Hi, I'm David Brewster - welcome to my website and blog. I'm a freelance writer and copywriter able to assist you with your writing needs, whether for print or the web. I bring a strong background in business to my work. I'm based in Melbourne, Australia. Check the Services page for more details. Otherwise, please enjoy reading my articles. And please subscribe by RSS or email to receive future articles as they are published.
Like Senator Steve Fielding, I am a lapsed engineer. Like Steve, I have attempted to understand the science of climate change. Unlike Steve, I eventually understood that the task is beyond ordinary mortals. In fact it is even beyond the intellect of a single engineer. I realised that we should be leaving it to the experts with the broadest possible exposure to the issue.
For a while late last year, I spent many hours trying to draw my own conclusions about climate change. I grazed on books, chewed through reports and fed on the ever-expanding harvest of internet articles. I even snacked on the rants of blog commenters with names like “treeman” and “thingadonta” and “havequestions”. I was careful to keep my diet balanced, ensuring that I was consuming equally from the tables of both the believers and the sceptics.
But it was all to no avail. [click to continue…]
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Tagged as:
climate change,
new matilda,
Politics
A review of ‘The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work’ by Alain de Botton; ISBN 9780241143537
Ever had that sinking feeling of seeing something that you invented in your mind becoming a huge commercial success … for someone else? As a writer, that’s the same feeling I had when I read The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. This is the book I wish I’d written.
Most of us spend a healthy slice of our lives working. We spend additional time thinking about work, but these thoughts are generally focused on the job at hand. We think through an upcoming meeting, worry about a deadline or scheme about our next job change.
Much less often do we think about the wider connection of our work to our community. Rarely, if ever, do we think about the extent to which others’ work impacts on, and is essential to, our way of life. [click to continue…]
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Tagged as:
alain de botton,
book review,
philosophy,
work
I've been working in business, one way or another, for the last 20 years, and writing for the last ten. My main interest now is to get messages across - yours and mine - in a readable and approachable fashion. 
