Profiles
Mother Teresa
As the maelstrom of sex abuse charges, broken vows and alcoholism engulfs the Catholic hierarchy at home and abroad, Mother Teresa, herself the subject of controversy and mud slinging tells Kathy Evans what she thinks of the brouhaha.......
Sunday Independent (Ireland) |
In Search of Perfection
Today's music is Beethoven. The gentle Sonata in F wafts through
speakers into the sterile room. It is a particularly lovely piece of
music; the sweet notes of the violin float above the comatose body of a
woman who also wants her share of beauty. Right now, she doesn't even come close. At this moment, she is grotesque.......
The Age (Melbourne) Magazine |
Barry Jones (at 80)
Barry Jones is one of the National Trust's Australian Living Treasures, which makes you think he should be covered in lichen and come with an interpretive pamphlet pinned to his breast pocket. He is certainly craggy looking; his dark eyes peer from a weathered face framed with a beard and a thick thatch of hair, which is at least 50 shades of grey .....
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Philip Nitchke
I am standing in a stranger's front room being mauled by two hairy black
dogs. "Sit!" shouts Dr Death sternly, but the panting pair are deaf to
his
cries. "Sit!" he bellows. "Sit! Sit! Sit!" It is becoming clear that
these
overweight mongrels have no respect for him whatever. As two sets of
huge black
paws once again lunge at my midriff, I say through gritted teeth, "I'm
really
not a dog person." "Neither am I," admits Dr Philip Nitschke ......
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Robert Doyle
Robert Doyle and I intended to meet for lunch. Then he had to go to
Traralgon
and wouldn't be back in time, so could we do afternoon tea? Or how
about
catching up the following morning for brunch? So that's what we did......
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Tony Wheeler
Once, when travelling in a remote area of Java, I developed a raging
toothache. The local dentist-cum-witchdoctor peered at my inflamed gum
and
offered to remove the offending tooth. While reclining in his archaic
dentist's
chair in a draughty annexe made of corrugated iron, a slight movement to
the
left caught my eye. It was a large brown rat sitting on the bench next
to his
instruments.
......
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The Edge of Life
Joshua Naua's life has just begun - unexpectedly and traumatically. Love had set him ticking in his mother's womb but now he is being nurtured by cold, hard science, lying in a plastic crib under a layer of bubble wrap. The bleep of a ventilator has replaced the dull thud of a maternal heartbeat. .....
The Melbourne Magazine |
Urgent Delivery
Dawn sees the arrival of Leanne Cannon, who sits in circular splendour on
the bed in delivery suite 5, beautifully made up. She appears calm and chatty as
she waits for the doctor to do the rounds and examine her. She's booked in to
be induced because her baby is 10 days late, but she went into labour in the car
on the way. Now she is hoping she will deliver naturally.......
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The Gene Genie
There are few certainties in life, but for Molly Robinson there is this
one: in the far-flung future, she will never watch a child of hers die
of the disease that killed her brother.......
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Hard Labour
For most women, the memory of their baby's birth remains a vivid mental
replay that awakens sensations at times as sharp and clear as the moment
itself.......
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Forever Young
This is the moment she has been dreading. Sitting here in the consultant's office while the young doctor who delivered the bombshell clears his throat ans squirms uncomfortably.....
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Clean Streets
The house is a gem, nestled halfway down a cul-de-sac in a salubrious
outer Melbourne suburb. The family boat is parked in the driveway, squeezed
between a silver Saab and a gleaming new Mazda. Behind the brick frontage, the
setting sun makes looming dark shapes of the Dandenongs. The sounds of the city
are far away. But from penthouse to pavement is not that far, so the saying
goes........
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Alan's World
Standing in the middle of the Brave New World, I am slowly losing my
grasp on
reality. Is it the headache which has been gnawing at my temples since
breakfast that is making me spin out, or the surroundings?......
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Life Starts Here
The room looks more like a high school science lab than a
state-of-the-art
centre for human reproduction. A row of microscopes are spaced uniformly
on the
slightly battered wooden benchtop, and a disorderly array of bell jars
and
conical flasks, some with silver foil wrapped around the rim, are
stuffed in
glass cabinets.
......
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Tuesday's Child
Let me start by saying Conor and I are good parents.Everyone says so.
When our third daughter was born with Down Syndrome, the same sentiment
echoed through the congratulations cards; it couldn't have happened to a nicer family.......
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Me and My Girl
In everyone's life there is a defining event that veers them off the
path they were steadily treading. For me it was Caoimhe's birth......
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Babies Behind Bars
Visiting time at Deer Park. In the prison's cramped reception, a steady
queue
is forming. At the back, a harassed dad is trying to juggle three small
children with runny noses......
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The Crime Society Can't Forgive
The small room is cramped with boys bearing the hallmarks of youth.
Faces
sprinkled with pimples, greased hair stuffed under baseball caps,
scuffed
trainers at the ends of baggy tracksuit pants......
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ACO's Reflections on Gallipoli
As World War I's commemoration juggernaut ploughs onwards to encompass the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign, it can be difficult to see past the bombast arising from the killing fields that were said to give birth to a nation.....
