Ouch of The Week – The Chest-Beating Townsville Bulletin Scooped On A Major Queensland Story By – Oh The Embarrassment – The Northern Star in Mt Isa.

Yep, it was the Star that EXCLUSIVELY broke the leaked electoral redistribution boundaries a day ahead of their official release. Astonisher Iditor Ben Bogan will be looking for somewhere to hide, because Holt Street will be fuming that not only was the Astonisher scooped by a publishing minnow, but said minnow is owned by arch-rival Fairfax. And is the only print paper in all of Queensland not owned by Rupert Murdoch.

But it was the electoral boundaries themselves that has set pulses racing and sphincters hyperventilating (50cents- 5 cents, 50 cents-5 cents, thumptythump, if you the drift).

Also – and not unrelated – why Kid Crisafulli is seeking a bus driver’s license …

Mayor Mullet caught at breakfast, munching it over with her latest BBF … a single picture proves The Magpie right all along.

But first, Bentley …

Little point in gathering too much of the fallen fruit in Trump’s orange orchard, where Alice In Wonderland has given way to Malice In Blunderland, as El Douche tweets on. Bentley was intrigued by The Trumpet’s vow to repeal laws allowing uni-six toilets, and believes that like so many of the Prez’s announcement, inspiration may have sprung from jealousy after a sideways glance.

The next interesting act in this multi-ring circus will be Trump’s visit to Britain, which has been vehemently opposed by a wide cross section of that community, including the parliamentary speaker. But what many ponder is whether The Queen will meet with the man described by one commentator as having skin ‘the colour of a banned food substance’. Some fear for her safety in his presence, especially if they’re alone. Among the the alarmist’s is The Guardian’s Steve Bell.

But Trump will be keen for other reasons. He clearly aspires to become old time royalty. Soon, we may see this transformation.

In Oz, Things Are Decidedly Dull By Comparison

Political commentators and the populace alike in this neck of the woods need not expect any Trump-like treats. Just the usual single-minded bastardy of the party system. Award winning wit Cathy Wilcox succinctly explains why we shouldn’t get excited. Enraged, yes, but not excited.

Kid Crisafulli Redux. He WILL run for Broadwater on the Gold Coast.

NB If the Northern Star can scoop the Bulletin, so can The Magpie (what, again ‘Pie? they all cry!)

David The Kid Crisafulli will be sweating that Anna Alphabet doesn’t call an election in the next few weeks on the old boundaries – barring a parliamentary mishap, a Crisafulli return would require fast, gutsy and decisive action by the LNP (stop sniggering!) or he would be frozen out for four years of achieving his panting desire to return to George Street. And that is unlikely in the event of a snap state poll, even for an odds-on winner like The Kid.

However, the electoral redistribution has presented both The Kid and the LNP (possibly much to bumbling leader Tim Nicholls dismay) with a – ahem – gold pass to the George Street plush. Luck’s a fortune as they say, and it sure has deservedly fallen The Kid’s way.

It works like this.

Broadbeach is currently held by the reputedly very unpleasant Verity Barton, who has just settled an out of court matter regarding a bullying allegation by a staff member. She’s also been done for drink-driving. Twice. An LNP back room bloke tells The Magpie that the LNP leadership are barely disguising their desperation to be shot of her – the informant’s exact words were ‘they hope she gets hit by a bus’. But here’s the twist … under the redistribution, her electorate office and her home are suddenly in the newly created adjacent seat of Bonney. That gives the LNP jellybacks enough spine-stiffening to let Barton know she’ll be running in the new seat, if at all. And The Kid will be tapped for Broadbeach. Perhaps not without some sort of shit fight, but also in The Kid’s favour is that he lives smack dab in the centre of Broadbeach, and has created his own presence in the past few years.

With all the subtlety of a grenade in a bowl of porridge, that hypothesis is made almost a certainty when we discover that the newly elected vice-president of the Gold Coast North Shore branch of the LNP is … ta da … Mrs Kid, aka Tegan Crisafulli.

So maybe The Kid won’t need that bus driver’s license after all, the LNP quiverers are hoping the voters of Bonney will run over Barton for them. Just so long as Tegan doesn’t voice about Broadbeach her famous opinion of Mackay – ‘they’re all bogans’.

Political Hypocrisy Of The Week

Crowded field every week, and The ‘Pie has eliminated Trump permanently on the grounds of unfair competition and his lifetime achievement award in this category. No, this week’s winner was spotted by (sometimes) alert commenter Sandgroper.

February 23, 2017 at 2:38 pm  (Edit)

How is this for a lesson in hypocrisy?

