Tome Me Up

2026 turned into the year where I worked on numerous books. I love doing books.

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Circles by Mark Maskell [editor Vin Maskell]

Circles is a collection of the writings of Mark Maskell (1953-1974). I'll quote the foreword;

Two years after Mark Maskell died in 1974, just shy of his 21st birthday, the Maskell family published a private collection of some of Mark’s poems. The forty-page book, called Circles, revealed a man yearning for a better world for all. Fifty years on, this new 172 page edition includes those ever-evocative poems plus long lost stories, letters, photos, and poetry.

Mark's brother Vin edited the collection, and asked me to design the book, which was an honour. Our connection goes back to about 2013 when Vin bought and then wrote an essay about my Geoff Blethyn t-shirt.

We paired original manuscripts of his writing to the typeset copy. It’s visually more lively for the average reader. And for those who knew Mark it will hopefully remind them of the real person behind the words. The person who held the pen or bashed away at the old typewriter.

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Abandoned Cricket Pitches by Les Everett

The other book could not be more different. This one is by Les Everett, and our connection goes back a similar distance to when I started following his sports-centric online activity, which documents scoreboards, cricket pitches and goalposts. It’s a coincidence these two books came along at once, as Les's colleague on the wonderful Scoreboard Pressure website is in fact Vin.

Les has been hunting and photographing abandoned and disused cricket pitches all over Western Australia since 2019. He has about 650 photos and we ended up at 256 pages. It’s a remarkable effort, and was a dream to work on.

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Stereo Stories Pocket Books edited by Vin Maskell

As well as Scoreboard Pressure, Vin runs a much larger and more complicated venture called Stereo Stories. It's filled with stories about music and memory; from about 280 different contributors. Last year we met up in Melbourne to talk about putting out some little books for the more prolific authors among them. We went to print with the first two in January this year; and we have two more in the pipeline. Again I am genuinely tickled pink to be involved; as I love the site and have written a few stories myself. 

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The Projecting Brain by James Vickers

This author is another old friend, and another completely different subject. I have known James  (Distinguished Professor Emeritus James Vickers) since around 1992, when we actually met playing Dungeons and Dragons. He has recently retired from his long and awarded career as a brain researcher. I was very fortunate over the years to be commissioned to help with some of his projects that called for animation, to explain aspects of brain function and disfunction. 

James asked me to illustrate the cover of his new book, which was launched at Fullers Bookshop. Here he is in conversation with Dr Matt Kircaldie (who I have know since high school!) You can buy the book through James's website here. I have shown above how I thought the illustration should sit on the cover; which is not quite how it has finished up in printing. The customer is always right – but on my website I wear the big pants! Subject to legal advice.

Dadness 2026

 I've definitely drifted away from the core theme of this blog. So I'll do an overdue family update.

Today, Michael is off on his first solo travel, to Japan. He'll spend three weeks travelling in the San’in region of Western Honshū, looking at castles and monasteries, climbing mountains and walking on beautiful trails. He reads and speaks good Japanese. He's very interested in the history and philosophy of religions, so he'll spend time at Buddhist and Shinto sites.

Marcus is back at work in Hong Kong after a wonderful holiday travelling with Kie to Italy and Malta. He is now a very dedicated birder and is taking some wonderful photos with a new lens, eg this spotted pigeon and crested goshawk

The boys and I are playing an online game called Big Walk and I really recommend it. I am not a gamer but I read about it in the Guardian, and it just sounded like a relaxing and pleasant way to spend time with friends or family. I'll make another post about that. 

Elf is so, so busy. She works at four days a week; but it is intense every day in a way that I haven’t shared for about ten years. Her role as secretary of the local community group is also time-absorbing, especially due to the advanced age of many of the other office holders. 

Elf's mother Felicity died in March after four months in palliative care; so Elf made many visits to Canberra in that time and carried a heavy mental load. The will has not been straightforward, so the work and worry has not abated with Felicity's passing. 

I've had a busy year of freelance projects on top of full time time design work at Red Jelly. I have designed four books this year (I'll another make a post about that too) as well as a book cover for old pal James and shopfront graphics for old pal Manuel's toys and collectables business Krankenwagen. All my clients are old pals to some extent.

I am still playing soccer on Sundays. But I'm conscious that at some age between now (58) and lets say, 70 – I will need to stop, so younger people (12-69) can just a good time and not worry about accidentally breaking someone's stick-thin legs.

And my other activity right now is putting thousands of images into my new Flickr account. I am leaving Instagram to post images somewhere less social; where I don't find myself watching videos of dance crazes and also copping Gaza / Sudan / Ukraine overload. I know about these wars and famines and I am already doing all I can, thank you! I have set up seperate albums for

Family
Hobart Streets and Architecture
Typography
Art & Design
and our Pets

And that brings us somewhat up to date.

