William McInnes, star of stage and screen was born in Queensland but I won’t hold that against him. He has a beautiful speaking voice and has used that to great effect as the ‘voice’ of so many characters. I’m wondering when he’ll follow in the late Leonard Teale’s footsteps and set Australia’s poems into audio form.

McInnes has an interesting writing style, I quite like it. This book illustrates Australia and our interest in both sports and politics, it makes me wonder if I’m really Australian despite being born here as I don’t like either sport or politics.

McInnes takes a simple walk down to the shops or a visit to the beach to take us back to a particular time in our history and examine the sport of the day and the politics. His father was a big Labour supporter, giving our How To Vote cards during elections and even running on one occasion so he had some inside knowledge but he didn’t leave it at that, he’d often ask people about politicians of the day and share the other person’s thoughts.

I loved this book. I thoroughly recommend it to Australians new and old, and to other nationalities if you’re wanting to try and understand the Australian psyche and why the majority of us are so excited by sport. There is the odd swear word in it.