(Above: caviar. Here's a simple test. Show this or like image to anyone and if they begin to drool, beware. Chances are, they're an inner city dweller, and likely the reason Australia is a pariah in the world. Lock them up, and send them off to scientology classes so that they can become clear, and up to the job of reading Gerard Henderson).
That well-known resident of Kellyville - or is it Penrith, or perhaps Blacktown or even Auburn - Gerard Henderson offers up some fruity, rich definitions of reality in Labor's loose cannons allow friendships to turn frosty.
Let's face it, there are special insights to be had by being one of Howard's battlers, and when for example, visiting Melbourne, shunning the inner city to stay over in Dandenong, jewel of the south. Surely that grand greater city is about to be in the grip of the Melbourne wine and food festival, but don't think that this indicates any kind of pretension, for surely only chateau cardboard is sampled when indulging in a little India cultural tour. (Greater Dandenong, city of opportunity).
Of course no matter where you live, be it Auburn or Salisbury or Deer Park, rest assured your interests are at one with Gerard Henderson, who simply exudes a rough hewn working class air which ensures an instant compatibility and understanding with common folk.
Unlike, need we say it, leftists, who invariably are snobby, condescending, and of course insufferable:
The interests of the left are easily identifiable. They invariably involve anything but what were once referred to as "bread and butter" issues. The inner-city radical middle class has moved beyond bread and butter - and even focaccia and caviar - to such issues as international and national security, nuclear power and the environment.
Oh the filthy gourmet beasts and their focaccia and caviar. And gone beyond them. Got uppity, and beyond their station!
Naturally Mr. Henderson, who is known to stoutly insist on bread and dripping, just like he had in the good old days when growing up, is appalled by this kind of attitude. If anybody approaches him with anything more than three vegetables and chops, he immediately knows he's in the company of deviants and perverts - though he will of course allow a snack of a dog's eye, provided it's liberally covered with lashings of dead horse.
Indeed, as a citizenship test, what better than a pie and sauce, which would immediately see those deviants still wanting their focaccia and caviar shipped to a camp in the dead heart, to learn how to become proper citizens, instead of poseurs and ponces.
Gerard of course has a deep affinity with the working class, unlike others:
It is a long time since the left identified with the working classes - or what would be termed today working families on modest wages. These days the ALP's Left faction, along with the Greens, represent the interests of well-off professionals - many of whom live in the inner city and many of whom enjoy tenured employment.
Oh the cads. They enjoy the kind of tenured employment that was rife in the days of Bob Menzies, and when Gerard talks of the inner city, we know he really means the inner west, which is simply full of well-off professionals and academics on a generous stipend.
Why every day as I kick indigent students out of my way, stomp on tattooed lesbians, or sink the slipper in to a stray gay not at home watching the Winter Olympics, how I bitterly resent these wretches as they saunter past, their flat oven-baked bread indicating a commitment to foreign powers.
But hang on, remember that these remnants of San Franciscan summer of love days aren't the real problem. It's the handsomely sinecured well off professionals who are the problem, tenured so that they can spend most of their days making trouble for Gerard Henderson, who is of course tremendously busy advancing society through the good works of the Sydney Institute.
Never mind that the Institute's a "not for profit" current affairs forum, because all may profit from its devotion to encouraging deeply demographic debate and discussion. Perhaps it has been known in the past to serve foreign breads at its forums but only through accident or misadventure (as for what they serve at its humble annual dinner/lecture, you don't want to know, but please be assured it's always served from a bain-marie, with a choice of sausages and roast, and always accompanied by white bread ).
And what a guest list they have, including but not limited to Chairman Rudd, Andrew Bolt, Sharan Burrow, Stephen Conroy, Annabel Crabb, Geraldine Doogue, Tim Flannery, Malcolm Fraser, Julia Gillard, Kate Grenville, Morris Iemma, Paul Keating, David Malouf, Daivd Marr, Peter Singer, Mark Scott, Bill Shorten, Natasha Stott-Despoja and Jana Wendt. None of them are from the inner city, but if they are, please don't be alarmed. They're frisked, and any illegal substances, like a snifter of caviar or a bucket of oysters, are confiscated at the door.
Luckily the good news is that these vile inner city creatures have no ear in government. No Labor party government has pandered to their malcontent meanderings, and the Rudd government carries on its proud right wing policies, still fighting the good fight in Afghanistan and Irag, to keep the world safe from focaccia. Even in the national security arena, the sight of someone eating a baguette is enough to disqualify them from offering any advice at all to government.
But there's a down-side, and naturally Gerard is the first to spot it. Besieged by focaccia munchers from the inner west, like vampires in a Spierig brothers movie, the Rudd government has given ground in the area of nuclear and environmental issues.
