The ‘Pie bases this on the fact that while hearing all sorts of trivia, facts and gossip (most unpublished in the Nest) over those 15 years of ‘stellar leadership’ according to the Bulletin’s main fluffer), the old bird never once heard of Gill in any business position in Townsville, or anywhere else. This is all highly very sus unless Gill was super reticent about embarrassing whoever was dopey enough to employ him.

Now McCabe needs to get rid of Claudia Bumme-no longer Smith, restructure TEL and hire a board chair that isn’t a complete dud. Then again, pigs can fly can’t they….

Interesting point that The ‘Pie has mentioned before in the blog about The Dill’s eligibility for the position, and another questions indeed occurs. We all know he was booted from the airport job, but if the board position attracts reputedly unpaid, what has Gill been doing for a crust? Or has there been 15 years of under-the-table ‘honorariums’ that have somehow slipped by the TEL beancounters? For 15 years? The Magpie has never heard a whisper of what he has been doing outside the TEL boardroom, for a crust, anybody know anything?

You will notice the Bulletin article does not carry a reporter credit. That is no doubt because this was all dictated from TEL House (wherever that is nowadays), and ordered transcribed by the iditor herself. It was bereft of a single inquiring question of what facts actually merited the masturbatory description of ‘a stellar 15 years of leadership’. FFS, Poulson must think we’re all eight years old.

This departure – yes, Tap Dancer, the time was right oh, let’s say, 15 years ago – smacks of some sort of nudge to create an already chosen heir to this poisoned chalice. What gives the game away that this dullard was sacked is the deliberate outright lies the iditor shovelled into this iditorial load of laughable praise for one of this city’s greatest drag anchors.

In among the deliberate lies of this disgraceful flapdoodle The ‘Pie must admit he was flattered when he copped an indirect but clearly targeted swipe from Polly the Parrot Poulson’s usual literary style.

The politest thing that can be said for Polly’s the Parrot’s news values is that they’re a touch inconsistent, The’Pie didn’t see any such gush about another undeserving but far more involved player when Mike ‘Capt Snooze’ Reynolds was leaving town.

The Townsville Bulletin and Jill Poulson have now established themselves beyond any doubt that they are a major part of the problems facing Townsville’s progress, and any good things that eventuates will come along in spite of, and because of, them. As it always has.

A community without an independent champion to watch out society’s interests is at the mercy of the worst sorts of predators.