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 Jeff Corbett 

Jeff Corbett

Posted: 02 Jul 09 | It is very likely we paid most of the cost of installing the household's solar system, and from the beginning of next year we the non-solar public will be paying an extortionate price for the excess product of a solar system we paid for. | CommentsComments (16)
Posted: 01 Jul 09 | Not one of the shooters says he hunts birds or animals because it is fun, because there's a satisfaction to be had killing a bird or animal, because the death rattles somehow satisfy a primeval urge. | CommentsComments (68)
Posted: 30 Jun 09 | There is uncertainty as to what amounts to intoxication, although I remember a licensing sergeant saying to me a couple of years ago that it was not rocket science. | CommentsComments (20)
Posted: 29 Jun 09 | The problem of loneliness in old age is compounded when age and retirement join forces, when the perception that age is undesirable mixes with the perception that retired people don't contribute. | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 26 Jun 09 | The expanded list of birds and animals The Shooters' party wants to kill in national parks and elsewhere includes four species of kangaroo, 11 species of ducks, quail, the galah, the purple swamphen, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, two species of ibis, and the black swan! | CommentsComments (119)
Posted: 25 Jun 09 | Smokers have become the new public contemptibles, and I believe the motives behind those railing against them are questionable. | CommentsComments (19)
Posted: 24 Jun 09 | I'm well aware of the enticements for young people of gang membership but I'd never thought of it in terms of status, respect and role. | CommentsComments (11)
Posted: 23 Jun 09 | The difference for insurance purposes between storm and flood damage has always been a difficulty, and an insurance company with a unique record of goodwill in the Hunter, NRMA Insurance, has missed an opportunity to make it less difficult. | CommentsComments (31)
Posted: 19 Jun 09 | Fling is a stand-out as the new, non-derogatory word. Prostitutes would be flings, and a brothel would be a flingarium. A fling is an uplifting dalliance, a release from inhibition, something that even moralists and wives would abide. | CommentsComments (32)
Posted: 18 Jun 09 | At the base of it all is stereotyping, and it is inevitable that just as we generalise much of our experience we will stereotype people of various cultures. | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 17 Jun 09 | Australians and people of other developed nations seem to have a mental block when it comes to the unsustainability of our way of life. Even small changes are seen as too hard. And government-enforced change is precarious in a democracy. | CommentsComments (61)
Posted: 16 Jun 09 | The United Motorcycle Council of NSW has launched the most extraordinary public relations campaign you and I are ever likely to encounter. | CommentsComments (38)
Posted: 15 Jun 09 | The path is littered with small events, perhaps the confiscation of a phone, even the permanent confiscation of a phone, internet access rules, careful computer positioning, unannounced monitoring of computers, and banning of social-network sites. But we've lost the war. | CommentsComments (12)
Posted: 12 Jun 09 | We drive strategically, and the principal strategy is to put bad drivers behind us as a matter of urgency. If enough good drivers can get a wave going we'll shuffle bad drivers back to their starting point. | CommentsComments (22)
Posted: 11 Jun 09 | The media's outrage shortly after the 4Corners program suggested that all Australia was disgusted and baying for Matthew Johns's blood, and those who differed may have thought they were in a vulnerable minority. | CommentsComments (13)
Posted: 10 Jun 09 | The tender documents are drawn up by council's indoor staff, those indoors, and in the great bureaucratic tradition they are, if the tender document I've just read is a fair indication, fearsomely complex and demanding. | CommentsComments (11)
Posted: 09 Jun 09 | Much is written about energy efficiency, about power and water independence, smaller ecological footprints and sustainable consumption, but frugality rarely rates a mention. | CommentsComments (20)
Posted: 04 Jun 09 | Vince Phelan is a 78-year-old Belmont man who has just had "Do Not Resuscitate" tattooed onto his chest, but he is far from a man with a death wish. | CommentsComments (20)
Posted: 03 Jun 09 | Late last week a shortlived denial was the subject of a couple of paragraphs in The Herald's report of the NSW Government's cabinet community meeting at Lake Macquarie. | CommentsComments (25)
Posted: 02 Jun 09 | Why should we pay, so the talkback went, for fat slobs to quit their gross eating habits? | CommentsComments (32)
Posted: 01 Jun 09 | A choko vine on the back fence or over the garden shed will put food on the family table most days of the year, and it will do so without spewing a single gram of pollution into the atmosphere. | CommentsComments (36)
Posted: 29 May 09 | Waiters will say that you tip for good service, but I say that their employer and customers expect nothing less than good service. | CommentsComments (18)
Posted: 28 May 09 | I'm inclined now to pay ne'er to return but I suspect there's a better policy that is fairer to the diner and to the many restaurateurs who strive for a positive experience all round. | CommentsComments (28)
Posted: 27 May 09 | He was not charged with soliciting sexual services on the other occasions he'd done so - he was charged with soliciting sexual services on the occasion he was enticed to do so by the beauty of the copper's decoy. | CommentsComments (29)
Posted: 26 May 09 | As it is now the sex industry, both legal and illegal, is free to pose as great a risk to public health as it chooses. | CommentsComments (24)
Posted: 25 May 09 | With a different hand of cards I could well be one of the low lifes I despise, slinking about looking for an opportunity to steal, a bit of drug-dealing action, a charity hand-out. | CommentsComments (53)
Posted: 22 May 09 | Most people have a culinary party trick. How about sharing yours. | CommentsComments (8)
