I will attend awards in capacity as judge of the Childrens and Youth Writing Sections of the Cancer Council of Victoria Arts Awards. The theme this year is ‘Strength’.
Here is a video package from last year’s awards.
This is a collaboration with Bob Murphy, former Western Bulldogs skipper and all-round- legend, whose autobiography ‘Leather Soul’ is one read more…
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Baa, baa, yellow sheep, have you any wool?’
‘Yes ma’am, yes ma’am, seven bags full.’
‘I want it all!’ said the dame to the man.
‘For I LOVE yellow—a true life-long fan.
‘The bendy banana, the fiery hot sun,
Of all of the colours, sweet yellow’s the one!’
‘No!’ said the master. ‘GIMME THAT WOOL!’
They fought for the bags . . .
and fell in the pool.
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You might know the tale of a Kelly named Ned
A bushranger type with a can on his head
He roamed the wild country and caused loads of strife
And went to his death with the words ‘such is life’.
A lesser known story is that of Jed Kelly
Who lived in the suburb of Indooroopilli,
A regular eight-year-old boy was young Jed
Except for wild hair that was red, red, red, RED!
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Hickory Dickory Dash is the follow up title to The Cow Tripped Over the Moon. Like it’s predecessor, it was read more…
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This is the first book about the four Selwood boys growing up in and around Bendigo. All four would go read more…
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On the wild grassy plains west of Old Humpty Doo
Lived the moodiest, mopeyest, saddest emu, read more…
Hey diddle diddle
You all know the riddle
A cow jumps over the moon
It happened all right
On a crisp, cloudless night
On the second last Friday in June read more…
I invented it, even though it was Dan who named it ‘You Play, You Pay’. We were at the EBO, which is what we kids call the E. B. Watson Oval when we don’t want to say ‘E. B. Watson Oval’, which is always, because who has the time for saying E. B. Watson Oval? The EBO is across the road from the school. It’s where we sometimes go for PE, or for sport practice. read more…
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If you’ve read Making News, I’d love a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Making News’ is my attempt to satirise read more…
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“The Emperor has won almost every horse race in the kingdom … all except one. read more…
Read reviewsThis morning in the kitchen, Tamsin and I had a conversation about Grandad Dog. It’s probably not that unusual for read more…
If you want to start barracking for the Germans, but don’t want anyone to know you’re doing it, here’s what read more…
‘He’s been up his mum and his legless sister and he thinks he’s killed his old man!’ Sport and humour read more…
We end up calling him “Two Phones”. He’s pale and besuited, flustered and harried. His problem is that Qantas flight read more…
You can’t mention Bangalore to anyone in India without them at some stage saying, “Ah, garden city of Bangalore,” or read more…
The first time I saw the words ‘free beer’, I was 18 years old and interested. The words were chalked read more…
At the time of writing, Dustin Fletcher has been on an AFL senior list for 7204 days. Michael Tuck joined read more…
This photo of Capital City Trail is courtesy of TripAdvisor At the risk of sounding like another Tony from the read more…
Long distance running is something you love, hate or don’t mind. My own opinion is very much determined by whether read more…
‘He nutmegged him! Archie nutmegged the Argentinian!’ The MCG crowd makes the sound a crowd makes when seventy odd thousand read more…
DERMOTT APPARENTLY organised an intervention. The Hawk No. 23 guernsey, which has in its lineage a league leading goalkicker, a read more…
This story ran in The Age as ‘My Week’ on 27th February 1999. SATURDAY My Saturday night was the same read more…
It ends up being the story of two handbrakes. first there was one that didn’t want to release. My wife read more…
The air is too hot to be local air. Surely it is air that’s been sucked out of smelters in read more…
The Socceroos final round of World Cup qualifying began on the Silk Road in Tashkent, and they never really got read more…
