Yes, The ‘Pie awards his first ever Mother of the Year … possibly the decade … this week, Bentley’s final word on one of the big stories of the week is as always worth the proverbial thousand words. And two minor matters which will startle you … a Canberra copper, channeling a version of Cool Hand Luke, actually using the phrase ‘ We seem to have a philosophical juxtaposition here’ … no, not kidding … and a foolproof way to make a bird shut up.
First let us put to rest those unfortunate political pawns murdered by the Indonesian Government -and that is comment not on the two dead men but onthe death penalty, to which The ‘Pie is implacably opposed. Bentley sums up the Indonesian president’s message to Australian protests on the issue.
And a final comment on the issue from Leunig, who quite rightly eloquently points out the sanctimonious hysteria created by the blanket, often OTT coverage by the media.
Yes, well, two sides to that story, one supposes.
Another big story of the week was the Baltimore riots. It’s a recurring and galling theme that whenever anything happens that sparks legitimate black unrest – as the probable murder of a black man in police custody did in Baltimore, a sector of youths use it as an excuse to go looting and stoning cars, police and property. This is seen as disrespectful to the victim by more mature (well mentally mature anyway) members of an affected community.
Summary parental discipline … should be more of it.
But one mother in Baltimore, who recognized her 16-year-old son as a masked rock thrower decided to point out the error of his ways. Publicly. Great to see, and she gets Mother of the Year. Be nice if this was an object lesson to some mothers of any colour closer to home here in Townsville.
Moving to the local scene, some other people need a good slappin’, as they say.
Newspaper editors, like ordinary mortals, can be prey to everyday phobias just like us ordinary folk. So it is good to know the Pinocchio Heywood, Iditor of Townsville Daily Astonisher, is at least free of one of the most crippling phobias –gelotophobia – or the fear of being laughed at.
Astonisher iditor Lachlan Pinocchio Heywood.
And it would appear he isn’t troubled either by atelophobia -the fear of imperfections. But he did need help from above recently (no not Holt Street) and The ‘Pie listened in from the eaves to a most interesting conversation.
Scene: a small chapel, lit only by a few flickering candles. Through the musty dimness, a figure can be discerned kneeling before the altar. A bespectacled, slightly balding supplicant, arms out-stretched above, beseeching for the ear of God.
There is a pause. Then …
‘Dad’s busy just now’, booms down a voice. ‘What can I do for you, old son? Jesus here.’
‘Christ, really?’ It was a startled squeak.
‘Of course, really, I just told, cloth-ears. Who are you, my godly Google is down at the moment?’
‘I’m Lachlan Heywood, editor of the Townsville Bulletin.’
‘The what? Oh, whatever. Oh, hang on, I know you. You’re the one regularly stamping around the office on Monday mornings, repeatedly calling out my name, after you’ve read that Magpie blokes blog.’
‘Ummm, sorry ‘bout that.’
‘No wuckers, but I should point out that my title is only two words, I haven’t been fornicating since I was about 32. Flattering, though. So what’s the problem?’
‘Well, my bosses in Sydney insist that I put things like this is the paper’, and the editor waves a page of the paper towards the ceiling.
‘Hmmm, yeah, well, that looks pretty good, what’s the problem?’
‘Those figures come from a survey crowd called emma … Enhanced Media Medrics Australia, invented by News Ltd when they didn’t like the true figures from the independent Roy Morgan mob. But instead of being subtle about it, emma’s gone right off the rails and over the top. Nobody believed those figures anyway – particularly media buyers – but now it’s got to a ludicrous stage, and Christ, man … err, sorry … I’ve gotta live in this town.’
‘I don’t get it, where’s the problem?’
‘Well, the audited circulation figures, governed by law and can’t be fiddled – well, not much – have our sales through the floor – a piddling average of 19,487 on weekdays, and a laughable 1,939 on the electronic webby thingy edition. And that’s the first time the paper has gone below 20,000 in its history.’
‘So?”
