Hollow out Mark Latham’s tome

If there’s one thing every well-stocked bookshelf needs, it’s a copy of Mark Latham’s autobiography. If there’s one thing a copy of Mark Latham’s autobiography needs, it’s to be hollowed out and used to store gin.

You will need:

• PVA glue
• One Stanley knife, preferably the kind with snap-off blades that are an ACA exposé waiting to happen
• Gladwrap, wax paper or other protective sheeting
• Ruler, pencil, obviously
• Some music, podcasts and/or tendency towards fugue state
• One copy of The Latham Diaries (or other book that could be improved by having the words removed)
• A very slim bottle of gin

First, select and rip out a page to be your end paper. I had a tough time with this, tossing up between the page where Latham called Crikey a “sh-t-sheet”, and the one where he describes it as “the most popular website in Parliament House”. Eventually, I plumped for page 243, where Latham says that he might just survive the next election, and then gets the crap bagged out of him in the SMH.

Next, choose which page will begin your hollow section. I decided to leave everything up to Mark’s glossary of acronyms intact. With your protective sheeting, wrap the front cover and first pages, plus one extra. Also wrap the back cover.

Brush any biscuit crumbs and dead moths out from between the pages, and if you want the book autographed, get Mark to do it at this stage.

Slightly dilute some PVA (roughly four parts PVA to one part water). For the whole project, I used about a centimetre’s worth in the bottom of a jam jar. Paint the edges of the pages with the glue, then stack a couple of Encyclopedias Brittanica on top.

After about half an hour, the glue should be dry. Rule your cutting lines, then carefully make the first slice. Savour that first page; it’s a lovely feeling, isn’t it? Ruining all Mark’s hard work. Crank up your podcasts and get slicing.

You can slice out multiple pages at once, but if you can’t be perfectly accurate, at least try to make each subsequent hole smaller than the last. You can always cut more out, but once you go outside the dotted line, your booze-hiding book is doomed to look like you had half the bottle while making it.

When you get near the back cover, around the part where Mark starts to talk about how nice it is to be out of politics, stuff some scrap paper in the back to avoid slicing the hardback.

After about three hours, you should be done. Your lounge will be covered with shredded political dirt. Uncover the back of the book and go get your jam jar of glue. If you would like Mark’s face to continue to adorn your masterpiece, put the dust jacket back on at this stage, and glue it down. Paste the removed page 243 (or other favourite reminiscence) over the back cover so it shows through the hollow part. Put your protective sheet back over it for the moment.

Now, slather the cut edges of the pages with glue. Take the protective sheet out of the back and glue the hollow part to the back cover. Pull your plus-one front page out of the front wrapping and stick it, in its entirety, on top of the first cut page. (This will become the nice, clean, unmangled rim of the hollow part.) Stick the whole lot back under the encyclopedias and leave overnight.

Once it’s all dry, you can slice the last rectangle out of the top page. Voila! The perfect hiding place, for whatever it is you feel you have to hide.