Look out Byron Bay!

http://www.byronbaywritersfestival.com.au/v2/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=70&Itemid=115

Check out the above link.
Looks like I'm back doing stand-up.
Never thought it would happen.
Am I frightened, nervous?
Huh!
If you get to read To the Highlands you'll guess where my real fear lies:

1. Will people read this book and get what it is I'm saying?
2. Is it as good as the publisher says it is?
3. Why has Drusilla Modjeska written a book - The Mountain - set in the same country, starting in the same year?
4. Would my parents have read this book?

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 3/7/2012

I’m throwing my hat in the ring for CEO, City of Albany. Let me explain why.

First and foremost, I have no previous experience. This is not unusual as one of our last two CEOS had only been inside a council chamber to check the furniture and the other one to sit in a chair long enough to count the legs.

However, perhaps the three years I spent in the public service will stand me in good stead when the head hunters look me over.

I worked for the WA Department of Industrial Development during a very exciting period and served both Barry McKinnon (Liberal Party) and Mal Bryce (Labor Party).

Bryce was interesting and although a member of the socialists, he looked more like he belonged with the other mob. It was only when he opened his mouth you could tell where he sat.

McKinnon dressed more like a radical and would often wander through the building with his coat off, sleeves up, tie loose and threatening to take us all for a drink, particularly me, because like him, I was a Bridgetown boy.

My major task in the department was to spin a good yarn no matter how bad the news. Albany City needs that skill.

The other attribute I could bring is that wonderful ability to look very busy when I have nothing more to do than drink coffee and engage all and sundry in random, meaningless conversation.

Meetings are another strong point and I never leave one without making sure I know when the next one is, where it is and exactly what day to submit my apology.

Perhaps I should also mention that I have had a lot of experience running, mainly away.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 19/6/2012

Sometime last year I received a call from man asking me if I would consider coaching a basketball team.
I said it was impossible for me to engage in such an activity, given I had never played basketball, thrown a hoop, slammed a dunk, or dribbled.

That was not quite true as I had dribbled but I didn’t want to go into that time of my life with a complete stranger.

He was persistent and insisted I explain myself.

“I’m from Bridgetown,” I said, “and when I grew up the only basket I saw was one mum used to take shopping.”

This surprised him and he pointed out that he thought I was from Mandurah. That riled me and I made it abundantly clear that Mandurah died, for me, the day the crabs lost their bite, the canals were built and the town re-imagined itself on the Gold coast.

Then something hard and solid hit a nail and he said: “Hang on, there’s two John Dousts.”

Indeed there is, in fact, there’s five, but I am the only who rejected the H.

The other John Doust, the one who slams a dunk in the Great Southern, is an extremely decent man, as you would expect, even given he spends too much time in Mandurah.

In addition, he is a basketball magician and it was because of him that I finished up at the China Australia game with my ears full of toilet paper because the extremely loud speaker right next to my seat was destroying what little I had left by way of ear drums.

If you see me in the street, please use your lips extravagantly and talk into my left ear only.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 5/6/2012

This year the Queen of Australia celebrates her Diamond Jubilee.

I remember her crowning in 1953 and in 1954 I did but see her passing by on Stirling Highway.

Back then I thought her regal and quite beautiful, although I never took to her voice or her one-colour outfits.

These memories returned as I watched The Diamond Queen on ABC TV and my emotional responses startled me. Then it hit me - I missed my mother.

Not so much the mother I had, but the mother I wanted, the resilient one, strong, steadfast and constant in the face of all odds.

When I screen old home movies I see snatches of a regal looking woman who I, along with others, thought beautiful, a woman in multi-coloured outfits and whose laughter could lift a dull spirit.

Unfortunately, my mother’s early life was not a happy one and she battled insecurities and low self-esteem throughout her 84 years.

She never had the stamina of the Queen, her support, or her grace under fire, but she was my mum and mum to my three brothers. No-one loved us more.

She was, in short, our queen and now, even though she is no longer with us, we will never forget her.

And that’s how I feel about the other Queen. When Australia becomes a republic it will in no way diminish the impact she has had on my personal life or the life of this country.

