It seems we are not immune to tragedy in Mt Waverley

Mike's Pith & Wind - Idiot box
If you hadn’t already picked it up from previous P&Ws, I’ll take the opportunity to remind you that I’m a bona fide TV junkie. Witness my mantra - if you’ve got cable and you can’t find something on the telly worth watching, you’re not really trying. Mind you, I have lowered the bar a bit. While I refuse on principle to go and see a movie more than once, (with the exception of Rio Bravo which I somehow managed to see three times – I think there was a girl involved somehow), or intentionally re-read a book, on the grounds it’s effort enough to read a book in the first place, I’ll happily re-watch, and then watch again, hoary old episodes of Seinfeld, Futurama and Gavin and Stacey etc. on the idiot box..
Perhaps you might see it as a cry for help.
As previously described, in my TV P&W back in 2009,
(I’m clearly running out of ideas for this column), TV’s hold over me is probably due to the fact that I was there when it first arrived and I’ve never gotten over it. In any case, the end result of this prolonged infatuation is plain to see when the band is playing in a bar (like the one we played in last Sunday) that has screens plonked seductively about the room showing horse racing and any other variety of sport, and with some of them in view of the stage it’s all I can do not to go slack-jawed and start dribbling in mid-performance – you know, like when I’m at home.
This phenomenon actually provoked some discussion of the competitive ‘luxury’ kind (à la Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch).on my FaceBook.. read more

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Dick's Toolbox - March Book list
As I often do, I am presently reading several books at once.
The first ’Nonsense on Stilts – how to tell science from bunk’ is by Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. The second is ‘Packing for Mars. The curious Science of Life in the Void’ is by Mary Roach who says “I often write about science, though I don't have a science degree and must fake my way through interviews with experts I can't understand.” Mary Roach is extremely entertaining, an excellent and extremely funny reporter with the kind of observations and off-the-wall facts that you will want to remember for the next edition of QI at the dinner table.
Chapter titles such as ‘Houston, we have a fungus. Space Hygiene and the men who stopped Bathing for Science’ and ‘Separation anxiety. The continuing sage of Zero-Gravity.. read more