Time to Run Away to the Greek Islands.
I ran away to a Greek island. Because who wouldn’t, given half the chance?
But I arrived on the shores of the Aegean lugging a fair amount of baggage… and none of it Vuitton.
It wasn’t just about floating in crystal clear water, reclining beneath a beach umbrella, and downing more than my fair share of Aperol Spritzes. Though, I’ve got to admit, it was a bit of that.
The reason I washed up on the tiny Greek island of Symi was to find words to express whatever the fuck it was that I was going through.
Most of all, I was searching for my muse, who had gone MIA without leaving a forwarding address. Menopause meant my well of creativity had run dry… so to speak.
With the youngest of our kids out of school, my husband and I took off for a three-month vacation in the Mediterranean. A month each in the tiny hilltop town of Gaucín in Andalucia, Sicily’s Ortigia, and an idyllic Greek island just off the Turkish coast.
My plan was to write a novel about a woman of a certain age. I imagined it to be a gently amusing, life-affirming and contemplative piece.
Think Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love for the menopausal generation.
But you know what they say about the best laid plans? Yeah.
It sure wasn’t where I ended up.
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What does a delightful, candy-cane-coloured flower have to do with corruption in the highest levels of the US government?
Quite a lot, actually.
As Wall Street reels from the news of the sheer volume of trades President Trump has made in major companies with close dealings with the US administration, market veterans describe the level of activity as “insane,” with another market insider adding: “In the 40-plus years of my time on Wall Street, this is an unusual amount of trading by any standards.”
What would have caused heads to roll once upon a time is, today, just business as usual. Which makes my brain hurt.
As I so often do, I turned to the past for answers. And as always, it delivered. In the form of the “Forever Exalted” tulip, as it was known. It reveals how, and why, we find ourselves tangled up in a system that comes up trumps (pardon the pun) for the one-percenters, but leaves the rest of us out in the rain without a brolly.
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Ever feel like you’re not measuring up as a mum? Yeah, I feel you.
No Mother’s Day breakfast would be complete without a steaming hot plate of guilt served up with a side of self-doubt.
So, with Mother’s Day on the horizon, here’s something to make you feel a little better about your imagined failings.
Meet the bad mothers.
It’s a theme that persists in Western pop culture in a way that fathers behaving badly never does. Have a quick scan through the TV guide. It’s a go-to plotline that straddles genres, all the way from horror to comedy.
But why has the “monstrous mother” become such a trope? Is it simply that the absence of a mother figure hits us in the solar plexus? Because there’s a reason so many Disney stories begin with the death of a mother.
There’s something more at play, though.
On Mother’s Day, let’s take a look at why pop culture loves a good mum gone bad.
Want to understand Australia?
Then find your way down to a local war memorial before dawn on the 25th of April.
Anzac Day.
As you stand there in a sombre huddle with a group of people gathered beneath an Australian flag unfurling in the morning breeze, the sun will peek above the horizon, and a lone bugle will play the Last Post.
There will be tears.
And you need to remember one thing.
Anzac Day is Australia’s most significant national holiday. And you’re there to commemorate an epic military failure.
Anzac Day recalls the day our soldiers were handed their backsides on a plate by a Turkish army hellbent on defending its homeland.
If you can begin to unpick whatever the fuck that says about us, you’ll find yourself much closer to understanding the things that make us who we are as a nation.
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The hormonal rollercoaster of being a woman of a certain age comes with the erosion of the foundations of who you think you are as a person. I was completely unprepared for that.
How is that possible? How many utterly cringeworthy videos about what to expect from puberty did we have to endure? Where’s the ‘how-to’ guide for the other massive hormonal shift half the world’s population goes through?
For me, it isn’t just about the physical symptoms, although they certainly are a thing. What is it with the itchy ears? And the waking up at 3am? I swear that’s where the idea of witches came from.
It was just a bunch of perimenopausal women grabbing a broom and doing a bit of housework in the dead of night.
The biggest issue for me, though, has been the erosion of my sense of self.
For an article just published on Mamamia, I write about how the midlife mess I navigated while on my dream holiday in Europe became the raw material for my latest novel, Sunday Reilly is All Out of F*cks to Give.
If you’re a woman of a certain age like me, I reckon you’ll relate.
I went to the Mediterranean looking for inspiration. Instead, I found a reckoning.
Have you noticed?
The war isn’t just in Iran. It’s in your feed.
But who would have thought the weapon of choice would be LEGO?
I, for one, never thought I’d see the day when we weren’t just consuming propaganda, we’d be distributing it.
Willingly.
With accompanying emojis.
But, here we are.
In 2025, a new YouTube channel was launched.
Akhbar Enfejari, or “Explosive News!” was about as explosive as a fart in a bathtub. It barely made a blip amongst the 120 million channels competing for eyeballs.
The message from its Iranian creators was consistently anti-Western. “Send this video to filthy America so it explodes,” it urged its 2.5 viewers.
Then, in February this year, something changed.
And the world changed with it.
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Change of pace today, inspired by the coming of Easter. If only because by the time you’ve finished reading this, you’ll understand why Jesus’ middle name is “Fucking.”
And, yes. Consider yourself warned. If that poor-taste joke upsets your sensibilities, perhaps skip this week’s newsletter.
Because today, I’m bringing you true crime of biblical proportions.
It’s the tale of an unholy alliance between Christian fundamentalists and Muslim extremists… where cash channelled out of the coffers of one of America’s wealthiest Trump-supporting evangelical Christian families ended up in the hands of Islamic terrorists.
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Want to fight enshittification? Start with tomatoes.
Last week, I took delivery of fifty kilos of them.
That’s right. Fifty.
No, I’m not stocking up for a Trump visit Down Under. That would be a criminal waste.
They were destined for passata and tomato soup, jars of which now line my garage wall.
Not on your fucking life. I can buy perfectly serviceable jars of passata at the local grocer for $3.99. And cans of soup? Under two bucks.
I don’t want to work out what mine cost me. Factor in labour, and I won’t be planning a stall at the local farmers’ market anytime soon.
But that’s not the point.
I do it because it makes me feel powerful and useful.
Yes, really. Might sound a bit weird unless you’ve done it yourself. But those jars make me feel invincible. If the world spirals any further down the septic system, at the very least, I know I’ll be able to keep the family alive for at least a month.
It’s all about keeping self-sufficiency alive and maintaining archaic skills largely gone the way of the dodo in the West.
My grandmother preserved fruit and vegetables as I do, and as her grandmother did before her. And her grandmother before that. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And each year, I crack out the Vacola preserver and the Fowlers jars with my husband, son, and daughter, and we do it together.
As I was up to my elbows in tomatoes, it got me thinking about a brilliant and very funny Norwegian clip I posted a week or so ago that went a little viral.
Why did it speak to me?
Because it’s a powerful visual embodiment of a thing I’ve been banging on about for years. And it’s the reason I persist with my annual passata endeavour, even though it makes no economic sense.
Wondering what’s going on with Iran?
You wouldn’t be alone.
Every time the Middle East explodes into the headlines, people ask the same question: What. The. Actual. Fuck?
If you want to understand the Middle East, start with a map.
Notice the borders.
When borders are straight lines, it’s a safe bet they weren’t negotiated by the people who live there. They were drawn by someone powerful sitting somewhere else, ruler in hand, deciding the fate of millions.
The war in Iran dominating global headlines right now has been more than a thousand years in the making. The fault lines currently exposing the Middle East’s underbelly reach back centuries. They’re based on religious strife, imperial borders, and local and imported rivalries that never truly disappeared.
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