Messagebank Walker is getting the message out – but just what is the message?

We got a big clue this week, and our boy’s vaulting ambition to move up to first class on his gravy train is all too apparent.

Same might be asked of Typo Gleeson, and his hilariously red-faced defence when caught out by Media Watch last Monday night …Astonisher/Sunday Mail reporter Samanatha Healy goes Magpie hunting, but shoots herself in her humorless foot – and The ‘Pie reveals her deep but (almost) secret love of Townsville … and The Pie, well accustomed to reporting on all sorts of sh#t, this week  reports on – ahem, well, not who’s in the poo so much but what’s in the poo – your poo. And don’t think it’s a bad joke coming up … it is a very readable and valuable bit of health information that has landed in the nest.

That and other unusual stuff – as usual.

Like this front page which out-does anything The Astonisher could ever dream up – it’s Front Page of the Year to date, and comes from of all places, Uganda.

Now that’s a fronter to deeply contemplate, leaving us to ponder just what is ‘rapturing someone’s bunu’.

There is the also poetical side headline ‘ Kommuntale Hubby Hooks Nigerian Boo’ which one guesses may or may not involve rapturing said Boo’s bunu. Or landing a rare species of fish. There is also the ambiguous claim of ‘revealing’ Uganda’s 200 top ‘homos’ … sounds like an Astonisher-style typo when ‘homes’ were meant, or an accolade list which sounds a damn sight more interesting than the comical “Townsville 50 most influential people’.

The mention of which, if we stretch a point, brings us to Messagebank Walker, who undoubtedly has designs to be included in that list one day.

So just what is Les Messagebank Walker’s hidden agenda? The man known around the council chambers as The Ghost Who Talks has long been bobbing up in the paper around town, in a series of stories that in fact are no concern of his in any way.

The photographs have variously got a jut-jawed Les trying to belie his natural myopic mien and project a dynamic image for the lens … we’ve had Les in an ‘hottest tradie’  pose, foot on a bobcat shovel, ‘aggressive’ Les looking ‘aggressively’ at a pot-hole, and any number of Les ‘authoritatively’  pointing. We never know at what, and no doubt neither does he, but he gets top points in the pointing stakes.

The mysterious bottom line is, when you look at the stories, they’re all irrelevant puffery, and virtually not one yarn that had anything remotely to do with him. And none have been in his own in his own Division 10, out Cluden/Wulguru way.So what’s going on?

Look, there he was again in pointing mode in this week’s Sun weekly paper.

The story was about a run-of-the-mill protest concerned that the design of a new Mount Louisa sub-division could cause traffic problems. Again, not his bailiwick, not his business – it is in fact division 6, the responsibility of Planning Committee chairman Tony Parsons, who is on top of the issue, anyway. But Les somehow managed to wangle his way into the story and the pic.

But wait! It’s the pic that is most interesting. The bloke on the right is named as ‘Mount Louisa resident Mark Molochino’.

A local resident? Mr Molochino, well known to some – including Messagebank –  at last report lives in Werona Street, Mundingburra … at least 8 kilometres away, which is hardly – make that not at all –  likely to suffer any impact from the distant development in question. And he’s not at all a local.

Just a bit of minor confusion? Maybe,  EXCEPT for one unmentioned fact.

Mr Molochino, (sometimes spelt with an ‘a’ in place of the second ‘o’) is a frequent letter writer to the Astonisher – he’s part of the ALP’s Wailing Greek Chorus of foam-flecked scribblers – and yes, like his good pal Les, is a card carrying member of the Labor Party. Nothing wrong with that, but passing strange that he lobs up with Les to get a bit of free publicity and exposure on what is essentially also none of his business.  Wonder who invited him, unlikely to have been the reporter or the photographer – unless he engineered the story himself.

Coincidence? Yeah, right.

So that has given the clue to The Magpie about what is going on with our former detention centre screw, former pizza shop owner and former union ‘organiser’.  The ‘Pie doesn’t believe in being a tease, but his conclusions all fit in with the old bird’s first quarter review of local politics to be posted next week.

Other matters.

