2025 – that was the year that was… and here it is, month by month, through the bright eyes of the CityNews columnists – a quirky, serious, funny and sad look at the 12 months just gone. HUGH SELBY looks back on March…

Of course, we all remember March. It’s when summer’s heat gave way to autumn colours. There was little rain. 

It was when Albo told us, at month’s end, that for five, long weeks we’d have to put up with a surfeit of political spin before casting our votes in early May.

Then Liberal leader Peter Dutton decided to channel Donnie and belt public servants – that’s a lot of us, our friends, family – as lazy, unproductive, and very trimmable.

Columnist Michael Moore enjoyed pointing out how Dutton’s and (now leader) Ley’s record of turning up to vote in the parliament were poor, even though that was one of their job requirements.

There were articles taking the ACT government to task for its inept management of our prisons, especially the lack of any rehabilitation. Andy’s gang yawned, ignored them and moved on.

There were articles about our Integrity Commission and its damning report on Walter Sofronoff KC’s sharing of his report into the Higgins/Lehrmann/Drumgold saga. 

Columnist Hugh Selby was very critical of the Integrity Commission report. Columnist Michael Moore thought the same report was “tightly framed”. That’s balanced reporting. The courts will have the last word in good time.

Sofronoff sought judicial review of the findings. In an extraordinary, ill-considered, and inimical to democracy and due process manoeuvre, the Commission attempted to argue that its reports could not be reviewed by a court. It lost that argument some months later. In what cupboard was integrity hiding?

Christina Vogel wrote a cover story about stir-crazy women who wanted to go back to that fantasy time of domestic bliss as traditional housewives, staying at home and being duly subservient to the dominating male who would give them weekly spending money from his account.

The influencers promoting this craziness do not mention using a washboard to hand clean clothes with soap flakes, getting rid of the microwave, the toaster, the steam iron, and the self-cleaning oven, dumping the TV and the internet, no freezer, etcetera. They also gloss over that this dream lifestyle brings on a repetitive loop of a cup of tea, a pain killer and too much lying down.

Much more important, even if the season end was tearful, was the Raiders win in Las Vegas over the Warriors. Lots of Raiders fans were in the stands. It gave them hope that grew through autumn and winter to yield Minor Premiers before the springtime finals’ crash and burn.

While thinking about the various codes and the balls they use, everyone has heard of the Sherrin, that long famous ball used in AFL. Peter Stanley, military historian, finally published a novel written decades ago using that name, telling the story of the bitter rivalry between volunteers and conscripts in a part of the World War II Pacific Theatre. And in the end there was a footie match. Available in hard copy and as an e-book. 

A real life story with a happy ending and good future prospects was new writer David Turnbull’s opening story of guitar and amp tragics, Ian Stehlik and Simon Wilkins. They have turned their love of old guitars and amps into a business, Capital Vintage Guitars. They aim to match equipment with the player.

Still talking about players brings to mind Clive Williams, he who addresses an interesting topic and then leaves us with a joke. This time he told of a patient who when asked by his GP about his exercise explained that he spent a lot of time running up and down slopes, beating through the bush, and diving in lakes. That, said the doctor, is very impressed: “Are you training to be an Ironman?” Said the patient: “Far from it. I am just a very poor golfer”.

From time to time Clive and our wine writer Richard Calver play tag. This time Richard decided to go one up Clive with this tail ender. The teacher asked the class to compose sentences with the opposite meaning to what she put up on the board, “Children in the dark make mistakes”. 

All too quickly a future comedian, possibly a Tom Gleeson lookalike, offered: “Mistakes in the dark make children”. Out of the mouths of babes.

Former barrister Hugh Selby is the CityNews legal matters columnist.