According to a Tokyo University study of dogs, we can disregard the usual male-female stereotypes, as their research shows boy dogs are much more adept at showing emotion and wear their doggy hearts on their sleeve when it comes to negotiating for a treat while girl dogs are better at multitasking. Dog fluidity is a thing, though I’ve never heard a 40-kilo labrador ask what is a woman or demand its own bathroom. Not unless it’s house-trained.

I was on my fifth Australia Day Asahi contemplating this very question of species changeability while browsing the Brooklyn versus Victoria Beckham barney in the Age. It’s complicated, but son Brooklyn may sue because he feels the oppression that comes from being a member of a family with extreme wealth and celebrity that lets you get straight into elite London nightclubs with the door muscle welcoming you by your first name. Though his struggle could also be because he will never play soccer as well as his dad, which is the cross that every nepo baby has to bear.

Celebrity is delicate and needs to be nurtured by constant media coverage if we want it to survive. One moment its ‘look at me, look at me’ next its ‘p–s off, can’t an active-wear Instagram influencer at the Australian Open drink her Frappuccino in peace?’

But what is the downside of being the child of a celebrity? I mean all that access to recreational drugs and high-end dry-out facilities and if you last long enough, one day you’ll be doing PowerPoint opportunities at Davos as king nepo baby Justin Trudeau applauds with Katy Perry beside him.

The ying and yang of human existence weighs heavily in this January heat. I was celebrating a rare Melbourne day without rain until the television coverage turned to it being potentially catastrophic, with long lectures from the new Nine weather girl about drinking fluids and not walking your 40-kilo lab outside. So, what is it Australia – a sunburnt land of sweeping plains, or a tin hotbox where you’re not allowed to turn the air conditioning on because somewhere in the Arctic a polar bear’s iceberg is melting and Al Gore is finding it hard to cling on?

Politically this chameleon effect is channelled by our PM or, as Gen Zs Iike to call him, an old man looking silly in a Joy Division tee shirt. Partisan media commentary and questionable fashion choices are killing our democracy. Albo is the Forrest Gump of Australian politics much loved in the same way you love a 40-kilo labrador. For him politics is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get. One moment he’s saying a Bondi massacre royal commission is unnecessary, next he’s announcing a royal commission and like Blackadder in a Joy Division onesie claiming this was always his cunning plan and saying there is no need for a commission is just his way of reaching a consensus so that he can say we need a royal commission.

I’m hearing a lot about conspiracies from cartoonists with poor illustration skills who don’t like the idea of a royal commission. After all, Melbourne is the fashion capital of Australia and Jewish conspiracies are the new black, especially if you’re protesting outside the State Library, though there’s always that awkward moment when someone turns up wearing the same keffiyeh as you.

There was much to laugh about at the now cancelled meeting of the Soviet politburo – sorry, writers festival – in Adelaide. I’ve always wondered why writers and artists need these solidarity events given what wild, free-thinking souls they are! How could they possibly agree on anything and shouldn’t they hate each other? Having carefully curated what exclusively left views are heard at their cultural events for like, forever, they’ve suddenly become free speech advocates. This reinvention is the most creative thing I’ve ever seen come out of an Australian arts festival.

I can’t discuss the Adelaide Festival without mentioning free speech warrior-in-chief Louise Adler. I think it’s in her contract. Which reminds me her husband is Max Gillies, one of Australia’s great comic performers and best remembered for his hilarious Bob Hawke impersonations in the 1980s ABC comedy program The Gillies Report. Back in the day his shows were top rating and genuinely funny. So popular that the perennially narcissistic Hawke got in on the joke by appearing on talk shows alongside Gillies in Hawke character.

Gillies isn’t dead but would be turning in his presumably non-Zionist grave if he saw what passes for ABC comedy now with the airing of former footballer and ABC personality Tony Armstrong’s attempt to satirise Australia Day and ‘decolonise the news’ with his one-off comedy special Always Was Tonight. (The self-importance of Australian left celebrities who badge themselves as free speech warriors or cultural decolonisers needs its own Tokyo University research grant).

Like Albo and his royal commission verbal gymnastics, comedy is a rubbery term and despite the clapping seals of the collectivist ABC audience (the studio flashing applause sign seemed to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting), the main thing is it needs to be actually funny. Armstrong has an engaging television charisma in a Karl and Kochie kind of way, but neither of them would start trying to do stand-up gigs, unless Lisa Wilkinson agreed to be their straight man.

The Gillies Report always leaned left but was capable of seeing the ridiculousness of its own side (Exhibit A: Gillies’s Hawke character). It laughed at everyone from Fraser, Santamaria, Whitlam to Menzies but the comedy wasn’t a dull didactic scold on what we must think about Australia Day, Gaza or royal commissions (besides, the Teals weren’t around then anyway). It laughed at politics and democracy and the human nature that drives it (greed, vanity, narcissism – humans are always more interesting than the politics they spout).

To be fair, Armstrong is following the contemporary rules of non-comedy comedy. Preach to your already converted audience, take yourself very seriously and judge your satire by applause, not laughter. He could learn from Hannah Gadsby who’s just announced her new special is audio only as she wants to subvert the male gaze. Now, this comedy gold had me rolling in the aisle.