Bewail the fate of Gillard, J.,
Who looked a prat on Australia Day,
Nose down, bum up, dragged by headshaven hoons,
Pursued by blacks, or octoroons,
On the first day, it seemed, of the Aboriginal Spring –
When freedom called, and hope took wing –
To a getaway car she shared with Tony.
They chuckled, and mocked the surrounding baloney,
They cuddled, they flirted, they had a nice ride,
They talked of old times, they held hands and sighed
As they parted; and then, oh shit, young Hodges,
Auteur of the backroom’s dirtier dodges,
‘Fessed up, named names, and copped the sack,
Took his cardboard box with him, and never came back,
Having sobbed of how he had set up Tony,
A worse man, he’d sworn, than Berlusconi,
Who wanted to banish the first Australians
As we would Afghans, or other aliens.
Those lesser breeds without the Law
He would treat like dirt, he would give what for,
Thus fomenting affray, nay, revolution,
And Hansonite cries of the Final Solution.
And all this was said, with no here’s-the-rubs,
Of a man who’d feasted on witchetty grubs.
And the sun came down on Australia Day.
She looked for comforts, and where were they?
Across the world headlines, dragged by the nose,
Marie Antoinette in her final pose,
She was gone for all money, and suddenly too.
The tumbrils had gathered, helas, adieu.
The old knitting women were counting the thunks,
The ancien regime were queued up in blue funks,
And her turn was coming. Her hair roots grew pale.
She looked in the mirror. More lipstick. Wassail.
Name:
Very amusing Bob. I like it.
PS If only you could direct your talents in a useful direction.
(Sighs)
I want Beazley back, and you don’t.
Just say why you were right.
Do it now.
Have you asked him? He may give the same response as Shorten.
r
So there are two politicians who don’t want to be PM, are there?
You really believe that, do you?
What planet are you on?
What? A big, big smile and ‘no’?
I’m sure he would.
A politician who doesn’t want to be PM?
Name him.
I would like to be PM too, but along with Shorten, Beazley Combet and a few hundred others we realise that we can’t all be PM at once and that Julia Gillard is doing a fine job in difficult circumstances.
Or perhaps you disagree.
Bill Hayden, Page 21-22
“The Things We Did Last Summer” An Election Journal, by Bob Ellis
Fontana/Collins 1983
This was after his little daughter was killed. He eventually regained his ambition.
You really hate her, don’t you. Is it because she is a woman?
I don’t know about Bob, but there seems to have been a widespread strong element of what Miriam Margolyes said re Charles Dickens: “(he) didn’t respect women he didn’t fancy, And it’s a common male trait.”
Compare the vituperation towards Julia to the tolerance towards the cute Kenneally.
I have written in eloquent praise of about a thousand women, including Thatcher, the Queen, Glenda Jackson, Stott-Despoja, Carmen Lawrence, Margaret Scott, Miriam Margoyles, Anna Lindh, Segolene Royal, Cheryl Kernot, Verity Firth, Maxine McKew, Jackie Weaver, not all of them good lookers, and you have libelled me and I ask you to apologize and withdraw and do it now, or you are off this page for good. Both of you.
Now.
You have one day.
Good evening.
I was part joking but forget it, I’m out of here. I just wish JG Cole would start a blog.
And allthumbs, remember. You have to want to believe.
You have twenty-two hours.
There are no part jokes.
Reader1 I feel as if I have just been dumped/abandoned/orphaned.
Fuck you.
Apologize.
Lunch, next week, in Melbourne, is off.
Really? Because I said that I don’t know how you feel?
Really.
I haven’t read a post on this blog in which you referred to Kenneally, so my comment obviously didn’t refer to you … apart from my intro, which again obviously excluded you from it.
Fuck you. Apologise.
I hate Keneally. She overthrew a great man, Rees, who gave me money.
Fuck you.
Twenty-one and a half hours.
It’s spelt ‘Keneally’.
Fuck you.
You hate Kenneally. Ok, so the post obviously didn’t refer to you, just as I said.
What am I supposed to be apologising for?
Twenty hours.
Try me.
Following up on your prediction of “The Aboriginal Spring”, I’d be interested to know what your thoughts are on the Northern Territory Intervention, Bob?
I was, and am, against it.
As I was against the alteration by Communist China of Tibet.
I agree. End the intervention now.
Bob/DQ, What if it was to protect indigenous children, targeted at the particular instead of the general and was pleaded as a matter of urgency by Noel Pearson?
I have long ago misplaced the courage of my convictions and envy those that have maintained their own.
Just asking.
Apologize.
You have twenty hours.
Could you possibly convince Jenny Macklin to reverse her support for it then
?
Well I liked your poem Bob and laughed in all the right places.
The first stanza is as good or better than “Advance Australia Fair” and should be set to a rollicking tune and sung in all government funded Australian schools.
I was shocked to see you not employed by The Global Mail as you would be an asset to that organization. They do have an Eric Ellis on staff. I wonder if he might be related?
This trial is going to make it onto Today Tonight, I can see it now. We may be needing your forensic expertise, Doug.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Our trial. It’s on. It’s going to be huge.
