Four hundred million dollars is a useful amount of money. In the hands of people who know how to distribute money for a good purpose, it could be dispersed in a myriad of ways. They might take up to 20 percent off the top to administer their charities, but that’s a subject for another time. For example, $400m, equivalent to about a 20% of the Australian Government’s public housing budget, could be used to alleviate…
The prediction in 1940-something that Mother’s new bairn would be born in late October may have caused some angst. In Scotland, those of a superstitious nature would have been in a ‘swither’ (a state of nervous agitation). But “no worries” as we say in Australia. I was born the day before Halloween, with 22 hours to spare. My friend Ingrid says that apart from it being her birthday, October 31 is a ‘non-event’. But her…
The following should not be construed as medical advice. If itching persists, see your doctor. One Sunday morning in October 2013 I woke early with a weird sensation behind my ear. Half asleep I picked the tick off that was embedded in my scalp. Less than a minute later my body erupted in a full-scale hives-like rash, my lips began tingling and I began wheezing. I jumped in the shower to see if that would…
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…