Anyone who thinks that Hey! Hey! It’s Saturday returning is a good idea (and that includes any idiot who signed up for the Facebook group) should be forced to watch this:

Imagine! Two whole hours of that crap.

This is what happens with TV – people only remember the good bits and banish the thousands of hours of shit to the Land of Wind and Ghosts before returning ten years later to demand the return of a show they can’t really remember anyway.

NOW LOOK WHAT THEY’VE DONE

It’s Ashes time. And in between sleepless nights and bleary days everyone’s talking about delay tactics, shitty umpiring, Australia’s performance at Lord’s, and how much of an arrogant chav bastard Freddie Flintoff is. However, after tuning into SBS’s coverage of the series and checking my television settings to make sure I hadn’t accidentally tuned into Amateur Hour on Channel 31, I’m surprised that the biggest Ashes talking point isn’t …

Stuart MacGill: can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t host

Jeebus H. Cat, the man is atrocious! Whenever SBS crosses back to the studio during lunch I am overwhelmed with feelings of embarrassment for him; that’s if I can stop cringing at the telly long enough. It’s like watching a nervous schoolkid, spooked eyes staring straight down the barrel of the camera, wee their pants from fear live on air. Every night for ten nights.

I know that it’s wise to head your sports broadcasts with someone who knows the game and who can talk from experience, but surely they could’ve found someone better than MacGill. Even Damien Martyn, with his complete lack of charisma or presence would’ve made a better host — at least he’s watchable. But between MacGill and that goose Greg Matthews I’ve been tempted a number of times to throw the flat screen off the balcony.

Stuart MacGill, you’re on the list.

UPDATE: From MacGill’s Wikipedia page:

MacGill is noted as an intellectual type, having once read 17 books on a tour of Pakistan

I suppose reading one book on a cricket tour is enough to get yourself smeared as an intellectual.

UPDATE II: Further down the Wikipedia page the plot thickens:

He has a fondness for wine and books, once reading 24 novels during a tour of Pakistan.

Both “facts” are sourced from a Cricinfo bio, which states:

The son and grandson of Western Australian state players, he socialised with friends who weren’t cricketers in his playing days, and was often portrayed as a thinker, a misfit, the odd man out. It was something he played down, although he once read 24 novels on a tour of Pakistan.

Socialised with non-cricketers! The shame.

Right, so everyone’s flapping their gums about MasterChef Australia at the minute. I thought the show was pants, but that’s beside the point. What really worries me is that amid all the chatter about judges, culinary techniques, TV ratings, Hainanese chicken rice, comfort food, cookbook-publishing deals and dumbfuck newspapers that can’t even correctly report the winner of a TWO-HORSE RACE, people may be losing sight of what’s really important:

Oh, and bugger me with a fish-fork if the woman who won isn’t a dead ringer for a certain Pamela Allen children’s book character:

So we’ve all pretty much heard about the dopey British backpacker who survived 12 days lost in the Blue Mountains, Jamie Neale, by now, yeah? It’s a wonderful relief that he’s been found, it goes without saying. He’s a very lucky lad.

And that should be the end of that, right? He goes back home to England and recuperates fully and resumes normal life, right?

Oh no. Not at all. Don’t be so fuckin’ naive, Bron, for this is the day and age of instant “celebrity” and round-the-clock, in-your-face media exposure. Timespan of everyone wanting a piece of your arse: usually a week.

Thus I was shitty when I saw the headline on the SMH website, “Jamie Neale stands to make a fortune”.

Shitty because I really need to make an instant fortune and it was him who gets the money and I don’t.

Seriously, though, it’s shitty because everyone is getting fiscally rewarded and instant “celebrity” for mishaps, accidents, and just generally getting caught up in the vicissitudes of life.

Shit happens.

And who the hell are these celebrity agents? The dude’s just come out of the bush after 12 days and is recovering in hospital and he’s already signed up to a celebrity agent? Do celebrity agents hang around hospital corridors waiting for the next “big” story to be wheeled past in a gurney? There is just something sordid about the speed at which Jamie and his dad were snapped up by a “celebrity” agent.

