How independent bookshops are still thriving, even in the age of Amazon

Remember the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks vehicle You've Got Mail? The one that's less irritating than Sleepless In Seattle?

Meg plays the delightful owner of a beloved local children's bookshop in NYC — the kind of place where it's always story time and the staff gush endearingly about Goodnight Moon. While Tom plays the cynical heir to a book megastore chain that's opening nearby.

As the megastore crushes the charming local retailer, Tom and Meg start corresponding anonymously via email, and fall for one another — when she finds out, it gets awkward, until of course they end up together.

The twist (sorry for the spoiler, but it came out in 1998) is that the book plutocrat doesn't swoop in and save Meg's store out of love. Not even a Hollywood suspension of disbelief could save small shops from megastores that are cheaper, sell everything — and serve coffee.

Fortunately, consumer tastes untwisted that twist. In reality, Hanks' Fox Books chain would likely have gone under more than a decade ago, eviscerated by ebooks and internet delivery, while Meg's Shop Around The Corner would likely be thriving.

Our love of friendly, knowledgeable, local booksellers has turned out to be more enduring than our love of a cut-price James Patterson.

The big bookshop boom

Every book-lover loves great independent bookshops — the sort where you can wander around for hours, torn because you want to purchase every book you see.

You'll find books you forgot you wanted to buy next to fabulous newcomers whose work you can't resist. And if you can't decide, or, due to your own personal good taste, are stuck for a gift for, say, the vampire-romance lover in your life, the staff will recommend something they've read personally.

My local megastore was the massive Collins Booksellers at Sydney's Broadway, which opened with the centre in 1998 — the same year as You've Got Mail. It closed in 2005 and was purchased by Dymocks, which then had 86 shops around Australia. But that didn't last — it's been a JB Hi-Fi for years.

Dymocks relocated to a smaller shop in the mall — but that closed last month. I can only count 46 shops on their website today — a major decline for one of our best-known booksellers. The venerable Angus & Robertson chain had 170 stores in 2006. Now it's a website, owned by Booktopia.

Then there was Borders, the now-defunct American chain that opened huge outlets across Australia. I remember my visit to the one at Melbourne's Jam Factory in 1999. Not only did it seem to have every book currently in print, along with a massive magazine section and a cafe, but people could linger reading for hours, and buying seemed optional. It blew my mind.

Even then, I vaguely understood that Borders' trademark deal of selling three bestsellers for the price of two had to mean someone somewhere was getting paid less, and that the local booksellers I've gotten to know growing up might not be able to match those retailers' scale, range or prices.

Even though I enjoyed Borders, I was uneasy when one opened opposite the iconic Readings in Melbourne's Lygon St. The local David, it seemed, would surely be crushed by the American deep-discounting Goliath.

But it was Borders whose 26 stores went under.

"When Borders came in, they said quite publicly that they wanted to put us out of business, and our customers took it personally," says Joe Rubbo, managing director of Readings.

"It was scary for a moment there, but we owe our customers a great debt. They stood by us."

Why the book megastore declined

While the American chain that inspired You've Got Mail, Barnes & Noble, still has more than 500 stores, there simply isn't a book megastore chain here anymore. If you want a vast book emporium, only a few CBD flagships have survived.

"You need to genuinely be in touch with the communities that you're serving, and that's pretty hard in a megastore and it's pretty hard in a shopping mall," Gleebooks co-owner and director David Gaunt says.

During their nearly five decades in business, the independent bookshop has seen many chain-store competitors come and go around its location in Glebe, Sydney,

The business has since expanded to outlets in Dulwich Hill and Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains.

"People were astonished when we, as a city bookshop, opened in Blackheath," Gaunt says.

"It works because there was a community ready to welcome a bookshop and happy to support it for the long-term.

"There's a love of books at the core of every child that's ever had their imagination spiked, fed and nourished by books.

"So the idea is to remind adults to plant and nourish the seed, and make sure people stay in touch and gain from a love of reading."

We still love books

We haven't stopped buying books. The market is in surprisingly good health, given the explosion of streaming and gaming that vie for our leisure time. If we ignore lockdown sales, the Australian book market is up 18 per cent in value between 2019 and 2023 — and given that e-books cost less than print, it's clear that we are hardly dumping print for e-readers, either.

Admittedly, plenty of indies have gone under, and you can still buy the most popular books at far below RRP at the likes of Kmart and Big W. The retailer might not have written a little card saying how much they loved it, but it doesn't matter if you would have bought the new Jane Harper regardless.

Amazon has taken sales from bricks and mortar shops too, of course, as has Booktopia. But browsing a website is far less enjoyable than browsing physical aisles — and they don't have a lovely gift wrapping service that supports a local charity, like so many booksellers do these days.

So while the market has undergone considerable upheaval, many of our most beloved local bookshops trade on, undaunted by the rise and fall of megastores, the slow death of major chains, and the e-reader revolution.

Dom Knight is the author of eight books, very few of which are available in any bookshop.

I’d protest the death of Fantales, but my teeth are stuck together

My fellow Australians, what have we done? First we stood by as the world’s largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef, was bleached as deathly white as a Mintie or the board of a major Australian company. Now, our callous indifference has consigned Fantales, the chocolate-covered caramels which are almost as hard to bite into as coral, to oblivion.

Manufacturer Nestlé has announced their demise not only because we’ve stopped eating them but because the machines that make them are breaking down. Presumably even they can’t cope with the sheer tensile strength of the world’s most impractical lolly.

Are we going to let this happen? Is the Fantale to be rudely consigned to the dustbin of Aussie confectionery history when even the Curly-Wurly is inexplicably still on shelves? Oh, cruel world that – with the internet – has invented a more efficient way to discover random facts about movie stars than reading tiny blue text on a crinkled, waxy yellow background while we glue our teeth together with Carameldite.

I was going to rush out and grab a packet to consume while I wrote about Fantales, but I stopped short. Not only have I eaten so many that I recall them vividly enough to give Proust’s madeleines a run for his francs, but to be honest, I don’t fancy more than two or three. Nobody ever does. There’s only so many you can eat before your jaw dislocates. So, I see Nestlé‘s point.

Fantales are a survivor from the mixed lollies era, when they were a key component of the white paper bags full of Minties, Jaffas, jubes, snakes, mint leaves, chalky bananas and those weird disembodied teeth that were the preferred, and often only, confectionery option available in our local independent cinemas. The corner shop sold them too, for an illicit sugar hit on the way home, after which we’d spend many minutes trying to extract bits of caramel from our teeth with our tongues and fingers before heading home to our ruined dinners.

Still, when the New York Times sought a uniquely Australian sweet for a 2018 roundup of idiosyncratic global treats, it chose Fantales. Surely partly due to their iconic status, but also because, let’s be honest, they’re a weird idea nowadays.

Once, the Hollywood bios were perfect for playing Guess Who with your family or friends during the tedious wait for the opening credits, or on a long car ride. It was a version of Hard Quiz where the most difficult part wasn’t the question, but physically consuming a sweet so you could justify unwrapping another. But these days, we’re on our screens in every dull moment, so celebrity trivia no longer has even the limited entertainment value it once did.

Quite a few people on Twitter mourned Fantales in the hours after the announcement. Several wondered whether they could freeze a batch for posterity – I congratulate them on finding a way to make them even harder.

But I suspect it’s not the opportunity for dental trauma that we miss, but simpler days of simpler pleasures. Objectively duller days, let’s be clear – but that was the youth many of us had, where going to the movies was not only hugely exciting but one of the few options available to break up an endless, sweaty summer holiday.

Sure, Nestlé could try to reboot Fantales for 2023. They could rename them Followtales, with wrappers featuring influencers like Logan Paul and Roxy Jacenko. But it’s surely time to say farewell, and thank you for your service. The remarkable thing is that Fantales lasted almost longer than cinemas themselves will.

Just don’t mess with Minties, Nestlé, or you’ll get an army of middle-aged candy lovers on the streets, trying to protest while our teeth are stuck together. It won’t be confected outrage, what’ll really be upsetting us is growing old in a world where 20¢ no longer buys enough lollies to satisfy our cravings for sugar and food colouring. And who will help our dentists buy beach houses in the future?

Vale, you sweet, sweet, infuriating sweets. But if we all make it to 93 like you, we’ll have had a better innings than most of the starlets whose life stories once filled your wrappers, only to be cut off halfway through, before we could guess who they were.

Dom Knight is a writer, broadcaster and co-host of the Chaser Report podcast.

Relax! Australian cricketers are back. But it’s not a double standard, right?

First published in The Guardian

Everybody relax – our male cricket stars are back from India. Or in fact from the Maldives, where they’d been whisked to safety from the pandemic that has been devastating millions in India who weren’t lucky enough to be whisked to the Maldives.

The players flew into Sydney Airport on Monday aboard a flight chartered by the Indian cricket authorities, who seem far more effective at repatriating Australians than our own government. And they’re now in comfy hotel quarantine in Sydney, as opposed to being isolated in Howard Springs, a place where there’s no hope of getting a decent laksa on Deliveroo.

This isn’t a double standard, though, and that’s the official position of the Australian government. The PM himself was eager to make it clear to reporters that [the cricketers] “haven’t been given any [special dispensation]”, because “NSW government is happy for them to come in over the cap”.

Over the cap – so, literally by special dispensation, then. Although it is a pleasant surprise to see this government going soft on queue jumpers.

