Alica Molik and The Roar

Posted on January 25, 2010 at 8:02am | 3 comments

I’ve had my first article published on sports opinion website The Roar.

It’s about tennis player Alicia Molik, her comeback from injury and her disappointing first-round exit from the Australian Open.

I watched Molik play all of her matches in the Pro Tour event at Mount Gambier last year. Big crowds turned out to see her and I thought it was great that she came back via the regional circuit.

She’s a lovely lady and I hope she overcomes the Melbourne loss to make her mark on world tennis this year.

The Roar is an interesting site. It’s been going for a couple of years and has some high-quality sports commentary and discussion.

Please take a look and “cheer” my article.

Blogging block

Posted on May 11, 2009 at 7:04pm | 0 comments

I’ve struggled to write anything here over the past couple of weeks. I feel I need to “use it or lose it” so I’ve pushed myself a couple of times to write a post.

Writing is a good habit to maintain.

A couple of my other sites like Australian Newspapers are virtually dormant.

I’m enjoying the brief format of Twitter at the moment though and Short Say.

Maybe that’s part of my problem here.

If you haven’t visited Short Say yet, take a look. Anyone can register and comment or post.

Copyright Agency Limited

Posted on May 1, 2009 at 4:59pm | 4 comments

I had never heard of the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) until today when they surprised me with some happy news.

CAL sent me an email and left a phone message saying they wanted to pay me some money!

Like most people I’m suspicious of emails like that, and because I received the email before hearing the phone message, I almost sent it straight to the spam folder. (more…)

Poor handwriting

Posted on December 19, 2007 at 5:05pm | 3 comments

I’m embarrassed how poor my handwriting has become. It was never good, but it’s become worse. I struggled to write neatly in primary school; now it’s impossible.

I can print letters okay, but cursive script is atrocious.

Today I wrote Christmas messages for some key contacts. I could barely read them myself. I blame two factors:

1) Typing. I’ve typed far more than I’ve written over the past 20 years. I barely write at all now, except short notes and my signature.

2) Work. I never learned proper shorthand, but developed my own version. It gives me useful notes of conversations, meetings and interviews. Only I can read it, so it’s almost like writing in code!

So, between lack of use and “writing” an alternative script I figure that I’ve lost the art of cursive script. Whether I need to rediscover it is debatable.

Newspaper novels: The truth will make you fret

Posted on October 29, 2007 at 12:18pm | 1 comment

There aren’t many novels about newspapers. Stories involving print journalists are far fewer than those about lawyers, soldiers and police for example.

That’s a little surprising when you consider that journalists are writers. But when you think about it, we are craftsmen while novelists are artists. We ply a trade while they follow their creative spirits. We have responsibilities, they don’t.

Three good books about newspapers come readily to mind. PG Wodehouse wrote Psmith, Journalist in 1915; Evelyn Waugh wrote Scoop in 1938 and Terry Pratchett published The Truth in 2000.

In Wodehouse’s classic, Psmith arrives in New York on a cricket tour and becomes involved with the home entertainment weekly “Cosy Moments” which he transforms into a hard-hitting investigative journal. He rides the bumps of organised crime and American politics along the way.

In Waugh’s story, scribe William Boot is mistaken by the publisher of the Daily Beast for a war correspondent. He is uprooted from writing country garden features to covering the civil war in Ishmaelia. Both novels are cleverly satirical.

Pratchett’s The Truth is a typically fantastic work from the author of the Discworld series. The hero in this case is William de Worde, who teams up with dwarfs to print the first newspaper in Ankh-Morpork.

As usual, Pratchett offers some tremendous insights into human nature. His observations of the newspaper profession are also very sharp, suggesting excellent research or personal knowledge. For instance, he offers a rare literary tribute to the unsung work of sub-editors.

I’ve just finished reading The Truth for the second time. I found the focus on hired assassins to be distracting and kept wanting the story to get back to the trials and tribulations of The Times.

There are some great one liners, like when the dwarfs make a typesetting error with the newspaper’s logo, which becomes: “The truth will make you fret”.

I related personally to the serial pest who kept coming into the office with remarkable vegetables. Anyone who has worked on a country newspaper will know there are people in most towns who like to show off their giant tomatoes or funny-shaped parsnips.

I admit it’s one of my long-term ambitions to write a satirical novel about newspapers. I started taking notes of strange but true incidents last year, like when one of my reporters disappeared while on the trail of visiting Mongolian detectives.

I have heaps of material; just need the time to write it.

Christmas parties

Posted on December 13, 2006 at 6:40pm | 2 comments

Does anyone share my view that Christmas parties are overdone? I'm finding it a strain just keeping track of invitations let alone responding to them all and attending a reasonable number.

I'm grateful that people think to invite me, but in a town the size of Kalgoorlie it's a similar guest list at most of the events.

It would be better, I think, to have one giant, shared Christmas party where all the corporates could get together and mingle. The Middle Island Fishing Club banquet was something like that, I suppose.

Then there could be another one for New Year.

Throw in your own company's Christmas party and that would mean three must-go events instead of a dozen or more individual parties.

Note: I'm writing this from WriteToMyBlog as an experiment.

Zoho virtual office

Posted on October 11, 2006 at 9:13pm | 0 comments

I’m typing this in ZohoWriter, a web-based word processor. It’s similar to Writely, but offers a complete suite with online equivalents of desktop programs for spreadhseets and presentations.

Funnily enough, I’m writing this on the day that Google formally integrated its online spreadsheet application with Writely to create Google Docs.

I like the look and feel of Google Docs, which is minimalist in the Google tradition, but Zoho is also impressive. I’ll continue to experiment with it and give some more impressions here later.

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