‘Well, that means I’ve got to keep a straight face and tell people readership has gone UP , and that five people – five bloody people!! – read every single issue of the paper, ‘Monday to Friday.’ And that’s clearly impossible, but we have to tell the advertisers that.. Jesus, what do I do?’
A silence fell on the scene momentarily, broken only by a soft sniggering from the eaves.
“OK, I’ve got it. You do the old loaves and fishes scam.’
‘Eh?’ Lachlan was nonplussed.
‘Remember the hilarious yarn about me feeding the multitude with seven loaves and two fish?’
‘Err, yes … how did you get away with that?’
‘Well, I was lucky that my biographers in this case were four of the densest of the disciples. That John was a real dodderer, and the others, Mathew, Mark and Luke, were so out of it they all needed help to dress themselves, which is really saying something when all they had were caftans. But that came in handy, because they turned a cosy little dinner party for four into something like a Heston Blumenthal feast. A hoot, really, like, yeah, you could feed 5000 blokes – and that’s not counting the women and children – with a few sardines and a couple of Coles Fresh Baked on the Premises loaves that that slubberguts Mathew would wolf down in three seconds flat. If I’d really tried that, never mind the Romans, I’d have been crucified then and there.’
‘Umm, how does that help me?’
‘Simple. Just call your readership figures a bloody miracle … worked for me.’
The curtain now descends on this touching scene, as Lachlan turns and walks away, shaking his head and muttering ‘Wonder where the nearest mosque is, they’re pretty bloody good at fairytales, too.’
Another luminary from the Astonisher who sought inspiration this week was Anthony The Galoot Galloway, but his was literary rather than divine.
It was another hilarious week from the Galoot, who obviously doesn’t see the irony of his overuse of his favorite term ‘back-flip’. He had a more than a spot of bother keeping it together in terms of consistency this week. Indeed, the famous line in Gertrude The Governess by Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock comes to mind
‘(He) said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.’
But although our intrepid reporter would qualify as a walking curate’s egg … good in some parts, rotten in others – it would seem that Master Galloway’s muse was actually the world’s most famous egg, Humpty Dumpty himself, not of the nursery rhyme but of Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass.
One could be excused for concluding that he had been refreshing himself of the conversation between Alice and this ovoid Ovid.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”
It would seem Galoot has discarded the normal processes of logic and consistency to take us on an amusing journey as recorded by someone who has painted himself into a corner.
Given his vitriolic and highly selective reporting about the council seeking an all-in stadium/convention-entertainment project – rather than a first stage , stand-alone stadium – all of a sudden this week he went for a fawning knob-gobble. (Anthony obviously – like his iditor – in not suffering gelotophobia, presumably unaware that is widely seen a bumptious patronizing little twerp when he goes into lecture mode.)
But on the evidence of his column and news story last Wednesday, it’s hard to know what the hell he is saying. He starts by commanding us that the council ‘should be congratulated’ on moving to buy the land on which this local nirvana is to be built, because inter alia it shows – in his ugly low-rent American phrase ‘the council has ‘skin in the game’ (cultural cringe anyone).
Then the opening of third sentence portends stormy times ahead, presumably because the Galoot claims he knows something no one else knows or that has ever been publicly suggested before to wit:
‘Provided the convention centre component of the project eventually becomes a reality … ‘
What? Like it might not? The one element that is likely to make money? The ‘Pie challenges you to show where this has ever been suggested before. Although given the agenda of the puppet master of your editor, it may in fact become fact ‘Gosh, run out of money, so sorry, be patient’ etc etc.)
But the best is yet to come. From the champion of the slur of back-flipping, we get this completely breathtaking piece of somersaulting flapdoodle.
‘The council remains committed to building a stadium and convention centre as one project, estimated to cost $315 million. With only $100 million committed so far by the State Government for the stadium component, this leaves a $250 million shortfall.
This is a sensible approach but it shouldn’t be pursued at the expense of all other options: an all-or-nothing approach risks ending up with nothing.
