Peter’s Blog

I need to place on record my feeling that overwhelmingly throughout my life, my contact with my fellow men, women and children has been a total delight.
It is a recurring pleasure which I experience each day and is among the precious things which makes my life rewarding and worth living, not least because moments of the keenest enjoyment can as readily occur with a complete stranger as with family and friends.

 


 

The Film Diary entries are selected items from the diary I keep whenever I film. To check location references, click on ‘Tamborine Mountain’ on the top information bar then hit the ‘Tamborine Mountain’ button on the map.

The Brisbane Line was the e-bulletin of the now defunct Brisbane Institute, to which I contributed the articles featured, between 2006 and 2012.

Not The Brisbane Line contains my other essays from 2005 to the present.

 



A cherished dream, my book   One small place on earth …  discovering biodiversity where you are,   self-published in August 2019, has been long in the making. Jan Watson created its design template nine years ago. The idea of doing a book seems to have occurred during my stay with Clive Tempest, the website’s first architect, when I was visiting the UK in 2006. By the time Steve Guttormsen and I began sustained work on the book in 2017, much of which I had already written, the imperative was to create a hard copy version of a project whose content is otherwise entirely digital.

 

People may wonder why there is little mention of climate change – global warming on my website. There are two related reasons. Firstly, if former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2007 remark that climate change is the “great moral, environmental and economic challenge of our age” is true, we have not acted accordingly before or since. Rudd’s statement is only true if we collectively live as if it is true, Rudd included. Instead, our politics has wasted decades favouring business as usual, and a global economy excessively dependent on fossil fuels – in the wilful absence of a politics intent on achieving a low carbon economy. Secondly, although it is open to individuals to strive to live the truth of Rudd’s remarks, the vast majority of people, myself included, do not. I salute those who do. The precautionary principle alone makes me regard climate change as a current planetary crisis, but because I have only marginally changed the way I live, and still wish to fly, I am not inclined to pontificate on the subject.

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Other / 04.06.2013

A Letter of Offer arrived in the post today stating that my RADF garnt application had been successful. That’s great news. Now Steve and I have until December 15 to complete the 100+ short flora and fauna videos. I hope I haven’t over-estimated the number of videos I have up my sleave. I am looking to create videos averaging from abt 1 ½ to 2 minutes, with a few of about 1 minute duration and a few of perhaps 3 or 4 minutes or possibly more.

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Film Diary / 15.05.2013

This was our last night shoot for the 2012/13 season and the 88th in the series. There wasn’t much doing. I filmed a Leaf-tailed Gecko with what seemed distinctive colouring (which viewing the footage will confirm or refute), a fine Stick Insect and an earth worm. I have been told that the rainforest earth worms are a different species to the garden variety.

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My Travels / 09.05.2013

Today I booked and paid for my flights to India and Burma, after initially opting to depart Brisbane on 28 October, only to receive an email from Vanessa a few days later with the exhibition dates. So I am now booked to leave Brisbane on 3 November. In India I shall stay with Maggie in Gurgaon and spend a few days In Kolkota catching up with my ex-wife’s family friends I haven’t seen in decades. I shall then spend 3 days visiting and viewing the temples at Bagan, overnighting in Rangoon (Yangon) on arrival and prior to returning home.

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Other / 09.05.2013

Vanessa, Kat and I met at the opening of Additions 4 at the eponymous gallery in West End, a lively Brisbane inner suburb. Our on again, off again October exhibition is on again, from 24 to 30 October. The Gallery has been attractively realised in a building of character. We discussed ideas over dinner, having met Nicole, Addition 6’s curator.

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Website / 09.05.2013

After 3 turbulent months, Henry Hardy proved incapable of completing the website. Today I accepted Andrew Nagy’s quote to repair the damage Henry had done to Ben Sinclair’s good work and complete the further changes required. Andrew, whom I have known for some time, lives and works on the mountain. He looks after my computer. Unfortunately I was only made aware of his web design work at the time I was commiting to Henry.

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Film Diary / 24.04.2013

Because of ex-cyclone Oswald, our options for night filming have been restricted to Joalah and the Knoll. Tonight it was the Knoll’s turn. What transformed a night of lean pickings into one of rich reward was the appearance of a Stephen’s Banded Snake. It was only our second sighting of the species. The first was also in the Knoll a few years ago. The snake was smaller than its predecessor, but its black and russet banding was similar. It too hung around for a good while; first on the path and then in nearby undergrowth. I was able to get some wide shots of the whole snake.