What’s in a name? Plenty, for an author writing a novel or a short story. As any armchair detective reading newspaper reports readily understands, just a character’s name can indicate their ethnicity and age. And where they live (whether Byron Bay or Mosman). Maybe even their wealth and social status.

Of course the sky is the limit if you’re writing something more fanciful. But if you’re writing a realistic Australian story with a character you want to portray as an average middle-aged Aussie bloke, you’re on safe ground calling him Craig, David, Michael, Greg, Steve, Darren or Brett. Throw in a Wayne, if you wish.

But forget naming him Jaxxon or Danyel. Or Atticus, no matter how much you enjoyed To Kill a Mocking Bird at school. For female characters, if you want to win the Miles Franklin award, please note that there are very few Patrick White-type aunts (or real-life grandmothers) named Savannah, Harper or Madison. Especially Maddisons with two Ds.

Similarly, for middle-aged female characters, Sharon, Janice, Rhonda, Karen, Donna, Georgina and Kylie are now safe picks, if no longer applicable for any woman under 50. For really elderly characters, however, you can safely use names like Jack and Charlotte, Ben and Alice, Thomas and Emily, William and Grace, Henry and Rose. And, name-fashions being what they are, they’re perfect for young characters as well.

Characters’ names have always fascinated me. Editing the proofs of a new book of short stories the other day, I found I had to change many people’s names because I’d liked them so much I’d used them over and over in vastly different stories and roles.

I don’t imagine Charles Dickens had such a repetition problem. Not with characters with such wildly cartoonish names as Wackford Squeers, Luke Honeythunder, Harold Skimpole, Polly Toodle, Silas Wegg, Mr Sloppy, John Podsnop, Mr Wopsle, Smike, Bumble, Pumblechook and Paul Sweedlepipe. Or David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, for that matter.

If no one could ever accuse Dickens of subtlety, you certainly knew where you stood – and still do today — with people called Ebenezer Scrooge and Uriah Heep, two Dickensian characters whose names have forever entered the English language as representing meanness and snivelling connivance.

It seems rather lame nowadays, but Dickens’ thousands of Victorian readers liked his Good Guys and Bad Guys being sharply defined by their names. Take Polly Toodle, for example. What better name for the rosy-cheeked wet nurse in Dombey and Son? Or Wackford Squeers, though a little obvious for a cruel orphanage school master.

Then there’s Silas Wegg, the one-legged shyster in Our Mutual Friend. And Mr Sloppy, the disabled fellow of the same book, not to mention Daniel Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop, who’s described as “a malicious, grossly deformed, hunchback dwarf moneylender”, which seems to tick all the boxes of Dicken’s very Victorian sympathy/disgust for the physically challenged.

A less reliable behavioural and physical clue, perhaps, is the name of the same story’s “good-natured but easily-led lad”: Dick Swiveller, a modern online probe into whose name might accidentally lead the innocent literary inquirer down unexpected byways.

The names of some fictional characters, however, have captured the public consciousness well beyond the books that gave birth to them, in many cases more than a century before.

Any reader’s selection of famous book characters would surely include Robinson Crusoe, Huckleberry Finn, Sherlock Holmes, Jane Eyre, Dr Frankenstein, Gulliver, Count Dracula, Anna Karenina, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Lady Chatterley, Jay Gatsby, Hannibal Lecter and Scarlett O’Hara.

Then there’s James Bond, Svengali, Lolita, Miss Havisham, Emma Bovary, Tristram Shandy, Peter Pan, Sam Spade, Tarzan, Harry Potter, Molly Bloom, Alice (in Wonderland), Dorian Gray, Philip Marlowe, Holden Caulfield and Winnie the Pooh. And you’d probably have to include Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Rapunzel.

I’m often asked where I get my characters’ names. For the surnames, usually by flipping through the phone book or classified ads. Then I choose a first name to fit the age, nationality and class of the character. I never knowingly use the name of an acquaintance, no matter how tempting it might be for an unpleasant character. Sometimes too tempting.

But if there’s even a hint of a real person identifiable in the story, I change their hair colour and physique and age just to make sure. And their nationality. And place of residence. And occupation. Maybe even their gender.

Then, when someone I don’t much like sidles up to me, frowning but clearly delighted, and says smugly, as they sometimes do, “I see you’ve put me in your book”, of course I deny everything.

Robert Drewe’s latest book is The True Colour of the Sea (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin).

penguin.com.au/books/the-true-colour-of-the-sea

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Shock! Drama! Panic! Modest drinkers around the world are reeling at the recent news on alcohol consumption. They’ve been warned that drinking just five glasses of wine, or five pints of beer, a week – a week! — can cause early death.

That famous and much-welcomed 90s survey advocating the heart-health benefits of red wine now seems like a bitter joke. A new British analysis of nearly 600,000 people published in the Lancet and New Scientist the other day reports that people drinking even 100g of alcohol every week – around five 175ml glasses of wine or pints of beer – have an increased risk of dying.

According to the survey, a 40-year-old who drinks 200g of alcohol per week – about 10 glasses of wine or pints of beer – has a lower life expectancy of two years.

Worse. Drinkers of more than 18 pints a week (two-and-a-half beers per day) or 18 glasses of wine (two-and-a-half wines each evening) could be shaving six years off their lives. Drink any more and the maths and alleged life span get even more upsetting.

