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November 2003 book gossip

First, it was Jack The Ripper Patricia Cornwell chose to investigate, now the world’s best-selling crime writer says she has uncovered new evidence during a six-month investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. It is believed Cornwell had access to those involved in the autopsy and has uncovered the truth about Diana’s rumoured pregnancy at the time of the accident. (She wasn’t pregnant). Cornwell’s findings will be broadcast in America on ABC’s Prime Time Thursday, October 30.

U2’s Bono, with help from his daughters, Jordan, 14, and Eve, 12, has illustrated a book based on Peter and the Wolf, the Prokofiev classical children’s piece about a boy who catches a wolf. Sales will benefit the Irish Hospice Foundation and the 43-year-old rocker’s 16 original illustrations will be auctioned by Christie’s in New York City.

Lots of reports coming from the US that Woody Allen is fishing for a seven-figure book deal to tell his life story.

Former Agassi and Roddick coach, Brad Gilbert has written a book called Head Trip, which tells readers how to apply his lessons about performing under stress on centre court to their own lives.

Like Rock Hudson and Richard Chamberlain – and who knows who else? – Tab Hunter, a handsome leading man in movies in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, was living an off-screen life as a closet gay man. Publishers Weekly reports that Tab has been signed up to write a tell-all book about his double life.

The NSW Writers’ Centre has announced the winners of the 2003 Fastbooks Self-Published Books Competition. Automoton by Alana Woods won the fiction category. Too Long in the Tropicals by Barbara Sherwood won the autobiography/memoir category.

You have until Friday, November 7, to vote for your favourite Australian book. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a novel or a collection of poems or stories. You can cast your vote by posting the name of your favourite book and its author to “Your favourite Australian Book,” GPO Box 9994, Sydney NSW 2001. The website contains a list of 160 titles which may be used as a basis for voting, but any book by an Australian author can be nominated. The results in the survey, held in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the Australian Society of Authors, will be announced on ABC Radio National, ABC local radio and ABC Online on Monday, November 24.

Pan Macmillan will publish what promises to be a very interesting, authorised autobiography of swimming champion Ian Thorpe, in 2004.

The family saga, The Namesake (Random) by Jhumpa Lahiri, who won the Pulitzer prize for her story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, has been given a good plug on US TV according to Publishers Weekly, with Ray’s wife Debra reading it in bed in an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. The Bookseller is staging another Oddest Title of the Year competition. Early entries include: The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, Shipping Semen: How To Have a Successful Experience and Ultra Cool Dwarfs. Death By Hollywood, a murder mystery written by Steven Bochco, the co-creater of TV shows L.A. Law and NYPD Blue, is receiving good reviews in the US.

A book written by 39-year-old Rachel Greenwald, called Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned At Harvard Business School: A Simple 15-Step Action Program has been optioned by Paramount Pictures. One of Rachel’s tips are: Make A Plan. “There’s this notion that love should happen naturally, not strategically. After 35, if you want to believe in fairy tales, you’re going to be single for a long time. Fate is not going to knock on your door.”

In an interview to publicise the movie version of her book, Under The Tuscan Sun, author Frances Mayes reveals that Ed Kleinschmidt, who worked alongside her to restore Bramasole, adopted her surname when they married. “He’s a very enlightened man,” Frances told Newsday. “And Kleinschmidt is a terrible name in Italy – all those consonants!”

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Extract: barra creek

Exclusive extract from Barra Creek (Pan Macmillan Australia) by Di Morrissey, the Great Read in The Australian Women’s Weekly, November issue.

Preface: It’s 1963 and Sally Mitchell, the well-bred daughter of a wealthy new Zealand sheep farmer, has impulsively taken a job as a governess at a cattle station, Barra Creek, in the wild Gulf country of northwestern Queensland.

Donny threw the outgoing mail bag into the plane. ‘All aboard. Next stop Barra Creek.’

