8º of latitude

March 31, 2018

Fair Sets You Off

HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his regular diet of worms The Cage, Bali Saturday, Mar. 31, 2018 LAND of the fair go, mate! That’s what they say. Hector’s amanuensis got into trouble during the week, because he’d dared to write about a friendly little warning he got not to diss the Aussies, over Continue reading

Art, Australia, Bali, Indonesia

Aussie cricketers, Cry-babies, Fertility rites, jade richardson, Jewel Topsfield
March 25, 2018

We Have Been Warned

Sunday, Mar. 25, 2018 SOMETHING happened the other day that caused me to think deeply about the political direction Australia is taking. It was a disturbing incident; it was nothing to worry about personally, but it gave me pause. It did so especially because it came in the course of an exchange of Continue reading

Australia, Politics

Immigrants, Not a Real Aussie
March 24, 2018

Drawing the Line 1

HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his regular diet of worms The Cage, Bali Saturday, Mar. 24, 2018 A PHOTO appeared yesterday – we saw it in the social media, which is a thing these days – of a packed crowd, said to be more than 3,000, though numbers are always difficult to estimate, of Continue reading

Australia, Bali, Indonesia, Politics

Ngurah Rai Airport, Peter Dutton, Seasons, South African farmers
March 16, 2018

The Figjam Factor

HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his regular diet of worms The Cage, Bali Friday, Mar. 16, 2018 BALI is home to many oddities. We refer in this instance to those found in the expatriate community. Readers will recall that someone by the name of Terry Brockhall chose to defame two former expatriates recently on Continue reading

Animal Welfare, Bali, Festivals, Food, Indonesia, Tourism

Bar-room Lawyers, Chris Osses, Expatriates, FIGJAM, Frederick Dillon, Fundraising, Ipong Wayan, Mt Agung, Pay-By-Views, Terry Brockhall, Uang Kecil
March 7, 2018

Silence is Golden

HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his regular diet of worms The Cage, Bali Wednesday, Mar. 7, 2018 IT’S Nyepi in ten days (Saturday, Mar. 17), the annual day of silence in Bali, by the island’s traditional Hindu Dharma religious and customary rites. This requires a twenty-four-hour period in which no work is performed, no Continue reading

Bali, Nyepi

Barnyard Barnaby, Former Friends, Mara Wolford, Quality control, Surfing, The Hayseed Hemlifter, Unarchipelagic
March 3, 2018

The Landlord Line

HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his regular diet of worms The Cage, Bali Saturday, Mar. 3, 2018 A FRIEND who is in the poor but thoroughly sensible expat cohort ignored by the hyped media that surrounds the other chief cohorts – the party expat and the good works expat – has just enjoyed another Continue reading

Bali

Facebook geeks, Juvenile drivers
February 25, 2018

The Elegant Stomping Dance

SEAN DORNEY Veteran ABC journalist, former Kumuls captain, and all-round good bloke “Roast” Dinner, Brisbane, Feb. 24, 2018. I wrote these words for the occasion and hope someone got a giggle out of them. By all accounts, it was a rollicking night. Sean and Pauline, early arrivals (as is only proper for the guests of Continue reading

Old Friends

“Roast” dinners, Motor Neurone Disease, Pauline Dorney, Sean Dorney
February 18, 2018

Straight to the Point

HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his regular diet of worms The Cage, Bali Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018 IT’S magic what you can do these days with a talking smart phone. The other day we had to drive into Denpasar – a strange bit of it with which we are unfamiliar – and it was Continue reading

Australia, Bali, Books, Bureaucracy, Festivals, Health, Indonesia, Public Administration, Rabies, Ubud, Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Volcanoes, Writing

Australian politics, Barnaby Joyce, Ethics and Office, Health studies, Janet DeNeefe, Mt Agung
February 5, 2018

Excrescences, Etc.

HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his diet of worms The Cage, Bali Monday, Feb. 5, 2018 MANY foreigners come to Bali for its unique culture and some choose to live here. The people with whom one wishes to associate are in that cohort. Some may be misguided, but that’s OK. The flowers of Eastern mysticism Continue reading

Art, Australia, Bali, Indonesia

2018 Ubud Food Festival, Autonomous Neolithic Province, John Keir, Mt Agung, Naked Nymphs
January 29, 2018

Janet’s World

HECTOR’S DIARY Titbits from his regular diet of worms THE CAGE Bali Monday, Jan. 29, 2018 THAT’S Bali, of course, Janet DeNeefe’s home for more than thirty years. But like most Australians who live overseas or spend a great deal of time beyond the moat, she retains an umbilical link Continue reading

Australia, Bali, Politics, Trade, U.S.A.

Australian Honours, Davos, Drones, Groucho Marx, Margaret Barry, Mt Agung, Mungo MacCallum

About Me

Former journalist now confined by age and indolence to blogging about this and that, now from Western Australia, previously from Indonesia (that’s the 8 degrees in the title) and before that, Queensland. I don’t do a newsletter so ignore that prompt below.