Trevor’s Reviews > Joined-Up Thinking > Status Update

I don't know. To tell the truth, I didn't read the WHOLE book. I read quite a lot of it, and then after that I wanted to write it myself and went off establishing connections all over the bloody place. See today's blog entry (http://www.happenstancepress.co.uk/wo...) I hope it wears off at some point . . . I think the web makes it all worse (or better, depending on your perspective).

I really liked the blog. He says in the first round that Newton invented Indigo - but I've checked and I think that isn't quite true. All the same, the stuff about him wanting 7 colours seems true (and very amusing). What you say about the Victorian gold rush is very true - most people didn't find enough gold and in the end needed to do something else. My favourite things about this, though, is that that most Australian of slang phrases 'fair dinkum' comes from the time of the rush - and is Chinese for 'true gold'. That is particularly interesting because Peter Lalor is often seen as the great leader of the Eureka stockade and therefore of leftwing politics in Australia, but was actually one of the first people to call for a White Australia. Yes, I can see how this book really could very easily get under my skin - I shouldn't have read any of it, but find myself sneaking chapters. A terrible thing...

I really like that about fair dinkum. It connects very well with a poem I have about ummers and err-ers. . . .