I’M not watching any more World Cup. Great match Monday night. Go the Socceroos! But the price is too high. I can’t take the ties any more. Not ties as in drawers; or equal scores. Ties as in the things you wear round your neck. Have you seen them? I mean, have you seen these ties! Not on the players; the players wear jerseys. The talkers. Those hangers-on who fill in all the boring bits with boring conversations about how sunny it is and how one of the players got a paper cut while licking an envelope and who is going to win and who is not going to win.…

CALL this progress! This isn’t progress… this is the collapse of civilisation! Our washing machine is broken. We’ve had it a mere two years. In the past 22 years we’ve had two washing machines. We got 20 years valuable service out of the first one. When it died we barely had the fortitude to take it to the tip. We wanted to give it a decent burial in the garden. Now they tell us this latest… contraption!… will cost too much to repair. After two years! We have to buy a new one. “Tell me,” I asked, “which brand will last longest? I don’t mind paying top prices for a…

I SEE a whole new industry. Yes, I know someone has already invented extreme sports. Extreme skating, extreme skiing, extreme climbing… But this is taking the concept to a whole new level. Extreme golf! Bugger the tricky dog’s leg at hole number three; or the three bunkers that line hole number nine… the big question is: can you get off a decent drive over the herd of crocodiles so you can walk round to the green outside the protective barriers, or will you fall short and have to chance it through the middle, wondering whether your next club should be a five, a seven or a niblik? And that’s just…

I KNOW who was responsible for September 11 – and it wasn’t Osama Bin Nasty. I know who was responsible for the Australian Wheat Board scandal and who’s to blame for the Tassie miners’ incarceration under several kilometres of rock. On a more local note I can tell you who created the recent debacle that we call Queensland Health, and who to blame for the Maroons one-point loss on Wednesday. It was me. You’d think the burden of responsibility would kill a mere individual, but I’m used to it. No matter what disaster occurs, in whatever part of the world, my family will find a way of making it my…

Booze King Joins Rich List – He left school in Year 9, learnt a trade and started his own business. Now at 50, the unassuming Tom Hedley – Cairns plumber, developer, publican and horse racing enthusiast – is one of our richest people. — Townsville Bulletin, Thursday, May 18, 2006. Oh, absolutely. Isn’t that always the way? I don’t think there’s a millionaire in the world who didn’t achieve their success by dropping out of kindergarten, polishing shoes until they were old enough to sign a contract, and then working their way to the top by sheer hard work. Ask Rupert Murdoch. Ask John Howard. Ask me. Indeed, I am…