As an occasional speechwriter for the Governor-General I thought I might be welcome in the ABC last night but I was thrown out of the Green Room by a man afeared I might ‘harass’ Joe Hockey after Q&A, which I myself once starred in, though I got on well with Joe the one time I met him, and wrote of him fondly in three books and five columns.
What is going on here? Why am I so abhorred? The Drum Unleashed no longer prints my pieces though I always get more responses to them than anyone but Paul Keating, and I don’t get invited on The Drum any more let alone Q&A which I thought I did well on. I wouldn’t normally raise this, it bespeaks a sense of entitlement that I, a prizewinning columnist, screenwriter, playwright, miniseries writer, feature film and documentary writer and essayist, occasional poet, comic novelist, actor and mob orator of some note, Gore Vidal, Gough Whitlam, Bob Carr and John Ralston Saul among my admirers, am perhaps less entitled to than is Gerard Henderson the world genius, but in this, my eighth decade after my seven sackings by the ABC and my two throwings-out I begin to wonder if I should persist in being nice about it, calling it, as I always do, ‘Our spare university.’
It may go back to my campaign in 1998 to prevent Phillip Adams being fired and the ABC being privatised when Gerard Henderson and John Howard wanted that, or to the ruckus when Sandra Levy didn’t want to do The True Believers and John Button made her, or when I outed Tony Jones as a Liberal, but I feel in a way foreshortened, and unjustly so, given Newsfront, King O’Malley, Goodbye Paradise, Fatty Finn, The Nostradamus Kid, Goodbye Jerusalem, Night Thoughts In Time Of War, A Local Man, The Word Before Shakespeare, Shakespeare In Italy and my reputation as a lively essayist on film and theatre sometimes, not always, as good as Tynan and Anthony Lane. A better explanation than mine might be in order.
Earlier in the night I befriended Bob Katter and we agreed to have a dialogue at Gleebooks on the economy and this may have given me ideas above my station which the good Lord may have punished by my fraught evicter saying ‘I don’t need this. I have a show to get on’ and leading me to the lift.
I’m sorry for shouting at him and Rhys but I am old, infirm, unthanked and seventy.
And so it went.
Name:
Tony Jones a Liberal? Hah! Does the ABC have any conservative journalists in their ranks? Name one. I do remember when you called Sky News journalist David Speers a “liberal tapeworm.”
I did like that a bit I secretly must admit.
Of course he is. Others include Fran Kelly and Ticky Fullerton, and whoever writes the ABC radio news. Other suggestions, readers?
A campaign to stop P Adams being fired – I choose that one! What better reason.
Could it be true!? he used “impertinent” in his Moan Unleashed?
B E, definitely, deservedly should get more responses than
P Keating – the fondly foolish flock, forelocking and fluttering.
We wouldbe Royals.
Moaning or not,Keating is fine, and there’s plenty to “moan” about, especially about Uhlmann…
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
Have I not suffer’d things to be forgiven?
Have I not had my brain sear’d, my heart riven,
Hopes sapp’d, name blighted, Life’s life lied away?
And only not to desperation driven,
Because not altogether of such clay
As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.
But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire
And my frame perish even in conquering pain;
But there is that within me which shall tire
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;
Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
Like the remember’d tone of a mute lyre,
Shall on their soften’d spirits sink, and move
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.
Courage Bob.
Oh no Another grim verse for The Old.
No title?
‘Poor poor pitiful me”?
If sacrifice trumps courage, he could be in trouble
Staying around Sydney too long
turned him effete
I liked all the poems. What have you ever written?
You liked all the Poems for the Old?
This is not news to me, Old 1
Relate
Enjoy
And, On the Subject of Staying Around.
“Other Options” comment – Lead Balloon with H. on it.
Les Murray had something to say about ‘other options’.
Wishing a speedy journey in a sturdy hot air balloon, all the way to the southern ocean, to Other Optioners.
Enjoy
Good idea, Bob hawk the CV around before your meal ticket gets hurled from office. Unfortunately you need to get it in front of a wider audience than the three or four sycophants that frequent this particular intertubesblogocity. I don’t think they’re hiring.
Absolute gold, Simon. In all the time I have read any derogatory concerning Ellis, I have never ever, not once, seen such originality of tone or sentiment. Gold I say Simon, absolute 24 carat fucking gold. “hawk the CV round” fatally wounding rolled gold stuff Simon, brilliant!
You are a fool Simon. Many read Bob’s blog who don’t feel the need to comment. I know other girls who read regularly, and enjoy the comments too.
Make that five.
Touche, well done!Rapier I say, just simply rapier.
Something to do with your view on our current PM perhaps?
And yet Judith Sloan gets to offend every Australian capable of critical thought without being clamped in irons and taken to Belmore Park for a spell in the stocks.
She is a nasty piece of work, and should have been dealt with according by Aunty.
I like to know my 8 cents a day is being spent in a worthwhile manner.
Agree, James,a loud rude woman, couldn’t ABC give her spot to, say, Bob…
Both on Unleashed And on Q$A
I like Aunty and the whole crowd there but I do think there is some opportunism, politics and hiding in amongst the must be uprighteous and innocent neutral tones.
Murdock would be proud of many of the tones and story headline lead in’s that many take in as they browse the sight and not read.
There seems to be an invisible God there no one’s supposed to offend.
Well how does it feel to be a majority Australian Bob? We’ve all been given the door out of this country to tunes of the star strangled banner. There must be a line in the sand somewhere and a tune we all want to dance to, maybe it’s the insidious no choice privatising of Aunty. Forced and sneaking in like an Elephant in the room with tap shoes on.
How does it feel?? – The man is infirm. He said so.
And a new photo went up.
Dance to the song in “The Deep Blue Sea”.
No photo’s please. Doesn’t viagra fix it?
I swear I didn’t realise!
– thought ‘infirm’ as in unwell/weak/frail.
How embarrassing! Sorry.
pills? …. no, I’m thinking Caverject.
And what have you ever done?
Speaking professionally -
You’re seeking advice?
(for a friend – of course)
Instructions?
Painless?
Nope
Blunt needles
Suffer!
Stick it up your arse. Sideways.