Some very good news – the Rudd government has appointed two members to the ABC board who actually know something about public broadcasting and culture.
Former Opera House boss Michael Lynch, who was praised by the Queen for transforming London’s controversial South Bank arts centre, and the academic, author and former ABC executive Julianne Schultz, will become directors for the next five years.
Mr Lynch said he had no time for accusations against the ABC of left-wing bias.
“I don’t believe that view — and I don’t see the role of the board is to be sitting there as lord high inquisitor on the politics of the individuals or the organisation,” he said from London.
“I think the organisation needs to be made, and I think these appointments will probably make the organisation, feel more secure — that every decision or every announcement by an ABC journalist or a part of the organisation is not getting itself into unending scrutiny from the board.”
here, here!
Where? Where?
Both good choices.
And of course..
Who is left from Howard’s cronies?
If the name “Joseph Skrzynski” is ever featured as an answer on Wheel of Fortune, it would suck to be the contestant who asks to buy a vowel.
Wow, those are two seriously impressive names. Even just one of those people would have been great. And never mind the bias business, look at the breadth and depth of cultural understanding and experience they can summon up between them — it was the absence of those considerations that made Howard’s most egregiously political appointments such a disgrace, rather than their conservatism as such.
“Who is left from Howard’s cronies?”
Albrechtson and Windschuttle.
So when are they going to get rid of Albrechtson and Windschuttle? Its not enough to make excellent appointments. The dross has to be removed.
The appointments are for 5 years, so I guess we have to wait until their time is up. But at least we’ve lost Brunton.
More good news. Albrechtson has a little over a year left. Windy has less than two.
Can’t the witch burning process be sped up a little?
How sad is this pissy beat-up from Christian Kerr in the Australian re: these new appointments.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25274274-7582,00.html
It’s unpleasant to see supposed professionals being entirely subsumed by the environment in which they work or are employed.
It’s a pity, Christian Kerr wasn’t too bad at crikey, except for his unreasoning hatred of the Greens, but boy has he gone native.
Poor old Kerr, so overwhelmed by his new environment. He has become the salivating puppy dog, eager to please the right wing guard, but only able to achieve wet lettuce status. They don’t take him seriously there.
I thought Pearson on the SBS Board was re-appointed (or rolled over).
What leak? In the old days they used to call it a scoop. They got scooped though I suspect the SMH went a bit early with an embargo. Cry us a river Christian.
John Roskam is hanging out for pre-selection in any safe Liberal seat he can get his hands on…. “Piss off Costello, please”.
It makes such perfect sense for Christian Kerr to seek comment from this most unbiased ABC observer. Not.
Bloody Rudd, nakedly stacking the board with people who know things about broadcasting. Doesn’t he realize its tenure for useless ideological hacks??
More Sydney people for the Sydney centric ABC?
Julianne Schultz is from Queensland. And is a Professor at Griffith University – in Queensland.
New (recycled) line of attack from the Oz’s poodle, Kerr. This time with added flavouring by Amanda Meade.
The House of Lords no less, back in 2007, with no reference to Australia at all! And really is it just me thinking that the House of Lords complaining about things being open to ministerial manipulation is a bit rich?
Is this all you’ve got Christian? Weak, really weak.
Nobody who’s ever heard Christian Kerr on Late Night Live can possibly be surprised by any of this. Apart from anything else, to an Adelaidean who remembers school debates against the “elite” boys’ colleges, there’s a certain combination of tone and accent that are like fingernails on a blackboard and it’s a pretty reliable indicator of political position.
I know it’s fashionable among younger persons — no, scrap that, younger men — to trash Philip Adams and I agree that he can be very annoying, but never mind his column, listen to his radio. LNL is still consistently the country’s best daily journalism in any medium by a country mile, and part of that is the mixture of directions that the guests are coming from and the sufficiency of rope that Adams gives them.
(Adams is also, as anyone who’s seen him at a conference or festival over the last few years will know, very alert to developments in new media. Kerr originally got the LNL gig because of his work at Crikey, and LNL was the very first place I ever heard the word ‘blog’.)
