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The 9pm Edict

Here, ladies and gentlemen, no more than 20 minutes late, is episode 5 of The 9pm Edict. Finally.

You can listen to this episode below. But if you want them all, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

For more information on what I discussed today, try the NSW police media releases about Sunday’s explosion and Monday’s arrest, the Urban Taskforce media release and the ABC’s story on same, this Sydney Morning Herald story on various NSW Labor connections, Kristina Keneally’s Wikipedia entry, my post on Maurice Newman’s speech and the PM report on same, and Marcus Westbury’s column for The Age.

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

The 9pm Edict

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is episode 4 of The 9pm Edict. Finally.

You can listen to this episode below. But if you want them all, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Update 6 March 2010: I really should link to the material I discuss. That's the Harold Park redevelopment plan and the local residents' objections, the Vivid Festival, Laurie Anderson's Language is a Virus, Dom Knight's The Premier, the portrait and the paedophile and NSW Premier Kristina Keneally's video A New Direction.]

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

Introducing my new series of occasional photographs, Butt Cracks of the Inner West. In this first instalment, an encounter in Erskineville on a Saturday night. Attractive, is it not?

How, exactly, do you wear a leather belt and still get this amount of nether-cleavage?

Photograph of John Howard's campaign office in Epping by Trinn ('Pong) Suwannapha
Yesterday ’Pong and I journeyed to Epping in Sydney’s north-west suburbs to photograph this monument to history: John Howard’s campaign office for the 2007 federal election. It’s still empty almost two years later.

Epping seemed strangely bleak. This was far from being the only empty shop on Beecroft Road. Signs were dilapidated. In the alley behind the shops, magpies rummaged through restaurant garbage bins in search of food. The eucalypt smoke enshrouding the suburb — the result of back-burning operation before summer — didn’t help.

Two years ago posts referencing John Howard dominated this website’s tag cloud. It’s been a long time since he was Prime Minister, but he’s still prominent here and in the mainstream media through things like his Menzies Lecture — and that was a strange attempt to stamp his own rhetoric onto Australia’s political history.

I wonder how long it’ll be until we stop hearing about the miserable old toad?

[Photo: A Space for Howard ©2009 Trinn (’Pong) Suwannapha. All rights reserved.]

Abstract photo of pond scum at Homebush Bay, Sydney

For some reason, the colours of the pond scum in the Homebush Bay wetlands in Sydney appealed to me. This photograph was taken some time in 2004.

One of the little annoyances in my life is that the clock on the Newtown Post Office in Sydney is permanently stuck at 3.45pm. Public clocks, key piece of civic infrastructure in the Victorian age, are now neglected.

I was therefore rather pleased to stumble across this video clip promoting the Stopped Clocks movement which appeared on the BBC’s The One Show .

Would anyone like to start a Sydney chapter with me? If so, what Stopped Clocks do you know about?

Photograph of the urinal in the Clarendon Hotel, Surry Hills, Sydney

It’s been too long since I’ve posted one of my urinal photos. Let’s fix that.

This image was taken last week at the Clarendon Hotel on Devonshire Street, Surry Hills in Sydney, after a particularly pleasant conversation with a couple of friends.

Photograph of a concrete giraffe on Dixon Street, Sydney

Why, exactly, is this confused-looking concrete giraffe in Dixon Street, the heart of Sydney’s Chinatown?

It’s not like they have giraffes in China. It’s not like there’s a giraffe in the Chinese zodiac. It’s not like giraffes are a good-luck charm or anything. WFT? Please explain!

Photograph of giant paper-lantern ox for Chinese New Year

This year Australia Day coincides with Chinese New Year. It’s the start of the Year of the Ox in just a few hours — New Moon is at 1853 AEDT — which explains this giant ox in Belmore Park.

I haven’t written anything new this year. My photographic post Great Australian Dreaming 1, our silly new national anthem and my essay Are you proud of your culture? said it all last year. Unless I think of something really original later today.

I’m caving in to pressure. Following the success of my first experiment, Gonzo Twitter 1: Saturday Evening in Newtown, at 6.30pm or thereabouts I will liveblog from King Street, Newtown, or wherever the mood takes me on this fine Sunday evening.

Wow, that’s in just a few minutes! [Update 22 December: No, it was last night. But you can still see what happened in the CoveritLive tool immediately below the fold. The timestamps seem to be an hour early though.]

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