Or was the PM instead trying to argue that our cricketers had received super-duper-special dispensation with a cherry on top? He was certainly keen to take credit for this piece of immigration wizardry, saying that the cap exemption was “something we insisted upon, and [NSW was] happy to agree with that”. The Morrison government had hitherto not dazzled observers with its enthusiasm for repatriating Australians from India, given that until just hours beforehand, it was a criminal offence.

To be fair to the players, though, they must have had a terrible shock, what with the sudden cancellation of the Indian Premier League just a few weeks after it became patently obvious to everybody, even Piers Morgan, that it should be cancelled. And nobody can begrudge any Australian citizen their safe return – it’s a fundamental human right, like ignoring Piers Morgan.

Nine thousand other Australians in India wanted to come home once the new strain emerged and the case count skyrocketed, but weren’t lucky enough to be cricketers. And some of them urgently needed to – Australia’s high commissioner Barry O’Farrell recently said that 900 of the 9,000 Australians waiting to return were classified as “vulnerable” by DFat due to financial distress or health problems. Only a handful got to board the first Qantas flight home. Why are the rest less deserving of safety than our healthy, wealthy cricketers?

Surely these extremely fit, young men could have spent a while longer in their luxury hotels, while the most vulnerable people got to chillax in the Maldives then board their chartered flight? If Steve Smith had given his seat to an immunocompromised grandmother, we would all have agreed to make him the next captain, and never mentioned the sandpaper thing again.

Instead, the BCCI, the game’s governing body in India, kept its promise to keep everyone safe, and Cricket Australia held a press conference to say that “their welfare is our absolute No. 1 priority” even though the players weren’t representing their country while playing in the IPL. Multiple Australian governments made sure the 38 players were waved through, and it’s rare for them to agree on anything.

Full credit to the BCCI for keeping its word – if only the Modi government was so determined to protect everyone under its care. But given the restrictions placed on Australians, the treatment of our cricketers feels fairly nauseating.

If these players want to represent their country, well, we’re currently running it like a pernickety boarding school, where anyone who wants to leave needs formal permission, and probably won’t get it. The most Australian thing our players could do right now is stay here, and make anyone who wants to play them go through hotel quarantine.

Still, they’re home now, and no doubt everyone involved has learned their lesson – no more unnecessary trips to risky countries just to play cricket, OK?

Not quite. On the very same day that they returned, Cricket Australia announced its squad to play in the West Indies in July. They’ll be visiting Barbados and St Lucia, places where the US Centers for Disease Control says there’s a “high” and “very high” level of Covid-19 respectively, and it advises people to avoid all travel.

But these aren’t just “people”, they’re Australian cricketers. Regular public health rules don’t apply – they can flit across closed borders with the ease of Tony Abbott dashing off to London for some trade adviser job.

So let’s hope Cricket Australia’s got more accommodation booked in the Maldives for the next tour. Perhaps the Indians could organise another plane? Our players won’t be getting any better treatment from our governments than they got this time, though. And honestly, how could they have?

Donald J Trump’s 10 Least Dishonest Campaign Slogans for 2024

Now that the former president and current Florida retiree has once again managed to escape consequences in the form of a Senate impeachment trial, he’s free to run again in 2024!

So, what inspiring slogan will he use to win over fewer than 50% of American voters for the third election in a row? Here are a few possibilities:

* * *

Make America Great Again, Again—this slogan lets Trump give himself a Mulligan after stuffing up on his first four-year attempt, just like he does on the golf course. This revision has the advantage of being an original slogan, as opposed to the 2016 version which had previously been used by Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barry Goldwater and others.

* * *

Make Me Immune From Federal Prosecution Again — why would Trump bother running again when he’s 74 years old and enjoying a deluxe retirement in his Florida resort? Here’s a reason that those of his supporters who are in trouble with the FBI for storming the Capitol will be able to relate to.

* * *

Make Javanka Powerful Again — America may not miss the time when Jared Kushner was responsible for fixing everything, or even have noticed, given his near-universal lack of success—but it’s a safe bet that Jared does. A second Trump term would also enable Ivanka to go back to awkwardly hovering at the edge of conversations between world leaders, and whatever else she did for the last four years.

* * *

Because It Feels So Boring Without Me—this slogan would definitely fire up the base, although it should be acknowledged that Joe Biden won the last election because voters wanted him to make America dull again, a mission he seems to be accomplishing with considerable skill.

* * *

Bring Back The Rallies—basking in the attention of rabid crowds was always the thing Trump liked most about running for office. Plus, in a few years Biden will have fixed the pandemic, so Trump can hold rallies again without epidemiologists inconveniently labelling them ‘deadly superspreader events’.

* * *

Because When I Watch TV All Day, I Want To See Myself On Screen All Day Again—the last few months’ slide into irrelevance would be a tough adjustment for anyone, let along a narcissist.

* * *

Be Bester—Melania’s contribution.

* * *

So I Can Nationalise Twitter And Get My Account Back—it’s hard to know which he’d be missing more at this point, between being commander-in-chief or having a Twitter account. But it’s almost certainly Twitter.

* * *

Because In The White House There Is A Red Button That Summons A Butler With A Diet Coke And I Really Miss That Button — the most convincing reason of all.

* * *

Because Otherwise The Nagging Voice I Hear At 2am Each Night Which Bears An Eerie Resemblance To My Father’s Will Keep Telling Me I Failed — unfortunately, not even a second term will stop that, Mr President.

Originally posted at domknight.medium.com

I'm more worried about Mark Zuckerberg than this government and its tracing app

The government has released its coronavirus tracking app, and people are worried about privacy. The concern is that "COVIDSafe" marks a descent into an Orwellian fever-dream that features actual fever.

I know this, because many people have said so on social media. And I know that after they hit send on those Facebook posts, the site automatically ticked the "worried about privacy" box on their profiles, so they can be offered gold bullion and VPNs.

A new app released by the government aims to help trace the spread of coronavirus, but how well does it work and what data does it store?

Our privacy is constantly being eroded, whether by CCTV, scammers or our beloved smartphones – search for “Google Timeline” or “iPhone significant locations” if you’d like to experience acute paranoia.

But the COVIDSafe app might just be the first privacy incursion that benefits us, instead of advertisers or the state. We’re a little short on rights just now – freedom of movement and association, for starters. I have to pretend to exercise just to leave the house. We can’t even enter Queensland – so there is some upside. But we need to be able to relax these restrictions while controlling new infections.

Of course, we shouldn’t have unqualified faith in a government that gave us robodebt and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton – although I still trust it more than Mark Zuckerberg.

Members of groups that the government frequently targets, like minorities and journalists, understandably won’t be convinced. Fortunately, they don’t have to be. We only need 40 per cent uptake of the app – call it nerd immunity.

Besides, is COVIDSafe really the app to usher in a scary digital panopticon? Every day, the app begs me to open it, because apparently it needs this for the Bluetooth connection to work properly on my iPhone. If it has to be full screen to reliably function, as some have suggested, my main concern isn’t privacy, but that COVIDSafe is a lemon.

If the government’s app strategy doesn’t work, the alternative is a more laborious, imperfect form of contact tracing – where the government also gets to find out our movements. Living in a society always means giving up freedoms for the collective good – and this seems a reasonable trade-off.

In future, infection control apps could become invaluable in flu season, or to control STIs. I’d also love an app that warned me of approaching anti-vaxxers – not because I’m worried about contracting their measles, but because I really don’t want to hear their views on vaccines.

That said, if the government introduces a more intrusive app, I will gladly take to the streets. But only with an app to tell me whether the people next to me in the barricades have COVID-19.

Dominic Knight is co-host of The Chaser Report podcast.

When 'Get Krack!n' took a crack at itself

Get Krack!n was already the funniest show on Australian television before Wednesday night’s finale tore its own premise to pieces. The Kates, McCartney and McLennan, have always targeted themselves as unsparingly as their genre, in the tradition of the two Larrys – Sanders and David – while adding an acidic feminist humour all their own. They even score consistent laughs from their chyron jokes, awkward overlay and irritatingly cheerful production music.

But the decision to get real-life Indigenous actor mates Nakkiah Lui (Black Comedy) and Miranda Tapsell (The Sapphires) to guest-host the final episode, playing upon their public images as an outspoken activist who appears on Q&A and an endearing, popular rom-com specialist respectively, enabled a commentary on race that took Get Krack!n well beyond its usual evisceration of morning television.

It was a watershed moment for the medium, not least when McLennan’s waters broke. Even McCartney and McLennan hosting a show packed with female co-stars broke ground, but this finale was all Lui and Tapsell’s. Unsurprisingly, both contributed to the writing. Tapsell’s advice on how to make it as a black woman in TV – "Be bright. Be breezy. Don’t make a white lady cry. Don’t mention genocide” – was devastating, as she purported to teach Lui how to fake bland geniality instead of challenging the audience with the reality of indigenous lives.

To steal another great joke from the show, Tapsell and Lui changed the face of mainstream Australian TV comedy, simply by starring in an episode of mainstream Australian TV comedy, which just goes to show how low the bar of mainstream Australian TV comedy is.

It was effortlessly hilarious, until it deliberately wasn’t, with the kind of superb one-liners mixed with sharp social commentary that feature in Lui’s own acclaimed plays, and made Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette a global phenomenon. Get Krack!n’s similar blend of comedy and anti-comedy also deserves a global audience. And I won’t spoil it by explaining quite how they did it – not when it’s available free on iView.

But perhaps my favourite gag was the throwaway line that snarkily dismissed one of our best known performers, when a production assistant gave  Lui "darker shapewear" that previously belonged to Chris Lilley. No white guys playing Tongan schoolboys here.

