I would get indignant at magazine articles that characterised Australia as a nation of pisspots. I remember one in particular because I was nearly inspired to write a letter to the editor. ‘Australians,’ claimed the journalist, ‘drank until they threw up on their shoes.’ And then I realised there was a good deal of truth in all this. Quite a few Australians do drink until they throw up on their shoes. I have done it myself.

Flick's home was a bedsitter in a big old house in Bayswater.

Everyone who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual wickedness in high places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.

This means that while initial funding will come from the public purse, landowners along the route will eventually pay back a share of the uplift in land values created by the new line.