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for middle-aged female characters, Sharon, Janice, Rhonda, Karen, Donna, Georgina and Kylie are now safe picks, if no longer applicable for any woman under 50.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

The post A name, by any other name – and a character is born… appeared first on .

Don dropped dead on the sand and that was that. We’d just finished our lighthouse walk and he bent down to remove his shoes for our swim and keeled over. He was in his blue board shorts with the red palm trees. One shoe on and one shoe off when the ambulance took him — his new Rockport walkers. Only seventy-eight. Three years ago now and as I said, that was that.

Since that moment the days often look blurry around the edges, like I’m wearing his glasses by mistake. People loom around corners when I don’t expect them and next minute they’re on the doorstep. Jehovahs. Seventh Dayers. Charity collectors.

A Green type of woman in drifty clothes came by wanting to save baby fruit bats. She said the cold snap was making them lose their grip and fall out of the trees and they needed to be wrapped up in bandannas and fed mango smoothies. She was collecting money to provide the bandannas and smoothies and she showed me a photo of a baby bat in a red bandanna to clinch the deal.

“Look how cute it is, peeping out snug and warm,” she said.

“Cuteness is a survival characteristic of baby animals,” I said. “If you ask me, this one looks a bit confused being right side up instead of hanging upside down.”

“But very cute, you must admit,” she said, shaking her Save the Grey-Headed Flying-Fox collection tin. It hardly rattled. She was one of those North Coast women who look better from a distance.

The reason I was unsympathetic was that we’ve got hundreds of them living in a colony in our street, raiding our fruit trees and screeching all night and doing their business all over our decks, especially the Hassetts’ and the Rasmussens’, and the council playground so kids can’t play outdoors, and probably spreading the Kendra virus or Ebola or something.

Even worse than their noise and mess and being kept awake all night, the most irritating thing about them is they take only one bite out of each piece of fruit. They like to sample one bite out of every papaya and mango and mandarin on the coast — and they ruin the lot. And of course they’re protected under the Wildlife Act.

Mind you, there’s even people around here who are fond of brown snakes, the ones that kill you quickest. Those people need a slap, honestly. And down at Broken Head there used to be signs saying Do Not Molest the Sharks. The tourists pinched all the signs for souvenirs.

I said to her, “Let nature take its course, miss. If I was a fruit bat and the weather got too nippy, I wouldn’t wait for a bandanna. I’d up stakes and fly to north Queensland.”

Another day a young woman with a bossy accent called in to convince the “household” to switch to a different electricity provider. Sun-Co or North-Sun or something. There were lots of benefits for the “household” in switching to Sun-Co, she said.

I told her it wasn’t much of a household any more. “Just this gnarly old bird.”

“You should go solar and save yourself many dollars,” she insisted, in a South African sort of voice. “The sun is so harsh here you might as well benefit financially from it.”

The way she said “harsh” it sounded like “horsh”. Then she looked me up and down in a superior way. “Your skin looks like you enjoy plenty of sun.”

I let that go. “I certainly do,” I said, and gave her a big sunny grin. “I swim every day, rain or shine. I’ve earned every one of these wrinkles.”

At eighty you can choose which insults you respond to. I said the stove was gas and I just used electricity to run the TV and boil the kettle. I told her I only ate cheese sandwiches and the pensioners’ ten-dollar three-course special at the bowling club. A glass of brown rum of an evening. No point cooking for one.

I said, “Miss, when it’s dark and cold I just creep into bed like the decrepit old widow I am.”

She raised her drawn-on eyebrows and cut short her electricity spiel then, like I was one of those eccentric old witches with bird’s nest hair and forty-three cats. Maybe I’d laid the elderly stuff on too thick. But she was a hard-faced girl.

* * *

Ever notice that after people pass away the world seems to have more sunsets than dawns? I try to avoid sunsets. They stand for things being over. With sunsets I think of Don in his palm-tree board shorts swimming over the trees and hills into those pink and gold clouds — that exaggerated heaven you see in the pamphlets the Jehovahs hand out. And our darling boy Nathan and his friend Carlos in ‘87. My own Mum and Dad. Oh, sunsets draw the sadness out.

