Castanet, a double whammy of sea shells that clatter together in horses hooves sending swallows of sound across a courtyard in Fig-u-rez Spain at 10 a.m on a Sunday morning. I’m eating breakfast which consists of a croissant filled with chocolate, this is because its the only thing I know how to ask for safely [...]

A small beer hall – observing the expert washing of Steins as they clatter back to the bar keeper. Washing involves a dunk in a half filled basin of warm water. We order a couple and I’m not surprised when mine turns up with a trace of lipstick on the edge – I reckon it’s [...]

‘Bloody terrorists’, the phrase rings through my mind every time I have to go through a security check at the airport. It’s like stripping down. I disrobe myself of laptop and associated bag, strip out all pockets of gnarly change, lumpy USB sticks and secreted shopping dockets. There’s a whole catalogue in each pocket – [...]

Wandering round Sovereign Hill Ballarat. Reconstructions of buildings frorm the gold rush of the 1850’s .Going down to the river to pan for gold, a big metal pan in hand scooping up a pile of silty river bed rocks and swishing them back and forth, the stones having a percussion party with the metal – [...]

Russians, the United States, China. Super heroes- kryptonite, flame on – Meetings to limit the amount of M.A.D. [mutually assured destruction] that would take place, the cold war, spy novels by Len Deighton, people being arrested and detained and interogated in small rooms with bare electric bulbs hanging from a roof. Truth serums, truth drugs. [...]

When there wasn’t mush else to do on lazy Camperdown weekend afternoons we would go and climb something – a tree, the mountain or some roofs in the main street where I lived. We’d climb up an ancient drainpipe near Mr’s Glessons music shop, the paint peeling away in slivers on our hands revealing corroding [...]

Twiddly fine close up detail. Careful microwork, eyes trying to focus on a tiny point, like threading a piece of cotton through the eye of a needle – almost impossible. I wet cotton in my mouth to make it more workable, it’s flat taste makes me squirm and gag. Things seem to go in and [...]

You could see the steam in his eyes hanging like a gauze curtain. He was getting frustrated by the second. In deep channels in his brain bubbles were forming. You could tell that just one more thing would have him screaming like a kettle,just one more thing. The desk was a series of mounds resembling [...]

Out past Foxhow, there’s one right turn you have to make, it’s not hard, it’s an intersection just over a little rise in the middle of some sun boiled fields. The indicator kertinkers as I approach, those coming from the other road face a give way sign. The road goes for about 5 kilometers and [...]

I was stuck, at the bottom of the deep end. Diving in had been no problem, letting the chilly fingers of the water take their grip on me as I plunged and flippered toward that ten cent piece on the bottom, but then I got there and everything came to a halt. I didn’t know [...]