grodscorp@grods.comDelayblogging Timmeh Blair on ‘Q & A’
 | Posted by The Editor on Friday 27 June 2008, 8:19 am Categories: Blogosphere, Media Tags: Q&A, TimBlair |
Here are the notes that I typed up while watching last night. Jeeeeee-zus Christ that show is terrible, and Timmeh seemed to fit right in.
9:32 — Even the opening titles are underwhelming.
9:33 — Timmeh is a “climate change iconoclast” apparently.
9:34 — Timmeh bats off ridiculous question about baby bonus encouraging abuse. Fumbles lamely in doing so. Pining for his flying monkeys?
9:42 — Timmeh makes audience stop clapping long enough to laugh at one of his Canberra-bashing jokes. Tries rooly, rooly hard to keep a straight face and bask in his funniness.
9:47 — Just fell asleep for a moment. Why the fuck is Timmeh on this episode? It’s not exactly one of his pet areas of commentary.
9:49 — Timmeh has a pathetic dig at Belinda Neal before Bill Shorten totally pwns him by having a dig at his News Ltd. employment.
9:50 — Tony Jones cuts Timmeh off after he shamelessly plugs his newspaper. However, Timmeh has moral victory due to spending one whole minute talking without making any point whatsoever.
9:51 — Fucking audience applause!!!1!
9:52 — While Bill Shorten is talking, Timmeh resorts to primary school attention seeking tactics. The adults at the table ignore him.
9:55 — Timmeh is offered opportunity to make serious comment but he “handballs” directly to Greg Hunt instead. Probably wanted an opportunity to construct pithy, one line strawman argument with NOUN VERBED headline instead.
9:58 — Question on teh muzzies. Excellent fodder for Timmeh.
9:59 — Timmeh gives restrained and sensible response. Just wants to get to the greenroom mini bar.
10:05 — Timmeh offers one word answer (“no”) which makes him feel much more comfortable as it’s closer in size to his normal blog post output.
10:09 — Timmeh accuses Kevin Rudd of being more “happy clappy” religious than John Howard. What utter bollocks.
10:19 — Timmeh makes good point about green policy implementation negatively affecting party’s votes.
10:25 — Timmeh says scientists are not the same as science. Profound.
The GrodsTeam and GrodsReaders discussed the show live in another comment thread from here. And as for GrodsCorp’s Timmeh Blair challenge: FAIL. Timmeh receives the grand total of no dollars from my salary to spend on petrol in an effort to spite me.
GrodsThink Ep.31 (16/9/08)
Friday 27 June 2008, 9:42 am #Jeremy
Glad you watched it. I felt a bit guilty that I couldn’t be bothered, given The Blair/Bolt Watch Project, but… eugh.
We should update the graphic, though. Just because News Ltd is happy for Tim to use an ancient out-of-date photo doesn’t mean we should. Why is everyone so happy to suggest that his current visage is so hideous it must be hidden? That’s the way he looks! Stop being so mean.
Friday 27 June 2008, 9:43 am #Private Tom
How did Tim end up on QA anyway? It’s not like he’s a politician or the head of an organisation or anything.
Friday 27 June 2008, 9:47 am #Bron
That certainly was a lame effort from Timmeh. I was expecting real zingers, and instead we got lameness. Disappointing.
Bet his monkeys thought he was the best, of course.
Friday 27 June 2008, 10:05 am #Chuck A. Spear
The guy has trout lips. Did I mention he has trout lips?
Friday 27 June 2008, 10:10 am #Jeremy
It’s funny how much less intimidating the “big fish” of the blogosphere are when you see them in person.
Friday 27 June 2008, 10:12 am #Bridgit Gread
Ironic, coming from such an Internet behemoth *and* an indoor-soccering god such as yourself, Jeremy.
Friday 27 June 2008, 10:25 am #Jeremy
I don’t think anyone’s ever described me as either of those things.
Friday 27 June 2008, 10:26 am #Anna Cleves
I thought he was pretty good. Not nearly as underwhelming as some of the other panelists, though Bill Shorten and Greg Hunt (probably because they are used to public speaking being MPs) were also good. Shorten came across as a bit strident, I thought.
Having only watched so I could relate to your live-blog post, I will no never watch that show again.
Friday 27 June 2008, 10:30 am #Bridgit Gread
I don’t think anyone’s ever described me as either of those things.
It takes a writer of my skill to express the inexpressable.
Friday 27 June 2008, 10:40 am #Wah
If the word “cunting” was an accepted adjective, Q&A would be the example in the dictionary.
That is 15 minutes minutes of my life I shall never get back. I actually swiched to the Footy Show.
Friday 27 June 2008, 12:09 pm #keri
I ended up switching as well, Wah.
Gave me the screaming shits when they were all talking about how nice it was to have people who had morals in parliament because they were religious.