Vale Felicity Margaret Fullagar 1943-2026

My mother-in-law Felicity passed away on 10 March 2026, after a period of increasing ill-health and complications from heart failure. 

She was a generous and talented person, and always nice to me although tough on her kids at times, including Elf. She had definite ideas about how things should be done. Growing up in Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs, the oldest of five girls, she probably was issuing instructions from an early age. Felicity studied classics at Melbourne Uni and met her husband Bill there; he was top of the class in Greek and she was bottom. They had four children under five; and took them abroad to live in India and South Korea, as Bill was a diplomat. Bill died in 2012.

Felicity’s four children were in regular contact during 2025 and together arranged her move to a supported living centre in Canberra, not too far from home. Felicity's last four months were in palliative care.

Elf flew to Canberra so many times over this period, and did everything she could to keep Felicity feeling positive and empowered in making her own health decisions. Fred lived at home with Felicity for over ten years and put his own career on the back burner to care for her and keep her involved in the activities she loved so much; involving music, church and the classical languages.

We had the funeral on 23rd March at her church, All Saints in Ainslie. The siblings put together a wonderful celebration of her life. And everyone was encouraged to take home something from Felicity's collection of miniature bottles of spirits.

Felicity Margaret Fullagar

25 September 1943 ~ 10 March 2026 

May she rest in peace. 
Let light perpetual shine upon her. 

American Governors and their ridiculous names

It's been a long time since I did a post about American state governors' names. My theory is that governors are drawn from a particular ruling class that favours these unusual names. I haven't tested it, but I would bet that any list of 100 American teachers, police officers or dry cleaners would turn up a far lower % of odd names.

To recap my here are 5 faves at random from previous posts;

Ruby Laffoon, 43rd Governor of Kentucky
Person Colby Cheney, 35th Governor of New Hampshire
Hazen S. Pingree, 25th Governor of Michigan
Alphaeus Felch, 5th Governor of Michigan
Meredith Marmaduke, 8th Governor of Missouri

Some more to consider. 

Enos T. Throop

Cadwallader Colden

John St. John

Albinus Nance

Lorenzo Crounse

Return J. Meigs Jr.

Salmon P. Chase

Dick Celeste

Bourke B. Hickenlooper

Zebulon Vance

Archibald Yell

Xenophon Overton Pindall

Orval Faubus

Dale Bumpers

Button Gwinnett

Wilson Lumpkin

and I have to extend a big welcome to someone with a great name, but who does not match this profile at all, Georgia's governor-elect

Keisha Lance Bottoms

US midterm elections joy in Texas

The results in the US mid term elections have been incredible. I am an interested onlooker, not a political junkie by any means. American politics is weird and compelling in itself, but also does affect everyone on the planet. There is actually an Australian current affairs show called Planet America predicated on this; but I only find myself watching it about once a year; so that's my level.

There are records tumbling and certainties being flipped everywhere you look. Texas is particularly interesting. This is from the New York Times.

From the top down, it shows Republican (red) dominance of all key leadership positions in the state since 1996. On 4 November all of these positions were won by Democrats. The column on the right, RR Comm; stands for Railroad Commissioner – which is actually all about oil and gas production.

Republican governor Greg Abbott recently redistricted Texas; drawing up new (extraordinarily convoluted) boundaries explicity to increase the likelihood of Republicans winning more seats. It is unconstitutional to do this on the basis of race; but OK to do it on voting record. Effectively Democrats were moved from marginal districts into safe blue districts, and Republicans vice-versa. Central Austin is now split between three districts that curl out hundred of miles into rural Texas.

Trillionaire Elon Musk and his businesses moved from California to Texas in 2024, on the basis that it was as strongly Republican as California was Democrat. He dropped at least US$225m trying to shore up Ken Paxton's Senate campaign. Paxton, widely disliked across Texas, was also endorsed by Donald Trump. 

Paxton was soundly beaten by James Talarico. Abbott has been booted from the governor's mansion by Gina Hinojosa; to be Texas's first Hispanic governor. And Bo French, a noted xenophobe and racist; lost in the vote for Railroad Commissioner to Jon Rosenthal. 

All of their shenanigans were futile. All the dreadful certainities about what's unwinnable and inevitable have been challenged and shown to be lazy shortcuts. Life is complicated and America is complicated.

Trump has a mental make-up that I think is impregnable to guilt or embarrassment. So our hopes that he is feeling bad are probably in vain. His successful campaign in 2024 was founded on affordability and ending wars. And his biggest demographic shift was an uplift in support from male Hispanics. 

He immediately started weaponising ICE to brutalise male Hispanics in particular. And started an unnecessary war by bombing Iran; sending oil prices up, torpedoing America's household budgets – breaking two promises at once.

This is very much on Donald.

New Hobart city council

We've just had local government elections. Voting is compulsory here and we had about 85% turnout, so it's a mass-participation event.

