In this 7th book of the highly acclaimed Grafton Everest Series, our indolent hero, Professor Dr Everest, former lecturer in Lifestyles and Wellbeing at the University of Mangoland, is surprised to find himself President of the newly minted Republic of Australia. He is also concerned when he learns that, due to a drafting error, it is to be an American-style executive presidency. Luckily he manages to avoid any actual work or duties, save heading the newly created Department of Wellbeing, and leaves on a goodwill tour of the United States.
Here, …

‘The Dizzying Heights’

   by Phil Brown

How often do you laugh out loud? Not often I’ll bet. But we need to, it’s good for you, according to ‘Reader’s Digest’. That magazine’s ‘Laughter, The Best Medicine’ is famous.
There was also a bloke called Norman Cousins, an American political journalist, author and professor who famously cured himself of serious illness in the 1960s by taking vitamin C and laughing his head off while watching endless comedy shows. Cousins was portrayed by actor Ed Asner in a 1984 television movie, ‘Anatomy of an Illness’, …

History of Queensland’s ‘Red North’ recounted
by Jim McIlroy
The recently re-published classic history of radical politics in Queensland, ‘The Red North:The Popular Front in North Queensland’, was launched at a series of forums in Melbourne, Brisbane and Cairns over the past month.
First published in 1981, ‘The Red North’ by Diane Menghetti is now back in print in a new edition published by Resistance Books.
South of the border, Queensland may be better known for the reactionary Joh Bjelke-Petersen regime …

‘So Far, So Good : An Entertainment’
BY ROSS FITZGERALD & ANTONY FUNNELL
HYBRID PUBLISHING : MELBOURNE, 2018,
ISBN 978-1-925272-97-0. $22.95.
The new Grafton Everest adventure ‘SO FAR, SO GOOD, which is released on May 1 2018, centres on our hapless professor’s obsession with food and fame; his relationship with his increasingly independent wife Janet; their wayward (and soon to be married) daughter Lee-Anne; and his much-loved terrier Maddie.
This cleverly plotted satire exposes the sad state of universities and of what now passes for politics in the West. Our obsession with technology, our …

Professor Dr Grafton Everest’s latest outrageous entertainment takes us to London and New York after a series of hilarious meanderings in the land of Oz.
So Far, So Good centres on our hapless professor’s obsession with food and fame; his relationship with his increasingly independent wife Janet; their wayward (and soon to be married) daughter Lee-Anne; and his much-loved terrier Maddie.
This cleverly plotted satire exposes the sad state of universities and of what now passes for politics in the West. Our obsession with technology, our fear of outsiders and our distrust …

My friend, the historian and author Ross Fitzgerald, has written a series of novels about a character who lets himself go regularly.
Grafton Everest is an academic who is somewhat akin to Sir Les Patterson. He stars in a string of fictional adventures, the latest of which was entitled Going Out Backwards, written by Ross in collaboration with the comedian Ian McFadyen.
Some people have noted vague similarities between the author and his creation but there is a big difference between the two. Ross says Grafton Everest is what he would …

MADNESS IN MANGOLAND
A book set in a fictitious Queensland that seems frighteningly familiar is up for the country’s only award for humour writing which is held every two years.
Local writer Ian McFadyen and Sydney-based historian and author, Professor Ross Fitzgerald, collaborated on GOING OUT BACKWARDS, which is subtitled A GRAFTON EVEREST ADVENTURE. It has been short-listed for the 2017 Russell Prize for Humour Writing which is run by the State Library of New South Wales.
The book is set in Mangoland and in it the protagonist, the shambolic Dr Professor Grafton …

PROF. ROSS FITZGERALD AM
Melbourne High School EXIT 1961
Ross Fitzgerald has recently published his 39th book “Heartfelt Moments in Australian Rules Football”.
Ross lives in Redfern, Sydney with his wife, Lyndal Moor Fitzgerald.
Published by Connor Court, HEARTFELT MOMENTS is a collection of 37 original essays about Aussie Rules. including a piece by Ross entitled “The Death and Life of Darren Millane”.
The book can be purchased at:
http://www.connorcourt.com/catalog1/index. php?main_page=product_info&products_id=363#.
MHSOBA Newsletter, December 2016

POLITICAL HISTORY
The Labor Split spillover
http://www.newsweekly.com.au/picture.php?id=2261
Alan Reid’s ‘The Bandar Log: A Labor Story of the 1950s’ (Connor Court, 2015, $30), was reviewed in ‘News Weekly’ in the July 18, 2015, issue by Patrick Morgan. Here, longtime NW contributor Hal G.P. Colebatch takes a more personal look at the novel.
This book, by “The Red Fox, veteran insider political journalist the late Alan Reid, is a fictionalised account of the great Labor Split which led to the formation of the Democratic Labor Party and consigned Labor to the wilderness until the rise …

Sydney Swans legend Michael O’Loughlin says it took “some serious balls” for former teammate Adam Goodes to bring attention to the fact that he was racially vilified by a young Collingwood supporter in a match against the Magpies at the MCG in 2013.
In the final quarter of what was the first match of that year’s Indigenous Round, a teenage girl yelled the word “ape” towards Goodes from the front row.
The dual Brownlow medallist subsequently pointed her out and she was escorted from the ground.
He didn’t blame her, he just wanted …

As the thirty-seven contributions about the most heartfelt moments in VFL/AFL demonstrate, Aussie Rules football cuts across all divides. Hence this book of original essays includes contributions by and about football players, supporters and administrators who are vastly different in religion, class, income, ethnicity, gender, race and sexual preference.
The contributors within range from committed Christians such as Cardinal George Pell, Geraldine Doogue, and John Birt to devout atheists and like myself, Dick Whitaker and Barry Dickins.
Contributors to this collection of fine writing about heartfelt moments in Aussie Rules football also …