‘I’ll believe when I see it,’ sighed Sally.

She dozed in the cockpit, her head against the side window until Donny spoke above the engine. ‘Look, down there. We’re coming into the river country now.’

‘Gosh, it’s green. What’s that silver bit?’

‘That’s the mighty Norman River, we can follow her all the way way inland. Normanton is your nearest town when you’re not cut off in the Wet. Barra Creek is a tributary off from near where it rises. Still a helluva big river.’

‘What’s down there?’ Sally peered at the vegetation radiating form the snaking grey river. ‘Big ugly saltwater crocodiles. Wild pigs. Birds. Stray cattle, horses, buffaloes, a few Aborigines. And barramundi, the best eating fish in the world.’

He angled the plane towards the east, circling over patchy russet earth sprinkled with trees and small hills. They were descending. She could make out dots of cattle.

‘Are we getting close?’

‘I’ll fly you over the homestead.’

‘I don’t see any buildings.’

‘It’s four hundred square miles. So it’s easy to lose a couple of buildings in it.’

She could see fences, shining pools of dams, cleared land, small clumps of trees.

‘There’s your new home, Sally.’ He banked and she caught the glint of tin roofs, then saw vehicles parked around buildings, sheds, the paraphernalia of a station nestled on the bend of the river. Donny did a circle leaving the homestead behind them. ‘The strip is tree miles down the track. It’s a bit of a hike from the house but it’ll never get flooded. Do the know you’re coming today?’

‘Of course. The agent said they’d meet me.’ Sally looked down at her clothes And flicked some dust off her skirt, more a mental preparation than tidying.

Donny gave her a quick smile. ‘Last chance. We can buzz straight over ‘em and head south.’

‘Not on your life.’

‘Right.’ He concentrated on levelling the little aircraft as a windsock and bulldozed length of red dirt in the flattest stretch of land near the homestead marked the landing strip.

The plane slowed down to a halt and Donny muttered to himself as he got down from the pilot’s seat. As Sally gathered herself to get out she heard shouting, ‘Where boss, where boys? Why you mob here?’

He came round to help Sally step down, leading her past the struts of the wing. ‘Seems the welcome committee has had a bit of a problem.’

Sally walked around the rear of the plane as Donny opened the hatch and pulled out her suitcase, the mail bag and some parcels. There was no car, no adult, no friendly white face. Instead she was confronted with a knot of Aboriginal children, two boys about seven and eleven wearing sagging shorts tied around their skinny frame with rope. A little girl of about six was holding the hand of an even younger girl. Faded dresses hung from their coathanger shoulders. All had dusty hair, bare feet and running noses attracting flies. They stood by a large wooden wheelbarrow.

Donny walked over and threw the mail into the wheelbarrow and turned back to look at Sally, who was standing dumbstruck next to the plane. They all stared at her in silence and she glanced down at her shoes: patent-leather pumps with sensible heels. In her mind she redressed herself: suspenders and nylon stockings, petticoat, pleated navy Sportscraft skirt, white blouse with a peter pan collar, over her arm was her Fletcher Jones plaid jacket and, of course, she wore her single strand of pearls and pearl earrings. No wonder the kids were looking at her like she was form outerspace.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘Where’s the Monroes?’

Donny gestured to the older boy who looked down and mumbled, ‘Truck bust.’

‘Means you’ll have to hoof it, Sal.’ Donny picked up her suitcase and hoisted it into the wheelbarrow. He avoided her eyes.

‘Righto.’ She made a shooing gesture at the children and the boys took a handle each and began pushing the barrow. The girls trailed behind, sneaking glances at Sally.

She held out her hand. ‘Thanks, Donny. I’ll be seeing you then.’

‘In a week. Remember what I said.’ He pulled his hat further down over his eyes. ‘So long, Sally.’

