Bookstores are dying if not already dead. So it was nice to come across this wonderful little hole-in-the-wall vintage book store in Launceston, Tasmania. It’s run by an affable gentleman who told me that most of the books came from estates in and around Tasmania. I found tattered old copies of books gifted to sons and daughters and nieces and nephews. Some were signed and dated as far back as 1912. The place has this really pleasant vibe too; Billie Holiday’s My Man played as I made my way around the store.

Here’s a wonderfully written albeit, slightly snarky post on the recent goings-on.

This taps into a very prominent feature of our political landscape: the constant line from Tony Abbott that Australian families are hurting, that Aussies are doing it tough, that life is somehow getting harder, that the cost of living is on the rise.

Shenanigans, Tony. Let’s get one thing very clear. Australians, en masse, are enjoying a better standard of living than has ever been enjoyed in this country’s history.

And not just marginally, but by a huge degree. Really, along with a few other developed countries, we are enjoying a better standard of living than any group of people has in human existence. We have every kind of food and beverage from around the world deliverable to our doors. We have technological advances that make a decade ago look archaic. We have goods and luxuries of every conceivable kind; cheap and accessible. We have more and better options with transport, entertainment, comfort, place and style of residence. We have the most advanced medicine and best life expectancy of all time.

[You shut your goddamn carbon-taxin’ mouth]

“How does he go before the Australian people dressed in the clothes of a Liberal leader and deny more than 20 years of Liberal engagement with the science of climate change?” she said.

Mr Abbott then took another point of order.

“The question was about the Lodge, not the dodge – that’s what it was.”

After outlining her belief in climate change and the need for a price on carbon, Ms Gillard launched another attack on Mr Abbott.

“If he wants to debate political honesty in this place, then bring it on,” she said.

“Did he go to the Australian people before the last election telling them about his $11 billion black hole?”

Amid roars from the Opposition benches and futile attempts by Mr Jenkins to restore order, the Prime Minister went on.

“Did he go to the Australian people before the last election saying [Pauline Hanson's] One Nation would write his economic policy?” she said.

“Did he go to the Australian people before the last election saying senior members of his frontbench like the shadow treasurer would agitate for the return of WorkChoices? No he did not.

“So if we want to have a debate about political honesty then bring it on, Mr Speaker, bring it on because we have the most hollow man with the least conviction sitting in the Opposition Leader’s chair we’ve ever seen in this Parliament.”

I’ve come a long way from thinking of sports as an overrated exhibition of suppressed animal instincts and misplaced male bravura. Over the last few days, it has dawned on me that yours truly is no less capable of mouthing curses or screaming jubilations during the course of a 100 overs.

I may have just picked the right time to be a fan…