Memo from ALP Publicity, re: Tanya Plibersek

The following memo was found next to a severed hand, in a dumpster, behind ALP headquarters in Sussex St, Sydney.

FROM: Barry Shank, ALP Publicity
TO: All staff
RE: Tanya Plibersek; Sunday Life

Comrades,

First of all, well bloody done!

I knew that when Pickles the Policy Monkey flung his breakfast at a picture of Tanya, thus signalling her as the party’s Next Big Thing™, we were onto a winner. The choice of Sunday Life was a good one as well – you can take the candidate, and introduce her to a mostly female audience in a laid back weekend supplement. That way she doesn’t have to actually, you know, ‘speak’ with any authority about matters of substance, policy and the like. We all know that the ladies aren’t big on substance (but we also know that Tanya is well versed on her portfolio and any number of policy issues; but that’s neither here nor there).

And, good choice, Pickles on Sunday Life. It’s a good thing we did a dry run ten years ago with Julia in the same magazine (Good Weekend, same-ish), basically the same story so we could make the mistakes and learn from them (learning from your mistakes is, granted, a new policy drive in the ALP). We do what we tried with Julia: sound the ominous warning of a hip young(ish) female as a rising star in the ALP. But unlike Julia, we show the ladies of the nation that Tanya is a married mother of three, ergo a breeder (and not ‘purposefully barren’ or suspiciously linked to a ‘male hairdresser’), and there’s not an empty fruit bowl in sight – quite the contrary: as part of the whole ‘you CAN have it all’ approach we’re compelled/conditioned to make about women in politics or business, we were cunning enough to have Sunday Life frame the whole thing as ‘Tanya-as-mum-on-the-go’. Open the whole thing with Tanya making her own mayonnaise. Nice touch!

I know that while this may have come across as a kind of shaming and bullying, comparable to one that Daily Life reported on recently, but that’s one of the licks we’re going to have to take. It’s not about what she has to contribute, policy wise, it’s the small miracle of how she manages to raise three smiling kids, look stylish in whatever outfit the stylist at Sunday Life set up for her, and maintain the public image of deputy Labor leader. Sure, nobody ever profiles a man in power and asks him how he manages it, coz we just assume he has a wife, right? Moot point. Tanya’s got kids, AND a job, AND looks great on Q&A, AND makes her own mayonnaise. Isn’t she clever???

We’ve learned the hard way (boy, have we!) about what we expect from lady politicians, and how the people of Australia (including the women) respond to them. But this Sunday Life profile really threw women voters the double blind: it showed them a source of inspiration minus anything of policy substance, and simultaneously chided them for being listless, unambitious tarts for not achieving the same level of career success and domestic stability. Also, that photo? Awesome. You might as well have taken it for a toothpaste commercial. They’re so white they’re almost blue.

Capital effort, people. Now, if you need me I’ll be with the rest of the chaps making decisions.

The Liberated Luddite

A recently aired episode of Parks and Recreation featured recalcitrant neo-Luddite Ron Swanson in a tirade against social media, and in an attempt to get ‘off the grid’ go to extreme lengths to remove his identity from as much media as possible. Eventually, he relented and got a mobile phone, but a simple handset that clipped onto his belt. His polar opposite Tom Haverford noted the age of Ron’s phone, and after suggesting that not only did it look like the original phone from Wall Street, but the original phone itself, exclaimed "It’s got buttons! Ewwwww!"

I recently found myself in need of a new phone, after being the owner of an iPhone3 for about four years. As far as units go, it was intriguing and fun at first, in that it combined the internet, an iPod and a phone in one, and all those ridiculous apps were worth (literally) minutes of amusement (among my collection included a Samuel L Jackson sound board, and something called ‘Fart Piano’). Eventually, the technology superseded the device and most of the apps stopped working, the internet browser slowed to a crawl and it was just a chunky piece of glass I carried with me at every moment. One day, gravity got the better of it and the screen shattered; I took this as a cue to upgrade. Without being bowled over by what was on offer, and quite frankly offended by some of the charges and fees of my (major brand name) provider, I flew into a fit of technological indignation, purchased the cheapest handset available and went home.

The handset I bought makes phone calls and sends texts; it has an attachment that allows you to listen to FM radio. The camera takes pictures, but the phone doesn’t allow you to look at them. The internet browser is slow and doesn’t seem to work on 99% of websites. The available apps are archaic and range from ‘charming’ to ‘pointless’. Its keypad even has buttons. Ewwww.

