Has The Smile Been Wiped Off His Face? Word Is a Townsville High Flyer has Been Turfed Out Of The Marital Mansion For … errr … Improper Use Of His Desk-Top At Work.

It’s the sort of tittle-tattle normally well outside the interests of the Magpie’s Nest, but in this case, if it’s true, there is good reason to mention it.

Also, the courtiers and the Emperor’s new clothes: our ‘leadership’s’ disgraceful denial of reality … instead of addressing Townsville’s parlous state, they’re all pretending it doesn’t exist. It’s a gutless floundering display, so, The Magpie let’s the real figures do the talking  – the ones you NEVER see in the Bulletin.

Now we are starting to see the extent of News Corpse desperation locally … you won’t believe their latest advertising rates for property.

Also … why isn’t anyone talking about the investigation into the cause of the severity of the floods? The Magpie has uncovered two aspects that lead directly back to George Street. There is a very suspicious silence all round.

Same applies to the on-going investigation into Mayor Mullet’s Adani connection.

Plus another look at the photoshop of the decade … and a few others laughs to lighten us up in these grim times …

But first …

The Perils Of Pauline

Good help has never been harder to find, as Senator P Hanson has just found out. It’s especially hard when they raid the booze cupboard.

James Ashby has always been a scheming, unpleasant little turd – just ask former Speaker Peter Slipper, or former politician Mal Brough, or, for that matter, some of the youngsters this slimy individual hooked up with back in the days of the Sovereign Hotel when it was Townsville’s gay pub. So it is oh-so-apt that he has been publicly caught with his pants down, a situation many young lads - very young lads – in the Townsville gay scene can attest was his favourite stance.

So it was no little surprise but a great deal of glee that many who knew this political shyster back in his Townsville days learnt of his amateurish too-clever-by-half adventures with the moneymen of the NRA in the United States.  The One Notion Queensland twerp Steve Dixon added to the fun.

The musing on the gotcha tape by an undercover ‘civilian journalist’ have been detailed endlessly elsewhere, but the tremulous, stuttering faux outrage from his boss – it was a set up, Pauline quavered, ‘conspiracy’ involving the ABC which a dumb media swallowed ‘hook line and sinker’ – showed she really had got her burka in a bunch. And well she might – the timing could not have been worse, indeed, it does beg the question about the sudden release of the doco, three years in the making – but the reaction in the electorate is hard to predict. The diehard whack jobs who vote for One Notion will probably do so again, but converts are unlikely. Bentley explains best why young James shouldn’t be fooling around with guns.

Speaking Of Fooling Around – The Rumour Du Jour

It has long been established that, along with boats, jets, mansions and exotic drugs, two of the most expensive habits of the rich and fatuous are slow racehorses and fast women. On the latter matter, extra-curricular rumpy-pumpy can turn out to be more expensive than all the others put together.

This fact of life in the upper echelons is said to be slowly coming home to one of Townsville’s most prominent and entrenched members of our Gilded Few. Our bloke is said to have been unceremoniously ordered out of the family home, the missus taking a somewhat dark view of his allowing one of his administration assistants administer to his needs a little too enthusiastically. Like recent scurrilous talk about a recent TCC CEO’s desk top being used for purposes for which it was not intended, our man is said to have apparently used his corporate table to play hide the sausage.

Seems our bloke is now ensconced in a deluxe suite in one of the Townsville’s swishest hotels – yes, yes, The ‘Pie knows those three words don’t make sense together but you get the drift.

But why has The Magpie gone against his general rule and gone all Daily Mail on such a salacious and ostensibly private matter?

Well, it seems there is a touch of hypocrisy to be accounted for, because the bloke in question is – as a sideline to his main business – involved at a high level with a popular sector of the entertainment business. And it is a sector which has just brought down some draconian rules regarding the behaviour of its entertainers when they are out of the public eye. The administration of this popular entertainment sector has, with good reason, formulated guidelines that must be followed on the pain of heavy financial fines, not being allowed to continue entertaining if thought to be in breach of these rules, and under certain circumstances, can even have their careers abruptly ended. It seems to be something that this sector is often embroiled in, since their entertainers are generally young, none too bright, and are paid eye-watering sums of money to display their talents.

