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Attenborough’s hero stuffed hoax animals
CHARLES Waterton, eccentric yet far-seeing conservationist. ANOTHER creation satirically titled ‘John Bull and the National Debt.’ HEAD of the crocodile Charles Waterton captured by ‘grabbing its front legs and riding it into submission.’ WATERTON’S mansion on an island in an 11ha lake is now a luxury hotel. ECCENTRIC CROC-WRESTLING NATURALIST David Ellis SHOW us […]
Australia’s first undercover cop revealed
‘THE SHADOW’ OUR FIRST UNDERCOVER COP David Ellis FOR those with a fascination for whodunits, an exhibition called Breakers: The Dying Art of Safe Breaking that opens at Sydney’s Justice & Police Museum this month, will give a captivating introduction to Australia’s undoubtedly most extraordinary police officer ever – our first under-cover operative, Frank […]
Henry Ford’s cargo ship house
HOUSE WOULD SUIT HENRY FORD TO A T David Ellis WE’VE written over the years about some pretty strange things that have become people’s somewhat bizarre homes, holiday retreats and even offices, amongst them a few converted passenger jets, plenty of churches, lighthouses, a couple of one-time houses of ill repute – even an ice-works […]
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, a London literary time warp.
THEATRE’S TALE WORTHY OF BARD HIMSELF David Ellis YOU’D think that London’s replica of Shakespeare’s original Globe Theatre, to which tens of thousands flock annually, would be the result of patriotic fervour absolutely British to its boot-straps. But you’d be wrong. When the idea was put to them, the Brits appeared little interested in the […]
Emirates largest operator of A380 still remembers the little things
AIRLINE THINKS SMALL TO SUCCEED BIG David Ellis WHILE many a corporation has foundered as a consequence of talking big, but fatally thinking small, one that’s conversely proven the success of talking big, and then very deliberately thinking small, is Middle East-based airline Emirates. First taking to the skies in 1985 with […]
Cape Romano’s forlorn landmark is the end of a dream
BIZARRE FLORIDA LANDMARK’S STORMY END David Ellis RETIRED American independent oil producer Bob Lee was well ahead of his time when in the early 1980s he built a family holiday home at remote Cape Romano on Florida’s Marco Island, an almost space-age-like half dozen inter-connecting concrete domes squatting atop sturdy stilts overlooking the beach. […]
Get aboard Vanuatu sailing legend
OUR COONGOOLA NOW A VANUATU LEGEND David Ellis WHEN they take to the 23m ketch Coongoola for a day of aquatic frivolity out of Port Vila in Vanuatu, it’s a fair bet that not all aboard quite realise in what great footsteps of Australia’s maritime history they are following. Nor that was it not for […]
Happy Sailing Port Vila
DOUG’S DAYS OF BOYS’ OWN ADVENTURES David Ellis ONE of the more-popular outings on a visit to Vanuatu’s Port Vila is a day on, and in, the briny with the historic 23m ketch Coongoola, revelling in sun, sand, coral reef snorkelling, fish feeding, a visit to a turtle hatchery and a cracker-jack barbecue on a […]
Kaiser’s Kiel Canal
98KM KIEL CANAL EIGHT YEARS IN MAKING David Ellis GERMANY’S Kaiser Wilhelm II reckoned his official opening in 1895 of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal across the Jutland Peninsula and connecting the North Sea with the Baltic Sea, would be pretty good reason to celebrate. After all, the dream of just such a canal that would […]
Found: The Holy Grail – or is it?
ANOTHER ‘HOLY GRAIL’ DEEPENS THE MYSTERY David Ellis BIZARRE is possibly the kindest way of describing many of the claims to the resting place of the Holy Grail, the cup that Jesus supposedly drank from at the Last Supper, and the hunt for which has confounded man virtually ever since. For far […]
