by admin | Jan 11, 2017 | Uncategorized
One of the more remarkable stories that emerged while researching my 2015 book Olof’s Suitcase (about my Swedish grandfather, Olof Johanson) concerned a scheme by the Swedish king Gustav III to establish a colony in Australia 230 years ago – at exactly the same time...
by admin | Dec 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
On 2 January 2016, two months before we departed Canberra to move to Melbourne, we took the time to catch the latest major exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. This featured the art of Thomas William (“Tom”) Roberts (1856-1931), who is described as a...
by admin | Dec 17, 2016 | Uncategorized
This time last year (mid-December 2015) we went on a sea cruise of Southeast Asia. While the principal attraction for us was the opportunity to embark on an overland excursion to Cambodia to see the impressive 12th century religious capital of the Khmer empire at...
by admin | Nov 26, 2016 | Uncategorized
On Christmas Eve, 1956, an angry crowd gathered on the quay at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal at Port Said in Egypt, to watch the 10-metre tall bronze statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps (the French developer who built the canal) blasted off the pedestal from...
by admin | Nov 19, 2016 | Uncategorized
It can be wonderful and weird how freakish coincidences sometimes spring out from the writing projects on which I have been engaged over the years, never moreso than with my recently published biography of Oswald Watt, the man who turned a pre-World War I personal...