But this bloke is no spring chicken or youngster sowing wild oats – and he is in a position to make rulings on complaints about his entertainers if they get into strife. Which automatically means that he should be judged by a higher standard, and should lead by example. An ageing husband and father is not setting any sort of example by knocking of a hot tootsie after hours in the office.

But this sort of behaviour seems endemic in this particular entertainment sector of Townsville. A few years back, a colleague of this bloke, super wealthy, married and a father, canoodled around with a woman whom he promised to leave home for. And he did leave home – briefly. He returned sheepishly to the fold lickety-split when he found out the break-up caused by his bonking ambitions was going to cost him somewhere in the order of $22million.

This person has only partially reformed. Although still at home, he has lately been fucking over state and federal politician for millions of taxpayer dollars.

This Speaks For Itself

The ‘Pie has just been informed by a real estate chum that the Bulletin’s property pages have slashed their going rate BY 66%!!

When a publication is financially predicated on property market advertising income, that should ring alarm bells in all sorts of places, not the least bank board rooms.

Perhaps this from the ever-reliable Conus Group that arrived during the week may explain the Bulletin’s desperate move but that they have been unwilling to share with us.

In this graph, all the north is in trouble. The Conas report shows while Cairns approvals on trend down a disastrous 45.5% last year, Townsville’s trend dived even deeper, with a new record low of just 32 approvals, a 53.3% slide. Little wonder advertising rates are under review. The ‘rivers of gold’ are in severe drought.

Why, Oh Why, Do They Do It?

The Alice in Blunderland re-election campaign continues apace, conjuring up Lewis Carroll’s famous Humpty Dumpty dictum to Alice: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’

This is a dictum we get daily in the Astonisher, when they print unchecked the absolute tosh coming from those desperate to keep their cushy number on the council plush. Which is generally good for a laugh but it is simply so insulting.

Here’s Les Messagebank Walker, our deputy Doo Dah on the Seaview getting a bit of a unremarkable renovation.

‘Planning and Development Committee chair, Deputy Mayor Les Walker, said Townsville’s growing economy would receive ­another boost when Sydney’s Paul Irvin Hotel Group revitalised one of the city’s favourite pubs.’

Our growing economy? This is a bloke who has a say in Planning and Development, but seems to be suffering a chronic case of Delayed Development of the upper storey? But he isn’t finished yet “There is a growing interest from businesses looking at opportunities in Townsville and projects like this build momentum to attract further investment to our city.

He seems that on the day the paper interviewed him, his Learn A New Word A Day desk calendar featured the word ‘growing’, but he has yet to grasp its meaning. But he hasn’t cornered the market on ripe tripe, that lion’s share still goes to the mayor, hard on the campaign trail. She has told the Astonisher she will be running again for mayor, with the threat that she still has ‘unfinished business to complete’. Short of her going beserk with a  Army flame thrower, God knows what that means, not sure what else she has to finish off.

Apart from enlightening us that a zipline and a food truck (pop-up café to her) on Castle Hill and a look-out platform on Mt Louisa will have tourists flocking in from all points of the compass, she just couldn’t help herself from bubbling over with the prediction that the suddenly council-approved motor sport centre out in the scrub south-west of the city ‘would make Townsville the motorsport capital of Northern Australia.’ (Sigh) oh, purleeese!

This sort of oily verbal effluent is going to be a staple of the local media for another year, but The Astonisher itself has decided that this is a good … and cheap … ploy to win the hearts and minds of readers. With appallingly self-serving – and free – crapola like this:

To yet again quote Mandy Rice Davies all those years ago: ‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?’

Gone To Water, The Lot Of hem

Why does there appear to be a distinct lack of urgency by our alleged leadership about the inquiry into what caused the worst disaster in this city’s history? Early last month, the grandly-titled shiny bum, the Inspector General of Emergency Management has been appointed to ‘assess the preparedness and response to the floods’. So it has been variously and informally been termed an ‘assessment’, ‘a review’, and an ‘inquiry’. But not a question asked about its progress or process, by the Astonisher or anybody else. With this lot, Noah would still be waiting for his please explain to be answered.

