Pete: Just walking in, you guys far off?
Gav: 50 meters
Pete: Perfect


Mike: Sometimes decisions kind of cascade one after another until you’re suddenly in a strange place.


As you know, It’s been kind of rainy and cool in Sydney the last couple of days. So when I was getting dressed 30 mins ago to go out for dinner I put on long pants and tossed a jumper over my shoulder - for later.


I was a bit late leaving, due to other questionable choices, so my transport choices had changed from walk, bus or Uber to just bus or Uber.


Obviously I decided to walk anyway. The sun is out now and it’s kind of beautiful.


5 minutes into the walk I realised that I’d be 20 mins late. Not a huge deal, but I also thought that it would be cool to blow up the 1:20 Google maps was telling me it would take, and do it in 55 minutes. Cop that projected human average walking speed.


As I was walking, I devised the devilish plan to jog a few of the downhill bits. I figured if I kept it easy I wouldn’t get too hot. It started well, then began to rapidly fail. I was warming up. Jumper in hand, evening sun on my shoulder. Spring in the air.


The next obvious choice was to loose the shirt, I was still in the neighbourhood, not many people around. No worries.


Now I’m jogging with my shirt off, and it’s not as tight an operation as it used to be under there. To counteract the visible torso jiggle, I decided to run faster. I figured that would appear better in the case of bystanders. This totally negated any heating savings I was making by loosing the cotton T.


Now I’m charging, shirt and sweater in hand, belly held as tight as can be. Slacks slipping down with the weight of my IPhone 14. Full stride run into the city.


Next thing I know I’m standing on the Pyrmont Bridge, crossing darling harbour, surrounded by tourists early on Saturday night.


I’m 600 meters away is the answer, maybe 300 by the time you’ve read through all this.

Pete: Perfect

I saw real life today, captured like an incredible portrait in a gallery. It made me feel joy.


There was a lot of traffic on Victoria road this morning. 2 lanes this way, 3 back the other. It was drive, drive, stop traffic. Multiple red light traffic. Not crawl along steadily traffic. The stops are extended, then you drive on a while and stop again. One of my stops was epic.


To my left was a bus stop bench, it was perfectly framed by the steel tray of a working Ute. Right angles, shinning metal and scuff marks. On the other side there was a silver/grey SUV style mum rig. Both vehicles stopped to block out the rest of the world from my view and leave only the bus stop and 2 teenager waiters.


One boy sat with his bag beside him, a private school uniform (shirt, tie, shinny black shoes). He looked to be in grade 10 and was lethargically plonked onto his half of the bench. The boy was paralysed by his phone. The only movement he showed was the rhythmic scrolling of his right thumb, every other part of his person sat inert on the bench.


Next to him was a slightly younger student, end of year 7, but big for his age is my guess. He wore a public school uniform (sports shoes, PE shorts and polo shirt), his bag was on his back and he sat with chin on hand and elbow on knee. Everything about this kid shouted “I AM BORED”. He looked down the rows of cars for his bus. His right toes pivoted on the ground as he noticed a chunk of gravel or loose pavement. His head turned to the other student, he looked at his face, then flicked down toward the screen before turning away.


This young guy was not stimulated, not animated or carefree. He was just waiting, fairly patiently, for the morning bus to school. It was not fun.


I watched with a steady feeling of joy and elation for the kid and for his family. He could have been in a phone, reading a book, catching up on homework or listening to music. None of that was happening, and the space around the young person seemed to me, in the living art gallery moment I was having, to be glowing with golden life. Normal Tuesday morning life. No phone!


Listen, the internet isn’t pure poison, social media is not single handed destroying a generation, technology and a habit of constant distraction is not the mortal enemy creativity and human kindness. But, I was very grateful to see one bored kid waiting peacefully for the bus.

I went to a gala dinner last night. It was the whole deal; speeches, fancy clothes, business associates and potential contacts. Servants brought in the food and deftly laid napkins over knees. My cup was filled for me, the people around me said witty things.


There was entertainment, congratulations, discussion, judgements.


