Like many of you out there in TV Land I always read bedtime stories to my children partly with an Australian accent and partly in a County Cork brogue. Of course I don’t switch mid-sentence, I’m not a “nutter” as they say (they don’t say that).

The reasons for these dialectical inflections are thrice-fold:

1) Everyone reading this or listening to the megaphone protruding from my parlor window will agree that children should learn about other cultures. However, our Bolivian nanny had a severe case of the boils two fort-nights ago, leaving me at wit’s end.

2) Upon receipt of an unexpected letter from the local tax authority detailing a massive and quite uncivilized pecuniary obligation, my team of accountants (his name is Mildred) recommended the estate be moved brick, stick, and badger to Ireland or Australia. I agreed whole-heartedly, as there wasn’t much to watch on TV. I began to prepare my offspring for the linguistic shock.

3) Quite conveniently but perhaps well-known to Mildred, the only other places I’ve wanted to live apart from California (‘whine-country,’ as I like to say to the servants), have been Craggy Island in Ireland or The Outback, Australia. Each has a unique appeal: Craggy Island is where Father Ted lives and Crocodile Dundee is my third-favorite movie. Since I can’t move to the Wonka Chocolate Factory or Vietnam (don’t ask), then Oz will have to do.

My first book––A Girl Called Badger––is on sale for .99 cents and stuff.