Posted: 21 May 09 | We've all spent time with them, people who are so obsessed with what they see as an injustice that they can think of and talk of nothing else. | CommentsComments (49)
Posted: 20 May 09 | A husband accepting his wife's influence is very likely to make for a happy marriage, and apart from the first two years of rooster-like machismo I have done as I'm told. | CommentsComments (14)
Posted: 19 May 09 | The arty crowd argues that having a free art gallery makes a better person of us all, that it elevates the community. | CommentsComments (32)
Posted: 18 May 09 | Tall people are always head and shoulders above short arses. They stand tall when lesser men are not even noticed. Ever heard of a man standing short? Or of a short, dark and handsome man? | CommentsComments (12)
Posted: 15 May 09 | You must have seen them, the emails detailing the scandal of the Federal Government showering money on refugees while paying pensioners a pittance. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 14 May 09 | It's a tally when we talk, boastfully, of the number of dead Taliban, and a toll when we talk, as though a great wrong has been perpetrated, of the number of dead Australians. | CommentsComments (17)
Posted: 13 May 09 | As we and the NRL and the media discuss and debate the group sex involving celebrity and former great footballer Matthew Johns, does it occur to anyone that it is none of our business? | CommentsComments (66)
Posted: 12 May 09 | Australia has a permissive wait-and-see attitude to poisons, as opposed to Europe's requirement that the manufacturer prove the toxin is safe before it is sold. | CommentsComments (10)
Posted: 11 May 09 | We crave horror, as in asteroids, SARS, tsunamis, bird flu, Y2K, the ozone hole, terrorism, earthquake, pandemic, and even global economic collapse. So long as it doesn't enter our home, of course. | CommentsComments (19)
Posted: 30 Apr 09 | A Charles Sturt University sociologist midway through a four-year study of treechangers has found that 90 per cent of them are so disenchanted they want to move. | CommentsComments (22)
Posted: 29 Apr 09 | The Greens are caught in a cause that became redundant a decade ago and they're doing no one of any sexuality any favours. | CommentsComments (50)
Posted: 28 Apr 09 | Does any reasonable Australian now see Australia's acceptance of Vietnamese boat people those decades ago as a bad decision? | CommentsComments (42)
Posted: 27 Apr 09 | Public toilets are seldom where we need them. Sure, shopping centres, Maccas, pubs, some service stations and some parks have them, but of those the only publicly provided toilets are in parks. Some parks, and often they're locked. | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 08 Apr 09 | It is a question of whether our Proceeds of Crime legislation should apply to Australians who have not been found by Australia's measure to have committed a crime. | CommentsComments (84)
Posted: 07 Apr 09 | There is a form of "what it" questions that should be more sensibly considered than flights of fancy. | CommentsComments (9)
Posted: 06 Apr 09 | Ted and Margaret are not crying poor. They are angry and bewildered that their efforts to provide their own income in retirement are dismissed so ungraciously and blindly by the Federal Government. | CommentsComments (44)
Posted: 03 Apr 09 | The RTA doesn't appear to be in any doubt that a one-metre margin is required for the safety of cyclists, so why is the margin not given the authority of law? | CommentsComments (43)
Posted: 02 Apr 09 | We see the ponytail as an inane affectation, but ponytail himself sees it is as a measure of his sophistication, guru-like wisdom, unique creativity and mystery. | CommentsComments (35)
Posted: 01 Apr 09 | As hard as it must be being fat, for many people it must be hard not to be fat. | CommentsComments (26)
Posted: 31 Mar 09 | I've never been to a school reunion but I'll be surprised if the intention of most of those who go is not to scoff, to dismiss and to reward themselves with a smugness befitting their success. | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 20 Mar 09 | Today it is evidently seen by many dog owners as both legally and socially acceptable to give a big dog free rein. | CommentsComments (74)
Posted: 19 Mar 09 | Homecoming adult children become child adults, children first again, and the impact on crotchety old parents can be, well, unsettling. | CommentsComments (23)
Posted: 18 Mar 09 | Many successful and senior managers present so well that whether they have other gifts is irrelevant. | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 17 Mar 09 | I wouldn't mind a few beers at a pub on Friday afternoon, as is my habit throughout the year, and I am irritated that I may be denied that by religious customs I don't share, don't accept and don't want. | CommentsComments (75)
Posted: 16 Mar 09 | It may be that the juggernaut driving a new museum was such that the decision was as good as made before costs became an issue, and if that was the case costs were never an issue. | CommentsComments (39)
Posted: 13 Mar 09 | The stories of Herald readers have established beyond doubt that the charging of mobile phone users for suscriptions they did not order is not a matter of accident. | CommentsComments (14)
Imbalanced councillors
Posted: 12 Mar 09 | A level playing field, and these days it's tilted positively for women, is not a level podium. | CommentsComments (41)
Posted: 11 Mar 09 | I'll turn up at a mail exchange somewhere, sort and pack my mail and head off into a beautiful day to greet all my new friends. | CommentsComments (41)
Posted: 09 Mar 09 | The NSW Food Authority's penalties register lists only food-handling breaches it assesses as likely to result in unsafe or inaccurately labelled food, and this throws more doubt on regional councils' conciliatory approach. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 06 Mar 09 | I wouldn't be at all surprised if the cranky driver's board becomes freely available because it's important that we correct moronic drivers. | CommentsComments (61)
Posted: 05 Mar 09 | Maybe we could float greenies a few hundred metres off our beaches as shark screamers, saltwater canaries. | CommentsComments (61)
