The Word From Cricket’s Cow Corner: Mayor Mullet’s Field Of Dreams Tomfoolery

Our perfumed purveyor of porkies is at it again … and she now gives us the choice of deciding either she is dopey,  or whether she just thinks we are. Same goes for the Townsville Bulletin when it gave prominence to her demented gurgling’s about Townsville’s Riverway Stadium becoming Cricket Queensland ‘s premier ground during the Gabba ‘s renovations. This raises the question: has she  finally gone totally gaga, or does she actually think we have? The Magpie looks at this latest inanity from our ninny-in-chief.

And the Daily Astonisher, which took this drivel seriously – not a single oh-so-obvious question asked – two days later delivered a monumental finger to the community on another issue.

Ever thought that the tautology of Townsville is a bit silly, and you’d consider a name change? How about Thul Garrie Waja then? You might not like it, but you might have to get used to it.

Why the death of Queen Elizabeth may be bad news for the Australian Republican movement.

And from the Nanny State files: someone better dig  Sleeping Beauty in the ribs, that’s the only way she’ll ever wake, yawn, stretch and fart if the latest bit of foaming lunacy of the  the Woke Wigwam is adopted … a  push for a warning ‘sexual lack of consent’ ‘C’ classification for TV shows  and movies. Including cartoons, animated shows and fairy tales. Surprisingly, The Magpie has a view.

Plus a leading economist startling ‘tough love’ solution to the growing perfect storm of fiscal and social hard times.

The Magpie’s Nest runs on the fumes of reader generosity, and if you’d care to do some heavy breathing to help the old bird with this weekly labour of love – which doesn’t accept advertising, like who would dare? – it will lower stress levels for everyone except those who catch The ‘Pie’s beady eye. The blog rebuild has progressed more slowly than anticipated, but it’s being worked on. If you can lend a hand, the donate button is at the end of the blog.

Now onward …

Vale, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Elizabeth Windsor, Queen Elizabeth 11

No matter what your geo-political view, if you are an Australian of advancing years like The Magpie, or even younger, you will be aware that one of the few constants in your life is no more. It doesn’t matter what your views were and are of the monarchy – views morph, change shape and coalesce into various opinions and outcomes, that’s life.

But the views of Queen Elizabeth did not, and while there are those who see that as inflexibility, others see it as honourable and admirable. Perhaps it was both. That didn’t always sit well with some in an age where constant change is mistaken for progress and a new moral order that is sometimes elevated by decrying previous values. The woman unfailingly stayed true to her coronation promise of always doing what she believed best served her subjects, and promised to do it until the day she died.

And she did.

This sentiment from a Vogue America headline best sums it up.

The Vital Question That Nobody Asked Our Mayor Last Week

Jenny, luvvie, RUOK?

In case you weren’t aware, last week was RUOK Week, where everyone was urged to check on friends‘ and colleagues’  emotional well being. Ironic then that no one apparently asked Mayor Mullet if she was OK when she exhibited the confusion one could associate with the early symptoms of a stroke. And there should’ve been equal concern for the putative iditor of the Bulletin when this nonsense was splashed on the front page.

It was followed up by the unquestioning piece of beat-up puffery and reasoning that certainly invited an RUOK inquiry.

Quoting the exceedingly modest overall 6000 spectators attracted to the three one day matches between Australia and Zimbabwe, Clr Hill said Townsville was now positioned to host more big international cricket matches while the Gabba was closed for Olympic renovations.  She gushed on: ‘(The three matches) showed we can draw a good crowd locally (Christ, woman, 2000 a day – what would be a bad crowd?) and the standard of the wicket was so good.’

Now she was really hitting her straps: “I doubt anywhere outside Brisbane is the same standard as our field is in. It gives us the edge.’

The Mayor’s interest and knowledge of cricket would be most welcome had it not been the latest product of the  from the Walker Street Whimsey mine. The Magpie imagined the reaction from Cricket Australia.

But then she revealed the real purpose of her bombast, when she tried a touch of political coercion about the long mooted question of the installation of TV standard lighting at Riverway… a must for any southern interest here. She said she would need guaranteed matches on a future schedules to justify the ‘enormous’ expense of putting in such lighting. Her usual whacky ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy she applies to distant industrial parks and pointless creek-side  boardwalks apparently here becomes a chicken or egg proposition … which comes first, TCC investment in lighting or Cricket Australia making conditional bookings before that happens.

