Evening. 夕方。

Maybe we could stop the handwringing over whether or not the PM meets the US leader. One day it will be seen as a courageous decision not to pander to US tyranny.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09... Recommendation one - “Universities improve transparency and accountability of governing bodies by publishing all council minutes, disclosing all spending on consultants, maintaining a conflict-of-interest register, publishing salaries …”

Australian navy docks in Yokosuka, Japan. via NHK

I won a brooch. 🤭 今日のコロッケ試合…優勝🥇😂

You can never appease a tyrant.

ドジャース 大谷翔平 史上6人目の2年連続シーズン50号を達成 http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20250917/k10014924711000.html

I have a deep sense of unease about this state visit.

Happened again today, a piece I don’t recall hearing before we played it last Saturday, but a really lovely piece to listen too.

Invitation Dhuluny 2025: Documentary screenings commemorating the 1824 declaration of martial law Thu, 25 Sep, 5:30pm - 9pm AEST Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre

‘Those who still put their faith… in war as the last resort of all foreign policy may well discover in a not too distant future that they have become masters in a rather useless and obsolete trade…’ H. Arendt ‘On Revolution’, 1963 Reading as I heard more AUKUS-babble on the radio. We can do better

That joy you feel when one of the pieces you played in Saturday’s concert turns up on the radio—by a different orchestra I hasten to add, ours wasn’t recorded for broadcast. 🤭🎶

A brief sojourn in the nation’s capital. 首都キャンベラに行ってきました♪

Russians dropped a glide bomb on elderly people who were waiting in line for their pensions. More than 20 dead. Please. Don’t look away and don’t be silent. This is all I could ask for

Seriously, what is going on here? America, just stop. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

A view over Brisbane, early morning. 今朝の皆既月食、ブリスベン上空

David Pope in Canberra Times

Festival time in Brisbane. ブリスベン　フェスティバルの夜景🌉

Sun setting over Brisbane. 日没、ブリスベン

Joanna Connor🎸🎶'Walking Blues' #bluesmusic

Signs of spring in the backyard: all the birds chirping loudly over the slow-moving carpet python.

Concerting today.

This evening I spent more time waiting for the bus than I spent actually travelling on it. It doesn’t happen often but rather annoying when you choose public transport over a car to get to an event at a particular time. 🙄

Breaking! We have just found out that the Albanese Government plans to pay hundreds of millions for building houses for US troops and foreign arms companies using a secret AUKUS “cost-sharing” deal with Donald Trump.

A new report urges the Trump administration not to abandon the defence agreement, but also calls on Australia to give "concrete" commitments on how it would deploy Virginia-class nuclear powered submarines in the event of war.

Having run out of all the exotic words, people are now proclaiming a ‘Japanese walking method’… really?

LNL and John Menadue is guest; currently talking about Asian language study. From the bloke who, at my honours graduation, scoffed at my ambition to undertake a PhD to better understand Aust-Japan relations. More Irritations than Pearls. 🙄

Appreciate that I can still watch the high school baseball tournament … there’s just something about it. This game saw the two Tokyo teams play-off. Difficult to choose which team to support in this case, as a #tokyolyf person. 🫣

Just a tad concerned about the way ‘productivity’ seems to be word of the moment. Whatever they end up doing with it, you just know it’s not going to favour workers.

Eighty years of ‘book week’ today and now I’m trying to remember what we did at school. I don’t recall dressing up and favourite book talks but I do remember the SRA* cards and aiming for gold. *Our teacher told us SRA stood for silent reading alone… I remember it as Scientific Reading something.

productivity is now a euphemism for wage theft pass it on.

Good to see you on my small screen @melanie.brock.social doing your always marvellous moderating and championing of A-J relations. Nikkei Forum 2025

A brief intermission from everything. Croquet pennants today, our team won and, in a major personal development, I won my three (out of three) match-ups. Coach was pleased. I now resume my usual despair at all the things.

Oh, look. Another nuclear "incident" caused by Westminster decisions in Scotland. I've lost count of how many "incidents". The new subs are too big for the berths. Perfect time to move them to England If, like me, you want these out of Scotland hit the like button share.google/3MlCxiVguG8h...

Blowing up your small-town writers festival because your local university needs to crack down on free speech because there’s a genocide we can’t talk about is so utterly on-brand for Australian culture. Cowards and fools 3-deep at the canapés tray

📢 An estimated 5.6 magnitude earthquake has struck north-west of Brisbane, with tremors felt across Queensland’s south-east corner.

After living a #tokyolyf, that certainly felt like a little #quakeshake in Brisbane just now. 😯

The Brisbane Writers Festival program is officially launched! I'm looking forward to giving the 2025 First Word Keynote, speaking alongside Gillian Bowie, Sharlene Allsopp, Theophilus Kwek and artistic director extraordinaire, Jackie Ryan. Tix on sale soon, check out the program now. bwf.org.au

Our AUKUS ‘partners’ in the UK, had a Category A serious nuclear event in Scotland earlier this year that posed an "actual or high potential for radioactive release to the environment.” It’s the second in the last two years. The Scottish public are given zero details about it.

I'm ready for the next World Cup⚽️ サッカー大好きですっ☆特に関節技が得意ですっ☆

Listening and reading Sakamoto. I think I might write a long essay on why his works are so significant. ただいま、聴きながら読む。教授について小論文を書こうかな〜

豪首相“9月にパレスチナを国家として承認” 仏などに続き表明 http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20250811/k10014891841000.html

What's next? Outsourcing our climate change policy to the mining industry? Oh wait.

Tragic reef damage as climate crisis hits our oceans. No new coal and gas. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

Some reporting in the Japanese media about the Australian government’s decision to join others at the UNGA in recognising a Palestinian state. Via the Tokyo Shimbun www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/4279...

School reunion incoming… to go, or not to go. I’ve not been to one yet. 🤔

Happy International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples 🖤 Today and every day we celebrate First Nations resistance and endurance, and the strength and beauty of our Languages, Country and Culture. Pictured: 'Woven' (2024) is a poetry collection edited by Anne-Marie Te Whiu.

【随時更新】長崎 被爆から80年「最後の被爆地に」 http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20250809/k10014889261000.html

David Pope in Canberra Times