I wouldn’t feel right leaving the country without one more spray at The West.
Must be high time for a round of sackings of the nincompoops running The West’s online presence. Firstly it is total incompetence that The Worst of Perth comes up number one for google searches for Rob Broadfield Indiana. His most sought after review where he gives the lowest score ever to the Indiana Tearooms is invisible. In fact The West doesn’t appear anywhere in the search results at all. People are really, really wanting to read this review content but the paper is happy to see all their search traffic – which they could be leveraging ad revenue off, go to a website that it constantly calling them incompetent cunts.
It is total incompetence that The Worst of Perth comes up #1 for searches on Inside Cover and Inside Cover Perth. Inside Cover is actually a minibrand that people would want to see online. Once again the search traffic is being wasted by these plonkers. I bet the advertisers are loving it. And how about the Inside Cover twitter feed. Twitter, which is a perfect medium for Inside Cover promotion, was last updated on the 1st of January. And the banner still has Rob Broadfield on it. I loved how they taught Adshead how to do twitter. Superb teaching. Why do they still promote it in the paper? By the way TWOP comes up #1 for Gary adshead twitter too.
I’m told that the concept is that they will be able to paywall/ipad app Broadfield and IC and make money off them that way. But everyone knows it won’t happen. They don’t have it in them to do it. And why bleed all the traffic in the meantime?
On other matters, what’s the deal with Steve “Teh Walkley” Pennells. Flying back from Germany, skulking into The West offices, but no announcement. Hmm. One would hope he’s going to be the new Online Content head honcho. He’ll have to wake up the guys sleeping at their desks to sack them though.
The Worst of Perth 
Whooee. Spot on TLA. Fucking Outrage.
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I love how The West thinks the internet closes on weekends. They were way behind WAToday and Perthnow with this morning’s earthquake, too.
Personally, I’m surprised their website is anything more than a printable pdf subscription form that can be sent postage paid.
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You jest, sir.
That was their business model a few years back.
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Isn’t Teh Wets a bit of a soft target?
Nah, they deserve a bucketing…at least Melbourne’s Horror-Scum and Sydney’s Deadly Terrorgraph are shithouse with a professional effort behind it, whereas Teh Worst Austrayan is about as amateur as PROSH, where at least the latter earns its laughs from the ever-present undergraduate humour, rather than the lazy press-release journalism and utter lack of critique for Barnett Rubble (now joined by his Sydney mate, Fatty O’Flintstone) and his State rabble, despite all the underhand chicanery that they’re up to and want to do is widely known in informed circles.
Have a good holiday in Vietnam, TLA…just don’t eat them Viatnesse rolls, for after all there’s more wisdom in children than men know :) …and I have no doubt DeeFock will keep disseminating sound propaganda whilst keeping the TWOP cadre in order (card-carrying UV member with my Little Rotto Book!) and exposing the churnalists doing the capitalist running dogs’ bidding at Teh Worst.
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I doubt he’ll be exposing churnalism at The West, but the rest, yes.
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Nurry outdid himself for churnalism in his item last Weds.
more than half his column was directly pasted from a Future Perthers report
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Julie ‘Death Stare’ Bishop has been outed for cut and paste commentary.
Again.
Is she a Curtin student?
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as a curtin graduate, i’d offer a scathing reply, but i haven’t been able to google one yet.
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As a Curtin graduate, I’m waiting for the admin staff to give me the answer.
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This is not a discussion I can get involved in.
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I’ll make it worth your while.
*flashes cash*
/Somehow, I don’t this will make it through moderation as anything more than the 24th letter.
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don’t hold your breath waiting for help from staff bento.
do your own googling, that’s all i’m saying.
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I heard they had an advice incentive programme
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How much does an answer cost at Curtin these days?
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i think the real question is how much does a degree cost?
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Ask Julie, she supports the forgery of passports,
she’ll have no problem with falsified english tests.
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they don’t call it curtin university for nothing.
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Is this what they call a “hit’n’run”?