We must have more from the Kates, of course, but this episode asked a more important question. Why aren’t there many more Indigenous faces on our screens? And specifically, Lui and Tapsell, all the time? They’re such excellent performers that they nail their parody-presenting in every scene here – surely they’d out-host just about everyone who’s a daily fixture on network television?

In the meantime, we can only hope Tapsell and Lui keep “decolonising this shit” on a regular basis. Sunrise producers, you know who to call.

I'm planning to sleep through NYE

At midnight on December 31, as 2018 ticks over to 2019 and revellers’ cheers erupt across the eastern seaboard, I fully expect to be fast asleep.

Couples will kiss, singles will hug awkwardly, and Auld Lang Syne will be sung despite nobody knowing what an “auld lang syne” is. The air will be crackling with good cheer and, shortly afterwards, thick smoke from the fireworks. And I plan not be conscious for any of it.

I know New Year's Eve is supposed to be the ultimate party night, the one night when we all go hard and push through until dawn. These days, it’s also the one night where Sydney's allowed to stay open late. In Melbourne, it’s just another day of sensibly managed 6am closures, ho hum.

But as dull as I’m planning on being tomorrow night, I’ve had my fair share of late nights this year. And I’ve spent many of them the same way I used to spend NYE – awake long after midnight, hanging out with someone who can’t speak intelligibly or walk without falling over, and is liable to spew at any moment.

My nine-month-old daughter is an awful lot cuter than your average tipsy partygoer, however. And she frequently wears nappies and bibs, adult versions of which really should be handed out by the authorities on NYE. It’d beat most 3am portaloos.

I always worried that when I became a parent, I’d miss going out, and while I occasionally pine for a carefree night on the tiles - or indeed any kind of flooring - it's far easier than I’d expected to write off the biggest night of the year.

Everyone should experience a Sydney New Year's Eve at least once, but when you've lived here a while, the novelty wears off. It's always the same experience – gorgeous harbour, impressive fireworks, immense difficulty getting a decent view of said harbour and fireworks, police barriers everywhere, packed crowds, pissed crowds, and a commute home that’s so long and involves so much walking that no matter how hard you go, you’re sober by the end of it. By which time you’re so exhausted that you promise yourself you’ll watch it on TV next year, no matter what bizarre experiment the ABC serves up on its coverage.

And while I’d be spending midnight in bed even if the harbour display was promising to top the extraordinary twin spectacles they pulled off for the millennium and Olympics in 2000, I’m not entirely sold on firework guru Fortunato Foti’s plan to wow the crowd this year. 2018’s big innovation is pastel fireworks, in lime and peach, two shades more associated with gelato and activewear than eyeball-popping visuals.

I’m fascinated to know where he got the idea. Were fans telling Fortunato that they loved his fireworks, but wished the colours could be more muted? Are heritage authorities insisting that our fireworks match our Federation bungalows? Or is the country’s preeminent nanny state going to see in the new year with a giant replica of nanna’s favourite cardigan spanning the Harbour Bridge?

And what’s the plan for next year? Fireworks inspired by Fifty Shades of Grey?

I do pity the event designers, though, because it’s Sydney’s one night of getting a free tourism ad onto news bulletins around the world, and really, what’s left to do after all their past brilliance? They’ve done rain from the Bridge deck, fireworks from atop the Bridge span, and fireworks off the surrounding skyscrapers. There’s no structure left to launch fireworks from, except perhaps that one bizarre train that always rumbles across the Bridge in the middle of it all.

Sydney has also projected every conceivable thing onto the Opera House, from pinball machines to Alan Jones’ mobile number. What fresh ideas are left for NYE? I could only think of immolating a giant cruise ship, ideally one of the ones that blocks the view during Vivid. Or maybe we could make many architecturally conscious Sydneysiders’ dream come true and detonate the Cahill Expressway at midnight? Now that I would come out to see.

Thank goodness for the 9pm fireworks, which are pitched as child-friendly, but really, they’re parent-friendly – they let parents pretend that their kids have seen the main attraction before bundling them off to bed. They weren’t around when I was a kid, and I’m sure I ruined several parties for my mum and dad with my determination to stay up until midnight. These days, parents can start doing jelly shots at about 9.15.

But not me. Not this year. I’ll be happy to lie down next to my daughter’s cot and sleep through the last few hours of 2018 alongside her. I don’t need to say “happy New Year” at midnight – one is guaranteed; next year will be the year she learns to walk, talk, and hold her drink – as in, hold her own bottle. I can’t wait.

Besides, I want to get all the sleep I can before she wakes us, one hour into 2019. And then four hours into it. Auld Lang Syne!

Questions for the Sandpaper Three

This year has featured some spectacularly poor decisions. Peter Dutton’s leadership challenge, Justin Milne’s mutually assured dismissal and the Central Coast Mariners’ Usain Bolt misadventure were all epic pieces of incompetence.

But none holds a candle to Australia’s two best cricketers and a gormless newbie getting busted ball-tampering. After years of scandals about picked seams and sticky sweets, our tactical geniuses thought it’d be bonza to use sandpaper in front of multiple high-definition cameras.

It was a worse Bunnings slip-up than any barbecued onion. And those involved seem to be under the misapprehension that they can talk their way out of it. On Wednesday Cameron Bancroft fingered David Warner, saying that he complied with his request to ball tamper because he “didn’t know any better” and “just wanted to fit in”, like a 13-year-old at the cool kids’ table – except he was 25 at the time.

When I was in the 13Ds, my entire team knew better than Bancroft. We lost every match, and while I’m not sure cheating would have helped much, it never occurred to us to try.

Ricky Ponting called this twaddle for what it was – an attempt to “rebuild his brand”. I’m not sure whether Roxy Jacenko was involved (she appeared with the Warners while David gave that deeply unsatisfying press conference), but it couldn’t have been any worse if she started marketing Bancroft bows on Instagram.

Steve Smith told Fox Sports that he should have asked himself “if this goes pear-shaped, how’s this going to look?” Thinking about the optics of getting caught is certainly an improvement on his decision-making in Cape Town, but how about not cheating because it’s, y’know, wrong?

Smith’s revelations about the team management telling players they were paid to win were interesting, because Cricket Australia seems not to realise that it’s in the doghouse as well. All its hype about the awesome “summer of cricket” fails to acknowledge that this is a mediocre summer by comparison, and it’s partly to blame.

So where’s Cricket Australia’s year-long penalty? Why hasn’t it made one of the days of each Test free to say sorry for its mismanagement? Why isn’t the chief executive apologising at every home Test match, and better yet, padding up at lunchtime to be personally pelted by the Milo kids?

I want to see the Sandpaper Three play again, but they need to acknowledge they’ve permanently sandpapered the lustre from their precious personal brands. They won’t even get a sponsorship deal from Black and Decker.

And the next time anyone wants to interview them about the incident, they should respond like Smith should have when cheating was mooted in Cape Town - with a big fat no.

A message to visiting expats: shhh

At Christmas time, Santa isn't the only one circumnavigating the globe to deliver joy. At this time of year, it feels like the entire million Australians who live overseas fly home for beach time, family time, and frenzied catch-ups with those of us lucky enough still to be deemed their friends.

I love seeing my expat mates – they’re lovely, clever, entertaining people who are doing terribly well in NYC or Singapore or Kalamazoo or wherever is lucky enough to have them. But as our globetrotting pals regale us once more with their tales of their glamorous existence exhibiting avant garde paintings in Shoreditch or collaborating with the UN in Geneva or saving lives in rural Myanmar, I have one small request.

Beloved expat buddies, could you please refrain from those subtle, snide comments designed to show how utterly you’ve transcended Australia? You know the ones – about how you can’t have a global career in this backwater, or how we aren’t on the map for major events, or how you can’t imagine not being able to fly to Europe for the weekend.

We never contradict you, we just think quietly to ourselves that you’ve become a bit full of yourself since you bought that one-way ticket overseas – and you know how much we Aussies dislike people who are too full of themselves. Or at least, you used to.

It might also be prudent to cool it with those broad declarations about how bereft Australia is of intellectuals/culture/world-class anything. They only make you seem snobbish or uninformed.

Besides, we know living overseas isn’t necessarily so splendid. America’s full of guns, Trump supporters and Trump supporters with guns, whereas Britain isn’t shooting itself in the foot over Brexit, it’s trying to amputate the limb.

Patronising expats should take care, and remember they hail from the land of the boomerang. As unlikely as it may seem when you’re young, childless and career-driven, you expats often decide to move home so your kids can grow up like you did, in a comfortable, pleasant place with a good climate and quality, subsidised education and health care. You’ll find yourself wanting to spend time with your parents while you can – and getting their help with the kids.

Then, during Christmas catch-ups, you’ll hear your expat friends desperately trying to convince themselves that they’ve made the right decision, and you’ll wince with self-recognition. And then you'll smile, and remind yourself the beach they’ve flown halfway across the world to visit is a short drive from your house, and that living here isn’t so bad after all.

Why Sydney's still Australia's best city

Sydney is finished. As my dear friend Andrew P Street told the ABC yesterday from his new base of Adelaide, Sydney is a cesspit of overpriced houses connected by hopeless public transport, where you can't get a drink anywhere at all and every single cultural centre has closed down. The only tourist attraction in my hometown these days is tumbleweeds.

Nobody wants to live here anymore, he says, so every single Sydneysider is currently scheming to move to Hobart, the Gold Coast or even Adelaide. Sydney is a city that "punishes you for living in it", Andrew has written, as often as our courts are punishing Salim Mehajer.

