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.

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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)

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Posture & Penmanship in Paintings: How Not To Do It

One cannot overstate the importance of good posture for an ergonomic writing habit, as I recently discovered while extending my ambidexterity to handwriting. (Ergonomic: ergo, meaning therefore, and nomic, meaning in the nature of a gnome – viz. you’ll end up wizened like a gnome if you don’t do it properly).

Of course, no sooner had I schooled myself in the Right and Proper way of positioning one’s assorted body parts while writing, than I discovered endless examples of those who were doing it in a Wrong and Improper way. Especially in art. Let us consider a collection of these Improprieties.

But first – and at intervals throughout, to keep your eye in – let me show you someone doing it right. (Note: nearly all these writers are writing with their right hands. For greater left-handed representation, hold a mirror up to the screen.)

 A woman in a late nineteenth century dress and hairstyle, sitting at a table with an envelope in her left hand and a pen in her right.
Albert Edelfelt: Dam som skriver brev. NM 2653

The Lady Writing a Letter is sitting up straight – neither leaning on her desk nor slumping in her chair (though I am prepared to believe her corsetry is assisting in this respect). Her upper arm is in line with her torso, and her lower arm is at approximately 90 degrees to her upper arm, and to her torso. Her arm rests gently on the paper, but her hand is not dragging at the page.

One girl leans over her page as she writes. Another girl leans on the table next to her and watches.

This girl is demonstrating the problem of bending over one’s page: it becomes impossible to keep one’s arms at the right angles, and they begin to stick out like chickens’ wings.

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