She Who Reads Newspapers: “Dear, it seems a raft of measures has been swept out to sea by a storm of protest.” “Zounds,” I say (exhuming an archaic oath meaning indignation). “That will teach them not to put all their eggs in one basket.” There was a time when a journalist wouldn’t touch a cliché with a barge pole, as Nigel Rees says in the introduction to his book, The Joy of Cliches. We all…
A good few decades ago, I’m having time off work; my more attuned friends describe it as ‘having a rest from his mind’. Friends have come to visit. Some kind of coincidence, the four of them – all psychologists – sitting around the table on the back veranda. I’m wearing the top half of a pair of pyjamas, a Sulu (Fijian garment) and slippers. I’m doped to the eyeballs – diaze-something, a blobby sponge soaking…
Did you know Australians will bet on which of two flies crawling up a wall will get swatted first? Yes, and they bet on cockroach and toad races too, and horses, dogs, the toss of a coin and football games. Fond as I am of a punt at major racing carnivals, I have never had a bet on the outcome of a footy match, even though we follow rugby league fairly closely. It just never…
A good few years ago we were out for a meal at a Noosa restaurant with a work colleague of She Who Is Pictured on the Left. As it happened, this chap’s signature is on our marriage certificate, circa 1981. He did it a second time three years later when we had a Reaffirmation of Vows ceremony. (photo by Sarah Calderwood)) He may well have taken on a second job as a civil celebrant to…