Interesting, PC, given that Adams affects to be a technophobe.
I too enjoy LNL, but it’s on too late, and the replay happens during working hours.
Yes Christopher Pearson’s term expires in 2011.
Hear, Hear PC.
Adams’ newspaper columns range from the boring to the absurd. By contrast his LNL sparkles with interest (lifted by his evident interest in new ideas), a relaxed interviewing style. You’re right: he gives his guests rope. I know of no other radio program that presents such free and wide-ranging discussion.
He often proclaims his (mild) left bias, but in practice the range of interviewees and topics covers a very broad intellectual and political spectrum.
Philip Adams, whatever faults he has, projects warmth, curiosity, enthusiasm; he can interview critically without being a slavering attack hound.
[By contrast an old ABC radio (late night) program circa 1973-4 seemed to require rigid far-left attitudes in its presenter and guests. Was it called "Lateline"? I remember they interviewed Gus Hall, visiting chief of the Communist Party of the US once. Yes, a household name in Australia, was Gus.]
Philip Adams is no doctrinaire preacher, these days.
Hmm, stereotype much, PC? Heaven forfend that one should make gross generalisations or insulting stereotypes against those who went to public schools, but those who went to “elite boys’ colleges” are fair game, evidently. (Assuming Kerr actually did.)
As for being “a pretty reliable indicator of political position”, I have two names for you: Don Dunstan and John Bannon.
“Nobody who’s ever heard Christian Kerr on Late Night Live can possibly be surprised by any of this.”
So true. What a marked change from Margo “Mango” Kingston who was always great fun to listen to. Apart from P.Adams every tiny little alternative voice of commentary was silenced over the Howard years and I still hear dragons ring up and complain about leftish bias on Aunty.
It’s depressing, really.
Paulus,
Let’s cast the net wider…
from Melbourne Grammar School: John Brumby, John Thwaites, Julian Burnside QC, some prominent CPA leader in the 1940s, first head of Brotherhood of St Lawrence (a Christian charity), Ian Gawler, Mike Salvaris [Tenants' Union], etc etc….
that’s the trouble with stereotypes, eh? always exceptions,….
“Apart from P.Adams every tiny little alternative voice of commentary was silenced over the Howard years”
Oh, poppycock!
‘was silenced’ ???? by whom ???
Yes, well, I deserved that. I was also expecting it. Put it down to the shock of discovering in middle age — and it explained a great deal — that several Adelaide private schools had, back in the day, instructed their students as a matter of course that they were forbidden to so much as speak to high school girls, on account of how we were all common-as-muck sluts. (As you say, Paulus, stereotype much?) I freely admit that one’s perspective gets warped by this kind of thing.
FWIW I have no idea what school Christian Kerr went to, but he cut his teeth as a baby staffer for SA Liberal pollies who would probably not have given him the job unless he’d been to *insert name of obvs school here*.
Yes, high-school-stereotypy is wrong and unfair. That’s why it’s so much fun, especially when some schools make it so very very easy. I mean, “Ad Majora Natus“. Really.
Beret Boy — the J’s, eh? Figures.
Our motto was Non scholae sed vitae, usually mistranslated (by us) as ‘Not scholarly, but lively.’
Heh.
For mine, “Faber est sae quisquae fortunae”. Wonderfully ambiguous.
Philip Adams is no doctrinaire preacher, these days.
.
Um… okay.
.
I know it’s fashionable among younger persons — no, scrap that, younger men — to trash Philip Adams and I agree that he can be very annoying, but never mind his column, listen to his radio. LNL is still consistently the country’s best daily journalism
.
He does good interviews – sometimes. And he also indulges in smug nepotism. His interview of Keating being the height of it. That claim about LNL is highly debatable. I wouldn’t call it journalism myself but I think the morning stuff I’ve heard is a lot better.
.
And the gender of his critics is relevant – how?
.
An. Achron. Ism.
Adrien, relevant to what? I seem to recall that you are fighting an ongoing one-main campaign to prove that we are all living in a post-gender age and I wish you all the luck in the world with that, but in the meantime it has been my observation, mainly on this blog, that it is almost exclusively men who trash Adams and I find that very interesting.
