"Three strikes and you're out," was the conveniently sporty phrase that described a great American initiative. If offenders committed a third crime then, regardless of the nature of the crime or the reasons behind it, they were facing a jail term. It was thought that this hard but fair attitude toward repeat offenders would put an end to their antisocial behaviour and transform them into worthy citizens. The net result was more young villains entering the already overpopulated prison system.

Here in Australia, we mocked the new law in our nightly news bulletins and ridiculed it in our papers. We understood that something as backward and transparent could never happen in our country. Our distance gave us a certain objectivity. We agreed that good Christian people were entitled to protect their property, even if that property amounted to nothing more than a biscuit, coloured pencils, 40 cents or a tin o'beans.

This, after all, was America - the home of the brave, the land of liberty. Such a response was totally understandable in those states where crime was out of control and watermelon-eatin' redneck yokels and their white-bread-fed-banjo-playin' cousins would dance and fornicate all night to white-supremacist rap music, blissfully unaware of the irony (forgive the generalisation). It was America, and these sorts of discrepancies made sense. We took the moral high ground secure in the knowledge that our country would never attempt something so shallow. After all, we didn't have the baseball connection that somehow legitimised the law with its Forrest Gump simplicity.

Now, years later, we have adopted this novel legislation, with devastating consequences. With mandatory sentencing it's a foregone conclusion that you will spend some time in the "big house". Why bother with the expense and artifice of a judge? Anyone could gavel you into jail. We could take turns. It'd be the gratifying and fun alternative to jury duty. Conscience-free condemnation.

And why merely follow the American system? why blindly adhere to their out-of-date method of dealing with the criminal element? There is an opportunity here for genuine creativity in lawmaking - don't give offenders the opportunity to become repeat offenders; after all, patiently waiting for a second or third violation is appallingly liberal of us. Anyone of right mind is going to have one or two goes if you're allowed three cracks at crime. If they do it once, they'll do it again. As surely as night follows day, a tiger can't change its spots, and one bad egg can spoil the whole barrel of apples. Let's join together to really shock the international community: one strike - you fry. It saves time, money and paperwork. It's only fair (although right now that doesn't seem to be a concern).

Given our own history, petty crime is something that should be applauded so it can continue to form the backbone of our cultural identity. More than 200 years ago, the foundations of white Australia were laid on petty crime. We might have been riding on the sheep's back but it's a near certainty it was pinched from some undeservingly wealthy landed gentry - narrow-necked, fine- nosed, high-society types born with a silver spoon in their arse and a colostomy bag wired to their mouth.

Crime has played an integral part in developing our much-lauded larrikin spirit. It has given us our universal identity as a nation of convicts. We were the hard-done-by, the underdogs. Our folklore and our pale songlines are steeped in tales and tunes of wild colonial boys, charming thieves and mother-loving murderers. Even our most famous ballad, our unofficial national anthem, is about a thief - a wanderer, a vagabond who stole a jumback for food. A song that arose out of a sense of injustice. A song we sang to comprehend our place in the world. Our history lessons spoke of an underclass that prevailed against all odds and triumphed in a harsh and alien environment.

And yet, now that those scars are healed, rather than learning from the wisdom of the ages, we have chosen to inflict the same brutal punishment on the people we believe are under our power. What sad songs will we write now? And how many more ghosts will waltz before we acknowledge the error of our ways?

I have of late been gripped by the fear that I will not make it to spring.

The reason for this is that for around six months I have been stupidly battling the same cold. I'm certain it began sometime last summer. I have so much phlegm on my chest, more of it every day, and there is nothing I can do to get rid of it. I am filling up internally with mucus, I make a sloshing sound whenever I walk, a sea of slobber is lapping in my lungs. I had accepted it as part of my life - an unnecessary, upsetting part of life - or at least I did until I came to "the understanding". I have been able to cope with the extra strain this thing has placed on my body; what I have not coped with is the mental and emotional strain.

My fears have taken the form of daydreams, nightmares and musings about what could be happening with my cold. The other day all the madness dissipated, and a clear blue and brilliant day emerged from the chaos.

The cold was growing inside me, feeding off me, and that's when the revelation occurred. I've had this virus for more than six months and that puts me at the end of my second trimester. As absurd and deluded as it may sound, hope surged in my heart, just 12 more weeks and it would all be over.

After nine intolerable months of gestation, I'll finally give birth to a seven-kilogram bouncing ball of phlegm. A phlegm baby, a child composed entirely of snot and mucus, fruit of my lungs, custard-apple of my eye, a spit off the ol' block.

