Preface: In 1991 Michael Wilkinson suggested that I bring together under the one cover a collection of some of the articles I had written and speeches I maed in the previous ten years. Most were about the state of the nation. he then published about sixty of them in a paperback under the title of Eye on Australia. He is it (sic) who proposed that I now offer more ready-made ammunition as a gift for my critics. This time he went through maybe 500 articles and speeches and made the selection. It is wider in scope than the previous book and includes articles on burning topics of the day, essays on decades or trends in Australian history, the words I spoke at the funeral of my mother, and one or two snatches of reminiscence.