It is time for the student to become the sensei but I leave you with some parting advice. There is a cantankerous, gnome-like character guarding the treacherous rope bridge across the chasm. Answer his questions three and he will allow you to pass. By now you will have come to the Land of Preponderance. Look for the golden key hidden at the foot of the gnarled oak that you will see somewhere to your left. This is your enchanted talisman for all the perils that surely await you during this highly tentative stage in your conspiratorial journey.
The three answers are:
1. Yes
2. No
3. You are deeply insane.
I bid you well, young buttercup.
That was to Allthumbs, I forgot to do it as reply. Ruins the effect a bit.
Anyone reading my posts can see that there was no hint of a slight or malice towards you. No suggestion of malice. No intention of malice.
In fact you were specifically excluded.
I don’t think that you have done yourself proud here, Bob.
It makes an interesting contrast to the measured response that you gave to Terrance Propp on 1/1/12., in which you asked him to retract his comment that “your hatred of women and jealousy of other people is transparent.”
As for the “fuck you”s: a rather dated insult now, and always a silly one.
Okay, that’s fine. You won’t be printed for a week.
Find another nom de plume.
Commentators on the media write often of the problems facing the media. What I have not read from them is the problems facing commentators. Perhaps they do not recognise them.
There are possibly hundreds of thousands of blogs out there: I read a few, mostly of people among the general public: not “names”.
What stands out is the high quality of insight and writing on them. As their voice gets louder and more affirmed, the voice of the commentator, and his role, will fade. A journalistic Spring, as it were, is in progress.
I won’t be published here in a week or ever, Bob. And, I certainly wouldn’t change my name to suit you or anyone else: how could you seriously suggest it?
I’m interested that you felt so threatened/offended/whatever/ evidently, by an innocuous post from an (older than you) rural woman: it rather makes my point.
You have very few contributors here. I would hang on to them, if I were you.
As for newer insults: try “ankles”, for one. Get it? Lower than a cunt.
Yeah, well. You said I forgive pretty women and go in hard on ugly ones. As it happens, it’s one of the worst things you could say about me. I championed Carmen Lawrence because she wasn’t pretty. I cast Michele Fawdon because she wasn’t pretty. I regard what you accuse me of as a kind of racism.
You can continue to write in if you want to and I’ll publish you.
But don’t call me a monster inaccurately.
I’m not sure Carmen Lawrence or the other one would be feeling all that flattered right about now. Surely you can come up with a better reason to champion a person than that. Has either of them written a self indulgent autobiography?
a hit, a palpable hit, Reader1!
Michele Fawdon is dead. Carmen Lawrence, the most gifted politician in fifty years, was mocked and lampooned by Howard over a trumped-up court case that for seven years alleged she had something to do with Panny Easton’s death … no, it’s too complicated. Suffice it to say that if she had been a dish like Kate Ellis t would never have been brought on.
It’s a lie anyway to say I favour gorgeous women. Apologize for that, please.
Regarding Ms Lawrence, I concur about her talents and ability.
She resigned as a Shadow Minister over Labor’s refugee policy – a policy which has changed little in 10 years.
I recall an interview with Mark Colvin in December 2002, when Ms Lawrence was critical of both Crean and Beazley (her ally and supporter) for their stance on Iraq and asylum seekers.
She was a woman of integrity and worth and potentially a fine prime minister.
Sadly, Labor learnt little and when Beazley replaced Crean, then Latham, Rudd and Gillard, their asylum seeker policy remained unchanged.
I always hoped she would be our first female PM.
I don’t see how anyone can support a Party that lets a man like Kim Beazley go; only to inflict a Kevin Rudd and a Julia Gillard on the country?
I’d welcome Kim Beazley’s return.
This internet fighting is weird.
Or is it all contrived?
If the coarse comments are coming from old men, consider the awful, and not far-off, possibility of life in an aged-care institution; old men need all the charm they can muster, as well as the good manners they might’ve had once. Start practising restraint. Time’s awasting.
Nurses don’t take kindly to obscenities.
And nurses have the power, in aged-care institutions.
Nice of you to say I’m senile without having met me, and then to lecture me on my manners, and my need for a nurse.
Do you have any idea how offensive that is? How ill-mannered?
You pretend you were called senile.
You pretend you were offended.
You’re saying senility is a disgraceful condition.
What you will, as you please
No I didn’t.
I specifically excluded you.
Go to buggery.
So Gillard told you to “save your breath” over Bakhtiyari.
It was good advice; flippant and not touchy-feely left stuff, but what did you expect from such a tough minded woman?
Please answer this.
No, she said, ‘Save your money’. The difference is large. It meant they weren’t worth saving. And my money would be better spent.
Tough-minded is it? Sending back Hazara children, including a baby, to discuss their future with the Taliban?
You’re right, I expected better of her. It was 2003. I know her better now.
Read my piece on the funeral of the drowned.
You think she did well that week, do you?
Please answer this.
Save your money, too. Good advice : the Liberal Government would never bend over this one. Gillard apparently knew it and you had to learn the hard way.
She gives you good advice, and she is worst in the world for doing it.
Phooey.