Sydney’s water crisis is over, for the moment. Our dams are now 65.5% full – up from 33.9% on the 8th February 2007. That will last us around two to three years without any more rain, at the current rate, which feels like a reasonable cushion. Not coincidentally, Sydney’s water consumption went from anContinue Reading
This week Beaton Consulting released a study on work life balance. Beaton’s main game is as advisors to professional services firms (law firms, accounting firms, etc). Every year they do a mammoth survey of those firms’ clients, to find out who is the best in each category. As a sideline, they tackContinue Reading
The Sydney Tele yesterday had a front page screamer about Glenn Stevens, Governor of the Reserve Bank – Is this man Australia’s most useless? There were two main parts to the critique. First, that the Reserve Bank should be stopping the banks from raising interest rates beyond the official cash rate;Continue Reading
Around here, one of the common topics of conversation among the parent community is, “where are you going to send your kids to high school?” We genuinely have no idea. Our options are made much more complex by the fact that all of the six high schools within walking distance of ourContinue Reading
When you have a new baby, suddenly you notice them everywhere. Certainly, that’s how I felt with Chatterboy. I assumed that in my formerly childless state, they’d always been there, but I hadn’t noticed them before. But I’ve just been looking at the census statistics for my local area, andContinue Reading
Many have written eloquently about the meaning of today. Until today, I had been too busy enjoying watching the liberal party squirm to think about it. But watching Martin Place today crowded with people huddled under umbrellas watching and listening respectfully to Kevin Rudd’s speech of apology to the Aboriginal people was veryContinue Reading
There are some spectacular buildings in Sydney’s CBD – many of them heritage listed. My favourites are the sandstone public service buildings along Bridge St, but there some other pretty good ones scattered about the city. I was in one of them, today, and it struck me, again, how intrusive aContinue Reading
Today, on Australia Day, it seems appropriate to write about The Secret River, by Kate Grenville. Australia Day commemorates the day in 1788 when the First Fleet landed in Sydney Cove with a cargo of convicts from Britain. The first recorded time that Europeans settled in Australia. Many Aboriginal peopleContinue Reading
This week, in the post, I got a cheque for $50 from Morris Iemma, Premier of NSW, which included a cheesy message reminding me that he is the father of four children. It was the back-to-school allowance for Chatterboy (I get Hungry Boy’s in a month’s time after he’s actually started Kindergarten).Continue Reading
Today’s book review is Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, by Philippe Legrain. Legrain is a British journalist (but with a complex heritage involving Estonia, the US and France) who started writing this book just after the July 2005 terrorist attacks on London. The book’s introduction is titled “It’s time for freshContinue Reading
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