David Kemp has been ticking off milestones on a path that few others will travel. Next is brain surgery under a local anaesthetic.
 Over 43 years at the Holden proving ground in Lang Lang, Allan George drove every new Holden model.
 Angus McMillan History is written by the victors, who also get the naming rights. Geoff Ellis argues that we have a chance to redress the balance when it comes to Angus McMillan.
 Cartoon: Natasha Williams-Novak Geoff Ellis wonders why we mourn the victims of the Las Vegas killer but are indifferent to a genocide much closer to home.
 Carlowe’s joy was contagious. Geoff Ellis pays tribute to “a great dog, not always a good dog”.
 By Geoff Ellis
UP IN the Bass Coast hills the temperature drops rapidly once the sun dips below the ridgelines. Lew Potter’s beanie keeps him warm but there’s not much daylight left and those new-borns need to be in the shed with their mum. Lew picks up a swag of squirming lamb and heads off across the paddock. “C’mon mum, here they are ...”  Friends of the State Coal Mine president Steve Harrop. Visitors to the mine will be able to compare the performance of different panels and batteries. Wonthaggi’s state coal mine has long been a magnet for history buffs. Soon it will also be drawing visitors interested in new technology.
 Geoff Ellis meets the legendary Mike Cleeland, who’s been digging for clues for three decades.
 Inverloch beach. Photo: Bass Coast Shire Council By Geoff Ellis
STORM surges and high tides regularly inundate car parks in Rhyll and Inverloch. Anyone who walks the beaches along the Grantville waterline can show you where the foreshore once was and how much closer it is to the highway.  In our daily travels throughout Bass Coast, we are never far from thousands of years of human history.
 A Korinne farming family turned their backs on Big Milk and found a brighter new future. Geoff Ellis reports.
 Once upon Geoff Ellis knew exactly what the council should do. And then he became a councillor.
 By Geoff Ellis
NOTE to self: Next time – removalists. A white ute dashes along Sheepways dragging a dust cloaked trailer. Back in Wattle Bank another trailer waits as the next load grows around it. The new place is log jammed. When does the tip close? Can the op-shop sell any of this treasure? Why is the dog barking?  By Geoff Ellis
FRANKENSTEIN wasn't the first scientist to have the next best thing become the exact opposite. He won’t be the last. Glyphosate-based products have long been the standard for weed control. Now concerns are being raised about their long-term effect. The jury is still out so, for once, perhaps we should take a cautious approach. Remember DDT?  By Geoff Ellis
THERE are two memorial cairns in Corinella. One reminds us of the failed attempt at British settlement in 1826. The other informs us of Count Paul Strzelecki’s 1840 journey through an area inhabited for thousands of years. Well before the Count’s party stumbled through, Samuel Anderson had made a number of exploratory journeys to the Tarwin River and Anderson's Inlet. Why would a day in 1840 warrant such a marker? In the mid-1920s the self-appointed Victorian Historical Memorials Committee decided to glorify Angus McMillan and Paul de Strzelecki with a chain of historical cairns across Gippsland. According to historian Tom Griffiths, “The cairns were intended to define a local geography bound to the colonial era.”  By Geoff Ellis
RECENTLY I drove to Cranbourne and back in a morning. At Wonthaggi unleaded petrol was 115.9 cents (Brand A, Brand B and Brand C). At Bass, 34 kilometres away, unleaded petrol was 96.9 cents (Brand B). At Tooradin it was 91.9 cents for e10 petrol (Brand D). Nineteen kilomtres up the road from Tooradin, ULP was 90.9 cents with a voucher (Brand B).  Cartoon by Natasha Williams-Novak By Geoff Ellis
April 9, 2016 "ANY customer can have a car painted any colour they like ... so long as it is black," Henry Ford (inventing the mandatory option) in 1909.* “We should buy a Betamax VCR.” Geoff Ellis (planning to get married), ca 1982.  After 10 years of talk and planning, The Cape estate is starting to take shape. Developer Brendan Condon sells Geoff Ellis on the benefits of eco-houses.
 Cartoon: Natasha Williams-Novak The passionate local people who staff Wonthaggi’s visitor information centre are the best possible advertisement for the area.
Geoff Ellis’s tree change has thrown up surprising challenges. Some of them have eight legs.
A month of relentless eating leads to a month of remorseful sweating for Geoff Ellis, who finds his mind wandering in strange places.
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