Friday, January 20, 2017

In which the reptiles, and perforce the pond, say farewell to the hound of the week ...


(And as always, more Pope here).

With a bit of luck, nobody outside NSW will have seen ABC News' appalling, pathetic attempt at relevance, which turned up on last night's traditional seven o'clock bulletin.

Some bright spark had the bright idea of setting up a few cameras outside parliament house, and doing a live newscast for the half hour, with bonus rich, vibrant Macquarie street noise running rampant under everything, and the anchor looking like a lost shag on a rock,  as did the several guests who turned up to commentate on the rock - look, there's Quentin Dempster trying to shuffle out of shot and ending up in limbo, which the pond had thought the Catholic church had abolished.

Mike Baird turned up like a useless panting greyhound to grace the proceedings, while saying absolutely nothing he hadn't said before in previous press conferences, though with bonus awkwardness produced by the format, the noise, and the idle pandering questioning.

Other news items were read with flapping paper and street noise, and sudden tranquility of sound when studio conditions returned.

Nothing was accomplished by the farce, except the expenditure of additional money - those up north wondering where their shortwave savings went now have the answer - and a production which in the old days would have failed the most basic tech checks and been deemed unbroadcastable ...

No doubt masochists will hunt it out on iView in the same way that the pond likes to collect little Oz treasures like this ...


Memo to pond - watch out scribbling about mishaps when only noh plays seem to learn from them ...

The pond is pretty much over the ABC ... the final straw came with the fuss over short wave, and the notion that if the public the ABC is paid to serve couldn't keep up with the ABC's wondrous technological advances, then they could just get lost ...

So much for legacy patrons lost in the outback nightmare world of Malware ...

Thankfully, in that the eternal January holiday the ABC indulges in, the pond has discovered a world of alternatives ... and will likely never go back to RN to watch it move its ratings from * to ** ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles of Oz also went into flip-out mode about little Mikey's departure, perforce leaving the pond with a case of massive irrelevance in relation to the wider world ...

Forget the Donald, little Mikey has gone.

Even useless dog bothering crow eaters had something to say on the matter ...


Around this point the pond realised it would be struggling for a few leftover crumbs as the bird brains feasted on the departure of a loser premier who couldn't last three years in the gig ... remember when that was regarded as the point at which the trainer wheels might be abandoned, and a decent time in power begin?


Silly dog botherer. Baird's woes began when he started to listen to Alan Jones and the Terrorists ... and now the Terrorists are sobbing and wailing and busy selling the story that we should all be saddened by the huge emotional burden little Mikey is suffering ...


Magic Mike?

You mean the Magic Mike that couldn't connect with the Terrorists?


Well it wasn't for want of trying and pandering ...

What's notable about the coverage this day is how brief it is, and how brief the list of achievements - selling off state assets being the main one so that the cash might be pissed against the wall on lavish contracts and cost overruns - and the crow eating dog botherer was no exception to the rule ...


Engage with the mainstream? Yet another code word for the Surry Hills bunker?

Nary a word about Casino Mike's greatest contribution to Sydney, but the pond is a masochist - having endured the reads - and now a sadist, determined to make others suffer ... so who's next?


Andrew Stoner?  Why that's too dull to contemplate, even for the pond ...

What else ya got?


Another out of towner who doesn't have WestConnex breathing down his neck? Sure, why not ...


Conservatives don't tend to be reactionary? Well the pond did say it would be searching for crumbs this day, but as a one liner that's not bad. Now what's the bet that the oscillating fan has little else to offer?


Yep, that's short weight, so what else you got?



Oh okay, if we must ... but can we wheel in a photo of ancient NSW pollie who made his living selling coffin sticks to suckers?

Well if we're going to delve into abysmal history, may as well go the full hog. Who knows, we could end up with Bligh and the Rum rebellion and a town addicted to rum and the lash, along with the cancer-inducing fags ...


He had a vision? WestConnex is a vision? Has anyone been out Parrmatta Road or St Peters way lately?

And "for a time" was a model to follow?  

We should call his short flurry of losing a kind of new three year plan, which is certainly spiffier and a lot faster than some jumped-up five year plan?

Well in what seems the usual reptile way this day, magic Troy also quickly ran out of platitudes, insights, or much to say about Magic Casino Mike ... lose to James Packer and soon enough all of Siderneyy will be the winner ... well we can't all spend money bread and circus Bob Carr style on four year nosh ups ...


Around this point, the pond was contemplating the way that the reptiles were trying to prove that they could outdo the ABC for abysmal coverage, and decided on one last shot ... courtesy the Oz reptile editorialist ...

Oh no, a sex joke in the splash?

He pulls out?


Oh wait, the reptiles don't have the pond's dirty mind. 

It's a surfer joke, Beach Boys, Barbara Ann,  in my woody I would take you, and so on and so forth ...



And yet, and yet, what's striking after these three opening pars, is how quickly the Oz editorialist wraps up the memorialising and the obituary ... there's just three short pars to follow, not much of a legacy for the flip-flop man...


There was more ... Dame Groan, for example, turned up to give little Mikey her patented kiss of death nod of approval ...


But the pond had had enough ...

It takes a lot to take the Donald off the front page right at the moment, but little Mikey managed it with his summer flourish ...


