June 2009

UPDATE 10am: I’ve put the answers in after the jump

Kevin Rudd just posted this on his Twitter page:

“Don’t tell Swanny about the birthday cake. He is not on Twitter so won’t know about the surprise!” (Sorry if you’re reading this Mr Swan).

Has the Prime Minister jumped the shark? What’s next? “OMG - you should have been in Cabinet - epic fail from Swanny on interest rates.”

Here’s ten real Kevin Rudd Tweets and ten fakes - can you spot the difference? We’ll post the answers in the morning.

Continue reading "Take the Rudd Twitter quiz" »

“Real transformative change never begins in Washington.” (Pause for quacks.)

You’ll need to turn up the volume but the quacking is audible early in the video.

Got a story about a mortifying mobile moment? Share it in the comments.

What a relief. The poster boy of the Global Financial Crisis Bernard Madoff, 71, will never see the outside of a jail after the United States District Court handed him a 150 year sentence for orchestrating his “evil” $US65 billion ponzi scheme .

When you’re as old as Bernie any sentence more than 25 years may as well be 1000 years, but the judge in this case Denni Chin obviously decided enough was enough.

And if Madoff had have been caught three years ago - before the mirage built by the burghers of Wall Street evaporated and revealed to us the GFC, he might have ended up one of those corporate crims who do their time and are out again to enjoy their yachts before they die.

Continue reading "Sucked-in Bernie Madoff: your timing was terrible" »

I used to hate him too. Used to cringe when he yelled “c’mooooooon”. Wanted to strangle the little effer any time he argued with umps, Australian Open CEO Paul McNamee and anyone in his path.

Used to yell “put the frikkin’ sock puppet away, jerk brain” when he did the hand-pointing thing.
Suddenly, I am experiencing a strange new emotion.

Quite simply, Lleyton Hewitt is not annoying me anymore. I think – and I say this with my finger poised just above the delete button – I think I’m actually starting to like the guy.

Right from the top, I want to make it really clear that this has nothing to do with his unexpected charge at Wimbledon this week. It’s Lleyton the man I’ve warmed to, not just Lleyton the tennis player.

That’s right, Lleyton Hewitt the man.

Continue reading "C’mon don’t hate Lleyton, he’s a nice guy" »

You have to hand it to the Pope. He’s got ticker. This week he asserted science had provided proof of a key plank of the story of the Catholic Church - a test on bones from a Roman tomb “seems to confirm” they belonged to St Paul the Apostle.

Calling on scientific evidence to prove Church teaching is grounded in historical fact is a staggeringly high-stakes game for the Pope to play. As technology advances, archaeologists will only build an ever-clearer picture of the past. As in the case of St Paul - who along with St Peter was instrumental in founding the modern Church - there may be evidence along the way that suggests certain people lived and died precisely as the Church says.

But what happens when the science calls it into question? What happens if scientists produce convincing evidence that certain things didn’t happen, or someone didn’t exist?

What if that someone was, say, Jesus?

Continue reading "Poker-faced Pope plays high stakes against science" »

It’s tiny but powerful.

Its incorrect insertion could mean the difference between life and death.

And it’s fighting for its very existence.

I’m referring to the apostrophe; specifically, the possessive apostrophe.

Even its proper name – saxon genitive – sounds more like a sexually transmitted disease than the pinnacle of punctuation.

Continue reading "Its time. Sorry, it’s time to save the apostrophe" »

I was bunkered down in 1997 finishing a book called Gotcha: Life in a Tabloid World when I was disturbed by a phone call. Something about a woman called Diana who’d died in a car crash the day before. I had no clue. The journo on the other end of the phone thought she’d accidentally called Mars.

Having lived through both the OJ trial and the Lewinsky/Clinton affair in New York I thought I knew what the eye of a celebrity death, sex or scandal storm looked like. I spent the next week fielding questions from the media about why the media couldn’t stop asking people questions about Diana.

The highbrow journos were all in deep shock about the public interest in a woman they saw as a dim blonde who liked disco dancing, enemas and psychics.

But they were equally transfixed by the level of public grief at her passing The only journalists who really understood what was going on were tabloid reporters – hacks in the minds of the ABC-types who’d previously seen themselves as gatekeepers of the news agenda.

Continue reading "Jackson’s death a study in tabloid human instincts" »

It seems that our obsession with having a bet has even reached the rat community.  If, however, rats can have a punt while considering the odds and make a decision based on reason, as the article suggests, it probably puts them a step ahead of most of us.  As Kent Brockman may have said in response to this: “I, for one, welcome our new Rat Overlords.”

This news of course comes at a time when the ongoing practice of everyone’s favourite network, Channel 9, of giving live betting updates during sporting events, continues apace.  During the summer it was Betfair odds during the cricket and now it’s TAB Sportbet during the rugby league season.  Many people, including me, find the practice appalling, but Nine have never really been known for giving two hoots about what the ethical among us think, as long as there’s a dollar in it for them.

The League calls feature renowned punters Ray “Rabbits” Warren and Peter “Sterlo” Sterling giving live updates on the current Sportbet odds as the match they commentate on progresses, accompanied by a rather feeble-sounding closing rider about betting responsibly.  Older readers in non-NRL states probably know Rabbits, aka Rabs, from his previous life as a horse racing caller.  Younger ones may know him from his swimming commentary, which sounds much like his horse racing commentary.

Continue reading "Forget footy - give us odds on being sent to the doghouse" »

Whatever you do, don’t watch the above ad before you drive home. You might turn into a maniac and start aiming at bus queues. Happily, the car advertisements of the not too distant future will feature a middle-aged dad in a beige cardigan and a mum in a twin set, and a couple of kiddies lashed into ergonomic capsules and wearing crash helmets for added protection.

They will be putt-putting along in the non-fast lane at 47kmh as the ad extols the car’s safety features and ability to get you from A to B. There will be no mention of how much fun the car is to drive, how it handles corners, how quickly it can go from nought to 100, how it’s got racy bucket seats, beautiful zippy lines, a cracker of a stereo or a monstrous donk under the bonnet.

Continue reading "In our dull Volvo world even ads come with safety features" »

With Swans coach Paul Roos all but saying he’d like forward Barry Hall to retire after landing another stray punch, the question is now being asked: how many chances should Hall get before he’s just sacked?

I’d ask another question. Is Barry Hall really as big and bad as he is being made out to be, or is the controversy just an indication of how soft football and sporting culture generally has become in Australia?

In short – and at risk of sounding like Carrie Bradshaw - are Bazza and the likes of Andrew Symonds really too hard or have we just become too soft?

Continue reading "The hard men that soft modern sport has left behind" »