Stilgherrian – Page 12

20 July 202510 August 2025

Weekly Wrap 790: I’m still thinking about that trip to my birthplace, which was Gawler

Looking across the street at two classic Victorian-era civic buildings. On the left is a two-storey stone building, three windows wide, with a portico at the front finished in white plaster. Across the top it reads INSTITUTE and on the facade there’s the text “In Memoriam 1914 - 1918”. On the right is a shorter but similar building, with a terrace on top of its portico, and a row of four flagpoles. The flags are limp because there’s no wind, and they can’t be recognised. On the top of the facade is a set of arms (featuring a hawk, wheat, and lion, but drawn incorrectly), and the words TOWN HALL. In between them is a hint of modern architecture, namely the glass entry to a new building behind these two. The sky is bright blue with a few fluffy clouds.

Ages back I suggested that my productivity runs to a fortnightly cycle, and perhaps that’s still the case. My week of Monday 14 to Sunday 20 July 2025 involved quite a lot of sleep, but I still produced a podcast and a newsletter â€” and posted another photo from my recent expedition to South Australia.

16 July 202530 December 2025

The 9pm Half-time Bingo Card Update 2025 with Snarky Platypus

Illustrative stock imagery of a bingo card and bingo player stamps, with an inset image of a random platypus. — *Main image by* Rudonni *via Pixabay. Foreground bingo card originally by Milton Bradley Company,* photo by Abby Hendrickson *under under a* CC-BY 2.0 Generic *license. Platypus inset photo by Taronga Conservation Society Australia / Chris Wheeler. Digital composition by Stilgherrian.*

Back at the start of the year, my good friend Snarky Platypus and I created a bingo card for 2025. A set of 25 things that might happen. Well, we’re half-way through the year, so let’s see how we went.

14 July 202514 July 2025

Weekly Wrap 789: Podcasts! Three podcasts! (And another view from Granite Island)

A view from a hill on an island. In the right-hand foreground is a pile of massive weathered granite boulders, the upper ones coated in orange lichen where they’re above the salt spray, the lower ones washed bare by the waves. On the left and out to the horizon is the endless ocean under a grey sky. And in the upper right-hand background, running in about a third of the way in from the right of the frame, the distant shoreline ends in a lump of a headland, bare of trees.

My week of Monday 7 to Sunday 13 July 2025 was a podcast-productive week, with three episodes recorded and one of them posted. This was despite losing a couple of days to fighting off a cold or something. Such a good week. But the photo is from last week.

11 July 202511 July 2025

The 9pm AUKUS and the Echidna with Sam Roggeveen

A middle-aged white bloke wears a black jacket and t-shirt and, with arms folded, looks straight into the camera. An inset shows a book cover reading: “The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace by Sam Roggeveen”. And it has a picture of an echidna. — *Sam Roggeveen (Photo: Petri Kurkaa*). Inset: The cover of The Echidna Strategy. (Image: Black Inc Books)

Any moment now, Donald Trump might cancel AUKUS, the massive defence agreement which among other things would see Australia buying eight nuclear-powered submarines. AUKUS has become the big thing in Australia’s defence procurement, but do we need it? Sam Roggeveen thinks not, and he’s our guest today.

06 July 202506 July 2025

Weekly Wrap 788: I saw a kestrel on Granite Island

A view from a hill on an island towards the mainland, overlooking a bay. In the foreground just below us is a pine tree. Lining the shore opposite shore, across calm waters, are further pine trees, largely obscuring a small town. A track winds along the shore of the island around to the left, from where a low causeway connects the island to the shore opposite. The sky is cloudy, and in the distance there is gentle rain. All is serene.

My week of Monday 30 June to Sunday 6 July 2025 began in Adelaide, and we visited my birthplace of Gawler on Monday, and Victor Harbor and Granite Island on Tuesday. Bad weather in Sydney meant our return trip on Wednesday went via Melbourne and an almost-pointless overnight stay until Thursday, but here we are.

03 July 202506 July 2025

Weekly Wrap 787: A late (lack of) news from Adelaide

A two-car diesel multiple unit train approaches a railway station platform in the golden hour of evening sunlight. It has a flat red nose and is otherwise fluted metal, with a grass green band along the windows. The door frames are edged with safety yellow. In the background is a huge eucalypt tree and a moody sky.

My week of Monday 23 to Sunday 29 June 2025 saw the start of a semi-holiday which will eventually total six nights in my home town of Adelaide. I won’t go into the details now, because this is being posted four days late. Rather, I’ll post a few images and some commentary on the coming weekend, and later there will be a podcast. But hey it’s Adelaide, so there’s obviously plenty of good food and wine.