loon pond

So it's official. The last of Doug Anderson's thoughts on films have wended their way through the Fairfax TV guide, and now he's left the building, while commentariat member generally grumpy Paul Sheehan remains behind to spray his thoughts all over the place, like an unruly, unsplayed tomcat.

Why should this matter? In the ordinary course of events, it's a small enough change. Journalists come and go, and film reviews don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, especially if you live outside Sydney and have never thought for a moment about Anderson.

But the pond was fond of him, if only because he was an epic pirate inside an organisation which ostensibly supported intellectual property rights.

For nigh on twenty years, Anderson ran a column in which punters could make a request for a film, and when it turned up, at first on tape, and later on disc, from an obliging soul, he'd send it along to the grateful person who'd made the request.

Usually the business involved rare and exotic films, out of print and hard to find. There were occasional nods in the direction of proper conduct - a note that a film might be available commercially on disc - but most of the time, Anderson would simply run the exchange without a thought for intellectual property rights.

He was a king of the pirates, an example to all, an inspiration.

Even in his last column, he couldn't help himself, mentioning that the TV series The Dark Side of the Sun (BBC, 1983, well within copyright) had landed on his desk, while a reader had kindly forwarded a disc of Ninotchka, which while made in 1939, is officially available in the United States via Warner Home video.

In his farewell note, he addressed his thanks to the likes of Lucky Burner and Billy the Kid and Joe Luddite and Lucky Al and June Holdup (and if that's a real name, apologies to Ms. Holdup).

Yet no one in the industry seemed to care or complain, because it seemed that Anderson was generally servicing a gap in the market, his intentions were good, he was a film and TV reviewer who loved his films, and his readers appreciated his good deeds:

It has been a successful enterprise in some regards - well over 80 per cent of published requests being fruitful, even if a depressingly smaller percentage of letters received has been dealt with. Humble apologies for all those entreaties that remain unfulfilled - never enough time or space. (here)

Anderson noted that he was leaving because of "changes in the Herald's direction going forward", but still not word on the business of breaching intellectual property rights.

That part of Anderson's work has indeed changed direction and shifted to the intertubes, where film buffs can share their love of exotic out of print classics, and the major studios can spend millions and millions trying to stop them, and persecute cyber lockers and carry on like pork chops.

Imagine if you will a similar service dedicated to exotic LPs and CDs; how long would it have lasted before the music industry attempted to jail a teenager for making use of it?

Never mind, it's gone now, and Anderson with it, and the Herald can stand tall, after twenty years, once more allowed back into the closet of intellectual property rights. How soon before the House of Mouse demands that the rights to the Star Wars franchise be extended to a hundred years?

Now compare and contrast.

Anderson provided a useful service to dedicated film buffs, a bit like a recipe exchange of the kind country folk take for granted (ah the pond's recipe for exploding ginger beer is a must have, with endless fun hours picking up shards of glass).

What does Paul Sheehan offer?

Well there's grumpiness and right wing rage, and bugger all else. His column this morning, going under the name No end in sight in race to trample leaders, is particularly shameless.

Remember this is a man who as recently as October 10th 2012 trampled on Julia Gillard in a way so vicious that the editor deleted a reference to Gillard, but left in the rest of the rant:

After sending out two attack dogs, Gutter and Sewer, to do the dirty work, after hiding behind two political zombies, Insufferable and Unspeakable, to stay in power, after using the Minister for Innuendo and the Compromise-General to play the gender card, the mask has finally dropped away to reveal the driver of the politics of hate in Australia. (and so on and so forth here).

And yet he has the gormless cheek to end his current piece thus:

This was duly noted by the government. The improved opinion polls for Gillard may provide relief from speculation over a leadership challenge from Kevin Rudd but the press gallery will now simply switch the equation. The number of stories touting Turnbull's leadership has already started to sprout. The nation may stop for one race for one day but the gallery cannot stop the Blood On the Carpet Leadership Stakes.


The gallery? Sheehan has his snout in the leadership trough on an almost weekly basis, usually along the lines of four legs Tony Good, two legs Juliar Bad.

What's even more shocking and shameless is he spends the first third of his piece simply reprinting and recycling Greg Combet's call of the Liberal leadership stakes in Melbourne cup style.

This might have been okay when it first turned up some three days ago (you can still watch Combet actually doing it here, which is way more to the point than watching Sheehan Cut and Paste it.)

Three days on, it's simply lazy and sloppy, an excuse not to have to think up original thoughts and type them out, a form of reflexive Alan Ramsey indulgence.

Even more shocking and shameless is Sheehan's pretence at being even-handed in his own way:

On the opposition benches, Sophie Mirabella was screeching and being warned. The parliamentary mosquito, Christopher Pyne, was bobbing up and down, making points of order. The government's usual suspects were also on form. The Prime Minister twice referred to the Leader of the Opposition as ''mendacious''. Anthony Albanese was sneering at everything. Wayne Swan was Wayne Swan.

As if politics hasn't ever been thus, as if there's no direct line from Billy Hughes and Lang to Paul Keating.

But even more pompous and pretentious was the pose 'won't someone think of the children':

I find the Speaker kind of appealing when she's in full disapproving school teacher mode but I was aghast to see rows and rows of actual schoolchildren in the gallery, neat in white shirts, quietly watching all the unedifying sub-banter below them, the general braying and bile-spraying in the chamber.

Aghast? Bile-spraying?

Is that like talking of attack dogs Gutter and Sewer and political zombies Insufferable and Unspeakable and so on and so forth, or is that Sheehan simply pretending he's involved in a video game where vampires run the Parliament?

Don't let your children get hold of granny Herald when Sheehan is off in the gutter ...

When it all comes out in the wash, Sheehan is actually running true to form, as the veneer of even-handedness drops away, and he's actually been saving up to end the column with a tidy little bit of bile-spraying.

It turns out that all the leadership issues on the Liberal side are the fault of one man.

Big Mal! Arch-villain:

Turnbull has done his bit to encourage the mischief. 
In September, after months of tacitly undermining Abbott's position against same-sex marriage, he then went on a march through the Canberra press gallery to attack Abbott's own parliamentary secretary, Senator Cory Bernardi. 
He said Bernardi had been ''hysterical'' and ''offensive'' over comments made about same-sex marriage. Turnbull wanted Bernardi sacked and he was sacked.

How shocking. Big Mal should of course have kept his trap shut, and allowed Bernardi to go on spewing his bile, because that form of bile-spraying is much more to the taste of Paul Sheehan.

Suddenly Big Mal's remarks about Bernardi score inverted commas, because it seems Bernardi wasn't being "hysterical" and "offensive".

Is it possible that Sheehan doesn't have the first clue how week in, week out, he sounds like a cranky, crackly old 78 Bernardi enthusiast or a magnetic oxide shedding VHS tape?

Never mind, let's weigh it up. With Doug Anderson, the pirate's friend and inspiration, you might end up with a VHS tape or a disc containing a show you wanted to watch.

With Sheehan you get a typed down version of a Combet speech you can actually watch elsewhere, along with a lot of jibber jabber and a bile-spray about bile-sprayers from a man who relentlessly sprays bile ... a cracked disc from a man with the piratical integrity of Long John Silver. And there'll be no end to Sheehan's trampling on Gillard's leadership.

And Fairfax wonders why it's in trouble.

(Below: compare and contrast. The pond will take the hippie any way of the week).