And it also says a lot about Sydney-centric views of the world, with the ABC acting like a goose - yes Territorians there's your shortwave savings at work - and reptiles falling over themselves in their haste to write a few words, after spending the previous year explaining why Baird was, in assorted ways, a dropkick of the first water ... though usually on the matter of greyhounds, which was easy, as opposed to choice of infrastructure, which requires analysis and is therefore much too hard ...

Well, it's not for the pond to try, but in a world where the rule should be first, try to avoid doing harm, Baird ended up leaving after a very short trot in which he did more harm than good, and left Sydney in particular and NSW in general worse off than when he began, though this will only become apparent as some of the things he set in place rumble on their useless way into the distant future, and the difficulties in getting around Sydney compound even more ...

But at least we will have greyhound jokes, and David Rowe cartoons, and more Rowe here ...


And now for a surfing song, and roll on the Donald ...





8 comments:

  1. Isn't it great to hear that old-tech is being phased-out in favour of the new?

    I live in an area where the FM reception is bad and, wanting to be agile, I decided to rely on the inter-nerd for my entertainment.

    Imagine my frustration when, listening to RN (I know, I know), I was plagued with drop-outs.

    Now being as much a fan of Telstra as I am of 'my abc', I blamed them. "But wait", I said to myself, "it's only RN that drops out, I can stream TV without problems!"

    Sure enough, I'm now convinced that it's the RN site that's at fault. This, because I realised that it wasn't just drop-outs, but sometimes it skipped, or repeated, something that the Telstra techs wouldn't be bothered to do even if it's relatively easy with a digital stream.

    So, Liberals, know that you're doing your job, driving us away from the abc. Just also know that it'll be a cold day in hell before I listen to anything associated with your reptile-infested propaganda wing. Fuck you Rupe!
    Bil

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  2. I love this bit from Kenny: "Baird took on a sanctimonious bent of telling people what was good for them..."

    Sweet irony.

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  3. I'm "pretty much over the ABC" as well.

    For me it was the nobbling of Nick Ross's NBN pieces.

    It was a bit sad to come to the conclusion that something I had trusted all my adult life was not trustworthy.

    Most days I do without mainstream "news". I figure someone will tell me if the world ends but do try to get my daily LP fix.

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  4. Baird should always be remembered as the one who sold the Land Titles Office to pay for renovating a football stadium in Parramatta. It doesn't get more panem et circenses than this.

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    Replies
    1. And for building a "pedestrian" bridge across Anzac Parade that just happens to have been designed strong enough so it can carry cars to a car park in Moore Park, when the Cricket Ground Trust manages to get one built. And it will be a long time before we forget his vandalism of Centennial Park so that the Racecourse wouldn't lose any of its land to trams.

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  5. Casino Mike is practising that beatific look on the Terror's front page. ABC TV this morning doing the rounds had several shots of Mikey boy hugging various females (always females - odd, that) with his face in camera, eyes closed and giving that simpering look.

    Mug.

    ReplyDelete
  6. All this inspired me to look up the list of NSW premiers for the last few decades ... and then sheer spite made me add the list for Victoria as well. A look at the names and there's nothing much more to be said, I think, so I won't bore you by trying to say it.

    32 Robert Askin Liberal 13 May 1965-03 Jan 1975
    33 Thomas Lancelot Lewis Liberal 03 Jan 1975-23 Jan 1976
    34 Eric Willis Liberal 23 Jan 1976-14 May 1976
    35 Neville Kenneth Wran ALP 14 May 1976-04 Jul 1986
    36 Barrie John Unsworth ALP 04 Jul 1986-25 Mar 1988
    37 Nicholas Frank Greiner Liberal 25 Mar 1988-24 Jun 1992
    38 John Joseph Fahey Liberal 24 Jun 1992-04 Apr 1995
    39 Robert John Carr ALP 04 Apr 1995-03 Aug 2005
    40 Morris Iemma ALP 03 Aug 2005-05 Sep 2008
    41 Nathan Rees ALP 05 Sep 2008-04 Dec 2009
    42 Kristina Kerscher Keneally ALP 04 Dec 2009-28 Mar 2011
    43 Barry Robert O’Farrell Liberal 28 Mar 2011-17 Apr 2014
    44 Mike Baird Liberal 17 Apr 2014-Jan 2017

    38 Sir Henry Bolte Liberal and Country/Liberal 7 June 1955-23 August 1972
    39 Sir Rupert Hamer Liberal 23 August 1972-5 June 1981
    40 Lindsay Thompson Liberal 5 June 1981-8 April 1982
    41 John Cain Jnr Labor 8 April 1982-10 August 1990
    42 Joan Kirner Labor 10 August 1990-6 October 1992
    43 Jeff Kennett Liberal 6 October 1992-20 October 1999
    44 Steve Bracks Labor 20 October 1999-30 July 2007
    45 John Brumby Labor 30 July 2007-2 December 2010
    46 Ted Baillieu Liberal 2 December 2010-6 March 2013
    47 Denis Napthine Liberal 6 March 2013-4 December 2014
    48 Daniel Andrews Labor 4 December 2014-Incumbent

    ReplyDelete
  7. Andrew P. Street was not silent on Baird:

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/with-sydney-finally-dead-mike-bairds-work-is-done-20170119-gtudfe.html

    ReplyDelete

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