When I said LNL was good journalism I was thinking more of the quality of the analysis (both news and cultural), of the articulateness and expertise of the guests and commenters Adams and his team manage to rustle up, and of the speed with which said rustling takes place. Within hours of the Pakistani attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers, for instance, he had two really excellent Pakistani observers on LNL — which is where I first heard that news — to talk about reasons and reactions. But in any case I wasn’t talking so much about breaking news as about really excellent analysis from a wide assortment of sources including regulars like B. Shapiro and (on the other hand) C. Hitchens, who if I remember rightly has been an occasional guest on LNL since way back before he lurched to the Right.
“(on the other hand) C. Hitchens”
Ah yes, Ol’ Bumface.
Always good for a larf, as long as he’s confusing conservatives by not being one of them the way they’d like. The rest of the time… well maybe it’s just me, but he comes across as having too much to prove. Like a lot of turncoats.
“I mean, “Ad Majora Natus“. Really.”
Please, that the motto does not come true, in the old boy Tony Abbott case, Lord I pray.
Adrien, relevant to what?
.
.
To Adams’ relevence.
.
I seem to recall that you are fighting an ongoing one-main campaign to prove that we are all living in a post-gender age
.
Um no. I’ve questioned certain aspects of feminist discourse and suspect they are dogmatic. I have always categorically stated that a. The feminist project is still required and b. We still live in a male dominated and unfairly sexist society. Perhaps one progressive aspect is that men are subjected to unfair sexism such as when I’m told not to comment on such matter because I own a willy. Progressive in the sense of ‘see how you like it’.
.
and I wish you all the luck in the world with that
.
No you don’t.
.
but in the meantime it has been my observation, mainly on this blog, that it is almost exclusively men who trash Adams and I find that very interesting.
.
Okay. Why? I’m, seriously interested.
.
BTW Do think Hitchens actually lurched to the Right or simply joined them supporting the Iraq War?
I haven’t bothered to read an Adams column for years but I would place his LNL up with some of the best in the radio world for what he does. Alistair Cooke is my lifelong favourite, Studs Terkel was good in his niche – Adams doesn’t play directly in their territory but he has a great Australian voice and interviewing technique.
Did you go to Adelaide Girls’ High School, Dr Cat? The motto has a haunting familiarity – I went to the Boys’ joint ’round the corner for the last two years of high school, having spent the previous 6 at one of the elite colleges. (It was a vile place, and if you weren’t good at cricket and football it was even worse. I digress.)
It can be a mistake to generalise, however. Julian Disney (for instance) has turned out much better than I thought he would have when I was 13 and he was Head Boy.
PC, my school motto was Pro Deo et Patria. Which says it all, really.
Perhaps, once, that was the policy. But I can assure you that by the late 80s in my Anglican school, there was no instruction, explicit or implicit, to avoid state school girls.
Those (few) boys that actually had girlfriends, almost always met them as the sister of some chum of theirs, or the friend of a sister, which meant that the girl in question was very likely going to one of the Anglican girls colleges.
Nonetheless, all that mattered — boys being boys — was the level of hawtness, not which type of uniform she wore.
We went to the same joint Paulus, which explains a fair bit.
Still, some of us turned out all right in spite of it.
DI, by leaving when you did, you probably missed out on the best years there.
Year 10 was an absolute horror, and if I could have fled, I would have. But by Years 11 and 12 the students were knuckling down to academic work a bit more, they were streaming boys into classes based on their grades, and a little bit of self-esteem began to return for nerdy types like me.
I was still mighty pleased to leave the place and start uni, though!
P.S. Do you recall any injunction to avoid state school girls, as PC is suggesting?
“Their motto was ‘Ad Majora Natus’. I mean, really.”
Yes, I much prefer the motto of my own alma mater, scruffy low-brow Steppenwolf Academy:
“Natus Esse Ferox”
The general rule for private schools for both (or all?) genders is:
Fuck Down. Marry Up.