The study analysed 599,912 drinkers in 19 countries, none of whom had a history of cardiovascular disease, and found an increase in all causes of death when more than 100g of alcohol was consumed every week.

The findings went even further than last year’s lowered consumption guidelines in Britain which recommended that both men and women shouldn’t drink more than 14 units or 112g of pure alcohol a week. This equates to six pints of four per cent strength beer or six 175ml glasses of 13 per cent wine.

The Queen Mother used to enjoy a tipple, and managed 101 years into the bargain.

Hmm. Those figures leave much to ponder, including questions to do with some famous English heavy drinkers. For example, if the Queen Mother hadn’t so enjoyed alcohol would she have lived — given her high level of grog consumption and the maths involved — to the age of 145, instead of the paltry 101 years she managed?

Moreover, would that major 20^th century drinker Sir Winston Churchill have easily reached a century instead of his sadly premature death aged 90. (Incidentally, when he died in 1965 the average English male lifespan was 68 years.)

The Queen Mother’s “official drink fixer,” Major Colin Burgess, later recalled her drinking (90 units weekly) in the Daily Mail: “What was memorable was her fondness for red wine, particularly heavy clarets.”

“Her pattern of drinking rarely varied. At noon she had her first drink of the day — a potent mix of two parts of Dubonnet to one part of gin, followed by a bottle of claret with lunch and a glass of port.”

Later came the 6 p.m. ritual. “‘Colin, are we at the magic hour?’ she’d ask, and I’d mix her a Martini. After a couple, she’d sit down to dinner and drink two glasses of pink champagne. Of course, she also enjoying red wine throughout. Life for the Queen Mother followed a routine revolving largely around lunch and rather a lot of booze.”

Whenever she toured, she instructed her staff to hide bottles of gin in her hatboxes. “I couldn’t get through all my engagements without a little something.” At one official visit, she was surprised by her host offering her gin instead of a cup of tea. “I hadn’t realized I enjoyed that reputation,” she said. “But as I do, perhaps you could make it a large one.”

As for Churchill, he used to say, “I drink champagne at all meals, and buckets of claret in between”.

According to his biographer, William Manchester, “After waking and his morning scotches there was always some alcohol in his bloodstream. It reached its peak in the evening after two or three more Scotches, several glasses of Champagne, at least two brandies, and a highball.”

While visiting King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, Churchill was informed that for religious reasons he couldn’t drink during a banquet in his honor. He informed the monarch: “My own religion prescribes drinking alcohol as an absolute sacred ritual before, during and after all meals and the intervals between them.”

The drink habits of Britain’s beloved current monarch also don’t fit the strict early-death assumptions of the new British survey. For a start, Queen Elizabeth drinks four cocktails a day.

According to her cousin, Margaret Rhodes, in The Independent, the Queen has a gin before lunch and enjoys the cocktail that her mother made famous. She then takes wine with lunch and a dry Martini.

Her Majesty ends her day with a flute of Bollinger or Krug champagne, thereby racking up not the recommended maximum 14 alcohol units a week, but 42 units – which technically makes her a binge drinker. (And how old is she? And still going strong. Oh, yes, 91.)

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Observed in the supermarket the other day: a young mother trying to reason with her four-year-old, who is determinedly stuffing chocolate bars into the trolley, one after another.

“No, Oliver. Put them back, please,” his mother says.

Oliver takes no notice, and grabs more sweets from the shelves. “No, darling. You can’t have them, sorry.”

Oliver frowns and snatches more chocolates: “Why?”

“Because then there won’t be any chocolates left for all the other boys and girls.”

This cuts no ice with Oliver. “I want them though.” And on he goes.

Mother (with a small tinkling laugh): “Gosh, if you eat all these chocolates you’ll get so fat you won’t be able to run fast.”

Could Oliver care less? Mother sighs deeply, and tries a new child-rearing tack. “I’ll count to three, Ollie,” she says firmly, and pauses for emphasis. “One. Put them back.” (No response.) “Two. Put them back, Ollie. (No response.) “Three. I said, put the chocolates, back now, Oliver!” (Still no response.)

Exasperated mother brushes hair from her eyes and speaks louder. “We have to go home now. We’re running late for Play School. Better put them back!”

Oliver, languidly: “Why?”

And I, and every other shopper in the vicinity, silently mouth the words our own mothers would have voiced from the outset (and only one time would’ve been necessary): “BECAUSE I SAID SO!”

So here I was remembering all those old mothers’ sayings, the annoying cliches that lacked any logic but were infuriatingly effective. And none more so, of course, than “Because I said so!”

How amusing, around the dinner table that evening, for us parents to recall the annoying and remarkably similar sayings of our own mothers. And to admit we might even have been guilty of using the same ridiculous phrases ourselves.

Some family-favourites down the generations, most unanswerable but sometimes successful in stopping a child in their tracks over behaviour, grammar, dinnertime habits or the threat of dire punishment:

“Were you born in a tent?”

“There’ll be tears before bedtime.”

“You’re asking for a smack!”

“If the wind changes, your face will stay that way.”

“Elbows off the table!”

“If you can’t finish your dinner, you’re too full for dessert.”

“The starving children in Africa would love your dinner!”

“If so and so jumped off a cliff/Sydney Harbour Bridge would you?”

