HOW come it’s not called Mexican flu? We weren’t so sensitive in 1918, when we called it Spanish flu, or in 1957 when we called Asian flu. But this is 2009 and it’s now embarrassing to blame a disease on a nation, especially when we always seem to pick ones with brown eyes and dark skin. Places where the people are swarthy, if you like. The dictionary says “swarthy” means dark complexioned. That’s it, pure and simple. There’s nothing in there about cutting your throat or your wife running off with one of them and living in a horse-drawn caravan. But somehow it’s hard not to saddle this simple adjective…

ANZAC Day. By the time you read this it will probably be 94 years and maybe a few hours since the first Australian was killed at Gallipoli Ñ  Captain William Annear, shot through the head around 4.30am, which is around dawn in the northern hemisphere, leaving us two hours late with our dawn services in the southern hemisphere. But never mind: it’s the thought that counts. And that’s the wonderful thing about Australians. They do still think about it. Really think. Which is why it’s ridiculous to imagine we should be entitled to a public holiday on Monday, just because Anzac Day falls on a Saturday. The diggers on the…

I’M standing at the ATM. Almost. There is a bloke in front of me. He’s been there half an hour. I thought he must have died standing up, but no Ñ you can tell he’s awake from the occasional sigh of frustration, bewilderment, irritation and… what? Stupidity? How can it take someone half an hour to extract money from an ATM. More precisely, how can it take someone that long to NOT extract the money. Because he hasn’t! It’s a good job they bolt those things firmly to the floor, otherwise I would by now have ripped it from its fittings and clubbed him with it. He got there just…

I SPENT yesterday beating the recession. I didn’t spend a cent. I didn’t go to the movies or a coffee shop; I didn’t shop till I dropped (which nowadays only takes me five minutes anyway). I didn’t take out a gym membership or start a TAFE course. I took a baby to the beach. Two babies, actually. And a picnic. I can now relate, with absolute conviction, that two babies and a beach encapsulates everything life can give you Ñ even the dodgy bits Ñ and is better than any other form of entertainment, including reading the Townsville Bulletin, which I took with me, but that’s another story. I never…

When I was 17, and I’d just got my first job as a cadet reporter with a London newspaper, a bloke came to my house selling life insurance. He sat me down in the front room and showed me glossy brochures. With charts. All the lines in the charts were heading upwards. He made me look at them, and he nodded his head a lot. That was 48 years ago, but I think it’s still the same today, except that they use laptop computers instead of glossy brochures; and it’s possible, in today’s climate, that they blush when they point to the charts with all the little lines pointing upwards.…