Opinion

Jeff Corbett

Laptops and porn

Posted: 02 Sep 10 | The sacking of Minister McLeay and so many other men is hugely disproportionate to the breach of a rule, to the point that I see it as a new male vulnerability and even as a weapon of a rising force in management, women. |

Comments (0)

The pythons and the chihuahua

Posted: 01 Sep 10 | Judy Martin says her pythons show their affection by rubbing their face against hers or by exhaling into her face. I can imagine few things more disturbing than having a python exhaling into my face. |

Comments (23)

Killing snakes

Posted: 31 Aug 10 | It's obvious to me that the people who intone the "illegal to kill a snake you know" line are the sort of people who believe the last thing they were told, and so when I encountered that line for the umpteenth time yesterday I set out to find the law that says "thou shalt not kill snakes". |

Comments (66)

Breaking the rail impasse

Posted: 27 Aug 10 | Trains between Hamilton and Newcastle should slow to a maximum speed of 15km/h, the area between and beside the tracks be filled in, the fences should be removed and people should be free to walk across the tracks between the foreshore and Hunter Street. |

Comments (74)

GPT mysteries

Posted: 26 Aug 10 | The conspiracy theory that GPT spent $100 million buying Newcastle CBD buildings simply to prevent another company creating a big shopping centre to compete against GPT's Charlestown Square has its temptations, but it seems to me as unlikely as GPT believing its development would resurrect inner Newcastle as the region's retail powerhouse. |

Comments (100)

Youth versus experience

Posted: 25 Aug 10 | I believe we are emerging from the age of youth, an age at least three decades long and one that seems to have matched the rise of television as an entertainment media. |

Comments (33)

Urban myths

Posted: 24 Aug 10 | An urban myth rips through the community once or twice a year, and the myth that preceded the motorcyclist's ghost was the Metford fairy, one I was told with earnest attestations of truth half a dozen times. |

Comments (40)

Email hijack

Posted: 23 Aug 10 | I replied, as a bit of fun, in the exaggerated language of scammers, saying I had tears welling like boils in my eyes that such misfortune should strike anyone fighting racism, and before I sent the 800 English pounds would Mr Wilson send a photo so I could make sure he was a white man. |

Comments (22)

The gorging syndrome

Posted: 20 Aug 10 | The strange syndrome flared again when I announced Corbett's Biggest Loser Challenge just over three weeks ago. Overnight I became ravenous, devouring stuff I'd normally never eat. |

Comments (31)

We're not sleazy

Posted: 19 Aug 10 | Frankly, the fellows I know with much younger partners are prone to crying in their beer about not being up to the mark. |

Comments (33)

Chooky language

Posted: 18 Aug 10 | Sometimes a subordinate rooster would summons hens to food by sending the visual signals without the audible call, apparently hoping to avoid alerting the chief rooster. |

Comments (27)

Hospital ward segregation

Posted: 17 Aug 10 | Mixing men and women in wards didn't seem to be a problem when I was in hospital six years ago, but it is now. |

Comments (41)

Homosexual marriage

Posted: 16 Aug 10 | It's becoming the new rallying point for homosexuals, the right to marry, and I read that a new lobby group in the Hunter is accusing Labor and Liberals of homophobia for their refusal to change the Marriage Act. |

Comments (98)

Councils in crisis

Posted: 13 Aug 10 | So what is it that reduces councillors who were at the outset respectable, decent and courteous to rancorous loathing? Might it have something to do with the type of people who aspire to become a councillor? Their reasons for becoming a councillor? |

Comments (32)

Suburban shopping sabotage

Posted: 12 Aug 10 | Newcastle City Council has been talking greedily of introducing parking meters at 11 suburban shopping strips despite the likelihood that metered and lucratively policed parking will drive shoppers to the already burgeoning shopping centres. |

Comments (39)

Hand-washing failure

Posted: 11 Aug 10 | Few people accept that failing to wash our hands, especially after using the toilet, can have dire consequences. |

Comments (37)

Hades the pizza oven

Posted: 10 Aug 10 | It's been finished for two months, Hades the woodfired pizza oven sitting like a giant pink bald head not far from my back door, and if I'd given you the update early it would have been a sad story of failures. |

Comments (26)

Cage fighting's brutality knows few rules

Posted: 09 Aug 10 | Even the name cage fighting brings up images of animal-like no-holds-barred contest for life or death, and when I saw the photos in the Herald from a weekend tournament of cage fighting in Newcastle there didn't appear to be any rules. |

Comments (163)

Greens in government

Posted: 06 Aug 10 | Greens policies don't matter much, or at all, when we don't have to bear the consequences of them, but that is likely to change after the approaching federal election. |

Comments (161)

The disabled parking rort

Posted: 05 Aug 10 | Why should the community provide free and unlimited parking to a disabled person who'd rather drive than take public transport into the city centre? |

Comments (68)