As a direct result of this, I don’t have the internet with me on public transport or when having drinks with friends. I have to engage with people one-on-one. I have to entertain myself with other things – books, music, my own thoughts (egad). When in company, I enjoy the actual company of others. Smart phones have brought the internet to everyone’s fingertips at any time of the day or night. And now that I no longer have the internet, I am neither distracted by, nor seeking distraction by it (we should remember that strangely enough there is nothing in this world more distracting than every piece of information in the world, ever.)

The rate at which people are compelled to Tweet and Instagram, update their Facebook statuses and follow the activities of their ‘friends’ (real or otherwise) is something that doesn’t seem odd until the moment you step back and see others do it when your technological restraints prevent you from doing the same. If someone is enjoying an apple and wants to share that with the universe, that’s one thing, but ‘Eating an apple, feeling healthy LOL’ sent into the ether isn’t really for anyone but the person sending it. It might as well say ‘Validate me! Say you like me by acknowledging my words and actions!’

Full disclosure: I Tweet, but mostly it’s my attempt at one-liners. I share links to articles I think worthy of others’ reading. But I’ve also been a first hand witness to the socially crippling effects that a compulsive Tweeter experiences. One friend had a close to clinical compulsion to check his phone if anyone nearby checked theirs; a former girlfriend woke to, and went to sleep with Twitter close at hand and had the perplexing habit of Tweeting close to every thought, including moments of intimacy between the two of us. This was flattering at first, although it’s quite disturbing with a bit of hindsight. If you start or end your day with a cordial message to Twitter in general, chances are that you and I are vastly different people, indeed.

And yes, I know that there's something askew in ranting against social media, and using social media to do it, as well as promote it. I get that.

The fact remains that every moment need not be Tweeted; every meal need not be Instagrammed. You may be socially or emotionally isolated, and the internet might be your only avenue for human connection. Such people are in an infinitesimal minority. I’ve embraced the idea of comfortably enjoying silences with friends and companions, and my life needn’t be filled with 140-character ramblings of virtual strangers and celebrities. I now look at a restaurant table full of people focussed on the screens of their phones as a kind of museum exhibit, and it’s all I can do to say, "Look, children… in my day, we used to speak to each other."

Taking a retroactive step in this regard really is liberating. I’ve read so many more things of substance, like … novels. A recent holiday saw me – heaven forbid – leaving my phone at home. Not only did I have to make my own entertainment, I was at 0% risk of having ‘bill shock’ when I returned, having not mistakenly thought that a photograph of a Fijian sunset was something my Facebook friends desperately needed to see then and there (you learn this lesson the hard way, trust me).

Losing my smart phone has set me free. I’m a better person for it. I can heartily recommend the experience.

An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Australia

Dear Prime Minister,

I thought I’d reach out to you, as there’s been some clearly bone-headed insanity taking place over the past couple of weeks (or is it months and years?) that has reduced the political debate and news media in this country to a shambles.

I’ve had some quandaries with the decisions you and your government have made over the last three years; like I had some problems with your predecessor’s government (which you were a part of), and infinite problems with the Howard government. All of these problems and counter-points were based on policy decisions and politics, and none of them had anything to do with anyone’s gender or bedroom antics. Aside from anything else, ew. Seriously. Ew.

Your government has made some decisions that bothered me. I’ve disagreed as to the right way to solve certain problems, addressed various grievances and suggested alternatives. As a remorseless, unreconstructed Whitlamite, I’m more than a tad discouraged by the direction Labor has gone in the past few years; at a book signing, I asked Mungo McCallum why he thought the ALP had swung so severely to the right – he countered that they (you) hadn’t, they’d just swung severely to the bottom. Seeking out the approval of the lowest common denominator. Dirty pool, Ms Gillard.

I’ve had problems with your personal style of politics, the manner by which you got to be Prime Minister, your ‘captain’s pick’ of someone grossly unqualified to be in the Senate, the mishandling of the Slipper and Thomson matters, the non-starter that was media reform, and the fact that your big tentpole speech in the House about misogyny directed at Tony Abbott was heralded as some kind of feminist milestone, which it would have been in my eyes as well had you not crossed the floor to vote with him about half an hour later. Your values and principles are really only worth something if you exercise them when it’s inconvenient. But it’s a moot point.