The only drawback was that everyone had to sit in firm, straight backed chairs. The tables were high and we all tucked our knees underneath to eat - real modern style. There wasn’t a couch, elbow bolster, low table or finger bowl of scented water to be seen. The modern formal dinning posture is seriously out of step with the heights of republican Roman triclinium design.


Not that I really know, but I wonder how comfortable it actually was to eat spread out on a couch. The system as I understand it was to set a single low square table with food, drink and accoutrements. One side was reserved for staff/slave access to bring food and remove dishes. The other 3 sides each had a large flat couch pushed very close. When a diner arrived they would sit on the outer edge while an attendant removed their shoes. They could then lie back on their side so their head was closest to the table and their feet furthest away. Each of the couches held 2 or 3 people of a maximum of 9 diners at the meal.


The eating posture required a rounded pillow for under an arm, as people lay in a position with their stomach half forward towards the mattress. From the middle position it would have been easier to talk to one couch mate in front of you. I can see 6 people would have been the prime set up.


It might have been fairly intimate laying out next to someone you just met at a Roman gala dinner. Exposing perhaps in some way.


I wonder if it’ll ever roll back around into fashion?

Today the sky was so absolutely blue that it looked like it could have been a painted ceiling 15 metres away from my face. I watched across the children’s playground with the sun behind me and not a single feature to break up the ultramarine. No clouds, birds, planes or other airborne objects disrupted the pure relentless blue.


Below, in the park it was every colour of Sydney dad.


There was the guy with 1 earbud in trying to watch the footy on his phone. He crisscrossed the equipment trailing his little girl from one perceived danger to the next. At one point he became engrossed in the action on his tiny screen as his daughter got high on the spiderweb. He did offer a distracted “be careful” in her direction, however by that point she was already down and running slowly across the softfall ground.


There was a business looking dad who seemed dressed down in jeans, a button up shirt and sweater combo - worn casual with adidas kicks. He and his dressed down wife, watched their dressed down daughter play for a bit before checking a lot of emails on the bench.


There was a very involved dad dragging his less than 1 year old down the slide then pushing him back up the ladder while commentating the whole loop. The boy and the big boy had similar amounts of hair, no shoes and T-shirts wrapped tightly around their big proud tums. Both smiled a lot.


There was a dad who rolled into the playground behind his primary school aged kids wearing thongs, holding a half finished beer and escorting a fluffy dog off it’s lead. The other dads all looked in his direction for a while.


There was a dad who spent a lot of the playground time on a video call which begun with “thanks very much for taking the time to talk, I’m in a playground with the kids.” I wondered if it was a prospective business relationship or a formal call with the grandparents.


There was also the dad half looking at their child and half gazing at the incredible sky.


All the colours of the playground dad rainbow, under a completely uniform sky. Happy Father’s Day.

In 1968 the Apollo 8 mission put humans into a lunar orbit for the first time. They spun around the moon 10 times then come home! On every lap they disappeared out of possible human contact for forty minutes, beyond radio contact around the far side of the moon. I imagine Mission Control held their psychological breath every time until they heard the astronaut’s voices again.


Flying dark, expecting to connect back to the stream of human history. Hoping nothing went wrong, particularly during that 40 minutes. A leap of confidence every time, trusting there was a safe landing on the other side.




At basketball today the two courts were separated by the giant drop down curtain which keeps the basketballs out of the badminton games. It’s not usually like this. Most Sunday mornings the 7 year olds play basketball on the close court and the 9 year olds on the far one. Our 3 year old usually runs big laps of both. We watch from the aluminium benches next to the 7 year old game. We stay in radio contact with our little Apollo 8 as she orbits the hall.


Today the curtain was down. Today she went dark on the far side of moon, 2 minutes later she’d emerge back into view, puffing and flapping across the timber floor, side stepping stray basketballs. It was a leap of confidence every time. 2 minutes of mystery on her lap of the hall.


You don’t always land a big leap. Most leaps you know where you’d like to land, usually somewhere different and good, but it’s not guaranteed. I suppose that is part of the value.

Regardless, it seems important to keep going for it. To keep leaping across the dark, reaching for a good landing.

In 1929 Pluto was quietly charging around the sun on its funky 17 degree akimbo orbit, then bam. A bloke called Clyde spots it and by 1930, it’s a planet.


