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 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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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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Don’t you love complex scientific research that spends time and money to come up with results that everyone knows already? Like the recent buttered toast study, where several scientific investigations found that grandma was right: toast dropped from a table falls butter-or-jam-side down at least 62 per cent of the time.

Then there was my favourite research study of 2016: the finding by St Andrew’s and Glasgow universities that the opposite sex becomes more than 25 per cent more attractive to people drinking alcohol.

A corresponding study at Bristol University went even further, discovering that students of both sexes found people 10 per cent sexier after just a measly 15 minutes of drinking and two beers. (Also proving that British universities have no trouble signing up willing students as research subjects.)Now, on a different tack, a major study involving hundreds of participants and researchers in France, Israel and the US, and just published by the American Psychological Association, has discovered that people often look like their names; specifically that men named Bob mostly look like men named Bob, and that Tims actually look like chaps called Tim.

The next possible research study?

Putting aside the question of why an international Bob and Tim research study should be conducted in the first place, the investigation found that participants shown a photograph and given a list of five names, matched photographs of the Tims and Bobs to their names with 40 per cent accuracy. Furthermore, a computer using a learning algorithm matched 94,000 facial images to their correct names 64 per cent of the time.According to the chief researcher, Dr Yonat Zwebner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, this was because of the cultural stereotypes we attach to names. People subconsciously altered their appearance to conform to the cultural norms and cues associated with their names: “Those areas of the face controlled by the individual, such as hairstyle,were sufficient to produce the effect,” said Dr Zwebner.

Dr Yonat Zwebnar from the University of Jerusalem.

Dr Ruth Mayo, co-author of the Bob and Tim study, says we’re subject to social structuring from the minute we’re born, not only by gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status but by the simple choice our parents made in giving us our name. “These findings suggest that facial appearance represents social expectations of how a person with a particular name should look. A social tag may influence one’s facial appearance and our facial features may change over the years to eventually represent the expectations of how we should look.”

And why were people able to differentiate a Bob from a Tim? Because, the study found, Bob was “a round-sounding name” so Bobs were thought to have round faces, while Tim “sounded thin”, with a narrow face. ‘

Hmm. Speaking as a Robert or Rob (not a Bob, thanks), it seems to me the study missed an important point. The parents who apparently laid down these rules when naming their boy babies, would actually have called them Robert and Timothy, not Bob and Tim, maybe with quite different cultural and social expectations.According to the Behind the Name website published simultaneously in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the “popularity ratings” given by hundreds of respondents to Bob and Robert, and Tim and Timothy, vary considerably.

Robert scores magnificently for Masculine, Strong, Classic, Mature, Wholesome, Refined, Serious and (oh, oh) Nerdy. Bob, alas, while also getting a Masculine, Strong and Wholesome rating, features mainly in the Informal, Common, Rough, Boring, Comedic, Simple and Unintellectual departments.

Of course this is unfair and very, very wrong. Especially the fat-faced, Boring, levitra and alcohol Common, Simple, Rough and Unintellectual slurs. Amongst many other fabulous exemplars of the name, let me hasten to present Bob Dylan, Bob Hawke, Bob Marley, Bob Hope, Bob Carr, Bob Ellis and Bob Woodward.

Similarly, although Tim scores well in the Youthful, Masculine, Strong, Informal, Wholesome, Comedic and (oh, oh) Nerdy polls, Timothy’s ratings in the Mature, Classic, Refined and Intellectual departments beat Tim’s and Robert’s names (and, of course, poor Bob’s) hands down.

All of which should be taken with a pinch of salt when you consider that perhaps Australia’s two favourite sons, intellectual and otherwise, are the Tims Minchin and Winton.

Incidentally, the Behind the Name site has some interesting respondents’ ratings for the name Donald. Published two years before the US election, the areas in which Donald dominated are Bad Name, Feminine, Modern, Informal, Common, Urban, Devious, Rough, Simple, Comedic, Unintellectual and Strange.

(Sincere apologies to the Dons Bradman, Corleone, Quixote, Draper, Pleasence, Chipp, Sutherland, O’Connor and Duck.)