Silly question about the lack of urgency, of course, but you’d think if Mayor Mullet is as blameless as she says she is, she would be screaming bloody blue murder both privately and publicly for the findings to be published to exonerate her. The council decision last week to take back operation of the dam and not renew Sunwater’s long standing contract seemed curious, although the council said it had nothing to with recent events, oh, dearie me, no, you old silly, we’d been talking about that for some months.

Maybe, but interesting timing.

However, two matter has come to The ‘Pie’s attention which could explain why Premier Alphabet will be in no hurry to get any answers, apart from any possible culpability of Sunwater. An experienced engineer, once involved at the highest level in Townsville water matters, has suggested to The ‘Pie two issues which would’ve played a major role in what is best termed the ‘over-flooding’.

The first are the works on the Bowen Road bridge, where a form of shoring up was in use, and was not taken down prior to the foreseeable rise of the Ross River. This work would’ve caused a big problem even in a normal wet season of average river flooding.

But a far more major factor was the recently built Port Road, which was built up one to three metres above the flood plain, without adequate thought given to measures to allow flood waters escape. This road, to the east of all the suburbs flooded in the city, effectively formed a massive levee several kilometres long, allowing floods to back up.

Prior to the Port Road being built, the engineer said all floodwaters used to disperse out over kilometres of flood plain on the way to the sea … now the Port Road has proved to be a major impediment, with the Bruce Highway and Ring Road helping form a massive backed up lake..

Main Roads and the Palaszczuk government have been dead quiet on this issue, and are no doubt in little rush to have any such findings published. Then the bill could be in the tens if not hundreds of millions to the government, which, if you need to be reminded, is all tax payer money. And the insurance companies will no doubt have something to say, too. The council will need to do some fast talking as it was they who approved many of the devastated subdivisions.

But even so, it all goes back to the crucial question of the timing of the water release.

But Don’t Expect Anything Too Soon

These government things, especially when some time is purposely allowed to pass to blunt any adverse impact, move at a pace that makes a glacier look like Usain Bolt.

So simply by way of illustration, consider this. In comments during the week, it was mentioned, as exclusively revealed in this blog, that Mayor Jenny Hill is under active investigation for her links to Adani and her itinerary on her Indian trip sponsored by her mate Gutem Adani.

That investigation, still ongoing, was the result of dogged and determined agitating by blog regular Philip Batty, who was just as incensed by being lied to and given the bum’s rush by bureaucracy as he was about his initial beliefs of impropriety. He explained it is this comment on the issue.

The Real Philip Batty 

“Just by way of update:-

Investigation has been declined, then accepted, closed, reopened passed from CCC to the Department of Local Government and now sits with the Office of the Independent Assessor.

20-30 emails and letters exchanged, RTI application to CCC “refused”, RTI application to DLG “refused/redacted”, referred to the Office of Information Commissioner decisions supported as “still under investigation”

Office of Information Commissioner advised they expect to finalise the matter in May of this year.

I wait with bated breath”

Hope Springs Eternal In The Human Breast … And In The Human Wallet

Baffling and disturbing bit of research trivia for the week. It’s from cairnseconomy site, and is a regular barometer of various things … including this:

Weird, eh?

Photoshops Of The Week

World leaders are always fair game … and like they say, a pic is worth a thousand words. This one says it all in  two words.

But without a doubt, the photoshop of the week came when someone posted a pic of a weird carrot they had grown.

It then made an hilarious transformation, its accuracy confirmed by Stormy Daniels.

The ‘Pie will pause briefly here while you scrub your eyeballs with a wire brush.

Which Leads Inevitably To …

… the week in Trumpistan. Naturally, the emphasis was on the Mueller Report, which was handed over during the week. Trump said it ‘completely exonerated’ him – it didn’t, it just said he had not colluded with the Russians during his election campaign. He still has a few matters to answer, as Stephen Colbert pointed out.

The Democrats were biting their lips that the report hasn’t been the slam-dunk impeachment vehicle they had hoped for, but they’ve still got plenty to be going on with.

And Finally …

Worth remembering in the run-up to ANY election …

……….

That’s yer lot for another week, but the comments section, which accepts contributions 24/7, is fun, feisty, firey and often just silly amusement, do join in. And if you think this weekly effort worthy of your support, a donation would be of great assistance, the how to donate button is below.