Good news #1: I’m not dead; good news #2: the blog’s not dead. Rather, I’ve taken a month or so off thanks to a combination of bad things, good things and neutral things.
Bad things: major unpleasantness from commenters I respect around some of the things I’d written about Julian Assange; the realisation that some of the things I’d written about Assange – not necessarily the same ones – were not things I was wholly proud of having written; and (non-Assange-relatedly) a fairly horrible break-up in real life, which was entirely my fault and not something that’s sympathy-warranting, but which made me cut down on my online presence generally.
Good things: an awesome and amazing month being an utter tourist all over Australia [*] after some of my favourite people took time off to trek 15,000km across the world and visit; the emergence of a proper summer; the presence of paid work that needed doing.
Neutral things: the death of my router and a mild eBay failure which mean it took a fortnight to sort out a replacement.
Anyway. I’m now back for the duration, not least because my Masters degree in Digital Communication & Culture starts next month. I’m looking forward to such activities as explaining in detailed academicese why this article is an absolute load of arse, for example. Oh, and obvious digital communication joke.
Other Things To Look Forward To: why the fatuous idiocy of the NSW Liberal Party doesn’t matter as much as you might think; something about beer; something about Tim Worstall’s book. Be excited.
[*] May contain elements of lie. “All over NSW and Tas”. “All over Australia” would be more like a 5-year break…
It liiiiiiiives!
Glad to read you again. Thought you might have been washed away.
Please tell me you saw some of the cricket!!!!! Being in Australia while we were thrashing the pants off them in the Ashes must have been a great experience. I did all 5 tests last time (5-0 to Australia) so am very jealous!
I kept a rather interesting article about Australia at this link. I think this is a good picture of what the coalition would like to get to. You seem to be enjoying a small state egalitarian society ?
http://iznewmania.blogspot.com/2011/01/australia….
Not quite sure how the NOTW stealing private information is so diffrent to Julian Assange doing it,but he is a hero (apparently). Another case of poltics over justice ?
Thanks for that piece – interesting, although it neglects the important fact that Australia is a rock the size of Europe made of gold and coal with the population of southeast England. It's very nice here, indeed, but as with Norway, the prescription "have a strong legal system and enormous quantities of natural resources, then you'll be sorted" isn't much use for other states.
On the other one: the NOTW stole the information, whereas Julian Assange had it leaked to him, which is perfectly legal on his part (otherwise journalism would be a bit shafted). Pte Manning, who did steal the information, looks set to go to jail for a long time; it'd be nice if the NOTW's mottley crew were to meet the same fate.
Oh happy thought .SE England would be a wealthy country ,out of Europe,with, I think,only four Labour MP`s. We aren`t sitting on gold or coal anyway the rule 'Country plus Natural resources = happiness' does not hold universally true.
(The rest of the scribbling world should follow NOTW to the nick ( hooray).Sadly this only entails a rest a gym and voting for the rest of us to leave our doors open and keys in the ignition.Excellent work.