Our current era has been around for 60 million years and gradually comprised every species including mammals currently living on earth today – regardless of their circumstances or how much they sleep.
What is this Cenozoic Era? A time when Earth’s flora and fauna evolved into those of the present day.
The Cenozoic ‘New Life’ era can also be named ‘Age of Mammals’. Interestingly we humans often don’t care very well for other humans or our animal mammals do we?
My theory: This could be why past civilisations and animal species died out and are still disappearing.
Every so often I do a bit of housekeeping on my blog and tidy up the way I have misused a word or left a word out or rearranged a word or… well, you get the idea, it was a cold day and I had nothing better to do. Anyhow, I found this interesting bit of info in my stats folder:
All Posts (626) Published (617) Drafts (2) Private (7)
What’s that discrepancy after ‘All Posts’ and ‘Published’? I thought I had published all my blog posts! However, there is a nine-post limbo.
Drafts (2) is understandable, but Private (7)! I don’t even remember them or what they could possibly contain. Am I bold enough to check? Do I really want to know? Should I just delete them and forget about it?
Well, seeing as I am one of life’s hoarders, I am just going to ignore those mysteriously private posts and let them languish there for all eternity. Well, until I get too curious. Maybe I can use one of them next week…
Meanwhile, here is a not-so-private observation about my session at MoB (Museum of Brisbane) Ekphrastic Art Writing session at City Hall. I arrived late due to a public rally, hundreds of protesters calling for justice over the death of Aboriginal man Kuminjayi White while in custody. Fair enough. I slid open the door at MoB and joined a small group of people with pen and paper. Before undertaking the art of Ekphrasis we had visual prompts and some brief writing exercises before heading out into the beguiling gallery to find beautiful treasures old and new to write about in a lucid fashion, arty or otherwise.
Museum of Brisbane is a social history museum and art gallery in Brisbane, Queensland. Located on Level 3, City Hall, MoB brings our city’s vibrant art, culture and history to life through exhibitions, events, workshops, tours, and MoB Kids activities.
Perversely, I detoured the beautiful/historic artworks, paintings and ceramics to admire the hand-printed posters for local music gigs in Brisbane in the 1970s. Destined for shop windows, brick walls and lamp posts, these raw, colourful and imaginative posters were only glanced at or pulled down, but now are surviving icons of a once vibrant and thriving local music scene. The posters fill a wall in the Museum but my eyes were lured by the Medicine Cabinet of brown, dusty bottles, peeling labels and gruesome details of the contents. Here is what I wrote in a quick attempt to understand a different side to Ekphrastic writing:
‘The Medicine Cabinet’ Pills, potions, powders and poisons. Frowning at me from the past, the names on the small yet ominous corked brown glass bottles and rusty tins with their peeling, discoloured paper labels were enough to make me shudder. Poulticine, good for pneumonia, pleurisy, tonsillitis, abscess, etc, with side effects. ‘Stomach Powder’, ‘Opium’, Bill Beans Laxatives, Alkia, Saltrates, all aimed at curing sufferers ills and chills. Surely Nitrate of Amyl Capsules would do more harm than good? Then there’s the ominous thin brown-ribbed bottle labelled ‘Thyroid/Ovarian’ treatment. I hope patients recovered regardless of the treatment but more often than not the old saying was invoked ‘Kill or cure’ with fingers crossed. There is perhaps beauty in knowing that modern medicines are more likely to save lives.
Wishing you a healthy life and insightful Ekphrasis!
When did you last jot down a limerick? Perhaps at primary school, maybe a rude one at high school, a clever one at work or in a writing class? Chances are you have never heard or read a limerick (depending on your age or location) and if this is the case, you are missing out on centuries of tireless amusement.
In my opinion limericks are not classy nor really poetic, and can be risqué, but they are a fun five-lines with a specific rhyme scheme (AABBA) and a nice sing-song beat ending with a great punch line. Let me show you two examples with classic endings: (A) “I sat next to the Duchess at tea, Distressed as a person could be. Her rumblings abdominal Were simply phenomenal – And everyone thought it was me!” (Anonymous) (B) There was an old man of Nantucket Who kept all his cash in a bucket; But his daughter, named Nan, Ran away with a man, And as for the bucket, Nantucket. (Anonymous)
Now I will show you four of my own attempts at limerick writing and notice the rhyming format: (1) There was an old lady from Wolfbane, Day after day she had pain. She cursed the cold weather, And her shoes made of leather, But really she suffered chilblain. (2) Brisbane city is deemed arcane, Said to have sunshine never rain. Such a fable the locals dictate, To keep a high tourism rate, And increase their monetary gain. (3) There was a young man from Bugbane, Who suffered from bad stomach pain. He ate onions on the job, His boss said ‘you’re fired Bob’. So he went home on the early train. (4) Wild wind on the beach today, No children or dogs out to play. I zipped up my jacket, Trussed up like a packet, Then my hat flew into the bay!