To a nose-picking child: “You’ll lose your finger!”; “Got a miner’s licence?”; and “You won’t find any gold up there!”

Perhaps the most inexplicable mother’s saying of all, matched only by “Don’t carry on like a pork chop!” was “Who’s she, the cat’s mother?” (Huh?)

Then there was the maternal obsession with eyes: “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye!”; “You’ll have someone’s eye out with that!”; Or the vague but strangely approving, “Well, that’s better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick”.

And the fixation with speaking nicely: “Use your indoor voice, please”; “There’s no such word as can’t”; “You can, but you may not”; “Say ’Pardon’, not ‘what?’”

Then there were the old stand-bys: “Money doesn’t grow on trees”; “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”; “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”; and “Don’t you make me pull this car over!”

In the olden days apparently no one lived anywhere near a school or public transport: “When I was your age I had to walk (10 plus) miles to school.”

And the final threat: “Wait till your father gets home!” Many a tired father would arrive home from work and be expected to muster some instant severity to deal with a disciplinary problem. So fathers had their own sayings:

“Don’t talk back to your mother”; “Ask your mother”; “Don’t tell your mother”; “Children should be seen and not heard”;

“Back in my day”; “What do you think this is, Bush Week?”; “Do you think I’m made of money?”; “Hold your horses”; “When I was your age…”; “I’m not asleep; I’m just resting my eyes”; “You’re not going out dressed in that!”

Fathers’ sayings also pointed out their humility: “Now, don’t go spending a lot of money on me”; “They don’t make them (anything at all) like they used to”; “Waste not, want not”; “A little hard work never hurt anybody”; “As kids we were grateful to get just a tin of pineapple and a Violet Crumble for Christmas.”

And occasionally their weary wisdom: “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

But the most important parental saying of all was the mothers’ imperative to children to put on clean underwear before leaving the house. In case you were run over by a bus. (Always a bus.)

No injuries could possibly match the disgrace of medical staff viewing your dirty knickers.

You can find Robert Drewe’s books here: https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/robert-drewe

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Robert Drewe says he’s a dog lover, but there’s limits.  And they’re being stretched…

In my day I’ve owned intelligent, obedient, affectionate and adventurous dogs. I’ve also known lolloping, disobedient, crazy dogs that were as dumb as a bag of hammers. Once I even wrote a book about a beloved dog. So before your hackles rise, let me say that I’m a dog lover.

Nevertheless, we’re stretching a friendship these days, we humans and dogs. Have there ever been so many dogs in public places and underfoot – their leashes entwined around café table and chair legs — in spots meant for human activities? Even for food consumption?

On that point, when did “walking the dog” change from one or two kilometres of exercise at the park or beach to 50 metres through a crowd of shoppers on the footpath on Saturday morning — from the car to the cafe?

Another question. Why the fascination with weirdly-designed genetic experiments that are cutesy variations on the poodle? To look at, some of these doodle dogs remind me of the alien bar scene in Star Wars. And cialis don’t get me started on women with fashion-accessory dogs (doglets, really). How degrading for the wolf’s first cousin to be carried in a handbag!

But creepiest question of all: Why do so many people want a fur baby anyway?

Designer dogs are comparatively recent. In my childhood, back when dogs were animals, the only exotic ones were Old English Sheepdogs, Afghans and Dalmatians. Fox Terriers, usually fat and threadbare, belonged to old codgers in pubs. Old ladies had Silky Terriers and an occasional Pekinese or Corgi. German Shepherds (we called them Alsatians) were feared for their alleged savagery. Cattle dogs were mistrusted because they ran from behind to nip you as you walked to school. (Those were the days of walking to school, too. How yesteryear can you get?)

Family dogs always had a dash of Kelpie and assorted bits and pieces. They were allowed on the street without a leash. You’d see them on TV displaying their lovable personalities by running onto the pitch and disrupting a Test match or football game or Royal visit. They enjoyed a solemn ceremony and were hard to catch. For some reason they were always black dogs.

Black dogs were the only ones to disrupt important events, but we kids had another scientific rule that applied to all dogs’ behaviour: Pointy ears, bites. Floppy ears, stupid.

Faithful companions, family dogs followed you on your bike, and waited outside the school till home time. They roamed the suburbs with doggy friends and chased cars if they felt like a run, and defecated at will. (Doggy-poo bags? Are you kidding?) Until 2012, however, dogs weren’t allowed into shops or cafes, which displayed signs forbidding them.

Somewhere along the line, perhaps when local councils tightened up rules about stray and unfenced dogs, the average suburban dog ceased to be just another outdoor knockabout kid and turned into a feminised indoor doll-animal. (This caused macho chaps of the biker persuasion to react by breeding dogs they thought captured the essence of their complex personalities. Hence the pit bull.)

If there was any doubt about how much Australians love pets, consider this statistic: more of us live with a dog or cat than with a child; 50 per cent of Australians share a house with at least one dog and/or cat (of those pets, 38 per cent are dogs and 23 per cent cats.) Whereas only 35 per cent of us live with one child or more aged under 16, most of them eventually house-trained.

Australians spend $12 billion a year on pet food, grooming, vet fees and insurance for their animals, making the pet care industry a major growth area.

