A little local adventure, not quite to plan, but with lots of good bits. The original plan was to ride my bike along the Maribyrnong River Trail in the upstream direction from Footscray Park to Brimbank Park and explore the trails there. I took my first wrong turn just after
Last year I decided to get into fungus. I bought a copy of Bruce Fuhrer's A field guide to Australian fungi, signed up to iNaturalist and started looking. I did not have to look far. My local area is absolutely bursting with weird, colourful, tenacious fungi. I love
5 April 2025 in Melbourne, featuring doktorb, Wet Electronics, Daydream Deluxe, Dark5lalom, Killawarra, Mada Yana (まだヤナ), JR / KS and Post Dive. A feature of the past few weeks at our place has been Adrian, also known as doktorb, rehearsing for this show. It was the brainchild of Benjamin Chesler who
Last night, my team (the Western Bulldogs) played Adrian's team (the Carlton Blues), making it the divorce round. Attending has become an annual event for us. We're still working through the circumstances in which this match would lead to our divorce. Whatever happens, one is faced
Last night we saw the Australian premiere of Death of a Unicorn, screening for the launch of this year's Fantastic Film Festival (If you want to know what I thought of the movie that's what Letterboxd is for). We discovered this festival back in 2023. We
My neighbour and I had pencilled in a ride for the Sunday just gone, a perfect late Summer day (some might call it early Autumn, but not I, not today). She had to cancel (she traded in her scooter–more on that later!) but I went out anyway. I rode
21 March 2025 in Melbourne, supported by Ferla, Hearts and Rockets and No Hoper. Sniff! The excellent Bench Press are ending. This was the first of their two farewell shows at The Old Bar. We were sad to miss out on tickets to the final-final show but this night'
There's a yarn shop with an emailing list, and I'm on it. I got there the usual way after buying something from them, and I stayed on it because I genuinely liked their emails. They're good at picking out patterns that match whatever yarns
11 March 2025, supported by Mick Turner. Here I am back seeing another international touring act. I promise the next show I see will be something local (I already have the tickets). I feel like these live music posts end up being venue reviews too. In this case, I'
My downstairs neighbour Sam just bought herself a new scooter, a very nice little Lambretta V-Special 200. I have no idea what the '200' in the name signifies as it's 169 cc. So today we took our tiny bikes out for a ride and to practice
Back in the early 90s the world invented the techno bunny, a youth subculture of illegal rave attendance and enjoyment of dance music. For more info--well. A Duck Duck Go search of "techno bunny" found me this little nugget which is best viewed using Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.
2 March 2025 in Melbourne, supported by Freya Josephine Hollick I swear I don't only go and see touring acts, but you wouldn't know that looking at my schedule in early 2025. This was my second Kristin Hersh show in about a year and a half
Sportsball
We are mere days from the opening round of the 2025 Australian Football League (AFL) season and the sports writers and talkers are struggling for content. After all, no sportsball has yet been played, there's nothing to write or talk about. It's the perfect time to
Neighbourhood
I have just come back from a lap around the block with our friend Lottie the Pointer. Lottie is 14 and a half which is already a very good innings for her breed. She's an old dog. She's feeling good. A couple of weeks ago she
Neighbourhood
Mipasto, a local pizza shop, has closed. When they were first preparing to open many years ago, I observed with interest as they covered every opaque external surface with stick-on rustic stonemasonry. Next, the name 'IMPASTO' went up. I can only assume that they found out too late
Watercolour
I took up watercolour as a hobby maybe two years ago. It's both simple and hard. I found it difficult to get going on my own and I'm still a long way away from having the basic techniques down pat. But I feel like I'
Music
15 February 2025 in Melbourne, supported by Mach Pelican, The Stripp and Raging Hormones. My friend Ange was into The D4 when she lived in New Zealand 20 years ago. I had no idea who they were and neither did the husbinator. But, we are yeppers, and we like live
Knitting
I have been really enjoying knitting lately and had been looking forward to this project for a long time. Now it is complete! A few years ago I picked up a secondhand copy of More Modern Top-Down Knitting by Kristina McGowan at the Castlemaine Vintage Bazaar. It's a
Outdoors
Last Thursday I was lucky enough to go for a boat ride around Western Port as a guest of the Victorian National Parks Association, along with a bunch of other people. For the uninitiated, Western Port is a bay that sits between Port Phillip Bay and Wilsons Promontory on the
Creativity
Melbourne, 7 February 2025 Don't worry, I am not about to attempt a review of an art exhibition. I like stuff including things that look cool and interesting. I want to keep note of the parts of the Kusama exhibition that made me feel like rushing home and
Movies
Back in November I embarked upon a new movie-watching adventure: flops. I built my flops list, I work my way through it and I continue to build it, but now is a good time to stop and reflect. It all began when I discovered that Joker: Folie à Deux was
Music
Melbourne, 1 February 2025 It has taken me this long to see The Flaming Lips play live. Their 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots meant a lot to me at the time, as it did to my good buddy Rai. We were both in our 20s, going through some
Creativity
A good moment while waiting for takeaway coffees this morning. I made a comment that I liked the art hanging on the wall of the café. The woman sitting at the table right underneath the framed pictures (Sarah, as we found out shortly afterwards) looked up and said, actually those
Internet
I turned off email sign-ups when I set everything up because I don't want to manage a mailing list. Inexplicably there remains a sign up button. Then when I announced my new blog in the family chat my brother of course tried to sign up. Trying to sign