All year a family of black swans has been living nearby, between Edgewater lagoon and Dynon Road crossing over the Maribyrnong. There were seven - two adults and five cygnets. I took this photo of them back in January, when the cygnets first started venturing out. Today I saw the
June 26 to 28 in Castlemaine. The hook for this one was Secret Mall Apartment, the documentary film that tells the story of a group of artists in Rhode Island who built a hidden apartment inside a huge shopping centre and kept it undetected for four years. Of course, it
4 June 2026 in Melbourne, part of RISING festival. It's felt like a struggle to find interesting theatre of late. For the last few years, I've been a bit put off after experiencing some patronising, preaching-to-the-choir productions, and it's been hard to find things
30 May 2026 in Melbourne, supported by Chris Brokaw and Fancy Weapon. Tortoise is one of those bands where it's an automatic 'yes' when you see they're touring. Okay, it's only happened to me twice so far, but still. Last time it
28 May 2026 in Melbourne. Over the past few months I have been getting into old movies, lots of classic noir and such things. At some point my attention was drawn to the 1957 Billy Wilder film Witness for the Prosecution which stars Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich and Tyrone Power.
23 May 2026 in Melbourne, supported by Pollyman and Snake Thighs. We return to the Curtin, the site of many a good show. I've been intrigued by Don't Thank Me, Spank Me! (DTMSM) for a while now, not only for their unrelentingly silly band name. Their
Fantastic Film Festival Australia, 23 April to 15 May. Film festival mode is now complete having been to Lido to see another 30 movies since Hokum. I keep the film reviews and reflections to my Letterboxd account so I won't be repeating all that here. Instead, a few
We are back in film festival mode! Indeed, one of the best times of the year. We have been Fantastic Film Festival Australia superfans for a while now, and in 2025 we took time off work and bought VIP passes. It was so good we're doing it again
11 April 2026 in Melbourne, part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF). Back in 2015 we saw Kate Dehnert's show Pony Yell at MICF and it was brilliant. Surreal, magical and very, very silly. Since then I have been keeping an eye out for her shows but
4 April in Melbourne (Footscray), with The Vasco Era, The Night Terrors, Tongue Dissolver, Solsa, Ov Pain, Kinetic Vision, Hospital Pass and Local High School Students Play The Velvet Underground. Footscray deserved this. A whole afternoon and evening of music, perfect weather and excellent vibes in Maddern Square. Maddern Square
Footy is, as they say, back. It's already feeling good to be a Bulldogs fan, what with a surprising win last week (against Brisbane) and an emphatic one this (against GWS). It was fun to not only go to that second game but introduce a friend to this
Just when it seemed the reason for this blog looked settled, perhaps it is not. After a full year of Sky Hulk it was clear that this has become a record of my cultural engagements, more or less. But then, in 2026, it appears that I have eased off on