Interestingly, the fascination with poodle mixes doesn’t extent to pure poodles. Presumably, if the poodle mix is chosen because poodles are intelligent and don’t shed hair, a pure-bred poodle should have it all over the Labradoodle or whatever for smartness and hair retention. But, no, everyone wants one of the 150 doodle dog variations (at $2000 a pup) on the market.

Who can resist a Daisy Dog? Robert Drewe apparently…

So we now have such appallingly named dogs as the Jack-a-Poo (Jack Russell and poodle); Schnoodle (schnauzer and poodle); Pooghan (Afghan and poodle); Cocker-Poo (Cocker spaniel and poodle); Bossy-Poo (Boston terrier and poodle); Irish Doodle (Irish setter and poodle); Golden Doodle; (Golden Retriever and poodle), Rottle (Rottweiler and poodle); Poogle (Beagle and poodle); and, my least favourite, the Daisy Dog (Bichon Frise, ShihTzu and poodle).

So what to do if your naughty Bossy-Poo or Cocker-Poo or Jack-a-Poo or Pooghan poos on the carpet? I don’t think the old tap with a rolled-up newspaper would work as punishment. I suggest a delicately furled Vogue or Gourmet Traveller magazine.

For more information on Robert Drewe’s latest novel, Whipbird, and his other books go here: penguin.com.au/authors/robert-drewe

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After only six months of Vegemite deprivation overseas in the eighties I began thinking of it constantly. I badly needed a fix. Intending visitors from Australia were begged (eventually commanded) to bring jars with them. No one took my pleas seriously. The Vegemite-less weeks and months ticked on.

At last! From a friend’s luggage appeared the cheery red and yellow label of my childhood! That whiff of yeast! The familiar surface sheen! The strong odour, the salty taste! With my urging, bemused French acquaintances were soon gamely trying Vegemite on their baguettes; wary but polite Californians and Canadians were spreading Vegemite on their rolls. They all said it was disgusting.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t get terribly keen on Vegemite – they thought it the most revolting foodstuff they’d ever encountered. It failed at every level: looks, smell, texture, taste. To them it resembled glistening dark stuff not fit for repeating in a family newspaper much less human consumption.

I felt hurt on Vegemite’s behalf. And Australia’s, too. It was like they’d scorned our beaches, wines, weather, Don Bradman, Sidney Nolan, Patrick White and Phar Lap. I was defensive. I disparaged their stupid foreign breakfast spreads: Marmite and Cenovis, peanut butter and jelly. Chocolate, for goodness sake. Nutella. Any more British derision and I would’ve brought up breakfast black pudding.

Then I tried a calmer, more educational approach. The secret, I tried to explain to them, one passed on from generation to generation of Australians over the breakfast table, was to appreciate the subtlety and delicacy of Vegemite.

This will come as no surprise to those of you who are reading this at breakfast with a trusty jar of Vegemite close at hand. “For a start,” I informed my foreign friends, “Butter first.”

“Then what you do is dab a little bit here and there over the buttered bread or toast,” I instructed. “You never smear it on thickly. That’s a Vegemite no-no. Stifle the natural urge to cover the entire slice up to the edges. Use a light hand, and only the tip of the knife, and just speckle the Vegemite gently and randomly over the toast.”

Like this….

Casually, even with a touch of devil-may-care, but serious intent, I demonstrated the approved method. “Like this,” I said. “You mustn’t coat the bread. (My goodness, you’re not painting a wall or laying cement with a trowel!) Try for the desired stippled effect. The acid test is this: if you have correctly applied your Vegemite in sporadic flecks the buttery surface of the bread or toast should still be intermittently visible underneath.”

NOT like this…

Of course, I went on to remind them they were dealing with an actual foodstuff and, all appearances aside, not changing the oil filter on their car. I explained après-Vegemite etiquette, passed on sternly from mother and grandmother. To never put a Vegemite-encrusted knife back into the butter (or margarine, if you insist) container.

A question arose and was answered. “Yes, it’s permitted for the various Vegemite dabs and the previously spread butter to run together on a warm slice of toast, to even recklessly swirl and intermingle, as on an artist’s palate. But never allow them to intermix in the butter dish.” Even Australians disliked the look of that, I told them.

Did they take any notice? Not at all. Especially the Americans. They were so used to lavishing peanut butter over everything that they smothered Vegemite on the test slice I provided. Well, they deserved what they always get, a yeasty slap in the face.

Well, we got Vegemite back from them earlier this year when the dairy company Bega bought Mondelez International’s Australia and New Zealand grocery and cheese business.

Nostalgia aside, the reason Vegemite is on my mind this week is that Bega is now attempting to take Vegemite upmarket with a new, more expensive version, Vegemite Blend 17, sold in precious artisanal packaging that includes an unnecessary cardboard box, a gold-coloured lid and a price tag of double that of a traditional jar.

Vegemite Gold – twice the price, but is it twice as nice?

Asked what happened to Blends one to 16, Vegemite’s marketing director, Ben Hill, explained: “The name Blend 17 simply refers to the year 2017 we have released it in.”

Oh, dear. Remember Vegemite Singles, iSnack 2.0, Cheesybites, My First Vegemite, Chocolate-and-Vegemite. All recent Vegemite marketing failures. Tamper with it at your peril. You don’t need a more affluent demographic. Everyone likes it as it is.