Posted: 04 Mar 09 | Of course fuddy duddy drivers dripping with sanctimony will decry the buffer, or they will until it goes and they're booked for doing 62kmh in a 60 zone. | CommentsComments (19)
Posted: 03 Mar 09 | I'd hoped that Big Brother's very effective exposure of the inanity of youth would cure us of this cult of youth and beauty, but the cult is now booming and ubiquitous. | CommentsComments (20)
Posted: 02 Mar 09 | I've been surprised by the good sense of the towing rules, a good sense not always to be found in rules, and by the fact that these rules are almost an honour system. | CommentsComments (18)
Posted: 27 Feb 09 | We are becoming a nation that manufactures nothing, that produces nothing but services for no-one but ourselves, and that won't allow us to live well on cheap Chinese goods for long. | CommentsComments (37)
Posted: 26 Feb 09 | They are the ugly end of humanity, and no talk of compassion, of their vulnerability, of their needs, will change the fact that you wouldn't want them in your street. | CommentsComments (91)
Posted: 25 Feb 09 | The number of people losing their licence to the demerit points system is approaching an epidemic and creating serious hardship to many in NSW. | CommentsComments (57)
Posted: 24 Feb 09 | But, really, the massive four-wheel-drive tank is just a machine. The decision to put one on the road, to drive in a manner that endangers others, to wield the intimidation as a right, is made by a person. | CommentsComments (26)
Posted: 23 Feb 09 | We enjoyed life with an adequate income no less than we enjoy life now with a significantly higher income. | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 19 Feb 09 | A visitor to Australia may be greeted by ugliness often enough to suggest it's at the base of our culture. | CommentsComments (29)
Posted: 18 Feb 09 | Almost five years ago when I asked the surgeon who had just discovered that I had throat cancer whether I was l was likely to survive it, he replied that I could get hit by a bus on the way home. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 17 Feb 09 | Consumerism and materialism has become a mania, a compulsion we dismiss as the normal urge to improve our lot. | CommentsComments (19)
Posted: 13 Feb 09 | Deathbed reconciliations are too late, but what can be done? | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 12 Feb 09 | So what mantle of mystery now for these cooers as they slip off the bandwagon? Many will seek a seat on the climate control wagon, and some will look for a special niche. Preaching personal empowerment as the key to surviving bushfire? | CommentsComments (29)
Posted: 11 Feb 09 | I can't imagine the department store's saleswoman being too enthusiastic about my "I'll give you $37" for a $50 kettle. | CommentsComments (11)
Posted: 10 Feb 09 | The danger now is that some arsonists will be encouraged by the sheer force of the firestorm that ripped through Victoria at the weekend. If they were seeking impact, they succeeded. | CommentsComments (25)
Posted: 09 Feb 09 | When the overwhelming emphasis is on saving life, not property, the bigger picture should be clearer. | CommentsComments (16)
Posted: 06 Feb 09 | The dark side is the tattooed class that pollutes the shopping centres and main streets of Taree, Kempsey and Coffs Harbour as graffiti on legs. | CommentsComments (148)
Posted: 05 Feb 09 | Doesn't it get your goat, having to grind to a halt so some greasy-haired git can saunter across the road! | CommentsComments (29)
Posted: 04 Feb 09 | Service clubs have come to be seen as peopled by old fogies, and I suppose they are, in view of my belief that membership does require a certain old fogyism. | CommentsComments (10)
Posted: 03 Feb 09 | The NSW Government undertakes all manner of campaigns to change bad behaviour - think the tosser and the little finger - yet it does nothing about the peril and abuse hurled at cyclists almost as a matter of course. | CommentsComments (156)
Posted: 02 Feb 09 | After setting up camp this year I made a decision. No more tents and striped bags for me, I was getting a caravan. | CommentsComments (24)
Posted: 17 Dec 08 | I've reached some points higher than others although I am well aware that you may not see any as reaching ankle height. | CommentsComments (8)
Posted: 16 Dec 08 | Why the resounding silence that greeted the attack by Aboriginal leaders on Nicole Kidman's feeble attempts to play a didgeridoo? | CommentsComments (31)
Posted: 15 Dec 08 | Some will say that Aboriginal people need protection because they are often uneducated and unsophisticated, but if that is the justification why are police not required to immediately notify Legal Aid of their intention to question an intellectually disabled person? | CommentsComments (25)
Posted: 12 Dec 08 | Criminal libertarians used to be outraged by even the suggestion of CCTV cameras on the street. They'd plead for our right to privacy, they'd weep for the criminals caught on film, they'd be sick with worry that a married man might be filmed with his mistress. | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 11 Dec 08 | The emerging fashion is for couples to marry after having children, not before. Why? And why marry at any time? | CommentsComments (60)
Posted: 10 Dec 08 | Workplace culture can be good or bad, welcoming or repelling, and not always in the places I've worked is there an explanation for either. | CommentsComments (35)
Posted: 09 Dec 08 | A great deal of the behaviour of soccer's fans and players can be fairly described as infantile. | CommentsComments (108)
Posted: 08 Dec 08 | The reappearance of the golliwog suggests that the PC frenzy has burnt itself out. | CommentsComments (21)
Posted: 05 Dec 08 | I tell you about the banh mi to point out that we have room to improve that great Australian staple, the salad roll. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 04 Dec 08 | We're getting by with energy-efficient lights and our neighbours are putting up thousands of Christmas lights. | CommentsComments (16)
