Our annual trip to Queenscliff is a quaint step back in time: ye olde shoppes and seaside fun from a simpler time.

There is history aplenty: a museum for the brave and uniquely talented Port Phillip pilots and a coastal defence fortification which recalls fears of invasion by Russia and the United States.

Turning to Saturday’s Age, one might have expected to be brought back from the dreamy summer haze of yesteryear to today’s world of climate crisis and debt etc.

Well, only halfway perhaps.

The lead story was of the ascension of Brad Battin to the Victorian Liberal leadership (of an all-male leadership team), with his big three promises being to slash taxes (of course), to fix potholes (so we can run more fossil-fuel cars faster) and, most heinously in my view, to “toughen bail laws” yet again (so we can further diminish the presumption of innocence).

I checked the date on the paper, thinking I might have slipped back somewhere into the premiership of Sir Henry Bolte (1955-1972).

But no, it was 2024 with........

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