A look at the work of Madhaviah Krishnan, an Indian journalist and photographer who for 46 years wrote the “Country Notebook” column for The Statesman of Calcutta that ranks among the finest nature writing out of the sub-continent.

Part Two of a conversation with Amadeo Rea, taxonomic ornithologist and ethnobiologist who has spent most of his life working with the Piman people of the greater south-western American deserts.

One man, six Miura “bulls of death” – a day of triumph for Javier Castaño, cutting five ears from six bulls and two ovations. An historic corrida during the 2012 Feria de Pentecote at Nimes.

Mark “Chopper” Read may have some sound advice for the Cronulla Sharks players accused of using banned substances. Don’t put your hand up too soon.

I remember sitting around when we were teenagers at high school, talking about sex as teenagers do. We had been told, for example, that whilst our male classmates were currently hitting their sexual peak, women hit theirs in their mid-30s. I’m fairly certain that a good portion of that knowledge is complete fallacy.

All I had to do was walk on stage and open my mouth and let the curse of God roar through me. Floods, fire and frogs leapt out of my throat. Though I had no notion of that then, God was talking not just to me but through me, and his breath stank.

A friend of mine, who was just finishing the manuscript for Birds of Arizona with the University of Arizona Press said “Why don’t you find out from your old Indian friends what the river was like when it ran and what birds were there?”

“If there won’t be dancing at the revolution, I’m not coming.” Emma Goldman.

Hotel Darwin, Mitchell Street. Saturday 26 January 2013.
3pm onwards.

John not only broke news with a vigor and passion rarely seen but on occasion made it. The year fades into memory but John was the object of then NT cabinet minister Mick Palmer’s attention when he ‘snotted’ John during a session at the local Petty Sessions bar. From that event came, in part, John’s place in the annals of journalism in the Territory as being the man responsible for the immortal headline ‘Toothless MP head butts reporter’. Palmer, first removing his watch and teeth, admitted to having ‘snotted’ our man, then working at the Sunday Territorian.

If Cancer Jesus ever returns to Adelaide he can expect to be dragged from his private jet at the airport, hitched to the back of a truck with a rope, hauled into the city down Anzac Parade and his lifeless body hung for display from a light standard in Victoria Square while the crowds that once sang his praises to the sky bay for his blood. He doesn’t deserve any better.