Posted: 03 Dec 08 | Often it is movement, not the image, that alerts me to the approach of a car at an intersection, and I don't think it's a result of poor eyesight or attention. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 02 Dec 08 | Clergy have tried fire and brimstone, MP3 sermons and knees ups with guitar to try to stem the rush to the freedom of the secular world, all with spectacular failure. | CommentsComments (71)
Posted: 01 Dec 08 | The statistics are horrifying but the news reports of individual children drowning in backyard pools are worse. | CommentsComments (26)
Posted: 28 Nov 08 | You're likely to see a fellow in the peculiar urinating stance by the side of the road at any old time, and even trees just a few metres away are too far. | CommentsComments (9)
Posted: 27 Nov 08 | Like almost all good food, a good ham is one made by a person rather than a machine and, above all, produced by a person who cares about the result. | CommentsComments (10)
Posted: 26 Nov 08 | The banks' refusal to lend on land they believe has a finite life will destroy the market for waterfront properties a long time before water inundates them. | CommentsComments (20)
Posted: 25 Nov 08 | It was going to be a simple call to compare the cost of a faster broadband service, but three days later I'm close to defeat. | CommentsComments (21)
Fruit fly triumph
Posted: 24 Nov 08 | I don't think I ever picked a full-size tomato without maggots or a caterpillar. This year, at long last, I appear to have the answer. | CommentsComments (10)
Posted: 20 Nov 08 | Australians whose work justifies national acclaim, among them scientists and thinkers and entrepreneurs, never attain the fame reserved for people who pretend they are someone else to help easily manipulated people escape their own lives briefly. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 19 Nov 08 | He does masturbate in his car where the act can't be seen and so far as he's concerned if the act can't be seen it's not in public. | CommentsComments (36)
Posted: 18 Nov 08 | The keeping of chooks is suddenly the new black, the new mark of someone who cares about the world and the temple that is their body. | CommentsComments (14)
Posted: 17 Nov 08 | She'll be delighted if you say as you hand over a painted concrete platypus that you thought of her as soon as you saw the colour. | CommentsComments (13)
Posted: 14 Nov 08 | So far as the debate about the worth of the rail line that divides inner Newcastle is concerned, there have been precious few facts to cause any pause for thought. | CommentsComments (80)
Posted: 13 Nov 08 | There is a growing divide among Australians. There are those who receive and those who pay. | CommentsComments (33)
Posted: 12 Nov 08 | As it goes weekly Newcastle Farmers Market at Broadmeadow showground becomes viable as a home's main source of fresh food. | CommentsComments (8)
Posted: 11 Nov 08 | It was the banks' gluttony that helped create the property boom and that was alone responsible for the property crash. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 10 Nov 08 | Is the world not better off without Amrozi, Samudra and Mukhlas? | CommentsComments (8)
Posted: 07 Nov 08 | I'd say a scowl is more effective, or more effective than my attempt at a smile. | CommentsComments (19)
Posted: 06 Nov 08 | One has flourished under the protection of legislation and an especially righteous bureaucracy. That is the Occupational Health and Safety movement. | CommentsComments (18)
Posted: 05 Nov 08 | I am, I admit, an exercise evangelist, and I'll admit that I don't think I've ever been able to persuade a non-exerciser to get out there and at it. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 04 Nov 08 | Boisterous inebriation is the new medal of patriotism, the new social expression. | CommentsComments (9)
Posted: 31 Oct 08 | It has been clear for longer than the modern wave of vandalism that most teenagers become independent, at least in the sense of control, of their parents well before the age of 18. | CommentsComments (9)
Posted: 30 Oct 08 | Income tax is so erratically applied that it is largely PAYE workers who are left with the burden - we have nowhere to hide - but cutting some workers out for very, very special treatment rankles. | CommentsComments (16)
Posted: 27 Oct 08 | The only honorific with an expanding base is Dr. It seems that everyone who feels they're due a little more status resorts to the title. | CommentsComments (18)
Posted: 24 Oct 08 | Without doubt those who work credibility most successfully are the most successful con men. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 23 Oct 08 | It's official: drinking every day makes you happier than not drinking every day! | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 22 Oct 08 | Perhaps I like the sense that I rescue old cars, like people collect stray dogs and cats. But rather, I think, I prefer the character of old bombs over the featureless silence of new cars. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 21 Oct 08 | A cliche can be trite, meaningless, obfuscating or just overused, but soon enough it will be annoying. | CommentsComments (10)
Posted: 20 Oct 08 | More people now, more families, than for a very long time are finding themselves suddenly out on the street as the banks' greed and irresponsibility bites. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 17 Oct 08 | The youths are using their individual tags to deface someone else's property, they are leaving their calling card as boastful identification for their fellows, so why shouldn't we all have the privilege of that identification? | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 16 Oct 08 | Not all changes in our birdlife are to be abhored even if the causes of those changes are to be regretted. | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 15 Oct 08 | There he was when the police arrived, propped up with a schooner and not the least awkward about wearing his dressing gown. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 14 Oct 08 | We don't care whether the Newcastle rail line stays or goes because we shop elsewhere and we don't use the train anyway. | CommentsComments (39)
Posted: 13 Oct 08 | If you have red hair you'll understand how people with red hair have cornered the market in intelligence. | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 25 Sep 08 | Do we become more sensible as we age or do we age as we become more sensible? | CommentsComments (18)