Robert Drewe’s latest novel, Whipbird is published by Penguin and is available here: penguin.com.au/books/whipbird

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The other day I heard a hospital administrator on the radio talking knowledgeably about hard-working health professionals who were “speechies”, “occies” and “respos”. These jobs were new to me. It turned out she was referring to speech, occupational and respiratory therapists.

So the Australian partiality for baby talk has now entered the fields of physical and mental health. Mind you, the national love of diminutives was already present in medical circles. For example, we’d always called physiotherapists “physios” and gynaecologists “gynos”. But I hadn’t realised how widely the habit was spreading.

We’ve long used diminutives for such jobs as ambulance driver (ambo), book maker (bookie), bricklayer (brickie), carpenter (chippie), farmer (cocky), garbage collector (garbo), journalist (journo), milkman (milko), musician (muso), politician (pollie), postman (postie), sub-contractor (subbie), tradesman (tradie), truck driver (truckie), wharf labourer (wharfie), and prostitute (prozzie),

Injured at work? Even at “smoko”. Better apply for “compo” (compensation). Or you won’t be able to afford your “reggo” (car registration). Careful you don’t become a “dero” (homeless person).

Interestingly, while everyone knows “chalkie” is the nickname for teacher, it has never really caught on in Australia. For some reason teachers remain teachers. (Until computerisation, “chalkie” also applied to the stock exchange employees who wrote stock prices on chalk boards.)

Until a decade ago I’d never heard “boilie” (for boiler-maker) and “firey” (for fire fighter). Or, until more recently, “cranie” (crane driver); “crownie” (not just Crown lager, but crown prosecutor); “shoppie” (retail shop assistant); and “towie” (tow-truck driver).

Or, for that matter, “Cento”, for the Centrelink office, responsible for unemployment pensions; “povvo”, a poor person; and “deso”, a designated (and abstaining) driver of drinkers.

For reasons known only to Australians, a biker and a surfer anywhere else are a “bikie” and “surfie” here (but never in actual biker or surfer circles).

In Melbourne, you’d know Broady was Broadmeadows, and in Sydney that Parra was Parramatta. In Perth you’d be au fait with Cott, Subi, Freo and Rotto. If you follow AFL or the two rugby codes, you’re a “footy” fan. The other code, known here and in the US as soccer, however, insists on “football”.

Why do we indulge in such baby language (talking about bickies and choccies – and choccy bickies!) long after our third birthday? Why do we eat at Macca’s and buy fuel at the servo? And give prezzies at Chrissie, and drink cuppas and tinnies and coldies, and cook snaggers at barbies (unless we’re veggos and prefer avos), and support the Salvos and Vinnies, and wear trackies or boardies in the arvo?

Because we want to be liked. As pathetic as that sounds, Dr Nenagh Kemp, a senior lecturer in Psychology at the University of Tasmania, says “Australians have an intuitive feeling that these words make social interaction more informal, more friendly and relaxed.”

Dr Kemp’s work on spoken Australian English is helping to build up a more complete picture of what it means to be Australian today, and how choosing to use certain Australian words such as “arvo” and “footy” signals national identity. As she told the Australian Geographic Society which sponsored some of her research, “It sounds obvious: we make words shorter to save us a bit of time and effort. But some diminutives actually make words longer, like Tommo for Tom. And we don’t really save a lot of time by saying barbie instead of barbecue.”

With more than 4300 recorded in our lexicon, Australians use more abbreviated words than any other English speakers. Word lists collected in the past few years show that older Australians are more likely to think of slang with “o” endings (muso, smoko). Young people use these less frequently. Modern trends are to affix an ‘s’ to the first syllable (think “awks” for awkward — which it is).

“If you’re someone who speaks to groups – say, a politician – it could be interesting to know whether these kinds of words make you seem friendlier, or perhaps more condescending,” said Dr Kemp. (Too late, Kevin Rudd.)

“Some people accuse younger generations of spoiling our language with all these diminutives. But the earliest examples are from the 1800s. It’s a long tradition, not a modern laziness.”

Despite that, she can’t see herself adopting some current language trends. “I’m kind of bemused by the trend of saying “mobes” for mobiles, or “totes” for totally. I use some shortened words, but those just sound silly to me.”

For myself, I draw the line at the current words “lappy” for laptop, “Facey” for Facebook, “petty” for petrol, and “devo” for devastated. Anyway, in my teenage daughter’s case, “devo” actually translates as “mildly upset”.

“Deffo”, as she says. “Definitely.”

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Three times this week my household has been woken at two a.m. by phone calls from Burundi. We’ve never been to Burundi. Nor do we know anyone from Burundi. To be honest — and I hope Burundians don’t take this the wrong way — I’m determined never to step foot there.

It’s not just being woken up three times at two a.m. by Burundian callers, who then swiftly hang up, that has influenced my decision not to visit Burundi. The Department of Foreign Affairs doesn’t want me — or any other Australians — to go to Burundi. They not only strongly warn against it, they say that if I’m in Burundi already to get the hell out.

Why? My Burundi knowledge was sketchy, limited to grim news reports of 300,00 Tutsis and Hutus slaughtering each other there and in neighbouring Rwanda in the 90s. So eventually I did what anyone does when Burundi phones them three times a week in the middle of the night: I Googled Burundi.

The news wasn’t favourable. The former German and then Belgian colony is a landlocked country in Central Africa, one of the world’s poorest and most violent nations, struggling to emerge from 50-years of ethnic-based civil war, ongoing conflict with Rwanda, assassinations and genocide.

