Recent discovery. Jottings of a leaver who chose Allen Park instead of Rotto. (And Allen Park would be better than Dunsborough, which was a toilet BEFORE the toolies arrived). Person X.
Decided to forget Rotto and Dunsborough and party at Allen Park.
7:30am. Set up tent Allen Park.
7:35. Look for drunken sluts. None spied. Not even MLC girls, who frankly could make the 20 minute journey in Dad’s RRover.
8am. Still no sluts. Read Paul Murray’s column from discarded West. Who the fuck is Idi Amin? Possibly connected to Kevin Rudd. Kept copy of column in pocket so I can ask the cunt if I see him.
8:30 am. Slut shortage really starting to bite.
8:32 am. Lumbering slob appears with dog, smelling of old farts, stale chardonnay and BO. Dog’s hygiene even worse. Consider fucking dog and slob. Put off by smell. Ask for cash to buy piss. Get lecture on multanovas.
9am some sluts from St Hildas finally turned up, but I had been put off by Murray and his dog. Still fucked ’em, but you know, was still put off.
TBC.
The Worst of Perth 
I Paul Nurry at first blush am shocked at the outset of not getting a Walkley. At first blush I suspect a conspiracy, because let me say at the outset that the words “A quiet day in Allen Park…” strike fear into the journalistic establishment. In fact I am also thinking of submitting my “I don’t hate gays, but what’s the deal with poofters?” piece for a pulitzer, and bypassing the local provincial predjudices.
Now to the fillum Australia. Several Paul Nurry imitators (What are there six of the new bastards now?) have at first blush criticised my film reviewing skills. At first blush cobblers. As I was walking my little doggie around Allen Park, I ruminated on Baz Luhrman’s movie, my ruminations made a lot simpler by not having watched the movie. At first blush Australia Mis en scened, it montaged, and to borrow a phrase from Idi Amin, “It was Noir, Noir, Noir all the way.
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By the way, that cunt Cohen never got a Walkley either. And while I’m on the subject, I don’t hate Jews, but why do they insist on parading with their arses hanging out of their hotpants? If they wanted to be part of our society, they wouldn’t be wearing those moustaches and rooting blokes up the arse. I’m not jewophoboc, but Idi Amin had the right idea…wait, am I thinking of Indians?
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I think it was a boozy afternoon somewhere in Perth.
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As the only person in history to have noticed that the partitioning of India and Pakistan has resulted in a lot of bloodshed over the years, I of course predicted the terrible tragedy in Mumbai last week. When I visited Mumbai I saw at a glance that a building had been bombed there before, and I remembered reading about some more atrocities in India committed probably by extremist militants in recent decades. So I alone knew that India may appear to be a safe and comfortable tourist destination, but it is in fact not, a fact which people travelling there probably overlook. But not me.
I forgot to alert the authorities to the impending terrorist attacks which I’d predicted though, as I was too busy having a quiet week in Allen Park – or so it seemed.
I don’t know a whole lot about what happened apart from it filled me with rage. And the new uncertainties of the twentieth century mean, similarly, that I am not sure what the point of my column was this morning – terrorism is bad? The loss of life through violence is senseless? Hm, so many startling facts to point out to the world, so few column inches.
I pondered. My dog needed to go for a walk in Allen Park and the deadline was near, and I’d been bashing away at the keyboard for a full 10 minutes, so eventually I just decided to quote the full text of a letter published in some other newspaper by some backpacker who had some point to make about the shootings that I don’t agree with. He probably wasn’t carrying a copy of one of my columns in his bumbag, which is why he doesn’t understand the partitioning issue as well as I do.
In closing I must point out that the US is now retrospectively vindicated for imprisoning David Hicks without trial in a hellhole for years, and I hope they fucking tortured the crap out of him, because he was in Pakistan 10 years ago, and they did the terrorism last week. So what does his cheer squad have to say about that?
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I don’t even remember writing this post. At first blush I may have been drunk. I have the deepest respect for St Hilda and MLC leavers.
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it’s the posh stuck-up girls that turn out to be the dirtiest once they get drunk and remove the pole from their arses.
sorry, did I just morph into Vic there?
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Still don’t remember writing this. There’s no fucking punch line. There’s no picture. What’s the deal with this post?
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Pakistan and India Phfft ! Mibble , mibble , mibble .Anyways coming more back to the point , with missing out on the Walkleys and that cunt Paul Armstrong morale here at the Worst is hitting rock bottom. When I was editor everybody would go up to the pub and help me out with my column and there would be general good cheer. There’d be Armstrong collapsed spewing in the corner with that nig-nog two pot screamer and Abba hating movie reviewer Needsglasses. Armstrong would be that legless he wouldn’t be able to call his mummy to come and pick him up. THose were the days. ALso I haven’t told you I was appointed heterosexual advisor on “Australia” . That how come the love scenes between “Our Nic” and Hugh whatever are so life like. Despite Baz having worked with “Our Nic” before he was beside himself with puzzlement. He was all ” girls have a what ?” and ” how is it done , then ?”. It took my experienced hand to lead him through the valley of darkness. Now talking about the Valley of Darkness why is isn’t there more public art in Allen Park. There could be a sculpture of important public figures like me and me little dog for starters. Well that’s enough crap from me for this week (me 2 grand is on the meter)see youse all next week. Fire it up you bitch Gracey.
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Limpwrists days are numbered if this is anything to go by.
http://business.watoday.com.au/business/wan-chairman-ceo-resign-20081203-6qf7.html
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Yep, and now Ken Steinke – aka Mr Stinky – has also fallen on his sword.
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From WAToady:
The resignation of the three directors and the ousting of chief executive Ken Steinke has left West Australian editor Paul Armstrong in a perilous position, with media watchers saying yesterday that he was on borrowed time.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he had the (resignation) letter written already,” one analyst said.
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“…….“I wouldn’t be surprised if he had the (resignation) letter written already,” one analyst said.”
The Bastard (or is that ‘Old Cunt’) is so self contradictory that he’d probably end his letter asking to be promoted to Board Chairman (Chairperson?).
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The West actually ran the story this morning, which made me wonder if there is an A/Ed.
Mind you the rest of it was the usual shit, although I have to say I enjoy following the career of Troy Mercanti.
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And what’s the bet they will ask Paul of the Nurries to take on the role of the “White Night” to bring the paper back to it’s glory days.
Be afraid, VERY afraid.
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From Crikey:
Editor Paul Armstrong suddenly looks limp-wristed following yesterday’s announcement that WA Newspapers CEO, the board chairman and two other directors were resigning.
(they are stealing my lines! first Bashing the Bishop, now Limpwrist. I demand royalties.)
In his bid earlier this year to turf out WAN’s directors, Kerry Stokes made plain his disdain for both the editor and the performance of the group’s leading masthead, The West Australian . There’s no doubt this is a significant victory for Stokes and his supporters.
But Armstrong’s likely demise will be greeted with mixed reaction. Those rusted-on readers of The West have supported the feisty, stick-it-up-your jumper approach of the combative editor when confronted with criticism of his paper.
And there’s much to admire about the way in which Armstrong has pursued a strong, independent line of journalism and the public support of his journalists when they are under attack, especially from politicians and the courts.
However, the editorial excesses in which the editor had a direct and overpowering influence has caused considerable angst within the broader industry and informed community.
Perhaps the most obvious manifestations of this were the multiple adverse judgments against the newspaper by the The Australian Press Council. As with all criticism, Armstrong simply regarded this as unwanted and unjustified interference in his running of the newspaper.
But the APC adverse judgements were accompanied by much more serious criticism of the editorial standards of the newspaper.
In an article commissioned, but not published, by The Bulletin before its demise, more than two dozen sources across journalism, politics, and academia told me of their concerns over the decline of The West .
The most strident criticism came from Labor Attorney-General and Health Minister Jim McGinty, who, both in and outside parliament, accused the editor of corrupting the ethics of young journalists.
While McGinty was a frequent target of editorial attacks, politicians from other parties were also highly critical of Armstrong.
In a guest lecture to journalism students at Curtin University, McGinty warned students to be prepared to be corrupted should they get a job at the newspaper.
Former premier Alan Carpenter, who was a prominent journalist before entering politics, was also an outspoken critic of the editorial standards of The West .
One prominent newspaper editor said the major problem was that a reader could no longer be satisfied that what was published was true, given the editorial slant that accompanied many stories.
Other sources said the editor should be sacked for bringing the newspaper into disrepute. And this, combined with a continuing decline in circulation in a monopoly market, is likely to prompt Stokes to act sooner rather than later.
In many circles the newspaper has become a laughing stock. You come across people all the time in business, professional and social circles who say they no longer buy the newspaper because they can’t stand it.
It will take a gifted editor backed by a media-savvy board and CEO to restore The West ’s trashed reputation.
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Amen.
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Dear me, skink. If you must reproduce the whole thing, can you also include author Lawrence Apps’ name?
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Alan Oakley’s just resigned from SMH. He’d be just gagging for a gig like this.
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Lawrence Apps?? He was my tutor all those years ago (back when Grok was readable, too), before the great Curtin purge. I was wondering where he’d gone.
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The same SMH that actually used the sentence “The Federal Government is attempting to silence critics of its controversial plan to censor the internet, which experts say will break the internet while doing little to stop people from accessing illegal material such as child pornography.”?
Break the internet?
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Bento, et tu Brute? Laurie Apps is allegedly alive and well in Fremantle. However, my recollection of it is that Grok was never really that readable, just a bit of a shitstir for some insiders.
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I thought everyone at Crikey was anonymous and unattributable, guerilla-stye.
Now I discover they are just parochial hacks that can’t find work on a real paper, carping from the sidelines, but still want full accredidation or else they will sick their union rep on you.
the illusion is shattered
the revolution will not be blogged
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I pulled the pin on Crikey a year ago when it be came obvious to me that Steven Mayne’s original intention to create a news source that got beneath the surface and exposed he seamy sides of business, religion and politics had been well and truly compromised by gutless editors and ‘journalists’.
Investigative journalism is dead.
DEAD, I tell you.
(Though, perhaps, the SBS and the ABC provide a glimmer of hope at times.)
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“bit of a shitstir for some insiders.” Arrrrgh ! , a moment of self awareness , fortunately it passes. Is ” Battleship Potemkin” having a re-run in Freo ?
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Dear P Nurry
It is not unusual for film reviewer Mark Naglazas and me to disagree about movies, sometimes in these pages.
Although Naglazas actually studied film theory, I believe intellectual follies like going to university are a complete waste of time – particularly when it comes to the arts.
There is no substituite for being the editor of a state newspaper when it comes to being an expert on films and all things cinematic – even if the stint did end in something of a crash and burn.
I mean really, why bother going to film school? What life skills would you develop by learning how to load 16mm film into a Arriflex? And why bother with knowing how how to run a Nagra? Are these skills as useful as being able to crap on and on about something you don’t really know that much about? I don’t think so.
And lighting – who needs it? What use is knowing what colour gel to put on a light when you are shooting outdoors in 5600 degree (kelvin) light while trying to make the subject look warm?. That might be okay for the arty farty types who have no life skills, but for me it’s a complete waste of life. And as for filters, well don’t get me started….
And then we have that endless parade of wank known as alternative cinema. Alternative? Alternative to what – good, old fashioned common sense? How anyone can sit through some of that twaddle is beyond me.
So Bergman directed The Seventh Seal? Big fucking deal. His tax problems were far more entertaining. Was Pasolini murdered? Maybe, but who cares? Afterall, he was just a Marxist poof anyway (which I have nothing against, but it is important to let you all know that poofery is something I can also take a stand on and a subject on which I can write copius centimetres of copy). As for David Lynch, forget it. If being a former newspaper editor has taught me anything it’s that narrative should not be inverted in anyway – stories are much better when the opinionated blather travels in a linear direction (and out the arse). It’s also better when it is aimed at appealing to the lowest common denominator rather than that fucking know-it-all art crowd.
Which brings me back to that intellectual prick Naglazas and his review of Baz Lurhman’s Australia.
Unlike that former fucking Aquinas jock (oh how we hated his type at Guilford), I thought the pic was complete shite.
Some of the cliches in the prose are cringe-making and there are enough repetive cattle stampedes to make you call in the RSPCA.
And I just wish Baz would get over those movies of his youth and attempt something less derivative (like, say, a musical staring Meryl Streep with ABBA on the soundtrack).
And being an expert on war (like the time I proclaimed the US won World War II, when in fact had I bothered going to a library like 4 eyes Naglazas I would have found out that it was the Russians that took out Hitler and Berlin, not the Yanks), I am able to say unequivocally that the depiction of the bombing of Darwin was wrong.
So fuck Nagalzas’ Nancy review. My bitterer, less informed take is much better. And in slamming this turkey, I’m not saying anything new, which means that I’m at least being consistent, unlike that wop Naglazas (whoops, better take that back – might upset Gracie who, luckily, is not gay) who tries to impress us with his film degree and those fancy film terms he uses while disecting those horrible art movies.
The uncomfortable bottom line to Baz Luhrmann’s film is that while the vision is often splendid, the story is a dud.
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“Break the internet?”
Indeed, but the “experts” got it wrong. As pointed out in The IT Crowd, you can only break the internet by trying to search for “Google” in Google.