Islamic leaders in Western Australia have urged their followers not to vote Liberal at the forthcoming State election. Instead, they urge all Muslims to vote for the Greens because that party supports cultural diversity, respect and tolerance.

Does this mean that Muslims in Australia will now support gay marriage and LGBTI rights?

Quite.

And does it mean that Muslims will now support Australian cultural diversity, respect the nation’s values, and be tolerant?

Modesty Should Prevent The Magpie, But …

The distinct and very noticeable absence of childish headline puns in The Astonisher over the past week or so tempts The Magpie into an undeserved hubris that they’ve been heeding his jolly japes about this wrong-headed policy after all.

But now he asks if there isn’t another long-expounded Magpie view taking hold down at The Astonisher. First there was a letter from erstwhile chum, the old walrus Max Tomlinson (he’s still a bit huffy about something The ‘Pie said a while back). But he clearly expounded what The ‘Pie has been saying for more than a couple of years.

Now today, no less than the respected and usually circumspect Tony Raggatt pointed to that letter in his weekly column, and suggested Max is just one of many voices (like The Magpie for more than two years now, although Raggers omitted to say so for some reason heh heh heh ) calling for a multi-user facility, which basically requires the vision that AFL is a growing presence, and cricket offers year round opportunities. Noting that the start on the stadium has been pushed back to mid-to-late year. Raggers ties this in with confusion and delay (blatant political smoke-screening would be more accurate) over the $28million walkway project. To top all this off, the paper’s business editor is the first person at The Astonisher to nibble around the edges of The Magpie’s well found assertions that the council is if not broke, certainly severely bent (and take that any way you like). Same goes for the stadium funding; The ‘Pie has long said the state government simply doesn’t have the dough. Times are going to get really interesting if there is no start to the stadium before an election is called.

But as it is with anyone, well intentioned or otherwise, who work for such a shifty publication, Raggers gives us an innocent laugh when he asks rhetorically ‘is there a disconnect here, or are local people being ignored?’

Want the answer, mate? …  just pop across the office, knock on the door marked ‘Editor’, ask the question and be prepared for a metaphoric blow job.

The ‘disconnect’ out there was reflected in a comment in this blog during the week … ignore the nom de plume, this commenter has proved to both astute and funny over time.

Hee – Haw

February 22, 2017 at 9:37 am  (Edit)

The BS in this town is amazing. Mullet has been speaking with Chugg Ent about why Elton is not coming to Townsville, apparently she spoke to him on Monday, great proactive work there Lady Mayor just brilliant.
Then she says Chuggy is looking forward to the new stadium to host many concerts and events because.
The new stadium has a roof in case it rains- Oops no
The new stadium has a bigger capacity- Oops no
The new stadium will have more car parking – Oops no
The new stadium will be cheaper to hirers – Oops no
The available usage windows at the new stadium will be better – Oops no
The turf at the new stadium will tolerate concert usage during the season – Oops no
Shall I go on for f^&%s sake

And Further Adventures in Astonisherland – Another Star Bulletin Columnist Also Living Life On The Edge.

The ‘Pie had to rub his eyes (you’ll appreciate, very difficult for a magpie) when he read Shari Tagliabue’s recent smart offering. The ‘Pie was moved to post the following in comments.

The Magpie 3,092 approved101.179.176.109

Submitted on 2017/02/19 at 3:04 pm Shari ‘Taggers’ Tagliabue Ah, that Shazza Tagliabue! What a subversive sense of humour that gal has. Knowing Taggers for some years, The ‘Pie can vouch that she is no dill, so he doubts few things in her column are by accident. For that very reason, The ‘Pie fell about laughing at her slyness this week. Ostensibly, it was about Uber coming to town, which she correctly identifies as an inevitable step in the march of progress into this new technological age, listing and explaining the various precursory business shifts that have paved the way for Uber. Good solid fare (oh dear, a pun!), with the basic message to traditional cab companies and drivers to ‘suck it up, this is the future, folks’. Then came the disguised humour, when in summation, Taggers opined ‘No industry can expect to keep a monopoly , competition brings better, more innovative products, and if there’s a fight to be fought, the winner will be the one that gives customers options.’ Gasp, wheeze, snurffle!!!! But, oh, Taggers, you ain’t finished yet. ‘Our society is evolving, (so) if traditional businesses are flexible and adaptive, they should have little problem co-existing with (independent) operators. If businesses don’t respond to changing customer needs, it will be their own inaction, not competition that will condemn those industries to history.’ Oh lordy me, a moment to – gasp – recover, please. Ahem, right, better now. It was the ‘flexible and adaptive’ that got the old bird. Ah, Taggers you are a one, subconsciously (perhaps) channelling The Magpie. But being in the position you are, you were understandably and sensibly unable to include in your list of fast food chains, Netflix, Uber, and hotel booking sites the one glaring proof of your conclusion … the very paper you write for. The paper that has discouraged to the point of almost illegal threats to other print media (the uniform message is ‘We at News will tolerate you but don’t go near real estate or we will come after you and destroy you!’) and, way back when, outright illegal tactics like bribing delivery people to dump bundles of rival free papers when the publishers wouldn’t sell out to News. The Bulletin’s inflexibility, arrogance, greed, ineptitude and sheer inability to accept, recognise and develop a strategy for the changing media landscape has, in your own sweet words, m’dear, ‘condemned it to history.’ More’s the pity. At least with you there, luvvy, the paper will die laughing. Sadly, the discarded staff won’t.