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I noticed that Adshead isn’t doing Inside Cover this week. He seems to have buggered off and left it to some second-rater I’ve never heard of.
seems to be a trend.
if I could quote Kerry Stokes from his speech to WAN investors last week:
‘The West isn’t going to get any better.’
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Adshead’s back today, will be in the paper tomorrow for your reading pleasure.
regards,
The Second-Rater.
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I don’t think you’re more second rate than any of the others. I was born a Len Findlay man, and I’ll die a Bennett’s Beat man.
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Does anyone but me remember The Sunday Times’ Bennet’s Beat?
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Len Findlay published a letter I wrote him when I was about 14. Something about music, I think, when I was only just learning how to be a tedious, self-righteous bore.
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I got I think $15 or $20 for letter of the week in The Western Mail. Something about people without demerits should get discounted license renewal.
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so you went to the Master?
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I’m a man with many, many petty grievances. But I quite like Len.
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I like how they gave the impression of a combover in your photo. Adshead’s looks like a cross between Ricky Ponting and Howard Sattler.
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inside cunter twitter has updated!!
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If only I used my powers for something interesting.
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nice to know that Inside Cover still scopes this site for content, but not often enough to know that the ‘second-rater’ jibe was not aimed at you
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Wasn’t it? I thought it was.
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Old “Dementor” Hopkins? must be first rate at something
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it was a double edged sword
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double ended?
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I thought TWOP was blocked to Woogle users?
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Think it dropped it.
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I did see someone had input the Broadfield Indiana review into Urbanspoon:
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/338/1370384/restaurant/Perth/Indiana-Cottesloe-Beach-Cottesloe
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And the ad revenue goes to them.
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I don’t know if it is just me, and I was forced to “upgrade” to Firefox 4 today, but I can’t get that page to load. The universe denies me.
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How long before there’s a raid on the West’s HQ , discovering the meth lab that actually keeps the cash flow positive ?
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Should I xxxxx that?
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Definitely not. Magnificent work BillO.
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Were it not for Hnormal et al there’s only about 27 pages on a Saturday. Monday – Friday is like a wet season NT News. Oh & actual news – no chance.
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What is “Hnormal”?
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RR, Big Box electrical & homewares – Go, lots of catalogues etc.
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Ah, right. For some reason I was surprised to find a total of one non-commercial article in the West Weekend magazine this weekend just gone. Even all the “articles” are just lists of products, their suppliers and prices, with some arty photos. And nearly half the letters were complaining that Broaders shouldn’t have been so nasty about the Indiana, and if he didn’t like it he just shouldn’t have gone back twice afterwards.
Exactly what does Teh West see as their target demographic? I’ve got the sinking feeling that they’re scoring bullseyes.
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I can tell you, for a fact, that their target demographic is a modestly aspirational middle-aged lower middle-class woman living in the suburbs, commonly referred to as Betty from Balga.
Imagine Pam Casellas wearing a velour tracksuit in a ten-year-old Holden Commodore, buying breakfast at the drive-through McDonald’s on Wanneroo Road and moaning about her electricity bill and you’ve nailed it.
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phwaor!!!
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But I thought we were all cashed up bogans, now?
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If you are a refusenik towards living anywhere North of Beach Road, which forms the southern borders of the CUB enclaves of the Cities of Joondalup and Wanneroo (the newer parts particularly), then you are not a CUB.
If you live within, but reject their philistine way of life, then you’re either lost, or a rebel who lives dangerously!
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My first ever TWOP post, about 3 years ago, went something along the lines of ” I thought it was just my American arrogance, but you are right the West is the worst excuse for a newspaper I’ve ever seen”. I forget exactly which criticism of the West I was responding to. But I haven’t paid for a copy of it since, only look at it when I find a free copy on a table in a coffee shop and haven’t found any reason to change my opinion (with the possible exception of the Broadfield review of the Teahouse).
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I took a look at this abominable excuse for a news sheet whilst waiting for a mechanic to attend to a minor fault in the old L/Cruzer.
