In my defence, it seemed like a good idea at the time. When I left my full-time editing job at The Sydney Morning Herald a decade ago, it occurred to me that I could write a book about how to pitch stories to the media.

There are times when I think that maybe, just maybe, the world is completely unhinged. I think like this when a driver does a U-turn in front of me on an eight-lane highway.

We all use superlatives, even if we don't know the term. A superlative is a fancy way of saying something is the absolute best it can be – typical examples are: most best top fastest ultimate premier most trusted.