I don’t mind the young princes either but I don’t want them as titular heads of my country, in the same way I don’t want my brothers running my family and I don’t want to run my son’s.

I will mourn this Queen, but welcome an Australian Republic.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 22/5/2012

Dad used to buy a lump of rubbery, so called cheddar cheese. He would slice it up and put it neatly on our plates, right next to the lettuce leaf with sugar coating, one or two slices of carrot, half a tomato and a slice of polony.

Later on, in another country, I graduated to cottage cheese, then ricotta and, finally, back to a cheddar. But not that cheddar, this time the cheddar of the Dutch, the Swiss, fine cheddars, in particular, mature cheddars.

That began a lifelong search for a perfect cheese.

Many months ago after I had harangued the good people at Ringwould Dairy once too often about my current favourite, the goat’s cheese Rosa, the cheese maker fronted me and said: Why don’t you make your own.

When my son and I arrived, Toni, the cheese maker, gave us our instructions: It’s not glamorous. It’s not easy. Here are your boots, capes and gloves.

I laughed: Who are we, Batman and Robin? No, she replied, you’re the cleaners.

And that’s what we did most of the day, watched, learnt and cleaned.

It’s not easy making Rosa. For a start, Toni had her hands and arms in a vat large enough to hold her and one other, swirling and mixing, for what seemed like hours.

When she got out of the vat, she put me in. And once that was done, there were other things to be done and after each thing got done, things had to be cleaned. And that’s what took up most of the day.

Last Saturday, when the delectable Rosa sat on my home table, it didn’t last anywhere near as long as the day we spent making it, or cleaning up after it.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 8/5/2012

As we now know because people have been studying such things for a couple of decades, in any large office we can expect to find a number of disturbed humans per one hundred of the species.

Among the one hundred we might find at least one serious narcissist, a psychopath, a sociopath, a pathological liar, an incurable bully and a demented comedian.

Regular readers will no doubt pick the slot I might fill. Some types are hard to discover and I don’t have the space here to offer you full definitions.

I once worked in a large office in the middle of the Big Swirl, Perth, where the bully was the easiest to find and I baited him at every opportunity, but this was not enough, as he continued to intimidate friends of mine, mainly women.

One day, with my pulse racing, I confronted him as he sat behind his desk. When I say confront, I mean with pumped body and steel-tight mouth, and let him know in very clear and certain terms, that I would no longer tolerate his behaviour in my presence.

I never saw him again. He avoided me like the plague.

Hard to imagine, I know, but such folk as those on the above list still exist in large workplaces today and they often flourish because companies, corporations, institutions and departments encourage them, believing them to be crucial to their success.

This is dysfunctional thinking and always ends in tears.

Such behaviour should be confronted whenever it occurs and, as we know with all good bush fire control, sometimes you just have to lop the upper story or the fire spreads very quickly through the rest of the forest.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 24/4/2012

I have a confession, but let me be clear that I had no idea I was offending anyone. Here’s what happened.

Someone rang and offered me a job, for a lot of money and I took it.

Harmless enough, but now I know the only reason I got the job was because I am Australian, a man, and considered mildly humorous when standing out front in a room full of complete strangers.

That money could have gone to someone more deserving, someone with less cash than me, someone who had their cat put down last week and got a helluva shock when the vet’s invoice arrived.

Sure, I mock, but there has been much fuss in the eastern media over the past few weeks because a friend of mine, Anita Heiss, an Aboriginal woman who has been accused of being Aboriginal all her life, accepted a writers’ fellowship in recognition of the impressive body of work she has produced and on the understanding she would produce even more.

Imagine her shock and the shock of others like her to be criticised for taking advantage of their positions.

The farmers who take fuel subsidies, just because they are farmers and Australian citizens; anyone who exports and avails themselves of the services of Austrade, Australian trade missions, consular services, Ministerial agreements, free trade deals.

And shame on gold miners, taking advantage of their inability to mine any other mineral and thus avoiding paying the vast tax sums other miners fork out and, guess what, they won’t be paying a super profits tax when it kicks in.

