Louis Nowra, Janet Albectsen, and fear the witch, hut the witch, kill the witch ...

(Above: and remember to buy plenty of purple ribbon to celebrate national Andrew Bolt is a dickhead day on June 3rd. You can never do your shopping too early).

First there was Louis Nowra doing over Germaine Greer.

Fortunately the essay is behind The Monthly's paywall, but you can find the teaser here.

Meh. I can wait a couple of months for it to fall out from behind the paywall to read it in full, and if it never drops out, never mind, I'm sure I can find a rich and fulfilling life without ever reading it.

It seems that feminism and Greer in particular, didn't solve Louis Nowra's domestic problems when he was young, and now in their old age, they must pay:

In my naive way, I hoped that feminism would change the world enough to enable women like my mother to find satisfaction in careers rather than marriage and childrearing.

And besides there's Greer's apparent physical imitation of Bee Miles, a sometime colourful Sydney identity (short bio here in pdf form):

The image has seared itself into my memory. Taken about five years ago, it is a newspaper photograph of Germaine Greer appearing on the UK’s Celebrity Big Brother. Snapped on the set, she looks like a befuddled and exhausted old woman. She reminded me of my demented grandmother who, towards the end of her life, was often in a similarly unruly state. There was also something pathetic about this feminist and provocateur appearing on such a cheap, often-degrading reality TV show. It seemed she would do anything to gain attention.

In much the same way as it seems Louis Nowra would scribble anything to gain attention, including accusing Greer in a roundabout way of dementia. Based on a single searing on set photo. Like a befuddled and exhausted writer looking for a novel angle into a cesspit of smear. It would seem he'd do anything to gain attention.

Well I guess as a scribbler for second rate movies like Cosi, Nowra would know about such things.

Naturally Nowra achieved his desired effect, and got people agitated and got attention. You can read the agitation in That Time of the Month? and Louis Nowra Needs A Good Vajazzing and Nowra's Greer and loathing for our own Female Eunuch and Louis Nowra? He has no idea what makes sexists tick and Germaine Greer trashed in The Monthly, and so on and on, to the point where it even made its way offshore, in the likes of The Independent, here. If you google, you can probably waste your afternoon instead of writing that important position paper on why feminists can only be celebrated as castrating bitches

Of course there's nothing like attacking the person instead of their scribbles, which is why I can cheerfully assert that Nowra lacks a comely appearance while hacking out second rate movie scripts.

Meanwhile, joining in the hunt, but without a hurrah to the hounds for the fun of the sport, here comes Janet Albrechtsen. She flashes her intellectual credentials in the header Celebrity feminist is an intellectual Paris Hilton.

Naturally Albrechtsen is always the last one to crash a party, and attempt to monopolise the conversation like a crashing bore, without once mentioning Louis Nowra.

She manages to avoid Nowra on the pretext that she was once on Q & A with Greer back in 2008, and thereby was able to establish that Greer is indeed a grump.

Well I guess that's better than being a Marxist that wants continuing revolution. And worst of all saying it on national television in the presence of Albrechtsen.

Oh but it takes a long time to do payback, and imitate Nowra without mentioning Nowra. But soft, what's this, for Albrechtsen remind us all that Greer is surprisingly unlike a bag lady, no matter what you might read in Nowra:

Of course, when the lights are turned on, the cameras focused and the audience awaits, Greer turns on the charm. With a voice made for the stage and a sharp wit, television producers and arts organisers love her.

Que? She's not a demented granny, but a siren with a sharp wit and a splendiferous voice luring sailors on to the rocks?

Ah, but you don't know what happens when the lights are switched off, and the cameras disappear. Then the malevolent witch comes out and stalks the green and the make-up rooms:

Behind the scenes, Greer is a series of grunts and grumbles. Entering the ABC's make-up studio last October, I cheerily walked over to Greer and introduced myself. She replied with an inaudible grunt. A moment later, she grumbled to the make-up lady about a young relative staying with her who enjoyed watching the 1953 romantic comedy Roman Holiday. "Why would a girl watch such rubbish" she boomed. Why not? It beats the over-sexed shows my teenagers sneak in.

Oh the malevolence of the hussy. Inaudibly grunting at Albrechtsen - when there are many here amongst us if given the chance who'd love to tell her face to face to just bugger off and disappear up her fundament - and then shame of shame trashing Roman Holiday. Instead of grunting and grumbling about the over-sexed shows watched by teenagers these days.