I, for one, won’t be reading or watching any interviews. I know the story, I know what happened, and I know how it ended. I don’t need a complete rehash and deconstruction of The Boy Who Was Lost in the Bush for 12 Days. I’m just glad he’s been found safe and sound. And that’s that.

Andrew Bolt notes with alarm the demise of Channel Nine program THIS Afternoon after only fourteen days on air.

THISafternoon axed by Nine. First Hey Hey goes and now this. Sure, you have ratings, BUT AT WHAT PRICE??!

But is it any wonder the plug was pulled when the two hosts have smiles as appallingly and frighteningly fake as these?

The longer you look, the more evil they appear

Last week I poked fun at Malcolm Turnbull’s seemingly-lame attempts to reverse his terribad polling figures by visiting Afghanistan and launching a debt trailer truck. This morning Mr Turnbull’s efforts were revealed to have been effective, leaving me with very serious egg on my face.

Satisfaction with the Leader of the Opposition lifted in the past two weeks after he spent a week overseas visiting Australian troops and a week in Perth attacking the Rudd government’s debt and budget deficit.

[...]

Last weekend, satisfaction with Mr Turnbull rose from 25per cent to 31 per cent, and dissatisfaction fell from 58 per cent to 55 per cent.

I apologise unreservedly to Malcolm Turnbull for ridiculing his campaigning methods.

In unrelated news, Andrew Bolt says that drawing conclusions from “changes that fall even within the margin of error” is “a waste of time and credibility”. What did The Australian ever do to Andrew to deserve such a scathing attack?

This ran in the Crikey email last Thursday.

_________________

It must be pretty humbling to feel your power slipping away. And not just slipping away to an equally powerful competitor, but slipping away to — gasp! — ordinary people.

Let’s just say you’re the Australian head of a massive, global media company and that you’re accustomed to people doing what you say. You grew up in a social and business environment where money meant power, where media barons were the only people who could afford to communicate directly with large numbers of people; it has been this way for as long as you can remember, and as long as your father’s generation can remember for that matter. But one day along comes this thing called The Internet, promising to democratise the flow of information, and something terrible begins to happen: the plebs grow bold and start to rise up, empowered by having their voice heard, unworried about profit or business models. If you were that media baron what would you do? Would you adapt or would you atrophy?

Read the rest of this entry »

A GrodsReader took this photo of a truck outside the Sydney offices of News Limited yesterday, noting that it had been shredding documents for over an hour.

Then again, maybe it was just taking care of Piers Akerman’s expense account receipts from 2007/08.

This was published in Crikey’s subscriber email yesterday.

Utegate raises no end of questions for the media too
Here’s Crikey’s own Bernard Keane thinking out loud via Twitter on Saturday:

Not sure how both Rudd and Turnbull can still be leaders after this. One or other is in deep trouble.

And it’s starting to look quite that serious. Both men are calling aggressively for the other to stand down, and both are standing firmly by their stories. It’s a Mexican stand-off that will end with egg on face if nobody pulls the trigger. One (or possibly both) of the two men will certainly be seriously compromised when the truth does finally out.

Fairly amazing when you think about it. That political leaders withstand the political pressure exerted by wars, global financial crises, and overboard children, but the question of the existence of a single email, and the genuineness of that email, can threaten to end political careers

While there are many aspects to this saga, clearly the most central is the question of that email from the Prime Minister’s office to a public servant by the name of Gordan Godwin Grech. The Daily Telegraph printed the email in last Saturday’s newspaper, later conceding that it was never actually sighted. The reporter in question, Steve Lewis, claims that it was read to him over the phone by a “primary source”. Kevin Rudd flatly denies the existence of the email and searches of the relevant IT infrastructure seem to suggest that no such email was ever sent.

Malcolm Turnbull has been hinting none-too-subtly since 4 June that he’s known about some sort of correspondence believed to be “smoking gun” evidence of Kevin Rudd’s dodgy dealings. Reading his statements in the context of the last few days (great summary by Possum) makes this clearer than it was at the time. Turnbull says that he had not seen the email prior to its publication in the Tele; unfortunately for Malcolm he blew that charade apart this morning when he said Senator Eric Abetz was reading the email from the newspaper a day before it went to print.

