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Keywords: Biography

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Trashing American English

    • Brian Matthews
    • 30 September 2011
    5 Comments

    Few dump masters are as erudite as Steve. 'Had a bloke here the other day, a Yank. Said he was after a couple of barrels. "You mean drums," I says. But no. He didn't want to play the bloody drums, he wanted barrels. Well, I says, the only barrels round here are wine barrels. What you want is drums.'

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Book junkie's detox nightmare

    • Brian Matthews
    • 02 September 2011
    7 Comments

    My wife and I are performing a difficult, heart-rending task: culling our books. There are thousands of them, on shelves and in boxes, some of which were sealed and labelled 25 years ago. I know who to blame for setting me on the path to this agonising task. It was Mrs Murphy.

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  • RELIGION

    Faith and famine: The new Irish who call Australia home

    • Frank Brennan
    • 30 August 2011
    3 Comments

    The faith of the Irish in politics, economics and religion is at a low ebb, and for the most understandable of reasons.  It is not a famine, but it is mighty grim. There are tens of thousands coming here under the  457 visa and the Irish Working Holiday Visa.

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  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    Gillard, work and welfare

    • Sarah Burnside
    • 17 August 2011
    8 Comments

    Opponents of workplace regulation are well-resourced and powerful. In order to meet them head-on, the Government must do more than invoke the value of hard work. After all, if work automatically confers great dignity, what does it matter that conditions are unsatisfactory?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Gandhi and Richie Benaud's perfect storm

    • Brian Matthews
    • 05 August 2011
    1 Comment

    Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm makes one marvel at the way events separated by vast times and distances can conspire to produce unpredictable results. In 1959 Australian cricket great Richie Benaud found himself at the end of a chain of events set in motion by Mahatma Gandhi.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Cucumbers and climate change deniers

    • Brian Matthews
    • 08 July 2011
    9 Comments

    European Parliamentarian Francisco Sosa Wagner risked ridicule to defend the honour of cucumbers. He stands in contrast to Christopher Monckton, politician and professional climate change denier who has called Australian economist Ross Garnaut a fascist.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Plagued by mice and climate change deniers

    • Brian Matthews
    • 10 June 2011
    7 Comments

    Considering the severity of South Australia's mice infestation and earlier plagues of locusts, you can be forgiven for feeling positively biblical. Many Australians, some in 'high places', need climate change to demonstrate its presence with such murderous, repeated efficiency.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Teaching boys to love and hate books

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 18 May 2011
    7 Comments

    My sons had their bedtime stories for years, but had to become used to my saying 'Just a minute' while I raced to the end of a page or chapter. Now grown, my technophile youngest had a most surprisng reaction to the marvellous present sent to me recently.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Bulldozing famous backyards

    • Brian Matthews
    • 13 May 2011
    2 Comments

    Great sports men and women have emerged from suburban backyards and the tutelage of their parents on the rapidly wearing lawn. The yard Michael Younes wanted to obliterate in order to construct town houses had been the childhood training ground of one of Australia's greatest sportspeople.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Christian and Muslim bullets and blood

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 21 April 2011
    3 Comments

    Nawal, disgraced and exiled from her Christian village for an affair with a Muslim man, conceals her crucifix and hitches a ride on a bus laden with Muslims. Shortly, the bus is halted by a squadron of bloodthirsty Christian militants.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Publishing George Orwell

    • Brian Matthews
    • 14 April 2011
    2 Comments

    In 1981, a few months before actor Peter Davison became the fifth Doctor Who, Professor Peter Davison, the literary scholar, accepted a commission to produce the corrected editions of Orwell's nine books. The project was to be fraught by false dawns and recurring frustrations.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Multiculturalism just works

    • John Stuyfbergen
    • 24 March 2011
    10 Comments

    In a park for a Sunday barbecue, suddenly a few men from our group separated from the rest of us. I asked the woman next to me what they were doing. They were Muslims, and they were praying. Suddenly the men were back. They switched on the radio, and we all listened to and argued about the cricket scores.

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