Author Archives: browney

That’s a wrap – my PhD thesis is done.

4 Replies
I used this pen for months after our visit to Coimbra. Although its long since run out of ink it still holds pride of place on my desk

Hitting the send button on my thesis manuscript wasn’t the feeling I’d expected. I thought it would be eeuphoric but instead it was a a flatness that comes from sheer relief.

It was early. I’d been up since 5 in the morning, tidying up formatting, which had been the bane of my life in the last few weeks. I had been pulling my hair out over headings, renumbering themselves for apparently no reason – of course; there was one which I found with the help of a colleague for whom I am eternally grateful. Full stops were missing in my final run-through, a random page break, a bold line in a table, and an incorrect reference on the second last page of a 365 page document. And of course, there was the conversion to pdf process that saw the pages slighting alter, meaning a few tables had to be reformatted.

What I thought would take an hour took two and a half hours, so at 7.30 in the morning I hit send and into the examination process my thesis goes. I’m hoping that will be straight forward but I can’t be sure.

Thre was no one else in the house awake – how to celebrate? Upstairs and a 45 minute bike session on Zwift. I’ve racked up countless hours on the bike over the course of my phd. It along with the gym have been a welcome release from the daily phd process.

It was quite nice to have an hour or so my own to take in the fact that it was done. The countelss journal articles I’d read,the more than 1 million words written of which nearly 115,000 found there way into the manuscript.

Continue reading →

Contemplating What’s Next – My thesis is nearly done!

6 Replies

I’m nearly there. My PhD thesis is with the copy editor for the second time. I know there will be yet more typos to fix and references to correct. I know my supervisors will make a few more suggestions, but I’m nearly there. In a few weeks my PhD Thesis will be in the examiners hands.

It’s almost six years since I started my PhD journey and eight since, in contemplating what’s next, that I commenced an academic journey. At that time I was exiting my career as a partner in a global consulting firm and I had to think about what I’d do next.

With the benefit of some wise counsel from two colleagues and after reading Herminia Ibarra’s Working identities I had a plan. I didn’t want to pursue the non-executive director route or remain in the corporate space. I thought I’d be an academic and explore a completely new path.

That was the and this is now.

All of those years later, I am close to completing that journey and I’m feeling a bit lost. What’s Next?

Continue reading →

Graham Edge drummer and inspiration behind The Moody Blues – RIP

Leave a reply
Graham Edge – source ABC.net.au/AP Photo/David Richard


From my first listening to Every Good Boy Deserve Favour, there is no time that I have not enjoyed listening to The Moody Blues. I was introduced to them by a school teacher who proved to be the biggest musical influence of my life – he also introduced me to Dylan and Springsteen and sparked a mini revival of Richard Harris’s version of MacArthur Park in my home town.
Edge who died aged 80 this week was pivotal to The Moody Blues.

Edge was a founding member of The Moody Blues, who when formed in the early to mid 1960s had a typical Mersey beat style about them. Their hit Go Now was the most memorable of that incarnation. The band progressed to be an early proponent of Prog Rock.

The Moody Blues were distinctive. Edge’s poetic introductions to songs were part of that, but as I realised when I saw them in concert for the last time a few years ago, their distinctive style was the drumming. Yes, there were soaring vocals, and harmonies but through it all the drumming was central. Just listen to the drum solo to I’m Just a Singer if you need reminding.

Justin Hayward is quoted in The Guardian saying “Graeme’s sound and personality is present in everything we did together and thankfully that will live on.” Just as his drumming was central to the Moddies sound, he was central to the band’s very existence.

I was lucky enough to see the Moody Blues twice. They still had it even in their early 70s, when if my memory is correct Edge said perhaps my favourite ever concert line, that he’d been lucky enough to live through the 60s twice. At 80 his time has come for which I’m very sad but also grateful for the music, his drumming, his poetry and the Moody Blues.


Take the turn off – Mundulla & Dimboola

2 Replies

With travel still restricted, we are all being encouraged to travel locally. Australia is vast and highways mean so many of the little towns are a detour off the highway.

In this post I pick two that are definitely worth taking the turn off for. We have!

Mundulla is a delightful Australian country town going through a serious rejuvenation. It’s a few kilometres off the Dukes Highway on the Adelaide side of Bordertown. A detour of just a few minutes.

The town has been a multiple winner of the best small town and sustainability awards, all very much due to the efforts of an active local community.

The town’s centrepiece is the Old Mundulla Hotel. It is everything a country pub should be: a friendly publican, a few locals, and some travellers like ourselves. The hotel has accommodation that includes a B&B, a newly built self-accommodation home, and three small modern cabins. At the time of our visit, the B&B was under renovation and the home in the final stages of completion. We booked one of the small cabins. Check-in is at the pub. Our cabin was modern, small and adequate – just the spot for an overnight stop-over.

My suggestion is to drop your bags and head to the pub. If it’s a warm day the beer garden out the back with its big grassed area with a verandah is just the place for a beer or glass of wine or two. If the weather is less inviting stay inside and perhaps settle in by the fire with a glass of red from the nearby Coonawarra.

We visited in late summer and sat outside before heading inside for dinner. We had a table in the window that looked across the main street. The bar behind us had a few people settling in for dinner. The food is simple and excellent – the atmosphere delightful.

It’s definitely worth going for a walk around the town. The old council chambers weren’t open on our visit but the building has been restored – the chambers were only used for a couple of years. It was quiet and the dusk light made the walk a delight. There is a nature walk through the scrub on the town’s perimeter.

Council Chambers

The pub is not open every night although the accommodation is.

The general store does a great breakfast from around 6.30 am every morning. Good coffee and a pretty traditional Aussie breakfast menu. They also sell Frances Strawberries Strawberry Jam!

My second detour is a short stop in Dimboola just a few kilometres off the Western Highway near the South Australian – Victrorian border.

Continue reading →

Legacy fan

2 Replies

I have been an Arsenal fan from afar for the best part of 50 years. Living on the other side of the world meant that I either had to be near the radio for the classified results on a Sunday morning or hope our local daily had enough column space to print the results. on a Monday or Tuesday. I used to read Shoot magazine with my copy arriving at the newsagent weeks after it came out in England. The only TV coverage was Match of the Day The Big Match hosted by Brian Moore and the FA Cup final.

Continue reading →