The Godfather: Peter Corris on going outback
Although I was born in a country town, Stawell, in the Victorian Wimmera, like most Australians I am a coast dweller. Apart from a brief stint in Gippsland and a few years in Canberra (and even there the water was only a few hours’ drive away), I have hugged the...The Godfather: Peter Corris on cooking
Robert B Parker’s Spenser private eye novels had some influence on my Cliff Hardy series. Parker was a whiz with the one-liner. ‘Work for you?’ Spenser said to an unappealing would-be client, ‘I’d rather spend the rest of my life at a Barry Manilow concert.’ Len...The Godfather: Peter Corris on winter
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York. Shakespeare, Richard III Winter always discontents me. As a kid I disliked the cold and Melbourne was colder back then, 60-plus years ago, than it is now. I shared a bedroom with my...The Godfather: Peter Corris on Radio National
I calculate that I listen to the radio for about 20 hours a week and to only one station – Radio National. Virtually my first action in the morning, after the obvious, is to turn on Fran Kelly’s breakfast program. I listen for about an hour, catching a couple of news...The Godfather: Peter Corris on druthers
Champion sportspeople are often asked what they would have liked to be were they not the footballers, golfers or swimmers they are. Golfer Nick Faldo, for example, said he would have liked to be a racing-car driver. Sterling Moss said he’d have fancied being a...The Godfather: Peter Corris on lost expressions
A Sunday birthday lunch, old and young gathered around the table. A child asks an adult what she’s doing when it’s perfectly obvious what she’s doing. ‘Making a wigwam for a goose’s bridal,’ she says, not unkindly. Some of us nod sagely, others look puzzled....The Godfather: Peter Corris re cycling
When I was very young, say seven or eight, my father worked in Bruce Small’s bike shop in Moonee Ponds, the north-western Melbourne suburb made famous by Barry Humphries. We lived in Yarraville in the inner-west, and one day I was astonished to see my father, trouser...The Godfather: Peter Corris on William Boyd
A writer and his agent were having lunch in an up-market London restaurant a few years ago. The agent was paying. They started with oyster soup and moved on to Dover sole with a bottle of German Riesling. The writer, 45 or thereabouts, had published a string of...The Godfather: Peter Corris on being an unhandy man
A section of the wooden front gate has fallen off and now lies on the ground inside the fence. I’ve tried twice to nail it back without success. I am not handy; in fact I’m unhandy, and things I try to fix usually end up worse than before. When my youngest daughter’s...The Godfather: Peter Corris on past pets
There were no pets when I was growing up. My parents deflected the pleas from my sister and myself for a dog or a cat by saying that children grew too attached to pets and were upset when they died. It was typical of their attitude of avoiding all the realities of...The Godfather: Peter Corris on being over seventy
Recently I turned 71. My sister emailed a greeting and apologised for reminding me of the number but I didn’t object at all, not as I did when I turned 70. Had a lovely day – nice presents, email greetings from local friends, my agent in the Big Apple and daughters...
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