Thankfully he was quite adept at his labours and had it fixed in short order: He might have found me vomiting over the trash and bilious apologies for journalism and editing, otherwise.
None of my unearned cash for them!
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I too only glance upon Teh Worst whenever I’m holed up at the Havelock Hilton, which reassures me that I may be a nutter, but I’m also considerably less insane than their editorial team and those of whom pay for such tosh that isn’t even fit for a second wind as bumf, lest anyone be infected with their uniquely West Strayan strain of invective.
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Havelock Hilton = Dumbarse House or Parlyamunt?
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I thought the VD clinic on havelock street.
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No, it’s a “voluntary” hospital for those lost of soul and broken of spirit.
It’s known as such, due to the salubrious surrounds and decidedly non-hospital quality of its food.
The other hotel-scale building at the top of that street where the public servants twiddle their thumbs is knownas Dum[b]a[r]s[e] House.
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OK.
I’m sure the VD clinic was there in the past, possibly the same premises.
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such specific information, can only come from personal experience
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Since moving back here, I choose to simply ignore its existence. It’s working so far.
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You have to wonder about people who complain about a food critic being critical.
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As we all know on this blog, Shazza, if you can’t say something nice, link to something scatological.
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Unlike some, at least Indiana had the sense not to comment on the review.
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They just rely on their rusted-on clientele who believe that their food (or what passes as such) will just taste that little bit better with the stunning view.
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I kid you not, I am eating popcorn while reading that link.
Popcorn made in one of those spannered hairdryer things.
Thankyou Snuff
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We need a “like” button.
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She might be the next great writer of our generation – who said creativity and self-awareness needed to go together?
In these modern times, however, an editor is probably a cheaper investment than the PR agent / total identity change she’ll probably need.
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I think she should hit the motivation circuit as she is an expert in the area of persistence in the face of discouragement.
She could also speak on the importance of self-belief.
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“He’ll have to wake up the guys sleeping at their desks to sack them”
Q: how do you tell when a West journo is dead?
A: the biscuit falls out of his hand
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Or Benson & Hedges.
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If you think this is good see Wayne Swans Twitter.
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L101 – who is Wayne Swan?
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I would like TL101’s version of WS’s job description? Please?
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yes please!
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Ok Then He is a Federal MP and in Labor.
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I didn’t even know he was expecting.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Try the cygnet.
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Thank you, TL101. Is there anything else about Mr Swan and what he does that’s special? And how did you hear about him?
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Did TL101 write this in play lunch?
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Leave me alone and stop acting like a teacher Ruby Ruby and no i watch the news and got bored and googled him.
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TL101 has found the ‘reply’ link!!!
public education system delivering resluts
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Sorry if I went a bit over the top there, TL101. But I really was interested – you seem to know about such a diverse array of public-ish characters.
I wonder what I would have done if the internet had existed when I was a kid – did anyone else work out how to use Encylopaedia Brittanica’s cross-referencing systems for fun? (Melbourne, no tv, rainy weekends aplenty…)
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The west will never rate highly on teh interwebz thanks to Yahoo. Permanently pwnd by Google.
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But the point is, they don’t want links, Yahoo! or anyones. They want people in a distant future to pay for content that they have no link to now. They deliberately have removed it from any possibility of referencing.
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These people are media professionals. I’m sure they know what they’re doing.
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Professional meeja dills, more like.
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Another one quick with the iRon-e :)
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A Mr K Stokes of Perth was quoted in the weekend Fin Review as saying such things as ’10 years’, & ‘sunset industry’ with regard to the west.
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He’s not interested. I think to him Teh Wet only serves as cross-promotion for Ch7
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And valuable pro-mining propaganda
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Yes – the Saturday business section has been a veritable PR fest for various “junior miners”…
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You mean there’s something else going on in the Perth business community beyond junior miners (they have lots o’ money and indirect advertising cash from the brokers)?
They also have all the behind-the-scenes shennanigans and a host of really colourful characters (many of whom probably have defamation lawyers on speed dial).
