THIS is tricky… If I were gay, or had an unsightly growth on my backside, it would be easier to admit. I may have to leave the country. The thing is… I’m not interested in the Olympics. Don’t ask me why. I have tried, but I can’t get excited, even though that’s a criminal offence in Australia. Maybe it’s because I was a dumpy little lad and girls used to beat me up. I particularly can’t be thrilled about swimming — and that’s a hanging offence in Queensland. Maybe it’s because I didn’t learn to swim until I was 45, when I arrived here from England and discovered that water…

YOU will have worked out by now that I have a list. On it are all the people who are going to disappear in the night when the revolution comes. I have just added a new group to my list. Life coaches. My wife is talking about getting a life coach. Oh God. That’s okay. I’m a modern man. I’m in touch with my feelings. I can empathise. As demonstrated by my response: “Are you out of your mind, you… you idiot!” If you think I’m joking just check the ad columns in the newspapers. You actually can get some self-important, pompous, egomaniac to coach you in living. “Take a…

WANTED: one dish-washing female, average height. Must be left-handed. A left-handed man will do, if he has small hands. And is prepared to do the washing up. I can save us both a fortune. There are 297 left-handed rubber gloves spilling out of the cupboard under my kitchen sink. They are taking on a certain malevolent personality. I no longer dare open the door in case they leap out and throttle me. It’s because my wife is right-handed. It’s a little-known fact that right-handed rubber gloves last 30 seconds, while their left-handed cousins will be clogging up landfill long after civilisation has succumbed to the cockroach and strangler fig. The…

JOHN Collard is coming to visit. I haven’t seen him since school days, which was fine by me. Why is he doing this? He lives in England and somehow he found my address. He’s the reason I’m here for God’s sake! Everyone has a John Collard in their life. He is the bloke at school who could run faster, jump further, shout louder, and fight better than anyone else. That wouldn’t matter so much, but he’s also the bloke who ends up as Dux, who achieves nothing less than honours in any subject, is school captain and, may God rot him, stands two metres in his socks and has the…

IT’S a minefield (or possibly a goldmine, depending on your point of view) of double entendre and sexual innuendo. According to the Townsville Bulletin’s story on Thursday: “Researchers have found an elusive species of the potentially fatal stinger can cause, aside from painful cramps and vomiting, a prolonged erection.” At first I was going to ignore it as beneath my dignity, but it’s not every day you hear that jellyfish can give you an erection. Personally I don’t even think they’re very pretty… Someone is not thinking this through. I mean… if you get stung by a jellyfish, that’s not an erection — it’s a swelling, and it’s of no…