Cirrus@Austlit

'This week’s Christmas stocking filler is Andrew Thompson’s Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red (Ulysses Press, 265pp, $19.99). Thompson is an Australian writer who specialises in books that ask questions we may not have thought of, such as What Did We Use Before Toilet Paper? His new one considers the origins of 400 everyday phrases. The first one in the title is a good example, for me. Now, I did know the meaning of “hair of the dog” — from long experience — but I wouldn’t have bet on knowing how the expression started. Ditto for why someone is a fit as a fiddle, or why someone unfit needs to be licked into shape. And why on earth is a bald man a badger? They are hirsute beasts! This is a fun book.' (Introduction)