Shaken - And Very Stirred Up

James Bond is taking on the Big Aussie and Kate Askew, for one, is ducking for cover.

Weird Science

GALAXIES, astronomers tell us, are big.

When The Grass Is Always Greener

ALYSSON WATSON looks at the benefits of synthetic grass in a suburban backyard.

People In The Picture

Good neighbours, disabled access, disaster cam and video twits.

Prime Panoramas

Property review: 40 Bass Road, Portsea, $2.5 million plus

No Mincing Words

Commercial current affairs shows follow a predictable but winning recipe, writes Ross Warneke.

State Of The Union

What do TV marriages say about the state of the institution? By Wendy Tuohy.

Film's Fading Immortals

Every year, there is a new batch of Oscar winners and every year some screen legends fade further from living memory, writes JULIAN LEWIS, who looks at the final days and resting places of some of Hollywood's Oscar winners.

Spy

Oh brother, what a mess WHEN the McGoldrick boys set up house, it is kind of difficult not to notice they are there. At Mornington, to the eternal chagrin of council and neighbours, defrocked doctor and ex-bankrupt Ian "The Golden Mac" McGoldrick, right, plods on slowly with his five-y

Regarding Gwyneth

It has been four years since Gwyneth Paltrow gloried in an Oscar win and the clock is ticking, Phillip McCarthy writes. `I don't want to be married for six months and say, `Oh, well, that's done. On to number two"

Letters

Victory for trees, but more is needed Premier Bracks' pledge to protect the Otway forests and phase out woodchipping in the Midlands is a major step forward in bringing Labor's forest policy in line with majority public opinion, which strongly opposes the woodchipping of our native forests. Ho

New York, New York It's A Weird (and Wonderful) Place

My family moved to New York in February, so we have been here about nine weeks. There are four of us: myself and my husband, and our two-year-old twins.

Sharon Tripped Up By His Own Party

The Likud decision to oppose Palestinian statehood is an untenable position.

When Opera Imitates Life

For two grandmothers living in Melbourne, playing a bit part in the opera Cavalleria rusticana is a chance to relive their early lives in a Sicilian village. Carolyn Webb reports.

Echoes From An Author World

WHAT, you might ask, was I doing last week, reclining on the grass in the sun, listening to this doggerel? Working, of course. It's hell out there at the coalface of literature, sipping coffee or chardonnay in the tents and taking in the words of wisdom at Adelaide Writers' Week.

Lives Less Ordinary

In 1951, twins Lydia Marcuzzi and Liliana del Porto arrived in Melbourne as refugees from Croatia. As they turn 70, they reflect on a life that would have been very different had they arrived today. Corrie Perkin reports.

A Place To Spread Your Wings

In Flannery Court, a long court off Tindals Road, Warrandyte, is a vacant lot made for those who like to get away from it all. From the city (about 20 kilometres), from the neighbors (no high-rise towers here) and even from the railway station - the closest, Nunawading, is about 7.5 kilometres as the crow flies, and further by road.

Monday 10 September

124 days until the Coominya Grape and Watermelon Festival in Coominya, Queensland. Birthday of Robin Goodridge. 8 years since the cult US series The X-Files premiered on American television. "A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors.&

Plea For Youth Facilities After Boys Die In Stolen Car Smash

The friends and neighbors of a 14-year-old boy killed when the stolen car he was driving hit a pole on Saturday night have pleaded with the State Government to provide more facilities for the children of Whittington, one of Geelong's poorest suburbs.

Japan Rejects Seoul's History Lesson

Japan has aggravated relations with its closest neighbors, the two Koreas and China, by rejecting their demands for changes to high school textbooks they claim glorify the nation's war past.