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Gotta catch 'em all
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Angus Trumble grabs his life jacket and rides the Pokémon GO tsunami.
A papal pet encounter
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In honour of the launch of the Popular Pet Show, Angus recalls a diplomatic incident with an over-excited golden retriever.
Not perspiring, but glowing.
The cultural history of radiance.
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Angus Trumble explores the creative manifestations of radiance.
Tribute: Mary Isabel Murphy
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The Chairman, Board, Director and all the staff of the National Portrait Gallery mourn the loss of our Benefactor, Mary Isabel Murphy.
Portrait dendrochronology
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Angus's latest Trumbology is accompanied by the following caveat: 'This one is reeeeeeally geeky.'
A bear of great substance
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Just in time for Christmas, Angus reflects on the most special present he has ever received.
Audacity, audacity, audacity
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Angus delves into the biographies of two ambitious characters; Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir John Pope-Hennessy.
Anangu landscape learning
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Angus' initial perception of Uluru shifts, as he comes to see it as central to the entire order of Anangu life.
The Pavlova
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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.
An Australian in Paris
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This week it is impossible not to contemplate the ways in which France has touched many Australian lives.
Angkor Wat
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Nothing quite prepares the first-time visitor to Cambodia for the scale and grandeur of the monuments of the ancient Khmer civilisation of Angkor.
Stubbs and the horse
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One of the chief aims of George Stubbs, 1724–1806, the late Judy Egerton’s great 1984–85 exhibition at the Tate Gallery was to provide an eloquent rebuttal to Josiah Wedgwood’s famous remark of 1780: “Noboby suspects Mr Stubs [sic] of painting anything but horses & lions, or dogs & tigers.”
Milestones
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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.
Brains trust
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Eminent doctors and scientists have for more than a century consistently caused our nation to punch far above her weight.
On the passage and pace of time
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In shock it fluctuates and with age, accelerates. Remembering the First World War and the Easter Rising.
The cost of living luxuriously
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In 1904, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia purchased as a gift for her sister, Queen Alexandra, a fan composed of two-color gold, guilloché enamel, mother-of-pearl, blond tortoiseshell, gold sequins, silk, cabochon rubies, and rose diamonds from the House of Fabergé in Saint Petersburg.