Another good reason for Oakley to throw his hat in the ring.
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Dear P Nurry
The sentencing debate in WA is a never-ending merry-go-round ride that no one enjoys.
And when I talk about sentencing I mean my sentencing – that is, the sentences I put together when I fart out my expert commentaries.
To be honest, most of my sentences are not really mine. Take, for instance, my great story on sentencing on Tuesday when I manage to knock off a few centimetres of column space by almost totally repoducing a letter to the editor that was run in one of last week’s rags.
It was a stroke of genius – usually I go to the ABC radio transcripts to get my sentences. Now, as I’ve gotten older and my walks around Allen Park are becoming slower (and my little doggie is getting fatter from all that sausage meat Gracie is feeding him), I’ve realised that’s its all fair game. I can now get my sentences from anywhere.
Never has it been so easy to fill up half a page of newspaper with absolute waffle made up of other peoples’ sentences – all of them linked by my self opinionated sense of indignation as I take on the world using other peoples’ words.
Do I need to phone anyone? Of course not – not if they’ve been interviewed on the TV the night before and I’ve managed to tape them.
Do I need facts to back up my expert observations? Don’t be silly – I can now lift from letters to the editor, especially if they sound particularly fact-driven and authorative. And if that fails, I can always lift from that book I own about the sinking of the Sydney. It’s got some nifty sentences in it that are easy to repeat.
Of course some would say that there has been community outrage over lenient sentencing, and I agree. If I don’t have at least 65% of my column made up of somebody else’s sentences, then I am being far too lenient, and that’s just not good enough.
As I said in a sentence which I probably took from somewhere else: The true benchmark for appropriate sentences has to be the community standard. How true. When I was the editor I knew all about the community standard – and I pissed all over it. Then, when I started writing my own long winded crap, I also managed to piss all over not just the community standard, but journalism in general. After all, I may be good at stealing other people’s sentences, but that doesn’t mean I string them together in any meaningful way, even if I am an expert on everything.
Some are now saying that the new Barnett government may change the truth in sentencing provisions and end the one third reduction farce.
I agree – given I am paid by the word, if I was made to cut my sentencing by one third, I’d be out of pocket, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?
The merry-go-round that doubles as a house of horrors (for Perth’s poor readers who are continually subjected to this kind of “journlistic” swill – ed) will doubtless continue.
Oh by the way Paul, that’ll be $2000 please – I just hope you’re around long enough to sign the cheque.
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The insolence. How dare My Ning release his opprobrium on my sagacity. It was not dissimilar to being lambasted with a leaf of limp lettuce. Or a limp leak. Or whatever that Pommy lefty said about Sir Geoffrey Howe – I’m too lax to look it up.
Only a fool wouldn’t connect the decline of literacy, lawlessness on our streets, the piss-poor quality of Australian fillums and too many gays holding hands in public to the fact that I am not Prime Minister.
Wherever and whenever I move in society there is justifiable outrage that my writings aren’t on school syllabi and adopted as policy everywhere.
Frankly, it’s a horror show wrapped in a merry-go-round under a deadly dogem car ride that has become all too real. Parliament fiddles while Rowe turns.
That has yet to be satisfactorily explained. It was open to the Premier to launch an investigation into why our students are being force-fed drivel, but that option was not taken.
The imperfections in this case are in dire need of remedies. After I consulted myself, we both agreed the situation was dire – and getting direr.
We need to know why.
Why oh why?
Our politicians should hang their heads in shame that they have allowed this travesty to continue for so long.
An open review of why I haven’t won the Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize and the Tin Bum of Rangoon is desperately needed for the wellbeing of this state, my state and my prostate.
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And I at first blush lambast at the outset both of you cunts. I am the REAL at first blush Paul Murray imitator. As I, at the outset read both of your offerings, I at first blush do not see one use of the phrase at first blush. It will be a quiet day in Allen park before a paul Murray imitator at first blush doesn’t use the term at first blush. And at the outset let me say also that why wasn’t it noted that Murray was sighted at the recent uranium council talks. Also at first blush why didn’t some cunt take the cunt’s photo at first blush. Let me just at the outset randomly cut and paste from the previous items.
“As I said in a sentence which I probably took from somewhere else: The true benchmark for appropriate sentences has to be the community standard. How true. When I was the editor I knew all about the community standard – and I pissed all over it. Then, when I started writing my own long winded crap, I also managed to piss all over not just the community standard, but journalism in general. After all, I may be good at stealing other people’s sentences, but that doesn’t mean I string them together in any meaningful way, even if I am an expert on everything.”
And…
“Only a fool wouldn’t connect the decline of literacy, lawlessness on our streets, the piss-poor quality of Australian fillums and too many gays holding hands in public to the fact that I am not Prime Minister.”
Now THAT’s at first blush how you amateurs with at the outset arses hanging out of your hotpants imitate a Paul Murray imitator.
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Motto of the day : who gives a rats along as the meter is ticking. 5000 words marching along , singing a song , all with one sentence paragraphs. I’d say in my day I could do more MLC girls than the lot of you pussies put together. In fact I was the champion MLC girl do-er of my day, and my record is unbeaten to this day and as I said to Muttsie the other day with no performance enhancing drugs .
Anyways moving right along I told Stokesie and Bob Crony down at the Weld club that after they have got rid of that Armstrong shit they install me back in the chair to get morale back up. Stokesie and Co being such simpletons, bought it hook line and sinker. I’m lining up this new board for a big payout shortly after I become editor again : coupla mill’l do and then I’m freakin out of here. Down to the farm where I’ll supervise nig-nogs on 457 visas. I’ve had enough of these newspaper cunts : useful but still cunts.
At the Weld Barney was asleep on the club sofa with a club port as usual. You can get pretty pissed quite cheap here. Stokesies was pissing in Cols ear giving him the full frottage he calls it ,and as he also says in his sorta dyslexic George Bush way , subliminalimina bull. I thought it’s more necrophilia, but Stokesie hopes to get projects he wants up and running this way.Col is more cunning ; he’s given up the big project shemozzles and is running submarine style quiet. He just pretends to be the hypnotised chook.
Anyways it all ended friendly with Col finally waking up and everybody joining in a rousing chorus of ” Eff em all , eff em all , the long and the short and the tall , the shareholders , the journos , the voters ,eff em all ”
Money , money , it’s always funny , it’s a rich man’s world. Aha , dum de dum de dum de dummy , it’s a rich man’s world.
Eff you Tony Bare-arse and you News Ltd. shits, crawlers to the last man of youse. Kow tow to that great idiot an so called Boyer Lecturer “Stewpit Mudrock” we’ve got our own Boyer lecturer, so there.
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Breaking News !!!!!!!
Kerry has won control of THe West :-)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/11/2443823.htm
I predict Limpwrist is shitting himself now :-)
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Dear Paul Nurry
It was with a sense of outrage that I put pen to paper – perhaps never as passionately as when that Scottish prick Len Findlay used to have his own column – after hearing that represenatives from Woodside, Rio Tinto and Australia Post were now on the board of the rag which writes my cheques.
Really, what do these people have to offer? Voelte, for instance, told Australia’s largest oil/gas conference earlier this year that it was waste of time for Woodside to turn up.
We’re too fucking big, he told a press conference in his yankee drawl. We don’t need to deal with the likes of shits like you. We got a public relations arm you wouldn’t believe. It’s made up of the most evasive spinners in the bizzo – really. You can all fuck off now.
How will this attitude help communtiy news?
Then there’s Rio Tinto, the mining company that helped form the Global Mining Initiative partly to cover up the fact that it helped instigate a civil war in Bouganville after deciding to dump its copper tailings in the ocean. One person who won’t be happy with this decision is Cazaly Resources’ Nathan McMahon, who’s still pissed that Rio managed to win back some exploration iron ore tenements from him in an overpegging dispute thanks to a piss poor minister who used his discretion to avoid the mess of going through the wardens’ court.
Rio, by the way, just survived a takeover attempt. Will Paul Armstrong be able to ay the same thing after Xmas?
Australia Post? Well I know nothing about it (which means I know everything), but don’t they deliver mail? Why newspapers? Shouldn’t they be taking over post offices and issueing comemorative stamps?
No, this is not good. But really – should I care? As long as I have my little doggie, Allen Park and an Italian wife, all bodes well in Swanborne.
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According to ABC TV Ness, the desicion to remove LImpwrist is a Fait Accomplii, with speculation that former Editor Bob Cronin will be drafted in as a temporary editor until a permanent editor can be forund.
But Kerry says differently here.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/stokes-quiet-on-editors-future-20081211-6wkv.html
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When I heard “former editor”, my blood ran cold…
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So did I initially. Will The Nurry also be getting his Pink Slip ?
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ABC Radio Audio of Kerry Stokes speaking of the future of The West.
[audio src="http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/news-audio/200812/20081211-stokes.mp3" /]
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Iraq has shown the rest of journalism how to behave in public.
at the Premier’s next press conference, I want to see Murray throw his shoes at Colin Barnett.
my bet is that he throws like a girl.
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And is Paul Armstrong the Robert Mugabe of newspapers? Everyone keeps saying, this shit can’t go on, and yet he’s still in charge.
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not sure he’s Mugabe.
he is more the Burt Newton of newspapers.
Nobody is watching, nobody cares any more, and it would be just as shit with somebody else doing it.
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Limpwrist has been BONED !!!!!!!!!!
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24804110-2761,00.html
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Interesting Story on Tony Barrass on the Recent History of The West under Limpwrist, who may have not been boned, but is on a VERY tight leash.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24764993-7582,00.html
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That should read FROM Tony Barrass.
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hmmm. I’m not uncorking the champagne just yet. Nobody else is running the story.
I suspect that the EIC role will be above Limpwrist, and that he will stay in the editor’s chair at teh Worst. Unless it is a cunning plan to put him on such a short leash that he resigns in a hissy fit, so saving Stokes the price of a stamp.
I wonder if the damage at the West is too deep to heal quickly. Most of the senior journos have moved on, and the younger ones have been indoctrinated by Limpwrist to think that their shit don’t stink.
I had dinner last night with two former journos at the West who are now in PR. At the PR industry dinner a couple of years ago there was a speech by some spotty oik from the West who told them that the West does not read unsolicited press releases, and that the PR industry really should know its place and leave journalism to the professionals. Of course half the PR folk in the room were former journos with far more experience than the speaker.
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Skink – he was probably correct in saying the journos don’t read unsolicited press releases. Who’s got time for that? They simply cut & paste them under their byline.
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Wot, so he’s not gone?
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The same release, word for word, was in the west this morning so presumably it’s accurate.
Yeah and it doesn’t actually say armstrong has been boned.
And I didn’t know that Paul Nurry actually uses the phrase ‘At first blush’. But he actually does. There it was this morning in print. I thought you guys made that bit up. He really is a tosser isn’t he.
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Fuck, he did actually say at first blush.
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Maybe he’s now plagiarising from here.
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Journos don’t read unsolicited press releases? Cobblers.
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I got halfway through that column without being able to divine what his “opinion” was and then my eyes went blurry. Ramble on, Murray.
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Not only does he really use “at first blush”, he also seems to begin every second paragraph with “Now,” – presumably the better to indicate to his adoring readership that they may profitably benefit from the the great philosophical truths to follow.
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of course they read the press releases, and print them verbatim, as we saw with the ‘kicked to the curb” episode.
they were just told to pretend that they didn’t, because Armstrong was adamant that his journos should be seen to be independent, and he did this by systematically alienating all his sources.
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look, now you made me go and read Nurry’s column
a crock of shit, even for him. The whole article is based on that idea that ‘muslims’ and ‘Australian society’ are two separate entities, rather than one being a subset of the other.
that old fuckwit is so myopic that he cannot even recognize when his own racism has become institutionalised. He thinks he is being unbiased and rational, but his patronising condescention is predecated on his view that Australian muslims are ‘other’.
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Dear P Nurry
We’re about to find out how tolerant we are as a community.
This was the profound thought I had as I prepared to finalise a story on Muslims and how they are contributing to the segregation problem.
I’ve already done a draft – “At first blush” heads the fifth paragragh. And why shouldn’t it? It’s become a trademark of my incisive prose – as legit a motif as Allen Park and my little doggie.
Writing this column was particularly easy as – while I am able to appear objective by making some simple comparisons between old folks homes, Peppermint Grove (note how I didn’t use Swanbourne) and Muslim churches – I am able to say that our Muslim friends who choose to live here (and steal our jobs and religion) should in fact NOT be allowed to segregate themselves by creating an “ethnic ghetto”.
In my objectivity, I can also suggest that there should be more cause of concern for Muslim schools than Islamic housing precincts as the former are usually somehow associated with terrorists. Personally I think private white schools are safer for the community. After all, David Hicks didn’t go to Guilford, did he!
In commending “social cohesion” – which in itself is a damnation of those Muslims who will create a “backlash within (their) own community” by putting themselves in some kind of enclave – I can appear to be above using any kind of stereotying as I make my rambling case.
After all, being erudite means you don’t have to sound like Pauline Hanson, even if the subtext of what you are arguing is more or less on the same page as that woman (who, I might add, has more sex appeal than Julie Bishop).
