Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

"The first rays of the dawning sun began to flood the eastern window of the upstairs bedroom at Kirribilli House spreading a magnificent kaleidoscope of colour above the bed on the opposite wall and highlighting in gold the manacles which hung from the bedhead. Little Johnnie had, of course, been out for his morning walk and his presence in the room carried the stale smell of protective services officers and liniment." From Chapter 2 of the Chronicles of Nadir, as told from the grave by Tom Lewis.

"The federalist idea came naturally to the Dutch because their own state had had from the beginning a more or less federalist organisation through the so-called ‘Unie van Utrecht’. Dutch political history of the nineteenth century revolves partly around the attempt to regain this ‘federalist’ set up after the centralising policies of King William I. If a ‘federalism’ of sorts seemed a natural set up for such a tiny country as the Netherlands, this should hold a fortiori for an independent vast archipelago state as Indonesia." Arie brand

"At 20, I charged into scribbling for student newspapers and radio, and had minor battles with all manner of senior academics, Queensland politicians of any stripe and most memorable of all, a very rough, evil and well-connected lad who was, and remains a member of the Israeli army. He threatened me with a defamation writ for my coverage in Semper Floreat of his bullyboy antics at a Student Council meeting. I wasn't a student at the U of Q at the time, but at the then Institute of Technology, where a notable campus figure was the well-known Bryan Law, who probably still strongly disapproves of my behaviour." Peter Woodforde