Mike Riversdale

A meeting of the ages with the spires of the Church meeting the glass highrise of Commerce .

It's a poster from the 1960s or even maybe the 1970s, heck it might be even later. No matter, I saw this and thought of the classic Will Hay movie Oh, Mr Porter! which I still watch now and again and laugh out loud. And seeing as Oh, Mr Porter! is (nearly?) out of copyright here it is  

Suicide in Aotearoa New Zealand is a well known country-wide failing, especially for boys + men. The following themes were extracted from suicide letters donated by families to the Key To Life (KTL) Trust, "This was not a scientific or academic piece of research in its purest sense. Rather, it was an attempt to understand the people whose final communications have been provided by families who responded to calls to participate in the 1000 Letters project and importantly to look for common themes and distil any trends or triggers from the material" Key Themes from the 1000 Letters Project Impulsive suicides were the exception, not the norm. Most who wrote about their reasons described months, years, or even decades of issues that contributed to their final decision, even if that decision seemed sudden to others. Love was not enough. Writers knew they were loved and they reciprocated that love. Having love could became additional evidence that there was something wrong with th

A sci-fi book cover, released in the early 80s, something like a Stainless Steel Rat story, definitely connected with 2000AD . The title is something like, "Welcome To Your Future", but it's not dystopian. Well, that's what I see in this edited and filtered Sydney morning highrise photo, what about you?

So, the story goes ...  My Dad was a massive Home and Away fan back in the late 90s and early 2000s, during that time he and Mum came to visit, whilst I was living in Sydney. I was working and so, during the days, they took themselves off to see the sites. One hot sunny day they caught various modes of public transport all the way up to " Summer Bay " to see where Home and Away was filmed. As the bus drew into Palm Beach Dad saw that they were actually filming and, like a giggly school fan, jumped off the bus to run down the street just in case they packed up before he got there.  I loved that about Dad, he wouldn't have cared a jot and not given it a thought that this could've looked unbecoming to those observing. In fact he would've laughed and said, "Just a bit of fun eh, got to enjoy life!"

The Elis James and John Robins podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live is one for those with a UK connection, and particularly with a Welsh connection, a golfing connection, a sporting (football) connection, a "How should I stack the dishwasher" connection, or a deep deep Queen connection. Elis is laid back, funny as fuck and very quick. He is also a great one for the accents. John is an angry young (!) man, can be frustrating as arse, but is also funny as fuck and very VERY quick. His wanky abbreviations get on my tits, but I live with it as he's worth it. Together they absolutely click, and it is definitely a podcast for the driving situation. Oh, and Dave, the producer, is a perfect third wheel, and it' a joy to hear him pull John (mostly) back from the brink of full on advertising and applying the BBC "fairness" policy ... Elis usually dives in and ignoring the rules and says what we're all thinking anyway. So please, give the podcast a go whilst driving,

It was a hell of a climb up to the Barrenjoey Lighthouse but well worth it looking down upon Palm Beach. And yes, Barrenjoey is one hell of a name eh, but this makes sense of it (sort of): The headland was first named as "Barrenjuee" by Governor Phillip in 1788 from the Aboriginal name for small wallaby. After many interpretations, the name is now "Barranjoey" on Admiralty maps and "Barrenjoey" on road maps. [ source: Wikipedia, Barrenjoey Head Lighthouse ]  

Cool eh, a termite mound up a knackered tree that looks like a three fingered hand.  All of those words I have written at some point in the past but NEVER all together in one sentence, gotta love language.

A colourful street thing in Kings Cross, Sydney.

Reminds me of a tenement house in London during the Blitz. No, no, somewhere where Holmes would be found in disguise at the start of a case.

What do you do with your education now that you have it – and now that it is beginning to become obsolete even as you sit here? -  Choose One of Five | Andrew Scott | Figures of Speech If you want you can also read the whole transcript , this for me is the choice I made and I didn't even know it, I can't imagine any other way of being. And then, finally, there's choice five. It's hard to state this one. About as close as I can come to it is this: Hang loose, but stay vibrantly alive. This one's strenuous. This one's demanding. Choice five would demand of you that you consider today's graduation no more than a pause to catch your breath before continuing the life-long job of education. It would demand of you that you be your own unique best self. And there is no higher demand that that. Choice five entails wide-ranging reading and deep-probing thought. It calls for a contradictory thing - a mind that is constantly open to new facts that dictate change bu

This is a true story, apparently. ... he mistook the North Star for the light of a friendly cabin and tried to ski into the sky. It is written up quite jovially but I'm sure it wasn't quite so jolly for Aimo Koivunen at the time. He regained consciousness some time later, finding himself in a hole of snow three feet deep, holding a smoldering ski pole in one hand and the door handle in the other. The explosions had blasted most of his clothes off and left him too injured to walk. He just about managed to start a small fire with the remains of the door and boiled some snow, but the situation was desperate.  And believe me, it's a story that just keeps on giving - don't stop at the wee history lesson towards the beginning, there's MUCH more to come after that! He finally wrote a short memoir in 1977, after a local magazine held a contest for soldiers to tell their stories. It took ... second place. Meet The Soldier Who (Accidentally) Had An Epic Drug Trip ... In The M

A week or so ago I posted a few videos under the collective title Is There Nothing That Is? , and here's another that not only pulls the rug away from things you (definitely I) thought but the also explains why not, which is always a nice way of doing it.

Watched a game, had some fun, took some photos. And now, 3 years later, I can also say, edited a photo.  Makes me happy .

Not a view I often see of the Sydney Opera House.

The Sydney CBD is know as "the city".  "What you doing after work?" "Just gonna have a quick drink in the city and then head home." But of course it's not pronounced that way, not by Sydney-siders, "the sea-dee" is the closest I can get in writing, and you need to say it quite slowly.