I don't know how it happened. These things go around - it's not like I was careless. There must have been something in the air that day. I remember everyone was sneezing, not even bothering to cover up, I walked right into the thick of it and I didn't care; we were young and everyone was doing it.

Still, when I realised my body was changing it was too late to say, 'I should have had protection', a nasal spray or some sort of pill.' You have to nurture a phlegm baby by really watching your diet. Nothing nutritious can pass your lips. You can't have vegetables and fruit, or echinacea, or antibiotics - any of these things could kill the baby, or worse, stunt its growth.

You have to smoke constantly, you have to drink whenever you're not smoking. You have to avoid handkerchiefs and tissues. You have to work extra long hours, consume thickshakes, avoid the sun, stay in bed, watch Oprah. If you do all these things, you'll give birth to a healthy hunk of nose floss.

Therefore, I'm a little worried because I didn't realise what was going on until quite late in the gestation. I'm concerned I might have eaten something decent in the preceding six months.

That's why I have to go in for an ultrasound to see if everything is normal. Just to check and make sure my spawn has a creamy complexion, not green or yellow, not too lumpy, not too smooth. See if the little one has all its fingers and toes.

I have thought a lot about the impending birth. Will I need drugs for the pain? An epidural? Should I go for a natural birth or caesarean section? Should I go all hippy and hunker down in the flotation tank?

There are so many questions, and all the medical fraternity I've approached seem reluctant to discuss it with me.

The caesar concerns me, purely on the vanity level.* I'm aware it's unusual, something out of the ordinary, I'm certainly not as young as I used to be. But just because I'm a bit older, that's no reason to treat me like a freak.

I can suffer the indignation for now and the whispered comments and the stares, because it won't be long before I hatch my little clotted gummi-bear, my sticky-pudding cherub, my soft-succulent-snot-nosed kid.

When that day comes, I'll push my glutinous fledgling along in a stroller another lone parent struggling with my offspring, and he only thing that will swell in my best will be pride. People will stop me in the street, peer at the product of my nasal cavity and say: "Oh, how cute, he's got your cold."

* The visual imagery that would usually accompany this comment is so grotesque that I have decided to withhold it. However, if you are in an experimental frame of mind you may conjure up your own image. The magazine and I take no responsibility for the infection of the body or mind that results from this piece.

Sitting atop a guard rail beside a tram stop was a woman. She looked resplendent in a full-length blue coat and from her back, pale pink lucent wings emerged. The membranes quivered as she craned forward towards a young sailor. Their mouths were inches apart. As they waited for a tram, they almost kissed. It was a magical vision of restrained passion.

Along the street trams rattled, igniting the air with electrical sparks. Then, as I turned the corner into Russell Street, I was confronted with the second miracle: the miracle of the contumacious cars.

Two vehicles had approached a single parking space from opposite sides of the road. Each driver must have seen the opening and, overcome with relief, cruised into the available space. Imagine the sense of disappointment when another unseen suitor for the gap nudged one's bumper, challenging for possession. It was a stand-off, a stalemate.

They stood their ground inside their cars, breath frosting on the glass. It was just a matter of time. Eventually one of the combatants would prevail and the other, nursing his wounds, would have to pay for a commercial park somewhere in a well-lit labyrinth of concrete. The perfect park, like the fish that got away, was lost to them forever. I was impressed by their stubbornness. I applauded their stupidity.

After this incident I enjoyed a pleasant meal, interspersed with hasty conversation. But what happened to me is largely unimportant, for when I trudged back up the road an hour later I discovered nothing had changed.

There sat our protagonists exactly where I had left them. It was clear that this was far more than a mere battle of wills. It was the archetype of confrontation. This was the age-old struggle between father and son, experience and exuberance, maturity and youth. In one car was a young couple, in the other an older man.

The car closer to me was a Mini Minor, and it contained the youngsters. The guy might have recently acquired a backbone because of the object of desire who sat beside him. She was Helen Of Troy, his Cleopatra, empires would fall and car parking spaces would be won in her name. How could he retreat when he was only the sum of what she believed him to be? Besides, he was young, he had time on his side. If he waited long enough, perhaps the old guy would die.

The other car, which sat diametrically opposed in perfect symmetry with the Mini, was an Australian classic: a rat-arsed copper Fairlane and, visible through the bug-crusted windscreen, a well-worn Aussie face. The driver had a brow so furrowed, small creatures could have passed unnoticed between his temples. He had waited all his life for this park and was not about to let it be lost to some dole-bludging show-off with his fancy-dancin' lady friend. After all it was Sunday night in the city, therefore this was the most fun he could have. He could wait forever.