I could tell from Ashlea’s urgent ‘hello’ that we had a breakthrough. The publicity campaign for ‘Making News’ had been read more…
‘Would any of you care if they put a freeway tunnel under here?’ I called out. The question wasn’t directed read more…
Can a decent education turn young criminals around? Tony Wilson goes inside Victoria’s toughest youth prison to see a remarkable read more…
This is just a personal view, but everything’s hopeless and we’re all going to die. We won’t just fade away read more…
This piece ‘Epsilon’ appears in the Andrew Rule edited ‘Man & Beast’ (MUP, 2016) along with many other animal stories. read more…
My acting career has, so far, been one ecclesiastical role after another. I mean that to be read in read more…
It was Adelaide 1995, when after dedicating five days of my life to watching every ball of the test, a read more…
In 1981, my Grade 3 teacher Mr. McAuliffe told us that time had gone decimal and my world caved in. read more…
I’ve got some advice for the critics who believe uncontested marks and 16 metre dink kicks across the back-line are read more…
My friend Mark Monnone (The Lucksmiths, Monnone Alone) is fronting The Bermuda Strollers, a Jonathan Richman tribute band at Longplay read more…
‘We’re in the hardest part of the game,’ Stan Liacos the Manager of Marketing at Federation Square had said to read more…
‘Dad, can I have some donuts?’It was a ritual that had evolved over a decade of watching football together at read more…
MY SEAT at Telstra Stadium is as close to heaven as it is possible to be. Seat 29, aisle read more…
I have presented Breakfasters for six years, just less than a sixth of my life. It’s been undoubtedly the job read more…
A long, long time ago, I can still remember How the Magpies used to make me smile And Dad and read more…
“You tell me what a shock jock is, ‘cosI don’t know”. Oh God. My interview with Stan Zemanek is only read more…
‘Here comes Deek into the stadium now. Oh what a great champion,’ Bruce said, his voice cracking in the way read more…
‘GET up! They’re here! They’re here! Get up, it’s Juve!” Rita Zammit is my best football-watching friend, and the previous read more…
I picked up at the House of Stoush once. It was a Crowded House concert in about 1987, I was read more…
A friend of mine told me that a friend of his told him that our local supermarket has a singles read more…
This piece was commissioned by The Monthly and appeared in its October 2012 Arts issue. I have posted an earlier, read more…
The hosts called it ‘the Olympic kiss’ – the moment when two torches arch high above the torchbearers’ heads to read more…
‘Shane Warne, Shane Warne, you are a big flirt.’ He was in a trough at the time. Fresh off the read more…
This is an extended version of a piece I wrote for The Age, Melbourne Magazine It was anthologised in a read more…
Almost nobody grows up wanting to be a door bitch. Ask a group of primary school girls what they hope read more…
I’ve spent the last hour on my knees in our shed, searching for VCE English essays that are twenty-one years read more…
‘What about some world game news?’ John Safran asks. I’m stunned, because in 4 months of reading the news on read more…
Most opinions on mobile phones are complaints from the point of view of the non-mobile phone user, people who answer read more…
FRIDAY, March 9, Calcutta Airport, 10.15pm. “Be careful, sir, today is holy day,” a customs official said as he stamped read more…
This piece appears in the book ‘Footy Town’ edited by John Harms and Paul Daffey of ‘Footy Almanac’ fame. It read more…
I have a sports memorabilia idea for Tony Greig. It was the golden summer of 1993-94 and while recovering from read more…
I remember Tamagotchi well. A few years ago I had to baby-sit one and ended up getting in trouble for read more…
This piece was written as part of a compilation of ‘first meeting’ stories published by Penguin in 2007. Tamsin and read more…
It used to be an apple, didn’t it? The young primary schooler, feeling the full blast of love for the read more…
Thursday 6.45pm If the winds of change were blowing, the air around the food vans outside Gate One still smelled read more…
If you’re ever really bored and you’ve exhausted yourself watching pots or staring at a barely moving minute hand, I read more…
THURSDAY 11.05am, Melbourne Airport I arrived at Gate 39 with a Footscray football for the Queen to sign. I wasn’t read more…