It got a bit cold so I bought a cheap Wallabies knock-off shirt, coz Karen couldn't believe I would wear such a thing, LOL

Today my son turns eighteen. I have no words. No words that can truly express my love for him, how proud I am of him, and how he is, still, such a big part of my life. Eighteen. It's such an arbitrary age, or so it seems, but I'm sure it's not. He steps over the boundary from boy to man, legally and societally. I have spent the last hour trying to find the perfect photo to share, the image that sums him up, what he means to me. No one photo can ever do that justice, so unfair to ask. I have been smiling, shedding a tear, reminiscing of the little boy I knew, who is no more. To my son, with the sparkle in his eyes, the big dreams, and the cheeky smile, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

The best photos , to my mind, are either close and framed as buggery or as wide and sweeping as possible. Looking up (and out)  almost always provides the wide and sweeping.

Statue and commemorative park dedicated to Duke Kahanamoku who first demonstrated surfboard riding in 1914.

What do we actually know? We may not have any free will , there's no such thing as a fish , we don't know what a tree is , and heck we may all be just virtual anyway. So don't worry eh.

The security is strong at this place!

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welc

Sun is shinin' in the sky There ain't a cloud in sight It's stopped rainin' everybody's in the play And don't you know It's a beautiful new day, hey hey

What a wonderful photo of my mate rugged up against the bitterly cold* wind on a picture perfect golden Northern Beach. "Come on then, stop taking photos and keep walking." * wasn't cold, she thought it was but the Aussies don't know what cold is 😎

Turn around from the Opera House and there is the Sydney Harbour Bridge lit up against the North Shore CBD, awwww purdy eh. And whilst this isn't a great photo it totally takes me back to our ferry trip back, was such a cool evening.

No matter how many times I see the Sydney Opera House I still want to take photos of it, and so prepare yourself for a run of shots over the coming days 😎

Gotta be confident in ya brakes for this eh 👍 A steep street at night in The Rocks (Sydney, Australia)

I can't remember my mate saying how this came to be but I am so glad I took the photo as you can see how deep roots truly go. Every plant you ever experience, from the tiniest piece of grass to a massive Kauri, is merely the tippy top of a vast underground system, a system that lets the plants 'communicate' .

If I could make a movie it would be a Wellington version of this, I LOVE this clip and hope I get to see the full movie one day Manny Kirchheimer is one of the great masters of the American city symphony, as is clear from films like Stations of the Elevated (1981) and Dream of a City, which showed at last year’s NYFF. In his latest work, the 88-year-old Kirchheimer has meticulously restored and constructed 16mm black-and-white footage that he and Walter Hess shot in New York between 1958 and 1960. This lustrous evocation of a different rhythm of life captures the in-between moments—kids playing stickball, window washers, folks reading newspapers on their stoops—and the architectural beauty of urban spaces, set to the stirring sounds of Ravel, Bach, Eisler, and Count Basie. The breathtaking footage was shot in several distinct New York neighborhoods, including Washington Heights, the Upper West Side, and Hell’s Kitchen, and features impressionistic stops throughout the city, making tim

What really is a nebula, and are we in fact in one? What is the Local Interstellar Cloud? Astrum Answers!

Welsh Choral Society £50-5-8 for the building, or more likely a later restoration/rebuilding of, the  Sydney Hospital . Other benefactors that caught my eye include "STEWART, Nellie - The matinee performance of 'Sweet Nell of Old Drury'" with a whopping £1500, the "Daily Telegraph Radium Fund", "Chinese Masonic Lodge per Moy Sing", and "Workmen Zig Zag Deviation". I shall also be researching "Upton Miss Daisy", a person, a company, a what? By 1984, restoration of the old Rum Hospital building was complete. Together with its "twin" the former Mint, it remains the oldest building in Macquarie Street and the oldest public building in the City of Sydney. Arguably of all Sydney buildings, none have had a longer or more central influence in the affairs of the state than the North Wing. [source: Wikipedia, Sydney Hospital ]

Here's another podcast I think you could pop on your subscription list and 'enjoy', the BBCs weekly 10-15 minute The Skewer . 'Enjoy' in The Skewer's sense is quite a complex wee beastie. It is funny, it is clever (VERY), it is topical/satirical, of course it is all of these things. It has also made me cry, happy, galvinated, and even furious.

The walk up Macquarie Street continues as I go snap , snap , snap with the camera at all the olden days buildings. This time it's a lookup moment to see a church spire framed by one of the many Sydney office blocks in the background.

Wow, I can see why the  Australian Medical Association House , at 135-137 Macquarie Street in the Sydney CBD, is heritage-listed and I'm only sorry I didn't go inside as it sounds quite something to see. But still, that outside view eh, wow, and I love the description Wikipedia has, those are definitely some words: The faience terracotta panelling of the exterior by Wunderlich was matched in the principal public interior spaces and the six full-size medieval knights in armour along with two koalas perched high on the facade were manufactured by the same firm. 

The sun peaks its face over the hills around 4:40 :)

Tiny old historical house against tall new towers. Not tiny. Not that tall. But history .

1: Take this photo - my Nanna Gladys back in the day (in her 20s we think) 2: Give it to the "Artificial Intelligence" (computer algorithm) at  https://www.myheritage.com/deep-nostalgia/ 3: Get the following back ... If you're gonna do this be aware you get 3 free goes and then you have to pay, so choose photos that have a clear-ish background and are essentially looking directly at the camera.

He does look terribly smug eh. He's in charge of everything, nothing to be challenged by and, above all, the look of "an owner". Makes me sad, a little angry, but mostly bemused.

Get your Latin on and translate, or just  click here . Definitely another example of the Empire as depicted in stonework, all the way over in Sydney, H'auwwwstralia.