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I thought long and hard before naming any names, even in a positive manner…
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Worry not: let them dig their own
gravespits.LikeLike
Typo alert: I meant “
gravespits”.LikeLike
A quick look at search data from the google adwords keyword tool shows that there are zero monthly searches for [rob broadfield indiana], zero monthly searches for [inside cover perth] and a whopping 58 monthly searches per month in Australia for [inside cover].
Those 58 visitors a month might be worth, at best, a few cents in advertising clicks.
There is plenty to criticise The West about but you have definitely missed the mark on this one.
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looser.
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I never miss the mark. The bowl sometimes, but mark, never.
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you piss on mark?
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It happens.
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Yes, clearly The West is doing a great job promoting it’s online presence; no one is even Googling them.
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Tried any of those search terms on the west site, using their internal search bar Simon?
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Nothing turns up on their internal search for Broadfield at all.
However, on the bright side, “Zoltan” and “Kovacs” return no content, but do provide ad links to “pool cleaner” and “mens suits on ebay” respectively. So, Teh West is definitely cashing in big time, there…
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Snort.
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I see the connection now RR. Newly suited moustachio’d young buff appears – ‘I’ve come to clean your pool madam…’ answering a request from the dating site. The rivers of gold flow through the tubes back to the wets.
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Meeting of class – journalism and culinary. Pure gold. I wonder why there’s no by line on this… ?
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I have found an article with a by line. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough room on the internet for more than one paragraph break or spaces between sentences.
But there is a nice link to a dating service at the bottom, in case you’re inspired by reading about a graveyard. But then no link even to the writer’s name (a freelancer?). Isn’t part of the attraction of producing good journalism the glamour and fame?
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Perhaps its not just the wets, merely accentuated by being a one paper town. http://thefailedestate.blogspot.com/
PS: I think they’re crap still, just trying to add balance to the argument about shithouses
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Ben Harvey kind of missed the point of his column today, if indeed it had a point. We all know the Barnster and Ripper are fifth rate leaders of possibly the biggest collection of uninspiring political dross ever accumulated in the WA parliament.
The big issue here is someone as flat and useless as Mark McGowan has the chance of becoming Labor’s leader – that would be a catastrophy in stupidy.
How is this possible? Why is in this only mentioned in the last third of Harvey’s piece? The headline should read: Warning – complete plonker ready to pick up where the toothy one left off.
And that fucking Cott vs Rockingham bullshit is brought up again. Enough – who gives a shit? Oh, of course, Broadbent’s involved – God’s gift to witty journalism. No wonder he’s having cake with the priest on page 11.
Speaking of funny guys, Peter Ruhel died recently. They certainly were rip roaring days when the Teh Wet had both Findlay and Ruhel spitting out witty columns.
Actually Findlay was something of a liteweight compared to the Yank, who would regularly find a place in his articles to put: “Oh, by the way, did you know my sister won an Oscar?” Yeah, problem is I can’t remember the film.
And his mate Otis … Otis, Otis, where have I heard that name? Of course, he was Henry Lee Lucas’ partner in murder.
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The ‘Ning is back! And none of them could compare to Sunday Time’s Bennett’s Beat. None of them.
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Mercedes Ruehl – The Fisher King, another Terry Gilliam masterpiece.
Stagger Lee!!! Love the Clash song and the Nick Cave version on Murder Ballads.
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I got the Lee ref wrong, dammit.
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welcome back
Mercedes Ruehl won best supporting actress for The Fisher King
think leopardskin dress
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speaking of the shitty West
Nurry did a piece yesterday about assaults on cab drivers, and quotes a cab driver, who is not a racist, but who from his own experience knew that most assaults on cab drivers were by aboriginals.
Unfortunately Nurry failed to notice the article by Kent Alcott in the very same newspaper reporting that three quarters of Perth cab drivers are of Indian or Middle Eastern descent, and claimed that they bore the brunt of the violence, which they considered to be motivated by racism. They were supported by the Taxi Industry Forum of WA .
would the fact that the majority of cab drivers in Perth are no longer white racists account for 6PR’s falling ratings?