The last council was majority-progressive and the tactics of the minority became more and more nasty as time went on. The new council is 5-4 majority conservative. The new lord mayor (former journalist Charles Wooley) kicked off by saying he wants to "make Hobart great again" ... and then gave the departing Lord Mayor a serve. Disappointing and just ... inept. I realised; this guy needs an editor. Elf says he will not hack it, and will quit inside a year.

He and the others (Liberal / Nat aligned and in one case, a budding Pauline Hanson) are planning to wind back and erase a lot of progressive changes to the city. I think they will find going back to doing things the way they were done is not going to bring back a thriving downtown.

Someone wrote to the paper celebrating the new council, and said they came back recently after 20 years away and cried at what Hobart has become. I would say to them and anyone else talking the place down, that Hobart is magnificent. It's going fine. People are flocking here from all over the world. We can't stand still, we've got to look after it especially when it is at risk of being loved to death. 

It's got problems... in common with all other cities in Australia and around the globe. You won't fix them by taking out bike lanes.*

*I say this as a person who thinks our bike lanes are half-arsed and as a daily pedestrian finds cyclists quite irritating.

A shift back to blogging

I have been posting pics to Instagram for about 10 or 12 years now. I never write much, I just plonk the pics in; they are said to be worth 1000 words or so anyway.

I just had a moment today when I'd had enough of all of Meta's (Zuckerberg's) bullshit. That's pretty well documented, and I have no fresh take to add to it.

So I've quit posting and my whole ton of posts will come down at the end of the month. I will miss it and undoubtedly lose touch with some people. But in many ways,  it's too easy. And Facebook is too easy.

I will try to resume regular posting here. Sometimes it might be an Instagram-style pic from my local wanders with no caption or context. Feel free to ask if you're interested!

If you have come here from Insta, hello! This blog started 24 years ago and now has a lot less teething and school chat than it used to have. My boys are working in Hong Kong (Marcus) and about to solo travel in Japan (Michael). I won't rename the blog but I need to tweak the subtitle.

I will park the photo archive from Instagram somewhere. It already exists in backups but in two separate bits for some reason. I will look at what to do to make it easily accessible for anyone that wants to. 

I am still on BlueSky (the Twitter replacement) but I have a feeling this sense of freedom from the timeline might be intoxicating; maybe I'll stroll away from that also. 

Like Twitter once was, BlueSky is primarily a place for jokes, snark, snippets of observation and daftness. Once I wrote all that here,  so maybe I will again. 

Burton / O'Loughlin at Bett Gallery until Nov 7

I dropped into the Bett Gallery today to see Jane Burton's show. I was at art school with Jane, and saw her for the first time in at least 20 years, at Alex & Chonny's wedding last year. Bombshell: these photos are not her art!!

Jane's remarkable work is situated on the surreal /darkly erotic continuum like 20thC painter Paul Delvaux but photography... and I did not feel relaxed about taking photos of it. But follow the link above or get in to see it in person, ends Nov 7.

This work was in the room next door,  and is by Nicole O'Laughlin. I've never seen anything like it and it was ingeniously presented. Floating embroidery! Have a better look here or again in person, this show also finishes on Nov 7.

Welcoming two new family members to NSW

This month two members of our extended family have arrived, both in New South Wales. Beatrice of Winterthur, Switzerland, daughter of Chonk and Irma, niece of Elf; has arrived in Wollongong to study at the uni. And Theodore Gregory McTaggart arrived on 6 August, a son to Emma and my nephew Brin and a new brother for Thomas and Evelyn. They are in Taree.

Welcome Bea and Teddy!

Some of my recent Bluesky posts

The expanded World Cup has its pros and cons but a corner of every TAB in the land is decorated with a slew of Arab/Muslim world flags and that's pretty cool. Build your perfect multi then go stand under the flag of Iraq as it all falls apart in the 3.40 at Doomben.

Pride leads to a fall

After my morning run today, I thought I should top up the big water bowl we leave out for the wallabies. It’s up a steep slope from our back gate; and I usually carry a bucket of water up there to do it.

In winter I wear a head torch for my run. I came inside to fill the bucket and took the torch off, meaning to put it back on to find my way back up the hill and down again safely. But… I started thinking about how lovely and shiny my bucket is. It’s shiny silver metal; maybe meant for florist displays or something? I snaffled it when we were having a big clean out at work.

So I was thinking about how proud I was of my shiny new bucket then… damn. It’s dark. No torch.

I stumbled going up the hill but managed to get there, and fill the bowl. Coming downhill through the wattles I was grabbing at branches to steady myself, then a branch snapped and I fell, suffering minor abrasions and major loss of dignity. The bucket went CLANG. 

No-one else heard or saw this classic case of Pride Leading To A Fall: Bucket Category.