The COVID Diaries #2 – Strange Days

It's a strange feeling out there at the moment. Everyone is waiting for something to happen and endlessly discussing the various possibilities and ramifications, but... nothing yet. The numbers climb (300ish confirmed infected in Australia) but no-one really knows anyone directly affected. The worst part so far has probably been the old man who Wife…

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The COVID Diaries #1

It's suddenly getting very real. My family of five and I are battening down the hatches. After watching the virus spread around the world over the last few weeks, it's now spreading rapidly in Australia. At the time of writing there are about 200 cases confirmed, but we know that testing is running 2-3 days…

Short cuts and the long way

It's tempting to take the short cut, to imagine that you've found a quicker and easier (painless!) way of achieving something. Everyone else is a stickler for unnecessary rules, or unimaginative, or caught in habit. What this view doesn't take into account is that everything has a price. Whether in energy, time, money or emotional…

Gambling

I've never really warmed to gambling. I understand that it's one of those things that you're meant to at least slightly enjoy, especially in Australia where the value of "having a flutter" is a foundational cultural myth. It doesn't even leave me cold - I find it stressful and mildy boring.

13 May 2019, Blackburn

I went to vote yesterday. Being an early elector, I forwent the democracy sausage (don’t ask how the sausage is made) in favour of a surprisingly long queue slightly outside of my electorate. We have a very good-natured democracy, but one still has to run the gauntlet of people handing out flyers. Apart from the…

Swimming in the sea is to be commended

I am not a water person.

My parents will attest to this: decades of swimming lessons, panic at being forced to jump in the deep end and the humiliation of school swimming sports have all left their scars on my psyche.

Churches are to be commended

There's a lot to like about churches. By that I mean the buildings, not the ethically compromised trans-national bureaucracy of men with funny hats. I'd also further clarify by saying that I'm referring to churches with a bit of age on them, the ones that refer back to mediaeval times, even if they're not quite…

Medicine = flow

Ultimately, a lot of medicine is about understanding flow. Blood through vessels, air through bronchioles, water across membranes, electrolytes through cellular gates, neurotransmitters across the synaptic cleft. If you can understand the flow, especially if you can gain an instinctive feel for it, a lot of things start to make sense.

Heroes

People hunger for the heroic. Not the high achiever (necessarily), but the person who can peer behind the veil, if only a little bit, and understand the universe more deeply. We forgive that person anything because they are more than we are. Instead we're stuck with movie stars, athletes and politicians, who we invest with…

Adventure: Walking the Capital City Trail

Recently I walked the length of the Capital City Trail, a 30-ish km circuit walk around the inner suburbs of Melbourne. It passess through about a dozen suburbs and links up a series of walking and cycling trails that are human-powered arterial routes. I've wanted to do this walk for years as it seemed like…