She gave a wave and set off after the weaving wheelbarrow, her heels scuffing through the thick dust and gravely stones. She concentrated on walking as straight as she could. Miss Allen, who’d taught her deportment, would have been proud of her. She hard the plane rev up and taxi but she didn’t look back. Three miles to the homestead, Donny had said. A slow anger began to boil in her but she tried to calm herself and consider all the possible reasons why she hadn’t been met. She heard the plane circle and Donny swooped above her. She looked up and felt her anger melt as Donny waggled the wings.

She waited for the girls to catch up and tried to talk to them. Between their titters and sucking on fingers she got their names, but found them hard to understand. The boys were competing with each other to push their side of the wheelbarrow harder than the other. Inevitably it tipped over, spilling everything onto the ground. At first the boys were horrorstruck and quickly looked at Sally, waiting for her to shout at them. Instead she burst out laughing at the incongruity of the whole scene. In a rush of relief the children laughed too and together they repacked the wheelbarrow.

Sally lifted the younger girl, surprised at how light and frail she was, and sat her on top of her suitcase as the boys set off again.

They’d walked about a mile when they heard the sound of an engine and a truck drove towards them in a swathe of dust. Three young boys were in the cabin, the head of the one driving hardly came above the steering wheel and he looked about twelve. A nine year old hung out of the window and a seven-year-old was sandwiched between them. The boy leaning out the passenger side called cheekily, ‘Hey lady, want a lift?’

So these were her new charges. ‘Get out of that truck and get down here.’ Sally spoke loudly and firmly. Surprised but with cocky grins the boys got out of the truck. You’re late. Don’t you ever keep me waiting again. Do you understand? Now unload that wheelbarrow immediately.’

The boys looked sheepish. They hadn’t expected this reaction. ‘Couldn’t help it. The truck blew up and dad’s out with the land Rover. We’re here, aren’t we?’

She watched them throw, with unnecessary force, her suitcase and the mail into the tray of the truck. ‘Now come here and introduce yourselves properly. You’re Ian, I suppose.’ She turned to the oldest boy.

‘Yeah. And that’s Tommy and that’s Martin.’

‘Take off your hat when you speak to a lady and shake hands. You boys don’t know much, do you?’

Insulted, the boys whipped off their hats and extended their hands for her to shake one by one. ‘You know who I am, Sally Mitchell, your new governess.’

“Howdo, Miss Mitchell,’ they mumbled, but Sally could see the resentment and hostility lurking in their eyes. They’d declared war on her even before they’d met her.

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November 2003 book reviews

Shot, by Gail Bell (Picador,$28)

When the author is 17, she is shot in the back. The crime is never solved and Gail, although changed forever by the trauma and suffering of on-going side effects, carries on with her life. This book is her exploration of the event – the police investigation, the experience, her emotional reaction, other victims, the gun culture. Once again, Bell’s fine writing skills has turned an unusual topic into an interesting, lively and absorbing piece of story-telling that never flags for a moment and will appeal to a wide audience.

The Touch, by Colleen McCullough (Century, $49.95)

A historical romance and family drama that revolves around Alexander Kinross, who has become rich and successful since leaving Scotland, young Elizabeth Drummond, selected to be his wife at the age of 16, when she is sent to join him and the luscious Ruby Costevan, Alexander’s mistress and her son, ‘Jade Kitten’ Lee. Set in colonial Sydney, it is a big, sprawling novel that sends its tentacles out to all sorts of social issues and events, with the human heart and its strange ways at the centre of it.

Blackie, by Stephen Downes (Random House Australia, $27.95)

A heartfelt story about a man, his cat and his efforts to save his “mate” when the cat becomes ill. Beautiful to look at and touch, this slender volume is engaging in every way. I liked its thoughtfulness and the writing, which takes off at times into interesting tangents. And the fact that it is a man writing so emotionally about his attachment to a cat, somehow made it more poignant, especially when Blackie dies. Eventually, the heartbroken author comes to terms with the loss and sees the gift in having known and the little black stray.