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http://www.campaignbrief.com/wa/assets_c/2011/02/Radio%20Survey-43543.html
still 10%
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Thanks My Ning and skink – saving me yet more time and money and forehead slapping from being wasted. Although they do fit bird cages well.
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I don’t think you’re giving Nurry enough credit for diligently tracking down a cabbie who’s clearly not racist.
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self-identified “not-a-racist-but”, even.
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Yeah go ahead and sack him.
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Sorry, I’d forgotten about The Fisher King … I though Ms Ruhel got it for something called Bored in Yonkers (???). As for Gilliam, my favourites are 12 Monkeys (now there’s a masterpiece) and Fear and Loathing, which was kinda maligned. Come to think of it, Brazil was pretty good too.
But back to Pete Ruhel, who didn’t quite have the sting of Hunter ST – I often used to wonder why he seemed a wee bit out of place when his stuff was in Teh Wet back in the early 1990s. Having looked at a couple of old AFR’s over the past few Easter daze, I’m starting to understand why. Unlike Findlay, his prose sounded reasonably sophisticated. No mentions of F1 or F2 or Lady F; no discourses on how wonderful a good shower nozzle was; no wallowing in the mundane intricacies of living somewhere in Perth … rather, we had reminiscing about the good old days hanging around Washington (DC) with that fucking Otis, soaking up American politics in bars and comparing US and Aussie sensibilities.
And, unlike Nuzz, his stuff was peculiarly readible, with fuck all cut and paste and reasonably to the point – kind of like a Mad Magazine version of PJ O’Rourke minus the edge.
I don’t want to sound like a Ruhel apologist as I’m not too sure if I ever really liked him that much. Indeed, I found his humourous Yank routine somewhat annoying. But compared to Griffin Longly – who at times looks like he’s trying to be amusing in the same kind of way – he was far funnier, and more readable. Certainly more succinct …
As for Findlay, can anyone remember the top of his column, which featured a bromide image of his smiling face? Obviously, at some point, the editor of the day (Nuzz?) thought it was pretty good as he would put it on a right hand page near the front end of the paper.
Years ago, one night at a pub, an American friend (who was far more amusing that Ruhel) had a copy of the paper. He held Len’s colunm up, put his hand over the by-line and said: “Saddam says.” And bugger me dead, he was right. The messy, grainy black and white likeness of the man looked like a comic, smiling Sadddam Hussain (minus the military head gear).
Under normal circumstances we might have started discussing counterpoint – unfortunately it was Tey Wet.
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Dear P Nurry
As someone who has the privilege of airing opinions for a living in this newspaper and on radio, I’m well aware that everyone has the right to a point of view.
And having aired other peoples’ opinions via cutting and pasting chunks of other peoples’ interviews for 10 years, I’ve got the word count to prove it.
Today, for example, I was going to cut and paste a few paragraphs from John Stuart Mill’s famous essay On Liberty to make my point about expressing opinions. Then I came across this twaddle:
“According to the New Cambridge Modern History … financially independent newspapers became ‘great organs of the public mind’, amplifying the voice of the people rather than of governments and politicians.
” … the emergence of an independent press led to an increasingly non-partisan news coverage, enabling people to form balanced political judgements and to participate in a more mature political democracy.”
That came from the typewriter of James Curran, some British academic dill who wrote those words back in 1977.
How true, I thought. I am a great organ of the pubic mind; and I do amplify anti-government and anti -political tripe like you wouldn’t believe.
Hell, let’s cut to the chase – I am the face of democracy.
Actually, what I should have said just then was “let’s cut to the cut and paste”, for that is what I do in my own private quest to create a more mature political democracy.
Take my anti-budget piece on Thursday, for example, when I managed to fill a third of the column from some cut and pasted stuff that I extracted from a piece which I wrote back in September last year. It’s a sign of maturity when a man can be humble enough to admit that he was right, and boy did I remind everybody on Thursday just how right I really am.