“I haven’t bothered to read an Adams column for years but I would place his LNL up with some of the best in the radio world for what he does.”
Ditto. I can’t be bothered reading anything he writes, but as a broadcaster he is pretty much peerless.
At a Victorian (mixed) school with the motto ‘Veritas Liberabit Vos’, in the mid-90s some children began singing with gusto “Ferret’s Arse, Lick a Rabbit’s Balls” as the opening phrase in the School song. Yes, it was a country school. When the teachers became aware, the children were told to desist.
Sad, because it’s a fine motto. Not classist. If anything, liberal and Socratic.
“More Sydney people for the Sydney centric ABC?”
They were obviously desperate to get him but I understand that Nabakov turned them down.
Hmmmmm Adams’s LNL supported wholheartedly by several (purported) males and PC. No conclusions to draw here, move on please.
I would not want to be associated with any corporation whose board directors were selected because they ‘knew something about culture’. Who doesn’t, we all do? One of these appointments seems highly appropriate, the other a bit dodgy.
Welcome back, Cardinal. How’s your (Holy) Father?
“…but I understand that Nabakov turned them down.”
Only because they found me turned face down in a Melbourne gutter and unable to sign anything. Again.
But yes, in my more sober moments, I’m certainly working domestic angles on the “Men Who Stare At Goats” vibe.
What, you thought the Australian Synchrotron was just for “research purposes”?
I started reading Hitchens in the late 1980s when he was still describing himself as a socialist. In hindsight, and strictly from memory (though I note a number of people have ignroed such caveats about other things I’ve said upthread), the rot set in with his hatred of Clinton (B), whom he loathed from the time he was Governor of Arkansas, then followed by his hatred of Clinton (H) — mainly because he regards them both as liars, I think — and you might recall that the falling-out with Seymour Hersh that publicly signalled his political shift was over something to do with the Clintons the details of which I have now forgotten. He started to get seriously disaffected with the left at large in the wake of the Rushdie fatwa, also in the late 80s, departed further and further from orthodox left position during the 1990s and 9/11 was the last straw. His discovery at the age of 38 that he was Jewish himself must have complicated his thinking on the Middle East, though not in any simplistic way, at a time when he was (I wonder if he remains) very good mates with Edward Said.
That’s about right for the ratio of male to female commenters here, isn’t it? Don’t be so defensive, you lot; I wasn’t voicing a nasty old feminist opinion, just making an observation about past remarks I’ve seen. Adrien has reminded me that he is Adams’ most vociferous critic here but I’ve never heard a decent reason except that he isn’t ‘relevant’, which Adrien seems to think is an absolute quality rather than a relational one.
Certainly did. Kooringa ronga ringa, etc.
Hitchins – I still haven’t finished his biography of Jefferson – and its a very slim book. Just sayin’. (I thought it was a bit, well, off. Though I haven’t read as much about Jefferson as I would like.)
I dunno about the biography of Jefferson, Paul, but Hitchens’ book on Mother Teresa was a cracker, and as a semi-polemical columnist and essayist he had no peer until he went a bit doolally politically. Even now he remains a contrarian, anathema to the left but unembraceable by the Right unless they shut their eyes tight and usually not then either.
So if the critics of Adams here are in the ratio of the commenters here, there’s nothing special going on, is there? Not to worry.
On Hitchens: I reckon he has written some good books. His polemics after 9/11 were at least direct. Angry? certainly; but clearer (I thought) than – for instance – Noam Chomsky’s almost incoherent ramblings. Clearly he despised Clinton, but he gave chapter and verse on his reasoins so to do. Not a blind “Clinto-hater” as in “Howard-hater”, perhaps?
I like his forays into literature. I like his stout defence of Orwell’s legacy. His book adressed to a “young contrarian” I found interesting.
Isn’t it time for “the left” to reconsider its attitude of labelling contrarians “turncoats”? As if there was One True Left Faith….? It sounds awfully like crying “An Heretic!!” and preparing a noose or pyre, to me. Intolerance is intolerance whether religious, political or social.