Poor old India's nose is out of joint, not because they refuse to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but because focaccia eaters pick on them, and refuse to send them uranium. Everyone else does it, because after all, a treaty is worth the paper it's written on, as Sam Goldwyn so sagely noted about oral agreements.
Now worse still, Japan is in a huff about whaling, and the way the deviants whispered into Chairman Rudd's ear - like pouring mercury in to Hamlet's dad's ear - made the demented Chairman flounce about, with talk of taking Japan to the the International Court of Justice.
Now normally of course, inner city professionals of the filthy kind would return from Japan talking of how they'd eaten live filleted fish, sashimi style, or plucked a turtle out of the tank for a nice green turtle soup, or sampled fish head soup - the eyes are the tastiest bit - or enjoyed a lovely meal of fugu, but for some strange reason, they get overly sentimental about whales, and terribly alarmed about whaling.
I can't see it myself - perhaps whale meat doesn't go well with focaccia - but their stance is ruining the relationship with Japan. What's worse their sanctimonious moralising has infected other areas, and even seems to have seeped into Henderson:
Shortly after becoming Prime Minister, Rudd took the brave and honourable step of criticising China's administration of human rights in Tibet. The message was all the more telling for having been spoken in Beijing in Mandarin.
You see! First the cunning inner west sinecured hordes blather on about the whales, and next thing you know we're all holding up "Save the Tibetan theocracy" signs. With Henderson amongst them.
Oh if even the mighty can be tempted into righteous cant and moralising, what hope for the rest of us, when we pass an Italian oven sending out sweet fragrant smells of bread.
Luckily, Chairman Rudd has since stabilised relationships with China, though the matter of Stern Hu now seems to be a case of who wants to be stern (sorry, I ate a little focaccia, and that just slipped out).
As a result, Gerard has it in a nutshell:
There is something unsatisfactory about Australia going quiet about undemocratic China while threatening to pick a legal fight with Japan and irritating India.
Yep, it's unnatural and unholy, the result of a focaccia driven foreign policy, and worse still this kind of fermented bread thinking can be found in the opposition:
There is of course a simple explanation. Greg Hunt represents the Mornington peninsula, which is simply riddled with exotic breads and good wines, and inner city professionals wanting a quiet weekender to escape their hideous inner city dwellings. Tainted by focaccia, Hunt is incapable of clear thinking, and so can't see which side his bread is buttered:
The truth is the inner-city left will never vote for the Coalition.
Not unless they come up with a new policy offering the distribution of focaccia and caviar at key points in the inner city. Instead of the Krishnas handing out over-stewed lentils, how about free baguettes avec fromage, and a nice latte? By golly, suddenly I'm warming to the idea of shifting to Woollahra. Oh sorry, you're right, that's an inner-city suburb too, but it's in the east, and so is perfectly sound.
The sun rises from Woollahra and Vaucluse
When the sun comes up, the east is red.
Today its red glows in all directions,
And the east wind prevails everywhere.
But back to Gerard:
Moreover, if the Coalition does not preference the Greens, they can never win a federal seat.
Que? Those double negatives are always tricky. Does this mean: moreover, if the Coalition does preference the greens, they can always win a federal seat?
Never mind. Under the influence of focaccia, anyone can be made to say not what they mean, but mean not what they say. Or something like that.
So where does this leave us?
There is no compelling reason why Labor or the Coalition should allow Australia's relationships with India and Japan to be influenced by the left.
Is that all? A pious platitude, a little hand wringing, an expression of concern. Pay no attention to the left?
Dammit man, stand up, stand up and fight.
Call for the abolition of focaccia throughout the land, strip the sinecured professionals of their caviar. Let's see them suffer. Sure there'll be some collateral damage amongst Liberal party followers, but this land must be made clean and pure and right for damper.
If the only way to save our relationship with India and Japan is to get rid of olive oil and expensive wines, then hang the expense. Above all we must teach the trendies a lesson.
Waiter, bring me another glass of that nice shiraz, I feel a bout of harumphing coming on ...
Another day on loon pond, but at least on this day, we might have taken the first step on the long march needed to save civilisation from the inner city dweller.
Next step? How to save the mind while reading Gerard Henderson ...
(Below: a quick test for the cautious and the wise. If approached by a stranger, ask them if they come from within this inner city enclave outlined in the map below. If the answer is 'yes', snatch away their focaccia and caviar, stomp on it, and tell them, that thanks to them, and possibly Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's relationship with India and Japan has turned frosty, and that as a result you can never be friends with them. What's that, it's a map of the good inner city, not the evil one containing Leichhardt and focaccia makers and eaters? What part of "inner city" don't you understand? And please if you live in other cities, devise similar tests. Australia's place in the world is in mortal peril).
Ah yes, we the real people are to live on crap food and shit coffee still. I'll have to tell my Italian and Greek co-workers to eat McDonalds and drink Nescafe like real Aussies...
ReplyDelete