But biggest shame on the banks, those monoliths that have a system designed for them, seemingly by them, and they make hay with it each and every day.

Disgraceful.

And what about you? Oh yes, take a good look at yourself, making the most of your subsidised lifestyle in the deep south and every so often I bet you book a show in the AEC, a building paid for by taxpayers. Shameful.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 10/4/2012

Inevitably when people from the Big Swirl, Perth, haven’t seen me for some time they ask: “Where are you living now? You back in Bridgetown?”

It is nice that people remember where you are from but it probably has a lot to do with my mouth, that slit in my face that never ceases to amaze me and more than once a week catches me unawares.

But no, although I will forever be “from” Bridgetown, there is no chance I will live there again. This is a matter of choice and has nothing to do with my brothers requesting that I never return because their business is worth more than their love for their “other brother”.

Once I reveal my current address to the Big Swirlers they always exclaim: “Oh, cold. How can you stand it? I could never live there.

There always seems to be a queue of responses sitting on my vocal cords, waiting an opportunity to emerge. Here are a few.

“I agree, Albany is much too close to the Antarctic and only last week my neighbour lost three toes overnight due to frostbite.”

“You know what, it is nowhere near as cold as Bridgetown, where you can wake up one morning in winter and find your partner frozen to the toilet seat.”

“I’m not sure you are aware but temperatures are rising so fast that over the next decade or two you will be rushing south and, guess what, we’ll have the No Vacancy sign up.”

They scoff. I laugh.

Sometimes they visit and when they do I pray for rain and cold, just to prove their misconceptions.

However, during my time as a volunteer tour guide for the boat people, I have noticed a strange phenomenon: every time a boat comes in, the sky clears and the sun shines.

The boat people are always stunned because the last port they called into, usually Bunbury, they couldn’t get off because of bad weather.

I always say: Bunbury? You missed nothing.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 27/3/2012

Three weeks ago I was in Singapore’s Little India on a Sunday night, searching for my friend’s favourite Indian restaurant.

The streets were packed, tight as a drum, thousands of men walking in all directions. Occasionally a woman would walk by but no man stopped to leer, pass a comment, or reach out to touch.

And the women strode through with confidence and complete lack of fear or trepidation.

I kept saying to Andre: “All these men, and no agro. How come?”

Andre has lived for five years on the island state and he knows his way around: “There is something in the culture of these people, something gentle,” he said. “And, look around, no alcohol.”

He was right. The men were walking, sitting on the pavement in clusters, or standing and chatting with friends. I saw lots of water bottles, but no alcohol.

The other startling aspect of the massed multitude was that although thousands seemed doomed to clash in their forward movement, it was a rare event. One man did bump into Andre and he turned immediately to apologise.

How many times have you walked up York Street fully confident you will not meat another human most of the way and when you do, you are surprised, as is the other human, and as you face each other neither can work out which side of the pavement to occupy?

What follows is that awkward one-step this way, one-step that way, only to discover the other party is mirroring your every movement.

If you’re lucky you get to share a laugh. If not, embarrassment.

Back in the car, Andre said: “In Singapore my wife can walk home any time of the night from the train and I know she will be safe. I don’t feel like that in Perth.”

I assured him that if Albany had a train, he could feel safe here to. But the look he gave me suggested he wasn’t so sure.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 13/3/2012

I am writing this in Singapore. I have not been here since 1973. It has changed.

The first thing I noticed on landing was that the plane took almost 20 minutes to taxi to the terminal tentacle and out my window, below the runway, I could see highways full of domestic traffic.

On terra firma I expected to be buffeted by multitudes but was pleasantly surprised to discover there was space for me, my baggage and a lot of other folk.

My hotel room is just right and the breakfast on offer is an interesting mix of European and Asian. I have settled on a fried rice base, with yellow dhal and alfalfa shoots, followed by fruit.

On my first morning I was joined by Sir Michael Somare, the ex-PM of Papua New Guinea. We talked about the current situation in Port Moresby and how hard it was for old men to give up power, read a book, go fishing, or learn backgammon.

