They say going to a music festival is like covering eight weeks worth of music. How on earth does one cram that in a single review? Whether that’s true or not, it makes sense to rave about the highlights that were experienced at Peats Ridge Sustainable Art & Music Festival a three day magical music…
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Kinesiology is often referred to as an alternative form of natural health care. These days, natural therapies such as Acupuncture and Naturopathy have joined the ranks as accepted and effective types of treatment, but what about Kinesiology? Kinesiology is the study of human movement derived from the combination of ancient Chinese medicine and western science…
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Lena Dunham won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy Series, and Best TV Comedy for Girls, and the wins have sparked yet more internet furor about the show, her body, and whether or not Girls is even vaguely representative of young women’s experiences. I have seen Season One of Girls, and enjoyed…
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Continuing on from my last column on whether or not writers should be paid for writing for the internet, this week I read an article about author Joe Simpson (Touching the Void), who decided to split from his publisher Random House over a dispute about ebook royalties. Random House were prepared to offer Simpson 25…
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When I was in high school I had an English teacher who was a self-proclaimed language snob. With hunched shoulders and a heavy scowl he would stalk the corridors, scanning the cacophony of teenage girls for sloppy English. If he heard you say ‘presume’ when you should have said ‘assume’, or ‘that’ when you meant…
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Approximately 35% of women have been involved in emotionally abusive relationships at some point in their lives. We tend to take the philosophy to heart that making mistakes in relationships is part of our evolutionary process of growth. But what’s the difference between mistakes and being emotionally abused? And can we recognise the signs, before…
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By now you’ve probably heard of Julie Burchill’s column and the subsequent outrage it provoked. The piece, which was published in print and online, attracted more than 2000 comments before it was removed from The Guardian’s website. In essence, Burchill—a freelance writer and feminist—outright attacked transgender people in her article ‘Transsexuals should just cut it…
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Shawnee McPhail and her wife, Arielle, were the targets of a quiet but nauseating act of homophobia last month in the US state of North Carolina. The couple had just finished lunch at The Sting Ray Cafe, and were holding hands on their way to the car, when the restaurant owner, Ed McGovern, approached them…
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When I was younger, I thought the most glamorous job in the world was to be Adriana Xenides from Wheel of Fortune. I thought the second most glamorous job was to be a waitress. This was mostly because going out for a meal was a treat when I was little; an occasion which required me…
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It’s a well known fact that the older we get, the harder this friends-making business is. Which is why moving to a city 1500km from where most of your existing friends are (with whom you are extremely enamoured) is damn hard. There are a lot of new people in your life, and some of them…
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How many times have you considered the question, `If your house was burning down, what one thing would you save?’ Sadly, the piles of ash and ruins in towns like Dunalley in Tasmania’s South tell us that more than 100 households were likely faced with that very question recently. How heart-wrenching it has been to…
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It’s who you know, not what you know. I’d always assumed this saying was a sign of questionable morals and the people who uttered such things were the privileged amongst us who’d never known the true meaning of hard work. But the reality is your contacts and your networks can be a valuable part of…
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And the Heart Says Whatever is a lightening rod of a book. Emily Gould’s life has been the stuff of cult films and teenage daydreams. She has beautiful tattoos snaking all over her upper torso and a don’t-give-a-fuck sensibility that, combined with her personal and professional experiences, make her an easy, lazy target for mockery and hipster-bashing….
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Have you ever had that dream? The one where you’re working for yourself, running an indie record store/bookshop/café/bar/vintage clothing store? And every day is a dream-like holiday where you get to chat to your lovely customers, hang out in a gorgeous little shop and earn money directly from the source rather than through wages? Yeah,…
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