Friends

Given the season of excess that is Christmas, the event seems strangely downsized lately. Many of us bumped Christ a long time ago, whose birthday the event celebrates, in favour of a definition of Christmas that’s less about God and more about making merry with family.

Now that tradition might also be on the wane with some ditching the family bash, in case they’re tempted to bash up the rellies, in favour of a get-together with like-minded people they actually like. Then there are those, like Young Jean Lee, who just want to spend Christmas alone.

Lee, a subversive New York playwright, last year released her own carol singing the praises of a solo Christmas. In it, she enjoys her festive season minus disappointed family, egocentric friends, impossible standards, tension and yelling.

Continue reading "A solo Christmas is not necessarily a sad thing" »

As a Labor MP who joined the party as a teenager it will be no surprise to learn that, for me, the grand enemy has always been the Liberals. That pretentious blue “L” which appropriates the Australian flag set in the middle of a prissy blue rosette pinned on an overly groomed and unreasonably confident young man was the embodiment of all that was wrong with our country.

It was these types who in government squandered the economic opportunities of the sixties, couldn’t make a decision to save themselves, sneakily avoided packing up the Christmas table, and I am positive were to blame for the fall of Singapore.

By contrast Labor represented a balance of determination and enlightenment. Unlike conservatives who wanted things to stay the same, we had ideas. We fought for the rights of working Australians and we opened up our economy.

Continue reading "With enemies like these, who needs friends?" »

When “they” finally get around to writing the how-to-be-an-adult guide book it must include a chapter on how to be a good friend because it’s fast becoming the first casualty of being a “grown-up”.

I’m not talking about how impossible it is to see anyone that a) you don’t live with or b) you don’t work with anymore or how challenging it can be to make friends when you move to a new place or suffer through a divorce or break-up; but what happens when you hit a certain age and so many of us decide that it’s OK to just stop caring about each other anymore.

Continue reading "Why’s it so hard to be an adult and a good friend?" »