Well, I'm convinced. We should all leave immediately. Go ahead — I'll sacrifice myself by being the last one out.

Hobart is waiting for you, and it's sort of near the amazing MONA! And how about the Gold Coast, which now has its very own train line? Get to it!

Okay, so that was a blatant attempt to push down Sydney property prices. But it won't work, because the fact is that for many of us, this city is the only place we'd consider living. Well, maybe Melbourne.

Admittedly, Andrew isn't the only friend of mine who has left Sydney this year with the unreasonable demand for a house with a backyard that's less than a forty minute commute from where they work. He's not even the only one called Andrew.

A few years ago, I was drinking with a bunch of commercial lawyers who were all bemoaning the impossibility of buying a place where their kids could frolic in even a modest-sized patch of grass.

Gosh, I thought — if none of you high-salaried corporate workaholics can afford it, how on earth can someone making a crust as a writer?

More Australians leave Sydney than move to it. The Herald recently published a study saying that 129 of us leave Sydney each day, while only 85 move here. But instead, people move here from overseas, as happens in places like London and New York, too. The result is a more diverse, globalised city. And while we may not have backyards, we get to live in a city that's one hell of a playground.

This town is full of people who are determined to stick with Sydney's unique blend of almost obscene natural beauty, cultural and nightlife (which is in many ways better than ever, thanks to the small bar laws) and food culture (still terrific), and all the perks that come with being a big city.

So, we move to smaller homes — I've been an apartment-dweller for nearly 20 years because I prefer being in the centre of things to having space. We mortgage ourselves to the hilt to get a tiny foothold into the city's property market, because we know it'll almost certainly be a great investment.

And guess what — property prices are actually falling in many areas for the first time in years. Slightly. We'll soon be able to afford housing again, in only 80 or 90 years' time!

Just this past week, I watched one of my favourite bands play the Opera House, discovered a hidden underground cocktail bar, had truly excellent sushi and watched a seriously funny play written by a fellow Sydneysider that was all about the complexities of contemporary Aboriginal culture. I hardly spent any time in my apartment except to sleep.

Sydney's is headed towards the diversity and vibrancy, but also the population density, of Manhattan. That comes with innumerable benefits but some enormous challenges. We need to lift our game in all sorts of areas — public transport and affordable housing among them. But personally, I can't imagine living somewhere where I wasn't a cheap bus ride away from some of the world's best beaches.

Well, unless I got offered a great job in Melbourne.

Have we been wrong about Canberra all these years? Nah

What if Canberra became fabulous and the rest of the country didn't notice? What if the negative impressions formed when we were forced to meet our local MPs during that mandatory Year 6 visit to Parliament were wrong?

Well, that's precisely what no less than the Lonely Planet guide reckons has happened.

Yes, it's Canberra's moment of recognition for something besides being the nation's most notorious compromise after the NBN.

A few years after recognising NSW's oft-overlooked second city of Newcastle's transformation to an artsy, hipster enclave of relaxed cool, the LP team has returned to lavish praise on NSW's third-biggest city.

Canberra takes third position in the list behind Seville, the Spanish city that tourists ignore because it's not Madrid or Barcelona, and Detroit, a place which it will be news to just about everyone isn't still a decaying hell-scape.

In other words, this is a list of cities that nobody currently visits. I hadn't even heard of several of the cities on the list (Matera? Guanajuato?) and they've included San Juan, Puerto Rico despite the hurricane. In other words, it's an incredibly contrarian list.

But even though it was clearly drawn up by the kind of people who bore us at dinner parties by raving about places we'll never visit or want to, Canberrans are understandably delighted by the fact that Lonely Planet has ranked them above such tourist Meccas as Antwerp, Oslo and Kaohsiung.

But before we all swallow our pride and, for the very first time in our lives, visit Canberra by choice, let's look at the list of reasons for LP's accolade, shall we?

'Packs a big punch for such a small city'

That's a pretty big qualifier, making Canberra sound like the little engine that could, in keeping with its extremely little railway station.

And sure, Canberra is incredible — for a city that's a 10th the size of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

It's a thriving metropolis, compared to, say, Dubbo. But is it must-visit in 2018? Let's look closer.

'National treasures are found round almost every corner'

This is undoubtedly true, because despite its size, Canberra is packed with national-level institutions — more galleries and museums than any child could stand being dragged around, and if you're especially nerdy or a negligent dual citizen, there's also the High Court.

Being a confirmed dork, I've always loved visiting these places, and the NGA is one of my favourite public buildings in the country.

And of course it should be noted that its oversize institutions are all courtesy of our tax dollars, including the Parliament, which was, at the time of construction, the most expensive building in the world.

Our politicians were typically generous to themselves when they built three parliaments (including the ACT's) within the city's first 100 years.

But does this mean Canberra's institutions are better than other Australian cities'?

Of course not. If I was advising an overseas visitor where to go for an amazing museum experience, I'd send them up the Derwent to MONA.

I will note though, because it still irritates me whenever I visit Melbourne, that Canberra's National Gallery is an awful lot more "national" than Victoria's.

'Exciting new boutique precincts have emerged, bulging with gastronomic highlights and cultural must-dos'

If you read further, you'll learn that this basically means that you can get good coffee in Braddon. LP is also into locavore dining and sampling wine from the local vineyards, just like several dozen other Australian regions.

As for the "cultural must-dos", I couldn't find much on their list beyond the folk festival and Floriade. (They've got a writer's festival now, but doesn't everyone?)

LP's editors are fans of the emerging regions like NewActon (note the lack of space), which is almost as dorkily Canberran a name as "Civic" — I haven't been there, so I'll take their word for it.

But LP's list of Canberra's best sights is almost exactly the same stuff we visited in school — the NGA, Portrait Gallery, Parliament, War Memorial, Questacon — and the Carillon, which I'm still not entirely sure why my Year Six class visited in 1988.

'This is the first year that Canberra will host a Test cricket match at the picturesque Manuka Oval'

Yep, Australia takes on Sri Lanka in 2018, and that's a genuine reason to visit — unless you're from Hobart, in which case you're bitter that Canberra stole your Test.

It seems churlish to note that this hardly makes Canberra a must-visit destination as opposed to any of the cities that get Tests every year, so I wouldn't dream of pointing it out.

'The Australian War Memorial will take centre stage as it hosts the 100th anniversary of the WWI Armistice'

I don't want to belittle the great job the War Memorial does each and every year.

But as it's hosted several compelling centenaries recently, including Gallipoli, this feels a little bit like they were already running out of reasons why one must visit Canberra in 2018 after, um, the second one.

'Significantly, Canberra is establishing a permanent Reconciliation Day'

And the third and final reason to visit in 2018 is a day off for non-visitors — from next year the state's public holiday calendar includes Reconciliation Day "to symbolise commitment to tolerance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians".

Sure, it's a nice idea, especially as it replaces the incredibly ephemeral "Family and Community Day", which sounded like a day designed by, well, public servants, but it's as yet unclear what there will be for visitors to do in Canberra on this day.

'Criminally overlooked Canberra…'

Now, c'mon. I know that they have to come up with new places to visit every year, but every Australian is forced to visit Canberra at some point, so we aren't exactly overlooking it.

Canberra is grand boulevards leading to roundabouts which accidentally return you back onto the exact same boulevard you just drove down — Burley Griffin designed it that way so visitors couldn't escape.

Sure, it's leafy, and packed with major institutions, but if you go hunting for buzz or soul in Canberra, the closest you'll find is a rabid Kingston bar during a sitting week.

I'm fonder of Canberra than most — I find it genuinely pleasant, I love the modernist architecture and the "bush capital" vibe, and unlike almost everyone, I'm actually interested in politics.

I understand why people enjoy living there, and especially raising kids in Australia's only city designed for bikes.

Last time I went, I was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of new, cool bars serving craft beer and great cocktails, and terrific eateries of the sort you now find in every other Australian city or major town.

But anyone who heads to Canberra next year expecting it to be vastly different from the place we toured by bus at the age of 11— or even transformed the way that Newcastle has been in recent years — risks being as frustrated as an out-of-town motorist who can't figure out where the roundabout exit is.

The five worst arguments for voting 'No'

Today, the High Court is hearing arguments about the same-sex marriage plebisurveythingummy, which, in the opinion of constitutional guru George Williams, is likely to be struck down. But while the silks slug it out, what better time to look at the arguments that have been playing out in the public space?

The curious thing about the No campaign is that the arguments advanced rarely have much to do with the central question of whether two people of the same sex should be allowed to enter a secular marriage.

So let's take a look at some of the things the No campaign has been talking about instead of the question being posed in the ABS one-question questionnaire — "should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?"

1. When a man loves a bridge

A slippery slope argument is when you argue that allowing one thing will inexorably lead to a far worse thing. Eric Abetz suggested that marriage equality could subsequently lead to people marrying the Harbour Bridge because "why not?" And full credit to him — I've never previously seen a slippery slope argument involving an actual slope.

But let's answer his question. Bridges, at least as far as I know, are not sentient beings able to consent to marriage. Besides, last time I checked, the Harbour Bridge was very much a pay-to-play operation, if you get what I mean.

The broader problem with slippery slope arguments is that defining precise limits on things is essentially what governments do. The Medicare schedule, for instance, precisely delineates what the Government will pay for, and what it will not.

Sometimes these lines can move over time — but again, that is what government is supposed to do. Australian governments once prevented Aboriginal people from marrying non-Aboriginal people. Now, they don't, because we know better. Ending dowries, changing ages of consent, no-fault divorce — all evolutions in marriage.