By the way, there’s one aspect of Hitchens’ style I don’t like: his brutal harshness. Was he once a Trot? Were his rhetorical daggers honed in the mortal combat of British romantic “revolutionaries”? Just asking.
“Isn’t it time for “the left” to reconsider its attitude of labelling contrarians “turncoats”?”
I was half tongue-in-cheek Ambi. What I really meant was more like your last para.
Yep, he was, and the same intense self-certainty is still there in his writing. So I don’t know if “contrarian” is the right word for Hitchens. Polemicist, maybe.
Said’s passed away, surely?
Thanks FDB, Mark. Yes, “polemicist” is better. Cheers.
Ambi, that’s the only thing I do enjoy about Hitchens. I mean this is a man who can turn a phrase like:
Yes, Said passed away a couple of years back. 2003 perhaps?
Ambi, if you insist on keeping this Adams business going, as you apparently do, what I actually said was that Adams seemed to be attacked pretty exclusively, when he was attacked, by younger men. Logically speaking, this does not preclude his being approved of by other men.
Re ‘contrarian’, yes, youse are both probably right. Hitchens has always called himself a contrarian though, both before and after his shift to the right, but I think he would agree that he is a polemicist as well.
Only in body, Mark. Only in body.
ooooooh horrid, what a simply beastly old wordsmith he is.
I love LNL (podcast is our friend for those who can’t stay up that late or listen at work), and concur (for the stats – female, lesbian) that Adam’s columns are terrible but his interviewing etc. are fab.
He does however every now and then spectacularly fall down on the job. Just this week I heard him jump the shark for an interview with a Texan ex law enforcer who is against the war on drugs and for legalisation. Adam’s questions basically consisted of “so tell the listener why you reached the conclusion that as we all know the war on drugs costs lives and is completely ineffective?” and he also interviewed the researcher who had Alex the talking grey parrot of some fame, and had to cut her off half way through describing his tragic death! He must be having a bad week to offset all the dozens of fantastic ones.
The appointments to both the ABC & SBS are very heartening. Now we all need to cross relevant body parts, pray to appropriate deities or complete secular rituals of relevance to help them both get their very much needed funding increase requests. I’m particularly excited about SBS’s plans.
Indeed!
Actually it would be interesting to trace, Dr Cat, whether he’s the first person to start using that term in the sense it’s normally given now. And indeed whether he applied it to Orwell. People like Andrew Bolt enjoy adopting the “contrarian” label as cover for a range of basically uninformed and hyperbolic right wing stances, and there appears to be something of an Orwell association with the descriptor if not with the practice. Often it’s ex-lefties – or “decent lefts” – like Nick Cohen, but it seems to have spread beyond those origins. I suspect there’d be an article in that.
Paulus a ways back (no numbers on posts … ), no, I don’t remember being warned against state school girls, particularly in the manner PC was talking about, but I’m mildly autistic so there’s a lot I didn’t notice when I was a kid.
Well, there you go, myriad@66, I heard that interview with Terry Nelson and found it most interesting.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2531099.htm
It was just extraordinary to hear Nelson calling for the ‘full on’ legalisation of drugs rather than the “de-criminalisation” that is talked about more often in Australia. He seemed to suggest that there was hope of an end to the American, mad, war on drugs. You very rarely come across a discussion like that and it gave me hope that some sense might break out in Australia, as well.
Yes, PC.
I thought Nelson was amazing too joe2, I actually thought that Adams, uncharacteristically, kept strongly inserting his opinion / conclusion at every question rather than (as he usually does) asking questions that allowed Nelson to tell his own journey to his conclusion. I wanted Adams to belt up and let Nelson speak!
Fair enough myriad. I just did not see it that way. Nelson seemed to me to get a pretty good run. Adams may have been a little bit over-enthusiastic but I think that might just have been because he has been banging on for drug reform for years. The thought of a policy change might have got the old bugger a little excited.
Myriad, as a long-time Adams listener and admirer I find that he does occasionally insert himself into an interview in an intrusive and annoying way. Sometimes with a misplaced stream of compulsive humour, which with Adams seems to mask a deep sadness. But mostly, he’s the best.