But even this gives you a limited idea of the malevolence of the wicked witch:

Then Greer grumbled around the green room where we assembled before going on air, muttering about her agent this, her agent that. More grumbling when she spotted a copy of The Australian on the coffee table in front of her. What a terrible newspaper, she said to no one in particular. Perhaps, not unreasonably, she expected the ABC to provide a copy of Green Left Weekly.

Oh no, not The Australian, Rupert's pride and antipodean joy, trashed by the brazen hussy.

Naturally it wouldn't be an Albrechtsen column without an attack on the person of Greer, as she remembers that jibe about a committed Marxist whose revolution never came.

Greer says a lot of tosh. A sexy, sassy young woman can get away with it when people look more than they listen. Now older, not even a sharp, articulate tongue can save her from the fact she speaks no more for Australian women -- or any women -- than Barry McKenzie speaks for Australian men.

Greer is entitled to her shifting positions and failed endeavours, but having lost her interest in sex and love, she is now the killjoy spoiling everyone else's fun.

If Greer is the pin-up girl for her beliefs, it's not surprising that millions of women have chosen, and will continue to choose, a very different path.

Put it another way:

Albrechtsen says a lot of tosh. A sexy, sassy young woman can get away with it when people look more than they listen. Now older, not even a sharp, articulate tongue can save her from the fact she speaks no more for Australian women -- or any women -- than Barry McKenzie speaks for Australian men.

Albrechtsen is entitled to her shifting positions and failed endeavours, but having lost her interest in Jean-Jacques Rassial, she is now the killjoy spoiling everyone else's fun.

If Albrechtsen is the pin-up girl for her right wing beliefs, it's not surprising that millions of women have chosen, and will continue to choose, a very different path.

Well an opinion's an opinion, and here at loon pond, we don't have much interest in Greer, but we have even less interest in Nowra and Albrechtsen. The sudden ferocity and viciousness of their attacks on Greer make us think we've missed something, and that there must still be some threatening life and juice in the old dame and her ideas, even if she's not above a bit of tranny bashing.

It seems as if Greer's worst crimes involve her ongoing participation in televisual events:

Witness Greer's eager participation in those crass capitalist by-products, Big Brother UK, Big Brother's Little Brother and Big Brother's Big Mouth. Now famous for being famous, her thirst for celebrity far outstrips her influence as feminist. In a way, Greer has become the intellectual version of Paris Hilton.

Never mind that Greer has always been a media slut, a Cambridge Footlights type, who hung around with Private Eye and Oz, and posed nude for same, and edited Suck, and even did a comedy show with Kenny Everett and Jonathan Routh. She's been appalling and shocking the bourgeoisie since way back when (here), and ain't it jolly that the petit bourgeosie of the Albrechtsen and Nowra kind can still manage to be shocked. Vive épater le bourgeois(and more on Greer here).

I suspect that the real bitterness in Albrechtsen is that Greer can do her like a dinner, because Greer doesn't give a flying fuck, while Albrechtsen always shows up as a prissy, nervous, slightly inept and hectoring performer in front of a camera.

Not to worry. If you want an example of bitter, grudging, carping, personally spiteful writing, look no further than Albrechtsen, as she seeks to become a visionary intellectual celebrity by writing how Greer has become Paris Hilton. I suppose credit where credit is due, at least she didn't compare her to Lara Bingle.

But once again The Australian steps up to the plate, and shows why its columnists are the worst in Australia, thereby proving that Greer got one thing right in her pre-show grumbles. Let's face it, if Albrechtsen didn't have Greer to write about, she'd have had to invent her, as a way of avoiding her scribbles reverting to the usual tedious, tiresome, predictable, repetitious rants about right wing memes. Sadly, Albrechtsen doesn't have the imagination to invent Greer, so thank the lord the lord did.

Meanwhile, as we love to say: Think. Again.

And now for some fun, a quote from Kenneth Tynan on a meeting with Greer:

..Dinner at Drones with (among others) Germaine. She brings a nice little Australian girlfriend named Margaret. I congratulate Germaine on the nude picture of her in Suck which depicts her sitting facing the camera with legs apart and drawn up round her head like a wreath. I tell her (truthfully) that it turned me on far more than full frontals usually do. Germaine is prettily pleased, and bridles like an Edwardian miss whose portrait by Sargent is being praised. 'Did you like my cunt?' she says. 'I certainly did,' I say. 'And what about my arsehole?' 'I didn't notice it, darling.' 'Oh--it's there--rather large, I'm afraid--you can't miss it.' ... (London, 1973) (More quotes from sundry folk on Greer here)

(Below: shocking).