When that sunset feeling seeps in, watch out. Don’t think about everyone gone, and no grandchildren. Sorrow shows in your face. Stay upbeat and busy is my motto. Don’t worry yourself about last words either. (Don’s final word he bubbled out on the sand sounded like “Thursday” or “birthday” – I’ve stopped wondering what it meant.) And don’t blame Carlos any more for making Nathan sick. I try to face east and the dawn and the beginning of things.

Just after sun-up every morning, all seasons, I do my lighthouse walk. It’s always interesting – big blue jellyfish the size of bin lids lying there; sometimes an octopus or little stingray beached in a rock pool. One morning the shore was strewn with hundreds of green capsicums, as if a capsicum freighter had jettisoned them. All green, no red ones, just floating there like blow-up bath toys.

What I enjoy these days is stopping to pick up shells and stones and interesting bits of driftwood to take home. I look for those rare stones shaped like hearts.

Don called this stuff “flotsam”. He hated beach décor. “Listen, Bet. Are we doing our exercise or picking up flotsam?” he’d say. “Who wants to live in a beachcomber’s shack?” He preferred the surfaces kept clear for his barometer collection and shiny brass telescope and Sudoku books and his cricketers’ and politicians’ memoirs. Books with deadly-dull titles. Afternoon Light and Cabinet Diary and A Good Innings. God save us!

After my walk I leave the morning’s beach souvenirs on my towel and then I’m in the sea, swimming the kilometre from The Pass to Main Beach like Don and I used to.

One thing’s for sure – it’s my love of the ocean that keeps me going. You know what I call the ocean? Dr Pacific. All I need to keep me fit and healthy is my daily consultation with Dr Pacific.

“Morning!” I yell out to the surfers waxing their boards on the sand, zipping up their steamers. “I’m off to see the Doctor!”

Some of the boys give me a friendly wave. They treat me like I’m their crazy brown granny. “Morning, Bet! Looking good!” They can’t wait to hit the surf and ride those barrels. “They’re pumping today!” they yell.

You see things out there — fish galore, and there’s a pod of dolphins that lives off the Cape, plus many turtles. And shapes and shadows. Sometimes there’s a splash nearby, but I just keep going. I imagine the shadow and splash is Don still swimming alongside me.

* * *

We’re on the trailing edge of tropical cyclones here on the country’s most easterly point. One moment it’s a hot summer’s day and then Cyclone Norman or Cyclone Sharon spins south with its high winds, choppy surf and water spouts, little tornados twirling across the ocean. The humidity drives us locals out onto our decks. Everyone sits there with their beers and Hibachis and watches the weather over the sea like it’s the Discovery Channel.

It’s all to do with La Nina or El Nino or something. Firstly, clouds bank up over the fishing boats and container ships on the horizon, then the sky turns thundery and purple, the sea looks sulky and there’s distant sheet lightning over the Gold Coast. You can smell the storm racing south. The air smells of meat.

The wind’s blowing barbecue smoke into your face. Pressure builds up in your ears. Then a yellowish mist drops over the ocean and hailstones begin pelting down. By now the fruit bats have got night and day mixed up and they start shrieking in this strange muddy daylight as if the sky’s falling.

Just as quickly the hail stops, like a tap’s been turned off, the sky’s clear and the wind moves off-shore. The waves spray backwards against the tide in lines of spindrift. The air’s so sharp you can see the humpbacks breaching on their way back to the Antarctic.

Funny how the cyclone weather gets all the bachelor whales over-stimulated. The sea’s getting strangely warm for them here and they start displaying for the girl whales. Slapping their tails on the water, showing off like teenage boys. Slap, slap, over and over.

* * *

During Cyclone Sharon we were all out on our decks every day for a week. Even the main bat victims, the Rasmussens and Hassetts. Curiosity and anxiety plus a faint shred of hope brought everyone out. It was bedlam with the noise of the coastguard helicopters and the spotter planes and the lifesavers in their rubber duckies and jet-skis and the water-police launches. Up and down the shoreline and river mouths they were searching for poor Russell Monaghetti.