I find it remarkable how much he himself contributes to the conversation and what an amazing store of readily retrievable knowledge he has. It’s not surprising that he is mates with Barry Jones.
Sadly
PC – … the rot set in with his hatred of Clinton (B), whom he loathed from the time he was Governor of Arkansas, then followed by his hatred of Clinton (H) — mainly because he regards them both as liars
.
I’m not sure that his opposition to the Clintons signifies a shift to the Right. As he’s gone into some length detailing the Clintons themselves represented a shift to the Right in the Democratic Party. I think his phrase was the New Democrats got rid of the new Deal or some such.
.
In any event I think he’s right. The Clintons, particularly Bill, seem to me to be the epitome of dishonour, moral vacuity and dark opportunism. Hitchens catalogues it and, especially given the considerable evidence that Clinton makes a habit of sexual predation, I’m often surprised that the Left hasn’t disowned him. But it’s that Cult o’ Person thing ain’t it.
.
Anyone notice that Obama hasn’t actually made any significant changes to US Foreign Policy btw?
.
He started to get seriously disaffected with the left at large in the wake of the Rushdie fatwa, also in the late 80s, departed further and further from orthodox left position during the 1990s and 9/11 was the last straw.
.
Yes but I find aspects of the Left puzzling when they’ll take sides with religious fanatics who want to kill someone for writing a book. The critique of Cultural Relativism is apt and doesn’t entirely come from the Right.
.
I don’t agree with him on the Iraq War but I do share his view that that melange of ill-organized rabastic twaddle that calls itself the ‘peace movement’ doesn’t really think about the issues it purports to be concerned with. The Long Short War was an excellent catalogue of reasons supporting the war. I don;t agree finally but I doubt many of the megaphone-and-march addicts could’ve launched a halfway decent retort to contents of that book.
Adrien has reminded me that he is Adams’ most vociferous critic here but I’ve never heard a decent reason except that he isn’t ‘relevant’,
.
He’s smug, mediocre, massively egoistical, boring and past it. I could go on but won’t. He’s just over-rated and many of his generation are as well. Earth to Phil: being an atheist is no longer such a radical stance mate. He and his wife were covered in Australian Story the word hypocrite flashed on the inside of my eyelids about three hundred times. Right next to wanker.
.
I’m sick and tired of the media being filled with these 60s types who no longer have anything new to say. Sorry. Those people of his generation that excelled in the way he thinks he does – went overseas.
.
which Adrien seems to think is an absolute quality rather than a relational one.
.
How can relevance possibly be anything but relational? And how did I give you that opinion?
#76. On the contrary, Phillip Adams is self-deprecating, an exceptional talent, always interesting, funny, a skilled interviewer and endlessly and effortlessly curious about everything, most of all the one person he is talking to in each segment. He is also fearless, tender, affectionate and widely respected. LNL podcasts are the most popular downloads on ABC Radio National. And he served it up to Howard in all those long mean years. Hats off to Mr Adams for all this. I love him.
Adrien might have a bit of an envious Oedipal Complex in relation to this broadcaster extraordinaire.
Oh Posey, thank you. I was determined not to mention the O-word myself, but that is, of course, what I had in mind.
Posey: ‘a skilled interviewer and endlessly and effortlessly curious about everything, most of all the one person he is talking to in each segment’
You’ve hit a nail on the head, thank you. This is the quality I admire most. I think it must be authentic. Such a contrast to world-weariness, cynicism, boredom which can be heard so often in other broadcasters. cheers.
Oh Posey, thank you. I was determined not to mention the O-word myself, but that is, of course, what I had in mind.
.
HAHAHAHA – I knew it.
.
I’ve never know the guy to be self-depreciating. I’m sure I could cite the inevitable massive bucket of quotes to challenge the Cult of Phil. But no.
“self-deprecating” perhaps?
We’re all depreciating, Adrien, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Adrien, if some combination of life experience, nature documentaries and basic common sense hasn’t alerted you to this pattern in human and (other) animal behaviour by now, then you are never going to be alerted to it, I guess.