Posted: 24 Sep 08 | I've tried many organic ways of protecting tomatoes and other fruit from fruit fly, and, sadly, not one of them has worked. | CommentsComments (13)
Posted: 23 Sep 08 | The club lists on its big poster promoting the kids bingo another purpose, teaching children to "learn and recognise big numbers". Might this other purpose be taking us closer to yet another purpose? | CommentsComments (37)
Posted: 22 Sep 08 | Let's lift the public confidence in the kangaroo harvesting process, change the name of the meat from kangaroo (we don't call beef cow), and get buxom beauties promoting it at free public barbecues. | CommentsComments (53)
Posted: 19 Sep 08 | I've noticed over the years that on-site holiday vans are great while they're great and a pain in the proverbial when they're not. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 18 Sep 08 | Men will be swapping the tongs for a peel soon, because the new barbecue is a wood-fired pizza oven. | CommentsComments (8)
Posted: 17 Sep 08 | Still wearing the bag of fruit are politicians, African dictators, footballers denying sex assault, bikies in court, real estate agents, lawyers, financial advisers and raceday spivs. | CommentsComments (16)
Posted: 16 Sep 08 | One in 10 adults in NSW and one in five Novocastrians didn't vote in the local government elections at the weekend, and they did us a great favour. | CommentsComments (32)
Posted: 15 Sep 08 | There may be moral considerations that attach to the spending of $500 on a rabbit, but I would say today that they apply only if we would spend the $500 on a more deserving cause otherwise. | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 11 Sep 08 | We need a dog that goes beyond alerting to protecting, and I think protective dog is a better term than guard dog. Effectively protective dog. | CommentsComments (27)
Posted: 10 Sep 08 | Many Newcastle and Maitland people will recall being impressed by the performance of the administrator who replaced their sacked council. No politics, no prevarication, none of the disgraceful nonsense that passes now for debate, no point scoring. | CommentsComments (47)
Posted: 09 Sep 08 | Maybe, one day, we'll be reduced to providing the seed, and if that's the case it is doubtful that we'll have the privilege of, err, sowing it. | CommentsComments (9)
Posted: 08 Sep 08 | This law has been around for seven years but it appears that only in the past few months has its application lost the essential elements of common sense and reasonableness. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 05 Sep 08 | The law says I am entitled to defend myself, my family and my property with a force I believe at the time to be necessary but the law does not allow me to keep a weapon for that purpose. | CommentsComments (33)
Posted: 04 Sep 08 | The humanitarian grounds often cited in support of a Pacific Islander guest worker program don't make the importing of coolies any more acceptable. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 03 Sep 08 | The interest rate hit 17 per cent five years after we bought! Makes today's 9.something almost generous. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 02 Sep 08 | A couple of the essential steps to good coffee surprise me: ground coffee has a fresh life of only a few minutes and the quality of the coffee grinder, not of the coffee machine, is critical. | CommentsComments (25)
Posted: 01 Sep 08 | Most people don't actually like coffee, which is the only explanation I can come up with for their continuing to drink dishwater. | CommentsComments (13)
Posted: 27 Aug 08 | Once again I was reminded of the advantages of village life - relaxed pace, a friendly ambience and a sense of everyone being in it together. | CommentsComments (25)
Posted: 26 Aug 08 | One of my workmates, a young woman, tells me the female funnel that allows women to pee standing is becoming common at concerts where the queues for the ladies are horrendous. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 25 Aug 08 | I'm over Australia's version of participation in the Olympics. There's nothing in it but jingoistic entertainment and lost opportunity to be part of the real world rather than just the world of medal-count nations. | CommentsComments (17)
Posted: 21 Aug 08 | We have become aware of the passion of the Japanese for whale meat, and at the same time our tastes in food have become much more international. | CommentsComments (39)
Posted: 20 Aug 08 | People say that Nicole Kidman is beautiful, but every woman in my life is more attractive than she is. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 19 Aug 08 | The raging popularity of farmers' markets and the booming interest in home cooking are strong evidence that we're returning to the days of fresh is best. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 18 Aug 08 | The systematic deleting or avoiding commercial television's commercials may be akin to stealing - we tune in with fingers crossed. | CommentsComments (8)
Posted: 15 Aug 08 | I've offered to to install a wrap-around urinal, although at $700 plus plumbing and remodelling it does seem to be expensive peace and she's sticking with the sit-or-wrap ultimatum. | CommentsComments (22)
Posted: 14 Aug 08 | It must be one of the hardest things a parent can do, sending their child off to a day of bullying, distress and fear at school. I don't think I could do it. | CommentsComments (13)
Posted: 13 Aug 08 | The renaming of Dangar Park is not just do-gooding gone mad, it is do-gooding gone irreconcilably mad. | CommentsComments (40)
Posted: 12 Aug 08 | If Scientology and the Anglican and Catholic churches and the Little Pebble sect enjoy tax-free status, why should not the Church of Jestus? | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 11 Aug 08 | The houses of modern architecture strike me as devoid of grace and charm to the point that they are ugly. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 08 Aug 08 | Four-wheel-drivers can already sense the condemnation. Look one in the eye today and shake your head. | CommentsComments (18)