All in all it’s a tangled web of minutiae that promises to be explosive in its untangling. But the politics aside for a moment, whichever way you look at this whole thing the media is up to its armpits in it, and some serious questions have been raised.

Firstly, is Steve Lewis telling the truth about the manner in which he received this email? A cynic might suggest that the “read over the phone” story is a bit far fetched given that there’s an awful lot of information to be read out, what with email addresses, CC’s, timestamps and the rest. Is Steve Lewis trying to keep his informant at arm’s length to protect his or her anonymity?

Secondly, is it ethical for the Daily Telegraph to mock-up for display an email using the text read to one of its reporters over the phone, implying rather boldly that it is in possession of the electronic or printed version of the email? Shouldn’t the fact that the email has not been sighted be disclosed to readers who will otherwise interpret the mock-up as proof of possession?

Thirdly, and most seriously, should Steve Lewis and the Tele protect a source that has fed them an allegedly fraudulent email, now the subject of an AFP criminal investigation, that may possibly be the catalyst for the Prime Minister or Opposition leader of the nation quitting their job? While most people would agree that it’s important for journalists to be able to afford their sources a certain level of protection, surely there comes a point at which the interests of the nation override that protection. While the Tele deserves a certain amount of credit for breaking a story of significance, perhaps there are now greater priorities than an extra day at the centre of attention.

Steve Lewis has today written an article calling for “full transparency” from the Rudd government over Utegate. The thing is, if Lewis was a little more transparent himself the whole controversy would instantly become a lot clearer. And let’s put this in perspective one more time: the bona-fides of a single email, the source of which is likely known to a newspaper journalist, will either end the career of the nation’s Prime Minister or Opposition leader, or cause them significant damage. A heavy burden of responsibility for a reporter and newspaper who hold the key to the truth.

How many of you knew that Andrew Bolt made an appearance in a shitty comedy pilot late last year?

Andrew’s complete lack of comedy nous makes me long for the days of jokes about terminally ill kids. I never thought I’d say this, but I hope he stays in “social commentary” because he has no talent here. To think everyone has been beating up on the Chaser when they could have been beating up on this shit.

The Punch, News Ltd’s new opinion website, bills itself as “Australia’s best conversation”. Says editor David Penberthy:

[The Punch is] a place for spirited, sleeves-up, energetic, engaging commentary, written by people who enjoy writing, for people who enjoy reading … The Punch is just as happy covering politics as it is covering TV, crime, music, social trends, sport, business, economics, food and fashion.

Every day it will present diverse opinions from its own small team, and a rolling roster of almost 100 outside contributors, to give you real-time commentary and analysis of news and current affairs.

So what’s with this atrocious collection of disconnected short-form anti-Labor bile snippets, masquerading as considered opinion, from Bronwyn Bishop?

Julia Gillard feigns a fight with Trade Unions at their annual conference but gives her blessing to the indoctrination of school students 14 years and up.

[...]

The Government had a lot to say about working families in opposition- How about a policy change and create a few.

[...]

It always pays to read the fine print before you get too carried away with Rudd largess.

[...]

The Government censors as it should, against child pornography and advertising tobacco … Me thinks the ABC should have had a closer look at self-censoring and told the Chasers War On Everything that there are ethical standards to be met and they just failed miserably.

[...]

Latham’s outburst against Australian defence personnel was bitter and nasty. And to think this man was putting his hand up to be PM. Would Latham pass the necessary tests, both psychological and physical to be accepted into the Australian Defence Force? A good question!

Hoping to contribute to the conversation I left the following comment:

Wow! Five vacuous brain-farts from Bronwyn Bishop. Australia’s best conversation indeed.

Not published. Conversation stilted.