Pity they do the best they can to ignore them the entire time they’re in term.
Friday 27 June 2008, 12:45 pm #John Surname
I was pleased when they talked about the first secular schools. The man who did that is the man in my gravatar.
Friday 27 June 2008, 12:54 pm #Ant Rogenous
Comment gold from E Rogenous about five minutes into the show:
“So, which one is Timmeh — the fatty on the end?”
Friday 27 June 2008, 1:13 pm #Bridgit Gread
I was pleased when they talked about the first secular schools. The man who did that is the man in my gravatar.
I always thought the man in your gravatar was Wyatt Earp.
Friday 27 June 2008, 1:21 pm #Ant Rogenous
Oh, and another thing: Liz Ann Macgregor — tap.
Friday 27 June 2008, 1:22 pm #The Editor
It’s a legacy tap. Few years past prime.
Friday 27 June 2008, 1:24 pm #keri
Plus, if you have orange hair, my opinion is that you shouldn’t accent that with a necklace of over-sized beads of the same colour.
Friday 27 June 2008, 1:28 pm #Ant Rogenous
That’s a lesson in accessorising Timmeh would do well to learn — i.e. if you have brown hair, you shouldn’t accent that by talking shit.
Friday 27 June 2008, 2:13 pm #Bron
Comment gold from E Rogenous about five minutes into the show:
“So, which one is Timmeh — the fatty on the end?”
CLASSIC!
Friday 27 June 2008, 2:29 pm #EC
I just watched some of it at the website. Couldn’t watch all of it, it’s so flat and polite. Here’s my (un)balanced thoughts:
*I wanted to punch Alison (and her elderly father) in the head with her stupid question about the baby bonus and child abuse.
*The expat in Utah needs to PUT HIS COLLAR DOWN it does not look cool.
*Greg Hunt is super creepy, just hearing him say “the swinging sixties” made me feel dirty.
*Small mercy, Tony Jones said “the Iguana scandal” not Iguanagate.
*I wish I could believe that Bill Shorten’s rousing little speech about wanting to improve things for people with disabilities will actually mean anything.
*I thought Liz Ann Macgregor looked nice.
Friday 27 June 2008, 2:33 pm #Ant Rogenous
You’re spot-on with every single point there, EC! And the word that came to my mind whenever
MikeGreg Hunt spoke was “unctuous”.Friday 27 June 2008, 6:41 pm #Wah
You’re right EC, what was up Alison’s arse! The pompous bitch got way too much airtime with her “the working classes shouldn;t have children if they can’t afford them” line.
Timmeh, the cunt, was dying to agree with her, but he knew that of he did it would meant having a go at the Howard Government, so he spun shit - and was he chewing while he talked?
ABC, put Tony Jones back on Lateline four nights a week and get rid of this shit!
Friday 27 June 2008, 9:54 pm #Shane
Considering Tim Blair has a career as a public commentator (ie. journalist), I was quite surprised by his poor verbal communication skills. He was either babbling away at high speed, making childish one-liners while someone else was speaking, or fending off questions to someone else. As truly ordinary as the posts on his blog are, they shine in comparison to his efforts to express himself verbally…
Friday 27 June 2008, 10:15 pm #Bron
Spot on, Shane.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 9:59 am #Jeremy
Why are those idiots even there? I can understand the public getting a bit of a Question Time opportunity to interrogate their leaders, but the others… the sight of general members of the public asking Tim Blair and the other people questions on sharia law as if their views are more informed or important than their own was bizarre.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 12:13 pm #Bridgit Gread
Considering Tim Blair has a career as a public commentator (ie. journalist), I was quite surprised by his poor verbal communication skills.
I would suggest that most print journalists are clumsy and unconfident when it comes to the spoken word. Some of the Canberra press gallery are exceptions, as is Bolta, who is moderately articulate. It’s probably why there’s a fairly obvious demarcation and very little crossover between print and radio/TV.
I doubt we’ll be seeing Timbo grace our screens anytime in the near future.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 2:50 pm #albi
Blair and another wingnut whose name escapes me once had a show on radio national. It was truly the worst and dullest show (even by radio national standards) I’ve ever experienced. It was cancelled shortly after.
Saturday 28 June 2008, 3:18 pm #Ant Rogenous
Timmeh strikes me as someone who’d be quite the raconteur half-cut around a barbecue. But, clearly, fielding questions — sober and straight faced — from numbnuts like the baby-bonus woman on live television is a bridge too far.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, though — as Jeremy points out, Timmeh can’t speak with any authority whatsoever about the kind of topics that are likely to come up on a show like Q&A — he’s not an “expert” in any field (excluding Wisearseology and Neoconservative Apologenomics) and, as such, is an unwise choice for that kind of program.
Something just occured to me: since the ABC is a pernicious leftist organisation, maybe inviting Timmeh on was part of an eleborate conspiracy to make him look foolish.