When I travel on the Route 70 toward Glenferrie road, there’s a moment that always trips me up. I cruise past Kooyongkoot Road, and in preparation for my stop I pull the string. The 70 only runs the old style trams with the string, so I make sure to savour it before the old trams get phased out.

But as I am mid string-pull-savour, I’m snapped back into reality. An announcement comes over the loud speaker: “Now arriving at Berkeley Street ”. I’ve just requested one stop early! And now I’m going to be late to get frozen yoghurt on Glenferrie Road.

In 2022, it was strange and surprising that Kate Bush’s 1985 single Running Up That Hill charted. Now, it’s just a fact of the music industry that old music is more popular than new music. Last year 2020’s Pink Pony Club , 2006’s Headlock , and 2019’s Anxiety all charted. Why then do year-end lists restrict themselves to music that came in the last 12 months?

I like words. And I really like it when those words are set to music. This is my top ten list, so I make the rules. Old music makes up around 70% of all music listening , so not uncoincidentally, I have 3 songs from the last year, and 7 songs from the olden days. 10.

The co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement recently published When Australia Became a Republic . It states the many dates when Australia made cultural and political leaps forward away from the monarchy: 2000, with the Sydney Olympics; or 1986, with signing of the Australia Act; or 2014, when Tony Abbott reinstated knighthoods and got laughed at internationally. Author Esther Anatolitis makes the case that these weren’t just important dates in Australian history, but these were the dates Australian became a republic. This is such an interesting political gambit from the pro-republic movement: lying. No, Australia is not a republic. Because being a republic is not something you can be halfway: you have a monarch as your head of state, or you don’t.

Anatolitis’s book reads like the accounts of Japanese soldiers fighting in isolated jungles long after World War Two had ended. She is still fighting an old war. Australia voted against becoming a republic in 1999, and ever since then the movement has been slowly petering out until just last month when the final nail was hammered into its coffin. Anthony Albanese declared there would be no vote on a republic. The PM thought he, "made it clear that I wanted to hold one referendum while I was prime minister, and we did that.” As Mike Seccombe of The Saturday Paper pointed out, “Albanese had not made that clear, which is why his comments made news.”

I got to see 100 gecs live at the Northcote Theatre, and it’s still one of my favourite concert going experiences. It was the start of 2023, and the duo of Dylan Brady and Laura Les had just begun the rollout of their followup to their debut album 1000 gecs, 10,000 gecs.

10,000 gecs was met with near universal praise from critics, but I didn’t like it. And I’ve spent the last two years since its release trying to figure out exactly why. I think I have a handle on it, but to accurately explain why is no easy task. For an album that barely cracks 30 minutes, 1000 gecs proved to be one of the most influential records of the decade. This is going to be a twisting journey through identity, algorithmic taste, and experimental music. Spotify

If you’re reading this guide, it’s probably because you’ve entered Vietnam on an eVisa that expired within fifteen minutes of entering the country. This means you are currently in Vietnam illegally as you are overstaying your visa. You may be confused, panicked, and scared for your future in the country. Do not fear. As long as you follow my easy nine step guide, you will be up and ready to resume your holiday in no time!

This may sound farfetched, but it has happened at least once. This how-to guide is up to date as of December 2025.

When was Australia founded? It’s an interesting thought experiment because unlike the Americans, Australia didn’t violently divorce the United Kingdom. Instead, we gradually, and amicably went our separate ways, without ever actually bothering to sign the paperwork.

The most obvious date is Federation, January 1st, 1901. But Australians would still primarily fly the Union Jack, and we were still not a sovereign nation. So maybe a more appropriate date would be March 3rd, 1986, with the signing of the Australia Act, where Britain finally ceded any jurisdiction within the borders of Australia.