Thus spake right-wing rag the Daily Tele when reporting on ’Muslim-friendly’ loans being offered by the National Australia Bank. To date it’s been difficult for devout Muslims to buy a home unless they have the full sum, since Islam considers riba (money-lending) to be haraam (forbidden). The NAB is getting around this by trialling new homebuying schemes where the customer makes alternative payment arrangements, different to the usual structure of principle and compounding interest.

Most reasonable people would think this a fair compromise: the customer still pays for their borrowing, the bank still makes their money and everyone is happy. Not the Tele, which reports it under a headline that screams of preferential treatment and reverse-racism. Its reporter also sees fit to avoiding mentioning a pivotal fact until the tail of the article:

The loans would also be available to non-Muslims.

Cue the hysteria in comments,where the great unwashed, ordinarily riled by the thought of mortgage interest, seemed to claim it as some kind of patriotic badge of honour:

You’ve got be bloody kidding me, right? Can’t people just adopt the Aussie way. After all you do live in our country. If you don’t want to work by our rules, then piss off.
Posted by: christine of sydney 8:17am today

You tell ‘em, babe. 

If it hasn’t started already, this is the beginning of the end for this once great country.
Posted by: Ralph Malph of Avalon 10:55am today

It’s all downhill from here, Ralph. Much like after your mate Fonzie ‘jumped the shark’.

Can the bank provide Christian and Buddist loans too? Shows the illusion.
Posted by: piggybank 4:41pm today

A Buddhist loan, gee that’d be good – I could buy a house now and defer payments until my second reincarnation.

You have to chuckle at the ludicrous three-way ping-pong being played between Channel Nine, News Limited and Gordon Ramsay. No greater triumvarite of self-promoters ever crossed swords, yet since the weekend they seemed to have captured the attention of the gullible masses. We’ve had parental complaints about Ramsay’s bad language in front of their children at his live Melbourne show (a bit like going to Perisher and complaining about the snow). We’ve heard to-and-fro-ing between Ramsay and Tracy Grimshaw, the mournful talking-head who is the ‘victim’ of Ramsay’s ‘attacks’. We’ve seen the ubiquitous Youtube footage and tut-tutting from just about every rent-a-quote in Melbourne.

It’s my contention that this whole thing is an American wrestling-style beat-up, dreamed up on-the-wire by Ramsay’s agents, PR suits and Channel Nine. It is all geared at whipping up publicity for Ramsay and his programmes, once hot property for Nine but since flagging in the ratings. Others with a working knowledge of the media concur. Ramsay’s public persona is that of a crass, boorish and foul-mouth yobbo, but he is nobody’s fool. Grimshaw, once a real journalist, is now little more than a network puppet. If she was truly aggrieved by Ramsay’s ‘attack’ then she should raise the question of why her employer ran two hours of his TV shows last night – after, of course, yet another ACA re-hash of Tracy vs. Gordon – when Nine might instead support her by suspending them Chaser-style.

Today the Herald Sun went even further with a gutter-delving implication that Ramsay might well be gay. The ‘evidence’ of this, says the Spun, is a 15-year-old caution stemming from drunken nakedness and tomfoolery in a Tube station toilet – because as we all know, every canned-up young bloke who gets his kit off or flops out his shrivelled manhood must “bat for the other team”.  For additional confirmation of Ramsay’s dubious sexuality they went to his embittered, press-savvy former lover – who is, wait for it, female. Further comment was also sought from two of Ramsay’s arch-rivals, who had nothing of note to add other than that noting that Ramsay “looks like a cross between Patrick Swayze and a ventriloquist’s dummy”. A very shaky house-of-cards indeed and one that would, on any other day, never get past Murdoch’s in-house lawyers.

None of this concerns me too much: commercial TV and its stars will always play contrived games of cross-promotion and draw in the celebrity-obsessed masses when they do. What bothers me is the completely inappropriate involvement of our political leaders. Kevin Rudd, now so populist that he comments on just about every non-political matter raised at pressers, referred to Ramsay as “low life”. Julia Gillard more pithily advised him to ”stay in the kitchen” and make “nice things for people to eat” - good advice that Jules and Kev might want to follow themselves by confining themselves to matters of government. Their attempt to extract votes by tapping into a public ‘issue’ that is, at best, wildly exaggerated and, at worst, fabricated cheapens politics and insults those whose concerns run deeper than a foul-mouthed chef and a nondescript TV host.

