The Bassett family site
Maxwell Edgar Fatchen, AM (3 August 1920 – 14 October 2012) was an Australian children’s writer and journalist and a cousin; see https://www.bassetts.com.au/tree/index.php?route=%2Ftree%2Ftree%2Fbassett-sandry%2Findividual%2FX8271%2FMaxwell-Edgar-Fatchen
You see, I’m rather hurt. Ronald Biggs, the Great Train Robber, is appearing in coffee commercials. What’s more, elegant corgis speaking in royal accents are advertising dog food. Kids are toughening their teeth. Cockneys are advertising furniture, bank managers are shifting it. But for me, nothing. What I want is an agent. What I want …
Now that the temperature has been in the roaring 40s the heat’s on again in my household—for a spa bath. It was when our friends got their spa bath that I knew we had slipped at couple of rungs down the soapy ladder of society. Gone was the momentary advantage we had gained with our …
Continue reading “Bubbling feeling when you wish upon a spa”
Not that I’m a man to cross my ‘fridges. But I have a complaint. In the big, promotional foodstuffs push nothing has brighter trappings, more flavours and names exotic enough for the Arabian Nights, than ice cream. But this is my complaint. The kids get there first. Children are harder on ice cream than the …
Young people are becoming addicted body and soul to video “killing” games, according to the US Surgeon General. He says that more and more people are beginning to understand the adverse mental and physical effects of video games on pre-teenage and teenage children. And you can take it from me, more and more post-teenage people …
Stand before the mirror in the nude (the story says). “In the soft glow of the light you can see the contours of your reflection. Your body swells with expectation. Your flesh is rosy with light and warmth” So writes Dr. Irene Kassorta in her best-selling book Nice Girls Do as reported by our Keith …
The mini-Budget has set me desperately thinking about money again and the fiscal fragility of our times. I don’t mind saying that some of us are not happy with this electronic, plastic credit-carded and coded world. Some of us take to it like a duck takes to water. But at least a duck can keep …
It is an insidious undercover organisation when one thinks of the example one should set. It is more clandestine than MI5, more secretive than the CIA There are passwords slight intonations of the voice, a certain sidelong glance that only those in its inner circle can interpret. I refer to the jelly baby brotherhood and …
Ever since my since my friends and colleagues have been wearing bleepers—those small electronic alarms which notify them they are wanted by someone—I have felt a cold wind from the stars. My friends tell me the bleep comes from a central transmission point; that it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But there is …
About this time of year I’m in a quandary concerning clothes. My clothes always in a quandary. Either they’re too loose or too tight according to my avoirdupoised excesses. I’m speaking about forsaking winter woollies, the clutch of winter singlet and venturing into the athletic attire which is the only athletic thing about me. Recently …
Have you noticed that this is the time of the great sporting events; one is glued to one’s chair watching the test, or ooh-ing and ah-ing at the terrific tennis women, or gaping at the galaxy of golfers? This has made for a disjointed conversation in our house—and some sharp interrogation. “How is it you …