How many Australians are aware that, were it not for Barry Humphries, the great glory of Sydney’s George Street, the Queen Victoria Building (QVB), would have become a car park? Humphries’s obituaries have disappointingly overlooked several important aspects of the great Australian’s life.

For example, where is the acknowledgement that the Department of Foreign Affairs was instrumental, according to Peter Cook, in promoting Humphries’s career? Cook claimed that in the early 1970s he once arrived with Humphries at Australia House in London for a reception.