One of 9 legends, named after a Roman god and learned by every school kid for generations. You can probably list them in order in your head right now.

Except of course the order of Saturn and Jupiter, or is it Jupiter then Saturn?

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Trust your Roman history again here team, Jupiter Optimo Maximus - best and greatest come first.


Back to Pluto though and it’s incredible change of status. This happens to people sometimes too. Suddenly their innate characteristics and features are interpreted in a new way, for good or for ill. We are who we are, until one day another Clyde out there discovers us and puts a new label on. As we all know, in our society, labels are powerful. All of a sudden, socially speaking we’re now a planet, or not as the case may be.


In this story, 76 years later, Pluto was reappraised and labelled again, this time into a dwarf planet. It didn’t dominate its orbit. You’ve got to clear your region with your massive orbital power if you want to be a planet these days.

Pluto went from mysterious outer celestial lump, to full blown planet status and then off into the multitude of dwarfs and sundry beyond Neptune. All while actually changing very little at all.


Pluto’s last 95 years makes me think two things:
1 - dominating your orbit means something.
2 - watch out for labels, they are consequential.

Chess is about choices. Defend or attack, wait or push, make the piece exchange or not. I’m not very good at making the right choice, however I recognise that’s what it’s about. My first chess memories, which are not my first games, are with my grandfather.


We made a regular 1 hour drive down to see them when I was young and in my pre high school chess curious phase. It was formal at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, handshakes at the door and saucers under the tea cups. Presumably I once blurted out something about chess in an attempt to fill an extended silence and next thing I knew I was only 8 squares away and eye to eye with Noel Neild. This was the Noel who fought in World War Two, once won a Victorian championship in old school (wall style) handball and successfully made it to the top of the public service as an accountant in post war Canberra. Scanning his life from my position in history, it’s hard to image some of the choices he’d been required to make.


We played and he promptly shwacked me off the table like I was small rubber handball or a single page of departmental acquisitions. Check mate.


I headed home with my pawn-tail between my legs.


The next time we visited I wasn’t invited to play, instead I was handed a freshly acquired ‘how to play chess’ book and a comment to the effect of ‘you might enjoy this, read and we’ll play next time.’ I did, and we did. It was a similar, no quarter given thrashing from Grandpa. Respect, I suppose. That’s one way to go.


My father directly empathised and recalled his chess induction 40 years earlier. It was harsh, but also what’s the alternative? Let the learner make mistakes and then move on without learning. Perhaps? We went home and Dd and I began a years long series of handicapped games. After each game, the handicap would adjust 1; dad would lose or gain a piece for the start of the next game.


We’d both play to win, I’d just have a 3-4 piece head start most games. It was a compromise that I always thought was great. A good choice for a healthy contest. Equity rather than equality.


It’s chess season in our house right now. There is a guide book on the dinning room table and I expect there is rook on the floor somewhere waiting to ambush me on the way to the bathroom at 6:15am. I’ll start the next game with my boy down a Queen, a bishop, a knight and a rook. The choice of how to play is clear, we’ll both be going for the victory, I think perhaps grandpa would have approved.

For me the most romantic character in the Lord of the Rings is Aragorn; the exiled descendent of the kings of Gondor and reluctant heir to the throne. He walks the forests of Middle earth, and the early chapters of the book as a mysterious loner. Dark and capable, he is totally self-reliant and bestrides the world following his unknowable whim. The strings of society and responsibility flap and wave around Aragorn like shadows, he has turned away. People know him as Strider, he walks the land. Solitude is his shield, it protects him from pain and loss, he is free, yet alone.




It was grey in Sydney today and I zipped my jacket high before stepping out into the park. Cold water dropped and splashed sporadically from sodden leaves and my boots left deep impressions in the sand which had washed from a flower bed across the footpath. The wind whipped and distant church bells chimed like elvin music floating through Loth-lorien. For a moment I’m Strider, no bags, no gear, no kids. It’s just me and the winding trail ahead. A solitary path from the EV charger behind the museum, through the Domain parklands to the Art Gallery.
Not a rugged dash into the wild to avoid the Nazgûl, but still, it felt great to just walk.