Ambi — heh!
Very good Ambigulous…
thanks PC + adrian; I grow old.
Adrien, if some combination of life experience, nature documentaries and basic common sense hasn’t alerted you to this pattern in human and (other) animal behaviour by now, then you are never going to be alerted to it, I guess.
.
.
Or Athenian theatre and Viennese philosophy even.
.
I didn’t say you were incorrect just that I suspected that was what you were getting at. As it turns out you’re both on the money and off-key. You’re right, it is intergenerational. I think Adams is past it. I’m sick of the ’60s polemics being recycled as if they were still fresh. His ‘God’ schtick belongs strictly to the Menzies era. He’s as out of date as John Howard. Let him join Johhnie on the golf course.
.
On the other hand you’re wrong. After all Oedipus didn’t want to kill Laius/Polybus did he?
.
Thanks Ambigulous. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the typo correction riff mistaken for wit. And btw what did Oscar ever do to you.
I’m Earnest.
As in Deadly?
Adrien @ 76 and later.
Adams is, I think, a year older than I am. So I’m sorry if I’m here cluttering up the place, and babbling out of date rubbish!
No as in s/he eats all the bloody cucumber sandwiches. And is careless about where s/he keeps both parents.
.
Where’s Prism?
Congenital juveniles have a habit of recoiling from well-stocked minds.
Brian – I don’t mean to be ageist.
.
I don’t think there’s some universal use-by date. Eric Hobsbawm is ancient and still writes the best books in the ‘History’ section. Robert Hughes wrote a great book on Goya recently.
.
But Adams? I’ve heard it all before. And before that and before that. It’s not just inter-generational. If I hear Douglass Coupland regurgitate the same old memes viz that very theme I’ll spew chunks. (Lucky he seems to’ve moved on).
.
The thing is there are people in early middle age who’ve spent the last 15 years clawing for crumbs from a freelance budget whilst I get to hear the dichotomy of the 1960s played out in various ways and on various subjects again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again…..
Um Posey – One must grow into a juvenile. If you’re born that way it’s inconsiderate to your mother.
I don;t think a mind is a pantry, tis something ephemeral, perhaps:
As said by some bloke in a black cap owns boats or something.
‘Typo’ is short for ‘typographical error’ meaning ‘Oops, that wasn’t the key I intended to hit.’ It does not mean ‘spelling mistake’.
Phillip Adams is an old soul. He is instantly recognisable as such to…well, other old souls. And old souls are as likely to excise from their memory, consciousness or interest *any* period of history, let alone one as rich and resonant as the 1960s – a decade which still enrages primitive forms today who hate and fear its victories – as they would clip the wings of an eagle.
Dear Fine,
Having carefully considered your enquiry of 5.02pm, I must say I am Earnest but not Deadly Earnest; since although my steadfast earnestness is capacious and unremitting it does not stultify (for instance it rarely induces profound boredom in an audience). Thus although it suffices to ascribe earnestness to my multifarious and dogged efforts, it would be incorrect, in my estimation, to reprehend them (or indeed my character) with such a disapproving term. But who, finally, can say?
Yours very sincerely, and, I trust, faithfully.
Dear Ambi,
I was referring to this character, who was a star of late night tv in the ’70s.
Ah, Fine, those of us of a certain age remember Deadly Earnest with great fondness. Nothing better than staying up late with friends, a few joints, and a really crap “horror” movie. How I miss black-and-white television.
I think Ambigulous was thinking of a rather more Important Earnest.
Flashback, oh hell, the flashbacks.
http://myweb.wvnet.edu/e-gor/tvhorrorhosts/grafix/deadlyearnestmelbourne2.jpg
For me, it was all about sitting up with Mum, eating chocolate and feeling really scared.
That’s not the Deadly earnest I remember, Joe2, the original one from Adelaide.
He was an older gent, with fake plastic goggly eyes.
I defer to your actual intent, dear Fine. My Ignorance is more capacious than my Earnestness..
How odd.