Robert Drewe’s  long-awaited new novel WHIPBIRD will be published by Penguin/Viking on July 31: penguin.com.au/books/whipbird-9780670070619

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What a shocker 2016 has been. For a start, has there ever been a year in which so many celebrities dropped off the twig? Well, yes, probably. But still. David Bowie, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Leonard Cohen. Too sad, really.

Then Arnold Palmer “passed”, as the current euphemism goes. So did Harper Lee, Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman, Ronnie Corbett and Fidel Castro. And that’s not all. Florence Henderson of the Brady Bunch, Nancy Reagan, and Bobby Vee (Take Good Care of My Baby, and The Night has a Thousand Eyes) cashed in their chips. And Doris Roberts, that nice older woman who played Ray’s mother in Everybody Loves Raymond.

For two of the dead musicians, a lot of intense and shocked mourning immediately vibrated across the social media. For Bowie and Prince, people began over-emoting everywhere. Not since the death of Princess Diana did we see so much recreational grieving. Not even for Elvis or John Lennon.

What is it about dead singers? Over history, national leaders like Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy have been similarly mourned. But their lives were cruelly cut short by assassins and, dare it be said, their historical and social relevance was a fair bit greater than even the most talented musician’s backlist.

Good night Leonard, good night…we miss you…

As the English critic Alex Proud wrote in the London Telegraph recently, “I fear it’s only going to viagrasansordonnancefr.com get worse. JFK’s death for many represented the end of the American Dream. This is rather more worth mourning than someone whose songs you liked at the age of 13.” He went on: “Another week, another dead celebrity and another great online beating of breasts and rending of garments. Whether consciously or not, many of the public grievers set themselves up on the side of the angels. As a nation, we need some emotional incontinence pants.”

That’s a little tough. Then again, if you are, say, a 45-year-old teacher or mechanic with three children and a mortgage, who had never actually met Prince, I imagine a momentary fleeting sadness might be a more appropriate reaction than utter despair.

But there’s no rulebook when it comes to grieving celebrities’ deaths, explains David Kaplan, of the American Counselling Association. “We grow up with these people. We hear their music on a regular basis and really get to know them. They become like a member of our family. So when they die, it’s like a family death.”

He says the emotion is “so swallowing and vast” that it’s hard to pinpoint why it manifests in the ways that it does. “But just because we can’t explain grief doesn’t mean it’s invalidated,” Kaplan says — and that especially goes for grieving a celebrity.

Ah, celebrities. Weary of hearing about them in 2016? Me, too. Never has “celebrity” been such a dirty – and undeserved — accolade. And I’m not even talking about recent winning performances on the world’s political stage. Take the “temporary psychosis due to sleep deprivation, dehydration and ongoing house renovations” of the celebrity rapper and fashion designer Kanye West, husband of the celebrity something-or-other Kim Kardashian, and father of the celebrity toddlers North and Saint.

Celebrity self-aggrandisement rose to new levels this year with West’s pronouncements. Some examples: “Whoa, by 50 per cent I am more influential than Stanley Kubrick, Apostle Paul, f****** Picasso, and Escobar. Fifty per cent more influential than any other human being. I am God’s vessel.”

Ever wonder why he never smiles? “I suffer. My greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.”

Of his pre-fame years, West reminisced: “I knew I was going to be a big star. I used to go to the Virgin music stores and just ride the escalator and say to myself, ‘I’m soaking in these last moments of anonymity.’”

As we saw in the US election last month, traits like grace, humility and honesty are irrelevant in a world of celebrity egomania, lies, hype and hysteria. Kanye West puts it best. “One of the problems with being a bubbling source of creativity, it’s like I’m bubbling in a laboratory, and if you don’t put a cap on it, at one point it will, like, break the glass…If I can hone that, then I have, like, nuclear power, like a super-hero, like Cyclops when he puts his glasses on.”

In the wake of his “psychosis”, West cancelled the remainder of his Saint Pablo tour. Nevertheless Kanye and Kim made $300 million between them this year, although West’s net worth may have suffered in late 2016, thanks to his announcement that if he had bothered to vote at all he would have voted for Donald Trump.

Robert Drewe’s latest book, The Beach, an Australian Passion, is published by the National Library of Australia and is available here: the-beach-an-australian-passion

His other recent books The Local Wildlife and Swimming to the Moon are on sale here: penguin.com.au

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Hats off to the winner of the 2016 Best Tap Water in Australia Competition, the town of Barrington in Tasmania. Congratulations as well to the other State champions: Bowraville, NSW; Barcaldine, Queensland; Morgan, South Australia; and Myrtleford, Victoria.

