No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison written by Behrouz Boochani
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’m glad I read this challenging book. Boochani has shed important light on an ugly Australian chapter. It’s an eye-opening account through his observation and poetry.
Repatriating to Australia at the end of 2018, and into a new state for us in Victoria, it opened up a wonderful opportunity to run new marathons. I set my sights first on my capital city’s major road race, the Nike Melbourne Marathon. (For anyone counting, this would be number 11)
This race had been on my mind many years earlier. Even since I completed the Gold Coast City marathon probably. For fellow Queenslanders, the decision of which marathon outside of Queensland to run usually comes down to their preference to finish at The Sydney Opera House or finish on the hallowed turf of the MCG. I love my sport which, combined with my illogical opposition to all things from NSW, meant Melbourne was always going to be the clear winner.
Once I had finished running it, (in a slightly off target 4hr 03 minutes) I wanted to capture some of the amazing moments from the event, and I thought a Tweetstorm was the simplest (and therefore best) format for that. Now I have found that WordPress has an Unroll feature for Twitter embeds. So here following, are the 12 tweets from my 2019 Melbourne Marathon experience.
Sunday’s #MelbMara was amazing. A thread might be simpler than a blog to capture a few fun tidbits. (1/12)
Before the race I walked more than I wanted looking for the marathon bag drop. My Apple Watch informed me I’d completed my exercise goal before reaching the start line. ?
Loved an early spectator sign in the first few kms saying “You’re nearly there … (just kidding)” ?
Saw a spectator with a “Go Random Stranger” sign popping up all over the course. Runners beside me yelled “Thank you random cheerleader”. ? Later I noticed the sign flipped to show “Go Dan” on the other side when needed.
Another spectator sign I enjoyed, “It’s an awful lot of effort for a free banana.” ? (I might be mistaken, but I recollect there being only half bananas after the finish. Yet on the course they were whole. The opposite would have been better?)
.@EliudKipchoge running the first sub 2 hr marathon the day before was quite a talking point.
At one point on the course our group hit a complete standstill, where I said we’d now not break the world record. My neighbour concurred, since we had no laser guidance from a pace car (we were on 4:30 pace). ?
I saw more spectators around the course randomly handing out lollies than I have at any marathon. I asked one runner if his Mum knows he’s taking candy from strangers. After a pause, he said “At least he was wearing a glove.” ?
Around 30km mark I stopped noticing funny things, as my focus shifted to the pain of running 42.2kms.
I had anticipated a jubilant lap of the MCG before the finish line, maybe even getting out my phone to film the milestone moment. Wrong on two fronts.
1. My legs were excruciating and I could think of nothing beyond moving forward; and
2. My phone had been unlocking and entering wrong passwords in my flip belt. So it was disabled for a further hour. (At least on the drive home my marathon pace sped up quite a bit!?)The end. For now.
I just remembered on the course I saw an Avenger running , but couldn’t keep up with him.
“Which one was it?”
“That’s not important.”
“It was Hulk wasn’t it.”
“But I did beat Spider-Man!”
Originally tweeted by Ryan B (@rbrink77) on 14 October, 2019.
Don’t Blink written by James Patterson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“Don’t Blink” was a perfect book title given the non-stop action. I enjoyed the pace and writing, even with unsurprising cliche after cliche.
Fight Club written by Chuck Palahniuk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a brilliant ride. I wish I hadn’t seen the movie first, and uncovered the tale in sequence. Still a great book I couldn’t put down for long.
Breath written by Tim Winton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I enjoyed the boys’ growing love of ocean translated into words. It all seemed very familiar. The reflecting in the final chapters changed the pace an awful lot, I wondered if I had missed something. And in real life that might be precisely how it feels.
I'm Not Racist, but …: A Collection of Social Observations (Salt Modern Poets Series) written by Anita Heiss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Anita’s clear poetry describes her position on a large number of challenges Australia still has, though may not realise. The book’s title is a perfect summary of what we face.
Deadly Kerfuffle written by Tony Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A very Aussie comedic thriller tackling the contemporary merging of racism and terrorism. An unsuspecting cast of familiar-sounding characters encounter some unpleasantness in their leafy Melbourne suburb – quite helpful for the radio talkback.
Probably as expected, more giggling than suspense.
Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia edited by Dr Anita Heiss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a wonderful book Growing Up Aboriginal Australia is.
Full disclosure, my amazing Mum wrote one of the stories featured.