Nobody thinks you can marry a road, and I know this because I've been trying to make an honest span of Brisbane's Go-Between Bridge for years. Besides, Sydney Harbour Bridge fans know that the Bradfield Highway already is very much hitched to the Cahill Expressway.

In recent days, Cory Bernardi has made his own version of this argument via a "pink rainbow Trojan horse", which looks so much like a My Little Pony that he may well accidentally convince impressionable young girls that marriage equality involves rainbows, sparkles and magic friendship. Which, to be fair, it does.

2. Kevin Andrews' cycling buddies

Our politicians love arguing via analogies, which is where you try to make a point about something controversial by pointing out something uncontroversial. This rhetorical device is known as the straw man.

In the early days of this debate, Coalition backbencher Kevin Andrews made an analogy between same-sex couples and his cycling buddies.

"I have an affectionate relationship with my cycling mates, we go cycling on the weekend," he said, invoking an image of middle-aged men in cycling garb that many of us are still frantically trying to purge from their retinas. "But that's not marriage."

Well, no, unless the Pollie Pedal regularly transitions into a Polyamory Pedal — but Andrews' point seems a better justification for a ban on Lycra than a ban on gay marriage.

Not all "friendly" relationships should be recognised via marriage — well, yes.

As Wizard of Oz fans know, straw men generally display more logical acumen than this.

Perhaps the most generous thing that can be said here is that in such a heated debate, it's lovely to have at least one thing on which we can all agree.

Which is not to say that if the law changes, two male cycling mates shouldn't be able to get hitched if they so desire. And if they do, Kevin Andrews would no doubt recommend that they have some marriage counselling beforehand.

3. Political correctness gone mad!

Tony Abbott, who has a particular genius for opposing things, claims that people should oppose same-sex marriage if they don't like political correctness — which is of course, well beyond the bounds of the very limited question being asked by the ABS.

"I say to you, if you don't like same-sex marriage, vote no," he said, which is indisputably sensible advice, as that's the question on the table.

But then he went on. "If you're worried about religious freedom, and freedom of speech, vote no. If you don't like political correctness, vote no — because voting no will help to stop political correctness in its tracks."

This feels a bit like tone policing, fittingly for a Tony who used to live in a police college. Tone policing is a kind of "genetic fallacy", where you look at where an argument came from instead of what it says.

Here, Abbott is discrediting an argument by focussing on the way people express it — so instead of judging marriage equality on its merits, you reject it because it's just another instance of how namby-pamby lefties are always whining on about some vegan intersex poetry, or some other equally crude stereotype.

You reduce an argument to just more "blah blah blah" from the usual suspects. But even though many of those on the left can admittedly be incredibly annoying, it doesn't mean they're wrong.

Similarly, Tony Abbott isn't necessarily wrong on occasions when he's sober just because he sometimes enjoys the company of Kevin Andrews and Peter Costello more than most people would imagine possible.

4. Won't someone think of the children?

This is a favourite of Lyle Shelton from the Australian Christian Lobby, and is what's known in formal logic as an appeal to tradition — the view that because something has long been the case, it must therefore remain so.

But even though some of Australia's social mores are derived from Christian societies in Europe, our Parliament is constitutionally barred from imposing one religion on all of us, and the current debate is about secular marriage of the sort already performed by celebrants for those seeking to avoid the involvement of the church.

Of course, the Anglican Church itself was created so Henry VIII could get divorced — and let's not forget that Jesus was raised by a man who was not his biological father, which might suggest the virtue of sympathy for blended families.

The idea that kids need the active involvement of a father and a mother to be "normal" is not borne out by data, or in the many same-sex and single-parent families we already have, but it remains powerful after centuries of being the social norm.

Of course, this has very little to do with the question at hand. Lyle Shelton is making a case for non-straight couples to be prevented from having children.

But they already can, and nobody appears to contemplate preventing them, so the proponents of this argument instead uses their concern to justify his opposition to same-sex marriage.

The survey question does have one clear connection to children, as answering yes would allow the many same-sex couples who currently co-parent to get married and some conservatives — such as David Cameron — who believe marriage is a precious source of familial stability support same-sex marriage on that basis.

5. What if it teaches people it's okay to be gay?

"Kids in Year 7 were asked to role-play being a same-sex relationship", warned one of the women in the Coalition for Marriage's first ad. I remember studying Macbeth in school and being asked to role-play both the Scottish king and his wife, and somehow that hasn't turned me into a mass-murderer. I also acted out Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in a high school English class, and so far my marriage has yet to descend to anything like those depths, fortunately.

Many of these arguments display a discomfort for gay and lesbian people in general. While of course people are entitled to their private views, acting on that discomfort contravenes antidiscrimination laws, and tends to make people social pariahs — sorry, young lawyers.

I wish kids in my high school had been asked to role-play gay relationships in Year 7. "Gay" was used constantly as a slur in the playground. Some of my classmates have now come out, and I just hate to think how difficult we must've made things for them.

As opposed to the other arguments listed above, there is no rhetorical sleight of hand going on here. The two options are a society where many people are told that their sexuality is wrong and suffer as a result, or a society where consenting adults are allowed to love other adults as they please.

We've already resolved the legality question of homosexual sexual relationships. Nobody is seriously proposing recriminalising that, thank goodness.

But some of the arguments proposed by the No case betray discomfort with those relationships in general.

And while "you can say no" to marriage equality, as the Coalition for Marriage reminds us, we can't legally say no to homosexuality, not any more.

So it's now a question of whether we take the next step beyond legalisation, and treat gay and lesbian relationships as truly equal.

If Trump can be president, why shouldn't Tom Hanks be next?

Whether you consider yourself one of "Trump's Aussie Mates" like Mark Latham, or view the President-elect as one of the Four Businessmen of the Apocalypse, one thing cannot be denied about Donald J. Trump. Of all the candidates who ran in the US election, he was undoubtedly the most entertaining.

Hillary Clinton was predictable, safe and samey, a policy wonk who probably spends her holidays devouring briefing papers by the pool. Whereas Donald Trump spent his career slapping his name on gaudy buildings, and firing people on television. If the voters had been looking for traditional qualifications like experience, it would have been as easy as choosing between Trump University and Harvard.

But they weren't. They were looking for something to shake up the status quo and add some entertainment to the dreariness of politics. When Trump speaks, policy challenges seems simple, and victory seems inevitable. Many Americans knew and liked him, so they gave him a shot.

I loved watching The Apprentice, and not because I enjoyed the "business" tasks, which generally involved cheesy promotion for Trump-brand bottled water and neckties. It was all about Trump in the boardroom. He's a brilliant, unpredictable performer, and his confidence and charisma were compelling.

I didn't come away from the series convinced that this was the man to guide the free world through a complex, threat-filled era. But it left me well disposed to Trump, so much so that I once stayed in his Hawaiian hotel out of sheer curiosity. And I was certainly keen to keep watching.

Trump's carnival barker talents made him an unprecedentedly successful first-time campaigner. He cut down his Republican rivals with brutal, brilliant attack lines, and then crafted a message that connected with swing state voters. Despite a long career of being in it for himself, he convinced millions of Americans that he'd fight for their interests as effectively as he has fought for his own. Voters agreed that they needed a president who wrote the  who wrote the Art of the Deal, even though we learnt during the campaign that somebody else had.

Ever since Trump descended those escalators to launch his campaign, he's been all we've talked about. His presence dominated even the debate that he boycotted. Covering the campaign on ABC Radio, I was constantly drawn to the candidate that our audience knew, and who wasn't another cookie-cutter Republican.

Reading a transcript of his speeches at his rallies, he seems rambling – the Ross Noble of politics. But watching him is a far more engaging experience. He was selling the same product as on The Apprentice – Trump, the passport to a better life. He lives in a giant penthouse atop a skyscraper with his name on it, the clearest embodiment of the American Dream since Gatsby – and there's no sign of a tragic ending.

Celebrities have done well in American politics before – Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and who can forget Jesse "The Body" Ventura? But Trump nevertheless seems like something new. The self-promotion abilities he honed as a celebrity businessman and TV presenter made him an unbeatable politician. How long until others with his communication skills make a similar move into politics?

Wouldn't Australians respond better to a budget delivered by Kochie, or a plan to improve public health crafted by Commando? And wouldn't Lisa Wilkinson or Waleed Aly retain much of their adoration as prime minister?

We have our own businessman-turned-public figure-turned politician in The Lodge, of course, but Malcolm Turnbull must envy Trump's unfiltered candour. Every time he speaks his mind on an issue like the republic, his colleagues get nervous.

The closest analogy in our system is Derryn Hinch, whose long media career has prepared him perfectly for the Senate. His maiden speech, full of outrage yet tinged with humour, sounded like an editorial on his old TV show. We can't elect engaging mavericks prime minister, because of the party system, which certainly seemed to hold back Peter Garrett during his time with Labor – but personal popularity can certainly get them to the crossbench. Ray Hadley and Alan Jones could well follow him, if they can stomach the pay cut.

Machine politicians are so buttoned down and media managed nowadays that anyone different intrigues us. Even Rod Culleton has charmed many Australians with his Darryl Kerrigan-esque struggle against the legal system.

So, don't be surprised if the Democrats try to beat Trump with an entertainer of their own. There's a growing call for Tom Hanks to unseat the other side's celebrity president. Maybe Meryl Streep will step up, or Alec Baldwin will run in character?

If Trump is a disaster, we will no doubt return to safe but bland Hillary types. But if voters continue to value personality and popularity above policy nous, we could be seeing the first in a line of President Trumps, with Ivanka next. And perhaps prime minister Richard Wilkins isn't so implausible here, either?