While I’m too young to have seen Deadly Earnest, I did remember a Marvel bad guy of the same name. He bears a reasonably strong resemblance to the Melbourne DE from joe2′s link.
But according to Prof. Wiki, the original was the Sydney one, who looks nothing like him.
…and who I’ll now slip a picture of through the spamotron.
He looks like Sean Micallef playing Frank Woodley playing someone with glasses.
Geebus, that looks like Frank Woodley. Apparently every capital city had a different Deadly Earnest. Oh, the joys of parochial, pre-network tv.
David Irving (no relation)& all, this was the S.A.D.E. There was another, the original, in N.S.W. and the VIC version I first posted@98.
http://myweb.wvnet.edu/e-gor/tvhorrorhosts/grafix/deadlyearnestadelaide2.jpg
‘Typo’ is short for ‘typographical error’ meaning ‘Oops, that wasn’t the key I intended to hit.’ It does not mean ’spelling mistake’.
.
Yes Mum.
.
The spelling error riff. Much wittier.
Phillip Adams is an old soul. He is instantly recognisable as such to…well, other old souls. And old souls are as likely to excise from their memory, consciousness or interest *any* period of history, let alone one as rich and resonant as the 1960s – a decade which still enrages primitive forms today who hate and fear its victories – as they would clip the wings of an eagle.
.
I don’t hate and fear the victories of the 60s. Not even the election of Richard Nixon. Altho’ the Prague Autumn and, um the Culural Revolution… Well I guess I was lying when I said I have no hate and fear of victories c.1961-1970.
.
But the Left’s Myths of the Sixties Riff is waaaaayyyyyyy overdone. And exudes slightly less vitality than a drunken dog on a summer patio. Riots in Chicago and endless lecture theatre debates amid a general strike have nothing – nothing on those who fought and died in Spain, in Berlin, on the shores of France. Who went to the mat for organized labour. Etc.
.
The real victories of the ’60s were cultural not political: Lennon not Lenin.
.
But my objection to Adams has nothing to do with his politics, altho’ granted I don’t much like the NSW ALP Right. If The Weekend Australian were to replace Adams with, say, John Pilger (shock) I’d be very pleased. Pilger’s worth reading.
.
Nothing to do with age either really. If they hired Antony Lowenstein it’d be a step down even from Phil.
.
‘Nuff said.
Actually, as I understand it, it isn’t. Typographical errors were the ones that crept in between manuscript and galley proofs in the days when compositors and linotypists were a stage between author and editor. Fewer and fewer people have done typography since the late 1980s when desktop publishing got cheap. The mistakes made by the keyboard-clumsy (such as teh for the, adn for and) are, properly, “keying” or “typing” errors, while “spelling” errors are made when we forget how many Ls in Wollomoolloo or Rs in Murrumbidgee.
And #81, being a typing-error joke that also worked as a malapropism (and a Wilde reference for bonus points), was pretty damn funny, actually.
Deadly Earnest is new to this Brisbanite of three-and-forty summers, but now Fine’s link has given me a strange urge to see The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini.
“Fine’s link has given me a strange urge to see The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini.”
Medication may help, terangeree.
Now here’s a man with excellent taste. He reckons a Phillip Adams column is up there with a Meissen porcelain figure, a Bach concerto, Darwin’s Origin of Species and a Faberge egg as being among the best examples of what human beings are capable of we could give to any passing, interested creatures from outer space.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-horton/the-worst-of-times-the-b_b_88132.html
On the basis of this well-deserved endorsement of Mr Adams, I’d be tempted to add David Horton himself to his fine list.
Thanks Liam. You are wittier.
Liam – I reckon if someone farted in my general direction you’d think it was the very rimas dissolutas with Swiftian insight and Elizabethan breadth.
.
He reckons a Phillip Adams column is up there with a Meissen porcelain figure, a Bach concerto, Darwin’s Origin of Species and a Faberge egg
.
FFS!!!!!
.
Is there a Church somewhere? What rituals does the Cult of Phil practice? Inquiring minds wanna know. (Not)