What happened was Russell’s prawn trawler, the Tropic Lass, overturned at night in the cyclone seas off Cape Byron. Russell and his two young deckhands were believed lost. But next afternoon, the youngest boy, Lachie Pascall, crawled up on Belongil beach.

Lachie had been guided by the lighthouse and swum eleven miles to shore. He was exhausted, flat as a tack, but he told the rescue services approximately where the boat had sunk.

He said he’d left the others clinging to floating stuff when he set off to swim to land. So they concentrated the hunt and, you wouldn’t believe it, six hours later they found Brendan Lutz, the second boy. Brendan was just alive. He was badly sun-blistered and dehydrated and hugging an ice box. They had to prise his fingers off it.

For a day or so that gave everyone hope. Brendan said the last he’d seen of Russell he was clutching a marker buoy. But now there was no sign of him, and after another five days the search for him was called off.

Very sad. I knew poor Russell. His boat operated out of the Brunswick Heads fishermen’s marina and when he wasn’t at sea he was a regular drinker down at the bowling club on Friday and Saturday nights. He was quite a big wheel, on the club committee and everything.

“How’s my surfer chick?” he’d call out. He liked to flirt with me in a teasing way. “Still fighting the surfers off, Betty?” he’d say. “If only I stood a chance!”

“Too young for me,” I’d shoot back. “I’m no cougar.” Russell was late sixties, I’m guessing. A good-looking silvery fellow. Lovely smile. The dashing, cheeky sort I used to go for before Don came along.

Russell knew I liked a rum or two of an evening. During the bingo he’d sneak a mojito onto the table for me when I wasn’t looking. Once he pinched a hibiscus flower off the bush by the club’s entrance and left it alongside the drink.

* * *

That strange time of Cyclone Sharon I’d be walking home from my meal at the bowling club about nine — it’s only a couple of blocks — and I’d look up and the sky would be thronging with dopey fruit bats caught in the lighthouse beam. Flapping wilder than usual, squealing, and crashing into trees and electricity wires. Bats were even on the sand and struggling in the shallows. Where’s your famous radar now? I wondered.

The colony had started raiding the local coffee plantations. They’d chewed up thousands of dollars’ worth of ripe beans and the local growers were in a panic. As usual, Parks and Wildlife was no help.

“The grey-headed flying-fox is a protected coastal species,” they said. Blah, blah. “Try scare guns or netting the plantations.” But the nets were too expensive and the fake guns only made the bats shriek and act crazier, especially now they were addicted to coffee.

As their caffeine habit increased, the bats became even more speedy and twitchy. Their flying was more reckless, their screeching and squabbles were even shriller than usual. And they began to fall off the perch.

It took a while but the survivors eventually woke up to themselves and threw off their caffeine addiction. Mind you, there wasn’t much left to eat around here by then. One full moon there was a great squawking and flapping, as if they’d come to a decision, and what was left of the colony upped stakes and flew north into the wind.

Carol Hassett’s house had taken the brunt of their droppings and noise. Carol said she hoped they all had headaches from coffee-withdrawal.

* * *

I was on my morning lighthouse walk at low tide. It was three or four weeks after the latest cyclone had rearranged the shoreline and something not regular, a bump on the smoothness, caught my eye on the hard-packed sand. A big shiny white bone had just washed up.

I stopped and picked it up. It hadn’t been long in the sea. No weed was growing on it, and it wasn’t eroded. It didn’t look like any animal bone I could recall. Thick, quite heavy, it was about as long as – I’m sorry to say — a human thigh bone.

I know I think about things too much these days. If I’m not careful my imagination runs away with me. But as I turned it over in my hand, boy, I had that prickly sensation on the back of my neck. This old duck almost passed out there on the shore.

I said to myself, “Betty, you’re holding a thigh bone in your hand!” The sides were smooth and one end of the bone was cleanly snapped. At its widest end the bone was jagged, with a zig-zag edge of sharp points, as if it had been severed by a big pair of pinking shears.

