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.

Regular GrodsCorp reader and occasional GrodsCommenter under a number of screen names, Timmeh Blair, is tonight appearing as a panelist on ABC TV’s woeful Q&A. To mark the occasion I’ll put aside my distaste for the program long enough to liveblog it on a slight delay. (I’ve currently got no access to internet and TV simultaneously.) But in preparation for tonight’s show I’d like to launch a double-barrelled GrodsChallenge — one challenge for GrodsReaders and one challenge for Timmeh Blair.

GrodsReader challenge
Here is the short bio that Timmeh wrote for the Q&A website. I have highlighted three sections that I challenge you to rewrite.

Tim Blair

Tim Blair is a columnist and blogger with The Daily Telegraph, Australia’s second best-selling newspaper. He describes his columns, which have previously appeared in The Bulletin, The Australian, The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, Time magazine and the Australian Financial Review, as [dealing calmly and rationally with the subject of climate change, on which Blair is a world-recognised non-expert.]
Blair recently celebrated World Environment Day by [driving from Sydney to Mackay, Queensland. Only 108 litres of fuel was consumed, a figure Blair himself describes as “pathetic”.]
Raised in Werribee, Victoria, Blair worked as a labourer for five years after dropping out of university. He began his journalism cadetship two decades ago at 23, working for the now-closed Truth newspaper in Melbourne.
Blair supports [the Collingwood Football Club]. He lives in Bondi Junction, Sydney.

Entries in comments. The best substitution will win a framed copy of Blair’s Law, autographed by the lawmaker himself.

Timmeh Blair challenge
Here’s a chance for Timmeh to make some cold, hard GrodsCash. I will personally send him a cheque for the following amounts if he says the following words on the telly tonight:

1) $20 if he says “GrodsCorp”.

2) $50 if he says “Fleshlight” in an obviously sexual context.

Thems the challenges, all. Who will rise to them?

9.36pm: Gratuitous shot of woman wearing burqa in audience.

9.36pm: Crowd gives self round of applause.

9.38pm: Oil price is a “hydra-headed monster”. Wha?

9.39pm: Crowd claps nervous man for saying word “solar”.

9.41pm: Slightly mangled cliche — “nail it on the head”.

9.42pm: Angry woman is angry about job losses in solar industry but probably doesn’t give a feck about jobs in the timber industry.

Special comment from Bron (via Gmail chat): Boring as batshit. Rudd needs to put bunny ears on or something.

9.48: Audience member wisely notes that prices of groceries, petrol etc. are things that government (of either persuasion) don’t have much influence on. Rudd simply says phrase “silver bullet” for third time.

9.49: Rudd and Tony Jones have fun making fun of Liberal leadership vacuum and struggle.

Special comment from Wah (via Gmail chat): Pretty brave of Rudd to appear on the first one without knowing how the show works.

9.50pm: Camera angle of audience member asking question has an awesome set of norks in background of shot.

9.52pm: “Rinky dink”. Is Rudd freakin’ serious?

9.53pm: Rudd on oil prices — “not invading Iraq would’ve helped.” BAM!

9.56pm: zzzzzzzzzz.

9.57pm: If nothing else, Rudd seems extremely across the details of a large range of policy areas.

9.58pm: Viewer email — “I’m a disabled pensioner with [insert list of terrible circumstances here]. What can you do for me?” And that got me thinking about where the bonus for inner city latte-sipping DINKS was.

9.59pm: Audience applauds Rudd’s reminder that Howard was evil.

10.01pm: Audience member — “My wife and I have a combined income of about $100,000 and want to have a baby. What should we do?” How about thinking for yourself and stop looking for government payments to reward your personal decisions?

10.03pm: Rudd has got a few big laughs from the crowd now and is clearly gunning for more.

The Editor notes: Thank God I’ve got this glass of Bushmills 10yo to get me through this.

10.05pm: Viewer email — “What’s your personal view on gay marriage?” Audience explodes into applause. Obviously a bunch of rabid RWDBs indicating terrible ABC bias in audience selection.

10.06pm: Rudd tries to argue that his personal views are not relevant and clearly the audience doesn’t agree.

10.07pm: Ack! Teh gays are everywhere in the audience!

10.08pm: This audience clapping at the slightest provocation is pissing me off.

Special comment from Wah (via Gmail chat): Pass on my extreme anger at the clapping. Oh, and another mincer!

10.10pm: Tony Jones — “What would Dietrich Bonhoeffer think of Christmas Island?” Krudd — “He’s dead.” Pwned.

10.12pm: Asylum seeker in audience… *applause*… “I am an asylum…” *applause*… “…seeker…” *applause*… “…and I came to…” *applause*…

10.13pm: Question — “Should Australia have a bill of righ…” *applause*

10.15pm: Krudd the comedian — “When’s the ad break?” Stop the jokes now, Kev.

10.16pm: Question — “Do you plan to repeal any Howard government legislation in relation to the NT interven…” *applause*

Special comment from Wah (via Gmail chat): I can’t believe how long it takes to get the microphone to people. I’ve been to special council meetings better organised.

10.18pm: The audience is a sea of minorities. Where are the working families? Won’t somebody think of middle Australia?!?!11??!/?

10.19pm: Question — “Why was Mal Brough (pronounced incorrectly) left off indigenous housing war council?” Rudd rightly tells her to flock off.

10.23pm: SMS question — “If Australia must work smarter to survive why did government cut CSIRO budget?” Rudd idiotically tries to justify cut by obliquely referring to other budget boosts. Hints there may be raises in funding in future.

Special comment from Wah (via Gmail chat): That CSIRO question deserved applause.

10.25pm: Rudd learned Mandarin because he felt like it and he grew up on a farm and he slept in the back of a car and…

The Editor’s prediction of next question: What’s your favourite colour?

10.27pm: Question — “How will you prevent bad decisions…” Damn.

10.28pm: Rudd knows he’s done well. He’s looking comfortable in his chair with an arm casually over the back.

10.29pm: Rudd’s vision for the future: “How do we make Australia into the best educated, skilled, trained economy in the world?” Education revolution!

10.30pm: Rudd — *stabs thumb over shoulder* “Make sure that nobody’s left behind.” Spew.

10.31pm: “Video mash” finale with another (!) Hugh Atkin Rudd propaganda video.

10.32pm: All over. Blech, that was underwhelming.