@LEIGHSALES doesn’t follow my Tweets #media140

Interesting to hear @LEIGHSALES take on her life on Twitter at Media 140 in Sydney watched via online stream.
If in doubt leave out is her policy. Mine too, an affliction picked up over 15 years on the staff of the Financial Times where they liked to verify, rather than risk a mistake. Of course [...]

I want to take on a good new writing project

Today. All writers are not the same. I was sent a link to a talk on TED by Chimamanda Adichie, a novelist. She spoke in a warm and funny way of how she found her authentic cultural voice. She warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, [...]

Why Celebrity Masterchef is graze only TV

Celebrity Masterchef is on tonight. It’s grazing TV, rather than TV you want to feast on, and then lick the plate. I wander over to the television, have a quick look at who’s on and what they’re making, and then I wander off. Meanwhile I watch River Cottage on ABC and I want to [...]

Rate negotiations more feared than death?

A young entrepreneur once asked me my rate, and I worked up the courage to say double what I thought it really was. I was newer to self employment then. He said it was too low, that no one would take me seriously at that rate. “You’re really bad at negotiation,” he said. At the [...]

The fun of event blogging

I returned last week from blogging the Byron Bay Writers Festival, one of Australia’s leading and most loved literary festivals. The festival would not be possible without a team of more than 160 volunteers, and the blogger is one too, and a member of the brilliant Northern Rivers Writers Centre that stages the festival. [...]

One small TV, one giant group of children

That’s how I remember Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon. Everyone from the assembled in a big room with a concrete floor on a winter’s day to watch something on a black & white TV that changed us all.
In 1999 I saw the Moon eclipse the Sun in northern France. It was [...]

If I Were In Charge Of The Sea World

Sea World on the Gold Coast announced that packed and cut lunches are no longer allowed except for those with special dietary needs, and school excursion groups. It seems to me there may be an influx of people visiting the theme park with food allergies. “But Mum, I’m not allergic to nuts,” says the [...]

A Memo From The Social Media Secretary

Some of my stalwart traditional media clients are facing difficulties. They are not commissioning words, and there are some words already delivered not paid for. They are trying to figure out how to make last century publishing businesses viable in this one.
I am writing books. Nothing [...]

Career Choice That Delivers A ‘See You Tomorrow Love’

Lucy Kellaway’s weekly FT column mentioned a 56-year-old marketing executive who had started working as a postman and claimed to love it. What else could he say? Not saying it isn’t true but we have to find something we love about what we do.
I once took a coach tour around western Europe, 35 young [...]

Who will survive Australia’s ‘ute gate’?

He who keeps standing in the back of the ute no matter how rough the ride gets.
Who will ever get to the truth of such a thing? The truth is where we find it. The truth we choose. We have only that when we can’t reach the facts.