2016 might be ending, but we can expect worse in 2017

David Bowie. Alan Rickman. Prince. Muhammad Ali. Leonard Cohen. Sharon Jones. George Michael. Carrie Fisher. The list of the icons that we've lost this year reads like a morbid update of We Didn't Start the Fire.

At times, the deaths have come so rapidly that we haven't had time to process one before being slugged by another. In January, David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Glenn Frey within eight days. And just since Christmas, George Michael, Carrie Fisher, and then her mother Debbie Reynolds.

We talk of 2016 as a particularly awful year. It's as though a temporal supervillain is stalking our most beloved celebrities. Artist Chris Barker has been compiling images of this year's losses into a 2016 remix of the Sgt Pepper's cover – he's now run out of room.

As George RR Martin – whose own demise is widely feared by fantasy aficionados – wrote this week , "Death, death, and more death … please, let this wretched year come to an end."

Of course, it's not as simple as the calendar ticking over. The BBC tested the perception that 2016 has seen an unusual outbreak of celebrity deaths by counting the obituaries it has published. The first four months were an outlier, but overall there had been a consistent increase since 2012. So there were more this year – but the years ahead should be worse still.

BBC obituaries editor Nick Serpill says this is because "we're now half a century on from the flourishing of both TV and pop culture in the 1960s, which massively expanded the overall pool of public figures." It makes sense, especially factoring in the post-war population bubble. And in most cases, it's Baby Boomers whom we've been mourning.

To Gen Xers like me, these losses feel particularly shocking because we're losing people who've been superstars for as long as we can remember. Let's Dance, Diamonds and Pearls and Faith were on high rotation at our place during my childhood, and those artists' peak popularity coincided with the advent of music videos. They really were everywhere.

I was born the year Star Wars came out, so Princess Leia has been a hero since I was old enough to have them. And like so many, I have learnt of Ali's feats with no little awe.

Once, the icons on our walls were religious – now they're actors, athletes and pop stars. We once memorised prayers and mantras, now it's lines, lyrics and stats. Cultural highlights like a big album or movie serve as the waypoints in our own lives.

Pop culture helps us form our own identities, too. So many have said that Bowie helped them understand their sexuality, and that Leia inspired them by proving women could be heroes instead of needy damsels, and that Ali made them feel proud of their ethnicity or religion. Many of these artists pushed the boundaries of what's permissible, and the rest of us followed behind them.

It might seem strange to mourn people who simply made music, or played other people on screen – and were paid well to do so. But we do it because life is about more than politics and economics, and culture is what we do with much of our free time.

We don't gather around the fire to hear the village storyteller, we gather in darkened halls to watch movies, or plays, or hear music. And when we mourn a cultural figure's death, we are acknowledging what they did for us when they lived.

Previously, the only collective space for mourning was on the streets, where Londoners congregated after Princess Diana's death. But now our primary shared space is online. We no longer don sackcloth, or tear our hair, but we still perform public displays of grief.

Nowadays, we try to bundle up our shock and sorrow into words that somehow capture those feelings, and we publish them on social media. All year, we've been finding the words to say what these departed heroes meant to us. And when other people leave a reply, it reminds us that we're not alone in feeling this way. This is perhaps another reason why 2016 feels so sad – because we've all mourned together, all year.

Despite the sorrow threaded throughout this year, each loss has also provided an occasion for celebration. Whenever we lose someone, we're reminded to enjoy their work all over again – and doing so makes us confident that it will live on. Because while death is an inevitability, the greatest artists never truly leave us.

Visiting the world’s oldest café

I love cafés. I love proper espresso coffee, idle chatting while I sip it, and those little cakes that are just small enough to let me pretend that they’re not unhealthy.

I like my water served sparkling, my toast with ‘smashed avo’, and I like using my local café as a ‘coffice’ even though that’s the worst portmanteau word besides ‘webinar’.

Yes, I’m an inner-city, lattè-sipping, walking stereotype, so when I recently visited Paris I made sure I visited as many of them as humanly possible.

French cafés are uniquely atmospheric, with those distinctive tiny circular marble tables and wicker chairs, and they boast lots of streetside seating where you can linger while you observe the passing parade. They serve breakfast in the morning, supper late at night, and everything in between, and stopping by for an omelette or croque is an essential part of visiting Paris. They’re fully licensed, with beer on tap, and if it’s that time of day, the waiter will be happy to recommend un petit aperitif.

The coffee that gave such establishments their name isn’t exactly a strong point – the espresso quality doesn’t often match what we’re used to in Australia, but they’re belatedly learning from their Italian neighbours. The super-strong hot chocolate is almost worth the resultant clogging of your arteries – our waiter poured the milk at our table, which was a nifty trick.

But one particular café caught my eye when I was walking through the Latin Quarter. Le Procope has a sign outside saying that it was founded in 1686. I was astonished. Even though visitors to Europe become immune to all the ancient buildings everywhere, that seemed a very long time for a café to operate in one location.

And so it is, because Le Procope is the oldest café in the world. And while some say there was an earlier coffee-house in Marseilles, Procope’s still there today, and by the sounds of things they were Patient Zero for the infectious idea of sitting at any time of day or night for a chat over a non-alcoholic beverage.

The place was founded by Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, originally from Palermo, and alongside the coffee, which was still a relatively exotic beverage back them, he served Italian sorbets – which are still on the menu today. As bizarre as it may sound nowadays, coffee was previously served in taverns, but Francesco served it in porcelain cups in a dedicated space, and the idea took off.

Le Procope was soon packed with local intellectuals from the Sorbonne and the nearby Comedie Française theatre. Napoléon was a customer, and most of the city’s intellectual establishment attended over the years, with Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac and many other prominent writers among the regular patrons. Revolutionary figures like Robespierre and Danton made it their headquarters, and even Benjamin Franklin features on the list.

When we visited, we were taken aback at how posh the place was – it feels like a Victorian-era boutique hotel, with elegant wallpaper, red leather banquettes and beautifully polished wooden fixtures, along with impeccably dressed waitstaff who made me feel decidedly underdressed. The place was also enormous, with two levels, each with several rooms – all of its famous patrons across the years could probably have visited for coffee simultaneously.

Happily, the prices were far from exorbitant, especially given the place’s storied history. We sat and ordered a mixed dessert platter and some tea (it was too late at night for coffee, sadly) and soon found ourselves working our way through a scoop of raspberry sorbet, a shot glass full of tiramisu and a chocolate pudding – quite a lot of food for 11 euros, including the tea!

In keeping with the place’s traditions, we sat and chatted for quite a while, and were never asked to move on despite our relatively modest bill. It was hard to imagine anyone plotting revolution in such elegant surroundings, but for all we knew, the ringleaders of the strikes that had been paralysing the city might have been in a corner plotting their next move.

The most famous cafés in Paris, Les Deux Magots and the Café de Flore, are just down the road from Le Procope. What’s more, Sartre, de Beauvoir and their circle were regulars at the Procope too. While the other two are both splendid places with huge terraces on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, they’re both constantly crammed with tourists, and the prices are bordering on exorbitant. I’d rather visit their progenitor, where they first conceived the idea of sitting around and chatting over a coffee, giving rise not only to an enduring fashion, but a whole culture.

Le Procope is the longest continually operating restaurant in Paris, apparently, and it’s hardly surprising given how comfy and welcoming it still is today. So whenever you sit down for a flat white at your local, spare a thought for Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, who took the beverage out of the tavern and gave it a special place of its own.

And if, like me, you’re the kind of person who works in cafés for long stretches, it might be worth reminding the irritated proprietors that Voltaire once did the same thing – in fact, Le Procope has preserved the desk he used to write at. Maybe your regular table will be a priceless heirloom someday, too?

I'm over Pokémon Go... what's next?

On Sunday night, I found the best Pokémon I've ever seen. Right in the middle of Hyde Park, inappropriately close to the Pool of Reflection, I discovered a Golduck worth a whopping 917 combat points – more than anything in my Pokédex.

If you're one of the rapidly dwindling number who isn't playing Pokémon Go, that's like coming across a $100 note, if the $100 wasn't worth anything except in some stupid game.

But I was excited. With this spiky-headed blue creature in my Pokéarsenal, I could win my first Pokégym battle and capture the nearby obelisk for Team Red.

(And yes, that's a big deal, in case you're wondering.)

I asked my three companions to wait, tempted the Pokémon with a Razz Berry to soften it up, and flung a Pokéball at it. (Strangely, you capture "pocket monsters" by chucking cricket balls at their heads.) A direct hit! I was stoked.

And then the app froze. The Pokéball containing the precious Golduck just sat on my screen, not doing anything.

I quit the app and reloaded. It took several minutes to let me in, but all was not lost – the Golduck was still there! I scored another direct hit. And the app crashed again.

After this had happened four times, it was clear that my companions' patience was also on the verge of crashing, so I reluctantly walked away. I would claim no gym that night.

The game refused to work properly for the next 18 hours, and this gave me time to reflect. When I'd first played Pokémon Go 7 days earlier, I'd been blown away. There was a map with my street on it, and all the nearby landmarks were in the game! And I immediately found a Zubat, right there in my bedroom, the cheeky devil! The gameplay seemed ingenious and fun.

I didn't yet know that those stupid Zubats were about as rare as Bogong moths during migration season. I've now captured 136, and let's just say it doesn't get any more entertaining the more you do it. Checking my work email now seems fun by comparison.

So... many... stupid... Zubats...

