Issue 151

Dick’s Toolbox cont. I normally don’t look after roses, relying on their sturdy ancestry to see them through the seasons. My theory has always been that if a rose has been around for a few centuries it must have a reasonably rugged disposition but, in truth, some have survived because they are so dammed beautiful…

..furniture that some lad from East Cheam paid thousands of dollars for was actually knocked up out of an old Ikea wardrobe by a disreputable Chinese merchant two years ago. My own humble opinion is that the reason for Antiques Roadshow’s success is not the thrill of the antique but the satisfaction of participating in…

..relations add up to it being a non-starter. The one thing that’s obvious from an Australian perspective is that the cartoon’s overtly and undeniably racist. Given that, I found it interesting that the debate in The Press is centred on whether the cartoons are actually racist or not, which shows that context is playing a…

.. in any case, I was on modest stipend (a bursary) that I was contracted to repay by becoming a teacher after graduating. In fact, now that I mention it, ambition is another area I’ve always been deficient in, so you put that together with a lack of vision and you might begin to understand…

Dick’s Toolbox cont. .. Finnish or Urdu for a moment longer. Not only that, their TV, books, magazines and newspapers are all in a foreign language. And whilst the canon of English literature is vast and strewn with masterpieces, such as Peyton Place and Harry Potter, we only really know the literature of other languages…

Anyway, there I am looking so 1972 with a big shirt collar and a porno moustache to boot, being seriously assertive while saying nothing of any substance. Once I’d got over the shock of seeing myself looking so fucking young, I was immediately reminded of a number of similar interviews I’ve seen on telly with…