Don’t let the silly title put you off; this is a marvellous read, stylish, splendidly crafted, the kind of autobiography that is all too rare in the Australian experience. Who to compare with MacCallum (beware: the elder Mungo, not the one still being rude from Canberra) in recent years? Hasluck perhaps. Whitlam maybe, overlooking the egoism. Donald Horne, again discounting the ego. The genre, if the word must be employed, is restricted.

MacCallum, journalist, broadcaster, novelist, poet – original in every sense – bears a formidable name and inheritance, although of more significance to Sydney than elsewhere, except in the confined, raffish field of Australian journalism. There was the grandfather, awesomely distinguished, Professor Mungo MacCallum, destined to be knighted and become Chancellor of the University of Sydney, and – rather more justifiably than for some to whom the phrase has been applied – a legend in his lifetime. There was the father, yet another Mungo, scholar, indeed Rhodes Scholar, who could have occupied a chair in law at Oxford, but chose instead a career in Sydney as a barrister, failed and ineffective, toper of frightening enthusiasm, and journalist of renown in the trade, but, as leader writer for the Sydney Morning Herald, not widely recognised.