I arrived back from Australia feeling both jet-lagged (understandable) and very much under the weather, which is highly unusual for me. I don’t know what bug I had, but it’s still working it’s way through my system and I’m still not 100 per cent.

Which is a partial explanation for the lack of posting.

The main thing I planned to write upon my return was a reflection on how valuable it had been for me to concentrate on a biggish piece of writing — that Deakin speech — after too much time writing far shorter things, whether they are blog posts or journalistic articles. I know in the big scheme of things, 6,000 words isn’t Ulysses, but it had been a while since I wrote over 3,000 words and there is a step change that is required.

It’s not that I just can waffle through 3,000 words (although I can). I’d like to think my 3,000-word pieces, or 1,500 worders, are well thought through and well written. But for the Deakin lecture I needed to think through a range of issues that I had only dealt with anecdotally before that. For me, that proved an enjoyable and useful exercise.

So a personal resolution: carve out time for occasional bigger writing projects. I’ll post the sporadic results here.