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Month: November 2016
Nick Nicholas, why are you so fascinated with Nixon?
https://www.quora.com/profile/Nick-Nicholas-5 I am profoundly grateful to La Gigi, for asking this question, which has brought together three of the most fascinating personalities in living memory: I am also profoundly grateful to those who have already speculated about why on earth I would be so relentlessly fascinated by Nixon, because if they are, then they’re still […]
Can we speak about religion the same way we speak about politics?
Ah, Mlle Demoritto, this question causes me amusement, because it betrays your lack of Anglo-Saxon repression. The Anglo-Saxon proverbial expression is, there are three topics that one should never bring up for social discussion: Sex, Politics, and Religion. All three are regarded as too hot. This is obviously a culture-specific judgement, and different cultures and […]
Sam at Balena with a Clipboard
In their answer to A celebrity had his assistant call to schedule a date with me. Should I be offended?, Sam Murray details their rather agreeable experience of having their one-time Celebrity Fuck Buddy (CFB) arrange dates through an assistant. After all, the CFB was hardly to be trusted to arrange dates on his own. […]
How does Australian culture compare with European culture?
Some astonishingly good answers, particularly Ben Kelley and Melodie Neal. To a European, we are clearly New World, and closer to the US than to Europe, as others have explained. Melbourne is more European (and it has gotten even more European since the 90s, with the promotion of foodie culture and laneway restaurants in the […]
Why do some people never understand that a library is a holy place where they are supposed to stay silent?
Because they think a library is not a place of silent study, but a place of either group study checking your Facebook feed socialising eating lunch (!) or being on the phone to their mates (!!) Incidentally, having just been subjected to the first three in my local public library, where I came for some […]
Why did Australia decide to call their currency “dollars” instead of “pounds”?
The critical decision was not to call the new decimal currency the pound. The pound was an option: Cyprus already had a decimalised pound, for example. But that option wasn’t taken. As indeed it wasn’t taken in the other dominions. Canada, for example, went decimal and dollar in 1858. Decimal because My God, do you […]
If a president decided to go rogue and wants to nuke a country, what would happen?
Like everyone else said, that’s why you try to have a sane Secretary of Defence. Anon mentioned Nixon during Nam: Anonymous’ answer to If a president decided to go rogue and wants to nuke a country, what would happen? Anon doesn’t mention Nixon during the death throes of his presidency, when Schlessinger his SecDef was […]
Why were consumer goods important symbols of progress for both Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon in the Kitchen Debate?
That is a very good question, Dan. I look forward to many more from you! I’m pleasantly surprised that you’ve asked me, but I’ll run with that. With Ambrose’s biography of Nixon as my guide. The Kitchen Debate was an impromptu kind of affair, that both Nixon and Khruschev had a blast doing. Nixon was […]
Has Ezra Pound’s poetry influenced any lyricists/songwriters in particular, or perhaps particular songs?
User, how do I repay you for your following me, and for your exquisite sensitivity with the English language? With a joke answer. TISM: a humorous band of the 80s–00s in Australia. Its membership overrepresented by English teacher types. They had a poem about Wilfred Owen, who at the time featured in the Year 12 […]
How old aren’t you?
I am not 45. OK, I *am* 45, but I don’t particularly care to act it. I act either 60, or 20, depending on circumstances. And I suspect it was ever thus. I mean, do 45 year olds draw this? Dimitra in the lab by Nick Nicholas on Gallery of Awesomery Or write this? Nick […]