The last time I’d seen this particular Bob was when we were at the school where I had to pretend not to be good at English and French and where he was a bikie and one of the likeable Bad Boys. I’d admired his audacity in running for school prefect and his campaign posters with their slogan ‘VOTE FOR BOB AND YOU WON’T GET DOBBED’.

And here he was at a party almost twenty years later, a taxation officer in a grey suit saying to me ‘And whaddya do for a crust?’ I said, ‘I teach a course in Australian Literature’. ‘Yeah?’ He didn’t sound too surprised. ‘Be a short course, wouldn’t it?’