It’s a touch sad to finally complete it. I’ve enjoyed flicking through and reading one or two of the stories from time to time at random.
This is apparently a sign of a good book.
Some of the accounts brought joy, truly brightening my day with appreciation. Others shared a more solemn account worthy of reflection.
I acknowledge the strength of all the authors putting their very personal stories to paper.
It made me think deeply about my own view of growing up Aboriginal in Australia.
For that I am grateful.
This week I enjoyed some replies to Kim Kardashian West’s excitement about the Serial podcast. They were mocking that antiquated platforms like MySpace and Blackberry Messenger would be buzzing with news about a podcast which kind of peaked back in 2015.
It made me reflect on podcasts in general.
For those unfamiliar, a podcast is just radio on the internet which fetches new episodes when they’re ready, and you can play them whenever you want. How cool is that.
I’ve enjoyed listening to them for roughly 12 years now.
Podcasts now download onto my 70 year old mother’s smart phone, after she got me to subscribe her to something she wanted to follow.
From what was initially quite a complicated and nerdy pursuit, it’s wonderful to see ditsy reality TV stars are now enjoying them too.
My own tastes in podcasts have changed over time.
I thought I’d archive my current subscriptions for future reference. No doubt, this will continue to change over time.
I think I’d classify all my podcasts into a Venn diagram of:
I’ve listed them in the order that I tend to listen to them.
I used to listen to some which would fall completely under the Motivational category. But quite contradictory, I found they were all very easy to tire of.
The better ones were The Tim Ferriss Podcast, (though over 5 minutes of ads led me to take some of his Four Hour Work Week advice and drop media inputs which don’t meet your goals). And Lewis Howes is a great guy and has a popular podcast called School Of Greatness – though for me, he used it far too much to promote his books. So I currently have no motivating ones in the playlist.
Similar to the old iPod adage, you might be able to tell a lot about someone from the podcasts they subscribe to, or don’t. And it’s always interesting to find others who like listening to similar stuff ..
The next phase of more mainstream podcasting might be interesting as major players get involved, and advertising becomes more sophisticated and captures larger (though maybe more fickle) audiences.
Podcasts have been an invaluable companion for my daily commutes. And I’d like to think they’ll get more useful with things like smart speaker devices, and connected homes.
I’ll check back some time to see what’s changed.
During our Australian holidays, we had a chance encounter with rugby league great, Wally Lewis while walking into Brisbane Airport.
It’s interesting how sometimes you can spot a celebrity from a mere flash of them quite a distance away.
He was kind enough to pose for a photo with us.
In case he needed some convincing, to seal the deal I mentioned I did name my second son “Lewis” afterall.
I forgot to add that my first son is Myles, so we have pretty close to the famous Wally Lewis and Gene Miles combination.
Wally and wife Jacqui were lovely during our short interaction/interruption while they were on their way to the Dally M awards.
We were grateful, and it had me recounting to the boys again how inspiring he had been as a player.
A few days later at my parents’ place, the boys were flicking through some papers on the bookshelf when they came across the Wally Lewis book, “Out Of The Shadows”; by Neil Cadigan, and Wally Lewis.
We should ignore the fact that my Lewis saw the cover and excitedly exclaimed “Oh look, it’s Dr Phil!”
I decided to read the book before leaving Brisbane, as a result of our chance encounter at the airport.
When you’re like me and average reading 5 books a year, completing an entire book in just three days is what’s called a challenge.
Reading it was quite simple really. The book was a lovely and warm account. I’m probably similar to a lot of Queenslanders, who knew only some of the story of Wally’s epilepsy. The book gives great perspective. It shares the full chronology leading up to the diagnosis, and then living long-term with the disorder while still leading a busy professional schedule. I really had no idea how big an ordeal this was, and accounts from others supplemented the events along the way. It really uncovered my own ignorance around epilepsy. It’s no spoiler that the story has a happy ending. Many aren’t so lucky.
I’m glad I read this book, which I was certainly encouraged to do after seeing The King in the flesh. It made me appreciate how inspiring Wally is as a man.
A wonderful account of The King’s biggest battle outside of rugby league, epilepsy. It was nice to read more about the man who inspired so many on the sporting field, and now is arguably doing even more important work in lifting awareness of the disorder – and even taking control of your health generally.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Also, I went through our Brisbane holiday photos from 12 months earlier.
On that trip we managed to catch a Broncos home match, where the boys got their first encounter with King Wally Lewis, the Emperor of Lang Park!
Broncos vs Parramatta Eels 24/08/2017