A Woman of Independence, by Kirsty Sword Gusmao (Pan Macmillan, $30)

The story of how Kirsty came to work undercover for the East Timorese independence movement and, finally, into contact with the jailed leader of the resistance movement and the man she would eventually marry, Xanana Gusmao. It begins with the excitement, colour and exuberance of the independence celebrations, then flashes back to Kirsty as a young woman with a growing political commitment. The relationship between Kirsty and Xanana, is a classic one of unrequited love while he is in prison. An interesting book, although the ommission of some of the personal detail – like what it was like when they were finally able to be together – seems a major one.

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Killer oils

Latest research shows that certain oils could be essential in killing harmful bacteria.

Latest research shows that certain oils could be essential in killing harmful bacteria. The essential oils thyme, rosewood, and oregano, may kill certain bacteria, including those that cause pneumonia, reported researchers at a recent American Society of Microbiology meeting. According to the report, the oils caused the microorganism cells to die.

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The better honey

Honey has never tasted so sweet.

Honey has never tasted so sweet. Honey contains low to moderate levels of antioxidants, according to researchers at the University of Illinois. But not all honeys are the same. The antioxidant content of honey from bees fed on buckwheat, for example, was 20 times higher than that of the honey from bees fed on sage. Darker honeys, such as New Zealand’s manuka, can have a higher antioxidant levels that lighter varieties.

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Honour your other half

If you’re in a relationship, it can be sobering to take an inventory of how you treat them.

How much time did you spend together this week?

How much (if any) was “quality time”? What did you talk about – chit-chat, family business, or something more significant?

Give your partner the same consideration you would a friend, or even a stranger. Don’t forget to say thank you – every single time – and try to speak calmly, even when you’re furious!

Try at least one of these today:

  • Read to each other from your favourite books

  • Sing silly love songs to each other

  • Start a hobby together

  • Give your loved one a massage

  • Raise a pet together. Couple with pets are happier and healthier than petless ones

  • Send him a letter, even if you live together. Everyone loves to get a little fan mail!

  • Drink champagne

  • Go parking!

  • Get intimate: Buy each other gorgeous – or ridiculous – underwear and leave it on the bed, with a rose

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Q&a: Di Morrissey

Q & A with Di Morrissey, author of Barra Creek (Pan Macmillan Australia), the Great Read in the November issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.

**Q. You have said that each book comes as a strange gift and that you wait for whatever fateful circumstances bring each novel to you – what were they in the case of Barra Creek?

A.** Well, I was planning a totally different book. I was just waiting to see which one stepped forward, and an old friend whom I felt I knew everything about, made a passing reference at a dinner party one night to working as a governess in the Northern Territory. And it hit a nerve and I thought wouldn’t that be fabulous? But I decided I wanted to go to the Gulf.

**Q. Why?

A.** I’d already set two books in the Northern Territory and I love fishing, and my partner, Boris and I had talked about going to catch barramundi, and I kept looking at Queensland thinking how fascinating it was…you know crocodiles and all that stuff and I thought it would be an interesting and dangerous environment, and that it might be fun to hook it on the governess. But the whole thing bears no resemblance in any way to my friend’s life.

What we did was we drove up the Gulf and based ourselves in Normanton and went to Karumba. In Normanton, I met a lot of governesses who had worked up there. They go up to work and hook a good bush guy, and stay there. And so again, I thought well, what’s in Normanton – so I rang and I finally got onto the Normanton library and the young girl who worked at the library, her family were the Gallaghers and they have big properties up there. She knew my books and was only too pleased to introduce me to her family, and they took me everywhere and were able to introduce me to all kinds of people to hear all kinds of stories. So I was able to hook into the right people at the right time.