Of course, the Bulletin did its usual unquestioning job of barely muted hysteria with a juvenile cartoon cartoon promoting Riverway over the Gabba  ….

… and an iditorial which completely ignored the central issue of stadium lighting. Which meant the current iditor was totally unaware of this story previously in his own paper…

… which contained these lines.

“The lighting at Riverway Stadium has been a thorn in the side of cricket and AFL in the region for more than a decade, with the upgrades first mooted in the mid-2000s. The Townsville Bulletin campaigned for the lighting to be upgraded back in 2018 and Queensland Cricket CEO Terry Svenson held wide-ranging talks with Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill on the issue in 2019 but still there has been a lack of movement.”

This paper can’t even remember what it stands for when being ‘All For You’.

Actually, Yes, It Does Know What It Stands For … And It Ain’t Us

Proof of this came with Friday’s issue.

FGrom comments.

The Magpie

September 9, 2022 at 1:50 pm  (Edit)

The Townsville Bulletin gives is the finger again, the paper’s counting house gnomes strike again.

The good old Astonisher ($2.50 fanks, guvnor) has found a startling way to emphasis its policy priorities, with today’s early morning message to subscribers ($24 bucks a month, thanks, sport). Like all other News mastheads across the country, the Bulletin’s new iditor has been directed to send out a morning email ‘exclusively to subscribers’, showing the front and back pages of the day’s paper. The notion is that this will entice further reading of news and sport, and OK, sensible as far as it goes. But today, it went too far. This arrived this morning, just to make the old bird feel a special chosen one

Front page:

Back Page:

.
First thought was, HA! Another digital cock-up, a Coles ad instead of the back page. But how wrong can a bird be, when he checked the actual digital edition.

Yup. There it was, the Coles ad. And just to underline this finger to the buying public, the scannable cover price code for the paper was over-printed onto the Coles ad.

In fact, digitally, that wasn’t the end of it, there then followed 20 pages of Good Guys ads.

When this traditional area for all-important sport can so easily be offered to an advertiser at a premium price, it’s not hard to realise that step’n’fetchit iditor Craig Herbert is a timid underling to the advertising manager. And it’s even easier to see why a major local advertiser – let’s say, The Ville, or maybe the Townsville City Council – can lean on the advertising manager to suppress any adverse stories Mr Herbert might mistakenly think of running about them.

Click Bait Story Of The Week (Must Be That Time Of Year Again)

This one is trotted out regularly when there’s not much else around.

Our regular reader The Wulguru Wonder ask how long before the Bulletin gets on to this and beats it up worse than a red headed step-child. Changing some place names is sensible, considerate and long overdue – a local one down near Home Hill manages the double derogatory of Yellow Gin Creek, reputedly named for the relationship between an aboriginal woman and a ‘chinaman’. And of course, there can be no argument that such names be changed, they are a standing rebuke to our early rampant racism, but we get to more contentious territory when the names of early explorers and settlers are targeted.  And as always, Townsville will be brought into, because of the egregious activities of the black-birding Captain Towns. So get set to be raged farmed with suggestions that we become Thul Garrie Waja, which we are told is what the local indigenous folks, the Bindal tribe,  called Townsville before it was Townsville.

Actually, it would handy if the shorter and more understandable Bindal was considered if we must muck around with more politically correct names.

And no, Jenny, your idea of calling it Hillsborough isn’t acceptable on several grounds.

Another Reason We Are Getting ‘Woke Weary’

This story got a gallop across most media during the week.

The basic idea is that seeing movies and TV shows where someone is kissed or worse without explicitly giving their consent is instilling in viewers the idea that such behaviour is normal. The idea comes from one of the many research organisation peopled by the permanently jumpy, in this case, something called Consent Labs. In a sweetly insulting statement, Consent Labs chief shadow flincher, Angelique Wan (real, name, I didn’t make that up) says unless we have her guidance, we might mistake normal human behaviour as …well, normal human behaviour – even when it is in unreal acted situation, often far from any every – ay reality.and shame on us for that. Her flummery goes so far as to demand that shows like Shrek and even that charming accidental kiss moment in Ratatouille be slapped with such a warning.

