The World's First Selfie: how I invented the toss-shot and what came next.

A typical early 'toss shot'.

It is 32 years since I invented the selfie. Little did I know how the technique would sweep the globe. How today, everyone has held out an arm to snap a shot of themselves, sometimes even wearing clothes. How with a click of the finger it’s possible to record yourself with friends, politicians, sportsman, actors, animals and food. How the crude selfie-stick I made decades ago has developed into the slickest, most high tech lengths of composite in the world. How the world’s first go-pro that I fashioned with VHS and string has become small, robust and waterproof.

Thirty-two years. If it were a marriage it would be the diamond anniversary plus two. So it seems fitting to record how it all began. In this piece I'll reveal the story of the selfie's creation. Next week I'll write about how far the selfie has come and how a remote village in South America is challenging the world to return to the selfie's simple beginnings.

Beware the Crows: the curious case of the barrister and the beak.

Barristers must sometimes walk about in the open. You see, unlike dentists who magically appear by your side as you recline sporting protective glasses, like an astronaut awaiting launch, barristers must move about: between chambers and court, between court and lunch, back to chambers, off to the bar and sometimes home. Cars are used for the longer journeys. Usually something small and foreign, but given the state of the Australian car industry this is a necessity rather than a mark of status. While cars are safe enough when operated at moderate speed by a driver uneffected by alcohol or other substances, walking is an entirely different proposition. It is dangerous and becoming more so. Barristers just walking about are at risk.

The Truth About Travel: time spent in a tube of farts.

Criminal barristers travel to where their trials take place. Sometimes that's a city, sometimes a town, sometimes it's a whistle stop with nothing but bad coffee and dust to recommend it. Nothing to be jealous about there, right? Wrong. Travel, even travel for work fires jealously in the inexperienced. Tell them you’re flying and staying at a 4-star and they’ll call it a junket quicker than you can gag them and twist their ear.

A tired travelling waiting to board a tube of farts.

         In truth travel for work is nothing like travel for pleasure. Obviously one reason for that is the work itself. Unless you are one of those lucky individuals who are passionate about what they do, then working away from home is just work with a higher degree of difficulty.

'What the fuck you lookin' at?'