Your feminist credentials haven’t really impressed me that much (said the white middle class, middle aged straight man from the suburbs). I mean, it’s great that we have a female PM, but feminism – to me – suggests equality among all women, with men. And that’s all women, not just the ones that look best in photo ops. Equality under the law and society which should mean leading the charge for the rights of women who are gay and want to get married, women on a boat on the Indian Ocean currently seeking asylum, women in remote Aboriginal communities, or women who are single mothers and used to get more funding than what is in the NewStart allowance. And just on that whole gay marriage thing, can I ask you, how do you look Penny Wong in the eye and tell her that she can’t have equal rights under the law because of who she loves? Not cool. Gay marriage is really none of my business, and it seems like it’s none of yours either. But more on that later.

There was an episode of The West Wing where Sam Seaborn criticised a speech written about rich people and swimming pools, because it looked like it was written by a teenage girl. They have a lot of things to offer the world, but good writing isn’t one of them. Which brings me to the ‘men in blue ties’ speech. It was, to my ear, a bit of clumsy, poor speechwriting that smacked of a 14-year-old girl who had just read the Cliff Notes on The Female Eunuch. Speculation abounded about what motivated this clumsy, to my mind hackneyed bit of sputter shot gender warfare, and frustratingly I agreed with Julie Fuckin’ Bishop when she labelled it a desperate and condescending act of political sleight of hand.

But the media seemed to lap it up. I wasn’t buying it, especially since the forum for this speech, the launch of ‘Women For Gillard’ (the gender equivalent of ‘Christians For Jesus’) appeared to be a cynical exercise born of desperation. The class warfare thing didn’t cut it, so let’s play the gender card. Men in blue ties? Give me a break. Pass.

Then that Liberal fundraiser menu scandal happened. Now, on the surface, it looked to be just more unfunny nonsense, and I was on the verge of giving Mal Brough the benefit of the doubt on whether or not he knew about it. The restaurateur said he printed one out as a joke between him and his son, and it was then leaked to the media. I was thinking that it was dopey and unfunny, but not enough for you to get riled up about. I figured you’d just let it go through to the keeper, but you blew it up, adding fuel to the gender politics fire, which given what’s been going on recently seems like a fair enough choice. I’d have gone differently, as I wouldn’t want to give it credence and encourage like-minded reactionary twits to do something similar. I figured that Mal Brough probably didn’t know about it, because if he did and lied about it, that would make him close to the dumbest man in politics, and not even a Tory from Queensland can be that mentally deficient. I seem to have been proven wrong about this. Then that oxygen thief Joe Hockey seemed to revert back to his seven year old self and rationalised the menu joke by saying that you once called him fat. Truly head-slappingly stupid. I weep for the future of political discourse in this country.



Is it me or is the Australian news media like that dog in Up?

Oh, look, poor poll numbers! Speculation of an electoral wipe out! In-house scuttlebutt! Kevin Rudd on the loose!

SQUIRREL!

Gender politics! Sexism! Men in blue ties! Sexist menu joke! Howard Sattler!

Howard Goddamned Sattler. Prime Minister, as I illustrated before, and many times in various forums, I disagree with many of the things you’ve said and done. The gender thing was – to my mind – clumsy and unnecessarily polarising.

Then 6PR’s ‘turd that won’t flush’ asked you those questions about your domestic partner.

I would like to apologise to you, on behalf of Australian men. On behalf of men originally from Perth. On behalf of thinking primates. Under no circumstances would Howard Sattler have ever questioned Sonia McMahon’s sexuality, or the validity of John & Jannette Howard’s marriage. There is no way anyone, EVER would use the same kind of specious reasoning (hairdresser = gay) for a male political leader. I can’t imagine the Sattler/Jones/Mitchell/Hadley types saying to Tony Abbott, “Well, Mr Abbott, you’re Catholic. Are you a paedophile? It’s just that those kiddie fiddling priests were also Catholic, so, you know, it makes sense…”

I was wrong to assume that your take on gender politics was a cynical exercise or a strategic fake-out. I’m endlessly impressed with the fact that you didn’t just stare at him when he asked you that, and ask him “What the holy fuck did you just ask me?”. I would’ve punched that smarmy, reactionary hack right in his stupid fat head. Where I used to think the more prudent thing would have been to just brush that dirt off your shoulder, all of a sudden I’ve concluded that if you wanted to go militant separatist feminist and start spelling ‘wymyn’ thusly, then it makes perfect sense. Start a riot grrrl band and name roads and bridges after Andrea Dworkin. Anything you say and do on the subject of gender and sexism won’t register a peep out of me from here on in.

