NO-ONE in my family has mentioned Father’s Day. This is not a good sign. I have not caught a secret smile on the faces of my children that says, “I’ve got a secret and you’re going to like it.” So now I have a dilemma. Will I lay there tomorrow morning, waiting in vain for the door to burst in and a crowd of kids (I have five), laden with interesting boxes and a cooked breakfast, to cry, “Happy Father’s Day!” Or will I avoid the embarrassment with a pre-emptive early morning run followed by half a grapefruit at 6am. Knowing how the natural laws of Never Getting It Right…

I DON’T know, it seems cockeyed to me. We want people to stop using water so we give them money. All this talk about cash incentives from the council for using things like water-saving shower heads, like they do on the Gold Coast, is going to sell a lot of shower heads – but will it save water? If they pay me more money — a lot more money — I’ll promise never to wash again, but it won’t solve the problem, which is too many people. They’re still making people but they’ve stopped making water. I looked it up. Did you know that the amount of water on the…

IT’S a sign of the times. Poor bloke doesn’t even run into the whale — it runs into him! But do we care? No, not really. There’s a bit of sympathetic mouth pursing and sucking in of breath and the next question is: WHERE’S THE WHALE? If it had been a rock, or a submerged shipping container as skipper David Snell first thought, we’d have cared more. But it was a whale, and what’s more it was white. Possibly the only one. Frankly I think it’s a publicity hunter. Probably waiting to be spotted so it can audition for a part in Free Willy III. It’s already been seen on…

WE are living in a steel trap. We must be. Two years ago September 11 happened and we tightened security. Then Bali happened and we tightened security. Since then we have been warned of further security threats and we have tightened security. Security is so tight now that our cat can’t scrape a hole in the flower beds without the neighbours narrowing their eyes and reaching for the phone. My wife says they’re ringing me to complain but I reckon they’re ringing the security forces. I had a call a while back from someone wanting to know when the Townsville Show was on. They had a foreign accent. I told…

MY granddaughter said ‘bugger’ to me today. What happened to respect and veneration! And don’t tell me we live in a modern world and I have to move with the times. Someone must be responsible. Or are we born with a genetic memory for four‑letter words? And if you think bugger is not a four-letter word you’re as bad as she is. No, of course we’re not born with it. We – she – learns it. It’s mimicry pure and simple. If we could root out the source of the problem and cut its tongue out, we could put a stop to it. I reckon it’s the schools. There was…