Gandhi 'bisexual' furore

DELHI. An American author has dismissed claims his new book on Mahatma Gandhi alleges India's independence leader was a racist bisexual who left his wife for a bodybuilder.

Bond for employee who stole

A SALES assistant has been put on a good behaviour bond after apologising to his Musos Corner employers for selling stock online at a lower price.

Cherry-Evans has fanatics feeling cheery

MANLY rookie Daly Cherry-Evans hasn't only filled Trent Hodkinson's old halfback jumper with aplomb, the Queensland-born No.7 has proved just as huge a hit as his predecessor did for Toyota NRL Dream Team coaches last year.

SCORE

ZIGGY'S 'TOY' AT PLAY

In for the Kills

What happens to me on stage is fascinating.

LITERARY EVENTS

WOMEN OF LETTERS

Outsider with more than enough rank

'Can-Do' Campbell Newman says he can run a state ��� if he gets elected, writes Nick O'Malley.

Late mail: Labor reads it and weeps

FIVE weeks of campaigning have failed to shift voting intentions in today's state election, with the Coalition on track for a landslide victory that could reduce Labor to as few as 16 seats, according to the final poll of the campaign.

YOUR LETTERS

Cringeworthy Corbett THE Ulysses Club ("Old bikers out of hand" Herald 24/3) chose Newcastle as the venue for its annual general meeting and 3000 of their members showed up to enjoy what we have to offer.

Solving the mystery of what editors do

THE most famous book editor the world has ever known was not famous for her editing. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis spent 20 years of her life in the job, but it's only now, 10 years after her death, that we can find out anything about what she actually did.

Police admit failings on phone hacking

A senior British police officer said phone hacking was "a huge issue" as he defended his force's probe of hacking allegations at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World newspaper.

Sterlo's secret to help Desertheads flourish

CHANNEL NINE commentator Peter Sterling concedes that one of the big challenges faced by Toyota NRL Dream Team coaches is late changes to NRL team line-ups that in some cases have been announced six days before the Monday night match.

Wrong mail: Ricky riles, vows to remain as leader

AHMEDABAD: Ricky Ponting has no intention of quitting the Australian captaincy but is willing to play on if the decision is taken out of his hands by Cricket Australia or selectors.

Canary in the coal mine

A US photographic magazine publisher has taken to tablets.

It's not time for me to go ��� Ponting

RICKY Ponting has no intention of quitting the Australian captaincy but is willing to play on if the decision is taken out of his hands by Cricket Australia officials or selectors.

Proxy forms hold key

WHAT sits inside this cardboard box could determine the future of the Newcastle Knights.

Return to Brookie: Stewart braced for an emotional return after two-year absence

BRETT STEWART is back, and so is his sense of humour. The star Manly fullback was asked yesterday about the support of the northern beaches public and how he found it when he, for instance, stopped at a service station for petrol in the past year or two.

BHP tries to mend bridges with China

As BHP Billiton has been busily blowing up bridges with its most important customer, its arch rival, Rio Tinto, has been lurching towards the opposite extreme. This is Rio Tinto's chief executive, Tom Albanese, in Beijing yesterday paying homage to Chinese power:

Too late but sufferer praises bowel screening program

PETER Caissa received a bowel cancer screening kit in the mail around the time of his 55th birthday last July. But by then, it was too late.

COLUMN 8

On Friday Patricia Bourke asked for the correct response to shop assistants who say "darl", and there well may be one, but here's a suggestion on the "mate" greeting, from Peter Noone, of Lane Cove North: "Having acquired a certain degree of crotchetiness with my advancing years, I now take umbrage at the almost universal greeting these days from pimply-faced shop assistants of 'You right there, mate?' My well-crafted response these days is: 'Firstly, I have been married for more than 40 years so will hardly ever be right. Secondly, owing to the disparity of our years and other socioeconomic factors it is highly unlikely that we could ever be mates.' Of course, the stunned reaction this provokes is quite unhelpful if I have actually entered the store to buy something."

The Heckler

Silks at 10 paces in restaurant row

Cricket is not making the grade: Thornely

STATE authorities should consider reducing the amount of "pointless" cricket played at grade level to help lift the standard of the first-class game in Australia, says former NSW captain Dominic Thornely.

Not happy campers

What��s the point of owning your home when the land beneath it can be sold out from under you? This is just one of the many problems faced by thousands of elderly Victorians living in purpose-built retirement villages classified as caravan parks. Geoff Strong reports.

Flying under different colours

13/20 Local bistro feel heads upmarket.

Pretty Premier, petty politics

Labor is now heading towards its campaign comfort zone ... abuse and nastiness propped up by millions of dollars of trade unionists' money.

Injuries pose a difficult question for coaches

TO TRADE or not to trade. That was the question many Toyota NRL Dream Team coaches faced before the season's opening round had even been completed.

FREE TO AIR

Rating: 4/5 PRIVATE PRACTICE Thursday, 10.30pm, Seven Rating: 3/5 DAWN PORTER: MY BREASTS COULD KILL ME Monday 10.30pm, Seven Rating: 4/5 STONEWALL UPRISING Tuesday 10.05pm, SBS1

The Heckler

Bog standard day on a cattle drive

Modern guru

Danny Katz solves your ethics and etiquette dilemmas

The Adventures of Naked Man

Send captions to nakedman@theage.com.au or to Naked Man Competition, EG, The Age, PO Box 257C, Melbourne, 3000.

