Stashed away in the top drawer is my dog-eared puzzle diary, milling with ideas for crosswords, Wordwits, theme lists, anagrams and all the other verbal quirks.
Over the weekend, thumbing the book for a few ideas, I came across six words, listed together as if they belong to the one set. But what set? If there [...]
Your daughter plays Frere Jacques in E Minor on the flute. The tune dwindles to its natural death. She looks you in the eye and says, “Did you like that?”
Instead of no, you say “I love how you did that first bit.” This is Lying by Evasion.
Your boss wants to know if you’ve finished the [...]
One of my favourite road signs in Australia is planted in a coal-mining service town called Biloela. Marking the corner of the Inland and Dawson Highways, the sign promises two of Queensland’s more make-believe destinations: Banana and Dululu.
So enrapt, I took a snap in 2003, when passing through Biloela on the Great Cassowary Safari, writing [...]
Around springtime every year a truckload of ten-minute scripts arrives in Melbourne, addressed to the good people at the Short & Sweet Festival. From Darwin to Detroit, from Godot spoofs to original dramas, the plays are a Pandora box-set, numbering over 1400 submissions.
Next, using chicken gizzards and a tuning fork, a judging panel reduces the [...]
Tarzan swings, Tarzan falls,
Jane hangs onto Tarzan’s balls.
Now we know why Tarzan calls aaaaaaaaarrrrghh.
Anthropology is just one topic covered by kids’ rhymes, as I discovered the other week. The young poets also tackle ethnology, sex, hypocrisy, TV and brutality – all with a clap, a skip and a tempo allegro.
To find out more about the [...]