From Bob's desk

Hello, how’s things? Seeing as my latest Les Norton book, High Noon in Nimbin, won’t be coming out before Christmas as usual and more likely to be around March 2009, the publishers asked me to update my website and explain why. Has Barbara slackened off? Have I become a rich, lazy old shit and just don’t give a stuff anymore? Have I run off to the Philippines and blown all my money on 18-year-old bar girls? No. None of the above. The famous awther has had a couple of hiccups in his miserable life.

The cat I inherited

Firstly, I had to put my 90-year-old mother (who has hated me since the day I was born) into a nursing home. Eventually the government cut off her pension, which meant I had to sell her townhouse at Maroubra and take over the wellbeing of her cat, which had never been house-trained in its life. Which also meant running backwards and forwards between Terrigal and Maroubra getting everything together. I couldn’t be bothered tarting the place up and dealing with estate agents, so I advertised it complete with cat piss and cat shit and the ensuing rubbish and junk. Because it had ocean views I sold it okay. Then I had to clean it out. My mother’s last boyfriend, bloke, partner, whatever lasted about 25 years before he died tossed tails, and in that time he and the old girl never threw a thing out in their lives. Nothing. With the help of Tony Nolan, the surf photographer, and Sean Doherty, the ex-editor of Tracks who wrote MP, we filled three skip bins full of the most unbelievable, dust-ridden junk imaginable and I took 20 garbage bags of clothes to St Vincents. And I’ve still got a garage full of junk the old girl wants to use when she gets her own room in the nursing home. So between dealing with buyers, cleaning the place out and putting up with the cat, this put me back about two months. But on the plus side, because the old girl’s lift isn’t quite going to the top floor, I got power of attorney. So all the money went into my name, which means while the old girl’s living on gruel in the nursing home, I’m dining on T-bone steaks and oysters, washed down with Jack Daniels. Ha-ha. Ho-ho. Hee-hee.

A skip bin at the house

Tony Nolan taking out the old girl’s moving staircase

Then after stopping off at Blueys Beach for a wedding (which features in the new book, where I stitch up both Tony Nolan and Sean Doherty for being good blokes and helping me out), I drove up to Nimbin to research the book. There’s an old saying: ‘If you can’t say anything nice about somebody or something, don’t say anything at all’. So after almost getting bashed up by a bunch of dope dealers outside the local hotel, I’ll leave Nimbin out of it. But if you want a bag of dope in a hurry, Nimbin’s the place to go.

Now, even though I don’t act like it, I’m no spring chicken, and things are starting to break down on my miserable body. I went into St Vincent’s Hospital a few years ago for a de-coke and a valve grind. And recently I had to go in for another. I must say, the nurses at North Gosford Private Hospital were fantastic and deserve more money. The food was good and I had a nice room with a lovely view. But lying on a bed for six days with tubes hanging out of you, a fishing float jammed up your wozzer and the nozzle off a garden hose stuck in your comic cuts isn’t my idea of fun. Now I’m out, I’ve got to take it easy till October. I’ve also got type 2 diabetes. Your blood sugar levels are supposed to be around 5.2 or thereabouts. On a good day I can hit 20 or 28. But I coast in at around 11 or 15. So in September I have to start shooting insulin. In the meantime, I can’t sleep, I can’t exercise, I can’t do much at all. In fact, if Naomi Campbell knocked on my door wearing a school uniform, all I could offer her would be a cup of coffee and an autographed copy of one of my books. But I’m very good at whinging and being a grumpy old man. The thing is I’m just tired all the time and finding it hard to write. But the doctors have assured me I’ll come good before long. In the meantime, however, because of my wonderful inner strength and devotion to my loyal readers, I’m managing to flog myself into the office and belt out a few pages on the new book till I collapse in a pain-wracked pool of blood and sweat. So don’t worry about my suffering and misery, I will get this thing done and it should be out by March.

So that’s it. Sorry if I sound like a whinging old shit. But I’ve just had to tell it like it is. Also to all those people who have written to me, I’m doing my best to reply. Though I did get one ripper letter from a digger in Afghanistan. Mark Casey. The Adjutant Librarian. I wish I could find the letter, I’d put it up on the website. He said the Taliban are trying to get to the few lousy copies of my books they have and world peace depends on the diggers getting more of my books. So with the help of HarperCollins, I sent them two boxes of books. In return I got some great T-shirts and one of those Mujahadeen hats the Afghanis get round in. It blows their minds when I wear it down to Terrigal to get a coffee and the paper.  

 
Me in my Afghan hat at a friend’s place