Since the days of Alexander the Great, binge drinking has been a very popular past time - leading to him apparently killing a friend and burning down Persepolis while drunk.

Those are some Great shoes to fill.

Yet, governments, schools and the media have repeatedly tried to teach us of binge drinking's dangers. 

Dartmouth University has taken the lead, instigating a new nationwide policy to curb heavy drinking by their students.

Pour me another glass.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks."

Seems I don't know anyone who isn't a heavy binge drinker.

Do you think this definition should be changed or should we change people's attitudes? Or should you follow HPD's no fools guide to drinking a lot but not dying?  . . read more

Australia has been declared an obese wasteland. People are getting fatter and our athletes have lost the knack to win. At one point the perception of Australians around the world was a group of lean, tanned, happy-go-lucky individuals always keen to try something different. 

Last night we lost the opening bledisloe match to a group of superior sportsmen. It has been years since an Australian has achieved serious success in tennis or golf. 

These issues, we are fatter and losing our sporting edge indicate a strong turn for the worse, our americanisation. Australians are laughing less at themselves and more at others.

Our politics is continuing in a trend of conformist stupidity, our health is diminishing and our sport has waned. Australia, it is time for all of us to pick up our game.   . . read more

But like many others, I've found that some of the best conversations I've ever had were with cabbies.

The last one I met was a Polish engineer who proceeded to explain to me how to pave the outside of my house from scratch, because the "professionals" don't know how to do it properly. He was unimpressed and blatantly questioned why I was studying law while stating that "engineers are respected a lot more in Europe than in the West". Honestly, he seemed far more educated than me.

Before him there was another driver who engaged me in a stimulating conversation about Indian poetry and literature. With another, I had an argument about raising children in different cultures.

The reason for this is one that we've heard almost too often - qualified immigrants come to Australia, their expertise is refused recognition, and they get stuck driving people around the city when their true skills obviously lie elsewhere.

We can't help these guys get a job. But next time you sit in a cab, don't be afraid to have a chat. You never know who you might be talking to.    . . read more

In the world's colder climes you can understand why we might not want to put pen to paper, pick to guitar strings or paintbrush to canvas when the world around us is so inviting.

Must admit, it doesn't leave much time or comfort for self-reflection.

So it makes you wonder whether heart-wrenching, mind-expanding, and life changing works can be made in landscapes that grab you and demand you come out and enjoy their beauty.

I ask you, you of the creative cold dank Northern Hemisphere, are the artistic journeys inside yourself worth it when you can't bare to go outside?

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Feeling frustrated with an inconsequential life?

Stuck in a dead-end job?

Resent smart and capable foreigners coming over and taking 'your place' at university?

Then this is the game for you! 

So, what are the rules?

Basically all you need to is abuse, stab, bash or set alight kids from the Subcontinent and you win if you're able to forget your crippling insecurities- for a few seconds at least.

Should be played until you send all those pricks back to where they came from and Australia's already battered image is broken beyond repair.   . . read more

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As plastic cups appear in bars all over Sydney, and the vast majority yell a hurrah of triumph, I whimper a little sigh of worry.

994 glassing attacks were recorded in 2008, a 70% increase in ten years.

Bottles were being liberally halved, thrown and smashed into the heads of pub goers all over the city.

And now they're taking our glasses away?

We, as citizens of Australia, deserve our right to defend ourselves against glassers, with our own glass.

The next time someone comes into a bar with a beautiful crystal schooner glass he brought from the club up the road, and you produce a plastic piece of recycled hippie crap – think about this article.

And think about how you'll be able to defend your family with a plastic cup.

Remember your right to bear glass.

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While a tragedy like a young person's death is of course, as it sounds, tragic; it's strange that when the young person that was driving drunk/unlicensed/too fast kills all his friends, and then dies himself that his sins seem forgiven.

How many times have you heard:

"[Insert Name] was a top bloke, man we all loved him, I can't believed this happened, he was always so sensible. This is so unlike him."

If the guy had lived, maybe sympathy wouldn't be as forthcoming as gaol time.

And maybe more anger should be directed at people who see those weeping teens, and not think that when they drive they're driving a loaded gun- pointed at themselves and everybody around them.  . . read more

Do not, and I repeat do not, live beyond your means. 

A child could explain it- you can't get something for nothing.

And even if all these fancy economic and finance models create even more complicated ways to make debt manageable, eventually it will catch up with us.

There will be a point where everything collapses. 

Why can't we be a little more patient?  . . read more

Smokers of the world rejoice, finally the fat bastards that fill the streets and make the world all the uglier will be receiving some of the flack we have. 

Of course we'll have to wait years until the rotund have to pay drastically more for airplane seats, junk food, and waste disposal.

All this talk of obesity has made me turn to the one appetite repressent I know and love- Kent Cigarettes- because a real man smokes Kent.  . . read more