Around the world, people have witnessed a decline in thinking and language. ‘Social media’ has maimed language and manners; it has brought us the violent madness of conspiracy. Twisted media are infected. In Australia, our schools have not kept up. People ignorant of both logic and grammar are unleashed on us. Judges are weighed down by paper and anxiety. We sacked the civil service and trashed the Westminster system. Politicians are mired in jingles, spreadsheets and photo ops; the two main parties are spent and adrift.

Nations, including ours, have lost their vision, and people their faith. In 2016, the decline became the fall, when two spoiled brats exploited those lesions on our public life and lured the gullible into fiction.

This book is the joint response of a poet and a lawyer– a guide on how to think and how to write. With analyses of ‘truth’ and ‘bullshit’, there are chapters on grammar, style and professional writing. This is a book for people who want to think straight and write clearly, regardless of their academic record. You don’t need a ticket to use this book, but if you do have one, you will be better off than many people who make it through tertiary. And we face bigger problems in this country than snobbery.