While it is common to see statues commemorating famous sportsmen and women, it is extremely rare, if not unique to dedicate a statue to a spectator. As far as I can ascertain, Yabba is the only sports spectator I know who holds such an honour. Stephen Harold Gascoigne, or Yabba as he became famously known …
No matter how many times I have tried to tell them, it seems Google have decided that I would enjoy all of their services and sites much better – in German! For probably millions of expats, this cunningly unclever use of Google’s localising intelligence is an absolute pain in the butt. I want my sites …
I visit a lot of blogs, websites and social networking pages that are very informative or entertaining, but are cluttered with poorly formatted links. Using copy and paste to add a long and meaningless URL link looks just plain ugly. I’ll use one of my books on Amazon as an example of what these raw …
As I know many Vandal readers are writers, I know they will understand when I say that there are times when the words just get stuck. Some call it writer’s block, but really it’s just a moment in a story when the ideas dry up or you feel that the story is drifting. While there …
Twitter is a great platform for information, communication and making new friends. Yes, there are the spammers, but the block button fixes them easily. There are the oddballs, whackos and those who have their own hobby horse to ride, along with those who only like to look at what’s going on. It’s a microcosm of …
Giving away the books you have written seems to defy logic. Why give away all your hard work for nothing? Well, welcome to the new world of Internet based publishing and book selling, where you can throw all you old logic straight out of the window. Since day one of the Internet free has been the …
It has been sometime since I posted some classic Australian poetry. So I thought I would right that wrong with one of my favourites that opens with an unforgettable line that was burned into my memory in my schooldays. I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better I recall my …
An odd fact I’ve noticed about my blog is that my posts about stupidity rate as highly as my posts about books and publishing. So I thought. Why not combine these two popular post topics into one? Hence, today’s offering. Books and abject stupidity. Now I’m sure you’ll all be rushing off to Amazon or …
The Lizard and the Golden Fish A small lizard stood motionless next to a garden pond, his eyes fixed on a swirl in the water below. Beneath the water’s surface glided an exquisitely beautiful fish. Never in this life had he seen anything as lovely; the fishes’ scales gleamed an amazing golden color, her tail …
There was a time long, long ago in the days when books were books that the singular most important issues that needed careful attention before publishing were editing, proof reading and choosing the typography. Once that first proof copy hit your eyes, you knew all the work was over and your book was born and …
Out On A Limb Long before it happened, Soldier knew the end of his world was coming. In truth, it was only as a consequence of his caste that Soldier appreciated better than most where the threat to their small and fragile world really lay. Queen could never have noticed or understood, even if she …
‘I am the greatest’, was his catch cry and he was right. However, for Ali he was fortunate to have been a star of the sixties and seventies when free to air television was the king maker. I recall our family sitting around our black and white television waiting for the ‘Thriller in Manilla’. Watching …
