mate,

I'm not sure about dead-set legend. Maybe in my own lunchtime.

Thanks for the info about paleoichthyology. Amongst the truly dreadful puns I got the answer I was looking for.

I know somebody is going to ask me about the title of my first book (I've actually written three now, almost four).

Deadly, unna? is actually Aboriginal slang. Aboriginal people all over Australia have adopted the term 'deadly'. Basically it means 'fantastic' or 'great'. 'Unna' is quite specific to the area where I grew up, to the Aborigines I used to play football with. It's equivalent to the Cockney 'innit'. A typical sentence would be 'Hot day, unna?' or 'That John Howard's a dickhead, unna?'

I might just blow my own trumpet here a bit. The book has just been made into a movie (I wrote the screenplay) which has just been selected for the Sundance Film festival. So instead of spending January in sunny Sydney I'll be in not-so-sunny Salt Lake City.

My own particular interest is slang, especially Australian slang. And my worry is that a lot of the great Aussie slang terms are dying so I'm on a one-man crusade to keep them alive!

Which is probably why I can't get an American publishing deal. They say my books are too 'parochial'.

I'd very much like to contact Dr Long. Even though us writers bend reality to suit our own purposes I'd like to get the science as correct as I can. Does anybody have his email?

thanks again for your help

Phillip