**Q. How long did you spend in the Gulf country, researching your book?

A.** About a month. We drove and took Bunya, our Sydney silkie. We went inland into the river a little bit, [Karumba is on the coast], and that’s where all the banana prawns come from. When I lobbed there some bloke on a fishing trawler recognised me and said, ‘You’re that lady writer…geez, are you going to set a book up here and do for prawns what you did for pearls?’

**Q. (turning the tables, Di asks me) What did you think of the grisly death in Barra Creek?

A.** Fantastic, what a shocking way to go.

**Q. (me again). Where is Normanton?

A.** On the Gulf of Carpentaria, the pointy bit of Cape York, on the left hand side at the bottom, that’s where Karumba is and then 1km inland on the river is Normanton. So it’s on the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the western side of Cape York.

**Q. Tell me about the worst and the best of being up there?

A.** The best was the extraordinary landscape and the fabulous people. You meet people who live in extreme conditions – many are either totally mad, or eccentric, or absolutely wonderful. But even the eccentric ones are wonderful in their own way.

**Q. The worst?

A.** I was fearful of crocodiles. The biggest crocodile ever shot in Australia by a woman was in 1967 and it was 28 feet long, and it’s in the main street of Normanton. So the crocs were around, so walking around the water’s edge, and going out in a boat, it was a creepy feeling knowing that the red eyes are out there, looking at you. And at one point we were driving and were at a claypan in the middle of nowhere when we let Bunya out of the car for a run. All of a sudden we had whumph, whumph, whumph and a wedge tail eagle with a wing span of 10 feet circles overhead and we had to run and run to catch the dog in case it picked her up.

We met some amazing people along the way. We met this old guy who was in his 80s. He no longer walks around Australia, and he lives in a lean-to at the back of a pub. He had a little dog he was devoted to and he was nearly blind. I struck up a conversation with him because of his little dog. We had a steak meal and neither of us could finish it, so we decided to take it and give it to his dog. We finished up spending the bulk of the day in this lean-to with him telling us stories about his life.

Meeting people like that makes travelling so special. And Boris is making a documentary. He has filmed me for the last 12 months, from the day I started the book to the day I finished it. He filmed everything that happened, like the day I was sobbing because I’d erased half a chapter. On a book tour. Everything. So it will be very interesting to see what we end up with.

**Q. Are you doing anything with the documentary?

A.** We’re hoping to put it up to someone. The other idea that we’re also looking at is Di Morrissey’s Australia, because most of my books have been set in all different places around Australia. I could go back to those places and look at the landscape, and the people who inspired my books. It would be a novelist’s travelogue and I think it would be quite interesting.

When I did This Is Your Life I felt very comfortable being back in front of a camera. And I thought I wouldn’t mind doing something again, although I wouldn’t want it to be full-time. We’ll see.

**Q. Barra Creek is your 13th book?

A.** No, this is my 12th adult novel and I’m now embarking on my 13th, set in the Great Barrier Reef.

**Q. One aspect of the plot of Barra Creek that I think many people will relate to is the poisonous family relationships.

A.** Yes, I think everybody has a family story where there’s some conflict.

**Q. But it doesn’t always involve murder.

A.** No (laughing), sometimes it’s a slow death and involves more suffering.

**Q. Yes, in some cases you might be better off being eaten by a crocodile?

A.** Yes (laughing). I should tell you, too, that I had a crocodile hunter who helped me a lot. So all the croc stuff in Barra Creek is true and accurate.

**Q. I thought all your mustering detail was very good, too – do you ride?

A.** I do. But of course for my first book I went and worked on a station as a ringer. I do like to go back to the bush. It was hard to simplify without changing it or making it incorrect.

**Q. You captured the 1960s very well, were you a teenager back then?

A.** Oh, absolutely and Ita Buttrose was very helpful, in terms of the places in Sydney that were very popular then. And I made the governess a New Zealander so that she came from an ultra, super- conservative society and went from a cool, green, snowy landscape to the heat and dust of the Gulf country. I wanted it to be that kind of contrast.