A glass of Barrington tap water, judged in a blind taste test to be the freshest, best tasting water in the country, will now be submitted to the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting Competition to be held in West Virginia, an event known as the “Academy Awards of Water”.

Of course, our fingers are crossed for an Aussie victory. Apparently the team to beat for the coveted Best Water in the World title is the longstanding Canadian champion, from the boastingly named Clearbrook, in British Columbia.

The Water Industry Operators’ Association of Australia chief operations officer Craig Mathisen said that heats to determine State finalists had been held throughout the year, with samples judged on colour, clarity, odour and taste.

“Water can taste sour or acidic, sweet, salty, or bitter,” he said, without naming names. “Its mouth-feel can be drying, astringent, cooling, oily, chalky, tingling or metallic.” Ever the diplomat, he went on. “Any fishy, medicinal, alcoholic, flowery, marshy, septic, grassy, chlorinous or mouldy elements are considered undesirable.”

Australia’s first scheme to recycle sewage for drinking water will soon be operating in Perth.

He didn’t have to rub it in. “Tap water is an art form. That’s the reason for the water-tasting contest. We want to celebrate our unsung heroes – the water operators who work year-round to ensure we have water to keep us alive.” Whew.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the procedure, Australia’s first scheme to recycle sewage for drinking water will soon be up and running in Perth. You can’t say Perth isn’t facing up to its main water problem: its absence. The State Government wants treated waste-water to supply 20 per cent of Perth’s drinking water by 2060.

In a July poll 1400 West Australians were asked, “Would you be happy to drink treated waste-water?” Fifty-six per cent said “Yes”, 28 per cent said “No”, and 16 percent said “Gross, you must be kidding.”

But I’m encouraged by the majority of “Yes” votes to ask, “What has always been the most successfully grown plant in Australia’s gardens?” Answer: the lemon tree. And why is our most common backyard tree so healthy? Maybe because the Aussie lemon tree is traditionally and regularly fertilised with urine.

More precisely – and I’m speaking from personal experience — perhaps even the most sedate suburban Dad has encouraged his sons, as did his father before him, to wee on the lemon tree. Moreover, back levitra 20 mg cost in the olden days of the chamber pot under the bed, the lemon tree was where the pot was emptied.

Result? Thriving examples of the Eureka, Lisbon and Meyer varieties that grow enthusiastically anywhere but the coldest spots in the country. This is hardly news to Australians, whose climate encourages citrus, particularly the lemon, not to mention a vigorous human thirst and its natural aftermath.

As the old ABC gardening expert Peter Cundall once said, “It’s amazing. Urine is high in nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous, which citrus trees love. The best lemon tree I’ve ever seen was one in a barbecue area where a football team held their regular beer and barbecue nights. It was the biggest, most fantastic lemon tree I’ve ever seen.”

So: urine recycling. Our ancestors recycled it. As our water resources dwindle, why shouldn’t we use our wee? From Greece and across Asia, ancient cultures relied on urine to fertilise their crops.

The University of Technology, Sydney has been working on a modern way to do this: by urine diversion. This involves capturing and separating urine in special toilets and re-using the nutrients in the urine as fertiliser.

Basically, it needs a differently designed toilet (yes, men, you’ll have to sit down), with a barrier separating the urine and faeces, so the urine is diverted from the waste stream. The plan is for industry and government to collaborate on collecting all Sydney’s urine, and re-using it for agriculture in a cycle of nutrient – especially phosphorus — recovery.

Good luck with that one. But the world’s phosphorus supplies are running out. It’s essential for the existence of all life. To put it bluntly, if we don’t have phosphorus, we don’t have life. Our ancestors knew how valuable urine was — maybe that’s why they called it Number One.

Robert Drewe’s latest book, The Beach, an Australian Passion, is published by the National Library of Australia and is available here: the-beach-an-australian-passion

His other recent books The Local Wildlife and Swimming to the Moon are on sale here: penguin.com.au

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Ah, the hint of warmth in the air, that first gentle zephyr, reminds us that the season Australians like to celebrate is almost here again.

