Hawkie called everyone mate

Well, that explains why he never returned my calls!

I once found myself momentarily in Paul Keating’s immediate orbit, during the time of Hewson. I had one shot, I asked him what his first car was.

For a nanosecond he was ever so slightly thrown, enough for me to slip him my spirex notebook open at a blank page, no pen. I suggested a marque that was plausible for a young manager of a rock and roll band of his time, and he said “Yes it was”

Cufflinks twinkled in the sun, exquisite Zegna lining flashed briefly as he reached for the Mont Blanc in the inner breast pocket, and he said:

“What’s your name?” in a tone I can only describe as good-natured contempt, and I told him, and he said “You’d be a celt, wouldn’t ya”, ( pronounced with a hard c, and a pronounced t) and I said “Has Skippy got ticks?” and he laughed, and it was good.

Reminds me: must go and dig out said spirex.

He seems to have been living with fear throughout his life, as his constantly trembling, saliva-soaked bottom lip attests. Whenever someone challenges him, or puts inconvenient facts in his face, his eyes get big behind the bifocals and you really sense that he might burst into tears at any moment if we all don’t just let him have his way.

A sad little man who was never suited to the cameras, and certainly has no future in the online video industry!

His eyes were fearful and darting, but his body language was desperately trying to convey his sense of self-importance. It was sad, in a deeply disconcerting kind of way.

That’s a brilliant description of what he looks like all the time.

But just as the YouTube comments become something out of Howard’s control, I think this Yahoo Answers thing has the potential to get away from him as well. All of the questions he has been asked are available to see - if he chooses simple ones and ignores the insightful questions, he can be called up on it by the media and the bloggers.

In the run-up to the election it’ll be interesting to see whether Howard manages to get his head around the fact that by taking his message online, he is going into an environment where others have an equal voice but with greater numbers to shout down his weasel words.

In my case, he came to do a radio interview in a building where I worked. I considered a variety of options, including blockading the street with my car just to delay his next appointment. But then, strangely, when I suddenly saw him coming down the corridor, I just stared and said nothing.

What stopped me in my tracks was the crazy look in his eyes: it was kind of pathetic. Shouting at him would have felt like harrassing a mentally ill person. His eyes were fearful and darting, but his body language was desperately trying to convey his sense of self-importance. It was sad, in a deeply disconcerting kind of way.

Afterwards I wondered why I didn’t say anything, and I realised that making a point to Howard himself (again, there was nobody else but some bodyguards) would have been of minimal importance, because Howard himself is not really the problem. It’s the people who put him there, the system which kept him there, the people who voted for him time and again. They are the ones we should be shouting at.

The best punishment for Howard (assuming he is not going to The Hague) would be if everyone just wrote him off as a miserable failure, yesterday’s man, a whiny little shit who took the country nowhere. And just ignored him and forgot about him and moved on to better things.

I see Warwick Capper is now doing his own porno flicks - I wonder what desperate measures a post-PM Howard might not stoop to in order to get attention?

Incidentally, seeing as I’m one of the few people in the cosmos who hasn’t seen The Sopranos, could some kind soul please explain in what way the Bill and Hillary YouTube video is a Soprano’s parody? Thanks.

Down and Out, I agree - where are the answers to the questions? maybe the questioner gets a private email in response.

As indicated in the linked SMH story, suz, questions will be selected and he will “answer” them later this week.