It’s also beset by widespread disease (yellow fever, malaria, HIV/Aids, cholera, filariasis, plague, sleeping sickness, meningococcal, TB and — for anyone attempting to swim in Lake Tanganyika — schistosomiasis). Also malnutrition, banditry, Al Shabaab terrorists, armed rebels, carjackings, kidnappings, drought, floods, landslides, landmines, road blocks, over-population and almost complete de-forestation. Think of something really bad, anything at all, and Burundi’s got it.

Anything pleasant to offset this dire state of affairs? Well, without the unspeakably brave ministrations of Doctors Without Borders, and foreign aid, which provides nearly half the nation’s income, average life expectancy would doubtless be lower than the present 50 for both sexes.

Unlucky Last – in black (or red as the case maybe) and white.

On a United Nations index called the World Happiness Report, which considers such variables as real GDP per capita, social support, health, life expectancy, personal freedom, and perceptions of corruption, Burundi comes equal last (154^th) – the equal unhappiest country on earth — with its neighbour, the Central African Republic.

Even beleaguered, war-torn Iraq (117^th), Afghanistan (141^st) and Syria (152^nd) are happier places than Burundi. (By way of contrast, Norway comes first in happiness and, counting one’s blessings, Australia is ninth. America is 14^th and Britain 19^th.)

The Burundi media is heavily censored and any criticism is regarded as treason. You can’t go for a jog in Bujumbura, the capital, unless you register with the government and join a jogging club. Then you must jog in one of nine approved venues. The police may have some questions about your jogging: “How many people will be jogging with you? At what time? Give us their names.”

In their dire circumstances, perhaps you can’t blame the Burundians for talking a leaf out of Nigeria’s infamous book and joining the scamming industry. Because that’s what their dead-of-night international phone calls are about.

The scam, originating in Japan, is called Wangiri, meaning “one ring and cut”. Mostly you receive a call deliberately in the middle of the night when the recipient is disoriented: the phone gives a single ring or two before the caller disconnects.

The scammer will have hired an international premium rate number (IPRN) from a local phone company. The trick is to get you to call back on the same premium-rate number. You’re probably thinking you missed an important call (from overseas — it must be important!). When you call back the unfamiliar foreign number (Burundi’s prefix is +257) your call is taken but the person on the line doesn’t talk to you.

You’re sitting there in your pyjamas, blinking at your mobile, saying, “Hello, hello, hello, is anybody there?“ Eventually, receiving no answer, you get frustrated and hang up. By then you’ve lost quite a bit of money. You’ve been charged higher than regular calling rates, and the revenue earned is then shared between the telecom operator and the owner of the number from Burundi. Or maybe from Malawi (+265), Nigeria (+234), Tunisia (+216), Russia (+7), Belarus (+375) or Pakistan (+92).

According to Scamwatch, run by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), 155,035 Australians were scammed — by all methods — of $83,563,599 last year.

The biggest losers, mostly males, lost $32,278,469 to jobs and investment scams. The second biggest losers lost $25,480,351 to dating and romance scammers. The victims were mainly (presumably lonely) 55 to 64-year-old women.

Maybe we’re finally waking up to the dreaded Nigerian scammers. They only made $1,404,108 out of gullible Australians in 2016. No figures were available on the Burundians. But we didn’t call them back.

Robert Drewe’s latest novel, Whipbird is out now: penguin.com.au.whipbird

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“No secret!” the oldsters would cackle, sitting there nodding in their party hats, thus rendering their life story down to a mere photo caption. But I noticed they were all small, thin women (of the 100 longest living people on the planet, only six have been men) who’d led busy, abstemious lives and often had large doting families.

These days, of course, turning 100 is not unusual. So far, Jeanne Caiment of France (1875-1997, or 122 years and six months) is the oldest person ever. Emma Morano of Italy was giving her a run for her money until she died three months ago aged 117 years and five months, the last person on earth to be born in the 19^th century.

Emma Morano credited her 117 years to her three-egg-a-day diet.

Centenarians have been on my family’s minds ever since the oldest member turned 90 eight years ago, and surreptitious arrangements are starting to be made for the celebration.

At 98, the woman in question, a former teacher and a widow for 30 years, still looks after herself (with a compulsory wine at dinner time), reads a novel a week, plays bridge, gardens, watches and listens avidly to the ABC news, does the cryptic crossword and sudoko puzzles each day, and, unless restrained, and despite two hip replacements, will mow the lawn and fix a broken roof tile.

It’s pretty obvious what her secret is. But I looked up details of five of the oldest people on earth to see if they also had the answer.

The oldest person in the U.S, Adele Dunlap (113 ), of New Jersey, is baffled by her age. “I’ve never led an overly healthy lifestyle, or jogged, or anything like that. I smoked until my father had his first heart attack, and I eat anything I want. But I swear by oatmeal.”

While Spain’s oldest living person, Ana Maria Vela Rubio (115 ) has, according to her daughter, been kept alive by “her compassion for others and her positive attitude,” Japan’s oldest person until recently, Misao Okawa (117) said the key to longevity was “eating delicious things”, ramen noodles, beef stew, rice and mackerel sushi.

