A survey says Australian children’s top fears are car accidents, bombs, burglars and terrorists.

Some of us were talking on Saturday night about our fears when we were growing up in the early 80s. For many it was the fear of nuclear war.

I remember lying awake at night thinking about it. Glad I was living close to a major city centre that was probably a target, so all I might see was a bright flash of light, then I’d be dead, vapourised, rather than having to live in the aftermath.

I recall I had particular resentment of Ronald Reagan and his confrontational approach to world affairs. Whether it was connected or not, I recall seeing a Herald headline about the 1986 US bombing of Libya and thinking “he’s going to destroy the world.”

These fears were reflected in popular culture at the time, too. Think Raymond Briggs When the Wind Blows (which scared the willies out of me) and The Young Ones episode “Bomb“, as well as WarGames.

As it happens, Tuesday was the 23rd anniversary of the day that Colonel Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov saved the world, by not firing Soviet missiles in response to an apparent US missile launch on his screen (which turned out to be a glitch).

I wonder if today’s fears of terrorism have quite reached the levels of fear we had of nuclear apocalypse.

My camera’s gone on holiday. At the moment it’s flying to Europe via Singapore, for some time in England, Ireland and Italy. Just for a fortnight or so.

Alas I’m not going with it. I lent it to Justine, whose camera has mysteriously disappeared.

So if you’re travelling in Europe in the next couple of weeks, say hello to my camera if you see it.

Occasionally on a Saturday night just before seven, I’ll be slumped in front of the telly, flicking from SBS over to the ABC to keep up my quota of TV news (which is somewhat lacking during the week). I’ll see the end of Gardening Australia, and ponder its tiddily-pom blandly inoffensive music, which conveys pretty much nothing about gardening or Australia, and for most viewers probably sits unnoticed in the background. And while the music plays, the name of its composer will fly past: Rick Turk.

Like other TV and film composers such as Ronnie Hazlehurst and Ron Grainer, Rick Turk has written theme music for heaps of different TV shows, in the UK and Australia, including Four Corners, Foreign Correspondent, and some that aren’t around anymore such as Perfect Match and It’s A Knockout.

Some of the works, like the Gardening Australia theme are, I submit, pretty close to elevator music. But thankfully something like the Four Corners music has a bit more bite to it, helping to express the seriousness of the topics covered on the show.

Like Robert Fripp, the guitarist designing various sounds for the next version of Windows, I suppose anybody in that position would be almost totally at the mercy of their corporate masters. There must be some artistic inspiration involved of course, but it’s confined within extremely narrow parameters — much narrower than most artists would find themselves with, particularly those who don’t create things for money.

Of course, Michaelangelo also did plenty of commissioned works, and is widely regarded as a genius. Though I’m not sure the Sistine Chapel could in any way be compared to the theme music from Gardening Australia.

The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson — Technology has made it cheaper to produce and store and sell many things. So niché products that never would have been viable before are now big business. That’s the premise. If that’s all you want to know, you don’t really need to read this book. At a pinch, read the Wired article it’s based on — you’ll save both time and money.

Though the book has been widely praised, and I did find parts of it very interesting, I also found it just a teensy bit laborious, as it seemed to spend a lot of time covering the same ground over and over. Some books like this will come up with something illuminating and different every few pages, or at least every chapter. This didn’t seem to. It probably should have been about half the length it is. As such it’s probably worth seeking out only if you really want to know about the phenomenon in great detail. Maybe it’s just proof that, deep down, I’m not an economist. Or that I understood the concept too well already.

My three main Inboxes are getting out of control. While I manage to reply in a reasonable manner to most of the email I get that’s directed to me personally, I tend to get very slack at filing things away or deleting them, perhaps partly because I think at some stage I’ll need to find them urgently again — to contribute a point to a group discussion, or read again to enforce a point or otherwise act.

The result? Mailbox one: over 1000 items; Mailbox two: 244; Mailbox three: 702.

Which of course means I can’t find urgent things easily.

Robert Scoble wrote a few days ago about “declaring email bankruptcy“. Thankfully things aren’t quite that desperate.

But I think it’s time for a big clearout. Maybe I’ll file away most of it into some kind of Inbox Archive, and get more strict about filing/deleting as I read, so what remains in the Inboxes is genuinely just what I need to respond to.

In an amusing conversation the other week:

25 is the new 18.

Cycling is the new golf.

Dunno if all this is really true, but I’m discovering for myself that brown is the new blue.

There was a stage in my life when I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing brown. The other day however I noted I was wearing blue jeans, a brown T-shirt, and an olivey-brown top and coat. (Olive? Brown? Somewhere in between? I don’t know; I’m a bit colour-blind.)

I reckon if my 20-year-old self saw me now, he’d probably snigger.

And vice versa, come to think of it.

Mr woolly jumper, what makes you think it is acceptable to floss your teeth on the train?

Gross-a-rama.