Cop A Gander At These Rippers Too...

  • Fit As A Mallee Bull: Tough Types For Torrid Topography

    There are plenty of ways to say someone is in good nick, but Strine has never been particularly interested in leaving a perfectly good bull out of the conversation. Tell someone they’re as “fit as a mallee bull” and you are saying they are in extremely good shap, strong and healthy. The image comes from the Mallee, the dry inland country where mallee eucalypts grow. A bull tough enough to survive out there was imagined as a pretty robust bit of cattle. The expression has been part of Aussie English for decades. Early evidence includes the form “strong as a mallee bull” from the late 19th century, while “fit as…

  • Crack A Jaca For A Cracker Jaca

    After months of being covered up to ward off the cold, I spent the morning removing the insulating materials draped over our jacaranda tree, unleashing the tree beneath the bright spring sunshine in the hope that we will get a full blooming tree by the early summer. It was good to crack open the tree again after months of a huge bag dominating the garden and being an eysore for the neighborhood. In theory, covering the tree in insulation material over the winter will make it more likely to bloom in the summer. Our jacaranda bloomed in the first year the tree was in our garden, which was now three…

  • Whetted for Wet

    Rain is falling pretty steadily and though the rainy season in Japan gets me down, on the verge of its start, the precipitation has whetted the garden’s appetite for the wet; at least for the onset of the season, which could go on for months, or not happen at all, as was the case last year. Snow in the summer is starting to bloom, greeting our large lounge room window with a view of dainty white flowers. Proteas, which had started with a bang in March then appeared to go dormant, have started to show signs of blooming, which would be bloomin’ marvelous, indeed, if they were to do so….

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    「やばいリンガル」 Wobbly

    　物が少しグラグラ動く事を米・英語ではwobblyと言うが、オージー英語の場合は同じ言葉を、別の状況に対して使う。続けて読めば、どのように使うかが分かる。 Something a little shaky is “wobbly” in most forms of English, but wobbly takes on a different meaning when used in Strine, Australian English. Read on to find out how.

  • Marvelous Marunouchi

    I’m loving life enormously at the moment, and a workplace in Marunouchi is helping in that. Marunouchi is the literal heart of Tokyo, being the closest district to the Imperial Palace, which is the reason why the city is Japan’s capital. It’s a delight rolling up to the office and feeling the centuries-long history of the area and adjacent Nihonbashi seeping in. My first day in Tokyo involved sitting down outside Tokyo Station, located in Marunochi, people watching while I waited to be collected. I love being able to look down from my workplace and see that spot, now a significantly different place than it was when I got here…