Needless to say, the frog world is aghast at losing the chance of becoming a handsome prince – how do you  croak ‘yes, you may kiss me’? – and Sleeping Beauty will have to stay roofied out – how is a comely chick going to acquiescence to Prince Charming giving her a good tonguing if she can’t give consent, because until he does, she’s asleep and so …. christ, it’s like an Escher stairway to nowhere..

All this raises interesting flights of fancy about many a standard cartoon character. The ‘Pie has always been suspicious about Peter Pan’s behaviour towards Wendy – one gets the distinct impression he was always trying to up-skirt her., the dirty little sod.  And the old bird admits that as a fledgling, he himself had a thing for Tinkerbell.

But as for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, well, C classification should abound.  If we’re going to be serious about the possible consequences on young minds, scenes should be added in, realistically depicting life in dwarf Cottage after lights out.

And as for The Ghost Who Walks and that Diana hussey  … the very thought makes one go wan.

These folks themselves need a C classification … and it doesn’t stand for consent.

Some Of You Serious Types Might Need A Trigger Warning For The Following

The ‘Pie has often wondered how Alan Kohler would perform as Australia’s Treasurer. He would probably be brilliant, his clearly delivered analysis and projected possibilities have always impressed, occasionally leavened with a touch of restrained humour  to tap rather than bang home his points. But brilliance has no place in the political landscape where courage is perpetually in short supply ever since Keating left office. So sadly Kohler would probably be a dud, overruled at every turn – possibly by a PM who had secretly made Treasury a dual role.

But here is his excellent, sensibly argued ‘outside the envelope’ article at his explanatory best. There will be instant partisan howls from various areas, but perhaps that is just the echoes of political cohorts that avoid courage at every turn.

In The Unhinged States Of America, Voters Are Wrestling With A Dilemma – Again

The crucial mid-term elections are just days away, as the electorate – well, those allowed to vote in the Land of the Free – do so against a background of a former president who is now clearly a traitor. The situation ain’t funny, but there’s some grim laughter around, even at the stark choice facing those in the voting booth. And also the reprehensible decision of a Trump appointed judge to order a ‘special master’ to interfere in the investigation of the treasonous Trump.

Why Queen Elizabeth’s Death Could Be Bad News For The Australian Republican Movement …

… and why Guy Rundle is one of the best analytical/political writers in Australia today.

Both these contentions are contained in this excellent piece from, of all the unlikely places,  Crikey.

Just in case the link doesn’t work, here are a few salient lines from the article.

“But what has died too is republican hopes that the passing of a monarch — one who fulfilled her role unimpeachably — to a man put together by the same history of enthusiasms, foolishnesses and failed obsessions constituting the lives of most of us would provide the opportunity to put the question of monarchy at issue, especially in Australia. Too late! They don’t muck around, these royal families; they know their business. King Charles III is already a thing, and the fact of the office has asserted itself massively.”

And he sees a crucial if cynical political dimension blocking any move towards a republic, when he writes:

“Any move towards Australian republicanism will have to work on the pure fact of monarchy as its object against. Since Australian republicanism has no social base whatsoever, being, from its ’90s revival, a shy creature of the elites, it will most likely get nowhere. The Albanese government, I would guess, is not going to give the Coalition a culture war they rebuild around.”

“The left has been unable able to provide an attractive alternative to a society whose grounded meaning has been utterly undermined by the nihilism of capitalism, the market, and the asociality of new technologies. So, bizarrely, it is pre-modern institutions that now offer a limit to that steady annihilation. Any republican relying on a generational uprising against monarchy, or a non-Anglo one, may be in for a rude shock. The snarling and snarking that might be directed at her will simply prove the point. Such attacks are always grounded in envy and defeat, the radicalism of fools.”

You may not agreed with Rundle’s clearly laid out assessment, but if you wish to refute it, you will need more than slogans, placards and the hots for Lisa Wilkinson to make your case.

………….

That’s the week done and dusted, join in comments throughout the week. The donate button to help keep the blog aloft is below.