This is a first. For somebody who has been sacked 16 times over five decades, it’s quite an unusual experience to be announcing a resignation. After two years of chronicling life as a Senate cross-bencher for Crikey, I have decided to part ways.

Let’s say we had some “style and content” issues. And I’m too old to change. I loved the forum and those columns formed the backbone of my Christmas book Hinch vs Canberra. In my letter to the editor, I resorted to an old song and said “let’s call the whole thing off”.

At least I wasn’t like Ernest Hemingway whose resignation letter to the Toronto Globe and Mail filled six feet of toilet paper or the wire service reporter who knew the need for telegram brevity (in cost-saving agency style) and said to UPI: “upstick job arsewards.”

-DH