As I progressed up to Level 17, the game became significantly harder. Pokémon would jump back out of their ball-shaped prisons, and take off, leaving a cloud of dust. A straight flick that should have scored a direct hit would veer off sideways. The already tedious task of snaffling Pokémon varied randomly between easy and impossible.

Eventually I realised that there isn't much to the game. You wander around the city map, hoping to find new Pokémon and scooping up endless Zubats in the meantime. Occasionally you'll try to capture a gym, which involves a whole mess of tapping, swiping and hoping. But otherwise, you clock up the kilometres, hoping the random Pokéalgorithm favours you, and that the ever-tenuous servers don't crash.

And also that a car doesn't crash into you. I've mostly played in the CBD, where hordes of Pokémonners roam the streets, their phones plugged into external battery packs, and I've seen seen several near-misses. If you are going to play, please look out – there are some crashes from which you can't reboot.

From here, I can't be bothered playing on to "catch 'em all". I don't have the stamp collector gene, fortunately, so am unfazed by the idea of letting rare Pokémon go uncaught. Finishing the game, even if that were possible, simply doesn't have the challenge of finishing a Mario game. There's no mastery required for Pokémon Go, just time.

More advanced players say that as you play on, the difficulty and frustration scale up even further. Even at the lofty heights of level 30, you only get to collect 121 or so of the 147 Pokémon – and it'll take you a whopping 500,000 experience points to progress to 31.

Advanced players say that the temptation to just buy Pokéballs instead of collecting them from local landmarks becomes "intense". And of course it does, because that's the business model.

With the freemium approach that most mobile games now use, you can simply pay your way to glory. The attempts to pressure us into buying stuff have become increasingly obnoxious, and in-game achievements have become as meaningless as a doctorate from an online degree mill.

So I'm going to let go of Pokémon Go. Like the Trump campaign, the more I see, the less entertaining it gets. But the game's success means that a zillion other augmented reality apps will soon flood into the App Store. No doubt some of them will combine the excitement of exploring our own cities with genuinely innovative gameplay that becomes more enjoyable as we move through the levels.

And if you've got any Nintendo shares, I'd sell them now. Because if my experience with Pokémon Go is any indication, investors are going to end up dumping 'em all.

Who's up for another election?

Hallelujah, the election is over! Well, overish. Well, a result seems likely, at some point in the not too distant future, definitely this year. Probably. Once the AEC, the planets and Antony Green are all in alignment. Subject to recount, rethink, relapse, the Court of Disputed Returns, and the mercurial whim of Bob Katter.

At the time of writing, Malcolm Turnbull was the more likely prime minister, not least because he’s currently the prime minister, and will remain so until anybody else is.

And while his plea of “stick to the plan” has been met by the electorate with “no thanks, we prefer knife-edge near-chaos, if it’s all the same to you”, the PM is likely to be able to make the stronger case to the crossbenchers. Perhaps not numerically, but as we saw on election night, certainly in terms of emphatic, fistpumping rhetoric.

Ultimately, of course, the Australian people choose our leaders. But we also reserve the right not to choose, and to be so underwhelmed by both options that we leave the parliament to knife-fight it out among themselves.

That’s what we did in 2010, placing our government in such a precarious position that not only was Julia Gillard forced to play nice with Kevin Rudd and Craig Thomson, but that co-opting Peter Slipper seemed like a really smart idea. And that’s what we’ve chosen to do again.

Perhaps, in our collective wisdom, we looked back at Gillard’s prodigious record of getting legislation passed and decided we’d like more of the same, please? Perhaps we felt that neither “seriously guys, stick to the plan, or we’ll have more of the instability that I caused nine months ago” or “they’ll privatise Medicare even though it’s a payments system that would defy logic to even find a way of privatising – woo-ooo, are you scared yet?” deserved to be rewarded with a comfortable majority.

Or perhaps, as I suspect, when we voted, we were thinking primarily about whether to buy a second sausage on our way home.

However we’ve arrived at this impasse, it now seems clear that stable government is off the table. Even if the Coalition cobbles together a three-seat majority, which now seems about as likely as Kevin Rudd joining Gillard in the Western Bulldogs’ forward line, the requirement to provide a Speaker will give them a narrow margin indeed.

What’s more, the Coalition doesn’t have Labor’s system of caucus discipline, instead allowing backbenchers to do their own thing as though they were members of a jazz orchestra, or enrolled at a Steiner school.

We saw some admirable examples of this from the likes of Kevin “Happy To Lead” Andrews and Cory “Going Solo” Bernardi during the campaign. Plus, Tony Abbott is still in the parliament. Malcolm Turnbull can’t rely on his whole team to fall into line, as he’ll need every vote.

Fortunately, there’s one obvious option to solve all of the potential minority government’s non-potential huge problems. And it’s the solution they use in the AFL when there’s a deadlock after four quarters.

They go back and do it again.

This may sound like an exhausting prospect, and after a horrifyingly long campaign, it is. But if our footballers can pick themselves up at the end of a punishing season for a grand final replay, then so can our politicians. And with another election, at least there’s no prospect of Collingwood winning.

Admittedly, the AFL has now dropped this rule in favour of extra time and golden point, but there’s no easy way of doing that with elections. We could, I suppose, just ask the voters of Eden-Monaro to decide, but they seem on track to lose their bellwether status, having been seduced once more by the sheer excellence of Mike Kelly’s moustache.

Having a do-over election wouldn’t be that bad. Back in 2013, voters in WA were obliged to front up for a second Senate poll. Admittedly, that wasn’t courtesy of a tight result but an AEC stuff-up – and the results differed significantly the second time around. Would it be so terrible if we had to have another go?

Personally, I’d welcome another election. Even the prospect of another series of Sammy J’s Playground Politics would be reason enough to go back to the polls. It would mean more debates, more doorknocking, more fake/real-but-amusingly-eccentric tradies, and perhaps even a more compelling reason for re-electing the Coalition than “stick to the plan”?

And best of all, it would give us all a second helping of democracy sausages.

Back in school, if you didn’t try hard enough, the teacher often sent you back to do an assignment again. We voters marked the members of our government fairly harshly on 2 July, so it’s not at all unreasonable to expect them to have another crack.

Another election would most likely mean that instead of a government of either complexion scrambling desperately for support on every issue, making unpalatable compromises with both crossbenchers and backbenchers, we would endorse a clear agenda for the next three years. Whether it was the government’s or the opposition’s, we would at least know where we were.

Or, we’d vote the same way and choose another hung parliament. At least then, unlike so many Brexit voters, we’d be clear on what we were choosing.

Malcolm Turnbull recently said he would prefer a Labor government to another hung parliament, and although he’s now eating those words as though they were made of organic green tea, he had a point.

It would be expensive to go back to the polls, but there’s a possibility that if Labor wins, or if the PM gets to run on the platform he wants this time, we might not need to have that problematic plebiscite. So there’s at least a chance of breaking even.

Unfortunately, if we had another election, it would only be for the lower house – we’re stuck with the Senate we’ve got until 2019, except in the incredibly unlikely event that the government chances its arm at another double dissolution.

But the fractiousness of the new Senate is all the more reason to go back and elect a majority government this time. In my electorate, the corflutes are still up. So let’s bulk order some more budget fundraising snags and let the people decide where we should go as a nation. Again.

Sydney shouldn't shut down just because it's cold

Sydneysiders used to hibernate in cold weather. After months of beach dips, backyard barbecues and outdoor festivals, we'd shut ourselves away from May to August, only leaving the house if paid to do so.

In winter we shivered under our doonas and hugged hot water bottles because as a matter of pride, we refused to build our houses with central heating. I mean, we aren't Melbourne.

It's a vibrant time of the year for Sydneysiders, when the glow from the 23-day festival takes over the city.

Our winter social calendars were emptier than a screening of Zoolander 2. It was unthinkable to attend weddings, parties, or anything beyond a pub with a roaring fireplace and the footy on a big screen.

Not any more. Since the Vivid juggernaut kicked off eight years ago, we've flocked to the harbour in such overwhelming numbers it's like New Year's Eve every night, in terms of feverish excitement but also congestion and transport delays.

In the new Sydney, we'll gladly endure the cold if promised pretty lights and selfie opportunities. There's never been a more exciting time to sell Thermoses and longjohns.

The May-June period gets more crowded every year, and not just thanks to the ever-increasing scale of Vivid, which boasts Music and Ideas streams besides the lights.

There's the Writers' Festival, which fills the Walsh Bay wharves with people queueing for David Marr's autograph. Up the road at the State Theatre, there's the Film Festival, which features enough foreign languages to give Pauline Hanson an aneurysm, and the Comedy Festival, which now serves up more galas than the average greengrocer.

If that somehow isn't enough, there's now TEDxSydney, Fashion Week, the Head On Photo Festival, and, biennially, the Biennale.

It requires military-level logistics skills to find time between your movies, comedy gigs, gallery trips and talkfests to fight through the crowds and look at the lights. The schedule's become more confusing than the Senate voting system.

This May-June cultural bonanza now rivals summer as my favourite time of year. Many of the world's best writers, comedians, musicians, filmmakers, and TV producers converge on our city, and the atmosphere is electric.

During those weeks, Sydney rivals the likes of London and New York in terms of the sheer volume of heavy hitters who come through our airport to share their boundless wisdom and complain about jet lag. It's enough to momentarily banish our cultural cringe.

But then it stops. July comes around, and the tap is switched off. We are left to curl up in front of our heaters until September brings the footy finals and the Fringe Festival.

