Listen you at first blush pricks. I PAUL MUrray Am the angry whopper.
Walking my little doggie (junior whopper) around Allen park the other day, I was at first blush at a loss as to what text based website I would “quote” from this week. At first blush I decided to lambaste the Cottesloe council for spending a pitiful $172 000 on repairing the Cottesloe Beach pylon. Although most West Australians have an affectionate spot for the pylon, generations having swum out to and dived off it, a complete danger to shipping as myself has at first blush a hatred for let me say at the outset the pylon. The only time I tried to swim to the pylon, Japanese whalers massed off Cottesloe beach with harpoons at the ready, so let me spoil everyone else’s fun.
Is there not a pensioner with a copy of one of my columns in their sad cabbage fragranced pockets that desrves this money more? Is there not the odour of stale farts and self rightousness that would benefit from this money more than a state icon?
And while we’re on the subject of smells, I was mortified to hear that Baz Lurman had got the rights to The Great Gatsby. I haven’t ‘t actually read the book myself, but I have already tuned my mighty film reviewing skills top this as yet unmade movie. Let me say at the outset that I condemn this movie because it will detract from my status as The Angry Whopper. I am determined that a Gatsby Whopper from Hungry jacks will not usurp my role .
The Worst of Perth 
Have been meaning to ask for ages, what does “at first blush” mean?
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Wow! Have just read my fist Paul Murray column. NOW I understand what you guys have been on about. I believe I will print it out and carry it about with me…
As for the pylon,
I’m sure I heard, when I was last in Perth, that taking the pylon away would cost more than $172 000. Besides, wouldn’t spending the money on pensioners only be a temporary fix too.
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Golden1,
We are all temporary, fixed or not.
It’s just that some are more temporary than others.
Witness: Inebriated drivers attempting to out run sober and more skillfully endowed Police cars.
Especially on motorcycles.
Just riding a bicycle/motorcycle in traffic, where the average inattentive car driving moron is quite unlikely to even be aware of your presence, is in itself and indication of a subconscious Death Wish.
My Mum had a ‘temporary fix’ viz. eye surgery, when she was 65 and it lasted over 25 years, which is a lot longer than many of the aforementioned “temporary citizens”.
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Rolly – any insights on “at first blush”?
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“At first blush” is a stupid turn of phrase often employed by The Angry Whopper.
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Eat the whales, save the pylon.
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A Happy Nude Year , Love and Greasy Seasonings to Youse All
Message from the Chief
An Golden 1 “ at first blush” means whatever I want it to mean i.e. word count =3)
I cannot explain Macca’s self absorbed obsessive interest in me. The bloke’s obsession approaches love or that’s what somebody like Needsglasses would think with his psycho-babble crap.Macca’s a nobody who’s self promoted himself up his 30 seconds of fame via the Inter-thing. Gracie does all my Inter thing . She’s smart ! No need for me to learn that irrelevant shit.
( para about that latest Goggle interthing )
Those people on his Inter-thing thing are cowards the lot of them : they write under pseudonyms in case their mummy,shrink or screw finds out ; bit like Armstrong really and you know how pathetic that is. Macca’s members I call them and you can’t hide from me I know where you work ( I got the Worst’s IT department onto it ).
( para about that jealousy )
Maccas also jealous of my many achievements.Never cross Maccas coz he’ll haunt you like a banshee or a women possessed , but I am stronger .He can’t write English good like me. I still get a laugh out of that “ died in the paper “ business. And so what if my aftershave is Flatulence and it’s not as if he’s going to get a Walkley any time soon.
This hatred of his has the opposite effect; it makes me more and more famouser.He needs another healthy love object , someone like “Nashville Nic” for instance.Admittedly she is artificially preserved.
( para explaining many chievs )
I left school after Grade 3 because of the leftist tendencies in the curriculum and crawled my way up the slippery slope into the Weld club by guile and rat cunning. He may have been to that so called Cuntin University but I have been to the many real Universities : the University of Hard Knocks., the University of Real Life , Donut University , Maccas namesake the MacDonalds’s University, and the University of jeez I hate these cheap thesaurus. (Note to self : see previous writings filed under donuts)
( further rant about chievs )
For instance , prior to me becoming editor the Worst was run like a communist commune. I soon put down the insurrection. Some of those people still can’t work in this town, especially Lenin and Trotsky , you know who you are. Wearing an ice pick in your head is not a good look, nor is being mummified. Now I am in the enviable and joyous position of deciding what’s good journalism or not in this crazy little town. As Skunk or was it Bentover, one of Macca’s members , (and I know where you bastards work ) pointed out there’s a hack archipelago out there waiting for their bite of the journalism cherry should I decide to send a breadcrumb in their direction.
(para about paranoia and revenge )
Now I’m not paranoid but he’s organised some kind of Nurray Watch : Swanbourne is on the watch for me writing down time ,date and degree of sobriety.
Maccas I have power and influence in this town and I’ll crush you like the bug-eyed bug you are.I would just ask everybody to be adult in this matter. I’ll tell you who I think the dog is , that freaker NeedsGlasses , coupla midis and he’ll go to a good owner male or female ; I’d point the finger at him. I’d just like to yell DOG!You can run and hide under pseudonyms but I know who you are . DOG! Now Muttsie get away from my leg , frottage is what Stokesie does to Uncle Col’n. Have you been eating the neighbours chickenshit again ? You know it sends you crazy.(par : fillum review )
Barney has dispensed with consciousness , he gets wheeled in to the Weld in his wheelchair , the port drip attached , the timer set to three hours and then he’s wheeled out. There’s a new fillum about him coming out : “Weekend at Barneys” , with “Our Baz” directing it , and Cate Blanchette gets a part as Alannah McTiernan , with the wig department hopefully solving the technical problems. This’ll involve computer animation. ”Nashville Nic” is now longer available for Oztrailertrashiana after all the bad luck she has every time she teams up with “Our Baz” . But its good to see “Our Baz” tackling yank classics and turning them into kitsch.
