In 2015 Prime Minister Tony Abbott was under sustained pressure to legalise same-sex-marriage in Australia. He had no intention of allowing that to happen.
Tag: blogs
Backpacking in India: avoid farting
Budget travel brings an unavoidable level of intimacy. Oversharing in extremis. De-briefings requested and given after each visit to the toilet.
Arriving in Delhi as naive backpcker
We were carried by a motorcade of tuk-tuks through the dark, dusty streets of nighttime Delhi on a frightening, fruitless search for a hotel room.
I quit university to see the world
Age 22, I wrote a letter to my future self. In a moment of transcendent clarity, I committed my thoughts to paper so I could look back and remember that feeling.
My Syria Experience: Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra
I turned the corner to come nose-to-nose with a decapitated camel, hanging grimly outside a butcher’s shop. A hook through the underside of its jaw.
Life with a Brachial Plexus Injury: protecting your good arm
You’re unaware your arm is resting up against a boiling kettle. The skin is burning but you can’t feel it. When and how do you realise? When you smell your skin crisping up like pork crackling?
Was this real or a scam?
It’s a Sunday evening in January 2011. I’m sitting with 6 strangers in a house in Paddington. There’s an uneasy silence. We’re waiting to get started…
A Life Well Lived
My tour was interrupted by an old lady who seemed to know everyone. She took my and warmly between hers. Not letting go.
My Tacoma Bridge Moment
We ‘upgraded’ to the suburbs when I was 7 years old. The school I left behind was an austere Victorian building with separate entrances for boys and girls.
Concussed in Damascus
When I woke I touched the side of my head gently. Dried blood. The pain was intense. Like a visit by the mother of all hangovers.
The uncensored truth about Migraine
It felt like my eyeballs had swollen to the size of cricket balls, being pushed out of their sockets from the inside.
Surviving School
I vomited in the bathroom sink before leaving for school. Nerves. Today I joined the new sixth-formers as they began their A levels.
Part 10: I danced here, wearing a black cape and oversized sombrero
The impact of the collision with the car may have damaged my kidneys.
I’d need an internal examination. I chose not to ask what that involved.
Part 9: Shifted Reality.
Wearing only a paper gown tied at the back, I climbed onto the cold radiography table. I rolled onto my side into the foetal position as instructed.
Part 8: Guilty pleasure.
‘Must feel good to be going home?’ The ambulance driver chatted cheerfully as he wheeled me out through the sliding doors of the hospital.
Part 7: ‘What do you want for your first meal at home?’
A man with the demeanour (and the tape measure) of an undertaker appeared at my bedside. After 3 months I’d finally be getting out of my hospital bed.
Part 6: This wasn’t nursing. It was carpentry.
While still in the hospital I learned the identity of the driver that had hit me. A 19-year-old former pupil of my school. I didn’t feel anger towards him, but I didn’t forgive him either…
Part 5: ‘Do you want to see my scars?’
I was part-way through my secondary school exams. The culmination of 2 years of study. My future academic and employment prospects would be determined by the result. That was all gone now.
Part 4: Coming to terms with three months in hospital
A broken femur shaft takes 3 months to repair itself. So, regardless of my other injuries, I’d spend at least 3 months in a hospital bed. It was unimaginable.
Part 3: Learning to write again.
After a week in hospital I was moved from a private room to one shared with another patient. A young motorcyclist, recently admitted. He was in pain, groaning constantly.