I have a contribution in the Australian Baby Guide 2009, which is a letter I wrote to my daughter Polly. read more…
There’s something sad and pathetic about hangers on, who watch from the sidelines to see who in a group of read more…
I’d like to get all the demurring ‘well, you get what you paid fors’ out of the way right now. read more…
DO YOU hear the people meters sing? Does anyone feel like storming the Bastille with me? Honestly, I’m up for read more…
For the last five years, I have suffered from ‘gallery legs’ – a condition that renders legs fifty kilograms heavier read more…
TULLAMARINE, 7.30 am, last Wednesday The check-in steward asked if I had any seat preferences and I said I’d like read more…
David Bridie, Ben Birchall and myself performed this tribute to Fee at her final show last Friday morning. Apologies to read more…
I was filling up the car in a petrol station in Golbourne, listening to my father run through the basics read more…
22 June 2006, Stuttgart, Australia v Croatia, Group F Chapter 8 of Tony Wilson’s ‘Australia United: Adventures at the 2006 read more…
Not every Australian loves sport. For a while we even had a Prime Minister who didn’t. Paul Keating loved polished read more…
I have World of Sport winners on both sides of my bloodlines. For those who remember HSV7’s shambolic, Sunday morning read more…
Arriving in New Zealand it was as I suspected – The Lord of the Rings has done more for the read more…
For eight months In 1992, my name appeared on the senior playing list at Hawthorn, and over the course of read more…
If it’s not bad enough that Atlanta stole Melbourne’s Olympic Games, now it’s stolen my allegory. It’s a pants allegory. read more…
The amazing thing about the Olympics is that races that stop a nation are pretty much a dime a dozen. read more…
I have only ever had one day in a theatre of war. It was June 1998, two years prior to read more…
If Barry Hall were a brunette I wouldn’t be writing this. If Barry Hall were a brunette I’d be letting read more…
For those who aspire to tertiary study, there are few more stressful moments in life than looking up the newspaper read more…
I can’t give you too many details about the Tim Tam session. There’s a slim chance that I was taking read more…
Shaun Dockery only ever gave one truly great three-quarter time address, but that’s not bad for someone who’s never actually read more…
On the left hand side were the boys’ taps and on the right hand side were the girls’. Why one read more…
This is chapter 2 of Australia United. Given we are playing Japan tonight, and this was the best day read more…
Historically, a president choking on a pretzel is nothing new. Indeed, if we are to believe leading authorities in the read more…
As a tourist visiting Amish country, you have to decide whether you are there merely to laugh and point at read more…
AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER – HAWTHORN 1. Matchmaking It was like racing for the taps on an overflowing bath. ‘Ay read more…
Sandringham. Bin night. 4.47am. I’m obviously too late, because Matt Tilley is already leaning on a bin waiting for me read more…
12.05pm: Jago St, Richmond. Channel 9 studios. ‘You don’t think I’m a bad mother, do you?’ I’d known Nat for read more…
This piece appears in ‘Kitchen Table Memoirs’ which also contains contributions from Helen Garner, Denise Scott, Jane Caro and George read more…
All I wanted to be was the best goddamned birthing partner I could be. To stroke Tamsin’s cheek when read more…
Did you see the elephant?” Richard says, squinting at the topiary pachyderm cascading across his garage roof. At the neck read more…
‘Job’ is a terrific noun and an even better verb. I job, you job, he she or it jobs. It read more…
TEST eve, Marina Beach, Chennai, 5.20pm: The kid’s name was Themeem, he was a science student and, at sunset on read more…
THE World Cup is going to be in 3D. Especially for me — I’m going to be there in South read more…
Alan Woods and His Amazing Computer: A Nags-to-Riches Story I had my first bet the day I turned five. It read more…
My father often tells the story of sitting in the Bailleu Library at Melbourne University during the Cuban Missile Crisis, read more…
Shane Warne is there at the top of his run, and I just know he’s going to bowl the ‘Gatting read more…