The world’s current oldest living person, Violet Brown (117), of Jamaica, would agree. Last year her son, Harold, who recently pre-deceased her at the relatively youthful age of 97, said his Baptist church-going mother “likes fish and mutton and mangoes and sometimes she will have cow foot.”

Violet Brown at 115 – curently at 117, the oldest person in the world.

Back in the days when I was trying to interview centenarians, great excitement centred around their congratulatory telegrams from the Queen. “How wonderful of Her Majesty to keep up with Nanna’s life,” everyone said. Well, some of us thought our family’s 98-year-old, being of her generation’s royalist mindset, would appreciate regal recognition, too.

Inquiries discovered that the royal 100^th birthday telegrams, in force since George V in 1917, actually ceased in 1982, replaced by a laser-printed card featuring a smiling picture of the Queen, a copy of her signature and the message, “I am pleased to know that you are celebrating your 100^th birthday. I send my congratulations and best wishes to you on such a special occasion.”

Sadly, the Queen actually has no knowledge of your Nanna’s long existence. You have to apply to receive her good wishes. I’m quoting the Governor-General’s website here: “Congratulatory messages from Her Majesty The Queen and the Governor-General to those Australians celebrating the achievement of significant birthdays and wedding anniversaries are available on request.

“On request, Government House will arrange for a congratulatory message to be sent from both the Queen and the Governor-General to persons celebrating their 60th (Diamond) 65th and 70th (Platinum) and subsequent wedding anniversaries and 100th, 105th and subsequent birthdays.

“Requests for a message from The Queen and/or the Governor-General can be made through your local Federal Member’s electorate office or the Honours, Symbols and Territories Branch of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.” Strict application instructions follow.

Did the queen send a message to her mother, who lived to be 101? Will she send congratulations to herself in eight years time?

Incidentally, Emma Morano credited her long life to her daily diet of three eggs. Nothing else. “I don’t eat much because I have no teeth.”

At age 20, diagnosed with anaemia, she started eating two raw eggs and one cooked egg every day. She’d lived alone ever since leaving her husband in 1938. “I didn’t want to be dominated by anyone,” she said.

Tell us in 25 words or less why you would like to win a copy of Robert Drewe’s latest book, Whipbird, which is published this month by Penguin.  Leave your comments in the box below or go to Verandah Magazine’s Facebook page.

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As someone who these days has trouble understanding actual reality, I’m not the person to turn to for explanations – or sympathy — when virtual reality falls on its face.

General bewilderment, I can manage. In fact, my own computer problems aside, I can even raise a faint cheer when accidents befall any up-to-the-minute, state-of-the-art, mind-bending, must-have technology at all.

This is especially the case if it’s a gadget for which, encouraged by a greedy, Australian-tax dodging but internationally revered manufacturer, a young person has saved up their money and camped outside the store in order to be among the first purchasers of the gadget’s latest model — all in full expectation of this expensive, must-have thingamajig’s planned obsolescence in 12 months time.

Actual reality not enough for you at the moment? How about North Korea? Syria? Trump’s America? The ice drug problem? Governments everywhere who don’t know which side is up? Floods? The Barrier Reef? Being a parent of teenagers?

It was in this numb and semi-Luddite frame of mind that I appreciated hearing about Dean Smith, the man who’s taking legal action after losing a race against a virtual Cathy Freeman.

Visitors to Melbourne’s Scienceworks museum are urged to “Pit your skills against Australia’s best-known sportspeople and investigate your body’s abilities for particular sports.”

Thus encouraged, Dean Smith decided to pit himself against a simulation of the Sydney Olympics 400 metres gold medallist. But when the 44-year-old pool-glass installer gave the interactive exhibit a go in June last year, and sprinted after Cathy on a 10 metre long, dual-lane track, he ran head first into a wall and broke his back. Mr Smith is now suing the Museums Board of Victoria for negligence.

Dean Smith is suing Melbourne’s museum, Scienworks. Photo: The Age

He says he fractured one vertebra and crushed another one; broke an occipital bone and a rib; and lost feeling in his arms, hands and fingers. He now has a psychiatric disorder and has subsequently suffered a stroke. He can no longer work.

“I got a bit competitive, thinking I could take on Cathy Freeman,” he told The Age. “They made me think I could beat her. But no one wants to run flat-out over 10 metres and smash their head into a wall.”

No, indeed. Nevertheless I imagine the Museum will argue that Mr Smith’s brain should have retained enough actual reality to reason that donning a virtual-reality headset wouldn’t automatically expand the museum floor to an actual 400 metre track.

The web is full of examples of virtual reality accidents. Not surprisingly, virtual cliff-scaling and mountain-climbing are particularly fraught with potential peril, both in-game and in real life. Such spills outline the danger for virtual reality: it can be too real.

That’s the whole point. To home enthusiasts of virtual zombies or virtual sporting events, or virtual porn for that matter, what virtual gamers call “an immersive experience” is what it’s all about. So the manufacturers are hardly likely to dial it back. Meanwhile, small pets, children, coffee tables, plate-glass windows and other household obstacles should keep clear.

Gamer safety manuals offer advice for first-time VR home users. They recommend playing alone, and seated — or at least standing still.

Just a tad too realistic – virtual reality can take its toll.

As one safety manual says: “Dumb accidents routinely happen. We don’t want people vomiting, having seizures, stepping on their pets, maiming their children, or smashing their hands through plate glass. In the real world if you cover up your eyes and ears and start wandering around, all bets are off, so take the full-motion VR hardware seriously.”