Being an expert on everything, I can say to the Islamic Council – which seems to be against the ethos of the “undivided, egalitarian and open society” that we in Australia celebrate (well at least we did at Guildford) – that it is wrong in wanting to develop a six story housing deevlopment for Muslims in (the soon to be terrorist cell -ed ) Riverdale.
If it pushes ahead with its plans, it runs the danger of not just segregating some of its members from Australian society, but of sending a message that isolates all local Muslims from the community in which they should be seeking to exist harmoniously.
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I couldn’t tell if he was for it or agin it.
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I liked the bit where he quoted the separatist Muslim who said we should have apartheid here because it worked so great, but Murray focused on the separatist sentiment, not on the fact that apartheid worked great for only about 1% of the South African population and was so morally repugnant that even Australian cricketers eventually took a position against it.
As well as being stupid enough to give oxygen to such a dumb arsed sentiment from some radical fringer.
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Good ning
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nice one, Ning
but you really should have made use of ‘bona fides’, which is Nurry Latin for ‘good doggie’
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Let me say at the outset that I feel sorry for Paul Armstrong.
I well remember at first blush when I left the West. Everyone cried and the formed a guard of honour with cans of Glen 20. It was at first blush quite touching.
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the Oz has now run the Cronin story:
“Cronin refused to comment on Armstrong’s future last night, saying only that he understood the editor was “going on holidays soon”.
In a statement, Mr Wharton said Cronin would oversee “all editorial aspects” of the company’s newspapers and websites.
Armstrong did not return phone calls from The Australian last night.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24806015-7582,00.html
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‘Going on holidays soon’. That phrase has a Scarborough-esque air of menace.
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Bob Cronin coming back? Well that is good news. If this morning’s report was right and he was the editor between 1986-1996 it means he was probably the most asleep at the wheel person in the building at The Worst during WA’s biggest scandal (in the days before seat sniffing) – WA Inc.
Now there’s a track record we can have absolute confidence in.
Having said that, maybe we should review the Burke era anyway. After all – given the recent US$750 billion bailout and the subsequent banking rescues around the world – Burkie was actually years ahead of his time when he propped up Rothwells to the tune of a bargain $50 million.
It is now quite possible that in 20 years his behaviour vis-a-vis lobbying will not only be totally acceptable, but it will be mandatory amongst all future generations of dead head pollies.
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my ning is truly a big picture type of person.
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Cronin was indeed at the wheel, with Murray riding shotgun, when the West spectacularly failed to report WA Inc.
It needed the eastern states papers to break the Rothwells story before The West woke up and saw what was under its nose.
from Lawrence Apps at Crikey:
“The new team would also need to take a serious look at its stable of columnists, including former editor Paul Murray who still plays a dominant role. Murray’s reputation took a battering over his erroneous finding of the HMS Sydney story, which not only tarnished the reputation of The West but also the Fairfax papers that ran with the story.”
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And in relation to the $75billion+ dollar pyramid stockbroking fraud that no-one seemed to have picked up on in over 15 years, Burkie, Bondie et al are positively ‘small fry’.
Some bodies at the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Time, New York Times, Guardian, etc. so on and so forth were more than just a little drowsy at the helm.
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I am most surprised that nobody has made a play on Madoff’s name, since he made off with a few billion dollars of other people’s money.
it’s even more obvious than the ‘who’s afraid of Russell Woolf’ gag.
you just can’t get a good pun in this town.
I see Troy Buswell has been nominated for Crikey’s “Golden Arsehat” award for the most appalling person of the year. Julie Bishop too. Vote now and support your local idiot.
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I was going to, skink, but an unfortunate Palm Beach resident had already done so:
Everywhere at the club, it was the topic of conversation.
Upstairs in the women’s dining room, a woman joked that she now knew the proper way to pronounce his name.
“Made off,” she said. “You know, like he made off with all our money.”
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Do you have a link to Lawrie Apps Skink?
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it’s because you tightwads won’t subscribe to Crikey that I have to paste big chunks of it here.
I have mailed you the full text
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This Jack Marx item will also tickle skink’s pun prediliction:
http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/celebrity_reality_shows_id_like_to_see/
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Never had to pay for it mate.
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Jeez he’s calling Tony Bare-arse for new editor. I like the sack Murray bring in new blood. perhaps it can be Fucking Outrage on the politics desk, and the lazy Aussie on the at first blush duty?
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loved the puns
I think we should adopt “The West Whinge” as the name of these threads.
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NEW NURRY PIC AT TOP OF THIS POST.
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is he doing an impression of a cat’s bum?
or is he blowing a kiss to his own dick?
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Hmm, TWAT are saying Limpwrist was “Shunted”.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/west-editor-armstrong-shunted-20081216-6zfs.html
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Frank,
Please stop tempting me with links to tWAt.
I must resist, I must resist, I must resist………..
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If Jabba the Hut & Brian Burke ever had a love child – Murray would be it!!
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I see in his column today that Nurry has discovered a new source of material – he is now cutting and pasting from Hansard.
Paul considers that few people bother to read Hansard, so has copied about 50% of his column from there, possibly unaware that few people bother to read him either.
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But it was such a great speech! It really deserves more oxygen from a half-page opinion piece.
‘I believe in unliimited opportunities for business, less money in the treasury and more in people’s pockets, conservation, and also more cops and law and order’.
I await Joe’s explanation of how governments can achieve conservation as well as providing unlimited opportunities for business; or less public funding and more cops/less graffiti and crime.
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Skink – may I turn your attention to an article (Dear P Nurry) that appeared on the TWOP’s Hogwash Reanimator blog a few months ago:
Anyway, Costello wouldn’t want to talk to me after my 10,000 word “Costello is a hypocrite” expose I’d spewed out the month before, so I turned my attention back to Turnbull. By now, however, he had vanished, no doubt to show his new cabinet collegues my article, so I went to Hansard to get some quotes instead.
On my way to the parliamentary library I recounted to myself a story told by another hypocrite, Paul Keating, who was rehashing an old tale about how Mal had wanted to join the Labor Party. That reminded me of a piece I did on Brendan Nelson, when I rightfully labelled him a hypocrite for joining the Libs after being a lefty head of the AMA.
So you see – going to Hansard for padding has been part of PM’s opus oprendi for some time now……
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Meanwhile Rob Johnson panders to the Nats by re-opening several Country Police Stations closed by Dr Karl.
http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/Results.aspx?ItemID=131072
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PL – it’s the great Lib con – moan about Laura Noarder, promise 500 more coppers on the beat, and then two months after being elected say that the previous government spent all the money already and they can’t fulfil their promises.
see also: free transport for pensioners; Ellenbrook railway; airport rail link; Butler rail extension; RPH; and so on and so forth
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Yet they can afford the Seniors “Cost of Living” Payment, and the Senoirs Country Fuel rebate.
And note where the reopened country cop shops are :-)
I think they are in Nationals Heartland.
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Speaking of Teh Nats, whatever happened to Brendon the hammer Grylls? Has he even been seen? I haven’t heard demand one from the prick. What’s the deal?
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He’s been busy handing out cash to teh bush :-)
http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/RecentStatements.aspx?ItemId=131050&
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I saw Brendon on the news last night. Lannie was giving him some stick about the Cash for Cockies deal.
apparently if you live in Moora, then Brendon has got you about $7,000 per capita in handouts. If you live in Halls Creek, he’s got you $500. The Nats were trying to explain this discrepancy in a most amusing and evasive manner.
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Isn’t the official title “Bumpkin Bounty”?
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I don’t know – there must be thousands of names by now.
Perhaps you could collate them on this site
my favourites are :
Bendon’s Blackmail
the Redneck Ransom
it doesn’t have to alliterate, but it helps
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I’ll start the bidding with “Country stash the cash” , “Bendon Over’s Throw” , “Bushies backdoor bonus”
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Grylls’ Geld Gain.
Clodhopper Cash Cow.
Where Wyndham Windfall?
Greenough Greenbacks Are Go!
(will this do?)
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provincial payola ?
the sandgroper shakedown ?
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To letters editor
You’d think with a change of editor, Paul “cut and paste’ Murray might have felt the need to lift his game when it came to his turgid pieces, but no. Today he lifts almost a third of his column from Hansard no less! If The West really needs to cut some costs, can I propose that the paper only pays Mr Murray for words he actually writes? The savings would be massive. How much original material has he written this year? On the other hand, the stuff he does himself is so incredibly pompous and boring, that it makes Hansard look like Oscar Wilde. Come on, this just isn’t good enough.
Andrew McDonald
Editor
The Worst of Perth
http://theworstofperth.com
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spookily, that is very similar to my own letter to the editor, except where you used literary references, I used expletives.
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Countryside Catchup Cash
Fieldworkers’ Fair Pay Refinancing
Rural Restitution
Revitalising Remote and Rural Support Services: Bringing the ex-metropolitan infrastructure into the 20th Century.
:)
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Teh Paul , legend of the Weld club lunchtime aint goin nowhere. So get use to it suckers.
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Dumbleyung Dowry?
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Sadly you’re probably right. It’s better that he goes down with the ship anyway. Is it true he smells like old farts?
And what the fuck is Stokes doing throwing good money after bad? The circulation is going nowhere but down along with the share price. Didn’t he notice The new York times folded this week?
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And you’ve forgotten the Free Fuel Cards for Rural Seniors.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/17/2449240.htm
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And free condoms for farmers
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Didn’t realise that there are 100 comments. I wish they’d bring back the numbers.
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[And free condoms for farmers]
Which will be distributed at the next combined Schoolies/B&S Ball, with Music by The Jets and the Magnificent 7 :-)
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You should never have let them get away with them TLA.
You can’t get anything done if you don’t have the numbers.
Unless, of course, you can con some poor unsuspecting sod to publicly commit to uncompromising (*not* ‘uncompromised’) support.
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Now free vasectomies for farmers…That’s something you could go to the electorate with.
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You mean like Brendan Grylls, Rolly?
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I recall in the US there was a suggestion that the government should offer a free Camaro to anyone willing to accept voluntary sterilisation. The logic being, anyone who thought this to be a good deal, ought probably to be sterilised.
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What a pathetic missive from this blog. At first blush I howled like the chimp I am. The ignorance. You should hold your head in shame. Respect my authority. As Graeme Campbell told Federal Parliament in 1992:
“Recently I had the temerity to criticise Paul Murray, the editor of the West Australian. I said that in my view his extremely biased reporting was not just an over-reaction by the West Australian as it tried to make up for its years of sloth, but that he had another agenda. I said that his plans were to remain as editor of the West Australian for five years of sanctimonious moralising, then he would seek a safe Liberal seat and become Leader of the Liberal Party and, hopefully, Premier. This, I made clear, was my scenario. From the way glass jaw Murray has reacted, I suspect it was not far from the truth.”
You see? Many Parliamentarians, I am reliably informed, cut that out from Hansard and show it to each other in the Members’ Bar. I am not surprised. My word is feared and my sagacity is respected anywhere there’s a house on the hill. As Carps told our own Parly last year:
“They should be their own person and recognise that the newspaper has been dragged into complete disrepute by
the current editor. I do not blame him entirely either, because the downhill slide started with the now disgraced
former editor, Paul Murray, who pulled the plug on journalistic ethics at The West Australian while he was there,
and it has been in decline ever since. Paul Murray did his best to resuscitate Noel Crichton-Browne and Brian
Burke by employing them as political analysts on his talkback radio station. What a disgrace that was.”
The real disgrace here is that my columns aren’t immediately laminated by Hansard and sent to every single MP in WA and Australia. Nothing less will do. Who is responsible for this farcical oversight? Heads will roll and, as surely as my little doggie’s name is Rupert, I will be bathed in warm milk by my many admirers.
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I suspect we all miss the numbers, TLA, and honestly, I don’t know where or why they went.
So here’s my suggestion, in the interim.
Perhaps we recidivist commenters, (I know it’s not a word, but commentators seems more wrong), should simply preface our comments with a number. If the first few do it, then it should be a simple matter for those who subsequently post.
It’s bush mechanics, but it’ll get you home.
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So what there’s now SEVEN Paul Murray imitators? Each of them better than the original. “At first blush I howled like the chimp I am.”? That’s gold. Several of these Neo Nurrys display inside knowledge that I suspect at first blush to come from deep in the heart of West headquarters in Osborne Park or if not, the Allen Park.
I’m also a little disturbed that the little doggies name has come up, when only this afternoon I was discussing strategies for getting said name with a completely maggoted journalist.
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I particularly enjoyed ‘repect my authority’
Nurry’s resemblance to Cartman had previously escaped me, but now I shall be unable to think of him any other way.
all Nurry’s columns should end: ‘I really, really hate you guys.’
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If all the Paul Nurry imitators are normal human beings, their comments should be gnawing away at them like a cancer. Bravado, callousness and the thrill of hurting the feelings of someone who at first blush has been called the greatest writer never to have won a pulitzer, might get them through today, and even tomorrow, but eventually the putrid secret of their juvenile satire will catch up with them.
That these monsters have been allowed unfettered (at first blush) space to peddle their drivel is a failure of justice so complete that it’s a wonder anyone has any faith in think pieces anymore.
The disgust they must have for themselves for let me say at the outset, unfairly pointing out the cutting and pasting propensities of Australia’s greatest ever writer will eventually be to hard to bear.
