keywords: Brian Matthews

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Books survive the orgasm of closure

    • Brian Matthews
    • 20 August 2008
    3 Comments

    We've seen the 'end of history' and the 'death of God', yet the humble book lives on. While technology buffs embrace the e-book, printed books continue to exercise an atavistic attraction through their fusion of form and content.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Pub mural's lost legacy

    • Brian Matthews
    • 23 July 2008

    The Great Uraidla Pub Mural was the wonder and enigma of locals and tourists alike. The occasional knowledgeable blow-in would be flabbergasted and deeply impressed to find 'a Tom Gleghorn' on the wall.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Another victim of bureaucratic sludge

    • Brian Matthews
    • 18 June 2008
    1 Comment

    Things are Kafkaesque when you are caught in a labyrinth of unmanageable and inexplicable circumstances. I sprang to the phone and a pleasant, robotic female voice told me how valuable I was and that I was sixth in the queue.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Gardening while Burma generals fiddle

    • Brian Matthews
    • 21 May 2008
    2 Comments

    The ordered natural world of the garden is a place where disturbing thoughts can be annihilated, but only temporarily. Half a world away, brutal generals are using natural disaster to repress the weak and powerless.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Tibet trauma not written in the stars

    • Brian Matthews
    • 17 April 2008

    'Geo-politically astute' astrologer Jessica Murray believes revelations about China's violations against Tibet were prompted by astrological activity. For all their glib outlandishness and pseudo-scientific jargon, contemporary astrologers still fascinate.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The truth behind our heat plague

    • Brian Matthews
    • 26 March 2008
    2 Comments

    Camus' plague was a metaphor for the Second World War German occupation of France. Our plague is no metaphor. It's the truth of the planet's advancing impatience with its reckless colonisers.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    End of innings for Nine's weird world of cricket

    • Brian Matthews
    • 13 February 2008
    1 Comment

    This week we heard that the Ten Network has snared the rights to the forthcoming Indian Premier League series from Channel Nine. For three decades, broadcast cricket has been synonymous with Nine, which has delivered many advances including 'stump cam'.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The pulsating cut and thrust of international Scrabble

    • Brian Matthews
    • 09 January 2008
    1 Comment

    What with the Ashes being a let down, the One Day Internationals more interminable than ever and Federer just too bloody good, serious students of TV sport might instead turn their attention to the National Scrabble Masters Tournament. From 27 February 2007.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Nationals need Warren Truss to live up to his name

    • Brian Matthews
    • 12 December 2007
    2 Comments

    Revealing his poetic side when the ship was turned away from Kuwait, Truss explained to Parliament that the sheep were beginning 'their long, lonely journey down the gulf'. As the responsible minister, he later repressed his lyricism and reverted to political jargon.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The Romantic poets and climate change

    • Brian Matthews
    • 14 November 2007

    A person unaware of and cut off from nature will be taken by surprise when nature embarks on one of its punitive cycles. The Romantic poets reckoned that there was a spirit within the natural world that you could connect with.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Nothing new in cynicism towards politicians

    • Brian Matthews
    • 17 October 2007
    1 Comment

    When reconciliation becomes a last-minute vote catcher, only the deepest, most corrosive cynicism is possible. Trampling on the rights of others for political advantage was the modus operandi of Adelaide's Nomenclature Committee in 1837.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Digital compact camera ensures no more unexamined life

    • Brian Matthews
    • 19 September 2007
    1 Comment

    Digital photography allows the easy recording of almost every moment of our lives. Putting to your dog the proposition 'The unexamined life is not worth living', he would look at you with an expression that respectfully suggested, 'Human beings are so dumb'.

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