Julius Caesar was a tyrannical bastard, despite the fact that he gave us aqueducts and clean water and kicked a lot of Gallic arse; as our protest against his general bastardness and for shagging his best mate’s mother, and also as a mark of respect to the Senate, and Brutus in particular, we decided to skip his month altogether.

August, however, is named after Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus – Caesar Augustus. First true Emperor of Rome, and, while he was Julius’ adopted son, he was an all-round far nicer bloke. Beloved by the Legions, he gave us the police force, fire brigades, roads and Pax Romana. What a guy! He deserves a little recognition, dontcha think?

We promise that the lack of a July edition is purely for that noble reason, and nothing to do with too little money, too little motivation, too much effort demanded by our real jobs, too much holding forth from our favourite bar stools or too much coffee spilt into the laptop keyboard. Neither is it in anyway related to us watching both seasons of HBO’s brilliant Rome series on DVD. Again.

Yes, we know, we’re late. We know. Shut up.

So, politics, eh? Phew. Sheesh. Well, where do you start? Explore Scott’s experiences as an absentee voter, read Justin’s list of Things That Should Get You Angry, and throw some furniture at the TV.

Speaking of TV, Luke has a fun new way of watching the news, and Tini has a strangely Teutonic way of watching the West Wing.

Mandi has a novel suggestion for getting the government we need and deserve. Read on then grab your tranq gun and join in.

Now this being politics, everybody has an opinion or two. We, your beloved editors, tend to worship at a temple somewhere between Bob Brown and Ayn Rand, however we’re always open to other ideas. So we’ll let Tina praise Rudd to the skies and refrain from scribbling all over her article.

Along the lines of serious politics a new writing team have come up with an impossible-to-argue-with rant about plastic bags. Go the Irish!

We know that this is Australia and we’re an apathetic bloody lot. Not everyone wants to read a whole issue of political rants, so we’ve included a story about chickens vaginas and another instalment in our ongoing True Love series.

We’ve also got a lovely little piece about the joy of Autumn in Elwood. Took us by surprise, who knew there were such poetic souls right there in our own back yard?

New this month is a regular culinary column, by the mysterious Sunday Relish. Need advice on caramelisation? Wondering why pinot goes with duck but Coke doesn’t? Send in your questions and Sunday will come up with something plausible and/or tasty, as well as tackling the big ones, such as “Quinces. Why?”

Jane gives us part two of her defence of smoking, after weeks of relentless googling and random shouts of “Oh, BULLSHIT!” Have a good hard think about it next time you’re banished to the cold, wet footpath and passing shoppers tut tut and glare at you.

In the spirit of Keeping It Real, and giving you all something to think about other than So You Think You Can Dance, we stick with our serious topics for next month. Psychology goes under the microscope.

Ever been to a shrink? Agree with Tom Cruise? Know someone with Issues? Have a bizarre pseudo-Freudian theory about the prevalence of talking robots in spy movies? Give it a whirl, get writing and drawing. We promise from the hearts of our bottoms that the Psychology issue will be with you by September 10th (we won’t have any excuse, September is just named after the number 7, who can get upset about that?) so if you want to be in it, get your submission to us by September 1st.

Big thanks to our regular contributors for words and pictures, welcome and woo-hoo type kudos to our first-timers. The Tribune simply couldn’t happen without the effort of others – one day, one day when we’re making enough out of this thing, we might start paying you…..

As always, love to all who love us

Jane & Justin Shaw

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