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Centenary of ANZAC
by Angus Trumble, 24 April 2015
Just now we pause to mark the centenary of ANZAC, the day when, together with British, other imperial and allied forces, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli at the start of the ill-starred Dardanelles campaign.
Betty Churcher
by Angus Trumble, 31 March 2015
The National Portrait Gallery mourns the loss of our colleague and friend Betty Churcher, AO.
William Bligh
by Angus Trumble, 30 March 2015
The life of William Bligh offers up a handful of the most remarkable episodes in the history of Britain’s eighteenth and early nineteenth-century maritime empire.
The Right Hon. Malcolm Fraser, AC, CH
by Angus Trumble, 20 March 2015
The Right Honourable Malcolm Fraser, AC, CH, who died in Melbourne on 20 March, was the last surviving prime minister of Australia to have been sworn of H.M. Privy Council (in 1976)—hence the “Right Honourable”.
The selfie stick
by Angus Trumble, 24 February 2015
Last week ABC Television came to interview me about selfie sticks. The story was prompted by the announcement that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has lately prohibited the use of these inside their galleries. So far as I am aware we have not yet encountered the phenomenon, but no doubt we will before too long.
Trumble's way
by Angus Trumble, 29 January 2015
At the end of a summer break one is tempted to say that there is nothing much to report. Isn’t one restful holiday very much like another?
The medallion
by Angus Trumble, 1 January 2015
In recent years I have become fascinated by the so-called Sydney Cove Medallion (1789), a work of art that bridges the 10,000-mile gap between the newly established penal settlement at Port Jackson and the beating heart of Enlightenment England.
The Pavlova
by Angus Trumble, 1 December 2014
It is a painful truth, but one which must be faced up to, that the pavlova, that iconic Australian dessert, a staple since the 1930s, was actually invented in New Zealand.
Prime Ministers
by Angus Trumble, 1 November 2014
On the day before the Hon. E. G. Whitlam, AC, QC, died last month, at the great age of 98, there were seven former prime ministers of Australia still living, plus the incumbent Mr. Abbott – eight in all.
Milestones
by Angus Trumble, 1 October 2014
This month I turn fifty, soI am just now looking rather more closely than usual at Fiona Foley, Steven Heathcote, Brenda Croft, Russell Crowe, Jeff Fenech, Akira Isogawa, Lee Kernaghan, My Le Thi, Shona Wilson and Mark Taylor AO, mindful that they too were 1964 arrivals.
The Bath Butterfly
by Angus Trumble, 1 September 2014
The caricaturist and engraver James Gillray's biting satires about Sir Joseph Banks.
Desert Island Discs
by Angus Trumble, 21 August 2014
I agonized over the choice of four songs to take with me to the ABC Studios for Alex Sloan’s Canberra 666 afternoon program, a sort of iteration of the old BBC Desert Island Discs.