How time flies, my first blog post was 2017 and ideas for blogging still somersault around in my head. On this calm Sunday in May 2025 it is Mother’s Day in Australia.
I am a mother and thoughts of my own dear mother and that of my aunts and women I know flash through my mind. I recall their varied roles in my life, and women who shape the lives of others in millions of families and societies around the world. It is possible to write about the wealth, poverty, injustices and generally low standing of women in most countries including Australia, but what is their true status? What is their role in the history of the universe?
In my opinion, one of the most powerful roles for women, in the world as we know it, is the eternal internal creation. While not ignoring the biodiversity of Mother Nature, without human females, women who give birth, there would be no world. There would be no evolution, there would be nothing ahead. Of course men play a role but generally stand back when events are underway.
Perhaps this creates jealousy? Why bigoted, misogynistic, cruel, political, rule-making men of our current world order put women and mothers at risk by keeping them out of sight, in second place, give them menial tasks, overlook females for promotion, make derogatory comments, portray them on television, in movies and books as the trivial second character, the support, the one answering phones, at home doing the laundry, tidying up or cooking dinner. You can add more diverse roles to the list but usually not a complete reversal although caring sharing life partners do exist.
In 1971 a childless Germaine Greer is quoted as saying: “Bringing up children is not a real occupation, because children come up just the same, brought up or not.” A rather shallow look at the future, I think.
With or without conception, the women of Mother Earth are versatile people. Today there are strong female roles and powerful women in all walks of life who do rise above. When they do, it’s a novelty in the press, on social media, and invariably a TV chat show host asks “How do you cope with a family and work?” A man’s world not an equal world yet.
Today I shout out Thanks Mum, Happy Mothers Day because without mothers there would be no living breathing humans in the world today. Including you and me.
💓 Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025
NOTE: My opinion piece acknowledges birth mothers, first mothers, adoption, surrogacy, LGBTQIA, IVF, child reunification. Parenting is precious. 🌼
Question One: Has an Australian author won the Booker Prize? Answer: Yes.
New York Review of Books described Richard Flanagan as “among the most versatile writers in the English language.” The Guardian wrote about ‘Question 7‘ “Blending memoir and history and auto-fiction, this brilliantly unique book by the Booker winner is a treatise on the immeasurability of life.”
Question Two: Do you know this author? Answer: Richard Miller Flanagan (born 1961) is an Australian writer who won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his novel ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ (several reviews here) and the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for ‘Question 7’ which makes him the first writer in history to win both Britain’s major fiction and non-fiction prizes.
Question Three: Have you read one or many of Flanagan’s books?
Question Four: If you have read a Flanagan novel do you call yourself a good reader or a stalwart reader?
Question Five: Do you think you are missing out on a literary experience if you have not read these books?
Question Six: Of the three books (pictured above and below) are you likely to purchase at least one?
Question Seven (wink): Do you know how many other books this Aussie author has written? Not a quiz but, hey!
Richard Flanagan has written: 1994 – 2020 Eight novels 1985 – 2023 Nine non-fiction books 1998 – Film ‘The Sound of One Hand Clapping’ (director and screenwriter) 2008 – Film ‘Australia’ (co-writer) 2008 – ‘Wanting’ a complex 19th-century tale set in Tasmania and England involving an Aboriginal girl and novelist Charles Dickens. 2024 – Baillie Gifford Prize for ‘Question 7’
Inspired? Keen to read something different? Challenge yourself or your book club. My reviews are on the way but meanwhile you can read Aussie WordPress blogger ‘Whispering Gums’ excellent review here.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I personally dislike AI on the grounds that it does not enhance knowledge, it takes away incentive to pursue and learn. Anyway, I was scanning my stats and noticed that twice I have been viewed and possibly, hopefully, ‘recommended’ by Artificial Intelligence as a source for two readers. Okay, that’s kind of flattering but what post of mine was viewed/recommended? Who was the reader? Will this offer any benefit to me?
Importantly, have I been acknowledged as the original source?
I guess once I put my work out there, it stands to reason it will be seen and read and maybe used, but we bloggers always acknowledge our source or include a website link especially to anything we re-post.
Artificial Intelligence (like most of the internet) has been launched on the world wide web without workable social, legal, ethical or cultural boundaries. Humankind may melt down into one homogenous mass. Perfect conditions for a maniacal dictator.
Lots of questions need to be answered, especially since an AI ‘borrower’ cannot be traced. At least not by me, so I may never know the source or where my material ends up. How can I truly know where my blog posts end up anyway? Certainly readers can cut and paste anything they like but they are genuine readers. I think a faceless nameless Artificial Intelligence is invasive until proven otherwise.