If you missed it, Typo Gleeson, now hastening the downward spiral of the Sunday Mail as editor, got caught with his pants well and truly down on Media Watch last Monday night. It’s well worth going back to comments section of last week’s blog to see the program if you missed it, and read the exchange of letters between Typo and the Media Watch producer.

Classic gotcha stuff, well worth a look.

But that issue prompted a peevish and strangely muddled missive from reporter Samantha Healy, because The ‘Pie had mentioned a story of hers in connection with the Media Watch brou-haha, a story The Pie had the temerity to describe as ‘long-bow bullshit’. The electronic tete-a-tete was a bit of mid-week good fun – like shooting fish in a barrel, really – but not worthy of a repeat here (but again, go back to last week’s comments if you are of a mind to see what the Milkmaid had to say).

However, there was an exchange of  unpublished emails in which the humorless Ms Healy gave Joan of Arc a run for her money in the martyrdom stakes. She proclaimed herself the straightest of straight arrows (The ‘Pie had never suggested otherwise) and expounded on what an all round good sort of journo she is.

Indeed, it cannot be argued that Ms Healy tells it like it is, adjectives and all … and not just in her reporting in the paper. She is straight-forward and honest in her personal assessments of her life with her colleagues, too. This is evidenced in a social media opinion she posted  when heading back north, presumably to Cairns, a few years ago after a long stint as the Sunday Mail’s NQ reporter in the ‘Ville.

And Townsville missed you, too. Why’d you come back – was it love of something else other than the dear old ‘ville? Or maybe you still live in Cairns?

While we’re with matters Astonisher,  The ‘Pie was startled to today again see this …

… or more specifically, this …

Clayton Smales is an experienced journo, a bit of a boofy jock, and as Sports Editor, presides over one of the less error-prone areas of the Astonisher. But … Aussies have long been accustomed to the name game of adding endings to names,  like Stewie, Shazza, Ando and Gleeso … but really, Smalesy?

Ever since The ‘Pie first saw it some time ago, ‘smalesy’ had a vaguely sinister medical air about it, and he first thought it was a health advice column on exotic ailments.

‘Ummm, I’d better not come over tonight, darl, I’ve got a dose of smalesy’

‘You what? You bin goin’ down Via Vomitirium without me again, you bastard.’

‘No, honest love, the skinflint management here at the Astonisher have sacked the toilet cleaning staff, and I probably got smalesy off the toilet seat.’

‘Yeah, right.’

But then again, it could’ve been worse, he could have caught a case of gleeso, which mounts wasting attacks on the balls and the brain. Known commonly as ‘typo’, it is usually terminal.

Now moving along, but to a somewhat more tasteful health matter, that of poo.

Your poo.

And wait, before you shy away, this is not The ‘Pie’s usual tacky joke stuff, it is a serious link which The Pie found very informative. Put bluntly, it is an article about what your poo can tell you about your health. God knows, nowadays, there is – and should be – open talk  about vaginas, periods, prostates, piles and – The ‘Pie’s favorite SBL – Slight Bladder Leakage. This site could be of great use to you. Seriously.

The old folklore has is that the smellier it is, the healthier the individual, no doubt put about by those who are really on the honker. That may be so, but what about the lack of odour? Well that means that those who cannot detect any odour are generally retired drowsy politicians, certain barristers, newspaper editors, Clive Palmer and Cardinal George Pell – they all reckon their sh#t doesn’t stink.

Finally, any military historian types out there might be interested in this.

IT is a 1923 (believed to be) first edition book, with great pics and info. An eagle-eyed Magpie mate found on a second hand stall down south (for just a dollar), and believes it could a valuable addition to any library concerning the Australian military. Drop The Pie an email for further info, if you’re interested.

Enough now, it is away to Poseurs’ Bar, where the old bird is hoping for a quieter night than last week. A tipsy woman of a certain age weaved up and said ‘ You’re a big six footer, handsome … everything in proportion, nudge, nudge, wink, wink?’ To which the ever-honest but oh so modest Magpie replied ’Sad to say, no, m’dear, if everything were in proportion I’d be nine feet tall.’ She passed out on the spot before The Pie was required to do any buna rapturing to prove his claim.