Posted: 07 Aug 08 | To get the disabled parking card they need a doctor to declare that they are "detrimentally affected as a result of walking 100 metres", and to achieve that they need to tell a good story or find a friendly doctor. | CommentsComments (19)
Posted: 06 Aug 08 | Wouldn't it be wonderful if Street View carried a list of the names and addresses of privacy objectors so we could check out their homes! | CommentsComments (10)
Posted: 05 Aug 08 | After a series of clicks I ended up with lung cancer on the list of probabilities, just ahead of tuberculosis and leukaemia. | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 04 Aug 08 | If women feel the need as police officers to adopt a macho plod to win the respect of their fellows and/or the public, equality is a myth. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 01 Aug 08 | Just as the decision has been withdrawn from the individual in the case of bike helmets, seatbelts, firearms and driving at high speed, so it should be in the case of smoking. | CommentsComments (10)
Posted: 31 Jul 08 | The Hunter Region's most senior police officer says agreeing out of court this week to add half an hour to the curfew and closing times of inner Newcastle hotels was a good result for the city. | CommentsComments (28)
Posted: 30 Jul 08 | Men choose to drive, and women choose men to drive, because women are lousy drivers. | CommentsComments (22)
Posted: 29 Jul 08 | There is no shortage of people being ripped off by premium SMS companies charging, through Telstra, for services the customer did not seek or approve. | CommentsComments (11)
Posted: 28 Jul 08 | With the incentives mounting week by week, more people will take up cycling as a means of transport when it is safe to do so. | CommentsComments (51)
Posted: 22 Jul 08 | We wait for something to happen, we wait for retirement to retrieve from a super fund the life we've banked. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 21 Jul 08 | We can't vote against the RTA but we can vote against the government that fails to rein in its excesses. | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 18 Jul 08 | One of the community's great problems is the imbalance of wealth, and so grand theft that goes towards correcting that imbalance might not be such a bad thing. | CommentsComments (9)
Posted: 17 Jul 08 | There are many threads to World Youth Day. What's your take on it all? | CommentsComments (12)
Posted: 16 Jul 08 | Men, so women insist, are full of something other than the flu virus when they're confiding how ill they are with the flu. | CommentsComments (1)
Posted: 15 Jul 08 | Charging your own clients on behalf of firms in an industry notorious for questionable practices is always going to be dubious business. | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 14 Jul 08 | In this day of communication and so-called customer service we're more powerless than ever, more easily fobbed off, more surely exhausted. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 11 Jul 08 | It always strikes me that it would have been a much happier celebration had the celebrated been celebrating too. | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 10 Jul 08 | We stopped short. We should have moved onto the remaining space that serves no purpose other than meeting the expectations of society. | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 09 Jul 08 | People of dark skin should be no more protected from the insults of yobbos than are people of other skin tones, and to suggest that they need to be is an insult. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 08 Jul 08 | Young people seem to have developed a dependence on media noise pumped through speakers and earphones. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 07 Jul 08 | Will the challenges weaken or strengthen the public's resolve against the use of images of naked children? And where will it end? | CommentsComments (14)
Posted: 04 Jul 08 | Vic told his grandson he was not interested in him getting his licence; he was interested in him staying alive on the roads for the next 70 years or so. | CommentsComments (0)
Posted: 03 Jul 08 | A retired person who has lost touch with his or her peers, who doesn't have the confidence or the opportunity to create new friendships, is in strife. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 02 Jul 08 | The Iemma Government has made it an offence carrying a fine of up to $5500 to refuse to comply with a direction to stop causing "annoyance or inconvenience" to participants in a World Youth Day event! | CommentsComments (12)
Posted: 01 Jul 08 | Perhaps the operators of the smaller bars will have a more direct and personal influence on the behaviour and measure of patrons. | CommentsComments (14)
Posted: 27 Jun 08 | Two years ago I wrote a column mocking the people of the Central Coast and their ringleader who'd spent $5300 on a heart operation for a retarded stray cat. | CommentsComments (9)
Posted: 26 Jun 08 | The difference between what appeared to be the reality and Cabcharge's story had become a point of light relief. | CommentsComments (9)
Posted: 25 Jun 08 | Should Australians leaving the country be given a sheet of tips on good behaviour? What should be at the top? | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 23 Jun 08 | The c-bomb is the last taboo word in Australia and perhaps the Western world. That puzzles me. | CommentsComments (11)
Posted: 19 Jun 08 | Men of the dark triad would hardly prosper in our society but prosper they do in a fashion nice guys can only dream about! | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 18 Jun 08 | The accelerating price of petrol, diesel and gas is going to colour us all green whether we like it or not. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 17 Jun 08 | Are the barbarians who hunt pigs with dogs far removed from the four-wheel-driving sadists mowing down Morisset Hospital's tame roos. | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 16 Jun 08 | Since most sports cyclists can at least match the speed of a motor-assisted pedal cycle or electric scooter, there would be an inconsistency in rules for one and not the other. | CommentsComments (10)