City sprawl is the road to madness

Tokyo is almost three times the size of Sydney and vastly more dense, but my main memory of it is the sound of footsteps. Rush hour in Tokyo is onomatopoeic with waves - tides - of footsteps. Not here. Of course a proper writer works amid leaf-whisper and birdsong, but for me, a city dweller, street noise is the norm. Sadly, Sydney being Sydney, it's not the sound of feet but the roar of continuous internal combustion.

Brother tells of bridge death

JUST moments before her father threw her off the West Gate Bridge, Darcey Freeman was playing with her older brother, Ben, in the back seat of a four-wheel-drive, with their toddler brother strapped in a child seat between them. The video of the police interview was played yesterday to the Victorian Supreme Court, where Ben��s father, Arthur Phillip Freeman, 37, of Hawthorn, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Darcey, 4, by throwing her 58 metres to her death.

Brother tells of bridge killing

MOMENTS before her father threw her off the West Gate Bridge, Darcey Freeman was playing with her older brother, Ben, in the back seat of a four-wheel-drive, as their toddler brother sat strapped in a child seat between them.

Oswal's wife owes $140m

A COURT judgment yesterday revealed that the wife of controversial Indian entrepreneur Pankaj Oswal owes the Tax Office $140 million and may have received $80 million in payments from the company her husband founded, Burrup Fertilisers.

Are you game for roadkill night?

WHEN they first discussed dubbing their Wednesday evening menu "Roadkill Night", the owners of the Royal Mail on Spencer hotel in West Melbourne admit they were hesitant.

The postie's pushie returns, with added oomph, and a green message

IT'S taken some getting use to, but Tony Mucciacciaro and his Flemington customers now love that he does the daily mail run on an electrically assisted bicycle.

When Telstra calls the tune, you dance 'til you drop

Round and around we go, with no service and clowns at the other end, writes Bruce Guthrie.

Training with a regional focus

Victoria's Transport Accident Commission (TAC) moved from Melbourne to Geelong in 2009 as part of the former state Labor government's efforts to grow regional economies. The decision was controversial, with some opponents labelling it costly and warning that the organisation, which manages compensation to accident victims and promotes road safety, might lose expertise.

The Adventures of Naked Man

Send captions to nakedman@theage.com.au or to Naked Man Competition, EG, The Age, PO Box 257C, Melbourne, 3000.

The real deal: Parker's a points machine

THE Wikipedia entry of Brisbane's Corey Parker describes him as a "fantasy football superstar" and "officially the greatest fantasy football player of all-time".

The Brotherhood: up to no good or just out to lunch?

IT'S an invitation-only men's group that lunches at exclusive Melbourne locations.

1907

Preparations were being made for the the great international sculling race for the championship of the world and 1000 in stakes over three miles, 320 yards, on the Nepean River. There were representatives from Australia, England, Canada and the US. Australia's champion sculler George Towns was in fine form, weighing 10 stone nine pounds but "a much bigger man than his weight might lead one to expect". The Canadian representative, Edward Durnan, was confident of getting the title and wrote off Towns as "a real soft snap". He was in perfect health, at 10 stone 10 pounds or one or two pounds over.

STAY IN TOUCH . . .

IN TODAY'S tawdry news ... just as Prince William prepares for next month's nuptials, his uncle Prince Andrew, pictured, is being implicated in the sleazy hedonism of his billionaire friend Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender. As bosom buddies, the prince and the felon have played together in Thailand, Sandringham and New York. But Buckingham Palace is not amused by the friendship, particularly since Epstein has served 13 months in prison for soliciting child prostitution. Now Virginia Roberts, a 27-year-old mother of three living in Australia, has confirmed the palace's fears. After seeing photos of Epstein together with the prince, Roberts told Britain's The Mail on Sunday that she was a 15-year-old masseuse when Epstein groomed her to become a prostitute. In the course of her work, she was flown around the world, paid thousands of dollars and, as a 17-year-old, met Prince Andrew three times. There was never any sexual relationship between the prince and Roberts, she says, although once she was told to sit on his knee while he touched another woman's breast. Surprisingly, Charlie Sheen wasn't there.

Trio's cocaine plans thwarted by tip-off from Colombia

THEY had almost everything any serious drug importers needed ��� South American contacts, cocaine, codes, couriers and a lust for money.

STAY IN TOUCH . . . WITH KEEPING A COMMON TOUCH

IN TODAY'S tawdry news ... just as Prince William prepares for next month's nuptials, his uncle Prince Andrew, pictured, is being implicated in the sleazy hedonism of his billionaire friend Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender. As bosom buddies, the prince and the felon have played together in Thailand, Sandringham and New York. But Buckingham Palace is not amused by the friendship, particularly since Epstein has served 13 months in prison for soliciting child prostitution. Now Virginia Roberts, a 27-year-old mother of three living in Australia, has confirmed the palace's fears. After seeing photos of Epstein with the prince, Roberts told Britain's The Mail on Sunday that she was a 15-year-old masseuse when Epstein groomed her to become a prostitute. In the course of her work, she was flown around the world, paid thousands of dollars and, as a 17-year-old, met Prince Andrew three times. There was never any sexual relationship between the prince and Roberts, she says, although once she was told to sit on his knee while he touched another woman's breast. Surprisingly, Charlie Sheen wasn't there.

Trio's cocaine plans thwarted by tip-off

THEY had almost everything any serious drug importers needed ��� South American contacts, cocaine, codes, couriers, and a lust for money.

Villagers get dolphin DVD

TOKYO. Copies of the 2010 Oscar-winning documentary that depicts the slaughter of dolphins in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji have been delivered free to all its residents, compliments of the director.