Eccentric – Page 10 – Deborah Makarios

July 12, 2020July 12, 2020

Worst Beta Reader Ever

One of my favourite fictional detectives in my youth was Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. Being mixed-race, he has one foot in the Aboriginal world and one in the white world, without ever fully belonging in either. It was something I related to as a TCK (although I’m not mixed-race – unless you count English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish as mixed race – just mixed-up).

Boundary riding on the Rabbit-Proof Fence, 1920s. Note camels.

The author of the “Bony” novels was Arthur Upfield, and in the late 1920s, while working as a boundary rider on the Rabbit-Proof Fence, he thought he’d try writing a mystery where the detective is hampered by the absence of a body. (The victim’s body, that is. Incorporeal detectives, as far as I know, didn’t come along until some four decades later, with Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).)

Continue & Comment

June 30, 2020June 30, 2020

Moving to a Me-Made Wardrobe

Late last year I decided to move to a mostly me-made wardrobe.
As I wrote in Ten Ways to a More Ethical Wardrobe, “Obviously, this is a long-term, take-it-a-step-at-a-time proposition. Still, the freedom inherent in being able to decide for yourself what cloth, cut and colour you want, instead of being forced to choose from a limited number of options, is very alluring.”

person dreaming at sewing machine with cat

It was the extremely limited number of options available in ladies’ underclothing that finally sparked my rebellion. I was used to my clothing preferences leaving me with reduced choice in the vast ocean of mass-produced fashion. I wasn’t expecting to be left with no choice but a scratchy, lurid beige thing which didn’t even resemble the image on its own label. (I bet you didn’t know beige could be lurid. Neither did I.)

Continue & Comment

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020

The T-Rex’s Remarkable Grandchild

Grandchild being in this case a major understatement, but seriously, chickens are amazing. Amazing and amazingly weird.

Take the whole issue of eggs for example. It takes a hen about 26 hours to produce an egg. But when the hen sits on a whole batch of them – up to a dozen – they all hatch around the same time, not at 26 hour intervals for a fortnight. (Assuming a rooster was involved prior to egg-laying. Otherwise no business results and the hen gets bored after a while and wanders off.)

Continue & Comment