I held the white bone with the zig-zag edge and my neck did that prickly thing. I was thinking of the search for Russell, and of his friendly ways, and his silvery looks, and of what I now presumed had happened to him. It took all my concentration not to collapse on the sand.

What should I do with the bone? Take it to the Byron Bay police? The cops would probably laugh it off as bait from a lobster pot or garbage thrown from a ship. (“This lady thinks she’s found a femur, sergeant!”)

Lots of thoughts struck me. If it was Russell’s thigh bone, would his next of kin appreciate its discovery? (He was close to his three daughters and he had an ex-wife somewhere.) Wouldn’t the evidence of the bone – that sharp, zigzag pattern – be too brutal for his girls? Shouldn’t there be a thingamajig, a DNA test? Could you hold a funeral service for a femur?

Anyway, what amount of remains, what percentage of flesh or bone was necessary for a trace of a person to be counted as a body? Would a leg bone count? Did it have a soul? I’m not a religious woman – I don’t know these things. What would my pesky Jehovahs and Seventh Dayers say? God’s in nature, is all I believe.

Oh, I worried over all this. The white bone in my hand now had huge significance. It carried the weight of many emotions. In the bright beach glare it had what the local hippie chicks would call an aura. A pale but powerful aura. The aura of a handsome kind man who’d suffered a violent death.

I continued my walk while I thought about what to do. And I decided I wanted to keep the white thigh bone. I wanted to treasure the memory of poor Russell Monaghetti. I wanted to be able to look at the femur and recall his smile and the gift mojitos and the hibiscus on the bingo table.

I had no pockets and the bone was too cumbersome to carry, so I placed it on a patch of dry sand securely far from the water, and jammed a driftwood branch into the ground to mark the spot. I’d pick it up on my way back.

Of course, as I trudged along I started feeling guilty about Don. I had no treasured souvenirs of poor Don (I’d given his cricketers’ and politicians’ memoirs to the Rotary market stall). All I had were his clothes hanging in his side of the wardrobe, getting musty and moth-holed, but with his smell just faintly on them. Jackets and sweaters I was too sentimental to give to the op-shop. His Rockport walkers growing mould. The palm-tree board-shorts the hospital gave back to me.

How would Don feel about me having another man’s thigh bone on the mantelpiece? Because already that’s where I was imagining putting Russell’s femur — over the fireplace, mounted on a little stand like the gold brackets that held Don’s brass telescope. (Yes, on that very same telescope-stand.) With its pale aura gleaming out into the room, through the windows and out to sea.

I felt strangely unfaithful and wicked for most of the walk, but young and reckless as well, almost like a teenager. My brain was fizzing with excitement. Sorry, Don.

I picked up the pace on my way back. I was hurrying along the shore to pick up the bone to take home. I reached the spot I’d marked with the driftwood branch but the marker was gone. The tide was still fairly low but obviously a contrary set of waves had swept over the patch of sand, scooped it clean of debris, left it smooth and bare as a table-top, swamped it so recently that air bubbles were still popping on its surface.

That’s not unusual, of course. Waves and tides and winds seem irregular forces of nature, erratic in their evenness, but there’s always a proper reason for their existence, like Cyclone Sharon being caused by rapidly warming seas.

I understand all that. I’m an old North Coast girl. I see this every day. More than anyone I understand the way Dr Pacific does things. So I waded into the sea, into that shallow green dip between the shore break and the shore itself, and the bone was lying on the sea-bed, rolling back and forth in the tide. Quite easy to find, being so pale.

From The True Colour of the Sea, published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin ($29.99) www.penguin.com.au/books/the-true-colour-of-the-sea

The post Dr Pacific is specifically good for you – a Robert Drewe short story appeared first on .

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.)

The post Drinking can lead to death – sooner or later appeared first on .

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

The post Because I said so! Robert Drewe on ‘Mother’ sayings… appeared first on .

