Farewell

And, so I bring The Duke of Conceptual Architecture to its end. There’s nothing refined, graceful or anything else ascribed to nobility in the many years of rants that will be archived here. The Duke was a nickname given to me by a friend in reference to my enormous capacity to bullshit. He felt it deserved some sort of honorary title and elevation to the rank of nobility, despite bearing none of its hallmarks. The new site, will be less Duke-like in this regard – less of my bullshit. I’ll probably even use the word ‘shit’ a lot less. No guarantees, but come on over and see how I go.

If there’s one thing a lawbreaker needs in his inventory, it’s secrets, and if there’s one enemy of secrets, it’s love. The names of your informers, what backstabbing campaigns you’re embarking on, where you store your guns, your drugs, your money, the location of your hideout, the interchangeable lists of friends and enemies, your contacts,…

Nothing says summer holidays to me like books, the daily Jumble Word in the SMH and movies. However, I did my best to avoid slipping into holiday mode by trying to convince myself I could continue reading John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice during my break. This, however, was not to be my only mistake….

There’s probably only one word that could be used to describe Barry Abbott: indefatigable. From the Australian of the Year Awards site: Barry Abbott, from Alice Springs, was awarded Northern Territory’s Senior Australian of the Year 2011 for his lifetime commitment to turning around the lives of young men at risk. Barry is an Arrente…

Senator from South Australia, Cory Bernardi, completely stumped me today as I was listening to AM. This morning Senator Bernardi put forward his justifications to Sabra Lane of AM for banning Islamic banking practices. They made no sense. Yes, this is the Cory Bernardi of ‘ban the burqa‘ fame. He made no sense then, he’s…

So another chiropractor’s appointment was had last week with mixed results. The good news: the ankle is sorted. The bad news: it is likely to suffer from tightness, soreness and/or instability as a side effect of other problems.

I had started this post as a eulogy for my right ankle after my podiatrist appointment on Tuesday morning. It is now Friday and many things have happened making this more of a prologue to a potentially bright future with a pain-free and almost fully-functional ankle. How my fortunes have changed in so few hours.1…

After writing about Jessica Mauboy’s video clip yesterday, I feel a little dirty and want to purify myself with some good music. I hadn’t heard much about the new album by John Legend and The Roots, so was surprised it contained so many covers. Of course, it’s a covers album It also contains one original…

It’s not that I’m a cultural snob, but the ‘Entertainment’ section of newspapers and news websites tend to scrape the bottom of the barrel of what counts as journalism. And, I’m sorry to say, but I don’t agree with people that find celebrities interesting anyway. I feel this way because of the ‘scandals’ and ‘controversies’…