2025 has been one thwackingly spectacular year – easily the best since party spoiler Covid (boo) exited stage left – the building.

SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK has been along for the ride, with you every step, breath, snicker and guffaw along the way. Cue the look-back…

Back in July, a female BBC newsreader was ‘disciplined’ by the station after she added a single additional word to a news story and accompanied that (spontaneous) modification with a nano-second- length eye expression judged to be a personal condemnation of the politically-correct-nonsense- speak she was forced to read.

‘The Donald’ had a lot of newsworthy moments in 2025. SWS judged this to be the highlight –

I do some of my best movie watching on planes. I watched THE SUBSTANCE (2024) at one o’clock in the morning on a flight back to Brisbane from Seoul, Korea. By the time we landed I was still recovering from the experience. Every person I’ve spoken to since who’s seen THE SUBSTANCE agrees – it truly is one of the most original, mind-freaking films to come along in a great many years.

Saw this one on DVD. Completely loved its quirkiness, something I wouldn’t normally associate Sean Connery with.

Why exactly did this one get the gong? Besides being generally funny, we reckon this bit of hilarity slash absurdity perfectly summarizes the SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK, er… ‘way’.

Argentinian born Lalo Schifrin composed music scores for close to 100 movies, including two of my all-time favorites DIRT HARRY (1971) and MAGNUM FORCE (1973). He is also responsible for the instantly recognizable MISSION IMPOSSIBLE theme.

Those 1990’s tv ads, complete with his distinctive horse-race-commentator’s voice, were cheese-flavoured, ear & eye-worm classics from a bygone era that somehow managed to drill their way deep down into every tv viewer’s of-the-era screen hippocampus (science talk for memory folks – but I knew that you knew that.

I could watch this scene from SUPERMAN 2 (1980) featuring Terrence Stamp a hundred thousand times and never tire of it. It’s so perfect.

What’s more left to say but…

2026 kicks off with a bang and a clang not to mention a thundering thwack on SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK with the January launch of the annual SWS Short Story Writing Competition.

It’s back bigger and badder (ie. gooder) than before with boosted cash prizes. Stay tuned,won’t you!

Show me a person that DOESN’T – at least partially – judge a book by its cover and I’ll show you a person who doesn’t read books.

Yes shacksters – (if I may be so bold as to use this wacked-out and possibly stylish honourific in your… er, honour) it’s time again to celebrate the best the year had to offer in book cover eye candy. And there’s a lot to celebrate.

(A) Royally weird and wonderful, your Majesty.

(B) Waaah

(A) So many interesting trains of thought with this one.

(B) Pink Splendor! You can just about hear the squeak.

(A) Nice balance (sorry!) between image and text.

(B) Now that’s a button!

(A) Clever and more than a little bit frightening.

(B) Is that tomato aimed at the reader or the guy in the brown suit? The red splatters already there might help you decide.

(A) My nomination for Book Cover of the Year. Nicknamed ‘Death by Lolly’.

(B) Love, love the LOST IN SPACE (1960’s) vibe to this cover.

(A) So vampy! If ever a cover deserved the red-carpet treatment, this is it. The spelling of ritual is pretty special too.

(B) It’s the phallic-shaped blood drip from the nose that really seals it for me.

(A) Another BOOK COVER OF THE YEAR nomination. Those car headlights are indeed next-level illuminating!

(B) One supremely kissable cover.

(A) You want clever text placement? We give you clever text placement.

(B) I’m so mutts about this cover! (again, sorry). What a Fire-God brilliant interpretation of the book’s title.

Two hot-in-different ways beguiling book covers.

(A) “A two-year-old could do better than this cover” I hear you say. Actually, it looks like a two-year-old DID this cover.

(B) Oh my! Green is most certainly the new black.

(A) Inhale on this smokin’ hot bit of eye trickery, if you will.

(B) Love how the text gradually morphs from FEAR to LESS.

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The guy above looks nothing like me. And importantly, I’ve never owned a red and gold pinstripe suite.

But this man-kid in a candy shop COULD be me, for I have unearthed an uproarious new book that combines my twin loves of history and chest-caving humor.

That book is LOVE – LIFE – AND LAXITIVES and I am presently like a kid in a 19th century candy shop being entertained by its old skool – and by old skool I mean ‘Victorian era England’ old skool – mirth, merriment and sweet absurdity.

The book offers up a super-witty collection of sage advice, home remedies, lonely hearts counselling and general words of wisdom all aimed at living your best (19th Century England) life.

The invaluable counsel dispensed by the shudderingly all-knowing and worldly-wise, rotund housekeeper Mrs Finnegan – who, looks-wise, is equal parts Robin Williams’ MRS DOUBTFIRE and MISERY’s Kathy Bates

– is something along the lines of… all dry meats being tied up in strong paper and being kept in a cold, dry place – but never in the kitchen.