I talked to a lot of the old Aboriginal and white stockmen at the retirement home in Normanton. People in their 80s and 90s. But they had fantastic memories. Some of the staff said, ‘Oh, they have nothing to say.’ But you sit down and get them talking and reminiscing – some of the nursing staff were very surprised to hear them chatting away.

**Q. Sounds like you had a fabulous adventure up there?

A.** Yes, it was.

**Q. When you’re writing one of your books, how many words a day do you aim to do?

A.** Whatever comes during the course of the day, but I have a good working day. But it’s also a good test of the book when I can’t wait to get back to it. If I get up in the morning and can’t wait to get to it, it’s a good sign that the book has got me in and I want to find out what’s going to happen. But I am pretty productive.

**Q. Do you re-draft as you go?

A.** No, I write it all the way straight through, as I don’t like to stop that journey. I wait till I finish and then I go back. All up, I probably do about four drafts.

**Q. The room you write in?

A.** I go between my little writing cabin which Boris built me and the office at home. I do the creative stuff in the cabin. Then when I’m writing stuff that requires me to make phone calls or check stuff, I do it in the office. The cabin’s a little wooden shingle cottage built in the garden at home.

**Q. There’s no phone or anything there?

A.** No, there’s power so I can plug in my laptop, and I just hear running water and see greenery. But in my mind I was in the Gulf. So much so that at one point I stepped outside the cabin, heard a rustle and it was, ‘Oh God – crocs! No, no, it’s alright, I’m in my garden.’

**Q. I have read that the actor Chips Rafferty was your mentor and unofficial godfather and that the famous poet, Dorothea McKellar, was a mentor, and of the family tragedy when your father and brother died?

A.** It’s been mentioned in articles and stuff but not dwelt upon.

**Q. Was it an accident?

A.** My father ran a water taxi service at Pittwater, north of Sydney. I think my brother, Michael, was about 14 months old. Apparently there was no-one on the boat and Michael fell overboard. My father jumped in after him and they both drowned. My father had heavy clothes on and boots which weighed him down. I think of that and when I look at my mother I wonder, how would I cope?

**Q. How old were you then?

A.** Ten.

**Q. Your mother must have been enormously strong to go on and pick up the pieces after that?

A.** Yes, because she was just a housewife and we had nothing – we were left penniless.

**Q. You went to live in LA for a period of time after that?

A.** Yes. Mum’s sister was living there and we went to be with her. We stayed there for a year and then eventually, my mother carved out this career as a TV director.

**Q. Your mother must have been an inspiration for you?

A.** Yes, very much. There is nothing I feel I can’t do, given the opportunity.

**Q. You are divorced, with two children. Tell me what they are doing now?

A.** Dr Gabrielle runs the sexology unit at Curtin University, Perth and is a writer and broadcaster. She is 32.

Nick, is an art historian completing his PhD at UCLA in Buddhist studies. He will be 30 in November.

**Q. What is your star sign?

A.** Pisces. I’m a water sign, romantic and creative, but with a Leo moon or something that gives me an enormous work ethic. I’m never late for my deadline and I’m business minded.

**Q. Your favourite colour?

A.** Emerald.

**Q. What do you hope for?

A.** That the refugee problem and lack of leadership being shown in this country is resolved very soon.

**Q. I’ve read that you once glimpsed yourself as an old lady saying you could have written books?

A.** Yes, that was something that drove me, to take the plunge, to have a bash at writing a book at what was probably the worst time of my life. But I felt if I didn’t try then, I’d never know if I could do it or not. And I’d talked about writing books since I was seven.

So I jumped off the cliff and found I could fly.

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Decoupage placemats

These elegant placemats are the ideal addition to any dinner table. Create them for yourself or give them as a house-warming or Christmas gift.

