Category Archive: LIFE
Suddenly it’s Christmas (Reprise)
(Apologies to Loudon Wainwright III) Suddenly it’s Christmas, depending on your view, A time for winding-up and thereby going on the brew; In the north, they’re dressing warm and feeling rather nippy, Celebrating an illegitimate Jewish povo chippy. It is a time for contemplating meats of every kind, Chewing on God’s creatures, drinking oneself blind; ‘Tis the season, wear a mask and get that shot into your arm, Else men might come and haul you off to some dread animal farm.
Continue Reading →Don’t Juice Jussie!
The tribulations of Jussie Smollett (Dec. 21) or Faux Victimhood as Heroism (With apologies to Robert Southwell) As he in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow, Surprised he was with sudden heat which which made his heart to glow, And lifting up a fearful eye to view what men came near, Two white supremacists in MAGA hats did then appear; Who, armed with bleach and bearing noose, caused floods of tears to shed As though his floods should quench the flames which with his tears were fed. “Alas,” quoth he, “my Subway sandwich now in snowdrift lies, Though…
Continue Reading →The Coddling of the American Mind
By Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt (2018) The Guardian hated this book, so it must be good, right? Not necessarily. it is a bit like Mr. Haidt’s The Righteous Mind – an excellent book – transferred onto campus, where, the authors argue, i-Gen or Gen Z students are being programmed by social media and their professors into fragile, hysterical, blind little snowflakes. This resolves into the ludicrous examples seen in recent years of safe spaces (current example: Arizona State socialist students seeking to bar Kyle Rittenhouse from attending an online course!), cancel-culture and witch-hunts, all vivified by helicopter parents, university bureaucrats,…
Continue Reading →Queensland Museum
November 2021 TVC loves V & A style museums, the ones that pile-up objects, so that stuffed animals lie cheek by jowl with ancient graves, next to planes, trains and automobiles, and so on. (For example, Edinburgh). Housed in a repulsive building after the New Brutalism style of architecture (main image), near to the Queensland Art Gallery’s quaint homage to the Louvre pyramid, the Queensland Museum was opened by then Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen (it’s a wonder the current Premier’s myrmidons haven’t covered-up the plaque). It was a welcome respite from the heat after a brief stop at the Gallery of Modern…
Continue Reading →Stuffing One’s Face in Brisbane
November 2021 The Varnished Culture spent a (very) warm week in Brisbane sampling, inter alia, some of the very nice eateries. From restaurant to cafe, Brisbane serves good food in elegant settings and a relaxed mode. Here’s a sample. Otto (Shop 1, River Quay, Sidon St, Brisbane, Qld) Very posh. A short walk through the steamy riverbank gardens and then seats in the bar with delicious cocktails (a “Sicilian Sunset” – Vodka, Limoncello, Lemon sorbet, Vanilla and soda; and an “Arancia Sour” – Johnnie Walker Black, Lemon, a Chinotto reduction and whites). Then in to lunch. There we encountered some…
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