This was not road rage; it was passive-aggressive parking, auto-antagonism. In America, someone would already have been shot. And what thoughts were tumbling through their heads? If only I had left home a minute earlier. If only I'd driven faster. If only I had an 18-wheeled monster truck to push that miserable clungheap into the oncoming traffic. If only I had a gun.

I would like to believe they are still there. adhered to the moist Melbourne road. Belligerently battling on, with a small crowd of onlookers feasting like vultures on the dumb display. Concerned people would be bringing food, welfare agencies dropping off blankets, and the continued inaction splitting society down the middle. Brawls in pubs, and heated coffee-shop conversations: "Are you for the Ford or the Mini?" If only one of them had been a Holden, it would have been exquisite.

And in years to come, a shrine would be erected to the "Miracle of Russell Street": a plaque and a bronze statue of two men with the combined brain power of Greyfriars Bobby who wasted away their lives in their bucket seats.

Elsewhere, life had moved on. The sailor and the girl with angel wings had disappeared into the night. That was how the evening ended: two miracles without a moral. - Anzac Day 1999.

Our relationship with the mirror begins at an early age. It may not be the first relationship of our lives but it's one of the most important because that face stays with you through time. Family, friends and lovers will come and go but as long as you've a head on your shoulders, that face will be there. It's the face you understand more than any other, the one that greets you every day although, some mornings, you may choose not to recognise the creature staring back. Even if you avoid the mirror, it's reflected at you from the hoods of cars, shopfront windows and chrome fittings. No other face will ever draw the same level of recognition in your life. And when you look deeply into the eyes of that face, you discover a truly indred spirit. Here area set of eyes that understand every nuance of your joy Eyes that know all your dark secrets and half-truths and yet they empathise. Eyesthat can forgive even the most heinous crime and they wait for you on the other side of the mirror.

I'm still stuck there trying to uncover some hidden message in the Braille-like blemishes clustered around my temple when I notice I have age spots on the side of my head. In some parts of my skull my skin has become transparent and I'm sure I can see my weedy veins wearily transporting blood. There's an army of whiskers pushing through a dry ruddy cheek, and more deep lines than Paradise Lost. I've conjured an image of the future and it's staring back at me with certainty in its eye.

Thankfully, I'm distracted by the follicles of my eyelashes. They've become gigantic towering plant forms in an alien landscape. Do we attribute magicalproperties to mirrors because it's through them we're better able to see ourselves? Or are we just like budgerigars, flying into them head-first, in a vainattempt to escape the world in which we're trapped?

I'm pondering this when I realise there is a solution to the terror of time that is more beneficial, immediate and effective than a $400 jar of skin cream - myopia and mist.

If you're lucky enough to have the gift of shortsightedness, then simply combine it with a standard bathroom fog and you can knock decades off.

A foot from the mirror and you'll still look about the same age, but each step back takes off about a year - escalating over distance. A large step may take you back several years in one go. With the right balance, you can take on the appearance of a 16-year-old Audrey Hepburn - the quintessence of beauty*.

This exercise is, of course, only for your head - god knows what type of mirror you'd need to help your body. No amount of mist is going to slim down those love-handles (but, if you're determined, you could always use the edge of the door and the door frame as a "cropping" device).

A red welt on my chin has now caught my attention and I realise scratches are taking longer to heal, hay fever has stopped being funny and it's an eon since I picked a scab off my elbow. (I was a clumsy child. I ran by sense of feel. I always knew where the ground was because it stopped me failing through the earth. The cost of this knowledge was having elbows and knees that were permanently scabbed. I spent the first half of my life fused to jumpers, the prickly wool of the school knit and my tree-sap-like blood meshing to make the removal of clothing difficult. Now, it's only in the deepest-black-olive-pip-pupil of my eye that I can see any trace of the child.)

If you fail into this sort of narcissistic self-examination, there's no escape. I had been flung forward and back in time and never left where I wasstanding. So after scrutinising the craters and crevices and creases and cracks of my scone, in magnificent if unsettling close-up, I took four steps away from the mirror. Soon I was little more than a blur in my mid-twenties. The effects of age can always be defeated with self-deception. The mind is a wonderful thing to waste.

*In my case, unfortunately, I took on the appearance of a teenaged Charles Laughton.