The obvious alternative is building the project in stages, with the stadium coming first as the State Government has already committed $100 million towards it. However, this would likely create $49 million in inefficiencies: $26 million in refurbishing the existing Townsville Entertainment and Convention Centre to keep it operational, and the $23 million increase in cost of building the integrated facility in stages.
You couldn’t purposely fashion three better paragraphs that would embody Leacock’s riding off in all directions at once more succinctly. Thanks Christ the council is making the real decisions – and at this stage, that includes Mayor Mul.let unless Lozza gets her in the broom closet down at Wishing Well House one of these fine days.
Look, The Magpie is well aware that examining this stuff becomes tedious for some, and you probably hope the old bird will keep it lighter and brighter, but that’s exactly what they hope down at the Bulletin. The cancer that is News Ltd is slowly being exposed around the world, and The ‘Pie will continue to do his bit in this small corner of the world as he helps in his small way to write the Rise and Fall of the Rupert Empire. The old bird will continue to point out the slip-shod and self-interest of this paper which has gone a long way already to making itself irrelevant. Which is a disgrace in a thriving community like ours.
The biggest problem is how long will it take for the general populous to overcome their phobia, that of ….
COULROPHOBIA…the fear of clowns.
Moving on.
Spooky Coincidences, Dept of: is just an unplanned happenstance that the swindling Gore family, Craig and Marina, were scheduled to be among a group of mugs … sorry, mum and dad astute investors – if you’ll pardon the non sequitur – being shown around the Hinchbrook Resort in Cardwell this afternoon, on the very same weekend when the town holds its annual UFO Festival, with people dressing up as weird aliens. Gosh, some people don’t even have to dress up, just pack up the banjo and come down from the hills for the day.
A normal Saturday night in the Cardwell pub … but more customers are expected tonight.
The ‘Pie tends to think it’s a deliberate ploy by these two shysters, because the circumstance will allow them to mingle without having to don any disguise. There are plenty of people around who think that this coarse couple have several arms, better to get at your wallet and large appendages to do the financial equivalent of an alien probe on the unwary. The ‘Pie has spies. He will report when any info arrives. Indeed, both Gore’s were seen skulking arfound the place this morning, believe it or not, he on a ride on mower – which, after he receives Federal Court penalties for scamming more than $1.7million of investors, might be the only transport he’ll be able to afford.
Moving on.
The ‘Pie has always been an avid collector of ‘walloper-speak’, those particular convoluted linguistic gymnastic that makes an ordinary straight-forward statement sound like it was written by Mike Reynolds – ‘I was perambulating in a northerly direction on the left-hand side of the carriageway, pursuant to seeking a purveyor of comestibles, namely and to wit Iced Vo Vos’ etc etc.’ My all time favourite is a copper at Tully a few years ago, part of a search party for a missing backpacker. He told a TV reporter – and this is true – ‘
Copper: ‘We have located the woman’s ocular enhancement equipment which is in disrepair.’
Reporter: You mean you’ve found her broken glasses.’
Copper: ‘Umm … you could say that.’
He obviously couldn’t.
There’s plenty of these around (more please if you’ve got any), so you can imagine The ‘Pie’s disbelief when a copper at a recent demonstration in Canberra actually turns unintended comedian, including a bobbing up of the heels like a John Cleese London bobby, when he says ‘we have an interesting philosophical juxtaposition here.’ The matter involves a cameraman from indigenous TV and SBS who videoed what happened when officers demanded his footage of the demo.
Given what this smarmy self-righteous uniformed smart arse had said moments before, the juxtaposition sure is clear. The whole 6 minutes is a ‘how to’ manual to keep your cool when the rozzas are trying to make you say or do something so they can arrest you, But if you just to have a squizz at our language professor in uniform, fast forward to 2.58. You’ll note that early in the piece, the copper who sounds like Laurence Springborg’s dimmer brother insisted the bloke is shaking viol;ently, all said to an absolute rock steady camera.
Finally a foolproof way to shut a bird up … and live.
And we think we’re the smartest species, but folks, don’t try this at home.