And THAT’s at first second and nay even third blush, when justice will be done.
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Yeah Mr Nurry you’re the original and the best , and as soon as you have worked through the “issues” ( Wooo) with your psychotherapist , like the true bleeding heart small “l’ liberal you are , you’ll be right or locked up one or the other . “Justice” don’t make me laugh , when it comes to the hard yards are you screaming for them to get an extra ten years , thought not.
Yeah an Nurgy I cut things out and paste them in a big book for later reference , so what ? So did all the great geniuses in history. Where you going with that train of thought ? I think it has been derailed.
Anyways getting down the nut crunchy issues hard issues like I always do has anybody noticed that it will be Christmas next week. Yahoo ! Unleash the dogs of good cheer : let Muttsie have a run around the back yard , a dozen bottles of Moet followed by a bottle of Black Label chaser would do the trick nicely , wack ” Dancing Queen” on continuous play , and arrange yourself so you don’t fall into anything dangerous .
Far be it from me but I have to quietly point out that some people don’t celebrate Christmas namely those personages who have the Mark of Cain. These are the monsters in our mist .Now I know this will come as a shock and surprise to all my viewers. What to do about this vexatious situation ?
I think the answer is to bravely write and re-write the same tripe over and over and over again. It’s the only solution.
Just ad nauseum.
There is a further vexatious matter I wish to draw your attention to. Somebody’s leaking their guts out about goings on in our Osborne Pk headquarters (” The Wolf’s Lair”) . Now I have to give them a warning : you know what happens to squealers, dobbers and rats ( small “l” liberal talk ” whistle blowers). Hint : you’ll be singing falsetto.
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Dear P Nurry
There’s an old fart in Swanbourne today who knows without any doubt who’s murdering journalism in Western Australia.
How does he know he’s doing it? He remembers swinging his PC around after writing another bunch of crap swill knowing that his sactimonious and plagerised words would smash into the noggins of his readers like a cricket bat, rendering his audience intellectually dead.
Another person, his editor, who is just as intent on murdering journalism as this Swanborne hack, knows exactly what his mate is doing.
If these two clowns were normal human beings, their despicable not-so-secret plan should be gnawing away at their guts.
It should be like a cancer consuming their consciences, wearing away their sense of self worth.
And why shouldn’t it? After all, this is exactly the kind of pain they’ve been inflicting upon their readers.
And it will never stop. If they have any human qualities, it will be with them for every waking second and it will hopefully turn their sleep into endless nightmares.
When they look into the eyes of their family, (I was going to say friends here, but it’s difficult to ascertain if they really have any) and even strangers who meet them (some of who, no doubt will have copies of the Swanbourne columnist’s “think pieces” in their pockets), they will know what people are thinking abot them.
They must know that newsaper readers around the state will now face the prospect of growing old without quality bcause of what they’ve been doing for some time now.
And they must have seen the heartbreak of their audience when the loss of its newspaper was ground in its collective face by the failure of the press council to bring these two dills into line.
Bravado, callousness – even the thrill of actully getting away with with such ineptness – might get them through today and tomorrow.
But eventually the weight of their awful deeds will catch up with them.
Some things just can’t be ignored.
And we know that the readers’ confusion about who is the bigger fuck knuckle of the two has led to a failure so complete that it is no wonder people don’t have any confidence in their state’s newspaper any more (which may help explain its diminishing sales, dwindling readership and overall relevence).
But these are not completely cold, calculating journos who planned their act, as cynical as their scheme to outdo each other might be.
We know they cry like babies when they hide from the enraged public as it demands a better standard.
That fear must still be inside them – the fear that eventually, one day, they will no longer be able advocate peddling such putrid copy.
And that’s when justice wil be done.
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You could be right, skink. However, the above photo, (and the writing (sic), of which I must admit I’ve never had the pleasure (sic) of perusal), put me more in mind of this fine fellow.
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I do sometimes think Nurry’s large intestine will crawl up his neck and throttle his brain.
perhaps it already has, which may explain the smell of stale farts
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If the little doggie’s name is in fact Rupert, no doubt it was named after Rupert Murdoch, which surprisingly shows an inkling of a sense of humour.
Now that Stoksie’s taken over, maybe he and Gracie can call their next dog or cat (or budgie or goldfish or whatever) Kerry.
On the other hand maybe not – it doesn’t really have the same kind of ring about it, does it? Other suggestions for pets named after media moguls could include:
Randalph (after Hearst)
Conrad (after Black, although given he’s in gaol it would be something of poisoned chalice for the poor beastie)
Bondy (as short lived as his reign was)
Packer (given Kerry’s a dull name for an animal)
Fairfax (but would the man be comfortable saying this throughout the day as he tries to discipline the animal?)
Or maybe they could call it Pulitzer in the hope that one of his diatribes finally gets the international recognition it deserves.
And if it is a dog, he can take it on walkleys through Allen Park.
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Ahh, My Ning. I’m glad I kept reading to the punchline.
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Dear P Nurry
What price do our politicians put on the health of residents of a small country town when billions of dollars of export earnings are at stake?
This was the question I asked myself after reading about a spat between Alannah MacTiernan (who’s no Pauline Hanson, wink wink, if you get my drift) and the Barnster (I bet that fat boy squeals like a pig) in Hansard (during a cut and paste session while researching for a planned story on the WA Pototo Board)) regarding nickel exports through Esperance port.
Regular readers who have already cut out my Tuesday Angry Whopper article and photocopied it so they can hang one copy on the wall above their beds and carry the other one around with them in case they run into me having a cappa at the library coffee shop or walking my little doggie through Allen Park on a quiet day, will recall how I rightly pointed out that it was easy to be fickle when it came to writing about – and criticising – government departments without the fear of any kind of recourse (such as being labelled a hypocritical wanker).
Well, today I can happily report that I can do the same thing with politicians, with Ms MacTiernan being the case in point.
When that sexy beast of a woman took on ol’ fatso and said that “no engineering solution could guarantee making the bulk handling of nickel safe”, I decided to believe her, despite the fact she’s a lawyer and not an engineer. My reasoning was pragmatic – given this was a subject I wasn’t going to bother to research myself, but one I had to sound like an expert on, I thought her authoritive comment would make a sound basis for a 2,000 word piece of blather that could pull me in another $1,500.
A couple of years ago, however, I essentially labelled her an irresponsible rumour monger at a uranium conference for telling a reporter from The Sunday Times that it was possible a nuclear power plant could be built in my home suburb of wanborne. That too was being pragmatic – after all she was, at the time a minister of the crown and thus an easy target for my chargrin (it also gave me an opportunity to publicly slag off the reporter).
Having established MacTiernan as being as much an authority on the transport of nickel as I needed her to be, I then patronisingly waffled on about how attached I was to Esperance because I went there every Xmas to visit my sister and her family.
It was here I hit my waffling prose peak: “Walking along the beaches, the water tumbles ashore from lapis lazuli depths through turquiose breakers and dissolves on to the bleached sands as the faintst, limpid ripples of powder blue.”
What I failed to mention here, however, was the fact it was lucky no one from Esperance also walking along those bleached beaches recognised me after I labelled the town a suicide hell hole on the front page of a saturday edition of The Worst circa August 1999 when I was the editor. Yes, they might all be salt of the earth country bumpkins, but they do have long memories.
The ingrained contempt I actually have for these hicks went further when I assumed on their behalf that “many locals now regard the the most dangerous place as the once sleepy port”, a statement which ignores the fact that the port hasn’t exactly been sleepy since the early 2000s when it was dredged to accommodate Cape size ships in order to export Portman’s iron ore expansions. I guess there’s nothing easier than trivialising a long term situation to boost the word count.
Any way, by the end, I raised something of a polemic when I suggested the Barnster was looking for a way to subsidise the “marginal” nickel industry in order to make it more viable. And how? Simple – by making Esperance the single port for the bulk export of all of WA’s nickel.
There’s nothing like a conspiracy – particularly ones that are not based on fact.
Firstly, the state’s biggest nickel producer – BHP Billiton – already exports its Gold Fields stuff through Fremantle after treating it at its Kwinana refinery. Will BHPB relocate its refinery to Esperance? It’s possible, but at the moment highly unlikely, even if it already does have a shakey laterite project near Ravensthorpe.
Secondly, WA’s nickel sector aint exactly marginal. During the past boom the sulphide miners had a ball and paid handsome dividends, and the successful ones (Mincor, Independence, Xstrata) are still operating within acceptable margins in the post meltdown environment. It’s only the laterite operations that are marginal, and it’s unlikely we’ll see the emergence of too many more of them in the immediate future once investors finally work out that the processing of dry laterites (as found in WA) is far more difficult than treating the wet stuff found in places closer to the equator.
The third thing I failed (or is that refused? – ed) to take into account was the Oakajee factor. We all know that Barnett’s got a hard on for a mooted industrial port just north of Geraldton, even to the point that he has effectively put a halt on a tender process to build the thing (put in place by MacTiernan) so he can attract some Commonwealth monies for the project.
If Oakajee goes ahead, it is possible that a lot of the nickel which currently goes through Esperance (predominantly from Minara, Xstrata and Norilsk) will be re-routed to the new Mid West facility. And being an expert on everything, I can safely say Barnett will probably have Oakajee higher on his list of priorities than a $110 million refurbishment at Esperance harbour.
It’s fun writing bulldust week in and week out.
And the residents of Esperance can just eat their dust.
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My Ning, re:
“It was here I hit my waffling prose peak: “Walking along the beaches, the water tumbles ashore from lapis lazuli depths through turquiose breakers and dissolves on to the bleached sands as the faintst, limpid ripples of powder blue.”
What I failed to mention here, however, was the fact it was lucky no one from Esperance also walking along those bleached beaches recognised me after I labelled the town a suicide hell hole on the front page of a saturday edition of The Worst circa August 1999 when I was the editor. Yes, they might all be salt of the earth country bumpkins, but they do have long memories.”
That is gold. (or Nickel). I wanted to hear how it will be possible to process the urine of Esperance residents as a downstream (nyuk nyuk) Nickel project. The Nickel level in Bumpkin piss is now high enough to be more viable than acid leaching laterites.
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Good point Mr LA – the only way that the processing of laterites will work economically is via heap leaching (and not with autoclaves using high temperatures and pressures, as has been done in the past). With the cost of sulphuric acid having increased dramatically in recent times, maybe the laterite guys should just take their raw dirt down to Esperance, dump it on those bleached beaches and get the town’s good residents to piss on it to achieve the extraction.
Of course laterites are low grade, so lotsa piss will be needed. This, therefore, will require the consumption of lotsa piss. Given depression and frustration leads to a heavier piss consumption, and given Esperance people are already prone to bouts of piss-induced suicide, maybe the Esperance Shire Council can make the reading of Nuzza’s column mandatory in order to up the piss intake levels.
Indeed, the schools can help here my subjecting their students to Nurrie quizzez at the end of each day.
One example:
Q: What is Nuzza an expert on?
A: Everything
This means by the time they hit 18 they will be well and truly ready for a continuos drink.
Even local quiz nights – as organised by the Lions and such – could contain a Nurrie theme (or a Nurrie doorprize).
To top it all off, maybe they should make Nuzza’s brother-in-law the shire prez and rename the town Nurrie. I’m sure that would make Norilsk happy.
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Dear P Nurry
A delegate of Rudd Government boffins is coming to Perth early next month to find out what West Australians think about green cars.
At first blush I would say – as I usually do when commenting on anything associated with Rudd – that it is a waste of time. Over the past year most of my waffling columns have been directed at the man’s so-called green credentials. And why not? It is, after all, a subject that provides an easy target and requires no meaningful research – perfect for someone who’s riding the gravy train.
People with V8 utes and XR6 Turbos are also wasting our time. If they got out and walked their little doggies once in a while, there might not be so much hot air circling around the place. They would also get fit like me (see the pic of me after walkies in The Only Gay in Allen Park segment and you’ll see what I mean).
As I pointed out back in November, all this green car stuff is a waste of time. And why? Because I said so – and I didn’t even have to go through my second blush while making this point.
Then, a few dozen quotes from Ken Henry (from Radio National), a vague comment about the Ravensthorpe fuck-up, a reference to Whitlam and the commies and some more obvious remarks about how the whole thing is a ploy to subsidise the car industry and I’m home and hosed – another $1500 in the kitty.
Trying to put a green tint on an old-fashioned pork barrelling exercise just won’t wash.
(Neither does this crap – it reads like the work of an 18 year old cadet. I want you to take it away and totally rewrite it, you fucking clown – ed)
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I am surprised that Nurry has not heralded the closure of Ravensthorpe as a victory for his campaign to reduce nickel exports through Esperance.
result!
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Apologies – this is a few days late
Dear P Nurry
It’s been a quiet week in Allen Park – it’s been like it for years – which makes me wonder why I even bother mentioning it at all.
As Easter approached, the minds of many turned to the concept of renewal, so central to the Christian festival and its Anglo-Saxon pagan origins.
And, for whatever reasons, they also turned to the G20.
But before I make the somewhat tenuous link between these disparities, let me tell you something about what happened in the neighbour’s yard recently.
