Blog

Posted on

A Remarkable Man

Relatively few people have ever heard of Sir Julius Vogel, and this is unfortunate, because he was a remarkable man.

Having studied metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines in London (his birthplace), he moved to Australia during the Victoria gold rush and became…logically…a journalist and newspaper editor.

The ODT's 100th anniversary supplement, showing the first front page and a drawing of the cottage where the paper was first printed.

After moving across the Tasman to New Zealand in October 1861, he co-founded the Otago Daily Times – now New Zealand’s oldest surviving daily newspaper – the following month, and plunged into politics the following year, becoming an MP the year after that. Over the next quarter of a century he would represent five different electorates in the New Zealand Parliament, ranging from “Dunedin and Suburbs North” in the south to “Auckland East” in the north.

Another of his electorates was Goldfields – a special interest electorate which covered the same geographical area as other electorates but was only open to voters with a valid miner’s license. No electoral roll was kept – just show your license and vote.

Continue & Comment
Posted on

A Holiday Assortment

being a selection of crafts, games, incident and etymology which have enlivened the holiday season for me and may well perform the same service for you.

We don’t usually have a Christmas tree in this household. I don’t like plastic and I don’t much like felling trees either. We did try a living tree in a pot, but keeping it alive proved more than we were capable of. Thus the usual absence of tree. This year, however, as I was hanging out the washing on Christmas Eve, I accidentally broke a branch off the rosemary which grows beneath the washing line. So this year, we had a tree, albeit not a very large one.

A spiky green branch of rosemary in bud rises from a yellow plant pot on a white shelf. Around it are a small corked ceramic jar, a sheathed paperknife, and a small metal model of a camel.

It did manage to bloom at one point – you can see the buds in the photo above if you look carefully – but alas, it didn’t put down roots in the soil provided, and it did not long survive the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Continue & Comment
Posted on

Coming Soon! A Season of Change

Change is afoot!

For reasons which I Am Not At Liberty To State (yet), the three novels I have published to date may shortly cease to be available in paperback form. Or in paper form at all.

But what you lose on the swings, you make up on the roundabouts.

Side note: I am having difficulty thinking of anything that one might lose on swings which could then be recouped or regained on roundabouts. One’s lunch? No. One’s wallet? Doubtful. A parkouring thief who sails across the playground on the swings before being trapped in the roundabout like a comic actor in a revolving door? Unlikely, to say the least. However, far be it from me to question the metaphoric wisdom of Those Who Have Gone Before.

A woman sits sadly on a swing, back to the viewer. The swing next to her is empty. In the background is a roundabout, also empty.
This woman has clearly lost something on the swings which she has not yet regained on the roundabout.

However.

While I am hoping in the future to make my books available in quality hardback form, in the shorter term the role of the roundabouts will be played by….

(drumroll please)

Continue & Comment
Proudly powered by WordPress