AMAZING! I have just seen a couple of dozen fireflies lighting each other’s fires at Paluma. Not flies at all, actually. Beetles. And a masterpiece of biological engineering, if I may say so. Every spring when a young beetle’s thoughts turn to fornication he screws a lightbulb into his bum and goes searching the neighbourhood — flashing, as it were — for a mate. So sensible. Just imagine the human misery that would have been avoided if the creatures of one sex had a little light in the tops of their heads that winked on and off, and the others had an answering beacon. The most basic instinct of the…

WELL, I don’t know what to say really. I had hoped I belonged to a superior species. One that had a brain to be proud of; or at least one that learned from its mistakes. Even dogs do that. But no, I guess I’m a human and I just have to learn to live with it – until some mutant from a compassion and morality warp zone decides to drive an airplane through my office, that is. I hope I never get abducted by Martians; they might want to know what I am. Whose team I’m in, so to speak. I have a feeling that admitting to visitors from outer…

IT’S a beautiful day outside and I should be in it. But I’m not. I’m in here writing stuff. If I’d known it was going to end like this, with me slaving over a hot keyboard while everyone else is sailing around Magnetic Island, I’d have done something else. I don’t know what. There’s nothing else I feel cut out for. I envy those people who have a calling from the age of four and who sniff their way into their future career like a bloodhound that’s picked up the scent. My cousin was one. When he was four someone spotted him stripped to the waist, his trousers slipping off…

IF you thought the internal combustion engine was the curse of modern society, think again. It’s dog poo. At least with the internal combustion engine there’s a spin off for the carbon monoxide, the accidents and the hole in your wallet. At least it takes you from A to B. Not so, dog poo. Dog poo stinks. It contains bugs that can blind you and parasites that can infest you. It spreads further than creosote on a fence and a little on the bottom of a shoe will follow you around more faithfully than the dog that did it. Dog poo has no purpose, except for the dogs that do…

“Do you love me?” asked my wife. “Yes.” “Why?” “I don’t know. I just do.” “Not good enough.” “Okay. Because… you always know what I’m going to say next.” “Yes…?” “And because you cut the top off your boiled egg instead of peeling it.” “I knew you were going to say that.” “Don’t be clever. And because you’re clever. And because you think vitamin C, echinacea, acidophilus and pawpaw cream will cure everything, including smallpox and amputations.” “Go on…” “Because you take the chipped breakfast plate and give me the good one; because you always give me the biggest slice of everything and because if there’s only one left you…