The column's readers (all nine of them): ''Finland, Ian? Why are you going there? Is this you carrying out your promise to go and live far away from Australia when the Abbott Tyranny begins after September 14?

The Columnist: ''No no no. Silly little readers. I've always wanted to go to Finland and I'm not getting any younger … ''

The Readers, The Magnificent Nine: ''You're 67, you dear old thing.''

The Columnist: ''That's right, and I'm not getting any younger and so I must go to Finland while my legs will still allow me to get about. This is one of the juggles of life when you are a senior boomer. There is more of the world left to see than you will have time to see. But the main attraction of Finland is that I am an admirer of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. I'm a Sibelius geek. Ainola, his house outside Helsinki where he lived and worked for decades, is a kind of a shrine that all Sibelius enthusiasts feel they must visit once in their lifetimes. So I am going while I can, while my mind is still nimble enough for me to be able to whistle and sing and hum his greatest works to myself, and to my dog.

The Readers: ''Does your dog like Sibelius?''

The Columnist: ''It's hard to tell. He's an English springer spaniel and, like human teenagers and University of Canberra undergraduates, only has two facial expressions. Funnily enough I find my cats more appreciative of Sibelius than my dog is. My three-legged cat gets very excited and dashes around the house when I play a CD of Sibelius' Lemminkä¨inen's Return, but then it is one of the most thrilling pieces of music ever written and ought to excite every sentient being that hears it. I've given instructions that when and if there is any doubt about whether I am alive or dead doctors are to play Lemminkä¨inen's Return in my room. If even that fails to make me twitch then, yes, I really have gone to join the Great Majority.

''And I admire Sibelius for more than his music. I admire the way he felt in his bones that his eighth symphony just wasn't good enough and threw it on the fire at Ainola. Of course an eighth symphony by someone as gifted and accomplished as him would have sounded brilliant to everyone else; but he had high standards. More of us should do that kind of thing. I can think of several authors who churn out dreadful books who should have the wisdom and the decency to strangle their manuscripts at birth. At least two of the books I've written [long, long ago] I should have thrown on the fire or given to a dog to eat while they were just manuscripts. Occasionally I come across them in second-hand book shops and find them scrotum-shrivellingly embarrassing.''

The Magnificent Nine: ''Have you ever felt that with any of your Boomer Angles columns?''

The Columnist: ''Yes I have, especially lately, and that's why I confide in you that this is the last Boomer Angles. There have been a few in recent times that I would rather have thrown on the fire, except that of course you can't do that on impulse with a newspaper column because it would be irresponsible and unprofessional to leave a space others would have to fill in a hurry, perhaps with an astrology column.''

The Magnificent Nine: ''We will miss the column a little but then there are only nine of us and we can understand why you're weary of writing for so few when someone like Annabel Crabb has a readership of millions and Scotty and Nige of FM104.7 have a listenership of tens of thousands and Ross Solly of the local ABC has a listenership of several dozens.''

The Columnist: ''Yes, you've been a sweet, boutique readership, but I think I'm too narcissistic to go on writing for so few. I also think that these are now very Annabel Crabb, very Scotty and Nige, very Brendan Nelson times and that I'm out of touch now with what people want to read in an opinion column.''

■ ■ ■

There was no Sibelius played at Wednesday's all-Russian concert by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra at the Llewellyn Hall. He is not the most guaranteed-bums-on-seats of composers and so the CSO errs on the side of works by more comfortable melody-mongers.

But it was still a great evening. Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Milton and soloist Konstantin Shamray (piano) were superb but my special applause here is for the audience. In my time in Canberra I have seen the audiences at Canberra concerts go from being corsetted and mummified burghers afraid to show their feelings, to being the demonstrative flock they (we) were on Wednesday. Everyone had left their corsets at home and the standing ovation for Shamray after he'd soared, skedaddled and caressed his way through Rachmaninov's second piano concerto was spontaneous and sincere. Canberra, and its Canberrans, become better every day. The Canberran who is tired of Canberra is tired of life.