guido van Helten with his mural of deaf dancer, Anna Seymour. Photo: Wayne Taylor. By Peter Barrett “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” musician Elvis Costello once said. Half that metaphor […]
Opinion piece: seven sins Melbourne road users will punish you for
I had my first opinion piece published in the Age today. You can read it online at Fairfax or right here. The seven (unofficial) rules of the road A recent, three-month stint in Vietnam has […]
On a mountain high with the king and I
A farmer harvesting choko sprouts in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Photo: Peter Barrett. Peter Barrett takes a culinary tour of northern Thailand. Thick, charcoal smoke is beginning to fill the small, wooden room. Tending an ancient-looking […]
Mapping Australian wetlands, feather by feather
Children collect feathers from the lake at Jells Park. Photo: Joe Armao. Next time you find yourself in a wetland keep your eyes peeled for stray waterbird feathers. A new citizen science program – the Feather […]
Pictures tell a story of mental illness
According to a survey, titled Picture This: How Australians picture mental illness, the most popular image depicting mental illness was of a woman surrounded by multiple profiles of herself in various states of emotional distress. Photo: […]
The Catman of Kangaroo Island
Barry Green at the entrance to his aptly named home on Kangaroo Island. Photo: Emma Byrnes. A family holiday in January took us to South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, where we tracked down a local with an interesting […]