I'm particularly conscious of this gap this year, because I was travelling in May and June, and arrived home on July 1 with only the election to look forward to. Yes, that's how desperate I became.

I can't understand how this constitutes sensible planning by our event organisers. Why have they crammed the first half of winter with so many competing cultural events that we can't possibly get to them all? There are direct clashes like TEDx and SWF, while July and August boast barely a meagre seminar to lure us out.

Surely the Sydney Film Festival, at least, could move to the coldest part of the year? It's always toasty in the State Theatre. Or maybe if Vivid was in August, it wouldn't conflict with the older May-June events?

No doubt there are complicated factors that determine these timings. So instead, perhaps we should dream up even more events to keep us entertained through the rest of winter.

I've often pondered starting a Festival of Stupid Ideas to rival the Dangerous one, and maybe we could spend a fortnight in July gathering at the State Theatre to binge-watch Breaking Bad?

Paris has a week when all the cinemas sell tickets for only $6, which would be excellent, and there might also be scope for a jazz festival, or a theatre one, with performances in unusual venues. Death of a Salesman in a Westfield, perhaps, or A Streetcar Named Desire on board the light rail?

Now that we've all bought thick jackets and gloves, we'll take anything to get us out of the house. Maybe Barangaroo can pick up the slack and prove that it's more than just a pretty bit of landscaping to view from the new casino

Sydney's now an excellent place to live for 10 months of the year. We just need to pull together a few great activities for July and August, and we'll really put those so-called festival-loving Melburnians in their place. Their cold, dark place.

Brexit or not, one place in the UK still welcomes foreigners

In 1985, we had a dream of a better world, a world that came together like Captain Planet’s Planeteers to solve problems. We, the human race, joined hands across the oceans and saved not just the lives of people in need, but “our own lives” at the same time. Because, as dozens of rock stars told us, “We are the world”.

In this more ironic age, the USA for Africa song seems more insipid than inspiring – but it was a time where people really did believe in common-sense international solutions. Sure, many of those people were rock stars, who tend to solve any problem by inserting themselves into it. And looking back, it was sometimes difficult to discern the line between selfless acts of charity and a career-enhancing stadium gig.

But Live Aid made a difference, both in terms of awareness and fundraising. And We Are The World’s writer Michael Jackson and his band of idealistic musos seem far removed from a Presidential nominee who’s more interested in building walls than solving hunger.

 The message that all of us have to take responsibility for some of us also feels at odds with Live Aid’s other host country, since 52 per cent of Britons thumbed their noses at the EU in last week’s Brexit referendum.

But there was a time when Britain did believe in internationalism, and in people from around the world coming together to make things better. I know because I lived bang smack in the middle of it.

In 1985, the year of We Are The World, my family and I moved to Britain and lived in the heart of central London, in a place called William Goodenough House. (The surname never stopped being amusing, especially since the whole place is now called Goodenough College. It’s more than good enough – it’s really nice.)

The place was founded by a bunch of bankers who wanted to give promising lads from the colonies a chance to come and experience the Mother Country, while the building I lived in had been built with funds raised by the Lord Mayor of London to thank the Commonwealth for its WWII food parcels.

For a 9-year-old kid from what was then a relatively white-bread part of Sydney, this was a mindblowing experience. Suddenly I was living alongside Canadians, Africans, South East Asians, West Indians and even some Americans who’d somehow been allowed in despite not being in the Commonwealth.

There were even New Zealanders, which meant that for the first time, I heard about the notorious underarm incident. And then I heard about it again, every time I met a New Zealander.

There were regular parties hosted by students from various countries. Banquets were cooked, songs were sung, national dress was worn, and all were welcome – I’ll never forget my first smell of durian at a Singapore National Day event. It was a place where diversity was not a buzzword, but an everyday reality

We kids had access to a room with a snooker table in it, endless corridors to sprint down before getting told off by a staff member, and our own enormous private park with a locked gate to keep us safe. And we enjoyed them all with friends from all over the world. It was an idyllic experience.

I went and stayed back at the college in May for the first time since we left in 1987. These days it welcomes students from every country, and over the years the College has been in operation, many of them have ended up getting married. Some of their kids have come back to study themselves.

Walking around the pristine grounds of Goodenough College last month, watching a kaleidoscope of students breakfasting in the café and dressing up for a formal dinner, I realised how lucky I was to have grown up there myself. We lived among so many people, who looked and talked so differently from one another, that there really was no “normal”.

My visit made me wish that I’d studied overseas myself, and had the chance to build a fresh network of friends from around the world as a grown-up. And I hope that if I ever have kids myself, I’ll be able to give them that same practical experience of discovering that the world is full of many kinds of people, and that we all have an enormous amount in common.

Specifically, being better at football than me was something that every other kid had in common. But we still all got together after school to do it, and I still loved every minute.

More than three decades after We Are The World, our planet seems more divided than ever. But I still believe that we can work together for a common cause, even if it’s just beating me at football. And at an early age, I grew comfortable living next to people who don’t look or talk like me, and learned that the wider your experience of the world, the richer your life is.

I’m still so grateful that Britain first gave me the chance to experience that. And for my childhood in a part of the country that’s still more interested in opening its doors than slamming them shut.

Remembering Harold Murray Knight

Portrait of Sir Harold Knight KBE DSC by Bill Leak (1990). From the RBA collection. Source: RBA site.

A remembrance shared at his memorial service – Friday 26 June 2015 at St Andrew's Cathedral.

A Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire enters an official state function after a Knight of the Garter, but before a Knight Bachelor. He may attend special services in the order’s official chapel, St Paul’s Cathedral, and display a red circlet saying “For God And The Empire” around his coat of arms.

Bill Gates, Placido Domingo, Rudy Giuliani, Sultan Abdullah bin Khallifa of Zanzibar, Bono and Billy Graham are all KBEs, and so was the late Sir Harold Murray Knight.

But I am here today to talk not of KBEs, DSCs, or even the RBA. I am here to remember a man who proudly bore a different title – Grandpa. I somehow can’t call him anything else even at the age of 38.

I suspect that Grandpa’s favourite imperial order was the Quarter Pounder with Cheese – about as far away as you can get from a fancy dinner with those other Knight Commanders. Some of Jasper and my fondest memories are of trips down to Gordon McDonald’s to collect “carry out”, as he called it, and then meandering back to Springdale Rd in one of their two white sedans, inevitably accompanied by a song of his own devising, ‘Up The Hill To Grandma’s House.’

It was a routine we performed many a time, often after a dip in the pool that was our favourite holiday haunt, no doubt followed by a sneaky late-night raid to that cupboard that contained every Arnott biscuit on the market, each in their own jar.

The next morning, we would arrive for our breakfast of Honey Smacks or Crunchy Nut Cornflakes – it wasn’t a health food retreat – to find them completing both crosswords simultaneously on clipboards with special erasable biros, having photocopied it on the machine that was the pride of grandpa’s meticulously-maintained study, while drinking tea into which they would dunk their gingernut biscuits.

How I loved that study, with its fax constantly bursting to life with important transmissions, the special fountain pen set with which to write the little notes that were his trademark, and that green leather box featuring labelled slots for every stationery item; plus my favourite – the glass cabinet full of treasures from around the world, with everything in its right place.

It always was with Grandpa, who had a navy man’s gift for order in all things, calm and organised, never rushed, even in his conversation which proceeded at well below the rate at which I’m speaking now. I read somewhere once that his slow rate of speech and fondness for complex extended metaphors was a key component in his business success, because people calmed down while they were trying to work out what he meant.

They’d take us on excursions to a museum, shopping in Chatswood or to a Lego display at Grace Brothers in the city. They rarely missed a school play or concert, and on weekends, for many years, we would meet at Greenwood Plaza food court for Saturday lunch with whoever was around from the extended family – the perfect way to keep up with a man who adored both his offspring and routine.

He taught me to drive, as he taught my father and mother and so many of us, and I still remember the helpful diagram he drew so I’d understand the operation of the clutch. I was the worst student he had, failing four times or something, but his patience seemed limitless. It almost always did.

One of the few exceptions I can recall was when he visited us while we were living in Cold War England in the mid-eighties. The Chernobyl nuclear accident had recently happened, and left me terrified. A family trip to the Lakes District took us close to the Sellafield reprocessing plant, and I went on and on about radiation until Grandpa, who was on the board of Western Mining, tartly observed that uranium mining had just paid for my lunch. That shut me up in record time.

But my overwhelming memories are of enormous warmth. Of the broad smile as he greeted us, the firm manly clapping on the back, or the phone calls that began with something like “Waverton base here”, or “Ahh, is that my eldest grandson?”

He often told me that the most important thing in life was to make a contribution, no matter what your field – just make a contribution to society. A fine, selfless principle – although I fear satirical comedy may have proven an exception to this rule – but he was just so fiercely proud of all his children and grandchildren. A typical conversation with him involved an extensive list of every uncle, aunt and cousin's latest triumphs, and in recent years as his memory abandoned him, all he wanted to know was the same information about the family’s doings.

I brought my partner Divya to visit him for the first time earlier this year, and after warmly welcoming her to the family, he asked us whether anybody in the family needed any encouragement from him. He had already given us all so much of it, and yet even at 95 years of age, he hoped to give more.

In recent years, Grandpa would conclude our visits to Elizabeth Lodge with the words pax vobiscum – peace be with you. Now this much decorated, yet humble, man, this warrior, who in peacetime garlanded himself with love, who was a global figure, and yet derived so much joy from the blissful ordinariness of his home life, is at peace himself. And Grandpa, what a contribution.