The eagle-eyed amongst you (or maybe just those who haven't fallen asleep while reading - wake up at the back!) will remember I had a go about the lack of sportsmanship amongst the Aussie cricket team, a feature which has become increasingly prominent whenever they don the gear and grab the bat and a ball.
Well, while I had plenty of conversations with Aussie mates about this, mostly along the lines of, "what you talking about Pommy?" and some even sought to defend the cricketers' bad manners with all sorts of historical stuff, and frankly I'm surprised Gallipoli wasn't invoked - usually it is when the going gets tough - the point of today's sermon is that at last some other people have come out with similar sentiments, and this time they are Aussies. It's taken them some time but the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and a whole gaggle of former cricketers have all come out swinging, lamenting the loss of civility, manners and yes, sportsmanship. Good on yer, I say.
Sadly the message is not getting through to some - the other day several of the more surly members of the Aussie cricket team had to front up to a judicial enquiry at the Adelaide courthouse and sat there slouching in their seats in t-shirts and shorts, before a High Court judge. Now, I know we have a relaxed lifestyle over here and it is hot this time of year (and they were in Adelaide where the word suit is not in common usage) but really, least they could have done is given the proceedings some respect!
But no, it seems not.
Now, I at least will be polite and give you fair warning that there will be no more mention of sport in my blog, because it's just not cricket.

Yes, Four has gone back to pre-school today. I love the boy dearly but I was glad to hand him over to people paid to see he has a good time.
I was going to put Two into two days of day-care so I could get some work and some money to pay for his day-care but then I saw the stupidity of this, common sense has prevailed and now he'll not be going until next year. This means he and I will be able to do some advanced bonding (no, it's not illegal, madam) by which I mean he'll get my full attention rather than having to do with a half of it.
I have to say though that it'll put my thriller back a bit because I was expecting a couple of free days a week to just sit and write, but you know, the nippers have to come first. I'm sure Speilberg doesn't mind waiting a bit longer for the film script and Brad Pitt seems to be tolerably busy, so I don't think it'll matter.

Right then - Two is having his afternoon nap and I'm going to try and write some of my book, even though it's 35 outside and even warmer in here.
And by the way, my new book (the first one, not the thriller, though of course book one is thrilling too...) will be available soon. I'll keep you posted...

Writing a book can be hard. It can be frustrating, it takes time, you need to be able to think. None of these things are easy when you’ve got two young kids around. In fact, some English writer – I can’t remember who – said something along the lines of, if there’s a pram in the hallway no writer lives here.
Anyhow, as most of you know, I’m attempting to write the great thriller at the moment and I know how difficult it is just to get some spare time to write, let alone some spare time that’s quiet.
But, you know, perhaps that’s part of the deal. Perhaps your best work is produced when you’re up against it. JK Rowling as we all know (Merve, she’s a writer, Harry Potter? Oh, never mind) wrote her first HP as a struggling single mother, and there are loads of others who didn’t find hours of luxurious time to pen that next world-moving novel.
So, I was pleased to see a story on one of the email newsletters I get from the UK, about an American woman who juggled three young kids while writing a book which she’s now found a publisher for. I could see her struggling, see her tired and dejected, worn out, hardly able to keep her eyes open, but still working with a passion that burned. She wrote every spare moment, even in the back of her car while she waited to pick the kids up from school.
Not unnaturally I had this picture of a woman rising to greatness while under immense personal and financial pressure.
Then I went to her website. Here’s the link. This is the house she lives in. The one she already had before she started her book. I think you can see the nanny in one of thse rooms, handling three fractious kids, the ‘sitter’ as she puts it. Oh my, it made me laugh. No really.
Yes, writing a book it is a struggle, but for some there’s maybe a bit more struggle than for others...
Have a nice day.  

I did the Geek test and I'm happy to say I peaked at 15 per cent (story of my life, really...). I would have got it lower if I'd used a quill pen rather than this computer, but nevertheless I am quite proud of this achievement.