All right, Sir Michael didn’t join me but he did sit three tables away and I would have spoken to him but he had eight men and one woman guarding him, following him and carrying his crockery.

I wanted to say: “Mate, if you can’t carry your own plate, you’re not going to manage a country?”

The big news in town this week seems to be that foreign maids will henceforth get one day of a week, or pay in lieu. One maid was proudly photographed with her bosses and revealed that not only did she already have her day off but she also borrowed the family car and went on holidays with the entire mob. Sacre bleur!

Highlights so far include the bright eyed children I have visited in schools, one of the finest laksas I have eaten and an island tour by Singaporean poet and Albany regular, Alvin Pang.

I have a feeling I will return.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 28/2/2012

Two weeks ago I started working as a volunteer to welcome the boat people. My little blue-shirted group stood in the street and welcomed passengers as they alighted from their buses.

Our fearless leader Jenny Howard kept us well informed in the lead up and made contact during the morning to alert us to sudden changes.

The volunteer operation was started over five years ago by Jenny and her friend Pat Kerrish after they found themselves inadvertently helping dazed and fazed tourists wandering around wondering what to do now they were onshore in the prettiest little own they had ever seen.

In those days there were 16 vollies on the books and now there are nearly 50.

The first boat to birth for my inaugural tour of duty was the Celebrity Century and we were told it had 2150 people on board. According to the Celebrity Cruises website the ship carries 1814, which may have accounted for the passengers streaming offshore in rapid numbers.

Although none, when greeted by us on the pavement, screamed: “Thank goodness we’re off the sardine can.”

The planet seemed well represented and among those we offered to assist were folk from the United States, Canada, France, England, New Zealand, Germany, the Philippines and Perth. All right, Perth is just up the road but they seemed just as foreign as the others.

The next boat was the Silver Shadow, once again we were told there were 400 on-board but the website suggested 382 would be a full-house.

I am beginning to think the shipping companies are a bit slack in their webpage maintenance because the Silver Shadow gang were clearly used to an abundance of personal space and each bus from the port only carried five or six of them.

Much fun was had by all and in between buses we told each other scandalous tales and attempted to influence the behaviour of land-based tourists.

Would I do it all again?  Oh yes, just try and keep me off the streets when the next boat comes in.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 14/2/2012

Five nappies, that’s the count so far this year. Disgusting.

It is not uncommon, for example, to find plastic bottles, lolly wrappers, thongs, bathers, socks and underpants left by lazy beach goers, then there’s the bits of rope, timber and plastic blown in from offshore, but nappies? Who? Why? Well, settle back, I have a list of possibles.

The first type to leave a nappy I call the “the lazy bugger”. This is a person who trundles off to the beach heavily laden with all kinds of junk to enhance their sea-side experience and when it’s time to leave they just up and leave with whatever they have in their hands.

Then there is the “hard of sight” type who has good intensions but when they rise to leave they can only see what they can see and that they collect. Nappies being flesh coloured can easily get lost in sand. Okay, I’m being kind here, because if this were so then how the hell does an old bloke with one dodgy eye spot them?

To be fair, I must include what I call the “good and fair” beach-goer who simply misses the filthy thing sitting on the sand and would, if their memory served them well, return later to the same spot to collect the offending parcel. This may well have happened and if it did, I would, of course, not see the bundle because it would no longer be there.

Finally, the type I call, simply, the "prick".  This person says to him or herself: I’m not picking up that. Leave it for the council workers. Yeah, sure, as if council workers patrol the beach every day collecting rubbish.

No, we do, the regulars, the walkers, the beach lovers.

Perhaps the "prick" has heard of us and says: Leave it, there’s an old bloke with a dodgy eye, comes by every day picking up crap.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 31/1/2012

It’s the tourist season and every year visiting friends ask me the same question: When we come, why does Albany close?

It doesn’t, of course, there’s always a place to buy petrol and at least one IGA keeps it’s doors open. What they mean is: Why is it so hard to find a place ready with a cup of coffee, a piece of cake and a decent meal?