Anyway, the point I’m lurching towards is that sometimes it’s nice to stomp around by yourself. The obvious next point is that Aragorn only really made his way to fulfilment by taking on his responsibilities and joining his family (fellowship) at the gallery (siege of Minas Tirith). So, that is what I did. Which was great, the Archibald is on.


Love striding by myself, probably love walking with my family more.

I’ve written a lot about the Australian under 24 frisbee team this year. This will be the last story about the campaign, Worlds finished a month ago, they were a special team.


On the last day of play the boys sat in our allocated change room and bounced to the consuming swell of the usual pump up music. One of the senior players had brought a near suitcase sized speaker from Australia - the team was rarely wanting for musical power. Loud!


They played the same songs before every game, much of it high tempo, some of it explicit, all familiar, it was part of the preparation routine. My children moved in and out of the room, Nana waited outside, I prowled around trying to palpate the collective readiness of the team. On this final day they were ready, the day’s two games would decide our final place. The music pounded, they were ready.


The first game was thrilling. Close, intense, emotional and testing. The Australian team lost on double game point, painful and also respectable. We had the frisbee at half field to win, so close. The loss meant that 3 hours later we were back in the same change room but with a very different tone. They were hurt about the morning result. They were fatigued after 9 games in 6 days of intense Spanish heat. I think they also felt the looming end of their sensational adventure - there was one last game with their mates. Ever.


It was quiet in the rooms, not from the milk-crate sized speaker, that was loud and familiar. But the noise under it, often vibrant and energised, before this game it was subdued. Part of each of our minds was still in those last tense points of the morning loss. They were holding on.


Once again, my 3 and 7 year old cruised in and out of the rooms, watching and learning. The little one particularly had no idea what the score had been against Austria on field 6 earlier. Nor did she care that Colombia was good this cycle and it was going to be tough in the afternoon heat. She just bounced around with her palm sized Elsa doll and asked again if the songs could be changed to Frozen music.

Very surprisingly, this time the answer was yes.

Suddenly the lawn-chair sized speaker pushed out the first few notes of Disney’s smash hit ‘Let it go’ from Frozen. If you know you know, but if you don’t, it’s a power ballard of released inhibitions and living your truth. And princess, it’s about princesses.


“Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore“


I cringed and turned to correct the situation. Ironically, I was holding tight, rather than letting go. The mood in the room though began to turn. Smiles appeared, voices lifted and one 3 year old squealed then danced. Like a room full of people suddenly released, the boys sang (the chorus) and whooped at the irony of the thing. They did need to let it go, they needed to be free and go produce their best for their mates one last time. So, they sang on and got ready to charge.


I misted in the corner as the team found another way to show their humility, compassion and power. It was a symbol of their connection and joy at being together with a mountain to climb.




“It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I'm free”




I found coaching the Goannas team to be a brilliant year long project. 20 years after my first chance to go to the World Championships it continues to be a joy and a struggle. It’s always different and I’m still very grateful to be there.


Public thanks to the players, leaders and staff of the team for being excellent people and for building a special team together.

This week, in the car I pressed the voice button and said “play Frozen soundtrack please”. The car understood my meaning and used Spotify to play the songs.


Incredible driving soundtrack and, incredible manners role modelled by me. See, that’s how you do it kids. You’re welcome.


Except it isn’t. Also this week, I was informed that using extra (unnecessary) words like ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘could you’ increases the processes demand of the computing behind AI which uses additional energy, creates more carbon emissions and raises operational costs at the server. Using good manners with AI uses more energy, is unhelpful with conceptualising AI and is the wrong this to do.


This is of course completely opposite to using good manners with humans. Every time you forget to use ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘how are you feeling?’ with a person you cause them to use unnecessary energy to cope with your lack of politeness. Ask anyone in retail, hospitality or with young kids. It takes patience and energy to manage communicating with bad manners. I’m no expert, but it can’t be good for global warming either.


The way a message is wrapped up is important. It’s good to be efficient and direct. But sometimes, it’s better to take a little extra time, and energy, and send your meaning over wrapped in crisp brown paper with a neat string bow.


Thanks for reading.