I HAVE a plug of banana sealing my ear. It was placed there… rammed there… by the three-year-old occupying the train seat next to mine. A three-year-old, incidentally, who is unlikely ever to reach four. I don’t know his name. I don’t want to know it, although it might be handy if I decide to sue. It’s probably Rasputin. It’s been three hours. Townsville is still 12 hours away. He has two more bananas, some grapes, and a cup with a spout, containing what I gather, from the state of my trousers, is milk. By the time I get home I shall look like a fruit salad. This child obviously…

I HAVE conducted a survey. It was easy because it only involved me; but if it had involved the entire country I’m sure the results would have been the same. I checked my mail. Every day. And I catalogued it. In a month there have been five bills and 56 unsolicited offers to part me from my money. One of them, incidentally, wanted to help me with erection problems, which only shows what a waste of time they were. I got one letter. From Readers Digest, but maybe that counts as an unsolicited offer. I checked my postbox every weekday for a month and there was absolutely no point! My…

OH God! School’s back. I should be grateful. It means the trail bikes will stop – at least during school hours. It means the doof-doof music around the neighbourhood will only make the walls rattle in the evenings. But – it means the cars are back on the roads. All over Queensland there are bad-tempered parents (and come on, let’s face it – most of them are women) trying to fit yet another batch of tasks into their busy schedule. But they don’t fit them in. They’re always late. You can see them in your rear‑view mirror any morning: knuckles white on the wheel; nose forcing its way out through…

MY wife is a newspaperwoman. This is nothing to do with me being a newspaperman for the past 47 years. It’s because in our house she has stockpiled the world’s entire supply of used newsprint. Open a cupboard in our house and the last thing that will flash before your eyes will not be your past, or thoughts of your mother. It will be the Townsville Bulletin shouting: MAFEKING RELIEVED! Or WHITLAM RESIGNS! Of course, I am culpable. I bring the damn things home because part of my job is to read them. But at least I read today’s or yesterday’s. My wife will read whatever falls out when she…

WHY are petrol stations always on the other side of the road? If you doubt this try driving to Cairns. What’s even weirder is – they’re always on the other side of the road – both ways! Whether you’re heading for Cairns or heading for Townsville the only fuel is across at least one lane of thundering trucks, bimbling tourists, and 90-year-old farmers with their hats over their eyes. It’s one of the natural laws of the universe, like the one that says fuel is always cheaper at the previous petrol station, at which you didn’t stop. And the one that says all petrol stations will mysteriously vanish the moment…