On the Sunday following New Year, I found two coffee shops open and staff at both were running on empty and complaining about all the others with their doors slammed. Not a good look in a tourist town.

What the hell would I know about the service industry? Let me lay my cred on the line: all my brothers are in retail, I was once in retail, my father was a retailer, his mother and her father, all retailers.

The man of our house, Stanley Roy Doust, ran his shop in a time of heavily regulated shopping hours but he ran it with community responsibility firm in mind and if your mower broke down on Sunday at 2.20 pm, he would say: I’ll see you down the shop in 10 minutes. You can pay me tomorrow.

In a tourist town we need to nurture strong local operators like Stanley.

Some years after the proliferation of shopping centres, he said to me: Shopping centres have become the new cathedrals.

He’s right. Colin Barnett knows it. And so does Mark McGowan. People flock to the glitz seeking manna and so much leisure revolves around shopping experiences.

But even bishops should be given time off and so Stanley and I say: Close the cathedrals at least one day a week, but make sure the tourists leave town with a warm glow, because there is no greater marketing strategy than the one that works from mouth to mouth.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 17/1/2012

This column has been written standing up, on my feet, keyboard on a lectern, screen elongated to its full extremity on a desk.

Why? Pain. Oh, I can hear the sympathy cries. Please, let me speak.

The thing is, like a lot of men, I am not good with pain. What do I do, scream, lie still for hours, call for a glass of water, whimper for a sandwich as soon as the working woman arrives home from her daily  grind?

No, that’s not me. My history with pain has not been a sensible one. Like many country blokes of this and previous generations, I have tended to ignore, push through and do battle with those bits that hurt me.

So, when I woke up this morning with a knife in my left side, I did what any country bloke worth his pepper would do, I grabbed the handle and stuck it in further. In other words, I headed for the garden, took a spade, called it by its name, and went for it.

Of course, as soon as I stopped for breakfast, the pain returned full of vengeance, vitriol and a fierce determination to stop me in my track and make sure I couldn’t find another one to walk on.

All this reminded me of the time I damaged my knees while distributing a small booklet I had written called “How to lose an election”. Instead of stopping for the day I decided to complete the job while hobbling and running at the same time.

Eventually I collapsed and every so often the knees remind me of my idiocy by giving way beneath me.

Finally, to close, a few words of advice for blokes just like me from that great Australian philosopher Oliver Newton John, who once, when in pain, sang: Listen to your body talk.

And it would have helped if she had added: Then go and see your health care professional.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 3/1/2012

As always at this time of the year I offer up tips for tourists and locals alike. I begin with those for our very welcome visitors.

1 – Do not drive down York Street. This year’s Christmas Pageant was moved to the Middleton Beach precinct and half the floats did not arrive. It is believed they are trapped in a roundabout time-warp and every so often other vehicles are sucked into the void and old timers tell us none of them will ever be seen again.

2 – Before you head off to Middleton Beach it is best to eat and drink before leaving your accommodation.

3 – Remember, this is not a mining town, our City Council is a victim of itself and the GFC and our local MLA is not in the ruling party and spends most of his salary on Collingwood Football Club paraphernalia, so we need cash. If you fail to spend all your holiday money there is a collection tin at my place.

Here are my tips for the locals, those long suffering folk who put up with weather worse than Melbourne to ensure visitors have the infrastructure with which to enjoy time off from some place up north we have forgotten the name of.

1 – If a tourist says they think our weather is glorious tell them it won’t last, that the week before they arrived all hell broke loose and even worse weather is expected after they leave.

2 – Do not invite them into your home, once they realise we live here without air-conditioning they will want to come back.

3 – When meeting visitors on the street, twist your face and scream names of vegetables as though in the grip of Tourette’s disorder.

If you require any further advice don’t call me because I am on my annual holidays in Dalwallinu.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 20/12/2011

You want my view of the change of route for the annual Christmas Pageant? Here it is.

I was one of sock creatures walking alongside the giant Christmas stocking in the Albany Comedy Club’s ground breaking float last Saturday.  Well, hardly a float, more a stack of recycled socks carried along by feet.