15% Geek

...as it was called, has gone. I’m talking about The Bulletin which if you don’t live in Australia may well mean very little to you, but it was this country’s weekly news magazine for 128 years, which is not a short time.
Now, they’re talking about its demise having to do with the internet which is a load of, pardon my French, bollocks. Okay, the internet has weaned some people off good quality journalism, those people who can’t be bothered to pick up a magazine for example, but no it went deeper than that.
If you placed The Bully side-by-side with Time magazine – also a news weekly – it just didn’t cut the mustard. Okay, Time has more people working for it globally but even in Australia, Time outsold The Bully and that’s without all the local content. Why’s that, then? Well, maybe, just maybe, The Bully was too Australia-centric. I'm not sure either that Aussies care for high-quality journalism, after all the surf is up and the beach beckons. Also, if they did we wouldn’t have Channels 10, Seven and Nine, staffed almost exclusively with what the head of Channel Nine recently called, “presenters who have fuckability”. I don’t think he meant they were fuckwits, though I can’t be sure given their onscreen ability, I think he meant they had to look good and have a certain, ahem, appeal, presumably to male viewers. When I worked in TV in the UK we preferred journalists, not vacuous blondes or bouncy brunettes with eyebrows that demand a team work on them before the curtain goes up.
Now, I have - I should say, had - a soft spot for The Bully. I worked freelance for them for almost three years and had over 30 feature articles published on eveything from autism to organic food, to immortality, nanotechnology, and people who can’t use roundabouts properly – I kid you not. Now, I thank them for the 80 grand or so but I’d rather they’d got their act together and kept me and all the other writers gainfully employed. Then again, the publishing company is now owned by a bunch of venture capitalists, not a media mogul – maybe, just maybe, that had something to do with it too...

In Sydney they have a couple of shops specialising in English fare. I’m talking about sweets and condiments you can’t normally get over here.
Now, I don’t normally buy this sort of stuff because I’m a When In Rome kind of a bloke but every now and again I just have to have Walkers Crisps or Heinz Sandwich Spread – it’s something in my genes.
So, I stocked up on the aforementioned and also bought Revels, Carburys Buttons (they make Cadburys here but it’s treated with a wax to stop it prematurely melting and it tastes, to use the vernacular, bloody awful), a Curly Wurly, Quavers, Pickled Onion Monster Munch, Twiglets, Marmite, Hula Hoops Spring Onion flavour, HP Fruity sauce (you can get normal HP Sauce here, thank the Lord!), Polos and Branston pickle, the spreadable one. Yes, I went straight for the health food.

Things I don’t miss about Britain would have to include (in no particular order) the class system, jobsworths, motorway restaurants, plonkers driving Audis, people who think they’re better than you, folks with loud voices and accents learnt in school, and stuffiness. Maybe stuffiness is the worst. I’m talking about people who don’t like you to have a good time. Now, I don’t mean we should all be running around naked clutching a barrel of Worthington E and singing bawdy songs, but you know, sometimes it’s good just to have fun and not be laughed, sneered or jeered at, or, yes, arrested.

Your Australia Day Checklist

• Overcook a variety of meats on a semi-hygenic BBQ
• Listen to the Choirboys
• Make a disparaging remark about English Cricket
• Do a reverse horsey in a blow-up pool
• Fill your togs with sand
• Exercise your democratic right to give dead-arms
• Go to a cultural event, like the fireworks

...and his black and white cat. Yes, you have to love him, especially during summer holidays when it’s about the only program the monsters nippers sit still quietly for a while and watch avidly. Don’t get me wrong, I love them dearly but Four never stops talking. Even when he’s watching a program or a DVD it’s, “dad, dad, what’s happening?”
“Well, you’re watching it the same as me.”
“I know, but I can’t hear.”
“Shut-up, Four!” shouts Two who is also beginning to use the vocals.
“No, you shut-up!” shouts Four and that’s the beginning of objects being thrown, punches exchanged (though they rarely hit each other, it’s like two drunkards going at it, there’s no control. Sadly I’m sure that will come).  
So today it is dull and rainy and just like Melbourne (yes, it’s cool too and I’m dressed all in black and I’m sitting outside on the pavement under an umbrella with a skinny half black sitting beside me (no madam, the coffee).
 
I’ve promised the kids we’ll play some games inside. I’m doing that today because we seem to be out every other day. We’ve been to just about every museum there is in Sydney (why are they all so dark inside, that’s what I want to know...), all the playgrounds north of the harbour bridge, all their friends’ houses and – when it’s sunny – an assortment of beaches.
I’ve also had a super idea for a new book which means aside from the thriller I’m writing now, plus the one I’m doing for the UK publisher, this blog, marking my students’ journalism papers, doing the cooking, breaking up kids’ fights, and baking cakes, I am busier than Postman Pat.
So, enough from me.
Well, until later...

