"Is there any definite scheme afoot for mining and blowing up the Gallipoli Turks? For many months the Australian public has lived in hopes of hearing a big bang come faintly overseas to indicate that the whole shooting-box of the enemy on Gallipoli has been blown into smithereens.

"Military experts pooh pooh the idea, but they are usually wrong. [Since Australians] find it possible to sink a couple of miles down into the earth for gold, what is to prevent an engineering corps from burrowing deep under a mountain?"

Elsewhere in this edition a society columnist was worried about the reputation of Australia's women.

"In a report from Egypt a rule is stated that the nurses attached to the Australian Army Hospitals must wear uniform on all occasions – that is, not only on duty, but off duty. In society this imposes the necessity of that grey uniform for outdoors, surmounted by the scarlet cape, which nobody finds attractive. At the time that the report was issued everybody in Egypt was clad in the lightest summer attire – while perforce our nurses appeared in their heavy, hot-looking garb.

"From remarks overheard, fears are entertained that Australia may be discredited [by these plain-looking nurses] with a lack of beauty in its women. What worse could it suffer than this detraction from its aesthetic reputation?"