Sage advice like that is worth paying for, don’t ya think?

And the reply? Sheep fat and grating is involved. For any more detail you’ll need to buy the book yourself.

History was never, ever so show-stoppingly entertaining!

I don’t play chess but intellectual envy has sometimes made me wish I did.

That does not stop me however, from taking an interest in goings-on in this world of strategic ‘bodybuilding for the brain’.

And oh my sweet apple sauce, things really HAVE been going on.

Earlier this month, a 10-year-old girl beat an experienced adult player. Not your garden-variety experienced adult player but no less than a Chess Grandmaster. Not meant to happen.

That child genius was British born Bodhana Sivanandan. Her ‘victim’ was 60-year-old British GM Peter Wells.

Not only is Peter Wells a Chess Grandmaster, he has also authored numerous books on elite level chess tactics and ‘stratagems’ (fancy word alert on that one). Sales of his labyrinth-style ‘how to win’ manuals are now understandably expected to bottom out. Rather drastically.

To sizably ratchet up the ‘no way’ factor, on the very same day, 6000 kilometers away in Ohio U.S, another pint-sized junior wizard defeated another Chess Grandmaster.

This time it was the turn of 10-year-old Keya Jha to inflict shock and humiliation on 45-year-old Chess Grandmaster Peter Wells.

If you didn’t know better, looking googly-eyed at just these two beyond-outlandish anomalies, you might be forgiven for thinking gifted ankle-biters defeating grown-ups was an everyday event. Well, no. But it has happened before.

Back in 2014, Boston (U.S) born Carissa Yip became the youngest player in history, aged 10, to defeat a Grandmaster.

Against-the-odds victories are the best, aren’t they!? I reckon these are three of the ga-ga making best.

Book launch time folks and this one hits like a dreamy glamazon!

If sci-fi is your thing, then you have hit the tucked and twilled jackpot – complete with all the futuristic, alternate universe bells and whistles – with this about to be published new release.

I’ve read it and for me the world-building was elaborate and ingenious beyond belief. There’s thrill-ride, shuddering action scenes aplenty. And film comparison-wise, this novel has a complexly layered belly-banquet mix of stylistic touches and themes reminiscent of –

From the dynamic duo writing team known widely as ‘Ran and Yan’ (F.A Corporan and S.E Bryan) this novel delivers compelling storytelling with enough distinctive elements and convincing science fiction worldbuilding to make it worthy of a big screen adaption.

Film rights, anyone?

When a member of the SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK alumni does something great, well… it’s time to wheel out the vanilla-slice pastries cart and pop the champagne corks.

U.S author Diana Webb placed 2nd in last year’s SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK short story competition. Now she has written an intriguing just-published novel.

Set in the early 1980’s, LAST OF THE AUTUMN RAIN tells the story of insurance underwriter Julie Cromwell as she journeys back to her childhood home in search of answers to mysteries and secrets that have defined and encircled her adult life.

Dirty huge congratulations Diana, from SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK.

Here’s a LINK to Diana’s website, where you can explore more of her exalting creative universe, so to speak. (You’ll see what I mean if you visit).

And the winner in this year’s STEVIE NICKS LOOK-A-LIKE COMPETITION goes to…you guessed it… Diana Webb!

Unsure of whether Diana was ever a fan of the 1992 erotic thriller BASIC INSTINCT, but news from Hollywood this week has it that Australia’s own Margot Robbie has landed the lead role of Catherine Tramell – made famous by Sharon Stone – in the soon-to-begin-filming sequel.

In what bodes well for the quality of the new production, original writer Joe Eszterhas will return to pen the reboot. I mention that because, well… this is Scenic WRITER’S Shack. Right?

The guy doing the rubber-limbs walk across the stage is a member of the BRISBANE BRONCOS football team.

Believe it or not, the most eyebrow-raising thing about this is not the silly walk. Rather, it’s something going on in the background. Look carefully and you can catch a glimpse of the club’s newly unveiled and not-a-little-bit-controversial logo.

THIS IS IT HERE –

So what’s the controversy? Oh, just a little matter related to the sum of $300 000. That’s the fee the design firm employed by the club was paid to come up with this, um… ‘inspired’ design.

To shed a little more light, these are the previous logos used by the club –

INTERBRAND (https://interbrand.com/) is the leading international design firm that was paid $300 000 to rejig and breathe new life into the BRISBANE BRONCOS logo, taking it from –

Fans reaction has been underwhelming, to say the least. ‘Boring’ and ‘something that could have been conceived with AI in less than five revisions’ have been common judgements.