We don’t reckon Flinders Parade is the place for a pageant. At least half of it runs alongside the caravan park and nobody stood there and only a few took advantage of the CWA lawn.

Our vote goes to York Street and most who hung around for a chat at the end said the same thing: York is the king. The Ellen Cove grassy verge did, however, seem very jolly all decked out in stalls and frippery and a number suggested it would be an ideal venue for the next boat load of baby boomers with more cash than sense.

And now let me respond to the suggestion that the change was about refocussing the event to make it a “less commercial, more family oriented affair.”

Hang on, there is no more commercial time of the year than Christmas. It’s all about commerce. When it’s over economic statisticians will reveal how well the economy is doing by disclosing the amount of dosh spent in the lead up and aftermath.

Christmas is no longer about the birth of that great bloke Jesus, it’s full of pagan symbols and mainly about consumption - eating, drinking and wrapping paper.

The mighty York is designed for a pageant - it’s our Main Street, provides perfect viewing both sides, up, down and middle, plus plenty of places for a coffee and milkshake. Middleton - a magnificent beach – might once have been an entertainment hub, but until Calamari’s gets back on the boil, it’s a dead dud. 

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 6/12/2011

Sorry, it's a bit late this one. too much on my mind. Too much to do. Enjoy your festive season.

As always at this time of the year you will find me in Manjimup working on the Cherry Harmony Festival.

It’s not easy, eating plump ripe cherries for a solid week. You have to train yourself, take a couple here and a couple there, then, finally, plunge headlong, mouth open.

 What’s it all about, people often ask, assuming that it’s about cherries? Nothing is all about cherries, not even a cherry festival. But it is all about food and the ability of this rich and fertile south western corner to provide an abundance of delicacies for those who live in the northern wastelands.

It started 10 years ago when Manjimup was in the grip of despair following the dismantling of the timber industry. A couple of local groups and Paul Omodei, ex-MLA for the region, decided to hold a public meeting.

What a day it was and all day I spruiked: “What this town needs is a cherry festival!” and all day tired old men came up to me and said: “You’re an idiot.”

Then, when all seemed lost, four women stormed my personal space and yelled: “You’re right. You’re a genius! We’re having a cherry festival.”

I shook their hands, congratulated them and wished them well. They refused to let me go and said: “You don’t get out of it that easy, matey. You are on the committee, you’re part of the team, stacking chairs, consoling lost children and calling the Australasian Cherry Pip Spitting Championships.”

This year is the 10^th, all in a row, and each year bigger and better than the previous and even though a number of festivals have threatened to be cherryless, they always magically appear, ripe and plump enough to send folk away in much the same condition.

The Doust Files - 22/11/2011

Don’t you just love it when the tourist boats slip into Princess Royal Harbour, tie up and let their human cargo lose on our well prepared town awash with eager volunteers?

We know who they are, in their brightly coloured shirts, smiles at the ready, full of information about here, there and everywhere.

The town fills, all the shops scream “come to me”, bands play in the park, buses distribute folk all over town and the coffee shops fume with over-heating machinery.

It is, after all, only for a day and so we make a huge effort to ensure they leave saying things like: “What a town. The people are so friendly and there is so much going on. It must be exhausting to live there.”

But we know the truth, don’t we, because when they all leave, we sit back, exhausted, knowing full well that there is nothing else to do until the next boat comes in.

Oh yes, there was once a life here for those of us not prepared to cram into a tight spot in the night club, or brave the bar at a pub. Not that long ago we had a top notch hotel with a bar facing Ellen Cove and luxury rooms fit for our visiting friends, those with more money than sense.

Those were the days. And recently we had a great little venue down there, tucked into one corner of the Cove, where local musicians could play their hearts out while the rest of us tossed our bodies around like we never left the teen years.

You don’t need me to tell you - you know it’s going to get worse.

Eventually we’ll lose the pubs because alcohol will be banned from the centre of the city and deemed “not family friendly”. The next to go will be the shopping centres, which only encourage problem-shoppers, the churches because they only pray on the vulnerable, and the library because it houses books and look at the trouble they have caused over the centuries.