GrodsCorp has long been scathing of Sally Morrell’s vacuous and anti-intellectual dribblings in the Herald Sun, but anti-blogging blogger Jim Schembri has staked a serious claim for the Sally Morrell equivalent at The Age, having written one of the most stunningly vapid grade eleven essays to ever be shat onto the opinion page. The lame by numbers article begins:

When taking the weighty decision to get into shape by investing in a “home gym”, one must stay focused on the primary purpose of the enterprise, which is to get healthy and prolong life, not to kill yourself while attempting to operate the aforementioned home gym. Thus, I heartily recommend to anyone contemplating the purchase of a bargain-priced treadmill to get their head examined, promptly.

Even if anyone gave a flying fuck about the process of buying a treadmill, or if the subject of buying a treadmill was worthy of the opinion page, Schembri doesn’t provide any insight into the subject, instead rolling out the most pathetic cliches and tired jokes imaginable.

You should have heard this chick [salesperson] go. She went on about how much time it would save, about energy-burning co-efficients, about reduced joint stress, the in-built calorie counter, the free pedometer. She even worked in a reference to NASA, which I didn’t quite catch, but it had something to do with anti-gravity technology or exercising in orbit. She made it sound too great, and her enthusiasm was so infectious I felt that leaving the store without this treadmill would be the biggest mistake of my life. So we rang it up and home it came.

Still awake? If so, I bet you’ll never guess what happened next.

Assembling it was a trial, and for a while it looked like I was going to burn more calories putting the thing together than I ever would using it. But once it was in one piece I felt the world open up before me. “This is it,” I thought. “I shall be Adonis, just like the guys in the gym.”

He had trouble assembling it! How original! I bet you’ll never guess what happened next.

Then I got on and gave it a go. Or tried to. I need to stress here that there was nothing wrong with the machine. All the parts moved the way they were supposed to. It merely required ventricle-bursting strain to get the thing going. Sweat showered off me. You know those old movies about ancient Egypt where you see the slaves pushing those big stone blocks up the ramps to build the pyramids? Those guys are my brothers.

He didn’t like using it! How original! I bet you’ll never guess what happened next.

So what was I to do? What else? Leave it right there, in the middle of the living room. Eight months later the treadmill wound up the way 95 per cent of all home-gym equipment winds up: covered in towels, jackets, socks and shirts. I was going to sell the dreaded thing but then thought, no, this is actually garbage, so the next hard-rubbish day it was gone. I even watched through the window as they carted it away.

He didn’t use it and it sat in the corner collecting dust! How original!

Jim Shembri, you are the hackest of hacks. You are a disgrace to the profession of journalism. If anyone needed any further proof that The Age was a paper no longer worth even a tenth of the cover price they need look no further than the presence of this abomination on today’s opinion page.

Another week, another inevitable backlash.

Despite what some people say, this sketch isn’t making fun of children with terminal illness, but rather our attitudes towards them. Are the kids in this the target of ridicule, or the faux terrible charity?

In the end though, the sketch is a failure for comedic reasons, not for moral ones. Like most ad parodies, it’s very by-the-numbers. The moral outrage this morning is the result of the sketch failing to make anyone laugh. As a result, everyone missed the point and it appeared as though the humour in the sketch came from lambasting dying children, which it wasn’t supposed to.

It was clumsy comedy that they simply should have handled better.

Incidentally, it’s almost a virtual re-write of a McDonald’s House charity parody they did on CNNNN for Fungry’s, and I don’t remember anyone complaining then. Why? Because the sketch hit its satirical mark and there was no question as to where the comedy was aimed.

But to all the people complaining – how many of you even saw the sketch go to air? Mia Freedman didn’t. Like the obituary song, most of the outrage will be generated by the current affairs and morning shows who will gleefully replay it in a cheap grab for ratings.

Seriously, wowsers, go back to The Wedge.