Others have observed it resembles more a unicorn than a horse and that reports of a $300 000 fee to come up with the design must have been a typo while in reality, some Joe in the back office whipped out his trusty texta and was paid $30 tea money for what was very obviously a sub ten-minute effort.

While it’s definitely from the minimalist school of design, it does show more ‘hoof’ (leg) than the previous design, like all things, everyone will get used to it in time and pretty soon forget what the old one was like.

But the price tag? A black-belt head-scratcher is what that is.

But hold your horses. There’s more…

Italian soccer team JUVENTUS FC also received the minimalist treatment when they employed INTERBRAND to redesign their logo –

That ‘stripped back’, no-frills rejig was apparently a year in the making and left fans of the club similarly non-plussed.

The generic, corporate style brush strokes that INTERBRAND came up with had some commentators observing it felt like the club’s fan base were now being treated like wholesale customers rather than sports fans. It also led to a number of social media parodies –

Meanwhile, back at the BRONCOS, I reckon the new logo will eventually grow on me and the rest of the fan base.

In time the ‘old’ logo will be nothing more than a distant – and fond – memory relegated to the history books. Pretty sure that’s what they call acceptance. Is there really any other choice?

Click HERE to get happy.

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To me it is very important. I peer out all day and most of the night. There is always something to see. A bee, a moth, a cat stalking through the flowers, a racoon slipping up to eat the cats food. Always something to see.

To know where the sun in the sky is, general direction of clouds, to see if a storm is coming and of course traffic. Very important.

READ IT HERE

Frances Whiting is a News Corp Australia journalist and newspaper columnist. She recently penned a humorous piece on book addiction that appeared in Qweekend Magazine (readership 200 000+). Frances granted SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK permission to reprint the article here.

The other day, my husband said he would like to have a ‘discussion’ – a discussion being another name for a fight for married people – with me about my books. I have quite a few of them.

How many? Well, put it this way – if our local library ever closed down, I could just put up a few signs outside of my house, pop out some orange cones for parking and whamo – I’d be in business.

So yes, I have quite a few (hundred) books and when I bring home new ones, I hide them from my husband the way other women hide their Amazon purchases.

My husband John feels I have a BOOK ADDICTION, that this is an increasingly serious problem and during our ‘discussion’ suggested I might like to ‘rein it in”. I said he might like to rein himself in because that’s the sort of mature person I am.

After our ‘discussion’, where I agreed to not buy any more books for a specified period of time, I bought some more and hid them by concealing them in supermarket grocery bags. This system was working very well – honestly there are times when I feel I am wasted as a journalist when I could be part of an international smuggling ring – until the other day.

I was smuggling a few more in when he looked at me just as I was making my getaway up the stairs.

“What’s in the bags?” he asked. “Groceries” I squeaked. “Really,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Well why are you taking them upstairs? Those had better not be books, Frances.” “Books!” I exclaimed, “the very idea.”

He had the right idea, though, and he might have a point. I probably do have too many books, but as far as addictions go, surely this is the best one to have.

I’m not a shoe girl. Or a handbag girl. Or a designer label girl. I am, however, a Dunne girl. A Hornby girl. A Wesley, Fitsgerald and Allende girl. I am also a Woodhouse, Marquez, Rothschild and Didion girl.

A book girl. And being a book girl means a lifetime of happiness, or learning, or armchair travelling to places I may never get to see except within their pages.

It means moments curled up in corners with new friends and old (hello Pippi Longstocking, Bridget Jones and Mr Darcy) which means, I told my husband, he gets more time to do the things he loves, like surfing and playing guitar.

And that my friends, is how you win the ‘discussion’.

In addition to being a News Corp journalist and newspaper weekly columnist, Frances Whiting is also the author of two novels – WALKING ON TRAMPOLINES (2013) and THE BEST KIND OF WONDERFUL (2019).

Don Knotts (1924 – 2006) was a tv and movie comedian I loved as a kid.

He typically played nerd-type characters that were awkward and nervous. All up, Knotts made 27 movies. These are some of my faves –

Care for a little taste of Don in action? This scene is from his 1968 movie THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST. I’ve spliced it into three parts.

I recently finished reading his autobiography as well. It details his rise up the comedy ranks after serving in the United States Army during WW2. The book’s title is named after a character he played in the 1960’s on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW.

Apart from his movies I used to watch him in a show in the 80’s called THREES COMPANY. Don Knotts could get people laughing just by the way he moved his eyes. Check this out –

Later in his career, Don lent his voice to a number of film characters, including some SCOOBY DOO movies, as well as the 2002 PlayStation 2 video game SCOOBY DOO: NIGHT OF 100 FRIGHTS –

And yes, there is a statue. It lives in Don Knotts’s hometown in the U.S state of West Virginia.

Click HERE to see where Don rated on a list of the 75 Best Comedians of All Time.