Newspapers as we know them will be around for many years yet.
So says Port Macquarie Independent My Word columnist Laurie Barber in his new book Ringo.
The book Ringo is a sequel to the popular My Word, which was published last year and which enjoyed good sales throughout Australia and overseas, including the Amazon kindle website.
In the introduction to Ringo, Laurie Barber said: “In this age of text messages, the battle to preserve the language as we have known it might already have been lost, but some of us can say that at least we tried.”
The column My Word appears each week in the Port Macquarie Independent. It is also published in many regional newspapers throughout Australia.
It was officially judged to be the best regional newspaper column in New South Wales.
The title of the new book is Ringo, and did Humpty Dumpty really fall off that wall?
The author explains that Ringo was the name of his well-mannered dog, put down last year because of old age.
The question surrounding Humpty Dumpty, however, brought forward some comments from the people of Colchester, England, about Humpty Dumpty’s links with their town. Talk of Humpty Dumpty also provided a few other thoughts, including Colchester’s links with Old King Cole, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Moll Flanders.
But Port Macquarie gets a few mentions also.
Barber mentions the day a magazine changed “this august publication” to “this September publication”; the Robin Hood streets of Port Macquarie; broadcaster John Tingle’s thoughts on the world’s best crooner; the woman who had a relative called Cinderella, with two stepsisters; and another woman, married three times, who complained that her third husband “won’t eat the mushrooms”.
Many characters of Australia’s history are mentioned, including wrestler Big Chief Little Wolf, footballer Tommy Raudonikis, bushranger Ned Kelly, Italian-Australian Nino Culotta and a whole stack of politicians such as Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Bob Hawke, Kim Beazley, Wilson Tuckey, Paul Keating, Tony Windsor and Bob Carr, as well as political journalist Alan Ramsay.
The day the security people waved The Chasers through is also covered.
Without mentioning Port Macquarie, Barber also mentions the day the Methodist Church had an orgy.
He mentions the newspaper that published more than 400 words considered so offensive that other newspapers wouldn’t touch them, as well as the newspaper that put a ban on the expression “a short time”.
The book Ringo has 101 chapters. It is available for $24.95 in book stores.
The publisher is Sid Harta from Melbourne.