The dear folks who reside in the house across the road are currently building a six foot high brick wall around their front yard – presumably to block out my stereo on Saturday afternoons when I give the neighbourhood a good blast of ABBA’s greatest hits.
Anyway, the other morning one of the cats from the house – a mangy old thing with a missing eye and sneering disposition – rolled in a pile of yellow sand that will eventually be used in the structure’s cement.
It was a “Twinnings’” moment to be sure, seeing this undervalued beast joyously roll about in the sand, not a care in the world, holding his claws up to the sun.
With my thoughts regarding the better side of humanity now revived, my mind briefly skipped across to London and the G20 to ….. no, I decided not to expand on that, and instead buried my head in a book.
Oddly enough, thoughts of renewal and festive Easter cheer mixed with the hypocrisy of chocolate eggs recurred while I was reading the autobiography of James Franciscus, a tome which, admittedly, had been lying around the house for a decade or so while I waded through the Harry Potter series.
One story which nearly touched me as much as seeing that cat roll in the sand was when Jimmie was working on some movie called Beneath the Planet of the Apes in the early 1970s and had one of those experiences which can change one’s whole take on life.
“One day I went to the lunch van to order my tuna and salad sandwich but was told I could only have salmon,” Franciscus remembered.
“Apparently, this situation arose after a local market on Hollywood Boulevard had received a poison batch of tuna tins and was demanding a blanket recall. And, as it turned out, this market was the set’s caterer’s suppliers.
“I went to one of the head honchos at 20th Century Fox and he just looked at me as if I was crazy when I told him we should either: (a) use another caterer, or; (b) insist that the current caterer go to a different supplier for tuna.
“In fact I was going crazy – there was no tuna in sight just and we were preparing for the big skinless zombie moment. This could lead to just one thing – chaos.
“I then tried asking the director to get a PA to buy some bread and a tin of tuna when she went to pick up Chuck Heston for the big apocalyptic part, but he said she didn’t have time.
“Anyway, Heston ended up giving me some of his roast beef as he complained about having to play such a short part in pointless sequel just to give the whole thing some stature. “I would never have made Planet of the Fucking Apes if I knew they were going to make me do this shit,” he complained. Then he started to utter over and over to himself: ‘Damn these dirty stinking apes.’
“It was at this point I realised my life was nothing more than an existence laced with the poisoned chocolate of Easter. Yes they were stinking apes, all of them. Apes who made pointless sequels, apes who couldn’t organize a tin of tuna, apes who would be willing, no doubt, to hand out Easter eggs made from cheapo Taiwanese chocolate.
Yes, it had all become so horribly apparent. I was in ape land!
“It was time to change, so I left Hollywood for three weeks and went to Italy to make some real art – Cat O’ Nine Tails with Dario Argento, and my career was never the same.”
That insight into recognizing change as it happened made me wonder whether we’re going through a similar thing now, post-Howard, post-Bush, post bubble.
Has the global financial crisis drawn a line under an era? In fact, is it a full stop? And what has this got to do with Easter, James Franciscus or the cat?
Maybe it’s because like Franciscus and the cat (if either knew what was really good for them) they would fear Gordon Brown sounding eerily Marxist as he spat out populist tripe about how the globe had to work together to solve the current economic problems.
Of course Kev Rudd reheated his usual dish, but I don’t give a rat’s what he says, even when he pretends he is the Easter Bunny. Really, I hate his guts (isn’t this obvious by now?)
I’m lost – I don’t have a clue what I’m trying to say. I know, I’ll finish it on an anecdote.
A banker walks into a DVD store and asks the counter person if they have the box set for Planet of the Apes.
It’s at this point his mobile phone rings. He answers. It’s his wife, who works at the cat haven. She says the kids are complaining that the sand pit in the back yard still hasn’t been fixed after being damaged by some late summer rains.
“You’ve become too obsessed with the G20 and the death of Anglo Saxon capitalism,” she bemoans.
The counter person then returns with only the Mark Wahlberg version of Planet of the Apes on DVD.
The pointlessness of it all overwhelms the banker. His life has been wasted approving loans and, in earlier years, bundling silver coins into small plastic bags and stamping statements. There is only one thing to do on the coming long weekend – it’s not watch DVDs, but to fix the sandpit to make the kiddies happy.
“Sometimes I don’t think you care about the sandpit,” his wife says.
The banker replies: “I don’t give a damn: I’ll resurrect it at Easter.”
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where have you been?
we have now have Nurryvision
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Dear P Nurry
Colin Barnett won’t provide better governement by seeking to intimidate and censor public servants who are just doing their job.
It’s kinda the same with the new editor of this paper – he won’t provide better reading just because there’s bit of a shake-up and the introduction of a new look Saturday features section.
Personally I find it hard to believe that Zoltan Kovacs can still be called one of Perth’s top columnists in the post Armstrong era when all he does is spit out the same old crap about outdated politically correct notions and how they affect journalese.
I mean who wants to read that crap?
Then we have Colleen Egan, the crusader who hangs her hat on the Mallard case, which guantees centimetres of copy for years to come. By the way, have you heard she’s also a mate of John Button?
And why do we still have Gerard Henderson, whose tongue (not to mention prose) turned brown after he left it too long up John Howard’s arse?
I, fortunately, have managed to avoid all this. I didn’t write about someone in jail when I was a whippersnapper, and the closest thing I ever came to the truth was discovering the Sydney – and that turned out to be a lie.
No, it’s better to belt out some boring batshit about Barnett and the public service and tie it in with a durable issue – health.
Yes, health – what a winner. Censoring public sevants (who I usually loathe) – another winner. Being self rightious – hell, I’m the king.
A few days ago, as I was walking my little doggy through Allen Park, someone asked me why I wasn’t writing pure satirical pieces anymore. Where, they wanted to know, were my classic Idi Aminesque diatribes? Why wasn’t I writing about life on Mars? And what about domestic violence (which admittedly didn’t mean to be satirical) ?
No, I told them, the new regime didn’t want that kind of stupidity anymore – it wants total blandness. And there is nothing as bland as an overwritten piece on Barnett getting uppity over press statements he doesn’t like.
Afterall, he makes it sound as if this newspaper has some relevence, being the messanger and all.
So back I go, stating the obvious and milking the big, broad issues as much as I can?
Belting up puvblic servants won’t improve the situation.
(What the fuckt was all that about – ed?)
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perhaps an oppotrune moment to post this again:
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It’s been a quiet week in Allen Park, but not so quiet that I haven’t been perambulating around the said Park looking for stories in which I can write an opinion piece that shows I’m sitting on the fence and have three pickets shoved up my meaty arse and use astounding phrases such as “as I recorded on these pages at the time” and “there’s no doubt” and “interestingly” as well as commencing the spun-gold sentences of my reportage with “but”.
As I recorded on these pages at the time, at first blush it was easy to take inspiration from a local rag for a column because it was there and I would have written about it anyway and, in the fullness of time, I am not a camera, I am a recorder, even if I get annoying little meaningless details like the name of the City of Nedlands wrong, but that is one of the risks heroic recorders like me take in my quest to bring you the news even in very quiet weeks in Allen Park, where the days stretch into weeks, and the weeks stretch into fortnights, and the fortnights stretch into…where was I, ah yes, so quiet – how to put it at first blush – when the days are so quiet you can even hear your little doggy widdling on your foot as you read the local paper, looking for stories and wondering if the cut’n’paste machine is plugged in.
It’s important in reporting and recording to ask the hard questions and if you can’t do that then you should at least be writing the boring tedious phrases and I for one have never shirked from that duty, as in today’s column where I bravely write something like “after a series of personal misfortunes that are all too common among the young these days”, try getting my very good friend Howard Sattler to say something like without foaming at the mouth, it even rhymes, and the very citizens I mention in my column (“the mums who cook snaggers for their footballer sons and their teammates on the barbeques”) shows me exposing hideous instances of innocent footy-loving blokes being horribly cooked to a crisp on facilities that have been paid for by the Nedlands City Council, that is a bonus that my readers always love when they read my columns which, at first blush, they think is going to be about something trivial, like my alcohol intake, but end up being about The Bigger Picture.
But it is the misfortune of the recorder to run out of space and I did so again today before I was able to seductively point out what was ailing Dano and the innocent Mums and the barbequed footy players and that is surely beyond a shred of a doubt that the ill-sighted NCC doesn’t pipe Abba over the quietitude of Allen Park to soothe the populace, and really I haven’t examined the documents (I leave such tedium to the local rag) but what has the NCC done about flagrant public displays of affection by homos in our beloved befuddled benighted Allen Park, the “curious young minds” I so eloquently refer to in today’s column need to have protection or fencing – perhaps, at first blush, the very fence that is wedged up my anus – from such contemporary enfeeblement and unempowerment, otherwise they too will fall prey to another bon mot I air in today’s column, “unecessary road crash deaths”, which is not lazy writing – how dare the imputation be made – but People Like Us know some road crash deaths are necessary.
Just as happens, it’s been a quiet week, the “official-looking notice” is flapping in the wind, or is that the hot air pumped out by the yummy mummies as they discuss how brilliant my columns are and sidle up to me in the hope of snaring some of my manly recorder-smell and fantasise about being impregnated by me, and the only sound is the firming of my little doggy’s little turds deep in the green green grass of home.
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Sad to see this gold get lost among the Chongfest. (Sorry TLA, I know we have given her too much air on here today.)
Your’e the man Gorge, Word up!
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I’ve been at a seminar at canning Council all today, so missed chongfest too. So what she’s not blogging or something? i refuse to check.
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Today was her last. So she took the opportunity to swipe at the nasty, jealous types who had nothing better to do than attack her thoughtful and insightful genius.
Bento went for the good riddance angle, but didnt get past the moderator, nor did I. Skink managed to get a few last punches in however.
Now the mystery remains to be solved. Who was swinging pig and fashionista?
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her last act was to print a letter from a student complimenting her on her philanthropy and kind heartedness, which will stand as a fitting testimony to her narcissism
she also arranged a few shill posts from people with suspect English, including one that says ‘people hide behind their fears and shut themselves off from your beautiful soul’ that sounds like PatPat dictated it herself.
that would be the beautiful soul that bails someone up in a corner screaming ‘cunt!” in their face and threatening to sick the Commish on them.
classy
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“No mercy”, cries crowd
As Skink ‘Biggus’ Maximus
Despatches his foe.
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Patti Pattis fan base must be giving you the laugh of a lifetime Skink.
You profile so far – An angry, wannabe journo/lawyer, who has no friends, throws evils at women breast feeding in public and needs to get a life.
Now that’s class.
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insults containing grammatical errors and that misspell my name are particularly wounding.
it is fun to guess which of the writers might be Chinese, which might be law students at Notre Dame, and which might be Patti herself.
I am imagining her yelling at the staff at WAToday to get them to write something nice about her:
“tell them about my beautiful soul, you worthless cunts!”
the wannabe journo/lawyer jibe is a particular tell, because it is one that PatPat has used frequently.
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the first paragraph about ‘a small compliment’ reminded me of that presentation Patti gave at Woodside about ‘maximizing your guanxi’
the invitation said “a complimentary lunch will be provided.”
“you have a beautiful soul,” said the egg salad.
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So will you be turning to Broadfield, Nurry, Sattler to slake your media hatred?
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none. my work is done.
now that the shadow is past, all that is left for me is to ride to the Grey Havens and sail into the West.
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no, wait
I think I have discovered the cure for Patti’s mental health issues.
this may also work on Nurry
http://www.kadir-buxton.com/
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Effective against Comas?
Keep a space down at the Cultural Centre for this quack.
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I see you’re still following Speak You’re Branes.
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yes indeed
please take the time to explore some of his other innovative techniques, such as Hands Free Masturbation, and his unique fertility treatment.
also his ‘jump start’ technique for reviving people who have been dead for up to twenty six minutes by stamping on their chest in boots. there is a wonderful line about unsuccessfully trying the procedure on someone who had been dead for three hours.
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Jesus Christ. This guy should be rocking in a corner with straightjacket in situ. Dangerous is an understatement.
His ignorance of the female anatomy, whilst simultaneously being clearly mesmerised by it, is hysterical. Love his comments about prostitutes and lesbians in the Infertility section. And his list of ‘hands free’ masturbation cures. Are you sure this isn’t a piss take, can any one really be that stupid? Except Patti supporters of course.
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the commentary on speak your branes is coffee-spittingly hilarious. keep a cloth handy to wipe down the screen.
my personal favourite from mr kadir-buxton is his child delivery method, and the casual comment that a spot of gymwork will give you the strength needed to perform the manouevre.
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my new favourite line is at the end of the Jump Start technique, where he says that after a flash of inspiration where he thought up the technique
‘All I then had to do was wait until I came across a dead body, and the rest is history.’
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Shazza he is a British labour party activist so he probably is that stupid. Even stupider than pattifans.
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“All blockages that I have found have been dead bacteria, or sometimes lemonade which is a result of a country wide practice of lesbians at Universities”
We need greg, our expert on overeducated lesbians, to enlighten us about this country wide practice.
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there is an admonition following his decription of his hands free masturbation technique that it ‘should not be done whilst operating heavy machinery’
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I’ll be catching up with some uni educated lesbians tonight. I think I may offer to buy them a lemonade to judge their reactions.