Materials

Craftwood placemats (available from major craft outlets)

Jo Sonja’s Basecoat – Primrose

Black and White photocopies of floral designs from botanical prints or wrapping papers (or choose your own theme)

Jo Sonja’s Artist’s Acrylics: Pine Green, Yellow Oxide, Warm White and Burnt Umber

Jo Sonja’s All Purpose Sealer

Jo Sonja’s Satin Water-Based Varnish

Brushes: No 12 flat, No 2 round

Manicure or decoupage scissors

Craft knife and cutting mat

PVA glue

Roller/brayer

Chux cloth

Permanent black marking pens: fine point and thick point

Ruler

Sandpaper: fine grade and 120 Wet & Dry

Winsor & Newton Japan Gold Size

Liquid Gum Arabic

Jo Sonja’s Archival Oil: Burnt Umber

Mineral turpentine

Feast Watson Gloss and Satin Oil-based Varnish

Adhesive contact felt or suede (for the back of each mat)

Method

Mix Primrose basecoat and All-purpose Sealer 1:1 and paint placemats with three coats, using the No 12 flat brush, sanding lightly after the second coat. Allow the paint to dry overnight, then apply one coat of sealer.

Make the desired number of photocopies for your placemats. Tint your photocopies with colour wash as follows: paint leaves with diluted Pine Green, adding more intense colour on the shaded areas of the leaves. The stems are painted with Burnt Umber. Paint any flowers with Warm White mixed with a little Yellow Oxide. When the photocopies are thoroughly dry, seal the back and front of each with a coat of Sealer. Cut out the pictures using decoupage scissors and use the craft knife to cut out any enclosed areas.

Using a soft brush, apply slightly diluted PVA glue to the back of one picture and position the image on the placemat and smooth it over with the roller to remove any air bubbles. Finish by wiping the surface with a damp Chux cloth to remove excess surface glue. Repeat to attach all your pictures to the placemats and allow to dry overnight. Measure 0.5cm in from the edge of each placemat and rule a border line using the fine black marking pen. Use the thick pen to colour the edges of the mats.

Seal the entire surface of each mat with two coats of satin water-based varnish, and allow to dry thoroughly.

Paint the front of each mat with a coat of Japan Gold Size and allow to dry until it is just tacky (this will take anywhere between one and three hours, depending on weather conditions). Next, apply a layer of liquid gum arabic over the size. Allow to dry. After 30-60 minutes, cracks will begin to appear on the surface and the drying process can be speeded up by using a hairdryer set on low held about 10cm from the surface of the mat. Repeat for all the mats and allow to dry overnight.

To accentuate the cracks, rub a little Burnt Umber oil paint into the surface using a dry cloth, rubbing it in a circular motion. Use a clean cloth to wipe off the excess paint, and allow to dry overnight. Finish your mats with four coats of gloss oil-based varnish and for a satin finish, another two to three coats of satin oil-based varnish, with a light sand using 120 Wet & Dry sandpaper before the final coat. Apply contact felt or suede to the back of each mat for a protective finish.

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Breakfast for breast cancer

We invite you to attend the National Breast Cancer Centre's Pink Ribbon Breakfast.

We invite you to attend the National Breast Cancer Centre’s Pink Ribbon Breakfast. Where? The Westin Hotel, Martin Place, Sydney When? Monday 27 October, 7.15am For Bookings: Go to www.nbcc.org.au or Freecall on 1800 624 973 Tickets are $70 per head Guest Speakers

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Breast cancer breakthrough

A variety of studies have shown a connection between low levels of vitamin A and lung cancer. Now new research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute indicates the same may be true for breast cancer. The researchers found that women with breast cancer were less likely to have a particular protein called CRBP, which facilitates the proper digestion and use of vitamin A.

A variety of studies have shown a connection between low levels of vitamin A and lung cancer. Now new research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute indicates the same may be true for breast cancer. The researchers found that women with breast cancer were less likely to have a particular protein called CRBP, which facilitates the proper digestion and use of vitamin A.

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