The Best Australian Humorous Writing (31 page)

Barry Cohen
was a federal MP from 1969 until 1990, including Minister for Home Affairs and Environment from 1983 to 1984, Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment from 1984 to 1987 and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Bicentennial. He is the author of several books and a regular contributor to some of Australia's leading magazines and newspapers including
The Australian
.

Kaz Cooke
is a columnist and author. Her website is
www.kaz.cooke.com

Ian Cuthbertson
began his liquorice allsorts freelance writing career in the 1980s. He was engaged by
The Australian
as a contributor in late 1996, and his adoption was made formal following a full-time job offer in 2002. He builds his own computers, runs a project music studio and is currently
The Australian
's television and DVD editor.

Mark Dapin
is a writer for
Good Weekend Magazine
in
The Sydney Morning Herald
and
The Age
. His latest book is
Strange Country
, the story of his travels around Australia. In another life, he was editor-in-chief of
Ralph Magazine
.

Catherine Deveny
is a serial pest and professional pain in the arse. She writes columns for the big paper with the big words despite being dyslexic and half-cocked.

Frank Devine
has been editor of the
New York Post
, the
Chicago Sun Times
and
The Australian
. He now lives in Sydney and writes regularly for
The Australian
.

Alexander Downer
was Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister for twelve years. He was instrumental in delivering independence in East Timor and played a pivotal role in Australia's response to the Middle East conflicts. He has been an active participant and diplomatic force on global issues of human rights, climate change and natural disasters. He is now a United Nations Special Envoy for Cyprus.

Larissa Dubecki
is a news reporter for
The Age
. She was the editor of
The Age
's weekly entertainment lift-out
EG
until August 2006, and currently writes on topics relating to entertainment and popular culture, including reviewing television for the
Green Guide
and restaurants for the
Good Food Guide
and
Cheap Eats Guide
.

Suzanne Edgar
, as a member of Seven Writers, wrote
Canberra Tales
, and her short stories were published as
Counting Backwards
. Her poetry collection,
The Painted Lady
, was short-listed for the ACT's Best Book of the Year and for the 2007 ACT Writing and Publishing awards.

Charles Firth
is a leading think-piece writer, boasting more than 55 000 opinions about the world, all of them less than one sentence long. He delivered the keynote at the 2008 World Cynicism Symposium in San Diego, where he expressed thirty-seven controversial opinions in under twenty seconds, setting a new world record.

Germaine Greer
was born in Melbourne and educated in Australia and at Cambridge University. Her first book,
The Female Eunuch
, remains one of the most influential texts of the feminist movement. Germaine has had a distinguished academic career in Britain and the US, and makes regular appearances in print and other media as
a broadcaster, journalist, columnist and reviewer. Since 1988 she has been director (and financier) of Stump Cross Books, a publishing house specialising in lesser known works by early women writers.

Gideon Haigh
is vice-president and chairman of selectors at South Yarra Cricket Club.

Marieke Hardy
is a writer, radio broadcaster, hedonist and raconteur. After an ill-advised early career as a child actress she carried on polluting Australian television airwaves via her work as a screenwriter and producer. She is very sorry about any damage caused to your carpets.

Matthew Hardy
is a Melbourne-based comedian who was the first Aussie to cement himself full-time on the UK live circuit, spending eight years there in the 1990s. He is the author of the bestselling book
Saturday Afternoon Fever
, and his television credits include
The Big Schmooze
and
The Fat
. Matthew was also a part of the BAFTA-winning writing team for
The Sketch Show
on ITV in the UK, and subsequently wrote for Kelsey Grammer's sketch series on Fox in the US.

Wendy Harmer
hosted
The Big Gig
on ABC TV and Sydney's highest rating FM radio breakfast show for eleven years. She has written seven books for adults and ten for children, and she wrote, produced and presented the documentary series
Stuff
for ABC TV. Wendy is currently writing and producing an animated television series based on her
Pearlie
books, and her third novel for adults.

Barry Humphries
is a multi-talented actor, artist and author. As an actor, he has invented many satiric Australian characters, but his most famous creations are Dame Edna Everage, Barry (Bazza)
McKenzie and Sir Les Paterson. Edna, Bazza and Les between them have made several sound recordings, written books and appeared in films and on television and have been the subject of exhibitions. Since the 1960s Humphries' career has alternated between England, Australia and the US. He was given an Order of Australia in 1982.

Clive James
is the author of more than thirty books. As well as his four volumes of autobiography, he has published novels and collections of literary and television criticism, essays, travel writing and verse. As a television performer he has appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Literature.

Danny Katz
is a columnist for
The Age
and
The Sydney Morning Herald
. He is the “Modern Guru” in the
Good Weekend Magazine
. He is the author of several books including
Spid the Dummy, Dork Geek Jew
and the
Little Lunch
series for kids. Danny is originally from Canada, but came to Australia at a young age because he was allergic to maple syrup.

Malcolm Knox
is the author of ten books, most recently
On Obsession
. His works of fiction and non-fiction have won several awards and have been published around the world. A journalist since 1994 for
The Sydney Morning Herald
, he has won two Walkley awards.

Peter Lalor
is a senior sports writer with
The Australian
and has written a number of books including
Blood Stain
, winner of the 2004 Ned Kelly Award for True Crime Writing. He lives with his wife, two children and a brown dog in Sydney, but learned about darkness in 1980s Melbourne.

John Lethlean
is fortunate enough to write about the subjects he loves—food and restaurants—for a living, mostly for titles associated with
The Age
. When he's not being a proper critic, he has a bit of fun with a food-related column in the Saturday
Age
, where the pieces in this collection were first published.

