A figure approaches, slipping into the dark lane, cursing while regaining his balance. Sliding towards it, the man nudges its body with the tip of his pointed shoe. It hardly responds. A Saturday night, a town so small this street doesn’t even have street lights, and me not sure of where I’m headed but wanting to get there as soon as possibleand with the least possible fuss. It’s earlier that night with the party still in full swing and I can’t believe it but I’m hoping that

My brother got to hold the sign for the Rural Fire Service Float at the 2026 Sydney Mardi Gras. I wasn’t there but I saw the footage and there he was looking benevolent and avuncular, waving to the crowd in his RFS uniform and great big firey’s boots. Kenny is a proud Seventy-Niner, one of the gang in the second Sydney Mardi Gras, the one that helped to cement it as an annual event. The ’79 Parade turned out to be a peaceful march with no arrests but still it’s hard to rememb

I sat directly opposite Tim Minchin the night I saw Genevieve first perform on stage. It was the Sydney Festival, it was 2026, and Gen was performing as a jammer in the Sydney Inner West Roller Derby League. This was down to her size (tiny) and the years of ballet lessons paid for by yours truly back in the day of Strictly Ballroom, Paul Mercurio and my consuming effort to give her every advantage and to grant her every wish. The  jammer, in a roller derby bout, skates on a c

Brenda was sick. She wouldn’t stop lying down. I was standing near her head stroking her nose and all she was doing was groaning. The calf didn’t seem to mind too much,  but then a lot of things can pass you by when you’re only three days old. Besides with me there he was probably thinking everything was alright. There’s a creek that runs through our paddock down the back. Usually it’s just a string of little ponds where you can catch tadpoles. There’s gum trees on the other