CURRENT MISSION

To go to Europe, then come home again

ABOUT ME

I am a 39 year old part-time PhD student, part-time lecturer, part-time political commentator (my blog is one of the most heavily trafficked sites on Australian politics) and part-time popular music nerd from Australia. In early July I will be travelling alone through Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Prague and Vienna. I have made on-and-off efforts to learn German over the years, and I'm hoping the visit will help sharpen me up a little. I am not looking for places to stay, but am very keen to meet for the proverbial coffee or a drink with friendly people who share my very particular interests.

PHILOSOPHY

Be as nice as you can stand.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Have only just joined, but very excited about the concept of the site and open to the possibility of making a couch available when circumstances allow.

Interests

Politics, world events, big ideas, history, popular culture in general, popular music in particular, all other culture in principle.

• culture
• coffee
• drinking
• politics
• traveling
• blogging
• music
• guitar
• history

Music, Movies, and Books

Lots of contemporary indie music, most of it American I notice: Joanna Newsom, Frida Hyvonen, Joe Pernice, Sufjan Stevens, Animal Collective, Daniel Johnston, Jenny Wilson, Laura Barrett, The Leisure Society, St Vincent, tUnE-YaRdS, High Llamas, Will Oldham, Bill Callahan, Cat Power, Edith Frost, Magnetic Fields, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. I'm also very keen on 1960s soul, pop, R&B and psychedelia, along with 1970s punk and everything that fed into and out of it.

My literary favourites are P.G. Wodehouse, George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, George Macdonald Fraser and Kurt Vonnegut, but at least as many of my favourite writers do other things: politics (Christopher Hitchens, Robert Fisk), popular culture (Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus, Simon Reynolds), literary criticism (Paul Fussell) and humour (P.J. O'Rourke until recently).

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

The most unforgettable place I've ever been is Verdun in France: a vast monument to the carnage and futility of the Great War.

Teach, Learn, Share

I speak pretty good English for an Australian and can play the guitar up to a point. I also have 120wpm Pittman shorthand and 80wpm touch typing, for what that's worth these days.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, Denmark, France, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand, United Kingdom, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia

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