Move Along. Nothing To See Here.

The Australia in which I grew up was not the Australia of today. Oh, sure: it had its problems. It was distinctly racist and homophobic, yep. But there were compensations. You could ride bicycles without having to wear Iron Man body armour. You could...

There's an ongoing discourse regarding traditional-type martial arts such as karate, kung fu, and ju-jitsu and their effectiveness in "real" self defense. It's quite an interesting debate, if you lean that way.
Before I talk any farther about the nature of the debate, I'm going to relate something that involves young Genghis at school last week. Apparently, there was a bit of disagreement during the regular lunchtime cricket game. Genghis denies doing anything...

Okay.
I owe a lot of people in Melbourne an apology. I was, in fact, in your city for part of the weekend. I probably didn't catch up to you. I'm sorry.
Here's how it was: about three weeks back, my publisher and friend Tehani noticed that none other than Cory Doctorow was running a masterclass for young writers at the state library in Melbourne. Cue an opportunity for Jake....

Sometimes I have to send letters to school, in order to help teachers deal with my offspring. Here are a couple of examples I found when I was clearing out old correspondence from my files.
Letter The First, Concerning An Unusual Lunch
Dear E---