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Photos welcome, shazza…
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So it probably wouldn’t work. But think of all the fun you could have trying.
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“stop stomping on Grandma!”
“why?”
“so we can nail the coffin lid shut.”
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Testify.
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the best Nurry for a long time
see how quickly we have moved on?
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I wonder if anyone will build one of those little shrines to Broadfield, halfway up the hill to King’s Park, at the spot where his heart explodes during the City to Surf
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I’d just like to thank the hundreds of people and or personalities that went to make up “Skink”. Now that we can’t kick Chong around we’ll just return to savaging .
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… {insert lame snack here }
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Swinging Pig?
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Nah Shazz , more talent than I’ve got I fear.
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Um, I’m sure he’s often out col’ lampin’ in the ‘hood, possibly even with bitchez and such, but why the fuck is Nurry writing about Kanye and the MTV awards? Does the Worst not have anyone who’s, I don’t know, not on the brink of death who can cover this shit?
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/paulmurray/post/64/comment/1/
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Yes Bento, surely La Chong, being an expert in all things A list, would be far more qualified to lambast the poor bastard.
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Wannabe killer’s secret life in Perth
By P Nurry
Friends and neighbours of opinionated Swanborne resident Paulie Muzza are reeling at the disclosure that he was a former radio shock jock and king hack who tried to to kill WA’s only daily newspaper with his blunt axe-like prose.
For 15 years until his Xmas party last year, Mr Muzza played the part of a not so modest and under-appreciated newspaper columnist who was often seen walking his little doggie in Allen Park.
He was once accepted among the elite coterie of lifetime members of the WA Club, was an unpopuar contributor to the Swanborne poetry club and a collector of ABBA LPs and drinking memorabilia.
Very few of the well-heeled people with whom he rubbed shoulders knew he was in with the Guildford Grammar old boys club or that he once studied geology.
But his closest friends in Perth – even the man who drunkedly abused him at his Xmas party – did not know Muzza’s record of trying to kill the newspaper he once editied.
Sometime in the late 1990s, after a decade or so of editing The Worst, Muzza told his managers he could no longer put up with the snubs and remarks of his journalists who, he claimed, used to tell smutty stories invoving lesbians and alcohol after he had left the room.
Taking this as a belittlement of his sexual efforts, Muzza told his bosses that, as far as his staff was concerned, he was only good for his money.
Muzza, then in his early 40s, ensured the paper became one of the most parochial, middle of the road dalies in Australia, embracing – and then emulating – an intellectual malaise that had accumulated in the WA community under the stiffling private schoolboy stewardship of the Court Government.
After getting the boot and being replaced by a TV guy, Muzza drove 15 kms to his home with the paper’s mast head in a plastic bag after drunkedly stealing it from the walls of the front foyer following his going-away party.
At the end of a nine day drinking binge he decided he was not guilty of trying to murder the paper as claimed by his critics due to diminished responsibility. Instead, he likened his crime to manslaughter and decided dead air radio blather would be the way to go. Later he was given a second chance to finish off The Worst when, for some inexplicable reason, he was given a column.
Longstanding WA Club stalwart Jeff Hovercraft said Muzza was a regular patron, but did not realise he had tried killing The Worst.
I asked Mr Hovercraft if he knew why the newspaper kept his mate on as a columnist.
“That I do not know,” he said, his voice suddenly low and flat.
He started stumbling over his words: “I’m shattered, but not sort of … I mean he did stop cuttting and pasting three quarters of his columns in the second half of last year, didn’t he?”
Meanwhile Swanborne poetry club president Will Chambermaid, who hurled the Xmas party abuse, said he knew Muzza had written some piss poor poetry – and had once claimed he had discovered the Sydney in a haiku called “Found” – but was unaware of his ridiculous past.
Neighbours in the quiet Swanborne Street where Muzza lives were shocked to learn of his past, despite the fact they often heard him muttering stuff about Kevin Rudd and climate change to his little doggie during their park forays.
“Sometimes he goes on about the WA potato board as well,” a neighbour said.
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Excellent.
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gold.
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Good stuuf, indeed, but why is it so chronologically misplaced in the blog?
Maybe a reflection of the subject, a man out of his time.
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Dear P Nurry
One of the weirdest things about such a geographically isolated city as Perth is that many of its journalists think they are at the centre of the world rather than being small players in the Australian scene.
This overinflated sense of importance gets us into lots of trouble with our readership, particularly in Freo, where the coffee sipping crowd who devour the works of wankers like Hesse, Camus and even Tim Winton consider our writing abrasive and interfering.
It also doesn’t help us to see our place in the world clearly or -without the benefit of a realistic sense of perspective – make our stories remotely interesting.
This is not something many WA people, who fork out a buck thirty a day in the hope that their only daily rag might have the odd good article ot two, like to hear.
In fact, those who are susceptible to this myopic jingoism warm to the exact opposite.
That’s why some journos keep using stupid terms like “at first blush” to play to this peculiar superiority complex.
Take, for example, one of the above-mentioned rag’s ex editors who now writes a regular column – with most of them (in recent times) attacking Kevin Rudd and climate change.
Rudd this, Rudd that, Kyoto, ETS, emmissions…. Blah, blah, blah – it’s all the same, week-in, week-out.
And if this wasn’t bad enough, the writer then starts going on about what the Canucks decided to do post Copenhagen.
Hello! It’s almost mid February, and here we are reading about something that happened in December.
I mean really, isn’t this a case of a small player in global journalism trying to punch above his weight by incorporating international diplomacy in a piece that ends up being nothing more than a whinge about Rudd and the fact that his home state of Qld sends shit loads of coal to the Chinks?
And isn’t mentioning the Barrier Reef with a sense of indignation during the punch line nothing more than prose with an overinflated sense of self importance?
Of course the inclusion of the comment from Col “show us yer nostril” Barnster towards the end just strengthens the case that, being geographically isolated, the poor writer and his ilk find it difficult not to be parochial.
Sound familiar?
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Col “show us yer nostril” Barnster.
Forever known as.
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Don’t forget the free ads for lord monkeypants.
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Dear P Nurry
A few days ago a reader kindly sent in a news article which purported to show that European investors were going cold on building nuclear reactor plants.
It was a welcome addition to my mailbox as it enabled me to cut and paste yet another piece together about why the anti-nuke power clowns are wrong and I’m right.
Not that I’m an expert on nuclear energy. In fact I don’t recall ever being at Lucus Heights and I’m sure I’ve never visited ANSTO’s HQ (fucking government Johnnys the lot of them).
Nor do I really know anything about alkaline leaching or resin-in-pulp extractive processes which may be fundamental to my case, whatever that might be.
But do I need this knowledge? Not really – cherry picking bits and pieces from a variety of reports is, afterall, my modus operandi.
That, and making statements such as “At first bliush, Europe is a very strange place these days…America, on the other hand, is changing quickly…..”
Which brings me to Barack Obama. Bless the man – sure he’s all bluster like that prick Kevin Rudd who has promised much but has been delivering little (as I’ve pointed out over and over and over and over [repeat 51 times] before).
But at least his speech transcripts are both long and easy to cut and paste.
The New York Times is also a good source of quotes, as is the US Energy Secretary.
Wherther or not you believe in anthropogenic climate change, the transfer from a carbon-based economy is happening inexorably, driven by dwindling oil reserves, if nothing else.
Western Australians need to realise how immature, outdated and fucking folksy their newspaper columnists are when viewed in an international perspective.
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In the dying days of the 2007 Federal election campaign, Opposition leader Kevin Rudd returned to Canberra from his relentless search for votes around the country to address the National Press Club.
Despite the fact my 15,000 word diatribe is ultimately going to be about that hapless hairless idiot Peter Garrett (whose group Midnite Oil, I might add, is no ABBA) and the lack of accountability in government (an old favourite, unlike the subject of lack of accountability in editorial, which is something I try to avoid like the Allen Park plague), I thought I’d put this in to highlight the fact that – unlike those hacks in the press gallery – I was out there following the campaign trail.
Yes, I was there – me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Not our own guys from The Worst who work in the Canberra press gallery, but yours truly.
And who could forget that wordy crap I wrote for the weekender in late 2007, when I went on and on about the number of mobile phone calls I was receiving while on the hustings? I mean what was more important – reporting to my readers what that dipstick Rudd was saying, or letting them know that there was a bunch of people who were more interested in talking to me.
As I remember it all now, I’d been following both leaders on their resepectieve media busses during the 2007 campaign and arrived in Canberra that Wednesday night with the Howard caravan to find the capital still digesting Mr Rudd’s lunchtime speech.
This, of course, was in the days before the ETS, so I couldn’t ramble on about that. Rather, I decided to tackle it from the “He’s all talk – no action”, angle, which was kind of easy as my editor had texted me earlier in the day saying the exact same thing about me!
Yes – empathy can go a long way in circumstances like this, so I set about cutting and pasting his speech from the Labor Party web page in the hope that one day I could use it.
And, low and behold, the opportunity came up in the insulation debate.
Or should I call it insulationgate?
Firstly, before I get to Garratt, I just want to point out with statistics the fact that the public service has grown. Having been a successful editor in the private sector, this is something that is somewhat of an anathema to me.
And as I represent the progressive new guard, I’ll then have a dig about that old leftie Mungo McCallum, who seems to have missed point like some doddering old eastern seaboard fool who lacks the sophistication of a journo that has cut his teeth doing Ben Cousins stories in the footy paradise of Perth.
Of course his inclusion in this rant, in which he talks to someone else on another medium, allows me to cut and paste another 150 words. Every little bit helps.
Finally there’s my point, which doesn’t really concern Garratt at all, but in fact is another diatribe aimed at Rudd (my 187th this year).
Is the intelligence of my four readers worth less to me than those seeking asylum from the horrors of this column by jumping overboard into the sea of newspaper swill? Well, yes. After all, accountability is still lacking.
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Dear P Nurry
On Sunday, PM Kevin Rudd made his long awaited return to the ABC’s Insiders’ program, regarded by some in political circles as an important part of Canberra’s weekly round of naval gazing.
The relationship between the program and the PM’s office has been testy over what senior journalists who appear on the panel regard variously as either a personal snub or a failure to be publicly accountable to such an illustrious group.
I for one am an expert on both personal snubs and failures to be publicly accountable – not because I am an expert on everything from looking for ocean wrecks to doggie diets – but because I have been snubbed many times and have failed, on many others, to be held accountable for some of the turgid blather that emanates from my keyboard.
During the past week or so much of this hubris has been sort of aimed at Peter Garratt and the failed insulation program. It was an easy target.
Rudd’s mea culpa, however, is easier to crap on about.
While I might say that Alan Jones puts his ego ahead of his listeners (without clarifying the point that it seems, judging from some of the hogwash that I sometimes spew out during my diatribes at least, that I am doing exactly the same thing, only in print), I will then show what a monster fucking ego I really have as I recall the time I pissed off John Howard while working as a shock jock on TAB radio.
Howard, the whole of Perth and WA will recall, refused to appear on my program because I did a short editorial on his government’s failings before crossing to him in Canberra for an interview.
So important was what I wrote that Howard started shivering in his boots when he heard I was the warpath. Afterall, my commentaries could bring down governments – just ask that Keating prick, who refused to talk to the Worst before the 1996 election and lost the poll (actually, that could have been 1993 – in which case I can’t take any credit).
At the time, Howard was furious over a line which quoted an old Chinese proverb about fish rotting from the head. It seemed appropriate at the time, just as it’s appropriate today – not in relation to Rudd, but as a description of myn columns circa 2001-2010.
Word counts are easy when giving blow by blow desriptions of interviews broadcast over the set, so it was kind of apt that I was able to finish my latest yarn with an account of some of the verbal exchange between Barrie Cassidy and the PM.
Indeed, it reminded me of the time I was interviewing Norm Malborough while filling in for Bob Maumill, who had taken the day off from entertaining the racehorse and housewife crowd.
Norm: “I may be misunderstood. Or perhaps I didn’t really understand.”
Nuz: “Well, we appreciate you clearing up a few
things for us today.”
Norm: “Appreciate it Nuzza.”
And, in fact, I did too. Playing newspaper readers and editors for suckers is not just my default position – it’s a way of life.
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you’re amazing my ning
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excellent.
I gave up reading Murray for a while, but now have started reading him again, but only after having read myning’s spoof first.
I am stunned that Murray can get away with simply pasting large chunks of Cassidy’s interview. Why did he wait til today? is that when the ABC prints the transcript? I prefer to imagine Nurry busy with the pause button making his own transcript from a recording and chucking to himself when he gets the insider jokes.
Sattler tried the same line with Alan Carpenter that he was ‘too scared’ to go on his show. Truth is that Sattler has the lowest rating show on 6PR and Carps preferred to go on in the morning when people were listening
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Excellent My Ning. On the weekend Nurries claimed to be an expert on reading government reports, and thus that the inquiry into the Toodyay bushfire had got it wrong. Nurries is truly a parasite sucking on the teat of the Worst. The sooner he goes the better for all of us.
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Funnier still in the weekender Bill was the person who wrote the letter in saying how much they enjoyed both Nuzzie AND the letters (presumably written by the disgruntled 6PR crowd, those forgotton members of our own home grown silent majority). Surely a Dorothy Dixer?!
