In Pursuit of Happiness

In Pursuit of Happiness

The Christmas letter continues.....

This is the sixth installment of a Mills & Boonesque saga about an Elf & a Fairy who settled in the land of Normanby to live happily ever after......

Flood waters inundated the regions surrounding the land of Normanby at the start of another year. The Fairy took in refugees from a West End town. The Bug entertained Elly and B’o. Julie, Judy & Julia entertained three of their sister chooks, while the Elf took part in cleaning up the nearby City.

The changing climate brought with it great loss and sorrow, courtesy of floods and a cyclone. Yet the people of Normanby and the surrounding regions, united in a spirit of community. Armies of volunteers arose to help their fellow citizens. Some folks who could not help directly provided #bakedrelief in the form of meals and love.

It was during the time of the flood, the Elf and the Fairy were blessed with another conception. The clock started ticking for the arrival of a sibling for Bug. Not knowing whether it might be a brother or a sister, the new baby was known as “Happy”.

The Elf was quite happy spending mornings at home with the Fairy and the Bug. He spent afternoons and evenings cleaning the local City, emptying bins, picking up rubbish and cleaning the toilets.

The Bug was a hybrid of the Elf and the Fairy. She continued to spend her days eating; sleeping & singing tunelessly (just like her father). Some days Bug went to day care to refine her skills in the sand pit and caring for dolls & bears. She honed her art skills with chalk on a blackboard and paint just about everywhere. She was fond of bouncing balls and dressing up and listening to stories.

The Fairy spent her days managing the day to day affairs of the family and delivering other people’s babies at the local hospital. The Fairy was a midwife. The Elf was seconded to the local water and poo factory as a Procurement Officer and a Contract Manager, building and repairing water and sewage treatment infrastructure.

On the first day of Spring, “Happy” arrived into the world: a sister for the Bug. There was great joy in the land of Normanby. Unfortunately, Julia the chook met her untimely demise & now lives beneath a rose garden. Bug began to learn lessons of life (and death).

Happy grew.......and grew. Soon happy was almost as big as the Bug. Meanwhile the forces of darkness and evil began to undermine the land of Normanby, constructing a tunnel for infernal smoke emitting machines.

Despite the noise and the dust, the Elf, the Fairy, the Bug and Happy continued their pursuit of happiness.

To be continued.....

the 2010 Barber Christmas Letter (the Lord of the Ring Roads)

Lord of the Ring Roads

The Christmas letter continues.....




This is the fifth instalment of a Mills & Boonesque saga about an elf & a fairy who settled in the land of Normanby to live happily ever after......

When the Coordinator General announced that he would approve the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Lord Mayor’s Northern Link Road Tunnel, there was much talk and concern in Normanby.

While the Lord Mayor was not intrinsically evil, he was determined to pander to the interests of On Road Commuters (ORCs). At the same time, he was failing to address the compounding issues of Climate Change and Peak Oil. His day time dream was to complete a ring of tunnels, bridges and roads around the city of Brisbane. It was his “tunnel vision”.







Tunnels are structures which allow some people to drive from point A to point B very fast whilst other people dash from point B to point A very fast.

An Elf, a Fairy, a Bug, a dog (Boutros Boutros Buttons) & three chooks (Julie, Judy & Julia) lived at point C. Point C being a point at the Eastern Portal of the proposed Tunnel. They were often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wished that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.







The Bug was a hybrid of the Elf and the Fairy. She spent her days eating; sleeping & singing tunelessly (just like her father). On the 13th of August the Fairy celebrated her birth. On the 14th of August, the Fairy, the Elf and a plethora of friends & family, celebrated the Bug’s first birthday. On Mondays and Fridays she attended a local Child Care centre where she was learning to paint and share crayons.





The Fairy spent her days managing the day to day affairs of the family and helping the storks deliver other people’s babies. The Fairy was a midwife.





The Elf has dreams of working in international development and/or addressing the compounding issues of Climate Change and/or Peak Oil. In reality, he earned a livelihood in Environmental Management at its very most fundamental. He also ran seminars, workshops and training courses on topics of interest like Coal Seam Gas Development and Ecological Sanitation. He was honoured and privileged to have the opportunity to talk about poo at the Engineers Without Borders National Conference in Melbourne. The Elf was on standby to go to Zimbabwe, PNG and/or Haiti to fight the good fight against easily preventable diseases like cholera.


Whilst the Elf was away in Melbourne, the Fairy hosted a mother’s group at Normanby. Unfortunately, Buttons took advantage of the situation and escaped. He was mercilessly (though unintentionally) run over by a passing ORC. His prognosis was good, but the recovery was slow. Buttons was not fond of wearing his Elizabethan collar.



As Christmas approached the Lord of the Ring Roads and his forces of darkness began Geotechnical investigations in the Normanby precinct in the middle of the night. The Elf awoke to the sounds on a sledge hammer clanging on steel plates. Seismic testing involves using a line of geophones on the ground to measure sound waves from hammering. The elf wished battling the forces of darkness and evil was a simple as tossing a ring of power into the fires of Mount Doom.....



To be continued.....