The Profumo ExampleRoss Fitzgerald and Dick WhitakerNov 04 2025
The public scandal involving Andrew Mountbatten Windsor — the Royal formerly known as Prince Andrew — has been a tragedy for all concerned, not least in creating a schism between King Charles and his younger brother.
Although he persists in denying any wrongdoing, Andrew has become a pariah in the UK and around the globe. After further damaging revelations about his alleged misbehaviour in the late Virginia Giuffre’s book Nobody’s Girl his situation became untenable and, more than that, could irreparably damage a …
ABC Brisbane Radio Steve Austin’s speech at the Queensland launch of Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen Chalk & Cheese: A Fabrication (Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne, $24.99).
Ladies and gentlemen,
Tonight, we celebrate two great Australian storytellers — Emeritus Professor Ross Fitzgerald and comedy legend Ian McFadyen — and their latest joint creation, Chalk & Cheese: A Fabrication, published by Hybrid Publishers.
Now, the title is fitting — because if ever two men embodied “chalk and cheese,” it’s these two. Ross is a historian, political commentator, and prolific author — over forty books, countless newspaper columns, and more opinions than most of …
Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyenHybrid Publishing. Melbourne $24.99Do you worry about how the elderly are treated in nursing homes?
Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen Buy now $24.99Also purchase as an eBookAmazonGoogle BooksKobo BooksAlso available from all good bookstores“Chalk and Cheese is a work of brilliantly cinematic quality.” –Nigel Marsh, Smart, Stupid & Sixty“… my current top Australian fiction read this year.” – Eamonn O’Hanlon, The Sydney Institute Review of Books, September 2025
” … quite remarkable writing about the contrasting …
Abbott delves into Down Under
________________________________________Tony Abbott Australia: A History, HarperCollins Australia, pp 395 $ 39.99ROSS FITZGERALD
“He who controls the past, controls the future” wrote George Orwell in his classic work, 1984. This is something Tony Abbott doubtless had in mind as he set himself to writing this history of Australia: How an Ancient Land Became a Great Democracy. While many former PMs have written memoirs, Abbott is the first to have shunned that form of self-justification in favour of writing, instead, what amounts to a strong defence of the …
An Improbable SuccessROSS FITZGERALD
Tony Abbott Australia: A History,HarperCollins Australia, 2025 pp 395, $ 39.99
“He who controls the past, controls the future” wrote George Orwell in his classic work, 1984. This is something Tony Abbott doubtless had in mind as he set himself to writing this history of Australia: How an Ancient Land Became a Great Democracy. While many former PMs have written memoirs, Abbott is the first to have shunned that form of self-justification in favour of writing, instead, what amounts to a strong defence of the country itself. His …
Ken Spillman’s review of Chalk and CheeseHAVE-A-GO NEWS No. 403, OCTOBER 2025, p 38.
NEVER judge a book by its cover. While reading Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, I thought of this saying many times. Shackled with one of the most insipid and unattractive covers I’ve seen, it’s a cracking read.
If I were not a regular viewer of SBS TV’s Insight program, I would never have sought it out. Insight delves into social issues, exploring different viewpoints in a conversational way. A March episode dealing with the health services and care provided …
What’s What and Who’s Who in my life and fictionby ROSS FITZGERALD
My latest fiction, Chalk and Cheese, co-authored with the marvellous Ian McFadyen of ‘Comedy Company’ fame, features two 80-year-old, politically influential, former radio stars, Bill Bradley and Ben Curran, who hate each other, but end up in the same nursing home.
A postmodernist academic at Sydney University, who to put it mildly isn’t among my greatest fans, recently told a retired colleague that their names were clearly derived from Bill and Ben, the Flower Pot Men. For those who don’t …
Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, by Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen (Hybrid, August 2025, pp 224, $24.99)
Eamonn O’Hanlon After suffering a stroke, veteran conservative commercial radio broadcaster Bill Bradley is admitted to an aged care facility, only to find that one of the residents is none other than his arch political and media rival. This is the left-wing radical socialist broadcaster Ben Curran, whose grandfather was a leading light of the Communist Party of Australia.
When other residents start asking for their help about unfair government regulations and elder abuse, these two …
Chalk and Cheese: A FabricationRoss Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyenHybrid, $24.99Cameron Woodhead Spectrum Saturday, September 6, 2025, p11 Comic writing partners Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen will be familiar to some from their Grafton Everest books – a lively and long-running Australian series of political satires featuring a Rabelaisian academic (with a touch of Sir Les Patterson) getting himself into absurd scrapes.
In Chalk and Cheese, they break fresh comedic ground. Two journalists with opposing political views are admitted to the same aged care home. Conservative broadcaster Bill Bradley has made a career from …
In need of something new to read? Here are 10 of the latest books
Chalk and Cheese: A FabricationRoss Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyenHybrid, $24.99
Comic writing partners Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen will be familiar to some from their Grafton Everest books – a lively and long-running Australian series of political satires featuring a Rabelaisian academic (with a touch of Sir Les Patterson) getting himself into absurd scrapes.
In Chalk and Cheese, they break fresh comedic ground. Two journalists with opposing political views are admitted to the same aged care home. Conservative broadcaster …
PROFESSOR ROSS FITZGERALD – September 3 2025
It isn’t always in the headlines but in Australia our treatment of the elderly needs our urgent attention.Occasionally, politicians and others cast an eye in the direction of this subject, but it warrants so much more.So, after collaborating on a suite of political satires, my co-author Ian McFadyen and I have decided to change tack to address an issue that could well be the next big inconvenient truth – the disgrace of our treatment of the elderly.
Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication is a …
