Stuart McCullough

To the best of my knowledge, I have been on television exactly three times. The first was during a school excursion to Churchill Island. A camera crew from Channel Nine turned up at the same time and they took footage of us, promising to use it in the resulting story. In an instant, it seemed my destiny was carved well and truly in stone. Surely my image on television would be an event too magnificent to ignore and Johnny Young would shortly be on the blower, inviting me to become a permanent member of the Young Talent Team.
Continue reading “TV or not TV – That is the Question”

The local youth group was something to do on a Friday night. It was a place to catch up with your friends and run around the church hall for a couple of hours before being picked up by your parents. But within this social gathering of carefree young people there existed an elite, highly specialised unit. Rather than play games for a couple of hours, they devoted their time to the noble art of puppetry. I was then as I am now – in total awe of their talent. More than anything, I wanted to be included.
Continue reading “Master of the Puppets”

My father’s favourite joke was simple and of the ‘hit and run’ variety. If, whilst driving, he spotted someone on the roof of a house or building, he would pull the car to the side of the road, wind down the window, stick out his head and yell: ‘Don’t jump, mate!’ Before the startled stranger had a chance to gather his wits and respond, my father would vigorously wind the window back up and drive off at the greatest pace a Nissan E-20 minivan could manage. What victims of this joke thought as they watched a small bus with seven people inside lurch back into the traffic barely stands thinking about. I couldn’t tell you whether these attempts at ‘drive by’ humour were intended to entertain us or just my father. It wasn’t until adulthood that I realised these people were at no risk of falling off the roof other than if the sheer surprise of being heckled overwhelmed them.
Continue reading “The Hopeless Quest to Be More Interesting”

If there’s one thing I avoid like the plague, it’s clichés. But however tedious they may seem, it must be remembered that these turns of phrase were once ripe with meaning and have withered only through chronic overuse. Sheer familiarity has served to dull their impact to the point that they are now as blunt as the proverbial butterknife. Some are best left to retirement. Others, however, should be given a little spit and polish in order to drag them kicking and screaming into the digital age. This can either be done by updating to the language or by insisting that all use of cliché be subject to a strict and unforgiving regime of compliance. Indeed, only by enforcing these expressions and making sure that those around us walk the walk as well as talk the cliché-ridden talk can we ensure that these turns of phrase have anything resembling meaning. For example, a colleague recently announced to me that he was so busy that he didn’t have time to scratch himself. I took him at his word. Helpfully, I suggested that he enter a recurring appointment on his computer complete with audio reminder alarm so that he could lock in some uninterrupted, quality scratching time.
Continue reading “Better the Devil You Know – My Life In Cliché.”

We need heroes now more than ever. In fact, never before has the vast human Diaspora so craved something to inspire and lift it up. That’s because heroes give people hope and feed us the courage to dream a little bigger and live a little larger, no matter the circumstances. Even when fear laps at our ankles, our idols pull us towards something higher. They are, to coin a phrase, the wind beneath our wings. No matter how cynical you become, there is something about the human condition that longs for inspiration. We need heroes as surely as oxygen.
Continue reading “All Hail the Wonder Goat”

They say that the ‘camera never lies’. Frankly, this is shocking news that makes me want to throw away my driver’s licence, passport and every other piece of photo ID in my possession. I’m yet to see a Cannon 55D or Nikon D4 strapped to a polygraph machine, so I can’t vouchsafe as to their honesty or otherwise. But I will say this – the camera may well never lie, but it is sometimes economical with the truth.

Continue reading “Lies, Damn Lies and Digital Photography”

Music can transport you. Even a few bars of a long lost song can instantly take you to another time or place. This is especially true of television theme music. If there’s a genre of music that doesn’t get the respect it so richly deserves, it’s this one. It’s not so much regarded as the poor cousin of regular music as the poor second cousin twice removed and living in a basement, whose name no one dares mention aloud at family gatherings. Whilst as a general rule I am all for musical snobbery, it’s time that these songs came in from the cold.
Continue reading “The Last Mike Post”

We all do it. In fact, our mobile phones demand it of us – they insist that we create a voicemail greeting. I resent them greatly. It’s foolish to pretend that you can soften the blow of not having your call answered. A mere recording is not much in the way of a souvenir. As much as I hate encountering the voicemail of others, what I despise most of all is the task of recording these messages. You know the kind. They begin by telling those who are trying to reach you that you ‘cannot come to the phone right now’ with the offer to ‘leave a message’ at the tone. These invitations often contain the sweetener of a promise to return the call ‘as soon as I can.’ This, of course, is a spectacular untruth.
Continue reading “Setting the Right Tone”

Truth be told, it took me a very long time to find Kate. The mere fact that I am forty years of age and have not previously been married says it all. Indeed, many who know me well must have wondered at whether I would ever find anyone willing to regard me as a suitable partner for life. Certainly, whilst it’s fair to say that I’ve had my fair share of offers when it comes to wedlock, it must be said that those offers were exclusively in email form, were from Russia and required me to deposit large amounts of money into a bank account as a sign of ‘good faith’. As much as I appreciated the repeated offers by strangers to travel around the world to live with me in exchange for cash, I declined them all. Call me old fashioned, but I hoped for something more.
Continue reading “The Shameless Pursuit of Happiness”

It’s tragic, really. For years, my handwriting has been in a state of ever-increasing decay. Like an ancient pullover, it has been gradually unravelling until all that remains is a single, indecipherable thread. The tragedy of my handwriting is not a story of a single minute but of a toll taken over several decades. It started out as terrible from which point it has since steadily devolved.

Continue reading “The Terminal Decline of Quality Penmanship”