How the Middle East Succumbed to the Enigmatic Donald Trump!

As I write, Hamas seems to have agreed to a peace deal brokered by Donald Trump. This is a great achievement for Trump and, although many things could still go wrong in prosecuting the peace plan, we should give credit where credit is due. The struggle between Israel and Hamas was a seemingly intransigent problem […]

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The Perversity of Transgender Politics

It is such a strange phenomenon, Transgender Politics. It is built on the fantasy that human beings can voluntarily choose their gender. Many other aspects of our biological endowment are not challenged in such a way. I haven’t heard for example of brown-eyed people demanding that they should be called blue-eyed or short people demanding […]

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The Death of Charlie Kirk and the Erosion of Democracy.

Charlie Kirk died in a mindless, murderous attack that reflects a growing assault on our democracy. Democracy is built on the foundation of free speech and the vigorous intellectual competition of ideas. In democracies we shouldn’t seek to silence those who disagree with us. We should listen respectfully to their ideas and if we disagree, […]

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Remembering My Father

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are largely occasions created for commercial reasons to make us feel compelled to buy presents and increase retail sales. They are cynical manipulations of our inherent feelings (normally) of affection for our parents. I must confess that I was blessed with the parents I had. I loved and admired them […]

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The Tyranny of the In-Tray


It is one of the paradoxes that I encounter when coaching executives that those who seem to want help with time management are invariably those who are best at it! It seems to be that if time management is something you care about you probably have already done more than most to ensure you are […]

March 10, 2012

Who Has Got The Problem?


I suppose I am going to go to great lengths to bore you this week. I seem predestined to go over material I have already given you. You might criticise me for insulting your intelligence! But I am moved to talk again about the cowardly tactic of taking offense and the demeaning practice of acting […]

March 4, 2012

The Beginning of a Classical Tragedy


Part 1 – The Journey to ETS The old captain and his crew had been retired. They had sailed many journeys and brought back great tribute. But he had been succeeded by Maximus Rudderless the young-faced commander so popular with the people. The citizens waited in great expectation. This commander had a new crew, although […]

February 25, 2012

Fuzzy Logic


My blog essay comes this week with a warning attached. Engineers, economist and accountants are advised that this material may cause offence. (To tell the truth I will probably be disappointed if it doesn’t!) As my writings will demonstrate there are many areas where my knowledge is deficient. For some time now I have been […]

February 18, 2012

Getting over Racism


In recent weeks there have been discussions about racism in Australia, particularly with respect to indigenous Australians as a consequence of the committee report on proposed changes to the constitution and then as a result of the appalling incident in Canberra where dissidents from the so-called aboriginal tent embassy confronted the prime minister and the […]

February 4, 2012

Social Inclusion


There has been some rather interesting discussion in the papers in the last few weeks about the notion of “Social Inclusion”. In the recent cabinet reshuffle of the Gillard government, the unfortunate Mark Butler was made Minister for Social Inclusion. At a press conference afterwards the new Minister found great difficulty in explaining what the […]

January 29, 2012

The Three Commandments


You may remember (but this is more than likely just my ego surfacing again) that I wrote a blog essay a few weeks back which I titled “The Power of Three”. In this essay I conjectured if Readers Digest Condensed Books Division had got their hand on the Old Testament they might have distilled the […]

January 22, 2012

A Little More on Aging


It seems to me that I have written something on this subject before some twelve months or more ago. But of course now that I am older my perspective might have changed somewhat. Was it Samuel Johnson who said something to the effect, “That nothing focuses the mind like a hanging!”? No doubt those whose […]

January 14, 2012

The Power of Three


Those who know me well appreciate that I am a cricket tragic. But despite all the wonderful things that have happened in cricket in the last few weeks I am not inclined to impose my fanaticism on you. But let me share this with you. When the TV commentary team was describing the field they […]

January 8, 2012

How a Famous Christmas Song Came To Be!


Most of you will have never heard of Tommie Connor. Connor was a British songwriter. His hits had such unforgettable titles like “The Biggest Aspidistra in the World” (sung by Gracie Fields) and “Never do a Tango with an Eskimo” (sung by Alma Cogan). [If you think I’ve made this up it is easily verified […]

December 23, 2011