Now, we’re in the middle of the iconic Australia summer here; the long hot days on the beach, the tanned bodies, the tang of the sea, the lazy swim, the surf, the cold ones (I don’t mean those girls from Curl Curl, I’m talking Coopers beer).
But er, hang on, actually, it is raining. Very heavily.
The temperature in Sydney is a very average 20C and the forecast is for more of the same next week. This follows a dismal lead up to Christmas and only a couple of days since then when it’s been good enough for the beach. Soon it’ll be February and then we’ll be looking back on the summer.
The thing is this, your Aussie is never prepared to admit the weather gets bad here. No, when it’s raining he or she will greet me (or any English person for that matter) with the hugely jovial, “yer must be used ter this”.
Sometimes – if you are unwise enough to say something like, so when does the summer begin, they’ll come back with, “yeah, must be too many of yer Poms over here”.
Saying the Aussie summer is less than perfect is like saying the Pope doesn’t believe in god, the cricket team isn’t the greatest thing since bread got sliced, or the Holden car is really owned by Americans, and has been since 1952.
When it’s summer in England and Wimbledon gets stopped for a couple of days you get it then too. “So, it’s yer summer over there, aint it? Must be, it’s rainin’ ho-ho!”
So let’s dispel a couple of myths. Lots of English people gathering in a country don’t cause rain to fall. If they did we would be godly and ruling the universe (frankly I think we should be, but then that’s another story); Sydney gets the same amount of rain in a year as Manchester, London gets less. Yes, we do feel at home in the rain because rain is good – well, unless you’re out in it for more than 15 hours of course, or you live near that river that floods in Gloucester – and rain means you don’t have drought. I like that.

Yesterday we went to buy some new kitchen knives. I know, I know, what could I have been thinking.
But you know, if you are going to prepare haute cuisine for your children day after day you need some proper sharp knives. (In reality it's not so much haute cuisine in this house, as hot cuisine, well except when we have salad of course).
So off we went to peruse the blades. I don't think I need tell you that children and sharp cutting implements don't go together, but then neither does drink and driving or sex and rock and roll, although I may be wrong on that last one.
As the shop assistant showed me the gleaming array of precision blades with their carbon edges, their ice-hardened blades, chamfered ends, one-piece tangs, and knife blocks which demand a whole kitchen top, the nippers idly looked at sieves and giant colanders and rolling pins.
I gradually got drawn further into the shop by the willing assistant as my hands wandered over beech handles, caressed a hand-carved oak-handled array of finest English knives, and marvelled at the beautiful metal artworked scroll on a set of Italian carving knives.
That was when I heard the clack of wood meeting wood and with a cry of "On guard!" Four came to the end of the aisle I'm in, pushed backward by Two who is also wielding a rolling pin and slashing at Four's pin with the sort of gusto not seen since D'Artagnan gave the cardinal's men a good seeing too. On their heads they're both wearing sieves and Four has a stainless steel colander he's using as a shield. The shop assistant looked at me and sighed and said, "At least they're not playing with the knives." At that moment Four shouted, "On guard!", dropped the rolling pin and snatched a large knife out of a knife block. Two, who never likes to be outdone, snatched up a knife sharpening steel and brandished it and said, "Guard!".
"Oh no," said the assistant, her hands on her face, "that's a Henckel! It's German! They'll cut themselves to pieces!"
"Really," I said, "they're that good then?"
She looked at me like I'd gone mad.
"I'll take a set."
And that was that. But I was just cutting the pork for sweet and sour tonight and Four said, "Dad! Look at this."
And I did and I cut my finger.
Yes, they're sharp. Very sharp indeed.

Well, according to Four, I do.
The thing is with kids, they always think their dads know everything (of course I do) but there comes a time in every son's life when he realises his father actually doesn't know everything, and in some cases actually knows very little at all. I've made it one of my life's missions to ask just about every bloke I come across when this pivotal moment arose (yes, they'll be a book in it somewhere, probably called, Dads - They Know Nothing Much At All.
A mate of mine discovered his dad wasn't invincible and God of all things when he beat him for the first time at pool. Another became disillusioned when he found his French-speaking father ("yes, son, I'm fluent, por favore") couldn't order a cafe au lait in Paris without getting milk shake.
Now, my father, Tom, always had an answer for everything. I'm not talking him baffling me with nonsense, or coming up with a maybe or a possibly. He knew the answer to every single thing you asked him.
But my moment came when Tom, who was watching TV, said, "huh, that's not true."
"What's that?'" I said.
"Interest free for 24 months. That's not true."
"But it is, isn't it?"
"But it isn't"
"But I think you'll find it is. They can't say that if it's not true."
"Huh! Loads of things are untrue and people say them all the time."
"Yes'" I said, "but if it's interest free, it's interest free."
"You think so?"
"Of course. They can't say that if it's not true."
He huffed and he puffed. "I think you'll find you're wrong! When you get that new sofa or that new Mercedes-Benz you'll find you're saddled with a massive debt you'll not pay off until the Horsemen of the Apocolypse come riding over the horizon."
"Who are they?"
"Well, it's a Christian scare story from the Old Testament thingey to do with Armaggedon. Remember I explained about that when you were eight? But let's get back to the point; interest free is not true!
"But you're wrong ."
"But you don't know! You're a mere boy and I'm, well, I have. I have -"
"Yes, I know" I said, "but that doesn't make you an expert on interest free schemes at Dixons."
"So you're saying the Nobel prize in astrophysics means nothing then!?"
"Well, when it comes to buying a new sofa on a 24 months interest free scheme with free insurance it appears not, no."