Lisa Walker’s hair is still wet from her morning surf. Usually she surfs early at Lennox Head, but today she has met me at the Pass Café in Byron Bay with an advance copy of her fifth and latest novel, Melt.

On the surface, Melt is a light-hearted melt-your-heart romp set largely in Antarctica and ending in the more familiar territory of Nimbin. But crack that veneer and you find a deeper story about climate change and the distortion of scientific data.

Don’t let the deeper issues frighten you. Lisa classifies Melt as ‘RomCom CliFi’ (Romantic Comedy Climate Fiction). If you’ve never heard of ‘CliFi’ it’s because this is a relatively new category about the world’s weather changes that we are now experiencing.

“A lot of climate change fiction is very dystopian, but this is a feelgood book,” says Lisa, passing me her novel. Lisa sees Melt as falling into another new publishing trend tagged ‘Up-Lit’. This refers to novels and nonfiction that are optimistic. We are, reportedly, becoming depressed, disillusioned and over-fed with politics, terrorism and tragedies. Readers are looking for stories to lift their faith in human kind.

The idea of an uplifting climate change read isn’t something Lisa just fell upon. In her working life she has been a wilderness guide in the Snowy Mountains and a communications officer for NSW National Parks and Wildlife. Her thesis for her Masters degree in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland tackled the problem of how to engage readers on serious topics in a palatable form.

On meeting Lisa you might wonder how someone who seems reserved can be so down-right-funny and wired into the moment in her books. At the quiet of her desk, a cast of larger-than-life characters come to life, and many of us recognise aspects of ourselves in her fiction. (This is especially true for those of us who live in the Northern Rivers!)

I’ve known Lisa for 12 years, since we started a writing group in Suffolk Park. At that time she had been writing for years but wasn’t yet published. Her first success was a radio play, Baddest Backpackers, produced by ABC Radio National in 2008. Her first published novel was a very funny, charming book, Liar Bird (HarperCollins Publishing, 2012), inspired in part by her times with National Parks and Wildlife.

After Liar Bird her writing career took off. This was followed by publication of Sex, Lies and Bonsai, a comedy inspired by her love of surfing in her hometown of Lennox Head. In 2015, Arkie’s Pilgrimage to the Next Big Thing came out, inspired in part by the Big Prawn in Ballina, and the fact that some of her friends were undertaking exotic pilgrimages in Spain and Japan that she couldn’t afford. You may have a sense her of how funny that it.

This year Lisa has not one, but two new novels in book shops. As well as Melt, her first young adult novel, Paris Syndrome, came out in April. Paris Syndrome is, apparently, a real condition, which causes people with a romanticised ideal of Paris to experience disillusion and depression when they finally get there. It’s said to be largely a condition among Japanese tourists. Lisa’s young protagonist never gets to Paris, but finds what she’s looking for in good ol’ Brisbane.  “A lot of my books are about characters who want to be somewhere else,” Lisa says.  “Generally my characters find that what they want isn’t necessarily in another place.”

In Melt, the protagonist, Summer, takes on the persona of a TV presenter, which is out-of-character for her and not something  is trained to do. Trying to live up to the expectations of the perfectionist man in her life, she agrees to do a wildlife series in Antarctica. But what Summer really wants to do is write soap opera scripts. Consequently, some of her reports from the frozen wilderness are delivered like soap opera, which infuriates her boss, but delights viewers. I’m not going to spoil this book, but alert you that Summer returns to the Northern Rivers having learnt much about herself and the changing nature of weather.

Lisa has not been to the Antarctic, though not for any lack of trying to get there. When she was twice rejected for a fellowship, she undertook as much research as she could feasibly do without being physically on the ice. Subsequently, readers who have been to Antarctica have praised the book for its credibility.

One review carried on Good Reads sums up much of what I’ve tried to convey here, only better: ‘For me, Melt is a fabulous little melting pot itself, of humour, science, topical debate, an amazing location, the idea of being true to yourself and finding out what you really want, and of course a little pinch of romance. I wish I could find more books like this one.’

