Author Archive

In investment circles, to catch a falling knife is to buy a stock whose share price is plummeting rapidly, with the hope of a quick recovery and a generous profit, only to find the very opposite: the stock lower in value and oneself cut and confused. Maybe that’s why losses on the stock market are…

Where does something go that’s been twice-rejected? I recently bought a canvas print from the Reject Shop, only to find that upon getting it home, it was the incorrect size to fit the place where I had planned for it to hang. And so I returned it, settled the refund, and then walked away, leaving…

What an admirer of Taylor Swift (TS 1989) sees as a cool hoodie with the singer’s initials and birth-year, is not the same as what a military person in China sees. What else could it be, but a subversive reference to the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. Poor Taylor. She’s probably also copped some flak…

A spiral staircase leads up to the old bell tower at the church where I serve. The staircase is by no means grand, yet is still a delight and great source of intrigue for young visitors. I’m sure however that one day the building-regulators will find something that is too dangerous about it, and insist…

Once upon a time, a Farmer, who loved his cows very much, designed for them a purpose-built manger and filled it with hay. But one bleak day, a dog arrived with heavy tools, and proceeded to erect a sign beside the manger. Now this particular dog was more subtle than those of his ancestors. His…

Tim Cope is an Australian adventurer who from 2004 to 2007 rode a horse from Mongolia to Hungary, in the trail of Genghis Khan. He lived to tell many tales, and one was of a conversation that happened in the middle of Kazakhstan. After revealing to one of the locals that there are thousands of…

I decided to investigate the matter further. One of my English Bibles had suggested that the women who ran from the empty tomb on that first Sunday morning did so ‘trembling and bewildered’ (Mark 16:8). I was satisfied that the original word that stood behind the English word ‘trembling’ was appropriate, but it was the…

When they opened their doors at 3.30am on Good Friday at the Sydney Fish Markets, there was already a queue of people waiting to buy their Easter supplies. I must admit that I still don’t get the deal with eating fish on Friday. “Because Jesus died, and therefore you shouldn’t eat red meat,” is the…

We’re still fighting about it in Hurstville. Is it the Year of the Sheep or the Year of the Goat? The problem is, that the animal in question has horns. “It’s a ram of course,” says one, “and therefore the Year of the Sheep.” “The horns mean that it’s a goat,” bleats another, “and therefore…

When Mick Fleetwood was just a little drummer boy, his father gave him some sage advice: “The act of doing good, of making something that served the good of everyone in and of itself, was more important than getting the credit for it.” It was good advice, and advice that Fleetwood followed, allowing others to…