WELL that’s it then. Our relationship with the US has just gone down the gurgler. And a good thing, too, if you ask me. They’ve banned Vegemite. I mean, do you really want to be standing shoulder to shoulder in the war against terrorism with people who are searching your luggage not for bombs, but for jars of Vegemite? Do you really want your biggest trading partner to be the one country in the entire world where it’s an offence to place a jar of Vegemite on a supermarket shelf? Okay, okay… let’s not be hysterical about this. They must have a reason. I mean, a rational, mature and prudent…

WE are choosing the paint. There was a time when choosing the paint meant deciding on whether you wanted mission brown or wood. Then we all grew really civilised and the choice expanded to include white and (if you lived in the city) magnolia. I used to think it was cream, but that’s because I’m a Philistine. It was magnolia. We’ve come a long way since then. Ordering paint is like ordering a meal. Aubergine, cherry, avocado, peach, cucumber… Or having sex. Passion, fever, lust, sensuality… We are drowning in choice. I mean, how many shades of red do we really need to keep us happy? And it’s not just…

My daughter, Ellen, is a spare mummy. It’s nothing to do with Egyptians and yards of bandages. Her partner has a daughter from a previous relationship. It follows that she already has a mummy. Ellen’s her spare mummy. I assume having a spare mummy means that if the original gets hit by a piece of falling space debris – no worries! You have a stand-in. It’s a novel idea and has lots of promise for enterprise and initiative. You could carry them around in the boot of your car, so that when your first mummy has a nervous breakdown over you chanting “arewethereyet? arewethereyet? arewethereyet?” she needn’t pay a woodsman…

ALL I want is a decent cup of coffee. That’s not too much to ask, is it? I mean, it’s been around in the western world now for 500 years. It didn’t take that long for human beings to learn to boil an egg! The only safe place I can drink coffee is at home. I daren’t ask for it at the home of friends, because you can never be sure what you’re going to get. The only safe response to “What would you like to drink?” (apart from wine, beer or spirits) is tea. If you ask for coffee and they reach for a jar, it’s a racing certainty…

Dear Sol, Congratulations on your $1.5 million bonus. That, with your $9 million dollar CEO’s salary would enable you to buy my street. Probably the entire estate. I imagine you’ve been celebrating with your other Telstra executives. – that would explain why they couldn’t put me through to you when I rang your customer service centre about my broadband connection. I asked to talk to someone in authority but they couldn’t connect me. They did put me through to a supervisor. At least, they said it was a supervisor but I think it was the same person, disguising their voice. He said exactly the same thing, which was basically, “Sorry,…