Although my mother was an atheist and my father a lapsed Catholic, as a child at home living in the petite bourgeois Melbourne suburb of East Brighton, before our main meal, which during the week we called “tea and which started at exactly 5pm, we always said “grace.
These days, over 60 years later, I still think saying grace is a good idea. This is in part because there is a lot to be said for gratitude , about being alive for starters and for being able to eat a nourishing …

Manningham City Council Gallery, 699 Doncaster Road, Doncaster, Melbourne, 6.30 pm Thursday February 26, 2009
As if my wife of 35 years, the ex Australian model of the year Lyndal Moor, and my own good self, didn’t feel old enough already, the New South Wales premier, at Parliament House, launched GROWING OLD (DIS) GRACEFULLY to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Seniors’ Week!
Yet one of the advantages of being seniors is that we can say what we like – which is precisely what Lyndal and I and all other contributors have …

As the marvelous Margaret Fink, Anne Deveson, and Robyn Williams know better than most, my stunningly beautiful wife, Lyndal Moor, and myself are contributing co-editors of GROWING OLD (DIS) GRACEFULLY.
As if we didn’t feel old enough already, recently at Parliament House, premier Morris Iemma launched the book to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Seniors’ Week!
Yet one of the advantages of being seniors is that we can say what we like – which is precisely what Lyndal and I and all other contributors have done in this book.
Of course truth …

PAST PRESENT FUTURE: THE NEED FOR A UNITED CONSERVATIVE FORCE IN QUEENSLAND
SPEECH TO THE QUEENSLAND NATIONALS
PRESIDENT’S CLUB, Stamford Plaza Hotel, Brisbane.
FRIDAY 30 MAY, 2008, 6.30 – 7. 30pm
Many thanks for that kind introduction Michael. In fact, I am just finishing book number 30 , a history of alcohol in Australia, entitled A Nation Under the Influence.
Just before I hopped on the plane, my wife Lyndal reminded me of a scathing review of my work written by one of mine many enemies in Queensland. This devastating attack concluded, “Ross Fitzgerald is …