In the circumstances, it’s good to hear of virtual reality being used for something helpful. Steve Shelley, Information Management Officer for Parks Victoria, uses the technology to map sallow wattle, an invasive weed, in the Grampians National Park. Shelley came up with the novel approach through his love of virtual gaming. “Being a gamer I thought ‘Geez, I could apply this at work.’” Whereas ground surveys were time-consuming, labour intensive and not always safe in wild terrain, the technology can transform conservation, from assessing the health of native vegetation to monitoring wildlife.

It works by overlaying aerial photographs to construct three-dimensional images, which are displayed using computer software called PurVIEW and observed using 3D glasses.

“It’s incredible when you put the glasses on and everything comes to life,” says Mr Shelley. “The forest just leaps out at you.”

That sort of leaping hasn’t happened since 2010 when the Wonderbra company erected a giant 3D billboard in London displaying the semi-naked frontage of the Brazilian model Sabraine Banando as part of its Full Effect virtual reality brassiere campaign. And provided the requisite glasses.

Numerous traffic accidents immediately occurred. Actual accidents.

Robert Drewe’s latest novel, Whipbird (published by Penguin/Viking) will be available in August.

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It’s easy to forget that not too long ago breakfast was a meal eaten only at home, privately, without fuss or noise, in the vicinity of Weetbix, tea and Vegemite toast.

As anyone who has tried to find a weekend parking spot near the smell of coffee and bacon can attest, the breakfast boom changed all that. But the restaurant breakfast is only one change in Australian dining habits. Eating out and sophisticated food knowledge, as evidenced by the vast popularity of TV cooking shows and newspaper restaurant reviews, are now a central part of our cultural experience.

I wouldn’t dare step into that professional minefield, but I think I speak for restaurant diners of purely amateur status when I declare the subject is of great interest to us as well. And we notice annoying stuff, too.

Call me a philistine, but the big deal about the waiter holding the left arm behind the back when pouring wine, has always looked pompous and silly to me – like standing at attention on one leg in a supermarket queue — especially when undertaken not by a suave wine waiter but an awkward and self-conscious young waitperson.

On the other hand, the backhand service of a cup of coffee by a bored breakfast waiter in a local establishment is riveted in my memory forever.

It was my second cup (my re-order having been met by the response “Not another one!”) and his languid table delivery while gazing out to sea sloshed coffee into the saucer. In the circumstances I was unprepared, for his sneering reaction when removing the saucer of his own spillage: “You’re messy!”

Another quibble. Is anyone out there actually impressed by the glowing anonymous endorsements and huge number of stars a restaurant might have on TripAdvisor and its online ilk?

Especially when the applause can come from the restaurant itself? Or from the chef’s mother? Or, conversely, when a rotten review is possibly the work of a jealous competitor? Or someone refused service just because they arrived with four drunken mates from the pub and two Rottweilers?

Here’s a simple question for all chic restaurants: What’s wrong with plates all of a sudden? They’ve done a good job for thousands of years. Plates are great for holding food. Peas don’t roll off them, and sauce doesn’t dribble over the edge. They’re much easier for waiters to pick up, stack and carry. They’re not as heavy as wooden chopping boards, for example. They’re more hygienic.

Of course, it’s not just wooden boards, is it? It’s also lengths of slate (why?) and chips served in mini deep-fat fryers. And overnight every drink from cocktails to orange juice is suddenly served in jam jars. Jars wound around with string. String? Why on earth? Jam jars are for jam. Because jars are cute? Not really. Drinks should come in another container proven highly successful over the centuries – glasses.

One other thing: at what moment in time did everyone decide that burgers had to be a metre high? So tall they needed to be kept together with a skewer. Too tall to get your mouth around, thus requiring demolition with a knife and fork, and negating the whole casual-dining point of the burger. (And served on a bloody board, of course.)

Not a plate in sight…

Another matter, however unwelcome to wait-staff. Please don’t interrupt an intense or intimate conversation among customers to ask how everything is. “Fine,” we say. “Very nice.” But sad to relate, we really don’t want to talk to you at all. The reason we’re sitting here might be in order to say important things to each other. And it sounds like you’re too eager for a tip.

Listen, I don’t like starchy waiters. Restaurants aren’t cathedrals and diners aren’t archbishops. However, “And what are you having, mate? The same as the missus?” or “I’d go for something with less calories if I were you,” doesn’t pass muster.

In this age of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp, this next gripe is directed more at my fellow diners. Just as you want to share pictures of your new shoes and the daily artistic arrangement of your cappuccino froth, I know you’re obsessed with photographing your restaurant meal and sending it to me.

A word in your ear: the picture didn’t come out well. The food looks disgusting. And you shouldn’t have taken the waitperson away from their job to take your photograph with it. Something else, brutal I know: I don’t care what you had for dinner. Never have, never will.

And a final pronouncement to all waiters out there. I don’t need you to place my napkin on my lap, thanks. Since the age of four I’ve managed it myself. If I want to spill gravy on my groin it’s my business. In the memorable words of the London Observer’s food critic Jay Rayner, “I don’t want you ferreting about down there.” It doesn’t look good for either of us.

Robert Drewe’s latest novel, Whipbird (published by Penguin/Viking), will be available in August.

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