WE had semolina for pudding. I was going to say we had semolina for dessert, but nothing resembling semolina could ever pose as a dessert which, surely, has strawberries or mangoes in it, and the exotic taste of the tropics. Semolina is a pudding. You can eat it or, if you have more sense, you can use it to glue bricks together, or as a gasket in an engine block. Once it’s gone hard it has the durability of granite. While soft it merely tastes the way I imagine granite might taste if you could pulverize it and mix it with snot. And it is not my favourite pudding. If…

FAT has crept up on me. It started out as a small and insignificant sapling on the lawn of my wellbeing but when I looked yesterday it had become a tree of considerable girth that is about to drop big dangerous branches on my roof. There are lessons in fat and lots of them are terminal, but that comes later. Before it kills you it destroys your self esteem. It has taught me that I am at least as deceitful as a politician. During the past six months I have told myself: it’s because my trousers are shrinking it can’t be fat because I don’t eat enough

I’M going to have to borrow Fred’s lawnmower. I never mended mine because I thought the grass-growing season was over, but I was wrong. Once more before winter should do it. That’s not a problem. Fred’s good about lending me his lawnmower. I’m very lucky. Neighbours like Fred are hard to find. I was musing on this when I walked next door to ask him. Mind you, it’s not a one-way street, this lending business. He borrows stuff of mine occasionally. Electric drill, Whipper Snipper. It’s a good arrangement. And it’s not as if I borrow his lawnmower very often. I mean, mine is usually working. And I always give…

DEAR Queen It’s very nice to see you. We’re fond of tourists up here in North Queensland and if you can hop on one of those cheap Virgin flights I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself. They do these Mini Moke trips around Magnetic Island. Drive yourself. Or there’s the nightclubs in Flinders Street… My son did it. He’s just been over from England, too. Not in the same league as you, of course, and thank God for that. He doesn’t speak as if his mouth is full of hot porridge and although his clothes are awful they’re not… well, frumpy, if you’ll pardon me saying. And he has tattoos. I think…

IT’S toast for breakfast again. Oh goody. That’ll make a nice change. This morning I shall have maramalade on it first, and Vegemite on the second piece. I may even spice up the Vegemite with a few slices of cucumber. Alternatively I could have the Vegemite and marmalade on one piece and the cucumber on the second. The deep and transparent flaw in all these permutations, however, is that whatever I do I’ll still be stuck with the bloody toast! Who invented toast? And are they sorry? Did they die a natural death or did they take their own lives in a noble act of contrition for the wrong they…