welcome
Welcome to the first issue of my new newsletter. I've been writing and publishing and building web pages for a while but I've enjoyed seeing recently the resurgence of a more direct kind of interaction via some interesting newsletters that I've been reading, on Substack and elsewhere, and wanted to give it a try.
I want to keep my version short and simple and useful and low-tech. I imagine that regular topics will include reading, writing, drawing, technology, food and drink, Apple, sport, vinyl and whatever takes my fancy. I hope you enjoy the things I share here and if something surprises or delights, sparks interest or curiosity, I'm happy.
in the garden
Nothing quite says summer like the tomatoes coming on at last, as they have in our little veggie garden in the last couple of weeks. I like to get them planted around Cup Day, which is the holiday for the Melbourne Cup horse race on the first Tuesday of November. I usually plant about half a dozen plants, different styles and shapes, always some of the small cherry tomatoes and the Italian Roma style. This year the first lot were getting eaten but over the last few weeks more and more have come on despite our miserable summer so far. I love going out and finding the ripish ones each day; you keep looking and you keep finding them. As Les Murray put it (albeit about beans!) in his wonderful poem The Broad Bean Sermon:
Going out to pick beans with the sun high as fence-tops, you find
plenty, and fetch them. An hour or a cloud later
you find shirtfulls more. At every hour of daylightappear more than you missed:
And, the smell of the leaves as you water them. I usually plant other things: cucumbers, lettuce, capsicum, chilli, but it’s always really about the tomatoes.
reading
I love my local library, never more so than when I stumble upon a new book by an author I like. So, very pleased recently to pick up The Wolves of Eternity by Norwegian writer, Karl Ove Knausgaard. It's a big book that just rambles and rumbles along, as he does. Which you either like or don't. It took me a while when I read some of his earlier stuff, to get used to his style which is both easy to read, but full of layers as well.
There's an interesting Guardian review HERE
sport
The Tour Down Under was completed around Adelaide and the surrounding hills this week, and usually makes for good watching, especially if you're looking for alternatives to the cricket or tennis which rules the summer sport scheduling in Australia. The first big pro event of the year the racing is usually fast and furious and the annual race is worth a trip to Adelaide if you want a little glimpse into pro cycling. I've only been once; I was very keen to see Lance Armstrong race before the truth of his drug cheating emerged (hangs his head in remorseful self-reproach for believing) The race is done but extended highights of this year’s stages are still available on the Channel 7 TDU page if you want to take a look. (may be Australian viewers only)
tek
My Christmas present to myself; the Elgato Stream Deck is now up and running, and no doubt this will come up in future newsletters. About a week ago someone was in my Bungalow where my computer is, asking what it was. It wasn't that easy to explain. In essence it's a little box of customisable buttons, favoured by YouTube streamers and gamers it seems. My version (the Mark 2) has fifteen buttons, in three rows of five.
My use is pretty basic; providing buttons for various menu items in various applications I use on my Mac Studio. I waited until it was under $200 on Amazon, using the Amazon price tracker, Camel, Camel, Camel, to let me know when it was on sale.
I got mine before Christmas on the Black Friday sales that are now commonplace in Australia, and my wife said I wasn't to open it until Christmas. So, it went under the tree, ('To Warrick, from the Fish). The fish generally give good presents! The thing I did learn though was that I could set up lots of the buttons and menus with the downloaded software even BEFORE I got the physical thing unboxed. So, when I did finally got it opened (it was smaller and sturdier than I thought) I just had to plug it in and had quite a few buttons already configured.
about this newsletter
The idea of this irregular newsletter is to share things I think are worth sharing. They are things that interest me, roughly sorted in terms of regular and irregular topics: technology, sport, vinyl, cycling, food and wine, pens and paper, etc. The list goes on, and I wont be held to it!
I’m still unsure about the name of this newsletter; I may change it. I gave Chat GTP a list of topics I might want to write about and asked it for a catchy title. It came up with the following:
1. TechTales & Beyond
2. Apple Orchard Gazette
3. Script & Scroll Chronicle
4. SportTech Digest
5. EduVoyage Journal
6. History Harbour Dispatch
7. ShutterScript Weekly
8. Pen & Pixel Chronicle
9. Vinyl Vibrations Review
10. E-Bike Explorer Digest
11. Paddle & Pedal Post
12. Nature’s Notebook Gazette
13. Lit & Lens Ledger
14. GreenThumb Gazette
15. Reel & Riff Review
16. Surf & Soundwave Dispatch
17. Orchestrated Automation Almanac
At once, we can all see the problem with AI! At the moment it’s shipping news. For no more reason than I liked that title and would read a newsletter with that title myself!
about warrick wynne
I am a reader, writer, retired Literature teacher, living on the Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne, Australia.
I am a poet with three published collections and have co-authored several text books for senior secondary English students You can read more about my writing at my poetry blog, my poetry home page or at warrickwynne.com