I first visited Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market near the hamlet of Money in Leflore county Mississippi in 2009 with my friend Mark Bonta, who was a professor at the local Delta State University in nearby Cleveland at the time. Before that visit I’d not heard much of the brutal murder of Emmett Till and [...]
Mandawuy Yunupingu The following is the kind of warm and deeply personal account by Phil O’Brien that can only come from a sustained friendship, in this case with his very good mate, Mandawuy Yunupingu, aka "Munda." Munda was taken from us by a terrible disease just over 13 years ago at the far-too-young age of [...]
Freightliner "Argosy" – Dunmarra, NT This week's truck is a Freightliner Argosy that I caught up with on a recent road-trip from Darwin to Alice Springs and return. Freightliner is a truck manufacturer based in the US that is said to be the most popular semi-truck in the US, with more than 35 per cent [...]
After predictions of a dire summer rain-wise in these parts, we've been blessed with a late season monsoon descended on the Top End of the Northern Territory. The NT isn't alone in getting a good drenching this summer, with Cyclone Alfred taking a slow stroll down the east coast and a large, slow-moving tropical system [...]
Photojournalist Glenn Campbell was covering Cyclone Alfred and called me just before he evacuated from Lismore yesterday afternoon. As ever he’s good for a yarn and yesterday he told me a few tales from a long career chasing cyclones – and much more – as an “accidental cyclone tourist.” Glenn Campbell – Lismore I just [...]
I recently flew into San Francisco International Airport and had a 5 hour layover before my onward flight to Newark Liberty airport. An hour-long wait to clear immigration soaked up a chunk of that time and, after stumbling around the seemingly perpetual construction that seems to blight all airports nowadays while I spent more time [...]
20 February 2024 It was a select but sold out crowd that saw a great show from Emily Wurramara at the Railway Club in Darwin earlier tonight. We were all happy to see her back on stage in Darwin on a hot February night. Emily was ably supported by local duo Reverie at what for [...]
A few weeks back I went for a drive down to Batchelor, an old uranium mining town an hour’s drive south of Darwin that remade itself as a town dedicated to tourism—the wonderful Litchfield National Park is nearby—and education—the town is home to the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education. Here are some photographs from [...]
In Kaytetye country the Pelican is known as walaymperre, as in Walaymperre thangkerne alkenhe arntwe arenye, repe ware elpalhapenye kape arltere. Thangkerne nyartelepe aynenke aylperre kape pwele-pwele.
Sailing Vessel Kaiwo Maru This is part 2 of what may become a multipart series … Darwin harbour is without doubt still a beautiful place. Sure, while humans and nature have both tried their best to trash the place over the past couple of hundred years – the settler society with inappropriate residential [...]