We’ll kick and scream and cry out and some idiot will hang socks but when it is all broken down we’ll realise that it’s probably all about something quite simple, like insurance.

The thing is, no-one can guarantee anyone’s safety, anywhere, anymore and the only way to stay alive is to not really live, but to hold out in your house, lock the doors, bolt the windows and if someone knocks, call the police.

The police, of course, will not come, unless your insurance policy covers public officials visiting your property.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 8/11/11

The recent kerfuffle over the people banned from the city during CHOGM reminded me of the time I was on the WA Police Special Branch list of suspects.

Let me be honest, it all began because I was out of work, not long out of university and struggling to make prospective employers recognise my great skills and accept my promise that I would be the next Laurie Oaks.

But I’m not a chap to sit around even with loads of time on my hand so I planted a massive and much admired vegetable garden. I think it was the first, the last, and the only community vegetable patch in the district.

In between plantings I read a book by a man called Henry Root. Henry filled in his time by writing letters to pompous people, pricking their balloons and enclosing money so they felt obliged to reply. I got right onto it.

Among the many I wrote to were Alan Bond, the PM of NZ Sir Robert “Piggy” Muldoon, the PM of the UK Margaret Thatcher and Queensland’s very own, Joe Bejelke-Petersen.

They all replied and no doubt a number of them reported me, but the one that forced the Special Branch to take action was the note I penned to the French Consul congratulating that nation on the development of the Exocet missile. This was during the Falklands War when Baroness Thatcher was at her virulent best.

Within the week a delegation from the Special Branch knocked on our suburban door to find my pregnant wife who welcomed them in with a cheery “Yes, he is my husband. Would you like a cup of tea?”

That knocked them off their feet for a second or two but they still insisted on meeting me in a carpark in the centre of the city and when I did I explained to them that my letters were satiric, meaning “a criticism of a folly and the holding up of said folly to scorn”.

Their collective brow curled over but fell back in place after I told them the joke about the Frenchman, the Irishman and the Lithuanian. And I added that I was a working comedian and compiling a book of letters to sell at comedy shows.

Years later when it was announced that the Special Branch would be disbanded I wrote in to demand I be retained on a list of social threats because without it my life would lack meaning and I would lose major bragging rights. Unfortunately I forgot to include money and I never heard from them again.

The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 25/10/11

This can be a very anxious time of the year for both parties - the parents of the young and those who fear the fear of the parents.

The parents, of course, as the experts constantly remind us, are only protecting their young from perceived threats and there is nothing to do but walk with an umbrella, wave a stick, or perhaps wear an empty ice cream container on your head.

I don’t do any of these things and yet I have never been swooped by the bird Noongars call coolbardi in my entire life. Why not? What is it about me? Does my head look like an upside down ice cream container? 

What’s more, I am not alone and whenever we meet we share stories and marvel at the inability of others to recognise the intelligence of the creature or see the simplicity of the solution – don’t be a threat, be a friend.

But don’t try now, not if you live in the territory of a mob that have a habit of swooping at anything that moves , wears red, reminds you of someone they once knew, or walks beside a dog that chases anything that moves, flies, or barracks for Collingwood.

Now is the spring of their discontent and the smartest thing you can do is stay away from the nesting places.

When we arrived to occupy our Albany home the local mob were in a terrible rage and we kept well clear of them even though it resulted in some inconvenience. They were in a rage because some in the area were intimidating them with sticks, stones and threatening body language.

We waited until peace reigned once again over the earth and then we began our conversation, whistling as they flew by, installing a bird bath, making sure they saw us spread the sunflower seeds on the lawn and looking at them direct, without fear, as though they were the friendly landlord come to collect rent.

Right now I can hear their early morning calls, their carols to the new day and their cries warning others in the mob that something is not quite right in their territory. I love those sounds and I love their night song, that one that no-one quite knows the meaning off but my magpie loving son and I are pretty sure one of our possibilities is more than likely.

Local Menang elder Carol Peterson will tell you the coolbardi  is the messenger bird and if you’d only take the time to listen, it could change your life.