http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/geoff-lemon/ Geoff Lemon is a satirist, writer, and the editor of Going Down Swinging (http://www.goingdownswinging.org.au). He’s on Twitter @geofflemon, or visit his site at HeathenScripture.com. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/And-so-this-is-Christmas-which-now-I-embrace/ One more sleep till D-Day… but this year, I’ve actually felt good about Christmas. It’s not a familiar feeling. In my adult life, Christmas tradition has involved ambivalence tending to hostility, a fortnight of creeping despair, then curling up after a bottle of cognac to cry in a corner and throw up mince on the rug. Many of those years, if the bloke in the red suit had existed, I would have left him out a roast leg of venison and hoped that the reindeer could smell it on his clothes. No doubt many of us go through stages like this, where we want to go out and club a ringy-dingy elf right in the head. And no wonder. The season can’t compete with how it was as a kid, when days were as long as novels and “Ten more minutes” was a judicial sentence. The heat somehow arrived earlier. The lead-up to Christmas stretched out to the horizon, as afternoons led a charge deep into the evenings and the grass dried to gold. Stepping outside to air already hot before we’d dressed for school. The toy shops excruciating in their possibility. The advent calendar crawling by, glue and crappy chocolate marking days that dragged out their final demise like a row of dying grandparents. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Geoff Lemon) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/And-so-this-is-Christmas-which-now-I-embrace/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/And-so-this-is-Christmas-which-now-I-embrace/#item7446 Sat, 24 Dec 2011 03:35:17 +0000 Geoff Lemon | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/tie-me-bloody-kangaroo-down-joyce/ Jesus motherloving Christ. If Alan Joyce is making a late bid for Twat of the Year 2011, then he’s eating daylight on his competitors. On Saturday the Qantas CEO shut down worldwide operations of one of the planet’s biggest airlines, in an over-reaction that made King Lear look pretty chill. Like one of those seasoned chooks you get all ready for roasting, some things come pre-satirised. On Friday, Joyce asked shareholders at Qantas’ annual general meeting to give him a pay rise of 71 per cent, from under $3 million a year to about $5 million. They did. The next day, he shut down their company entirely, because of the “extreme demands” of workers. First prize, Alan. Believe. Where unions have to give 72 hours notice of any action, Joyce gave zero hours. He stranded 68,000 people worldwide, upended the plans of tens of thousands more, and lost an unquantifiable number of future bookings. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Geoff Lemon) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/tie-me-bloody-kangaroo-down-joyce/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/tie-me-bloody-kangaroo-down-joyce/#item7039 Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:00:57 +0000 Geoff Lemon | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/australia-is-the-unlucky-country-girt-by-misery/ So. A bunch of European bankers with their sharp suits and their cuckoo clocks want to take a break from their fondue parties and ski lodges made of cognac to tell us about doing it tough as a true blue Aussie. What right they have, I don’t know. In the global economic climate, ‘Euro’ and ‘money’ make as credible a pairing as ‘Fascist Fun Run’ or ‘Relevant Bono’. Yet when Euromoney magazine named Wayne Swan the world’s Finance Minister of the Year, it presumed to get stuck into his constituents for their despondency. “Surrounded by the consumer baubles that wealth brings, grumpy Australians don’t seem to appreciate how good they’ve had it,” said the report. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Geoff Lemon) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/australia-is-the-unlucky-country-girt-by-misery/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/australia-is-the-unlucky-country-girt-by-misery/#item6808 Tue, 27 Sep 2011 20:00:03 +0000 Geoff Lemon | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Logic-eats-the-gay-marriage-scaremongers-for-breakfast/ If you’re like me, you’ve been wondering with trepidation what will happen when the Gaypocalypse finally strikes. Are fudge-packers, nancy-boys, and pillow-biters all names for the same thing, or do they signify a hierarchy of types and sizes, like orcs? Which are most dangerous? And where do the Poohole Pirates come in? Are they like the Men of Harad? What about elephants? Will there be elephants? Will they be pink? Will we be forced to toil in underground sequin mines while Freddy Mercury lashes us with moustachioed falsetto arpeggios? And dear God, why didn’t we listen to Fred Nile? feedback@thepunch.com.au (Geoff Lemon) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Logic-eats-the-gay-marriage-scaremongers-for-breakfast/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Logic-eats-the-gay-marriage-scaremongers-for-breakfast/#item6532 Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:55:56 +0000 Geoff Lemon | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/even-the-worst-nightmares-cant-keep-bolt-upright/ The aftermath of news like that from Oslo leaves only numbness. The injustice of it, the disbelief that this was even possible. Bombs at least kill in a single action. The deliberate persistence involved in attacks like Anders Breivik’s make them all the more distressing. For a writer with comedic inclinations, the usual set of responses are neutered. Laughter falters, mouth half open. Even in our bleakest political situations, there are moments of light. Something like this is all darkness. As reports began to come in, it was the last subject in the world you would have imagined being used for political point-scoring. But if ever someone was going to do just that, it was Andrew Bolt. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Geoff Lemon) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/even-the-worst-nightmares-cant-keep-bolt-upright/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/even-the-worst-nightmares-cant-keep-bolt-upright/#item6384 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 20:00:20 +0000 Geoff Lemon | Author bios | The Punch