Now , I sick of telling Whoppers and I’ve got a night off from Gracie for New Years , so I’m hauling my fat bloated carcase out of here and off to the singles night at the swingers club. See ya there !
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Now that’s what I call a comment.
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“At first blush” appeared in an editorial of The Australian newspaper last week. I would have choked on my latte, if I wasn’t an espresso drinker.
Anyone recall HJs’ first Whopper promotion: “It takes two hands”? Nurry only needs one hand to handle his, but the other has a finger up his arse.
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to the editor
West Australian
I read with interest and amusement your new masthead tagline: “giving a voice to the silent majority.”
Surely now that your circulation has fallen to the point where your paper is no longer read by the majority of West Australians, and the quality is such that it is no longer considered the newspaper of record, the view of the silent majority is that your newspaper is no longer worth reading.
As part of the vocal minority, may I just pass on the following message: “wake up to yourselves.”
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according to my research, there are several possible sources for ‘at first blush.’
it my refer to the first blush of dawn, making it the opposite cliche to ‘at the end of the day.’
it may also refer to the first blush of a flower as it comes into bloom.
it is basically another way of saying ‘at the outset’, or ‘my initial kneejerk reaction before I sat down and thought about it properly.’
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‘At first blush’ can be substituted with ‘at first’ as necessary. Unless you need a higher word count of course.
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Channel 9 (as with Paul Murray before them) is doing a lazy piece on cliches. At first blush, fuck off.
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Do you mean as in this bulletin ? :-)
http://player.video.news.com.au/perthnow/?mLK1l1G8qczj12eug4enjRZGED2ighxw
close
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Dear P Nurry
The gaggle of WA Government authorities responsible for protecting public health got lucky when birds fell out of the sky at Esperance two years ago.
Government authorities, I must say at first blush, have always been an easy target – something which gives me with a bit of luck of my own. Furthermore, using them provides some flexibility when cobbling together unresearched, hysterical and overwritten babble that passes itself off as a serious think piece.
Take, for example, my argument that Colin Barnett is wrong and I am right when it comes to the tricky issue of transporting nickel concentrate through Esperance port.
Despite being anti-government most of the time, I conveniently found some data from a government agency – the Department of Health (which I must admit came under a bit of stick when Mr Fong was running the show) – that supported me by claiming some data had shown around 40 percent of the town’s residents had urinary nickel levels above the department’s reference level.
This was gold, enabling me to boldly claim with deep voiced authority: “That has all the characteristics of a ticking environmental time bomb.”
And despite the fact I publicly slag off journos from other newspapers whenever I can for being impressionable dills who don’t bother doing any reseach into the stories they are writing about, I decided to erode my own high standards by not looking at any alternative arguments that could diminish the impact of my bold claims.
I ignored, for example, the fact that the UK-based Nickel Institute conducted its own study on the possible deliterious effects nickel was having on Esperence people immediately after the Magellan lead incident some two years ago (the same time Barnett has said it would take to install a “world class bulk sealed sysetm for the export of nickel sulphide concentrate” at the port – another convenient fact I can incorporate into my discourse in further attempt to look cynically sharp and clever).
Apparently the Nickel Institute’s health boss, Dr Hudson Bates, visited Australia to carry out the investigation.
Later, the institute’s director, Richard Matheson, was reported as saying the outcomes of this investigation were “about as favourable as we could hope for”.
The bottom line, he said, was that nickel in Esperance did not appear to be a health risk or threat – “to either the environment or to public health”.
It’s just as well I didn’t bother to quote this nonsense to give my column any modicum of balance. After all, these guys are high brow scientist-types who probably watch alternative films and don’t listen to ABBA – what the fuck would they know? (Furthermore, Matheson’s cut and pastable radio transcript wasn’t available from the ABC website).
With omissions like this, I can safely say – with misguided authority – that a dark cloud now hangs over Esperance.
And despite the fact I have used a WA government department to provide me with the bulk of the weight for my flimsy argument (which again met the word count) I can conveniently end my piece with a closing salvo at another one.
The community is now so cynical about those resposible for protecting it that there can be no return of confidence in the port’s operations, regardles of what the hapless Department of Environment and Conservation comes up with in its new licence conditions for bulk nickel exports.
(The community is also so cynical about those responsible for repeatedly publishing such tripe that there can be no return of confidence in the newspaper regardless of what schemes the hapless Stoksie and his cronies come up with – ed).
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from the West:
“Unknown shark spootted off Brighton Beach”
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=116729
are some sharks known by name?
“don’t worry, that’s just Brian.”
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and from Crikey’s Tips and Rumours today:
The West Australian 1. Is The West selling cheap? A Sandgroper has told Crikey that The West Australian is contacting lapsed subscribers and offering 20 weeks’ subscription for $1 a week including delivery. It should get the circulation figures up, even if it is only temporary.
The West Australian 2. And it appears that The West briefly flirted with an eyebrow-raising tagline under its masthead which has since been pulled. Crikey is uncertain how long the “giving a voice to the silent majority” catchcry lasted for, but if its chase to reverse declining circulation figures is true, then maybe the majority are not only silent, but also disenchanted
sounds like the work of a Twopper, anyone want to take credit?
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erratim: it is in their Media Briefs
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Maybe it was…
The Angry TWOPper!
And my wife says my jokes are bad!
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And the angry whopper will no doubt have a piece on the felling of the pylon.
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