Wall Street

No ads on the ABC? Don’t believe it for a minute. Last Sunday’s Insiders was chockers with ads.

The political interview guy, Graig Emerson, was plugging his book, Vital Signs, Vibrant Society, even offering to sign copies for an extra buck.

Then host Barrie Cassidy gave a big leg up to sometime Insiders couch buddy George Megalogenis’s new volume of thoughts, facts and analysis, The Australian Moment.

Continue reading "Serious music for serious times" »

Sometimes it’s all too easy to dismiss the significance of public protests.

Like so many others, I scoffed contemptuously at the truck convoy that rolled into Canberra last month, with its very clear statement of anger against… something? I know it had something vaguely to do with the carbon tax, but that message got lost somewhere amidst all the frothing at the mouth, and the placards warning us that the United Nations is secretly plotting to take over the world.

Of course, it’s easy for me, as a young, commie, pinko elitist to have a go at a bunch of hard-working truckies, so in the interests of balance it’s worth acknowledging that many of the rallies attended by people who share similar ideological dispositions to me are often no better.

Continue reading "Bloody rabblerousers and their ridiculous protests" »

Hollywood divorce stories usually fall into three categories. The good-for-a-laugh-because-they-have-more-money-than-sense kind of story, the too-painful-to-read-story-of-betrayal (most recently, Sandra Bullock) and the unbelievable-jaw-dropping-can-they-really-do-that, kind. The subjects of today’s Lightweight are an example of the third kind.

Cue Diandra Douglas, the 52 year old ex-wife of actor Michael Douglas, who is claming half of the profits from his latest movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

The Herald Sun reports that the ex-Mrs Douglas is, “citing a provision in the couple’s 2000 divorce that promises half the profits of any movies done by her famous husband during their two decades as man and wife -including residuals, merchandising and ancillary rights.”

But Mr Douglas, 65 years of age and currently married to Catherine Zeta Jones, is not having any of it. He’s arguing that his latest flick is a “sequel” and not a “spin-off” of the 1987 original and therefore, doesn’t count.  And it’s a fair retaliation, when you consider that he’s reported to have already paid his ex-wife approximately $US45 million in their original divorce settlement.

But what do you think? Does she have a right to the money or not?

My old neighbour once sent her husband out to rent a video for them to watch together.  He returned with a film called ‘One Tough Bastard’.

After wondering how much longer their marriage would last, my mind turned to a loftier question: what would you title the sequel to ‘One Tough Bastard’?  Would it be ‘One Tougher Bastard’?  ‘Two Tough Bastards’?  ‘One Tough Bastard and a Baby’?  Sadly, there is no such sequel.  Apparently when you’ve conquered the summit of film achievement, there’s nothing more to say.

There are a lot of pitfalls in the movie-making business.  Agreeing to make or star in a sequel is surely one of the biggest.

Continue reading "Well read-head: Too much of a good thing" »

Rumours are rife last night’s dramatic plunge on the Dow Jones was caused by a Citigroup trader who accidentally sold a billion shares in Proctor and Gamble instead of a million.

That little decimal point drama might have been what wiped about a trillion dollars off US stocks before they recovered again quite quickly. You could call it a “Barnaby on steroids.”

We all make mistakes at work, but when most of us stuff up we don’t send the world financial sector into cardiac arrest. What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done at work, that had consequences beyond your own yearly review?