For a while my worry was if the bitter one and his little doggie goes, then what will we write about. Then I remembered the promise of Garratt’s review of Winton – now that’s something worth waiting for…..
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Dear P Nurry
By 9am on January 16 last year it was already stinking hot and a blistering north-easterly wind was gushing up to 50 km/hour.
Inside, at my desk, there was a different kind of blistering wind as I pulled another column out of my arse – this time based on an ABC radio transcription when Phillip “that fucking leftie who writes for that fucking Murdoch prick” Adams was interviewing Adam Sandler on whether his pisspoor Zohan movie had played a part in Israel’s decision to firebomb civilians.
(I was about to put a cut and paste a hunk of that interaction in to this narrative before realising that I had already done that on January 18 last year, when the blistering wind was still as gushing.)
What was I to do on that fateful day, I asked myself at the time. Surely it was too hot to walk my little doggie through Allen Park – plus there was the worry that my first blushes would turn into full blown sunburn.
Besides, how many people had I run into last week during one of my outings who had copies of my January 8 column in their pockets wanting to discuss the contents?
Yes, it was gratifying that my Rudd tirades were getting out to the people – better still was the fact they were agreeing with me (unlike those management bastards at The Worst and TAB Footy Radioland). But now it was getting too much – too much fame, too much recognition, too much agreeance.
In fact I had almost thought of writing about fame on that hot January 16 day, but when I googled the word all I found was old David Bowie records for sale on E-Bay.
No, I needed something different.
Then I remebered – in the previous Saturday’s column I had proven myself to be an expert on government reports when I rewrote a chunk of one about a health scare in Esperance to make up my 50,000 word count.
It was an inspiring moment. I put fingers to keybaord.
“As I wrote in The Worst on Saturday, the report is questionable,” I started.
“Not only is it questionable, but it is suspect.
“Not only is it questionable and suspect, but there’s something fishy about it.
“Fishy and lacking.”
The mention of fish made me hungry. Despite the heat, I felt a sudden craving for kippers, so I turned on the stove and waited for the oil to heat up.
Then the power went out – for three fucking hours. In my haste to get the column out I went back to work, feverishly knocking out a piece using my old typewriter on why the goverment is a liar (I even managed to slip Rudd in there) before taking a moment to rest on the couch.
Unfortunately I drifted off to the thoughts of ABBA and, for one brief moment, I lay with my head in the bosum of Meryl Streep.
I later awoke with the back TV on and an acrid smell filling my nostrils. The power had returned and the kitchen was on fire. Some dill had left a frying pan on full of oil on the stove for too long, I thought, before realising it was me.
A subsequent investigation by EnergySafety into the incident left many answers unquestioned. Who, for instance, was responsible – me, a hapless and innocent victim of power blackouts, or Western Power? And why was it that expensive olive oil, which we paid $24 bucks a bottle for, should explode like the common canola oil found in plastic containers when subjected to severe heat?
Furthermore, how was it that the kitchen window curtins could catch fire so easily when we paid lotsa motsa for them? I thought only the cheap stuff burned.
The Barnett Government should not force this household affected by that 2009 fire into expensive legal action just because it wants to shirk responsibility for the blaze.
And despite the inexplicable inability of EnergySafety to make a cogent finding on this fire, Western Power should not shirk its moral obligations.
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There are not enough whorediamonds on earth to reward you for this piece, ning.
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Dear P Nurry
It’s such an easy thing to say no. It is one of our smallest words, but no has the ability to stop everything from happening.
That is, of course, except for crap newspaper columns.
For some time now a portion of the reading public in WA has said no to reading Muzza’s columns in the Worst, citing being sick of phrases like “at first blush” “while I was in Allen Park” “and being an expert on everything” as just the tip of the iceberg of its list of complaints.
And it wasn’t the first time no didn’t stop everything.
Some time ago, the Worst’s management got so sick of dwindling sales and public outrage over some of the mediocre crap the paper was churning out that it finally said no to Mutsie’s editorialship.
However, being shown the door was not enough and he firstly reappeared on football head radio land before getting a column in the rag. All of this happened despite the loud “Oh no,” from the dissatisfied public, which couldn’t believe that Mutsa’s verbal stench just wouldn’t go away.
The cries of no continue – no to cutting and pasting; no to paraochial crap commentary; no to three installments of this shite a week.
But still it continues.
For instance, take Mutsa’s response to Howard Pedersen’s piece on why the Kimberley should not become a agricultural food bowl.
Despite all the nos for cutting and pasting, a chunk of Pedersen’s tirade is pasted in for the word count. And despite the fact the no for Mutsa’s claim on being an expert is deafening, here he is again telling us that he is expert on the Kimberley.
Worse still is the fact that despite a really big no, Mutsa just had to make it clear that “I noted that the key CSIRO report on which the taskforce relied bemoaned a paucity of quality data for water resource accounting”.
It’s time to take a stand.
No, no, no – we don’t to hear this self rightious bullshit. No, no, no – having been a fucking newspaper editor doesn’t make one an expert on eveything.
And why are we being subjected to this drivel?
So there’s another short word that should be used when we see media people illogically decide to say no.
Why?
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Dear P Nurry
A few weeks ago, I took the opportunity at a public function to have a word in Premier Colin Barnett’s shell-like about serious concerns swirling around the Office of Energy Safety’s report on the Toodyay bushfire.
At the time he had a copy of an article I had written 10 years ago about shell-like hanging out of his shell-like.
Just weeks before I had spoken at a CEDA function and pointed out that Kevin Rudd was a loser, particularly when he argued about his shell-like.
Later that day, as I was taking my shell-like for his daily walk around Allen Park, it occured to me that Barnett’s shell-like was all about dismissing official reports.
Barnett, whose shell like reminds me of a nostril, needs more shell-like.
At that time I’d written two shell-like outlining the deficiencies in Energy Safety’s investigations, both times calling for an independent review of the agency’s report which found Western Power was not responsible for the fire, despite significant evidence that it was.
Barnett tilted his shell-like down to me and listened, giving me a good hearing. And so he should – I’m an important shell-like. He was still unmoved.
Unmoved?! How was this? Hadn’t he heard of my shell-like? And what about my other shell-like?
In the end, to make my point, I quoted endlessly some consultant guy called Stapleton, whose shell like was beyond any shell-like I had ever seen.
Putting the fire victims to more hardship through a long and costly court case is not the best way to provide them with justice.
Only a shell-like can achieve this.
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Just a brief note, I’m still on Climategate and government report secondment analysis and in any case less is always more with me, but not withstanding I will add a short note to what my learned colleague, Sir Ning has already expounded upon in this august and important Interflung journal of record.
Now that the LHC style celestial sparkle has come off the wordily worthy K-Droid v the authentic , genu-whine Toned A-Bot pants off balls out showdown; the A-Bot’s Christi-insanity death ray having bounced harmlessly off the Droids Lady Ga-ga style hermaphroditic glistening shell like vicuna. But not to be beaten the A-bot took the smugglers to the waves to demonstrate his prowess over the Droid. Just give him a bicycle and away he goes. It’s one way to get rid of him.
With those unavoidable A-Bot discussional preliminaries out the way we can discuss more mundane Sir Ning style matters.
Sir Alan Bond, Sir Johnny Carlton, Sir Lang Hancock, Baron Rohan Skea ,Sir Charles Court ,Interflung Tsar Tshitvshies and , of course, the most finesterest instance of all, Sir Col’n Barney. All these men stalwart bulwark s of western suburbs civilisation to a man, with Sir Martin Bennett as their mighty defender. A defender of western suburbs values, democracy and freedom of speech against the petty jealousies of the lower orders with their envy and hanging out for scraps from A-Listers tables. I can hear their stern hue and cry, now of “where’s my slice”
You losers with your multiple personality deficits and lack of self control are just completely incapable of running great bags of red dirt up a hopper ,loading white powder into a cargo hull ,cracking Interflung codes or cheating the masses in various ways including writing crap in newspapers. You’ve lost out in life’s little lottery losers and you are never going to be supervising truck loads of cash into your black bank account unless it is followed promptly by a stretch despite your efforts to sell your story to ACA or Woman’s day. The straight and narrow path is for you.
And anyway after surviving all that Sir Martin would take you bastards to the cleaners for libel. There may be running but there is no hiding for you Interflung cowards with the “Fartin” Bennett’s patented “Wrath of Khant” Interflung search and destroy technology.
The nattering negative, latte licking, shit eaters of drunken Academiaclicism would have it different but I think, as usual, my analysis stands up in the clear morning light of Toodyay.
On the Muttsie front, Muttsie recommends Wilfred, however he claims there are not enough heads bitten off and that it is based on his life. Is it dog imitating life or life imitating dog ?He doesn’t know.The episode with the Galah however was very satisfactory and Muttsie reckons the Galah had it coming.
I thank you for your time to allow me to come to grips with this Interflung monkey crap.
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There are not enough whorediamonds on earth to reward such an outstanding effort.
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Shell-likes are cunts.
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Not too bad on the wingnut bingo scale.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2010/03/31/wingnut-bingo/
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Fuck your shell-like, fuck your shell-like most cavalierly.
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Dear P Nurry
One of the intrinsic national characteristics on which Australians used to pride themselves was a finely-tuned bulldust meter.
It seems to have mysteriously vanished from many of The Worst’s readers as Paulie Motza spins a web of deceit around the opinion section of the paper, building a perceived personal following which has given him an unrivalled editorial ascendancy, strangely squandered for little net gain for the circulation.
While newspapers are a comparative business – and the former editor did much to keep Motza on top – this doesn’t fully explain the writer’s ego and his so-called domination of the local scene while, even on a generous assessment, the self righteous Worst has failed to live up to its constantly overblown rhetoric.
Since being told to come to his senses after writing some of the worst crap to have appeared in the rag ever (and this includes the woeful waffle spat out by Len Finday before he was demoted to, firstly, the golf reports, and then the obits), Motsa has become overwhelmingly repetitive, keeping his omissions limited to Kevin Rudd and the odd government report and, on the odd occasion, already reported political stuff in WA.
Motsa couldn’t believe his luck last week when the PM backflipped on the ETS, allowing him to go on and on about stuff-ups and axed promises that are reaching Whitlamesque proportions.
Visiting Rudd’s website, Motsa filled centimeters of his diatribe with a cut and paste press release before doing what those ridiculous post structuralists (whom he no doubt loathes given they have no real life experience) used to do – writing about what wasn’t said.
Having swallowed this, the reader wants to know something, as Rudd is wont to say, which is: “Where does this fucking crap come from?”
If anything, regular readers could identify with Lumumba Di-Aping, when he said he could see right through Rudd because the message he was giving his people was “a fabrication …(a) fiction.”
Never could truer words be applied to Motza’s continual stream of nonsense, which doesn’t even add up to entertaining diatribe.
Then, to fill the space, more cut and paste quotes from Di-Aping – most likely from the ABC.
Rarely has WA seen a more hollow and duplicitous hack than Paulie Motza.
But he still, seemingly, manages to baffle the brains of those poor deluded clowns who write in to the Worst’s letters page saying how insightful the bitter prick is.
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Dear P Nurry
Something is obviously afoot when the state’s principal law officer asks a Queensland mining billionaire for legal advice in front of an audience of leading Perth businessmen.
That’s just what happened last Friday after iron ore and coal magnate Cilve Palmer finished venting his spleen on the Rudd Government’s resources super profits tax at WA’s conservative fundraiser, The 500 Club, and called for questions from the floor.
Introducing himselves as WA’s attorney-general, Christian Porter asked Mr Palmer whether he thought the new tax was open to a constitutional challenge , particularly on the basis of Australia’s obligations to China under bilateral business agreements.
Mr Palmer, who is an adjunct professor in the faculty of business and law at Geelong’s Deakin University, wasn’t up to the question. But he studiously took notes.
Mr Porter (yes – it really was him – he didn’t lie when he stood up and introduced himself as ther treasure, although I had to make this point because I felt that no one in the room recognised him) was later cagey about the detail behind his inquiry, which seemed intended to relay detail rather than garner it. It seems there might be something in the fine print of a treaty whereby Australia undertakes not to change taxation rules on Chinese investments. Stay tuned.
OK – the premise has been set – the Chinese might be able to treat Australia as something of a tax haven when it comes to digging holes in the ground on digger soil and taking it back to China. Wow – this is really, really big! Just what are the parameters of the trade agreement with China? And why is Uncle Clive being coy on the issue? And was he really taking notes at the 500 Club, or was he working out how much cash he was making per minute just to beat the tedium of being in WA with a bunch of suits?
Stay tuned? Stay tuned to what? Instead of looking for any details which may back up this pseudo assertion, I’m instead going to switch to the whole rehashed debate as to whether the Commonwealth or the States own their rocks. Then, in true form, I’m going to attack Rudd for the 6o,ooo time this year, pointing out what an idiot he is when it comes to constitutional law.
But what point have I missed by including this tantalising teaser in my exposition? For a start, would not have Nostril Col brought up the China issue already if there was any truth in it? After all, the plump one stood up to Shell all those years ago to stop those Brit fuckers getting the North West Shelf (and thank God for that – imagine if those Pommie pricks had popped a hole in the crust 2 kms under water off our pristine coast). Snorky obviously doesn’t like foreigners – even the white ones!