Lisa invites Verandah Magazine readers to join her for the launch of Melt on 31 May at 6 pm at The Book Room, Fletcher Street, Byron Bay. Sarah Armstrong will do the honours.

The post Lisa Walker’s Creative Melting Pot appeared first on .

Local Byron-based writer Barbara Carmichael’s I’ve Come to Say Goodbye is first and foremost a love story. A story of hearts that come together and bind in seemingly improbable circumstances. It’s not a romantic love story and yet the whole travelogue is a romantic adventure. The style is refreshingly simple, conversational and honest. Most memoirs written about a deep connection with India will usually take you on an overt spiritual quest. There’s the lost western soul searching for the meaning of life who happens upon a saviour (Guru) who invariably will abuse their power, but this book is more subtle than that. It gradually reveals the author’s own personal growth without any of spiritual clichés and claptrap.

Barbara’s preconceived ideas and western prejudices are slowly dissolved when she meets Tarun, a local man from Udaipur, whilst she’s accompanying a friend on a buying trip.

Thus unfolds a memoir of simple human connections which expand over a ten-year period. It feels sacred without exploiting any religious or spiritual clichés and in relegating God and religion to the sidelines there is plenty of space for what this story is actually about: two people from diverse cultures forming a solid friendship with two very old-fashioned ingredients; trust and time. The most overtly ‘holy’ thing in this book is the ‘water’ Barbara drinks – AKA gin.

It’s a light, fast read packed with travel gems and insights. Barbara Carmichael doesn’t take herself too seriously and her gentle humour reflects this. The main backdrop for this heart-warming memoir are the cities of Udaipur and Jaipur with a few sojourns around other towns and places in India as we traverse the majestical landscapes of the Northern Indian State of Rajasthan. Our unlikely travel guide is the author, who has gathered together this book from her journals from over the ten years she has spent visiting Tarun and his extended family.

There is so much historical detail that is colourful and alive. From the extensive description and the feeling of the landscapes it’s clear that Barbara Carmichael is an artist, a painter. She weaves the texture and shades of India joyously throughout the pages. She also has a realistic way of depicting the unromantic faces of India without too much emphasis on the negative. It’s a seductive tale that surprises the reader with tenderness. Nothing terribly dramatic happens and yet the minutiae of everyday life in modern India is delightfully satisfying and intriguing: seasons, weather, festivals, mythology, history, local politics, weddings, births, accidents, technology, monsoons, manmade lakes, palaces, poverty, wealth and of course death.

The book begins with the shocking and unexpected death of Tarun. The subsequent pages are, in a sense, a literary eulogy…a testimony of love, respect, gratitude and enduring friendship. Starting the book with this fact is a very honest strategic literary device. And yet I can’t help but wonder how it might have read had I also fallen in love with Tarun and his family and friends, his hopes and dreams, his kindness, his ambitions and aspirations and then shockingly lost him towards the end of the book? Having said that the sting of grief was well conveyed and neither understated nor overstated.

I’m sure choosing to open the book this way speaks volumes about Barbara Carmichael’s clear and transparent style and her modest way of storytelling. There’s a lot to like about this book. If you’ve never been to India and are thinking of going this is a must read. If you know India but have never been to Rajasthan you could learn a lot. If you’re looking for a light read about unlikely human connections – you’ll really enjoy this.

The one recurring theme which is accurately depicted in this charming memoir is that there is no country, culture, history or geography that is as interesting, sometimes shocking and utterly captivating as Mother India.

I’ve Come to Say Goodbye by Barbara Carmichael available on Amazon $19.99 https://www.amazon.com/Ive-Come-Say-Goodbye-Friendship/dp/192102478X

Reviewed by Paul C Pritchard

The post Barbara Carmichael’s memoir of love and friendship in India appeared first on .

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

The post Robert Drewe on why these days it’s a dog’s life appeared first on .

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

The post Warning: Tamper with Vegemite at your peril, writes Robert Drewe appeared first on .

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.”

The post Baby talk – but not from babies, writes Robert Drewe appeared first on .

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

The post Robert Drewe on why he’s never going to Burundi appeared first on .