I went to the open air cinema last night. They have it here every summer for a couple of months and if you happen to be in Sydney it's worth going, not least because it's in the Botanical Gardens at the harbour edge, with the screen rising up out of the harbour. In the background there's the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and all those other Sydney things that always get shown on tourist ads. Really, if the film is unwatchable you can just look at the view.
Now, last night it was pouring with rain. They handed out free plastic ponchos to everyone and hundreds of us sat there in the downpour and watched Elizabeth, The Golden Years, or something like that, the film with Cate Blanchett and all the other usual suspects you find in Elizabethan dramas. I imagine these days Geoffrey Rush dresses in a ruff, the baggy trousers with a sword attached, and calls for mead at home - after all there'd barely be time for him to don the Australian national costume of stubbies, thongs and a hat with corks bobbing around the brim before the next E-epic comes along.
The thing was, the massive sea battle against the Spanish Armada takes place in a storm (this is one of the few factual accuracies of the film, your honour) and by that time the rain (that's in Sydney not in the English Channel) was belting down and the harbour was a seething mass of rolling waves crashing against the sea wall only feet from us and Queen Bess said, "Gentlemen in the holds of those ships is the Inquisition. We cannot allow it the reach these shores", I tell you, if there'd been a noticeable Spaniard in the audience someone would have surely forgotten themselves and tossed him overboard with a cry of "For England and glory, you papist!"

Four got a big castle for Christmas. I don't mean the stone one with a moat, though it took me just about as long to put together as it would have taken the crusaders to build Notre Dame (I think I've got that right...).
The thing is, he got a whole set of knights with it. These knights are formidable looking geezers. Even at 10cm tall (four inches in old money) they can frighten you, especially if you step on one in the dark on your way to the toilet at 3am.
I was just wondering which of the many splendiferous stories I have up my curlicued sleeve I would produce for you today when Four came in and said, "Dad, will you play with me? We are having a Party Battle with the knights".
I had an idea that a Party Battle would be where a set of knights are lured to the castle for a celebration - some kind of party - and then a double-cross the like of which Robin Hood or Owen ap Glyndwr would be well familiar with would erupt and much fighting with plastic swords and shields would result.
But no, Four's Party Battle is a whole lot more interesting.
"So, what do they do at the Party Battle," I asked.
"Well," said Four, "they come along with their swords and shields and axes and they fight, but they have to hop around on one leg. That's a Party Battle."
See, you learn something new everyday.

I took the nippers to the Australian Museum a couple of days ago. Four is getting very interested in, well, what I'd call stuff. He is very inquisitive and asks more questions than any man woman or anyone who hasn't yet decided what they are, can answer.
The AM is not what I'd call the most impressive institute. In fact I always come away feeling I must have missed something. Sadly I haven't.
Anyhow, the point is, in one part of the building there's a sort of eduction centre where the kids can hop on computers, look through microscopes, and finger stuffed wallabies, koalas and duck-billed platypus to their heart's content.
I was leafing through a book as Two visciously jabbed keys on a computer ('I am working', he said) and discovered that in your average Aussie backyard there are more reptiles than in the whole of the UK!
I have seen reptiles aplenty in gardens in the UK - though mostly at garden parties where they swagger around clutching a Pimms and talking loudly in a voice they got at private school.
In our garden we have two Blue-Tongued lizards (they're about a foot long and harmless unless you stick a finger in their mouths) about 4000 geckos, plus a family of Redback spiders (if bitten you have 20 mins to get to the hospital before you die...), some highly aggressive Sydney Funnelweb spiders (yes I know these are not reptiles...) which are also horrendously poisonous, a family of owls, some brown snakes (yes, they kill you too) and five possums who come out at night and shake the trees when everyone else is quiet. Sometimes an owl will snatch a small possum, so it is all go.

