I want to tell you something jolly, but my heart’s not in it. I’ve been thinking about David Hicks. Maybe he’s everything the Americans claim… a terrorist, a murderer (he’s not been charged with murder), a former drug addict and car thief. Maybe he’s not. And maybe everything we’ve heard about the appalling conditions (which is a euphemism for torture) he’s being kept under at Guantanamo Bay is untrue. But I can’t help thinking that’s not the point. You’ll have to excuse me if this is not a popular thing to say in a city that is home to the Australian Defence Force, whose young people are fighting terrorists at…

Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday dear Phantommmmm… Happy birthday to you… He’s 71. Today. He doesn’t look it, does he? If you turn to the comic strips in today’s newspapers, no doubt you’ll find him bustling away in Skull Cave, whipping up a soufflé or somesuch. I have a confession to make… I’m not a Phantom phan. He might have been the first superhero to wear Lycra, but he doesn’t do anything for me. Come to think of it, why’s he a superhero? I mean, great pecs and all that, but he can’t see through walls, or swing between tall buildings on gossamer threads. He…

I AM angry. Angry enough to kill. Only a fly, it’s true; but if a human being were annoying me the way this pestilential little insect is, I could kill a human being, too. I have my fly swat ready. I’m good with a fly swat. My fly swat and I have a dead‑fly tally that makes fly spray look like under-arm deodorant. But they’ve always been those jumbo flies. The ones that cruise in like B52 bombers and treat your thigh like a docking platform. This is not one of those flies. This fly is an athlete. It is small and wiry and it doesn’t actually bite. It just…

I SHOULD, according to the many people who send me emails, be the most unlucky person in the world. I’m not. Indeed, I consider I have lived a blessed life and there is no sign of that changing. Hang on – there is one exception: every day I am subjected to a torrent of cloying and sentimental email claptrap involving, among other things, puppies, orphans, teachers, small birds, small children and God. And before you accuse me of being heartless I want you to know that at Christmas I bought goats for small children (and their parents) in Africa. I am a sentimentalist and a romantic and I keep it…

I’M back! That is, I’m back on Australian soil after three weeks, 28 days, five hours and 33 minutes, but who’s counting. I believe our forefathers wept when they were forced to leave England some 200 years ago. They must have been tears of joy. I even thought of committing a criminal offence so they’d deport me sooner than my scheduled return, but the magistrate said they’d stop doing that a long time ago. I got away with a fine instead.   Nowadays they’re so eager for visitors that, once they have one, they do their best to keep him. They find all sorts of sneaky ways of making it…