“I like to imagine that, instead of random splashes of paint, Gough and Margaret, visionaries both, looked at ‘Blue Poles’ and saw a bird’s-eye view of an Australian summer pool scene.” Kath Kenny on the Whitlams and the water mnth.ly/gQjSw0C

One of my favourite books of the year was Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers. Thanks to Inside Story for encouraging me to review it. insidestory.org.au/map-making-and…

What was it like on December 17 1967, when the prime minister went for a swim and never came back? Joshua Black from @OurANU takes us back to the dramatic day - and the political wrangling that followed theconversation.com/harold-holt-is…

“I like to imagine that, instead of random splashes of paint, Gough and Margaret, visionaries both, looked at ‘Blue Poles’ and saw a bird’s-eye view of an Australian summer pool scene.” Kath Kenny on the Whitlams and the water mnth.ly/fCngoA3

"...a caterpillar’s entire body is broken down into liquid goo and reconstituted into that of a fundamentally different insect... The butterfly can remember its life as a caterpillar ... by training the former to associate some chemical smells with electric shocks."

“In the 1970s, the waterbed arrived in Australia. The waterbed is really a hybrid lilo/pool: the pool is put inside the lilo instead of beneath it and then brought indoors.” Kath Kenny on our love of pools mnth.ly/oh87FGp

Giving “entertaining” lectures in your 30s and 40s x.com/alsamahi/statu…

In Canberra and it is 30* outside so I’m looking at Pollock’s Blue Poles (detail here). In the all but penultimate paragraph of this recent essay for the The Monthly I imagine the Whitlams saw a bird’s eye view of a summer pool scene. It checks out shorturl.at/tR8J5

Parliament House Canberra shop doing Personal Politics ping Michelle Arrow

ABC's JJ fifty years old today. Some months after its first broadcast, newly-minted media minister Moss Cass drops in for a chat.

Who among us…

“Women who write about women drinking and writing and sleeping around have until recently been dismissed as less serious, less ‘universal’, than men who write about men drinking and writing and sleeping around.” from my essay on Vigdis Hjorth’s If Only lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

m.youtube.com/watch?v=TFIrKW…

‘No one wanted someone disorganised building a nuclear reactor’…Well said Rebecca✅ #qanda #auspol

“Lannuzel and her shipmates have spent three weeks in front of the remote and rarely visited Denman Glacier, on Antarctica’s eastern coast. It sits in a 3.5-kilometre trench, likely the Earth’s deepest point.” Kath Kenny on an ocean research expedition mnth.ly/DfrYq4Z

would love to connect with other writers in London working on creative non-fiction projects! drop me a line💌. RTs welcome!

I enjoyed Belvoir's adaptation of Helen Garner's The Spare Room, but some things get lost in translation. My review for The Saturday Paper thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/theatr…

Judy Davis and Eamon Flack’s production of Helen Garner's 'The Spare Room' is a funny, angry play about caring for a friend who refuses to accept that their cancer is irreversible. satpa.pe/cGcKESb

Blevoir had extended the sold out season of The Spare Room for a week. Can recommend...