The minute I saw that clip, all I wanted to do was that hand gesture blackjack dealers make when they change shifts at the casino. I’m done.

Go to town. I hadn’t given a great deal of thought to voting for your party on September 14, but if this is the predominant mentality incarnate in what would be Tony Abbott’s Australia, then my vote’s with you.

So that’s it. Sorry about the language.

Sincerely,

Matt Reddin, chap.

Why I won't See 'The Great Gatsby'. In rhyming verse.

We’re a nation of big talents
It’s a disproportionate imbalance
With a film scene striving to create something new
Such a solid Whitlam decision
To fund the cinematic vision
Of Beresford, Schepisi and Weir, just to name a few

The directors of this nation
Get far-reaching adulation
And their work often brings in box office bucks
But despite this commendation
And analytical self gratification
The simple truth remains: Moulin Rouge sucks

Baz Luhrmann, you’re a hack
You’re the monkey on the back
Of an industry that’s forgotten how to boo
Coz you’ve been hailed as a genius
With a patent love of penis
Since your dumb fucking luck in ’92

You were hailed an artist and an auteur
Whose ballroom dancing film did stir
The heart strings of the entire lemonade set
Paul Mercurio tried to teach us
Lest those new steps would beseech us
And he kissed the girl like he just lost a bet

There was mass widespread acclaim
Although the film was kind of lame
A story based not in substance, but in style
And the one thing that it proved
Is that Australians can be moved
And have way more sentiment than they do guile

Then the worst adaptation yet
Of Romeo and Juliet
With this overly literal interpretation, it was marred
How so quickly we forget
That all the teenagers got wet
Or, if not wet, then maybe ¾ hard

I was thinking, what was next?
What’s with this homoerotic subtext?
Shouldn’t classic plays be closer under guard?
And then thought after I’d seen it
I would never dare to dream it
Kenneth Branagh’s not the only one who messes up the Bard

Baz Luhrmann, you’re a hack
You’re worse for us than crack
If real life was Paradise Lost, you’d be John Milton
I hated every single portion
Of that Moulin Rouge abortion
The only tackier vision of Paris, is Paris Hilton

Did you see Nicole Kidman and Ewan
Who we were meant to think were screwin’
With a plot like that you surely couldn’t lose
But their chemistry didn’t gel
It was the partnership from hell
More fake than her fake marriage to Tom Cruise

It couldn’t possibly be gayer
If the music was by Leo Sayer
With endless close-ups of Ms Kidman’s Botoxed kiss
So many badly sung pop songs
Some films stink, this one just pongs
I honestly thought he was trying to take the piss

Then it turns out that Australia
Was a monumental failure!
When the box office was open, no-one went
Then as he was playing with his nads
Baz did these fucking awful tourism ads
Now that’s tax payer dollars truly well spent


Baz Luhrmann, you’re a disgrace
You should be shot deep into space
For making such pandering, jingoistic bloody nonsense
And your hyper-kinetic pace
Makes me want to punch a dolphin in the face
It’s other people’s money, don’t you have a conscience?

It was well-documented in the Herald
He went and re-imagined F. Scott Fitzgerald
Apparently this is something we needed to see
Adding to the litany of wrongs
He’s filling it with crappy industrial dance songs
And that wanker's gone and filmed it in 3D

Baz Luhrmann must be stopped
From an aeroplane, he must be dropped
He’s a one-trick pony whose trick was never good
While he sucks on the cinematic teat
With fawning sycophants at his feet
If nobody’s tried to stop him, then somebody should

Baz Luhrmann needs to die
Nobody would wonder why
Although some may have cause to hazard a guess
As the movie world would be cleared
Missed only by his trophy wife-slash-beard
Because this ugly world would suck a little less

There are a plethora of ideas
People have been pitching them for years
But no producing bastard will return their calls
So as far as I can tell
They can all go straight to Hell
For spending all their time ladling on his balls

I’m not saying that I’m jealous
Although these words have been quite zealous
And the film industry is filled with talentless fucks
And it may sound glib and pissy
To despise this film making sissy
But the simple truth remains: Moulin Rouge sucks.

Really...?

And now, a segment stolen from Weekend Update. Really...?