Ask a human novelist about AI rip-offs and AI non-existent royalties. Meta allegedly used pirated books to train AI. Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, George R.R. Martin and others have filed a class-action suit, still unresolved, alleging OpenAI Inc copied their works without permission or payment. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/authors-lawsuit-openai-george-rr-martin-john-grisham
Of course many people will benefit. There are quite a lot of AI sites out there, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, etc, the first being Perplexity AI. Also Character.ai is a neutral (as if!) language model chatbot service. Another human job lost? Of course, there are strong opinions on all of this and numerous disagreements for various reasons.
We humans like shortcuts more than memory retention. Ask anyone studying. Internet users can take a detour but often it can misdirect or misinform, as in the case of a person who used ChatGPT for a literary book club review and gave a dry, soulless analysis of the story. In my opinion, do your own homework.
I like to personally do my own web surfing and pick up interesting and genuinely human stuff along the way – alternatively I read words on real paper. Under my mythical (as in not real) Creepy or Could-be section, I imagine one future day an AI bot will activate a microchip implant in a school student’s brain which will find web logs (blogs) or text books and release classic volumes straight into their grey matter.
….you don’t succeed, try, try again. This young wrangler is just as determined as his calf. After a bit of encouragement, then some serious tugging, the calf relinquished its stance and trotted along with the boy. My photograph was taken at the Toowoomba Royal Show, a yearly event showcasing all things country. From animals to artwork, photography, flowers, fruit and wonderfully handmade arts and crafts. Of course there was produce and vegetable displays (a huge pumpkin!) plus cookery prizes and a plethora of handmade goods from soap to hats and even a whip-cracking demonstration.
I am not a fan of sideshow alley so detoured the rides full of screaming people and investigated the horse arena, so beautiful, the precision, the presentation, those trotting horses were as well groomed as their riders. Next was a huge shed full of model trains whizzing around elaborate tracks. The ‘station master’ set up a particularly long train for me to video and he watched on with pride as it weaved in and out of hills down to the railway station with realistic sound against a country town backdrop. Miniature train heaven!
Countless stallholders goods tempted me but those ubiquitous hot chips were a magnet not to be ignored because the weather was rainy and show-goers were wet and feeling the cold. So very unusual for Queensland! On theme, there was an aquatic acrobat display on the lake. After watching the adorable dogs trotting around their own mini arena in the rain, it was time to think about the animals in the huge (dry) sheds across the vast site; sheep, goats, cows, chickens, etc. The rain curtailed some arena events but there was certainly enough to enjoy. The relaxed people, the fresh country air and lush green grass was totally worth it.
The People First Bank Toowoomba Royal Show is an unrivalled production of the very best in entertainment and agriculture displays on the Darling Downs Queensland since 1860. https://www.toowoombashow.com.au/royal-show/entertainment/
Here is the official version: Every yearthis show has new entertainment for the whole family, enjoy world class acts, competitions and exhilarating rides in sideshow alley, plus livestock, show judging, produce and crafts. Of course, there is always agricultural equipment for the enthusiast. This year Toowoomba Royal Show was held from 27th to 29th March 2025. Over 500 volunteers assisted during the show. Without their dedication and effort this local event could not function. If you would like to volunteer at the People First Bank Toowoomba Royal Show 2026, please contact them via email at rasqadmin@rasq.com.au for a great experience.
TRIVIA FACT With cyclones being named alphabetically, Anthony was originally the next name to be used starting with A, but the BOM decided to switch to Alfred to avoid any association or confusion with the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The building in my photograph, with the two people either cleaning or repairing the clock tower, are on the Ann Street side of the Roma Street railway station in Brisbane. These intrepid workers could see a view across ANZAC Square to the General Post Office which denotes the centre of the city. Officially the station area is known as Brisbane Passenger Station, Brisbane Terminal Station, and Brisbane Terminus yet, surprisingly, on the main façade at the Ann Street entry level there is an art deco-style sign proclaiming ‘Central Station’ and that is what the majority of commuters name it.
The train platforms can be accessed a number of ways but I guess these intrepid workers either came from inside the clock tower or climbed up it. The BCC bus sign seems to have spotted them but the commuters below failed to see what was unfolding. The two workers were untangling their ropes!
My bus came and I will never know what transpired that day.
💗 Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025
On theme, this steam roller is different but of the same era. Queen’s Park, Toowoomba, Queensland.
The collapse and total closure of the entire Mosaic Brands portfolio means almost 4000 jobs were lost and more than 700 retail clothing stores were shut down across Australia.
My intrepid photographer snapped this group of store mannequins caught totally unawares by the mass shutdown.
The models were photographed queuing at the front counter of a closed fashion store at Mount Ommaney in Brisbane, Australia, stoically waiting for their redundancy pay-out and perhaps some recognition for their years of silent service.
All gone in the blink of an eye!
Clothing brands you knew and loved, fashion brands you grew up with, stylish outfits that got you dressed for a party, your first job, your first date, a fun weekend and lots of occasions inbetween; not forgetting those sales assistants who knew their products, actually assisted you in choosing the right outfit for the right occasion.
Thoughts Become Words 