I was very saddened to hear this week of the passing of Rick Carter, the great Australian actor and comedian, with whom I worked on Gettin’ Square, a film I wrote and co-produced in 2003. A veteran of scores of classic Aussie films, including Muriel's Wedding, Babe, Rabbit Proof Fence, The Great Gatsby and Mad [...]
They say youth is wasted on the young. But it may not always be so. Around one hundred years ago, a young, little-known American writer by the name of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, who later would be posthumously celebrated under the name F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of the greatest American authors of the twentieth [...]
Society's more forgettable characters sometimes prove to be life's most memorable ones. About twenty years ago I appeared for a hapless heroin addict called to give evidence at an investigative hearing which required him to be cross-examined by a very experienced and capable Queen’s Counsel. Arguably, there was little merit to my client, and undoubtedly [...]
Way back in 1968, Andrew Warhola, better known as the iconic American artist, director and film producer Andy Warhol, the celebrated pinup boy of the uber-cool 1960s visual art movement known as Pop Art, made what was to prove a profoundly prophetic statement. "In the future," Warhol proclaimed, "Everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." [...]
I read a news story just the other day about a self-declared “grammar vigilante” who reportedly prowls the streets of Bristol, in south-west England, correcting errant punctuation on business signs. Apparently for the past decade or so he has been venturing out late at night, wearing a coat and black hat, to surreptitiously correct sloppy [...]
With Schoolies 2016 and the Christmas silly season soon upon us, licensed premises owners, staff and patrons will need to brush up on Queensland’s new liquor laws if they don't want to wind up on the wrong end of a hefty fine. The new laws mean the moment the clock strikes 12 midnight (that’s AEST [...]
The Bible tells us that the sinner Saul was struck down on the road to Damascus. In a sudden flash of light from heaven, he experienced a divine, life-changing epiphany. For most of us the getting of wisdom follows an infinitely more gradual and circuitous path. Amasa Coleman Lee was a humble country boy, born into [...]
This weekend’s Castrol Gold Coast 600 is yet another reminder that some people just seem to be a whole lot happier when someone gets their gear off. Ever since the days of its earliest incarnation, the Gold Coast Indy 300, with its raunchy Indy Undy Ball and bare breasts on the balconies, Queensland's biggest car [...]
With the currently almost endemic proliferation in Australian society of audio- and video-recording mobile phones, and the recent announcement by CASA of the relaxation of laws and regulations around the use of surveillance drones in Australian airspace, perhaps it’s time we all sat down to have a good hard rethink about some of our rules [...]
Nyst Legal trainee lawyer Jonny Nyst, did the Gold Coast proud last night with a first-place gong at the Queensland Music Awards. Jonny’s band, The Vernons, have been making a name for themselves locally supporting big names like Wolfmother and The Rubens, and recently their single Shake ‘n’ Roll was picked up by US telco [...]
