In terms of damage, alcohol is society’s most dangerous drug.
Helen Trinca makes it clear how integral alcohol is to socialising in the workplace, including Parliament House (“Welcome to the house of blokes, booze and bullies” (12/2)
She rightly supports Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, who wants alcohol policies implemented “with a view to restricting availability in line with work health and safety obligations, and the principle of harm minimisation.”
Our policy priorities are wrong-headed. How stupid it is, for example, that during our lockdowns , bottle shops were regarded as essential services …
A riotous work of comedy – full of twists and turns that would put an Olympic gymnast to shame
The eighth book in the Grafton Everest series is back in the hands of the prolific and visionary author Ross Fitzgerald, teamed up again with comic genius Ian McFadyen, and sees the hapless ex-President of the Republic of Australia, Dr Professor Grafton Everest, caught up in a web of international espionage and intrigue that he is hopelessly ill-equipped to handle.
Abandoned to his own inadequate devices when his wife Janet departs on a world …
THE LOWEST DEPTHS
By Ross Fitzgerald, Ian McFadyen
Hybrid Publishers, Fiction
200pp, $24.99
Reviewed by Cheryl Akle
Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen team up again to write the 8th book in their amusing Grafton Everest series.
When we last saw Dr Professor Grafton Everest, he’d become President of the Republic of Australia, spending most of his term on a goodwill tour of the US.
In The Lowest Depths he’s the ex-president, his wife has left him to travel, and he’s caught up in a web of trouble and intrigue. An assignment with the UN results in some interesting information …
by Phil Brown, Arts Editor, The Courier-Mail
Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen, The Lowest Depths : The Eighth Book in The Grafton Everest Series
Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne, pp 271, $24.99
When historian and novelist Ross Fitzgerald enlisted the help of comedian Ian McFadyen as his co-writer an unholy alliance was born. It has blossomed and produced rare fruit … three books in fact. There was Going Out Backwards: A Grafton Everest Adventure, published in 2015, The Dizzying Heights, published in 2019, and now the latest Grafton Everest adventure (or should that be misadventure?), The Lowest Depths is just out. …
By Nell O’Shea Carre
Columnist, Book Reviewer and Emeritus Professor of History & Politics at Griffith University, Ross Fitzgerald AM, is set to launch his 43rd book, The Lowest Depths, tomorrow.
Ross appears regularly on TV and radio, including the ABC, Channel 7 and Sky News, to discuss his work and contemporary Australian state and federal politics.
So how does he find the time to be so prolific?
“I’m a sober alcoholic and an insomniac, so I’ve got plenty of time to read and to write,” he says.
“I stopped drinking and using on Australia Day 1970. And …
The Lowest Depths by Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen
Hybrid Publishers, Melbourne 2021
Print ISBN: 9781925736748, 1925736741
ISBN: 9781925736755, 192573675X
RRP: $24.99 (pb)
Reviewed by Alan Gregory
Graham Green’s term “An Entertainment”, probably best sums up this beautifully produced book.
The Lowest Depths is a very good read, with equal elements of a socio-politico farce and of a spy thriller, plus a touch of sci-fi!
As with its predecessor, The Dizzying Heights, this book featuring Dr Professor Grafton Everest is written by two Melbourne High School old boys – Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen. Ross Fitzgerald AM is Emeritus Professor of …
by Neal Price
Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen
The Lowest Depths : The eighth book in the Grafton Everest series.
Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne, 2021, $24.99
Co-written with Ian McFadyen, of Comedy Company fame, The Lowest Depths is Professor Ross Fitzgerald’s 43rd book and the eighth in his Grafton Everest series.
Fitzgerald’s latest offering cleverly bookends the seventh Grafton Everest fiction, The Dizzying Heights – published in 2019 by Hybrid Publishers in Melbourne, which is also co-written with McFadyen.
It is unprecedented in Australia, and perhaps in the English-speaking world, for eight political/sexual satires to be written chronologically, following the development …
An exciting update, courtesy of our dear friend, 1968 Fulbright alum Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM (Griffith University):
“I thought that you and the group might be interested to know that my forty-third book, and eighth Grafton Everest adventure, THE LOWEST DEPTHS, will soon be released by my nimble Melbourne-based publisher, Hybrid. This follows my forty-second book, a memoir, FIFTY YEARS SOBER: AN ALCOHOLIC’S JOURNEY, also published by Hybrid.
THE LOWEST DEPTHS is co-written with my long-time friend Ian McFadyen, of Comedy Company fame.
In it, the hapless ex-President of the Republic of Australia, whose beloved wife Janet is …
by ROSS FITZGERALD
The Collingwood Magpies desperately need a coach of the calibre of newly appointed Craig McRae. Nicknamed “Fly”, McRae featured prominently in my warts and all study of the 1995 footy season in which Brisbane made the AFL finals for the first time. McRae’s nickname derived from the fact he was such a nuisance to opposing players.
McRae, who in 1995 kicked 28 goals, was one of only five Brisbane Bears players that year to appear in all 23 games. He wore the number four guernsey for the Bears …
As the NSW Premier will soon announce all citizens of the state who have both shots of a vaccine will be given more freedom, surely now is the time for the lifesaving meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous to be regarded as essential services, at least for those who have had both jabs. It strikes me as extremely wrongheaded for liquor outlets and for psychologists running group therapy sessions to be regarded as essential services, yet actual meetings of AA and NA are not. Meeting on Zoom is no …
Monash University News Snippets by Michael Headbury, 20 August 2021
Greetings all,
Ross Fitzgerald’s latest book “50 years Sober: An Alcoholic’s Journey” (Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne).
Ross began his stint as an undergraduate in 1962. Obviously a very bright lad who topped every subject in his first two years. He has written 42 books including “My name Is Ross”; fiction (rather naughty) featuring the character Grafton Everest; and many notable non-fiction historical texts which established him as a leading Australian Historian.
His latest book is scary and focusses on his challenges from Melbourne High days …
