Category: Columns
Geoff has written for publications as diverse as PC User and The Northern Star His weekly columns have been a source of humour and inspiration for tens of thousands of readers and his mailbox is always full.
Here you can find his more recent contributions.
admin /24 January, 2009
The measured and sensible comments by shark victims and their friends this month are welcome relief from sensational headlines. ‘Monster munch: Australia in Jaws panic’ screamed the UK Guardian. Most international news ran pictures of the surfboard belonging to Tasmanian swimmer, Hannah Migall, with a chunk taken out of it by the Great White. One local TV station actually cut scenes from the sensationalist movie into the news broadcast.
In contrast to this hysteria, the victims were philosophical. “We swim in the ocean at our own risk, we don’t want to be wrapped in bubbles,” said Daniel Fleming after a close encounter with the Great White that ripped open Johnathon Beard’s leg at Fingal Beach on January 19. “The shark deserves to live like any other creature. I was in its territory, it’s not its fault,” said 16 year old Migall after her almost identical incident in Tasmania the day before. “I’m lucky the shark didn’t like me and spat me back out.”
Shark news and interviews on The Generator
admin /16 January, 2009
Thousands of people in the Northern Rivers have resolved not to give up smoking or fatty food this year, but to improve their accommodation. This is not a strange new cult, it is simply the effect of high house prices, population influx and low income on the local population.
Around 150 people are sleeping out on any given night in Tweed Shire.
admin /10 January, 2009
Welcome to the working year. You, Dear Reader, may still be kicking back, waiting for the school year to start, but it is more likely that you are back at work. I say that with confidence, because there are more adults working than not, in the Tweed Shire.
Statistics enable us to make reasonable predictions about small groups. Many of you attended some kind of gathering over the festive season. There were about twenty people around the table where I ate lunch on December 25. That’s not a bad size for a social gathering. You get to know everyone but there is enough variety to get away from the boring Uncle who wants to show off his collection of fruit stickers.
see related news article
admin /30 December, 2008
The tourists are among us, their rooftop pods snaffling parking spots without regard for the locals doing U turns across double lines. They sip imported water at our favourite café, while our usually friendly barrista looks through us semi-sympathetically. In the Gershwin’s immortal words, It’s Summertime.
A bookshop at Bondi Beach used to post a sign in its window during summer, “Spot the oxymoron.” Amid the smell of coconut oil, hot chips and deep fried Mars bars, visitors struggled to identify the internally conflicted title but locals had no such trouble. A guide to the Virgin Islands titled The Welcome Tourist won your columnist a ten dollar gift voucher.
admin /21 December, 2008
Flicking through my archive of Tweed Daily News columns for 2008, I’m amazed.
I’m amazed what we know now, dear reader, that we did not know a year ago. We know a lot more about the impact of carbon dioxide on the climate, about the impact of speculative finance on the price of oil, wheat and just about anything else you care to name, where our new government stands on these issues, what Green councillors can and cannot achieve … it is a long list of significant knowledge gained. We have also seen significant change. The caldera is officially one of the natural wonders of the world, our living wonder, the one-legged colossus, Max Boyd, has retired after a quarter century presiding over council and insurance companies and the state government have finally recognised the lessons bequeathed us by King Canute and Saint Paul: Do not command the waves or build on sand.
admin /14 December, 2008
Last month, the Pope made reference in his world peace day address to the “false correlation between poverty and birthrate.” The Pope has criticized population policy a number of times this year, observing in Sydney Australia during World Youth Week that developed nations have a population crisis and must increase their birth rates to re-establish population growth.
The focus on population growth has been building all year as a result of looming crises in water, food and energy supplies, coupled with the apparent failure of attempts to address World Poverty.
The irony of the fact that world leaders were in New York to discuss World Poverty on the day the financial markets decided to collapse has been lost on the two billion people in the world who do not have enough to eat and whose future looks more bleak than their past.
