I KNEW I had finally retired, really retired, when I took my suits and ties to the Salvation Army. By then, I had had three or four tries at retirement. It didn’t come easily. I missed work. I missed the routine of getting up and dressing up to go to work, to socialise, to talk…
THEY’RE at it again, the political correctness brigade who want to change history and tradition on the spurious basis of so-called gender based language. Our politicians in the upper house of the West Australian parliament have spent two years considering the merits of a daily prayer which states that God ordained “man should live as…
THE health warning recently attached to wearing skinny jeans sent me scurrying to my wardrobe to check for any such hazardous apparel. After all, I am a contemporary of Mick Jagger and he seems to have been wearing skinny jeans for ever. It turns out I do have some trousers I can no longer get…
THE trouble with visiting the world’s great tourist attractions these days is that too many other people are doing the same thing. Take our visit to Florence, for instance, where one of the must-do attractions is Michelangelo’s statue of David in the Galleria dell’Accademia. Italy ranks fifth in the tourist countries of the world, with…
WHAT is it about West Australian drivers that they crash into houses at the rate of about two a week? It’s not as if they are driving through an English village where the houses front straight onto the road. These are suburban homes with a front garden in residential streets where the speed limit is…
NOW that an Australian is coaching the England cricket team, I can look forward to the Ashes series starting in July in the UK. As a Pom Down Under for more than a quarter of a century, I have always supported English sporting teams against the rampant Aussies. It’s cost me a few bob as…
WE’VE had a number of dogs and cats sharing our married life but currently ruling the household is a cat named Jasper. We rescued Jasper as an orphan kitten from a cat shelter and you would think he would be grateful for the rest of his life. Not a bit of it. At the time…
HAVING grown up in the imperial world, I am quite satisfied with the way in which I now understand metric measurements. With one exception: height. I am happy to drive 70 kilometres from A to B and know that if I drive at an average of 70km an hour, it will take one hour to…
TWO budgets in one week. Too much excitement for a man of my advanced years, particularly when senior citizens take a hit in both. Baby boomers fared relatively lightly in the Australian federal budget compared with the Western Australian state budget two days later. Australia’s largest state — which only a couple of years ago…
AUSTRALIAN Treasurer Joe Hockey has called for Australians to “give it a go”. I thought at first that it was a follow-up call to former Treasurer Peter Costello who 10 years ago said: “One for Dad, one for Mum and one for the country.” Costello was referring to babies and indeed Australia duly responded with a…
Booming Marvellous 