Posted: 13 Jun 08 | Men have been the losers in all manner of government-sanctioned discrimination, and we're about to be the losers again. | CommentsComments (15)
Posted: 12 Jun 08 | Single mothers with small children, unemployed people, poorly employed people, Aboriginal people, and people without long and flawless rental history are not in the race. | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 11 Jun 08 | Not everyone will see this as a step forward. Let the courts decide, they'll harrumph, but the great majority will cheer the injecting of a few human cells into a bureaucracy. | CommentsComments (0)
Posted: 10 Jun 08 | We do think of tattoos as we will, and the result of that is that prominent tatts disqualify the wearer from certain occupations. | CommentsComments (33)
Posted: 05 Jun 08 | At the moment we eat mostly because the time of a set meal has arrived, not because we're hungry. | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 04 Jun 08 | Systems and predictions based on the moon are usually seen as the stuff of lunatics, but I've seen strong evidence over the years that one particular system has a sound base. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 03 Jun 08 | Idiocy is one personal quality that deserves discrimination, and few idiots declare their idiocy as effectively as someone with tattoos down the length of one arm. | CommentsComments (60)
Posted: 02 Jun 08 | There is no doubt that when government moves to formally recognise both lesbian lovers as mothers of the same child we are entering an era of change. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 30 May 08 | Our preferences and prejudices should have no bearing on our opinion of a law recognising the fact that both partners of a lesbian relationship can be and often are both parents of children. | CommentsComments (11)
Posted: 29 May 08 | It is time Lake Macquarie City Council embarked on a campaign to reclaim usurped public land around Lake Macquarie's waterfront. | CommentsComments (1)
Posted: 28 May 08 | Most people spend most of their working lives, as I have done, paying for a house that the next generation is likely to demolish. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 27 May 08 | I reckon the use of nine cents is deceptive because, one, there is no such money and, two, its purpose is to be invisible, unnoticed, by the buyer. | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 26 May 08 | The art world seems to believe that the legality of its work should not be assessed by mere police, that all that is sheltered by the umbrella called art should be sheltered from the law. | CommentsComments (11)
Posted: 22 May 08 | On this rare occasion am I thinking too sympathetically? Are pensioners whingeing their way to the bank? | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 21 May 08 | Who has the greater right, me to be free of uninvited waste dumped at my home or business to be free to dump that waste at my home uninvited? | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 20 May 08 | The age component of anti-discrimination law does not appear to have reduced discrimination against people of Tony's age, and if that is right it serves only to disadvantage him and others. | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 19 May 08 | Why should people not in hospital be deprived of what they may see as the privilege of a painless death at a time of their choosing? | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 15 May 08 | Is it unreasonable to expect a person aged 16 or 17 to accept full responsibility for their criminal behaviour? | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 14 May 08 | I sense that as a community we should do more, that we need to do more, not just for the Peters but for all those struggling with burdens of that order. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 13 May 08 | It's not just a matter of the new parents inflicting a name with a weird spelling on their baby, they're inflicting it on all Australia. | CommentsComments (11)
Posted: 12 May 08 | Crime, bitterness, poor health, financial hardship and idleness are great sources of stress and thus unhappiness, and luckily these are things our governments can actually do something about. | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 09 May 08 | JEFF CORBETT: If parents hold that their liability diminishes as the child gets older, the growing child's liability should increase to take up the shortfall. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 08 May 08 |  JEFF CORBETT: Should we have an overnight cat curfew? | CommentsComments (12)
Posted: 07 May 08 | JEFF CORBETT: Should we have shows that pander to base urges at the expense of not only individuals but an entire class of people? | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 07 May 08 | JEFF CORBETT: Strawberries that are devoid of flavour yet look more like strawberries than strawberries, watermelon that are little more than a watery texture, apples that have been 10 months in cold storage and are eager to rot, plums too sour to bite, peaches dry and floury, rockmelons with barely any flavour, oranges that are too sour or too watery. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 06 May 08 | How can we inject virility into a nation of young males in the no man's land between the genders? | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 03 May 08 | Do you have an idea for a kitchen gadget, useful or useless? Or do you have one to add to my Top Ten Useless Kitchen Gadgets? | CommentsComments (0)
Posted: 02 May 08 | The eroding of manners seems to have diluted a respect for others' right to hold a different opinion. | CommentsComments (0)
Posted: 01 May 08 | So why does a meal at a catered wedding reception cost more than an al-la-carte meal in so many restaurants? | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 30 Apr 08 | Australia is brimful of people desperate for reasons to ride a bicycle. | CommentsComments (8)