The Age/Sydney Morning Herald |
ABO, French Baroque and Circa
Voltaire once declared that French music was not "pleasing" to any other nation. It was "peculiar" and "monotonous", he said. Perhaps that attitude is the reason German and Italian composers snaffle the attention at most Baroque concerts .....
The Age/Sydney Morning Herald |
Steven Isserlis on French Music
If owners can end up resembling their pets, is it possible that virtuosos can take on the characteristics of their instruments? On stage Steven Isserlis for example, with his long weathered face and dark soulful eyes, deep-set like knots in gnarled wood looks like a living manifestation of a cello.....
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Why opera doesn't need to make sense
Not many teenage girls dream of being opera singers – for good reason. The traditional image of them is often as bloated windbags swathed in too much taffeta. Not surprising, then, that Californian soprano Lise Lindstrom was hoping for a career in something that seemed to have a little more panache.....
Sydney Morning Herald |
Rock, roll and a nice cuppa
It is not hard to find Tim Rogers' flat; in a quiet block that looks like it's inhabited by largely corporate types, his is the one with a skull on the door and cheerfully loud tango music seeping out underneath. He greets me in true rock-star fashion: half undressed .....
The Melbourne Magazine |
Max Richter's The Four Seasons Recomposed
Autumn in Melbourne and anything can happen; one moment we are pulling on the winter woollies only to cast them off again as summer in its death throes blasts out the last rays of heat. Recomposed, Max Richter's take on Vivaldi's masterpiece, The Four Seasons, therefore feels perfect for the Melbourne climate; each season is in there somewhere, but with so many changes of direction as to be entirely unpredictable......
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'Loose cannon' Buffy Sainte-Marie
Buffy Sainte-Marie is a Native American folk singer, indigenous rights activist and anti-war mouthpiece whose best known hit, ironically, is Up Where We Belong – the signature tune in the Hollywood smash An Officer and a Gentleman, featuring Richard Gere clad in a Daz-white naval suit.....
Finally, the Wimpy Kid is set to shine
JEFF Kinney, author of the Wimpy Kid series, has attention deficit disorder; he is sure of it. This explains why writing the opening pages of a new book is as excruciating as doing a tax return and also why he drifts away at the most inopportune of times....
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Nana Mouskouri
Nana Mouskouri, the White Rose of Athens, is blooming again. Ten years after announcing her retirement, she's undergone a miraculous osmosis. Whatever they put in the soil in her native Greece has created a hardy perennial.....
Double or nothing
WHEN double bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons was the tender age of 16, he fell in love hook, line and sinker. The only difference between his story and those of other teenage boys in Paris in the 1970s is that the creature of his dreams happened to be six feet tall and made of wood....
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Education
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Personalised Learning
At first glance, the classroom at Oakwood School looks like any other: desks grouped in front of a large whiteboard, on which, traditionally, the teacher imparts the curriculum. But in this room, it is the filing cabinet in the corner that contains the blueprint for learning.....
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Lighthouse Schools
When Abigail Elliott walked her six-year-old son Fynley through the gates of the local inner-city primary school, she imagined she was at the start of a very long road ahead.......
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This is Our Life
There is a famous quote that pops up on greeting cards and says
something like "truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave
and impossible to forget"......
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The Future is Grey
WHAT do Barry Humphries, Rupert Murdoch and the Pope have in common?
Clearly, not much, but they do share a desire to keep working well into
old age......
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"I Built it Myself"
Annabel Mazotti roars towards me in a clapped-out Mitsubishi, headlights
flashing. She flings open the passenger door and cries: "Get in!" .....
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Men's Interests
Catherine Prescott is a model and we are looking at her photographs.
"This is
my favourite," she says, pointing a bony finger to a red-lipped,
tangle-haired
temptress who bears little resemblance to the demure female in a
trousers suit
sitting opposite. "......
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Dogs at the Lodge
After more than four hours squashed between suitcases in the boot of a
car, our dogs wake to a rain-washed garden of roses and camellias that
backs on to a river flanked by a footpath exuding exciting odours; and
best of all, no leads required.
With barely a backward glance, they are off along the bank chasing butterflies, the car journey from Melbourne to Bright a distant memory..... . |
So this is Luxury
The deluxe room in this seventh-floor heaven is almost spotless. And so
it
should be. So far, it has taken six hours to polish the chrome to its
full
glory, mop the marble floor and clean the massive expanse of glass. The piece de resistance, the folding of the toilet paper into a perfect
V,
takes a little extra time to demonstrate. ......
The Sunday Age |
Inexpensive Charm Offensive
The view from my window is heavenly; a black-and-white-style lido
with aquamarine waters that make you want to slice through the surface
and scatter the fish below. A pity, then, that it is a fake.......
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In NZ, Old Hippies Just go Bush
THE LAND of the long white cloud has long been known for its
environmental
awareness. But little did I realise how far hostel owner John Clere was
prepared to take the cause......
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