http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/duncan-fine/ Duncan Fine grew up on the mean streets of Sydney’s toughest neighbourhood, Vaucluse. Having virtually no aptitude for the law whatsoever, he left his job as a solicitor and somehow got into NIDA where he studied directing. He worked at the Sydney Theatre Company, wrote and directed a number of plays, then moved into TV working for Hi-5. He writes about media and children. He wrote a nationally syndicated parenting column for News Limited and co-authored the book, Why TV is Good For Kids. Duncan has also written opinion pieces in The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald. He has a delightful partner, two sometimes delightful young sons and a dog named Scruff who is starting his own Facebook page, Poodles Against Negative Stereotyping in the Media. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-fathers-advice-to-his-sons/ I once wrote and directed a play (yes, a real play – in a theatre, in front of an audience) in which one character gives his son some life advice along the lines of: “Try to live life the way that old Keith Miller played cricket. Dashing. Brylcreamed. Individual. Larger than life!  Not giving a damn for what anyone else thinks.”. So for no good reason, here are 49 pieces of gratuitous advice for my two sons Charlie and Sam on this, my 49th birthday. 1. Never raise your hand to a woman. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Duncan Fine) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-fathers-advice-to-his-sons/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-fathers-advice-to-his-sons/#item5293 Sun, 06 Mar 2011 19:55:07 +0000 Duncan Fine | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-no-such-thing-as-junk-food-only-junk-diets/ At least once a week, when I open the newspaper there seems to be some fresh new panic about the tsunami of childhood obesity that is crashing on our golden sandy beaches which a generation or two ago were filled with healthy bronzed young men and women who were either training for the next Olympic Games or about to pull on a pair of battered Dunlop Volley sandshoes, borrow a beaten up old wooden racquet and fly off to win Wimbledon. Yep, every time a politician opens his or her mouth (usually on the way to a four course five star lunch at a taxpayer funded Parliamentary Dining Room) they sadly shake their heads, wobble their double chins and lament the rise of the TV obsessed Generation XXL. If you ask most people who they blame for this sad decline, they would nominate a man who might be best described as Richard Nixon, Colonel Sanders and Hannibal Lector all rolled into one. I’m talking of course about Ronald McDonald. He’s there, supersizing our kids against their better judgement till their belts burst open. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Duncan Fine) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-no-such-thing-as-junk-food-only-junk-diets/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/theres-no-such-thing-as-junk-food-only-junk-diets/#item4281 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:45:02 +0000 Duncan Fine | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/romy-and-michele-and-duncans-school-reunion/ Are there four syllables in the English language to strike fear into the hearts of men and women across Australia than – high school reunion. Hell, that’s five syllables. There you go – I was no good at either English or maths. And I just know everyone I went to school with knows it. Panic grips you in the days before the reunion. Just what the hell have I been doing with my life? How can I spin it so I appear successful/rich/happy? I call this the Romy and Michele Method (after the movie Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion starring Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow who decide to make up a life for themselves at their reunion as the inventors of Post-it Notes. Or maybe the high school reunion is a perfect chance for a cheap group therapy session and calls for four hours of brutal honesty. Why pay a shrink several thousand dollars when for fifty bucks you can, over ten beers and some bad finger food, cut to the chase, strip back your life to its foundations and expose just what you have become and who you really are. And all this with the people who deep down know you the best – your old school friends (and enemies). feedback@thepunch.com.au (Duncan Fine) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/romy-and-michele-and-duncans-school-reunion/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/romy-and-michele-and-duncans-school-reunion/#item1659 Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:50:05 +0000 Duncan Fine | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/as-i-watch-my-mother-slowly-dying/ It’s one of pop culture’s great clichés that some actors and some films are best known for their great dying scenes. I’m watching another dying scene right now, but this is real life and to the people involved, as the weeks have gone by, it seems all the drama has been bleached out of it. The dull flat winter days are turning to vibrant spring. My family is watching my mother slowly dying. I hold her hand. The cancer inside her is fighting hard. She is resilient and quietly tough and fighting too. But by this stage, we all know what the final result will be. It’s a matter of time, a matter of days. The nurses and the palliative care team, magnificent, tireless, dedicated, work to make her comfortable. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Duncan Fine) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/as-i-watch-my-mother-slowly-dying/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/as-i-watch-my-mother-slowly-dying/#item1293 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:50:12 +0000 Duncan Fine | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/junk-food-doesnt-make-kids-fat-junk-parents-do/ Does anyone else find it quite frankly perverse that in affluent first-world Australia so much time is spent fretting about the supposed weight problems of our children when UNICEF figures show five thousand kids across the globe die every day essentially because they can’t get a clean glass of water? I sure as hell do. But here we go again. Last week the Rudd Government’s Preventative Health Task Force Report called for a ban on junk food advertising on TV before 9:00pm and for the use of toys, cartoon characters and celebrities that appeal to children to be phased out. But the Australian Communications and Media Authority is against the banning of those TV ads. The reaction? A seething white-hot fury coming from nice middle class homes all over Sydney. How can anyone possibly put corporate profits before our kids’ health? feedback@thepunch.com.au (Duncan Fine) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/junk-food-doesnt-make-kids-fat-junk-parents-do/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/junk-food-doesnt-make-kids-fat-junk-parents-do/#item1152 Wed, 09 Sep 2009 07:02:52 +0000 Duncan Fine | Author bios | The Punch