Mungo MacCallum
has been writing and broadcasting irreverently about politics for more than forty years. His work has appeared in most major Australian and some overseas publications. He is the author of seven books, the most recent being
Poll Dancing: The Story of the 2007 Election
.

Shane Maloney
is the editor of
Speleology Today
, the world's biggest selling glow-in-the-dark monthly magazine. He is better known as the author of the Murray Whelan series of comic thrillers.

Shaun Micallef
is a writer, comedian actor, TV producer and professional tennis player. He is married and has three children.

Paul Mitchell
's latest books are a collection of short stories titled
Dodging the Bull
, and a poetry collection,
Awake Despite the Hour
, both published in 2007. He'd like to say something else but is too busy answering his email.

Les Murray
is a fair poet but a poor cook at best. He lives in the Australian bush.

Olga Pavlinova Olenich
was born in Australia of Russian parentage. She is a Melbourne-based writer whose stories, articles and poetry are widely published in Australia and overseas. She has one son, who is a musician.

Rod Quantock
is one of the reasons that Melbourne is the live comedy capital of Australia. For forty years he has remained a contemporary
stand-up comedian, evolving and staying at the forefront of the craft. That he continues to build new, younger audiences is testament to possibly the most impressive career in Australian comedy.

Guy Rundle
is currently the US correspondent for
Crikey
. He was co-editor of
Arena Magazine
between 1992 and 2006 and is a frequent contributor to a wide range of Australian publications, and the writer of a number of hit stage shows with the satirist Max Gillies.

Roy Slaven
, together with HG Nelson, has presented
This Sporting Life
on Triple J for more than twenty years.

Garry Williams
is the
Sunday Herald Sun
's TV guide editor. A journalist for more than twenty-five years, his main claim to fame is as a former
TV Week
editor, although he is happy to report that he has upset enough people to never again be invited to the Logie Awards.

Tony Wilson
is an author who has written one novel (
Players
), a World Cup fan's memoir (
Australia United
) and four picture books for children. In 2006 he was a
Sydney Morning Herald
Young Australian Novelist of the Year. He has also worked in radio and television. Tony's website is
www.tonywilson.com.au

Julia Zemiro
is best known as host of AFI Award–winning SBS TV show
RocKwiz
. Her TV credits include
Thank God You're Here
and
What a Year
, co-hosting with Bert Newton, and her theatre roles include
Love Song
and
Eurobeat—The Eurovision Musical
. Julia is the co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show
The Jonathan Coleman Experience
.

Phillip Adams, “My 2UE producer noticed a tendency for me to nod off during interviews. In my own defence, they lined up some boring farts”,
The Australian Weekend Magazine
, 4 August 2007.

David Astle, “I came, I buzzed, I lost”.
The piece in this collection is an updated version of an article originally published in
Sunday Life
magazine in March 2002.

Graeme Blundell, “Rude food”,
The Weekend Australian, Review
supplement, 22 September 2007.

Barry Cohen, “Modern telecoms run rings around me”,
The Australian
, 14 April 2008.

Kaz Cooke, “Phwoarr, check out the policies on Julia Gillard”,
The Age
, 14 March 2006. This article was originally published in
The Age
under the headline “Julia's not got what it takes? Balls!”

—— “Planet Earth: Beware of the chimps”,
The Canberra Times
, 13 February 2007, reproduced at
www.kazcooke.com.au/kazcooke/columns/07feb13.html>
.

Ian Cuthbertson, “You just know it will be deliciously messy”,
The Weekend Australian, Review
supplement, 19 April 2008. The piece in this collection is an edited extract of an article originally published in
The Australian
.

Mark Dapin, “Adventures in LA-Land”,
The Age Good Weekend Magazine
, 25–27 April 2008. Mark Dapin would like to thank Judith Whelan at
Good Weekend
for sending him to LA to cover an event that didn't happen.

Catherine Deveny, “Listen up, you selfish and ignorant people. Stop driving 4WDs”,
The Age
, 28 March 2007.

Frank Devine, “All is not lost when you can see success in anything”,
The Australian
, 7 December 2007.

—— “It's a loathe-hate relationship, but at least I own a slice”,
The Australian
, 21 December 2007.

Alexander Downer, “The satire we had to have: Keating”,
The Advertiser
, 29 March 2008.

Larissa Dubecki, “Madonna's latest offering leaves listener pondering: Just because she can, does it mean she should?”,
The Age
, 25–26 April 2008.

Suzanne Edgar, “Song of the crestfallen pigeon”,
Quadrant
, vol. LI, no. 6, June 2007.

Dame Edna Everage, “My loyal subjects and possums! A seasonal message from President Edna”,
The Bulletin
, vol. 125, no. 51, 18 December 2007.

Charles Firth, “A hookworm's-eye view of the world around us”,
The Sydney Morning Herald
, 25 October 2007.

—— “Lies, damned lies”,
The Monthly
, May 2008.

Germaine Greer, “So Ian McKellen drops his trousers to play King Lear. That sums up the RSC's whole approach”,
The Guardian
, 7 May 2007.

—— “Who cares if she can't sing and can't dance? Posh Spice is the Damien Hirst of dress-wearing”,
The Guardian
, 19 May 2008.

Gideon Haigh, “Packed it in: The demise of the
Bulletin
”,
The Monthly
, March 2008.

Andrew Hansen, Dominic Knight, Chas Licciardello, Julian Morrow and Craig Reucassel, “
The Chaser
's Logies”,
The Age
, 1 May 2008.