A better Top 10 for 2007

Being very disappointed with my most popular posts during 2007, here’s a list of 10 posts which I think are a better, more intelligent read. Enjoy.

Actually make that 15. In no particular order…

  1. The Inaugural Paul Neil Milne Johnstone Award goes to…
  2. It’s the little details which matter…
  3. Oops, there goes privacy! So now what?
  4. Scaring the shit out of clients
  5. Releasing the Black Hawk crash video was A Good Thing
  6. Thoughts on “Earth Hour”
  7. Stay alert, ye nameless, toiling animals
  8. Why The Greens won’t win Marrickville (about the last state election, but still relevant)
  9. How can Microsoft stop us hating them?
  10. Burnt out sofa, burnt out life
  11. “Let’s just write that down…”
  12. Human Rights: a reminder
  13. A Meditation at 11,700 metres, 719km/h
  14. Saturday Night at The Duke
  15. and everything I wrote for Crikey (is that cheating?)

Most of that’s reasonably serious — suitable for a reflective Sunday morning, though. So you might want to check out the entire Humour category too.

They’re also the longer pieces, but I reckon there’s a whole swathe of little comments which are wonderful contributions to the sum total of English literature. Don’t you agree?

Review: Exit Right

Cover of Quarterly Essay: Exit Right

Quarterly Essay has provided me with plenty of in-depth analysis over the last couple of years, and Judith Brett’s “Exit Right: the unravelling of John Howard” is no exception.

Brett presents Howard’s downfall through the prism of the “Strong Leader”, one of three leadership types put forward by political psychologist Graham Little. (The others are the Group Leader and the Inspiring Leader.) Howard failed, Brett says, because his leadership style was ill-suited to the political environment of 2007.

Continue reading “Review: Exit Right”

Most popular posts of 2007

OK, there’s still 2 days to go, but close enough. Here’s a list of the most-read items on this website during 2007.

  1. More Steve Irwin jokes
  2. Danger List demonstrates Drug Hypocrisy
  3. Daylight Saving Chaos
  4. 33 Days of Wiki Inspiration
  5. Brain-Dead Businesses
  6. About Stilgherrian
  7. Vodafone only half-useful
  8. Julie, I want to make you a star (in a Samantha Fox kind of way)
  9. The First Tacky Steve Irwin Joke
  10. Weekly Poll: Who’s the greatest pop band?

I’m disappointed. The continuing interest in stupid Steve Irwin jokes is particularly depressing. There’s only one item in the Top 10 which I’m even vaguely proud of (number 8), and even then that’s a self-indulgent joke.

Numbers 5 and 7 are only there because they catch everyone searching for “Vodaphone”, not realising it’s spelled “Vodafone”. Number 3 is there because Microsoft Entourage has a bug which shows up every time you switch to or from daylight saving, and I posted the actual text of the error message. Lots of people looking for help, but I don’t have the answer.

I’d much prefer to have some of my more thoughtful essays in the list.

Unreliable Bangkok 8: Henge

Photograph of abandoned railway structures in Bangkok

When the Thai economy was booming in the early 1990s, construction started on a 60km high-speed elevated train and motorway link from central Bangkok to the international airport at Don Mueang. However when the currency collapsed in 1997-98, work was abandoned.

These stained concrete fragments (pictured) are all that remains of the Bangkok Elevated Road and Train System (BERTS) or Hopewell project. They line the old diesel-fuelled railway through northern Bangkok like a modernist Stonehenge.

Continue reading “Unreliable Bangkok 8: Henge”

Weekly Poll: 2007 in Review

Even though there’s still 3 days of 2007 left, I’m way behind the pace. Most media outlets issued their 2007 in Review pieces well before Christmas. That means they missed such “minor” stories as the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Oops.

Still, I’m going to risk further irrelevance and ask what, for you, was the biggest event in Australia for 2007. Was it…?

Or something else? Please go to the website to vote, and add further suggestions in the comments.

Previous results: Yes, more people said Christmas was “too much effort” than any other single answer. However “a glorious celebration of Our Saviour’s birth” did score 24% in a late come-back.

[poll id=”16″]