Welcome to Buchanan Today

Welcome Aboard. Get Comfy. Smoke 'Em If You've Got 'Em ...

Welcome to Buchanan Today, my newly established (as at January 2026) blog site.

For those who don’t know me, I guess a word or two of introduction is likely in order at this stage.

I’m Craig Buchanan, an academic, writer and commentator based in sunny Western Australia, where, for the past decade I’ve served as a research officer for a number of crossbench MPs in our state parliament.

From an academic perspective, I hold a B.A. (Hons) from the University of Stirling, an M.Phil. from the University of St Andrews, and a Ph.D. from the University of Western Australia.  My speciality is in nineteenth century Scottish history and literature, and my interests range from the medieval to the modern, the historical to the political, and all the way back round.

Amongst other jobs, I have been an occasional book reviewer for a number of years, publishing in a range of magazines, including The Big Issue Australia.  My reading tastes are about as eclectic as my academic interests - political fact and fiction, history side by side with alt-history "what if ... ?" stories, sci-fi, fantasy, crime both fictional and real-life - there is very little I won’t read if the spirit takes me.

And as for those “other jobs,” in no particular order, I’ve been: a sales assistant in a second-hand bookshop, a barman, a nightclub bouncer, a Royal Navy reservist, an accommodation manager, a university lecturer, and briefly, for two very long days, a mid-winter security alarm salesman on the streets of Dundee.  In addition to my parliamentary research work, I'm currently serving my second term as an elected Councillor on the City of Rockingham Council, doing my level best to insert a little sanity into the corporate machine that local government has sadly become over the past couple of decades. In America (and Anglo-Saxon England, for that matter), I think you'd call me an Alderman.

Oh, and I’m a committed cannabis reform activist, having been prescribed after a bout of early-stage colon cancer robbed me of a third of my bowel.  On occasion, I’ll talk about my medical journey, both to help others, and to help me to process what I’m going though.  And in amongst the more general political posts, there will be those that deal specifically with cannabis reform, and the drive to get the healing herb legalised across Australia, and further afield.

(Above: a shot of my study / library, where most of my posts will originate.)

On a good day, I’m an insightful commentator; on a bad one, a walking opinion in search of a nice spot in which to roost.

All of these different perspectives (for, like all of us, I contain legions), will feed into my commentary here on Buchanan Today.

My posts won’t necessarily (contrary to any inference you might take from the site’s name) be daily occurences.  They will emerge online as and when I have something to say, most likely something to grumble about, a good book to recommend, or the latest political madness to highlight and decry. 

You can expect political commentary at a local, national, and international level.  You can expect book and occasionally product reviews.  Hell, you can expect cats.  There are always cats.  I think my wife is breading the damned things.  And perhaps, just perhaps, once in a while, there will be a nugget in there that helps to make things just a little bit better, and a tad more bearable for folk as a whole.

So, fasten your seat belts, hold onto your hats, and kiss your collective arses goodbye, as we occupy front row seats in the lunatic asylum that’s currently being called modern life, while the twenty-first century goes above-and-beyond in its attempts to batter the living bejeezus out of each and every one of us!

What a time to be alive, eh?

CB