No, Premier Nasal Hair would have brought it up aleady – it would have been a front page headline for the Worst at least a week ago (or maybe Brett just didn’t believe the story when he heard about it and decided not to run it – it’s happened there before you know).
But perhaps the biggest question from the first five paragraphs of the piece is why bother mentioning Palmer at all? For years and years the world sat back and watched him try to develop his WA magnatite iron ore project near Dampier to no avail. Hell, at one point he suggested that the dirt be dug up and shipped across to Newcastle for treatment in former BHP steel mills before peddling the resulting value added product to China. Ambitious? Yes. Achievable? Perhaps. But when it was reported that he eventually tried to sue the NSW Government on the grounds of contract breach because no offtake agreements with the Chinese had been reached (the Carr Government, apparently, didn’t renew its land/rent agreement when it became obvious the whole thing was stalling), a few eyebrows were raised.
Ultimately the WA iron ore project did eventually get up and running – namely because there was a boom and the Chinese finally mustered enough cash to buy it. And admittedly it was an achievement – afterall, how many producing magnatite mines are there in Australia?
Nevertheless the point has to be made – Palmer may be a magnate insofar as he’s an influencial businessman, but he aint no BHP or Rio. Even Twiggy has more mining cred.
If the 500 Club was serious about discussing this issue without having conjecture and redherrings bandied about, it should have got an economist or lawyer in to talk about this tax – not an entertaining billionaire entrepeneur for whom mining is just one of a number of business interests. And if the club had done this, maybe the speaker would have answered Porter’s question about Chinese financial arrangements.
Finally, it is kind of difficult to stay tuned when, by the end of paragraph 8, all you want to do is tune out….
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“Mineralogy donated $400,000 to the federal Liberal Party, $110,000 to the West Australian National Party and $50,000 to the federal National Party.
Mr Palmer personally donated $280,000 to the Queensland Liberal National Party.
He made another $25,000 donation to the other side of politics, writing a cheque to the West Australian branch of the ALP.”
I think Christian Porter’s real question was: “what about us? What do we get, Clive?”
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Public record Skink?
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that’s why I put it in quotation marks
cut and pasted from the SMH in best Nurry tradition:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/kaching-mining-magnate-palmer-tops-political-donor-list-20100201-n72s.html
the Christian Porter question is of course hypothetical
I’m behaving myself, see?
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I can xxx it anyway if you like so people will know you’re still maintaing the rage cage.
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look, sometimes I say things in the heat of the moment that may later turn out not to be true.
you should know by now that you can’t believe a single thing I say unless it is cut and pasted from a reputable news source, in which case it is the gospel truth.
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Which leads to doubts about whether “gospel truth” (an oxymoron if there ever was) can possibly exist in the current lack of any genuinely reputable news source.
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You are so (justifiably) paranoid about skink I bet you’re even moderating your own comments.
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can we still call Nurry a cunt?
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Is truth a defense?
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From
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/defamation.html#truth
For example, truth alone is not a defence in all [Australian]jurisdictions. In some, the defendant must also prove that the publication of a true statement or imputation was made for the ‘public benefit’ (Queensland, Tasmania, A.C.T.) or relates to a matter of ‘public interest’ (NSW).
In addition to defences available under State and Territory laws, the High Court has determined that the Australian Constitution provides protection for some types of communications for political purposes. Such protection overrides the provisions of State/Territory defamation laws.
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Why do I continually have the feeling that exporting Australian government soil to Chinese government owned industry without proper payment, government to government, is some kind of administrative FAIL ?
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Nah man it’s the trickle down effect. It’s all about monetary onflow from the CUBs down to Rick Hart and Shacks’. Good for the economy maaate.
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Like the trickle down effect from the urinal in the business club bar, methinks.
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that’s it exactly. Cascade premium light.
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Beautiful My Ning, just posted that on Pollbluger, as it needed a wider audience.
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Dear P Nurry
There was a time when we needed to talk about Kevin. We did that, eventually. It took a bit too long.
Now it’s time we talked about Julia.
Julia who? Well, if I wanted to make up the word count, I would refer to that wonderful McCartney-Lennon (or should that be Lennon-McCartney?) song off the so-called White Album. It goes:
“Half of what I say is meaningless
But I say it just to reach you, Julia”.
Yes readers of The Worst – you are all my Julia. I’m trying to reach you, but almost all of what I say is quite meaningless.
But what would my brother say? Would he spare a dime?
Can he see through the smoky haze of self lit spot fires of distraction?
Worse still – how is it that Howard Sattler still gets interviewed on TV about the unemployed while I gotta spit wordz out of my arse about Rudd to make a living? It was much easier finding footy blather to fill radio dead air.
Such as attacking Rudd via a Gillard proxy.
No, the red bob, whatever the fuck that is really is meant to be, has moved not a millimetre.
And as for Kevin – did Smithy really need two seats on an airplane coz he’s so corpulent? Hang on – do I have the right Kev?
Poor readers – you missed out on WA Inc and no one on the current editorial staff here has been willing to remind you constantly – as is needed – that the Barnster is so stoopid that he’s kinda dangerous.
And didn’t we get ourselves in this mess before?
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We are your Julia? I thought we were your walrus?
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Living is easy with eyes closed,
misunderstanding all you see.
It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn’t matter much to me.
Allen Park Fields Forever
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And who could ever forget Layla in the sky for the benefit of Shaft ?
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Dr P Nurry
At first blush I must say it’s a fucking outrage.
No, no, no – I’m not talking about that Cohen prick (David that is, not either of the Cohen brothers, who make those simply awful highbrow films that only geeks like Naglazas can relate to).
Nor am I talking about the fact that we now have a prime minister who sounds like she came off the set of Kath & Kim (now there’s something on the telly that I can relate to).
I am, of course, talking about the fact that on the weekend edition of The Worst following what was one of the most tumultuous moments in modern Australian political history, I was not invited to put my two bobs’ worth in about the dumping of Kevin Rudd.
Can you believe it??!! Brett didn’t ask ME to put in a 20,000 worder about a man I’ve literally made a living off for the past 18 months or so after being told not to bother writing about anything outside of politics or incompetent bureaucrats because my attempts at humour and film reviews all sounded too juvenile.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I didn’t see my name on the front cover of the rag I once edited for 10 years over a story about how the ABC had reported that a snap Nielsen poll had said that the Labor Party’s popularity had jumped on the back of Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan’s knifing of Rudd.
Nor could I believe that Brett then overlooked me and had the Canberra hacks do a two page profile on Gillard – and without huge chunks of cut and paste quotes from other people’s articles, I might add.
But the biggest king hit came when my name didn’t appear anywhere in the Agenda section, which focused – quite superficially I might add – on the whole Gillard-replaces-Rudd thing. Can you believe it?
There was not one article by me, there was no mention of me in the letters section. As I said at the start, it was a fucking outrage.
I seethed as I walked my little doggie around Allen Park that morning, thinking how even an old fart like Zoltan fucking Kovacs – with his pondering crap about how homeopathic medicine was somehow related to the decline of interest in institutionalised religions – could get his stuff in before me.
Honestly – using the death of poor Ms Dingle to help lead to a proclamation that everyone “should rethink the traditional value we have put on the idea of faith, particularly when it contradicts common sense and reasonable skepticism” was almost as shameless as Wilson Tuckey connecting the death of those poor Sundance buggers in Africa with the new mining tax.
And speaking of that, how was it that some dill could decide that Malcolm Quekett’s piece on the Sundance crash would go in before a 30,000 diatribe by me? Didn’t we get rid of this prick during my reign of terror, when I managed to get the circulation of the rag up to over 1 million with the help of our monopoly of the print media in WA? Did we really need a blow by blow account of what it was like back in the Perth office when the plane came down? If I’d been asked to write it, I could have gone on about how I’m an expert on African iron ore, proving it with cut and paste chunks sourced from various free news services after Googling the words African iron ore.
There was even a story on Michael Jackson from – can you believe it? – The Washington Post and the Associated Press. Guys – I’m right here. And hell, even I could do a story on sexual harassment accompanied by a high heels and stockings graphic. “Long way to go in the women’s department” Mayes? Damn fucking straight.
Of course Mayes wasn’t the only one to use the mining tax in a pithy opening line before writing about something that didn’t really have anything to do with it. Just look at Longley’s piece on the World Cup. For fuck’s sake, I used to live and breathe sport during my sojourn as a wannabe shock jock (like Howie) on radio dead air. Fielding endless telephone questions from drones about the West Coast Eagles and Dockers made me an expert on reporting footy. I don’t need to see copy telling me that the Americans winning their fucking soccer match in South Africa was a “rare and beautiful thing”.
Anyway, I’m surprised someone didn’t convince the editor to chuck the mining tax in at the start of the Joanna Lumley story. After all, I’m sure Aussie miners have seen their fair share of skirmishes over the Gurkhas.
Say, that gives me an idea:
“While she may not be familiar with the skirmishes over the mining tax in Australia, the ‘skirmish over the Gurkhas’ made Joanna Lumley a goddess in Nepal and reinforced her national treasure status at home in Britain.
“But, as she sees it, she was only doing the right thing – just as new Australian PM Julia Gillard did when she helped knife Kevin Rudd after the outcry against the new mining tax.
“Last year – well before the mining tax was announced – was an extraordinary year for Lumley.”
See, I’ve still got it – I can get it in the first THREE pars of any story. Take that Mayes and Longley. Take that Telegraph Group.
My omission from The Worst’s Agenda section on Saturday raises one important issue – will Brett now send me across on an all expenses paid trip to the eastern states to cover the next election campaign so I can write another 100,000 worder about how I was continually interrupted by mobile phone calls (from people that included, believe it or not, my editor) during press conferences?
Will I be able to go on and on and on and on about how meaningless the whole thing is and make endless jibes about the incompetency levels of other journos on the junket? Will someone eventually work out that an astute 250 word letter to the editor usually manages to say more than the long winded bilge I spew out – and that these pearls of wisdom come for free?!
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Surely, we deserve a lot better than this
It’s often said we get the journalists we deserve. Implicit in that veiled warning against buying any newspaper is that we are always offered at least one competent alternative.
What if there is only one newspaper, and it’s shit?
After the first week of this peculiar election campaign, you have to wonder where the fuck I have been. In fact, the campaign has been going nearly two weeks now, and this is the first time I have opened my big mouth. I pissed off on holiday when Rudd was rolled, and when the election was called I had already filed my piece on how I was the only person who bothered to take notes during that Hawke-Keating soap opera.
I missed the two biggest stories of the year. It’s starting to feel like WA Inc all over again.
Frankly, Australia deserves a lot better than that the shit I offer
At first blush, the real problem in this election is the number of furphies being allowed to run virtually unchallenged in the media. Several times I have pointed out that I am the only journalist of the calibre to address these issues, so it’s a pity I was on holiday. A classic hollow man. Really, the fact that I have not been ‘dead, buried and cremated’ many years ago must make the editors on my paper cringe with embarrassment.
And if I might just cut and paste something from a delightful young journalist with a far perkier bosom than my own:
‘.. the idea of lauding some old hack as the second coming simply because he is a c.nt is nothing short of ludicrous, when really thus far Nurry has merely proven himself to be capable of churning out the same vapid, tasteless, mealy-mouthed, borderline bigoted sh.t that he has been for the last twenty years.’
‘What exactly has he done? what groundbreaking stories has he broken in the name of journalism? The daft prat didn’t even see WA Inc when it was right under his nose.’
Surely we deserve better than this.
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I was just talking aout the Nurry situation with My Ning the other day. How things have changed in the three years of TWOP. No-one really cares anymore. People can get their shit journalism from so many places now, that the decades long indignation at the terrible standard of the West is now moot. Teh West isn’t the only channel of shite available. Has it got better? With Nurry still churning out the same crap, no. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Why would anyone even bother writing a letter to the editor? The historians of the future, apart from wondering who Mainy was, will have a good snapshot of the change of news right here.
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Mainy will never be forgotten.
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Was he the same as Barra?
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but skinnier
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and not breathing so much.
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I did fid it rather amusing that Nurry quoted Marieke Hardy
it’s like John Farnham singing a Kate Miller-Heidke cover in falsetto
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As someone who realised the hopelessness of ever gleaning anything factual, let alone intelligent, from the that rag way back in the ’90s may I ask : “What the hell are you lot on about?”?
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That it doesn’t matter now as you can get bad journaism from a multitude of outlets now.
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are you trying to say that TWOP has moved on?
in much the same way that Peter van Onselen said that “if the Liberal Party doesn’t stand for IR reform, what is the point of them?”
if TWOP isn’t bagging The West, what is the point of it?
will it just be ruritards, bad graffiti, and mild mannered non-defamatory leg-pullling?
is that what we have to look forward to?
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Saluting it with a last piss ring as it fades into irrelevance not good enough for you?
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Peter van Onselen. There’s a Perth Worst right there.
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I used to clean his office and CAN CONFIRM he has a pictorial book about surf lifesavers
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seconded
I always wonder why his columns don’t finish with:
Note: van Onselen is a fully paid-up stooge of the Liberal Party, and finds nothing laughable about Julie Bishop.
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Stooge of the Raybot team ?
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