Even when I wrote an obit for my dead dog a few weeks back (ha – Paul Kelly wouldn’t be allowed to write about the death of a family pet , which gets back to the point that I am truly privileged) , I managed to cut and paste a few pars from an email I sent to the neighbours regading my loss. Of course I didn’t manage to take up a third of my newspaper column with this rehashed stuff, but I came close.
So why are opinions so important?, I hear you ask.
Because I can fill some space with one of them – in particular the comment from some letter writing hick in Thornlie, the heartland of Perth’s Deliverance country.
“Why is Angelina Jolie front page news?” this redneck hillbilly wrote. “You’re scraping the bottom of the barrell for news.”
Never have I been so enraged by a letter (except when that prick from TWOP totally misunderstood my democratic views on capital punishment in Singapore).
My first reaction was to send this Thornlie prick an abusive missive and accuse him of having no life skills. Unfortunately, my booze had run out.
Instead I did what any true great organ would do – I cut and paste 7 paragraghs (yes, count them – seven of the fuckers) from a piece Jolie wrote for the NY Times. I could have provided a link of some sort so readers could go there and see the unfetted prose for themselves. But that would have defeated the purpose.
Also, I wanted to write one of the great sentences I have ever spat out, namely: “First, I should note that Jolie’s breasts are no more important than any other woman’s.”
And I should know – God knows I saw heaps of gropable boobies when I ran the show at The Worst.
Come to think of it, in those days I pretty much had my hand on my great organ most of the time. And, in a more metaphorical sense, I still do.
And you, dear readers, all have the scars to prove it.
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Dear P Nurry
Australians should be disturbed by the public slaughter of a British soldier at the hands of Muslim militants on a London street this week.
Not because of the revulsion for any normal human being who – post the event – tries to digest the pseudo racist crap spat out by dumb fuck private school educated western suburb-based hacks like me .
Rather, we must take this event, which I saw on TV, for what it is – an attack on Allen Park.
Any God fearing whitie like me must realise that mulit-culturalism just hasn’t worked. Period.
Now don’t get me wrong. Me and my white mates at both radioland and The Worst are not class driven bigot racist arseholes. Far from it. Like our parents, or at least our older cousins, we were grateful when Italian resteraunts started popping up in seaside suburbs during the 1970s.
And sure, it took us a while to accept the Vietnamese, but boy do they make yummy ginger fish.
These Muslim wankers, on the other hand, are another matter.
I mean, really, what have they got to offer us? Their speech patterns sounds ugly, their mosques are bland and they don’t eat pork. Ever tried breakfast (or a BLT for that matter) without bacon? It just doesn’t make any sense.
And so it was I was walking through Allen Park the other day, sans my late little doggie, when I came across the worst fears of a pluristic society – some people with dark skin.
Were they from Nigeria, Pakistan or the Middle East? Jeez, I don’t know. All I know was they weren’t Boongs.
One of them was holding a copy of the story I spat out last week about how right I was (see above entry).
“I apologise that people have to read this,” the Allah hugger was saying.
“But in our land, many people read this – it’s on the web.”
Our land? Many people? The web?
As well meaning as this person might have been, he was an example of how meaningless tolerance really is. “Who is this mutant?” I asked myself. What underlying problems are starting to multiply in our society – manifesting themselves here in the heart of Allen Park –
when camel humping towel heads like this can question editorial policy of the leading rag in a one horse town?
At that point I took a closer look. This man was no Muslim. He was in fact, the old guy from up the street who sunbakes in the nude down at Swanborne. No wonder he looked foreign at a disatnce – he has a great tan.
So it was I stumbled across the harsh reality: the enemy really does come from within.
“My God,” I thought. “This man is from the neighbourhood – why doesn’t he hold the same blinkered view of the world as I do? He is, after all, from the western suburbs.”
That is an unrealistic expectation which breeds in some a form of reverese apartheid. It’s one that needs to be resolved firmly, but fairly.
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I hope you asked him to put some pants on. Is there a boat ramp near Allen Park ?
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