1) The current Bulletin, which has chapters from a new novel by Murray Bail, a riveting essay on religion by Christos Tsiolkas, Eva Sallis on foxes in Tasmania, Kate Grenville on being an Australian in an English library (always a horrible experience; if I ever have to do that again I will bung on a cut-glass accent like the Queen's), the multi-talented William McInnes on cricket, the ever-classy Gideon Haigh on Enron, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a classic Patrick Cook: 'The artist formally [sic: is this a joke or a typo?] known as Mark Latham will launch his next book, You've Got to Have Friends, in time for the Christmas rush out of the shops. He'll finally have time for his favourite sport, speedway racing, in which he will have a dizzying array of cars to chase, barking.'
2) Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw's story 'Christmas' (1931), a lovely, wry comedy of manners about assorted punters left behind in the raw new capital at Christmastime.
3) Olga Masters' 'The Christmas Parcel'. If I had to name the great Australian short story of the 20th century, this would probably be it. Seriously.
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I was actually completely flabbergasted by the open rudeness of the English, and I'm very sad to say that the women were the worst offenders. The only people in England (as distinct from Scotland, whose population for the most part had the most wonderful, civilised, ironic, Enlightenment feel to it) who were even remotely polite or nice to me were either Scots, Irish, or people of (various) colour.
Tragic. I never had a thing against the Poms till I actually went there, and had to deal with some of them over the counter and on the phone. I got treated better in France than I did in England -- after they'd ascertained that I wasn't English. The sentence I quickly learned to use most often in France was 'Je ne suis pas anglaise, je suis australienne.'
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