Really, Craig Thompson? You paid for escort services on your work credit card? Really? You didn’t think that this would leave a trail? You call a brothel called Bad Girls from your hotel room and then tell investigators that someone else used your credit card and forged your signature. Really? But then you didn’t report the alleged fraud to the authorities. Really? And really? You expected your work to cover the cost? I have big enough troubles claiming expenses on a pack of AA batteries, and this guy is spending $2500 on prostitutes. Really.

And, really, NSW ALP? You gave preselection to someone who was an obvious liability and had a history of escorts being paid for on his work MasterCard. Really? Did you think nobody would remember you slipped him $100k so he'd avoid bankrupcy in the lead up to the election? Really? Do you like being in opposition, or do you just prefer the ‘Russian Roulette’ approach to government? I mean, really.

While we’re on the subject, Really, Prime Minister? You have ‘full confidence’ in Craig Thompson and think he’s doing a 'great job'? The last person who had that said about him while being a monumental screw up was Michael Browne, the head of FEMA in the US, and under his administration, the city of New Orleans was destroyed. Heck of a job, Brownie. Really. Were it up to me, I’d eject him from the cabinet, the party and the parliament for just been a total ’tard. Really.

But, at the end of the day, Really, Craig Thompson? If you want to pay for a prostitute, you can always use your own credit card, because in Victoria and NSW – guess what? It’s legal. If you did that, this isn’t news – it’s just gossip. But maybe you don’t want your family to see it on a credit card statement; good thing you used your work credit card, because now we’ve all seen it. Really. While nurses are working long shifts and actively fighting for better pay and conditions, you’re using their union dues to have your junk worked on by a girl named ‘Bubbles’. Really.

And Craig? You know that there are these things called ATMs now. Really. They dispense cash and you can pay for goods and services with it. And I cannot imagine there’s a working girl in the world that doesn’t take cash. The only hooker I know that doesn’t is LJ Hooker, and I think they would in a pinch if you asked them nice enough. Because, really. You’re not getting re-elected no matter what. If you get forced out of the parliament because of this, there’ll be a by-election, the ALP will lose the seat, lose their majority in the lower house, the caretaker PM will call a double dissolution election and then the coalition will win government in a landslide that will blow your mind more than whichever ‘Bad Girl’ did back when you were with the HSU. Then this country will be lead by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Really.

I mean Really. Huh. Yeah. Wow.

Sex and the City – Take the Quiz!

Thanks for taking Cosmo’s ‘Which Sex and the City girl are you?’ quiz. By taking part in this highly scientific join-the-dots exercise, you can finally put to rest any and all assumptions you may have had about you not being one of four crudely drawn cultural stereotypes from a long-defunct TV show about three prostitutes and their mother.

I’m a Carrie!
You make a habit out of dressing well, and by ‘well’ we mean you’re a pair of zany shoes away from being a carnival attraction at the next Ringling Brothers event. While espousing unwashed faux-intellectual rhetoric and unanswered questions disguised as a ‘sex advice’ column, you proudly spout notions of the ‘modern woman’ and nouveau feminism through the guise of being defiantly independent and determined, all the while having a kind of morbid and unhealthy obsession with the acquisition of material wealth, in the form of clothes and shoes. You pride yourself on being seen in the finest, hippest, coolest restaurants, but apparently you never eat as you seem to be the size of a hotel room soap after a solid weekend’s worth of showering. Although you pride yourself on the loyalty you have to your friends, you only seem to have three of them, who are willing to endure your obvious character flaws because they themselves have faults that are just as bad, if not worse. You are a recreational smoker, give lip service to your religious and cultural heritage and treat outwardly decent men with utter contempt, because the man you want the most has lots, and lots of money. You’re willing to endure shabby treatment at his hand because of said fortune, which makes you an enabler; a mafia wife. Where once, for about one year in the late 1990s your exploits were witty and incisive explorations of the dating world (and the titular sex), you’re now all wound up and seemingly obsessed with marriage. This is nice and shows some degree of character development and everything, but it’s not really feminist, and kind of belies your whole MO. All the while you live the life and maintain the churlish obsessions of a middle aged gay man, who dictates the wherewithal of your existence. Also, apparently you encompass everything ugly about Americans when you’re abroad and seem to have utter contempt for the Muslim world. Good for you for not curbing your whorish behaviour in a culture that apparently doesn’t understand you and needs to ‘get with it’. Somehow the world of women’s media have latched onto you as a style template even as you dress like a self-medicated fortune teller and have a face that reminds most people of Lance Armstrong’s instep. Essentially, you’re the reason why terrorists hate westerners and when all is said and done you’re a sub-human cretin with the moral compass of Joseph Stalin. You go, girl!