Sounds Like Selective Toughness

The hoots of derision continue to rain down on Ben Bogan’s addled nonce.

The ‘Pie was mightily amused to see this snippet in a recent squeaking iditorial in the Astonisher.

Hahahaha –‘robustly interrogate’? Actually, Bogan, that would hold more conviction but for two reasons: ‘robust interrogation’ by a journalist is generally carried out eyeball to eyeball, and not by someone squirrelled away in a coward’s castle, two-finger tapping out bravado and received an unquestioned bullshit in equal amounts. And the second thing is that The Greens are an amorphous and easy target anyway, especially when it comes to this community. The ‘Pie challenges you, Bogan – not Raggatt, who’d know how to do it – to do some robust interrogation on the local scene. The real state of council finances would be a good starter – oh, sorry, that’s right, Jenny’s got you in the Christmas Hold, hasn’t she? Ok, well surely she will allow you some robustness with the hapless Mark The Moocher Molachino. First show him these photos, which are but two of a week’s worth of similar dismal scenes (which you can check for yourself).

 For the fifth straight week, this is the Eyre Street car park, formerly free but recently converted to paid parking in a panicked cash grab. One of those cars is The ‘Pie’s.

And across the street, in the still free car park on the lower side of Eyre Street …

…chockers. Every day.

NB This is next to the Mike Reynolds Early Childhood Centre, which one assumes specializes in kindy snoozes for the littlies.

Molachino was told by Mayor Mullet to say that the decision to revert back to paid spaces was made in light of ‘general community feedback that we get from CBD retailers and traders on a regular basis’. Now Bogan, why not bunny hop into your Kung Fu Panda undies, do a few lethal hand chops and robustly interrogate this blatant lie. Hey, here’s where you could start, the Townsville Chamber of Commerce,  which is pretty unequivocal.

‘Council may have done some consultation on the issue but we were not invited to submit or informed of consultations’.

Marie-Claude Brown CEO

Townsville Chamber of Commerce

So the very voice of CBD business wasn’t even informed, let alone consulted, about the parking move.  Does The ‘Pie have spell it out in crayon what your first question should be, Bogan? Like, show us the feedback on which the council acted, Mark.

And then you could get back to Ms Brown, who also told The ‘Pie:

It’s not so much paid parking that is a deterrent to visitors in the CBD, but the combination of multiple problems that have not been resolved.  Like the availability of street parking (paid or free) in the CBD that doesn’t match the needs;  workers using available space during the day not being penalised or having no incentive to use Dean Park or facilities like a shuttle to bring them to the CBD; and the roving construction project which is the Utilities Program, to be ongoing for the next 3+ years.  No doubt the project is necessary, but the inconvenience of constantly changing traffic conditions is the final straw for many. The Mayor has been quoted for saying one of the solutions to attracting more people to the CBD was in a more attractive retail offer.  We disagree.  Retails in a CBD thrives when there is a concentration of traffic, pedestrian or vehicular.  Retail is created by traffic, not the other way around of traffic created by retail.  When traffic continues and retail is established, they support each other.  It becomes reciprocal – retail attracts traffic; traffic supports retail. Our CBD is not at that stage.’

Now whether that is right or wrong is up to the individual to decide. What is up to you, Ben English, is to inform the people so they can make their own their own minds. Stop being player and revert to be an observer and objective reporter. But ah, The Magpie’s mind must be marinated in the nectar of nostalgia. (sigh).

We Always Suspected It

As they say, these two gals have been out in a good paddock, so here is proof. Here they are in the middle of it, after a morning graze.

The ‘Pie was roundly castigated for suggesting in comments it was a meeting of two great mounds. He apologises and won’t do it again.

And Finally …

A message with Palmer and Mensink in mind.

See you next week, but the comments run 24/7, say what’s on your mind – well sort of, keep yourselves tidy folks. And if you’re able you might like to help keep the blog financially tidy with a donation. The How To button is below.