It’s Jacaranda time in Sydney again, and I really need to take my camera out and record what is one of the most beautiful things about living in Sydney. Morgspace has done it for me: I found this post from Morgspace showing a beautiful carpet of Jacarandas (pictured above) – which isContinue Reading
A few weeks ago, APRA released a new draft set of Prudential Standards for Life Insurance. They’re generally following the standards that were released for general insurers late last year. Basically, they require a life insurance company to have a risk management framework in place, which the guidance notes giveContinue Reading
Mr Penguin and I were discussing global warming last night. Specifically, what should we do right now if we believed that all the worst case stuff was really true? Let’s posit a scenario. In 20 years time, the climate of Australia has changed irrecovably, so that our current drought isContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The Long Tail: why the future of business is selling less of more, by Chris Anderson. Originally a Wired magazine article, then workshopped as a blog, it got the biggest response of any Wired magazine, so Anderson decided to develop it as a book. I had beenContinue Reading
A controversial biography of Alan Jones is about to be published, and has been excerpted in the weekend papers. The blogosphere seems pretty focused on the relevations (which aren’t really relevations to anyone who has paid any attention to Jones over the years) about his likely (?) alleged (?) homosexuality.Continue Reading
Philippe Rizzo has just won Australia’s first ever world gymnastics gold medal. Apart from celebrating the success of Australians in genuine worldwide sports (I think gymnastics counts, even though you have to be quite well-off to do it, so you don’t exactly get many African countries), I have to recordContinue Reading
When Chatterboy was born, we insisted on buying everything new, despite offers of useful stuff from quite a few people. Nothing but the best for our boy! we thought. Luckily, our friends were more sensible, and many of Chatterboy’s pieces of equipment have been used by many of them. TheContinue Reading
Today’s book review is Why TV Is Good for Kids : Raising 21st Century Children, by Catharine Lumby and Duncan Fine (who incidentally are married to each other with two small children). Despite the title, its not just about TV. Its a series of chapters (in some cases rants) aboutContinue Reading
In AFR Boss magazine last week, there was an article about the federal Australian public service (sorry, it’s not on the website), and how it seems to have reached critical mass in terms of senior women – so much so that they have their own word – femocrats. One thirdContinue Reading
I watched Gosford Park on DVD last night. As I think Robert Altman intended, the effect of showing both upstairs and downstairs, and making the people matter, is astonishment at the amount of work that went into maintaining that between-the-wars relaxed country house lifestyle that so many great books usedContinue Reading