On another thread Rewi asked:

Hi there,

Any of the historical scholars on here watch ‘I, Spry’?

Thoughts?

David Irving (no relation) wrote:

Not an historian, Rewi, but I enjoyed the show. I’d love to see my ASIO file, although it’d probably be something like “19 year old wanker; no significant risk.”

Paul Burns wrote:

Rewi @ Its about right. Not exactly whimsy, though, unless you consider Menzies’ attitude to the CPA whimsical. When Commonwealth Literary Fund applications came up Menzies would check applicants’ names from a list provided by ASIO and if the writer’s name was on that interminable ASIO list, you didn’t get a grant. Now that’s whimsy, of a sort, for you.
They didn’t call him ‘Buck’ Menzies for nothing.
My ASIO file would make fascinating reading, assuming I have one. I knew so many Coms in the arts I presume I had one. And there’s no doubt it was all wrong. (I don’t know if they bother watching members of Socialist Alliance, but if they do they’re wasting taxpayer’s money. Check out Robert Manne’s The Petrov Affair. Very Good, though you’ll have to get it on line as its out of print.

Dis, as they say, cuss.

Germaine Greer will also be a guest. Greer has just released a new essay in book form – On Rage, which I’m very much looking forward to reading. I was interested to see her obvious frustration last night in a Lateline interview with Leigh Sales at the difficulty of articulating any position that goes beyond tired dichotomies on Indigenous Policy and the NT intervention (including those which claim to transcend tired dichotomies). Or perhaps it would be better to say the inability to hear any heterodox position. I suspect a lot of the rage directed at Greer herself comes from an inability to comprehend or recognise any thought that doesn’t follow the predictable grooves of a “debate”, and indeed any call for reflection on issues and stories a lot of us would rather not face. So it’ll be interesting to watch her in this format too.