I’m a Samantha!
Having presumably had your first orgasm in utero, you emerged from the womb sometime in the mid-1940s with your focus zeroed in on having your orifices stuffed with as many things as was humanly possible, as often as was possible. You take sexual liberation to a confounding extreme, and would apparently fuck anything with a pulse. On the surface, you pride yourself on your garish accumulation of phallic encounters and have enough notches on your headboard to have whittled it down to a toothpick. Bound by an overwhelming ego and a contradictory absence of any kind of self-worth, you choose to not restrict yourself to any one particular partner in life, despite any number of people offering themselves to you with boundless love and affection for reasons that fail logic. You’re not one to judge your friends’ infidelities and obvious flaws, for you yourself have little to no regard for anyone aside from your inner circle, and the minute they could not for any reason afford to lunch or drink with you in the places to be seen, you’d be done with them faster than it takes to swallow whichever jizzload you just imbibed from the random manservant you looked at with a furtive glance. Most experts would diagnose you with acute nymphomania, in that you indulge in sex without love or intimacy, and have been ploughed so many times not only is there no tread left on the tyres, it really would be like throwing a hotdog down an elevator shaft. This is itself ironic in that you don’t seem to have anything more than two dimensions; the third would presumably be restricted to the depth of your cooter. When visiting a country in the middle east whose traditions and approaches to women are different to those experienced in New York’s east village, your solution would be to assume that your host nation is primitive and you would go out of your way to do nothing short of a public cervix announcement in front of the local Islamic cleric. Apparently your brain/mouth filter is redirected via your clitoris. As a menopausal woman, your antics make you, quite frankly, embarrassing to observe. The winner of the Bendigo Hotel’s ‘Cougar of the Year’ contest oozes class and sophistication by comparison, and that woman found her way home at 4.00am with vomit in her hair after one of the audience members gave her a rogering in the back of his cousin Darren’s late model ute and posted blurry iPhone pictures on his MySpace page. You go, girl!

I’m a Charlotte!
Your bubbly enthusiasm for life is contagious, and you maintain your peppy disposition by only shopping in the best stores and dressing only as the latest mode dictates. Thankfully, you had a career as an art curator that didn’t require a great deal of intellect, and paid a disproportionate amount of cash for something that you clearly haven’t the first idea about. Your stiff upbringing gave you something of a sense of right and wrong, but while you may be repulsed by others’ outward sexual bravado, you yourself really do like getting seen to quite a lot. Your first marriage was a sham, as you thought you could marry up, but you can’t seem to look past the size of a bank balance to see the very real human flaws even the best families have. Unlike some of your other friends, you can fuck ugly, but only if it’s successful ugly, or rich ugly. Your husband looks very much like a shorn scrotum, but because he’s an attorney with a solid portfolio, you convince yourself that you have developed ‘character’ by deeming him worthy of your sacred temple. Having found yourself the mother of two brats, your first instinct is to whine endlessly about them and how your life isn’t as enjoyable now that you can’t be completely self-obsessed. You need ‘me time’, all the time, because maintaining a façade of style-magazine prescribed ‘beauty’ isn’t easy, or cheap, and is becoming increasingly harder now that you’re rapidly approaching your 50s. You’d undertake plastic surgery or botox were you not such a spineless chickenshit, and your prime obsession is the style and maintenance of your own hair. Thank goodness for Photoshop and a savvy marketing department at Paramount Pictures, so you can now look much younger than you really are, because despite your ill-informed feminist ideals, phsically ageing scares the living shit out of you. Because what can a pretty girl do when she gets old and has no discernable skills or talent? Pick up a copy of Woman’s Day and marvel at Bec Hewitt’s perfect bogan life. You go, girl!