Now, today we are off to the local outdoor baths, where they also have a small beach and you can swim with the fishes, but not in an Italian way, you understand. Ah yes, it is netted, so at least we don't have to fend off the sharks.

So, after my spray - as they call it here - about the Cricketaroos, I got a visit last night from two men wielding, yes you guessed it, cricket bats. They banged on the door and demanded I open up. I slipped the latch and had a word or two in the gathering gloom of the evening as the cicadas chirruped.
They told me they wanted me to come outside. Presumably to play.
I asked if they had balls, but that only seemed to increase their liveliness. It seems they had travelled all the way down from Brisbane in a truck, knocking kangaroos over on the way. Apparently two of the hairy beasts were still attached to the bullbars, which is not all bad because you rarely get to see a kangaroo in Sydney.
One of the blokes apparently worked in the city's topless car wash as a finisher, whatever that is (it's a popular cultural venue for Brisbaneites I am told. I imagine it's packed every night because their cars get so dusty up there).
It all ended well when I called myself a whingeing Pom and promised to learn the names of every Aussie cricketer since Don Bradman and resit the new citizen test which asks questions like: What is the best country in the world and is Sydney or Canberra its capital?
Phew. I'm glad that passed amicably enough. I was getting worried I'd have to play a complete series out on the tarmac with the two men with mullets (that's the hairstyle madam, not the fish...).

In other news, I've finished proofing my book and it's now with the printer. I should have copies on sale by end of January beginning of February, which is most excellent news, especially as the Bentley needs a new wing mirror. Yes it's gold-plated and expensive but you know, you only live once. 

There's a big fuss on down-under at the moment about the cricket. For all of you who don't know (yes, Merve, I mean you) cricket is a game that can be played for five long days and still end in a draw.
Now, here in Oz, sport is the only game in town. What I mean is, this spat between the Indian team and Australia (Merve, we're a big island in the south. No, I mean southern hemisphere. Er, that's left at Hawaii. That's a small island in the - oh, never mind) is the top news item. Bonkers.
The point though is that the Indian team (no Merve, not red indians, these blokes have turbans and don't ride horses) has stopped playing and the tour hangs in the balance. Now, there was some dreadful umpiring (apparently only blind umpires could apply for this series) but the main reason is the Australian team's lack of sportsmanship, lack of grace, lack of good manners and appalling arrogance. Those are not my words, they come from two newspaper columnists here who live and breathe the game. That in itself is a revelation; your sports teams here can never do wrong in the eyes of most Australians - it is like a religion, a fanatical religion.
This sporting arrogance - you see it across all sports here except for tiddlywinks - is breathtaking. When England won the Ashes (sorry, I had to mention it) the English team commisserated with the Aussies in the most touching way - down on their knees on the ground, hugging their beaten opponents, shaking their hands. It's called sportsmanship. It's called grace.
When Australia won the Ashes back the following year there was a sickening display of triumphalism, the like of which I haven't seen since East Germany's athletes strutted the world in all their steroid glory. That time no Aussie commentators even mentioned it as the English were shown beaten and alone on the field.
This time, now that the Indians are threatening to throw away $50m in pay, well that's what the Aussies would get for a complete tour, all of a sudden there are calls for the oafish Ricky Ponting, Australia's arrogant captain, to be sacked.
We shall see what happens but don't expect the Aussie team to apologise for anything. They can't even spell sportsmanship.

Yes, I know. It's unfair to mention it. But what can I do?
As it happens, Christmas day was not very nice. I mean it was warm enough but cloudy and rainy. This is not unusual for Christmas - I'd say three of the past 11 Christmases I've spent here have been dull.
Having said that, Boxing day was a scorcher and we went down to the beach. Our nearest is a 10 minute drive away, which is handy.
I have to say I'm not much of a beach person really, I prefer the cool of the mountains but I was lying in the water listening to the clink of yachts' lanyards and the chuckle of the occasional outboard and kids playing on the beach with their screams and sometimes I'd roll slowly onto my front with the sun warming my back and open my eyes into the clear water and watch small fish, and sometimes a snapper, come gliding by and I'd think, hmm, this is why I live here.

Now, more later, and there is plenty to tell my friends...