Almanac Life: Things I Like (2026)
Adjusting the seat and side mirrors on a hire car ahead of the drive from Tullamarine to the Queenscliff Music Festival
Side 2 of the compilation album Whopper: ‘Get Dancin’ / ‘Shame Shame Shame’ / ‘The Hustle ‘/ ‘Up In A Puff Of Smoke’ / ‘Jive Talkin’
The community library, a house-shaped wooden cabinet mounted on a post, at the Corny Point Cricket Club gate
The Doors’ ‘Light My Fire’ and its three-and-a-half-minute organ and guitar solo
Finding the chocolate and note Claire’s hidden in my lunch
Arriving in Athens’ Syntagma Square following a 57-hour journey through Melbourne, Beijing, and Istanbul
A $10 Op Shop shirt
The Barry Jarman Stand at Woodville Oval
Sunset overlooking Santorini’s caldera
Listening to David Gray’s hymnal White Ladder album on a Sunday morning
Running through Palermo’s Quattro Canti wearing my Glenelg guernsey and hearing someone yell out, ‘Go, Tigers!’
Sausage, white bread, barbeque sauce
The introduction to ABC radio’s Conversations and it being someone I’ve never heard of
Running at midday along Glenelg North esplanade through a sea fog
Peter Buck’s banjo on the REM song, ‘Electrolite’
Buying Alex his first (legal) pint in the Broady beer garden
The massive Beijing Airport billboard for Grange Hermitage
Every Easter Sunday at the Wheaty, hearing my brother-in-law’s band, Don Morrison’s Raging Thirst, play ‘Grand Junction Road’
A banana on my drive to the Christie’s Beach parkrun
The Season by Helen Garner
Thinking about Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, and St John’s Wood, ahead of our London visit this Christmas
The cowbell on Grover Washington Jr’s ‘The Two of Us’
Being in our backyard and hearing the siren from Glenelg Oval
Nearly tripping over a clump of lava during the Mt Etna parkrun
Cornflake biscuit at The Broadway Kiosk, Wednesday afternoons
Alex and Max getting me Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde as a birthday gift
Italy’s three-wheeled truck, the Piaggio Ape
Claire telling me her ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ story
The Rawady’s Deli mural in Kapunda
A bottle of 2006 Rockford Basket Press Shiraz for Dad’s recent birthday
The game of squash in Ian McEwan’s novel, Saturday
Vividly coloured bottles lining the wall in Athens’ Brettos bar
Feeling the bass guitar growl through the speakers during ‘Sukie in the Graveyard’ at Belle and Sebastian’s Adelaide show
Steering over the River Light just south of Kapunda and feeling nostalgic and happy that I’m home
A Carlsberg Elephant beer (7.2%) with old Kimba friends
The Sound of Muesli on 3D Radio, featuring fellow Unley Jets Footy Club alumnus, Pete
The yellow and green dome of Palermo’s Church of San Giuseppe dei Padri Teatini
A clear and warm evening for Antigone at the Greek Theatre in Syracuse on Sicily
A half-time pasty from Snout’s bar at Glenelg Oval
John Doyle (Rampaging Roy Slaven) picking up Claire’s hat for her when it blew off on Balmain’s Darling Street and he had that knowing twinkle in his eye
The scene in Song Sung Blue when Mike and Claire are first rehearsing and she plays the piano line of ‘Cherry Cherry’
The warmth of the old floorboards in the front bar of Port Elliot’s Royal Family pub
Watching Claire interpret Pulp’s ‘Common People’ in front of Elder Park’s sea of people
Max completing his first three-point turn
Tim Lane opening the telecast commentary of summer’s very first session of Test cricket
Just avoiding a cobra on our Balinese scooter
Footy Almanac lunches in Geelong
During ‘Ol ’55’ by the Eagles when Don Henley and Glenn Frey harmonise on ‘Now, the sun’s coming up/ I’m riding with Lady Luck/ freeway, cars and trucks’
Drifting about in the Corny Point shallows with Claire
This December, stepping into The Coach and Horses, in London’s Soho for a Stella
The Waifs inviting their interpreter (Claire) onstage
Stumbling across a country cricket match, complete with white picket fence
An annual winter lunch with Kapunda boys in the Barossa’s finest pub, the Greenock
Grand Final week
Read more from Mickey Randall HERE
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Mark it zero.
Cracking list Mickey! As ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ is one of my all time favourite songs I’m interested to hear Claire’s story about the song.
Thanks for a distinctively MR list, MR. I’m with Col re Claire’s AWSOP story.
A Roy Slaven eye twinkle for including David Gray’s ‘White Ladder’ &, of course, Bob’s ‘BoB’.
I’ll be revisiting ‘BoB’ in my early October Dylan Covers article.
Keep on ‘liking’ and being grateful.