Latest Posts
Heritage insides
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
A title is inadequate
I said in my Unearthed post that I’ve had some great mentors. Christian was one of them. Fifteen years ago, Christian in an act of enormous generosity (that I only recognised as such in retrospect), convinced her boss that it made sense to split her own job up and give me (a refugee fromContinue Reading
How to be efficient – limit your work time
I’ve been listening to some of the podcasts at Manager Tools, while I’ve been running. Two advantages – if I’m listening to someone talk, I’m less likely to notice how unfit I feel, and I keep running, and the podcasts are some of the most practical management advice I’ve seenContinue Reading
Fairness at the top
EOWA recently released a study of remuneration of the very top of the Australian corporate tree. They took the public information about the top 200 listed companies, their five highest paid executives, their top management team – described as executive managers (CEO and director reports) and analysed the gender splits by roleContinue Reading
Book Review: The Secret River
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
Computer games
The school holidays are nearly over here. Chatterboy goes back to school next Wednesday, and Hungry Boy has his first day at big school next Thursday. So they will both have had five weeks of pretty relaxed holidays – going to the beach, and museums, visiting friends and other bits andContinue Reading
Middle class welfare
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
Party party party
Hugh McKay has a very grumpy rant in the SMH today about the excessiveness of children’s birthday parties. He starts with a description of a two year old’s party, which is more extreme than any two year old’s party I’ve ever been to (I must move in the wrong circles),Continue Reading
Cycle Lanes
In a front page story in the SMH today, the NRMA (NSW’s peak motorist lobby group) accused the government of wasting money on cycle lanes. “The Iemma Government is building a cycleway alongside choked Epping Road, despite as few as 25 cyclists using that corridor each day. At $7.6 millionContinue Reading
Book Review: Immigrants – Your country needs them
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