I’m a Miranda!
Yes you are, you fierce, independent career gal, you! Well done, you fiercely independent career gal, getting yourself to one of the higher rungs on the corporate ladder, despite the plainly obvious and frequently asserted (by you) handicap of being a woman. Sure, there are laws to prevent gender discrimination in the workplace (and you should know about those, being a lawyer, you fiercely independent career gal, you!), but that doesn’t stop you from playing the gender card every time you’re passed up for a promotion or don’t receive plebeian congratulations for doing your job. Which is hard. Being a woman. How much you’ve achieved, being a fiercely independent career gal, whose successes are many, and being the only person in your small group of friends with actual marketable skills, you find yourself having to actually work for a living, so it’s understandable to see that seeing these other gals in your circle have lives of comparative ease would make you just a little bit ... testy at times. Just a little bit… harsh. Just a little bit… irritable. Just a little bit… cunty. Being a fiercely independent career gal means you have less time for socialising, and the men you end up with tend to be on the less-than-impressive side. In fact, one particular chap seems to be an overwhelming douchebag, but you still managed to let him impregnate you – sometimes being a fiercely independent career gal makes it easy to forget the little things, like subjective judgement. And contraception. Somehow, a misguided sense of either pity (self or otherwise) has lumbered you with this hackneyed jackass, spouting stereotypical goombah nonsense to the point that he looks like an extra who strolled off the set of Jersey Shore. But you don’t mind, somehow being a harshly fiercely independently minded career gal has robbed you of your self-worth to the point where the highlight of your day is the five minutes you can find to reminisce about the three seconds of calm you experienced 20 years ago when you were sleeping with someone not beneath your station in life and really didn’t care about where the next day was taking you. But at least you have your small circle of friends, who you know are morally and intellectually inferior to you, but you associate with them anyhow, because it’s nice to spend time with someone who doesn’t eat with his fingers or spit when he talks. You go, girl!

So there you have it. Should you identify yourself with any of the above archetypes, or aspire to be like them, well done. You’re a major reason why there is gender inequity in the workforce, why there won’t be a female prime minister or president of the US for a while yet, and why most media for women is overwhelmingly stupid and tailored to bitchiness, gossip and speculation about talentless cretins and celebrities. Reading about the misfortunes of celebrities, be they divorcing, or gaining weight, or in career freefall, doesn’t actually give you license to feel better about your own "messed up life" you go home to every night in the suburbs; it’s actually Schadenfreude, which translates from the German as ‘damage’ and ‘joy’, in that you’re getting your escapist thrills out of others’ misfortunes. That they’re famous is irrelevant, it really just makes you a cunt.

Sex and the City 2’s trailer tells you to ‘Come for the fun. Come for the friendship. Come for the fashion!’. It’s a cultural event for women the world over, apparently. Germaine Greer would be so proud.

You go, girl.

Some Pontif-ication

TO: All of the one true faith
SUBJECT: Further, um, ‘issues’

We are again experiencing some, shall we say, ‘unpleasant’ issues that may be affecting our eventual salvation. Ireland, now deaf Canadian kiddies? It’s been a spell just trying to keep up.

It’s not the fact that it happened, because we all know about it. Hell, I was there for most of it, but I can’t remember much due to the shocking Morphine monkey that was on my back. The 60s were a stone solid gas, man. I’d blame the last guy, but I’ve been in the pointy hat for the better part of five years now. Hey, in other good news, I finally got that awful ‘old Pope’ smell out of the Encyclical rumpus room. That guy ate a lot of pitted prunes.

The problem stems from the fact that despite all this being ‘our little secret’, the word keeps getting out there. I, for one, am sick to bleeding death (happy Easter, by the way) of having to hire PR guys to deny it all or cover it up. Can’t we all just keep our traps shut? What’s the point of having a cover-up if it keeps getting uncovered? Dang! Back in the day, in the old country, when I was a boy, the people running the place knew how to keep things quiet. Boy, I miss those days. The marching was awesome, and talk about impressive architecture! Good times.

Anyway, investigations into this issue are underway and we are sure it’s the work of perverted agitprop socialist Jewish pornographers, which is a ‘Websters’ way of saying ‘the media’. How’s about another Spanish inquisition to thin out their ranks? Just an idea.

In the meantime, I’ve been on the phone with Mel Gibson, who is planning a kind of old school publicity stunt to distract the fourth estate long enough for us to burn some more evidence. Mel’s a great guy, but he’s a bit bummed since the low returns came in for Edge of Darkness. This ought to give him a project for a while and he’ll be smiling like the maladjusted wafer monkey he used to be before you can say ‘body of Christ’.

Thank you for your ongoing patience with this matter. We’ll just see who’s laughing when the Rapture comes.

Yours in cahoots,


Pope Benedict XVI
Seat of Peter
Vatican City, Rome