Old writer on the block

The writing diary of a well-mellowed science writer who cares about the public understanding of science and knows the ropes. This blog bounces between my curiosity, the daily realities of professional writing, the joy of pursuing nature, and my recycling of ideas that won't be in some book or other as far as I can see, but still needed sharing. I welcome comments and suggestions! Spam will be blocked and reported. For my books, see http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/writing/index.htm

Monday, 20 October 2025

The Great HSC heist of 1985, 1.

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  Prologue This is a tale that needs to be read by people doing MBAs, and urban anthropologists looking for a thesis. Its culmination was ...

The Great HSC heist of 1985, 2.

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  The narrator as a disabled number-cruncher Teacher training threw me briefly into the hands of Don Spearritt, who fascinated me with his...

The Great HSC heist of 1985, 3.

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  Applied anarchy and surrealism Part of my new role was to advise a statutory board, leading them into the paths of examination righteous...

The Great HSC heist of 1985, 4.

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The robbery. It was too soon for us to relax. There was a wannabe amateur anarchist out there, and he believed that he could sabotage th...

The Great HSC heist of 1985, 5.

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  The repair job I had planned to use modern (for those days) technology, meaning Apple IIe machines to reprint the reset papers, but ...

The Great HSC heist of 1985, 6.

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  The hysterical woman After the event, John Cook was promoted to a newly-created assistant director job, and I took his role, though ...
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Peter Macinnis
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Peter Macinnis turned to writing after his promising career as a chiaroscuro player was tragically cut short by a caravaggio crash during the Trompe L'Oeil endurance race. He recently did remarkably well in the early rounds of the celebrity underwater cooking program, Moister Chef, but he was disqualified for using dried fruits and desiccated coconut. He has a pet leech named Gladys, which has lived in a container on his desk for the last six months, as part of another book, and he is an expert echidna handler and ant lion wrangler. He wrote both the score and the libretto for the acclaimed opera Manon Troppo.

Sorry, that’s not quite right. I write and sometimes broadcast about science, for young and old. I write mainly about science, environment, or social history for both adults and children, depending on how the fit takes me on a given morning. I usually have one book coming back after editing or in production, one being edited, one being written and one or more being actively researched.
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