Posted: 29 Apr 08 | Do you have an allergy or food sensitivity that exposes you to the accuracy of food processors' ingredients lists? | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 18 Apr 08 | The neighbourhood dispute is a rich seam. What's yours? | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 17 Apr 08 | What are your favourite habits of fumbling, blundering drivers? | CommentsComments (8)
Posted: 16 Apr 08 | Is there any advice that can resolve the neighbourly dispute at the top end of Kotara's Gregory Parade? | CommentsComments (17)
Posted: 15 Apr 08 | When we shake someone's hand are we not in effect shaking their private bits? | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 12 Apr 08 | Are we too clean? And if so, what particular cleanliness should we abandon? | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 11 Apr 08 | Should such a spectacular public site offer ordinary, cheap-as-chips fare? Must dining out be egalitarian? | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 10 Apr 08 | What do you see as different about our lives and attitudes in the 2010s? | CommentsComments (1)
Posted: 09 Apr 08 | Mr Lyth is right, police are people and I agree that we who are not in the blue uniform are inclined to forget that. Or am I being too human? | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 08 Apr 08 | Will Australia be a better place when ageing baby boomers take over? | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 28 Mar 08 | My mates and I over the week will talk at length and often with animation involving the 15 of us, but what about? Got any suggestions? | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 27 Mar 08 | Get over it, I say to indigenous surfers, and mix it with the rest of Australia and the world in the Surfest events for youth, women and men. Or do I need to be politically corrected? | CommentsComments (7)
Posted: 26 Mar 08 | Let's celebrate the chilli today. Do you have a favourite recipe for chilli anything, one you can bring yourself to share? | CommentsComments (1)
Posted: 21 Mar 08 | What about it? What about a bonus for people who add more than a population number to Australia? | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 20 Mar 08 | Isn't it time we had another go at secession? | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 19 Mar 08 | Is there a single good reason why the alcohol content of mainstream beers and pre-mixed spirits should not be reduced compulsorily? | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 18 Mar 08 | Have I finally cracked it or have I finally cracked? | CommentsComments (0)
Posted: 15 Mar 08 | Newcastle Police and inner-Newcastle activist Tony Brown have won a victory for all NSW residents under drunken siege. But do the new hours go back far enough? | CommentsComments (12)
Posted: 14 Mar 08 | As can be seen when women lead their shattered husbands home from the sniggering public spotlight, men are the victims. Shouldn't we be compensated as the stolen gender? | CommentsComments (1)
Posted: 13 Mar 08 | If it's successful the move against routine PSA testing will push prostate cancer back into the embarrassed silence of two decades ago. | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 08 Mar 08 | People who drive urban assault vehicles have made a conscious decision to increase their sense of safety at the expense of our safety. | CommentsComments (10)
Posted: 07 Mar 08 | I know nothing about monetary policy but I know a crook deal when I see it. Are you with me, or don't you have a mortgage? | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 06 Mar 08 | Is whatever the banks dish out to Tivon Ostowari and anyone else who's ever defaulted on a loan their just deserts? | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 05 Mar 08 | Maybe now those who've been so deeply concerned by the rarity of Tetratheca juncea will try the truth. | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 04 Mar 08 | If smoking denies one person the use of a public space, isn't that one person too many? | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 01 Mar 08 | Is the de-RSLing of Adamstown RSL Club, now The Adamstown Club, a disowning and betrayal of diggers or a belated move into the current era? | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 29 Feb 08 | Try this next time you hear the ubiquitous "this call may be recorded . . .". | CommentsComments (3)
Posted: 28 Feb 08 | How do you feel about the cute, dribbling rottweiler and its owner, the rottweilder, plonking themselves in the bus seat next to you? | CommentsComments (17)
Posted: 27 Feb 08 | People who aren't boaties just don't understand, do they! Do they? | CommentsComments (1)
Posted: 26 Feb 08 | Go on, tell us about your scam. | CommentsComments (2)
Posted: 23 Feb 08 | We need a harmless religion. Can you recommend one? | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 21 Feb 08 | Are you with me or are you a ponce yourself? | CommentsComments (20)
Posted: 20 Feb 08 | We have to endure their barbarism doing incessant laps of Newcastle's foreshore at weekends, but shouldn't we draw the line at the westies' word Newie? | CommentsComments (8)
Posted: 19 Feb 08 | Do the outrageous property settlements forced upon wealthy men illustrate an iniquity in the settlements so many poorer men have to endure? | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 16 Feb 08 | I love weather, and the more elemental the better, but sadly I've yet to experience the elements at their crankiest. Can you help? | CommentsComments (4)
Posted: 15 Feb 08 | Is it reasonable to hope that the State Labor Government's greed for more and heavier traffic fines turns to bite it at an election soon? | CommentsComments (6)
Posted: 14 Feb 08 | Allegations in court against victims of crime can have a more enduring impact than the crime itself. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 13 Feb 08 | We need protection from people who are happy to accept into their facial orifices the tongue that cleans the dog's pudenda and anus. | CommentsComments (5)
Posted: 12 Feb 08 | We should apologise to Aboriginal people for the handouts, for the alcohol and for bureaucrats' new political correctness. | CommentsComments (10)
Jeff Corbett
Bend the online ear of the Hunter's most provocative columnist.

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