Semantics is getting me down again. This time, it’s a word of monstrous proportions – the word ‘Monster’ itself. Yesterday I opened my copy of The Age and read that word being used in a way classically assigned to your standard-issue media expression of moral panic – in Ted Lapkin’s opinion piece, ‘Anders Breivik’s monstrous […]

Relevancy is a terrible mistress*. Not only does she seem to demand results now, now, of course now, but the bodily stress that that can cause, its very viscerality, freezes up muscles, induces heart attacks, headaches and conflict involving thumping devices. Think of the reams of self-help books that have been bestsellers, ‘proven’ to kick […]