Summer: you’d think we’d invented it. Was there ever a people who embraced summer with such idealistic and sensual fervor? Who constantly wrote about it, painted it, photographed it, waged political battles over it? Who mythologized it?

Rhetorical questions. And of course when we think of summer we automatically think of the beach. And when we think of the beach nowadays, especially on the north coast of NSW, our minds turn to sharks, and suddenly we’re not quite as carefree about summer as we were ten years ago.

Regardless of our personal take on the shark attack controversy (and how strange that the words “shark” and “controversy” should ever occur in close conjunction, or that sharks should become a political issue) most of us agree that this question is so far unsatisfactorily resolved.

Sharks are just one summer puzzle for me. I’ve long thought about other slightly less serious beach questions. 1: Why does beach sand squeak underfoot? 2: Why do so many seagulls have one foot missing? 3: Most importantly, why, on entering the sea, does one need to pee?

Three different scientific reasons are given for the noise your feet make on the hot, dry sand as you make your way (if shoeless, then hurriedly, and in pain) from the shore to the car park and the ice-cream shop.

The first theory is that sand squeaks underfoot if the individual grains are dry, rounded and spherical, of similar size and free of pollution, moisture and organic matter. A layer of grains moves in unison over the grains beneath it, producing the squeaks. Even small amounts of pollution or moisture reduce the friction enough to silence the sand. Wet sand doesn’t squeak.

Other squeaking-sand theorists say that thin layers of gas trapped and released between the grains act as percussive cushions of vibration – hence the squeaks.

Nonsense, say a third group. The squeaks are produced by friction between grains coated with dried salt. I favour the dried-salt theory, if only because a boat’s deck – with no sand around – can make similar squeaks underfoot.

The case of the peg-legged seagull meets with even more varied responses. Some wildlife experts insist that one-legged gulls are just standing on one leg to rest. Yes, two-footed gulls can do that. But I’m wondering about the one gull in every flock that has two legs but lacks a foot and limps along on a stump. Visit any beach today and you’ll see this one.

Other experts say the disabled gulls have had their feet caught in fishing lines, nets or general rubbish. But who has seen this occurring, and in such numbers? And in environments miles from any dump or habitation?

Most children’s reasoning: that the gulls’ feet are nibbled off by fish while floating on the surface seems just as relevant. As does my son’s grim theory. He says seagulls are the ultimate beggars. They bite off one of their feet so you’ll feel sorry for them and throw them more chips.

And now for the important third question. Next time you’re at the beach, watch your fellow swimmers as they enter the water. They’ll dive under a wave, swim a few vigorous strokes, then stop, stand waist-deep, maybe clear their noses, and gaze nonchalantly at the horizon for a minute or so.

That’s the peeing phenomenon in action. And when you hit the waves, you’ll probably do the same. No need to worry. The ocean has the same effect on everyone, males and females, especially when it’s colder than the surrounding air. It’s the shock of the temperature change. Body temperature drops dramatically and you feel the necessity to expel urine to equalise things.

Incidentally, did you know that more Australians drown in ocean rips every year than die as a result of shark attacks, floods, cyclones, bushfires, snakes, spiders and all of the country’s other natural calamities combined?

According to Surf Life Saving Australia, two out three beachgoers who think they can identify a rip are wrong: they can’t. And contrary to popular belief, only 15 percent of swimmers caught in rips are overseas tourists. Most who die in rips are Australian males aged 15 to 39.

More than 160 people have drowned in rips around the coastline in the past 10 years. The SLSA says these numbers are a gross underestimate because viagra natura they were only confirmed when a witness saw how the victim was swept away. Many rip drownings occur when a person is swimming alone.

In newspaper terms, a rip drowning rates four paragraphs on page 11; a fatal shark attack gets the front page. But you knew that already.

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As she’d shown no previous interest in tubby 57-year-old male musicians with teased black hair, eye-liner and smeared lipstick, it surprised me that for her 16^th birthday last week my daughter wanted to see The Cure, the darlings of dark music lovers.

However, she attended the concert, enjoying it so much that she later asked those family members who were of Robert Smith’s generation to explain what genre The Cure’s music belonged to. “They’re Goths, aren’t they?”

