It is forbidden to forbid

In a dis­cus­sion about road signs here, Doug and I agreed that the major dif­fer­ence between Aus­tralia and Amer­ica is that in Aus­tralia, everything is for­bid­den unless expressly per­mit­ted while in Amer­ica, everything is per­mit­ted unless expressly...

Adventures on the coast

Last night, Doug and I took his new toy for a wander over the moun­tain, on wind­ing roads through red­wood forests and oak and some­thing called cha­par­ral (which I’d never head of). We even­tu­ally fol­lowed San Gregorio creek down to where it met the...

Enormity and power

Everything is HUGE in the USA. Walk into a store, of just about any kind, and it will be seven times the size of any Aus­tralian equivalent. This does mean more of everything. It’s a guzz­ling cul­ture of unbe­liev­able mag­nitude. And I can see how it...