The perpetrators of the 2004 spying on #TimorLeste’s maritime boundary negotiating team have asked Attorney-General Michelle Rowland to issue a ‘secrecy certificate’ over why they say they shouldn’t have to confess to the sordid gas theft crime everyone knows they facilitated. #auspol #NoTruth

Disciple of the #QuentinCrisp school of cleaning: "There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years, the dirt doesn't get any worse."

If you're in Sydney or you can get to Sydney or you've ever visited Sydney or you've heard of Sydney or you know someone who knows someone called Sidney, love to see you at the legendary Better Read than Dead on the 15th. www.betterreadevents.com/events/micha...

Have you, like me, spent the last 26 years worrying if the Canadian Potato Museum STILL has the display of various potato diseases with potatoes in little coffins? Stop worrying. I checked today. Still there.

Another quixotic Upswell title. Clara Brack's memoir of her parents takes risks and provides interest.

Last change to apply for a 2027 Anne Kantor Fellowship at the Australia Institute. Along the lines of a grad program, this is a chance to work with some of Australia's leading thinkers, working to change minds. Applications close midnight, 1 June.

There was actually a good plan put in place for Lismore post flood! Return north & south Lismore to wetlands, buy everybody out, shift the CBD. The Fed govt were on board, the Reconstruction Authority said, 'We're gonna do this'. Minns was elected & deliberately walked away from it.

A rich Melbourne teenager has become one of the almost 14,000 people to climb Everest. Wall-to-wall media coverage. News value close enough to zilch.

With disgust I learned Olga Tokarczuk uses AI to help with writing her latest novel - article in Polish, my translation of relevant bit in posts below mycompanypolska.pl/artykul/olga...

Forgive me for sharing this again, but the Kyle Hudson inquest was incredibly affecting – and revealing – about the depth of harm gambling can cause to a young man with no adverse circumstances, the info betting companies have, and crucially, what they do with it. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Yumna Kassab: Goodbye, My Love

I don't want to alarm anyone, but Wayne Marshall's historical/literary/speculative romp, Henry Goes Bush, is at large and roaming the countryside. Track down a copy however you can.

Grateful to the National Library for inclusion in their new book Postscript: Life, Love and Loss in Australian Letters.

Standing room only at today's launch of Henry Goes Bush by the newest Bard of Bacchus Marsh, Wayne Marshall. (Peter Carey and Frank Hardy can shuffle along a spot.)

No-one ever has made a better book launch entrance. Congrats @drkerryjewell.bsky.social you kooky thing.

Maks, from you, this means so much. A privilege to be read so well. Thanks.

New Patrick deWitt cover is an excellent Stephen Shore photograph, unfortunately slightly dulled from familiarity through previous use:

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the answer to this is "No."

🧵In their sub to the Inquiry into the taxation on gas resources, INPEX has a section entitled "the PRRT system is working as designed". The execs repeated this line under questioning last week. So what does "working as designed" look like?

This is actually our motto, but it doesn’t fit on the bookmarks @leviathanbookstore.bsky.social

Albanese’s incrementalism would be better characterised as homeopathism

One time he won a literary prize and not being in particular need of the money, he found out which was the poorest public school in the state, asked them what they needed, and bought them a school bus. It’s possible to be both a great writer and a good person. Vale.

Let them eat nuclear submarines

Taking Griefdogg to where it was written and set. Tell your Mallee mates! Raising bucks for the mighty Mildura Writers Festival. events.humanitix.com/michael-wink...

Loved this book. Best known as a printmaker, but what a perceptive, stylish writer. For books about Aussies in 1960s London, I'll take this over Clive James any day.

We should all write a novel called something like “The Invisible Metallurgist of Accidental Regrets” or “The Afternoon Society of Disconsolate Ferrymen” and retire to a vineyard in Crete.

DAIRY FARMER: do you have a milkmaid OTHER DAIRY FARMER: yes but you don’t know her she goes to an udder stool

BREAKING Angus Taylor deletes AI generated post of himself as Tony Abbott resurrecting John Howard’s immigration policy. “I thought it just depicted me as a racist” #auspol

The anti-migrant sentiment being expressed by a terrifyingly large number of people across the political spectrum has, ultimately, very little to do with the behaviour of actual migrants, and everything to do with anxieties around defending and maintaining white supremacy in the settler colony.

Loved the chance to chat to two of the sharpest brains around. Many thanks, Pat and Tim

Also has trouble with fair pay and poetry

If Matt fucking Canavan makes you look like a simp for genocide maybe it's time you fuck the fuck off

If you're in Canberra or know someone else who is, love to say gidday on Friday.

The Bangles really didn't land the follow-up.

Has the president suggested injecting bleach into the strait of Hormuz yet

Under a proposed gambling shakeup, children will only be able to access their Sportsbet accounts at recess and after school.

Ahab spots Trump

🌈 Announcing the Magabala Pride Fellowship 🌈 In partnership with Pride Foundation Australia, the Fellowship will award $10,000 to a First Nations storyteller to dedicate time to developing or completing a manuscript. 📅 Applications close 24 April 2026 👉 Apply now: bit.ly/4tjK50s

Trans Day of Visibility is tomorrow. #TDOV #ProtectTheDolls

Intrigued by this ambitious novel by Johanna Bell. Elastic, innovative approach to storytelling. And Jo Hunt should win all the book design awards. (Transit Lounge)

Join a monastery they said. Quiet contemplation they said. Now we know where Douglas Adams’s Electric Monk came from.

when you get up to the short story the collection is named after

I had the time of my life at the Griefdogg launch. Thanks everyone who braved the rain to attend. Thanks to my mates who performed a song we wrote for the night, Michael Heyward and Robert Skinner who spoke, MC Silas Moir and my choir buddies. Now going to hide away a while and think about it all.

In case you didn’t know, the new Harry Potter show directly funds anti-trans work - if that’s not aligned with your values, maybe it’s time to stop engaging with the franchise and show your trans siblings some love! 🏳️‍⚧️❤️

The man sitting next to me on the bus told me that he has started to memorise poems to improve his memory. He then recited the longest poem I’ve ever heard. So long in fact, that I had to say that we were at my stop, even though we were nowhere near it. I walked home in the pouring rain.

All welcome, bring your mates.

The legend Chong, outside Brunswick Bound bookshop.

Reading Alan Fyfe's rollicking 'The Cross Thieves' and he refers to May Wirth, the trickrider. She must have been something to see.