A spirited discussion followed around the dinner table during which the terms “gothic rock”, “post-punk” and “dark and gloomy” were bandied around, and someone said “and now it’s syrupy pop stuff”.

I Googled Robert Smith, the lead singer, guitarist

and song writer, to see how he describes his music these days, and he said, “It’s so pitiful when “goth” is still tagged onto The Cure. I just play Cure music, whatever that is.” According to him, ”gothic rock is incredibly dull and monotonous. A dirge, really.”

According to Music News in 2006, The Cure’s primary musical traits are “dominant, melodic bass lines; whiny, strangulated vocals; and a lyric obsession with existential, almost literary despair.”

So there we were, vaguely confused and strangely nostalgic for the time (it seemed only yesterday) when Harry Styles from the boy-band One Direction was venerated on the birthday girl’s schoolbag and pencil box.

While noting that Mr Smith is currently worth $3.35 billion — for which amount every elderly male I know would gladly wear mascara and smeared lipstick in public – it got me wondering what “goth” actually meant now. Is it even worth mentioning for older readers that as a youthful sub-culture, goths have never had the slightest connection to the ancient Germanic tribes?

The goth subculture was initially influenced by gothic or eerie fiction, characterised by gloom and darkness, often with a grotesque or supernatural plot. Though endlessly fascinated with death, it seems to be the subculture that never dies. Goths have been putting on dark eyeliner, black hair dye and pale face, and influencing fashion and music, for the last 40 years.

However, the original Goths, according to the 6th Century historian Procopius, were “tall, fair-haired and handsome to look upon.” They were famed for their beautiful jewellery and architecture. Warriors of powerful build, the Goths (Visigoths in the west, Ostrogoths in the east) contributed to the almost complete Germanization of the Roman Army in the 4^th century. Despite being denounced by toga-wearing conservatives, the gothic penchant for animal skins even became the fashion.

Modern goths, I learned, are nowadays fragmenting into many sub-sub-cultures, including emos (emotional, overwrought goths), cyber goths (IT goths), corp goths (smart casual goths), steampunk goths (sci-fi goths) and mopey goths (goths who are even more depressed than emos).

In an increasingly gothic mood myself (characterised by gloom and darkness rather than by soldiering and jewellery) my research segued into other realms where current subculture terminology is often at loggerheads with the behavior or style of the original characters.

Vandals, for example, weren’t known for their graffiti or damage to train seats and public toilets. An East German tribe, they’re regarded by modern historians as perpetuators, not destroyers, as was once thought, of Roman Culture.

“Hoon”, the common Australian term for someone, invariably young and male, engaging in loutish behavior, especially driving a car or motor boat too fast, too noisily or too dangerously, is believed to have its origins in Gulliver’s Travels.

Linguist Sid Baker in his book The Australian Language suggested that “hoon” was a contraction of Houyhnhnm, a fictional race of intelligent horses which appears in Jonathan Swift’s 1726 novel.

“Yob”, meaning a loutish uncultured person, is a product of back-slang, whereby new words are created by spelling or pronouncing existing words backwards. “Yob”, derived from the word “boy”, only acquired a derogatory connotation in the 1930s.

‘Fighting Yahoos’, from Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.

It’s interesting how many words there are for louts, and how far back they go. The word “yahoo” was also coined by Swift in Gulliver’s Travels, referring to a race of foul, brutish creatures in the form of men. The term evolved to refer to a coarse, unruly, crudely materialistic person, and an American multinational technology company.

Surprisingly, Jonathan Swift, had no hand in naming our bodgies or widgies. According to the Sydney Morning Herald the first bodgies were former World War 2 Australian seamen, whose first gang, the Woolloomooloo Yanks, congregated in Kings Cross milk bars in 1948.

The Age suggested the term “bodgie” arose when rationing caused a flourishing black market in American-made cloth. “People tried to pass off inferior cloth as American-made: so it was called “bodgie”. When young guys started talking with American accents to big-note themselves they were called bodgies.”

Sounds dodgy to me.

Robert Drewe’s latest book, The Beach, an Australian Passion, is published by the National Library of Australia and is available here: the-beach-an-australian-passion

His other recent books The Local Wildlife and Swimming to the Moon are on sale here: penguin.com.au

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