Welcome to you all, but a special welcome to those from interstate. After an all too long absence we are pleased to see Stephen and Violeta Baggs from Victoria, our wine benefactor from South Australia, Richard Lindner, accompanied by his charming wife Shirley, Jon Cookson from far north Queensland and Anthony, Stephen and Andrew Gillies from the Northern Territory. We are tickled pink to have you all here at one time.

Welcome also to our Guest Speaker Roger Fletcher and his wife Marie. Tony will welcome you more fittingly later in the evening and until then please enjoy yourselves.

I am going to dispense with some of my usual mandatory thanks to all those who have contributed to this Dinner tonight. We all know who they are anyway. This is because we have some important tasks to perform. Firstly, I would like Richard Lindner to step forward. … Richard has religiously sent us a dozen of his finest wines every Dinner and most of you have benefited from this generosity. As a token of our thanks Richard, and to ensure that you are morally obliged to continue, please accept this personally inscribed Glenn Ford original to hang up at home.

My second task is not so pleasant. As you know, this club is run, for the sake of convenience, on the dictatorial model. However, Tony and I believe that you should all be kept informed and so it is my sad duty to inform you, that for the first time in the club's history, we have to issue a stern reprimand and public humiliation to one of our Members, who has sullied the reputation of this Club. The following, I am sad to say, are the words of his own tragically betrayed wife.

If we are to believe Stephen Baggs, he has not attended the past few Bengali Explorer's Club dinners due to upheavals at work and starting his own business.

But the truth is more disturbing.

For Stephen Baggs' loyalties have shifted. Instead of honouring the father-son traditions that Phantom lore upholds, Stephen Baggs is now obsessed with orphans. Or rather, one Orphan in particular.

Harry Potter.

That he would read and enjoy the books would make him no different to any of the parents who have discovered the books through their children. But that he would devote time and money to amass more Harry Potter merchandise than is owned by all of his children and their friends combined, does.

To date, Stephen Baggs owns or has bought: 11 Harry Potter pencil cases, 1 Harry Potter glasses case, 1 Harry Potter popup book, 4 Harry Potter CD cases, 1 Harry Potter lunchbox, innumerable Harry Potter pens and pencils, 2 Harry Potter mugs, Harry Potter band aids, 4 Harry Potter battery-operated rotating lollipop holders, Harry Potter toothpaste, 2 decks of Harry Potter playing cards, the entire set of Harry Potter talking books on CD, a Harry Potter stationery set, and of course the Harry Potter novels themselves.

This is rather less than the Phantom merchandise he owns, but there is still considerable cause for alarm. Firstly, because most of the Phantom memorabilia that Stephen Baggs owns was given to him, and he is buying the Harry Potter merchandise himself. Secondly, because with an addict's desperation, he is beginning to come up with increasingly bizarre reasons for his acquisitions.

Take, for example, his buying the Harry Potter computer game, and then writing off its purchase as a staff training tool. The fact that Stephen Baggs' business is a funeral parlour makes this all the more intriguing. Is he perhaps venturing into a necromancing sideline? Or wanting to train his staff in the operation of his new fleet of flying hearses?

But Stephen Baggs's most important purchase is the Harry Potter frog. The humble frog retails for 85 cents, is bigger than a Freddo, and contains coveted treasure: a collectable Harry Potter card. At the height of Stephen Baggs' frog frenzy, one could open the fridge at his workplace and find a crisper drawer full of Harry Potter frogs, packages carefully snipped open, card removed, and sticky-taped closed. The point, supposedly, was collecting a complete set of cards. And when the white chocolate frogs came out, it meant buying enough frogs for a complete set of that series as well. Stephen Baggs, however, collected no fewer than 15 complete sets, and has about 100 spares. This amounts to a minimum of 800 chocolate frogs, worth about $650 in total; enough for three flights up to Sydney to attend Phantom dinners.

When called to accountability by his wife Violeta, Stephen Baggs tried to justify himself by saying he actually likes the chocolate. This admission is surely the equivalent of a man saying he buys Playboy because he enjoys reading the articles. He also tried justifying himself by saying that the frogs have taken the place of the packet of biscuits he used to bring home every night, but it must be noted that Stephen Baggs' devotion to Arnott's did not ever inspire him to bring home biscuits in a commemorative Iced Vo-Vo 1973 Replica tin.

But it is Stephen Baggs' last purchase that fully illustrates the fall of this once stalwart Bengali explorer. Recently, Violeta asked him to take a casserole out from the spare fridge. (The spare fridge resides in what was formerly known as The Skull Cave, but more recently has been referred to as Hogwarts Central.) He left the house in a rush, and forgot to do so. Shortly after he left, Violeta asked their daughter Sarah to run out to the spare fridge and retrieve it. When Sarah came back in, she said, "Mum! You'll never guess what Dad's got out there! Three Harry Potter posters!" One of them was a movie poster, and the two others commercial ones. When Violeta pointed out they couldn't have been very expensive, Sarah exclaimed, "They're framed!"

Not thirty seconds later, the phone rang, and Sarah answered it. After a few moments, she said, "Oooookaaaaaayyy…" and Violeta asked Sarah who it was on the phone. Sarah put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, "It's Dad. He says he'll pay me well if I go get the casserole and don't tell you anything about the posters. What do I do?"

Violeta smiled at Sarah and said, "Make him pay you well."

Later that day, Stephen took Sarah aside and suggested that two chocolate frogs would be generous payment. Sarah replied that there were actually a few CDs she wanted to buy. There was a little haggling back and forth, and by the time Violeta intruded on this cosy Daddy-daughter scene, Stephen Baggs was putting away his now considerably lighter wallet.

Perhaps Stephen Baggs would have been better off sticking to The Phantom's code of integrity, honour, and honesty in his conduct. And above all, remembering the Old Jungle Saying: 'Man who try to fiddle wife gets played like a violin.'

Stephen, we forgive you, but we will never forget.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please charge your glasses and be upstanding as I propose our loyal toast

...To Lee Falk.

Thank you!