Haw-Haw
Julia Zemiro steals false fingernails. Charles Firth swallows longnecks in North Korea and waxes poetic about hedgehogs. Meantime Graeme Blundell drops F-bombs in notable kitchens, while crime comic Shane Maloney goes to Underbelly court.
A four-taste of the frolics lurking in The Best Australian Humorous Writing, due for release later this year – unlike those Underbelly guys. I’ve just received an advance copy from Melbourne Uni Press, and the damp ink smells like, ah, Christmas Time.
Lurid green, the book brags 48 pieces, from smart-arse columns to inspired rants, from smirk-funny to goddamn guffaw-worthy.
And why the spruik? This blogger has a quiz-show confessional among the roll-call, a TV flashback that derives its humour from the comedy of self-reproach.
A few years back, I Came, I Buzzed, I Lost needed to run under a pseudonym due to the story’s legal concerns. (Quiz shows outpoint ASIO on their gag-rule demands.) Hence Steve Bennett, a favoured alias of Bart Simpson, was the original ‘author’ in Sunday Life magazine.
But now the truth is out – and so’s the book. Soon. Just in time to titillate this bearish marketplace.