As for that First Dog, blodwen, time to put him in his vulgar tee shirt, take him to the Mallee or wherever there’s a fair dinkum left in Victoria, and get him to put him out of his misery with a twenty-two. A bullet from a three nought three would be wasted on the useless mongrel illustrator. Gosh we miss Cornwell.

I also think that for one of your writers to be so deficient in his native tongue to write about the leader of the Opposition, who has the courage to brave public life, as being in the- vulgar word omitted- is letting the Fourth Estate down. But we can at least protest about un-professional vulgarity and pray that writers who do not use nouns as adjectives and delight us with their command of language, will eventually prevail at Crikey and other journals. There is no way this representative of the folk out there will ‘listen up’. Read with full attention, yes.

I suppose this will get the electronic spike, but that’s life for a sole subscriber who really appreciates Dyer, Mayne etc and that great bloke from whom we got our wine in Canberra in the good old days and knows what great journalists the Davidsons were in their heyday.