Twilight of the effetes

Fruity Flint’s fascinating theory about Mabo ... Launch of Portraits on Yellow Paper ... Burnside’s beefy punch-bag replacement ... From Justinian's archive May 17, 2004 ... Plus Madge Marsden's health notes ... Nylons at Vic's Bar 'n' Grill ... Theodora 

Flint: twilight

MIGHT I contribute two additional thoughts in the wake of Fruity Flint’s latest bout of foot in the mouth preening?

The thoughts themselves come from the "professor's" most recent book, The Twilight of the Elites (forward by Tony Abbott MP).

I suspect this tome has had less than concentrated attention by chatterers and other effetes. However, even very light study will be rewarded with amusement.

For instance, on page 194, is an attempt to connect the High Court’s decision of 1988 to abandon its wigs and traditional robes with the 1992 decision in the Mabo case.

It was from the moment the court started wearing American smocks that it "entered its most controversial years, with Mabo among the most controversial of its decisions of this period," wrote the old Fruit Loop.

Never before has the nexus between the abandonment of traditional judicial garb and judicial legislation been so neatly explained.

Then there is the author's study of the situation in Iraq. He is looking to a former member of the Iraqi royal family to "play a significant role in this exercise of nation building".

Indeed, before dictators took over in Iraq "something like a Westminster system" apparently existed in that country.

The system should be restored and just the man to help do it is "the urbane and sophisticated Sharif Ali bin Al-Hussein, one of the survivors of the massacre of the Royal Family in the coup in 1958".

Actually, Sharif Ali bin Al-Hussein is a first cousin of the unloved King Faisal 11. He's also an associate of the US-backed fraudster on the Iraqi Governing Council, Ahmed Chalabi.

To top it off he's also an oily London-based investment banker and, surprise-surprise, heads the Iraqi Constitutional Monarchy Movement.

He's probably received more letters of endorsement from Fruity Flint than has Alan (Dunny) Jones. 

*   *   *

POSSIBLY too much already has been said about the book launch at Robin Gibson Gallery of Roddy Meagher’s Portraits on Yellow Paper.

However, I would be remiss if I didn't add my tuppence worth.

It should be said that those guests who weren't enormously large, didn't have blotched red faces, or have absurdly dyed hair, stood out like cherubs at a night with the Bulldogs.

In view of this I blended in superbly, as did my soul mate, the official launcher, Justice Tubby Callinan. 

Two of the fattest, P.P. McGuinness and Christopher Pearson (in bold pin-stripes fresh from an SBS board meeting), barrelled their way through the throng into the gallery just as speeches were getting started and in time for P.P. to thrust into Roddy's paw the latest edition of Quad-Rant with Kirby's review of the book.

Too late, the same review had appeared in Justinian three weeks earlier.

Pearson declared the party was, "more like the last pages of Proust than anything I’ve seen".

There were some sleek A-listers, including Chief Justice Spigelman and Justice Henric Nicholas.

Daphnis de Jersey was there from Queensland gently complaining of the crush. Dyson Heydon firmly gripped his drink as he discussed the finer points of ACCC v Rural Press with Jeffrey Hilton SC.

Janet Albrechtsen, the right's pin-up chickadee, arrived in hipster jeans and clean hair. Justice Levine quietly corrected Roddy's misquoted remark of Churchill's that every truth should be surrounded by a flotilla of lies.

Plenty of Simon Fieldhouse's highly praised art was on display. While all and sundry were intent of looking at themselves and each other, the drawings still sold smartly.

A line drawing of John Howard was the third last item to sell. We wondered who possibly could be the buyer, later to learn it had gone to none other than the PM’s adoring older brother, Stanley.

I hear that Fieldhouse now is collaborating with another author on a fresh tome, which will also appear under the imprint of Central Queensland University Press.

His collaborator is M. Kirby J, who is mustering a further and better collection of his speeches, thoughts, reviews and commentary.

That one should be out in time for Christmas stockings 2004.

At the launch of his book Roddy declared that The Tub was a Renaissance sort of person and had even taken-up ballet. Meagher also responded to Kirby’s criticism that the book is "marred by unnecessary nastiness".

This was because, "I didn’t want to be seen to be wallowing in the luxury of charity".

But by the time of the bench and bar dinner on May 14, at which Roddy was the keynote speaker, all his jibes had worn thin and the general feeling of the gathering about his oration was one of disappointment and a little sadness. 

*   *   *

THE person appointed to replace Julian Burnside as the advocate for the refugees at Topside Camp in Nauru is Reuben Kun, an uncle of the "Justice" Minister, Russell Kun.

A subscriber remembers Reuben at the ANU in the 1960s where he studied economics.

The massive thighed Nauran was one of the tough fellows on campus and in the pub he used to square-up to a huge Russian chap.

The amusement was that in turn each would land horrendous blows on the other's stomach and see who would buckle first.

Worthy training for Reuben's appearance before the Supreme Court of Nauru. 

*   *   *  

AND these two items were posted by Theodora in November 2003 ... Marsden's malignant nodes ... Vic's nylons policy confusion as government backs out of silk selection 

Marsden: I Am What I Am

THE latest health bulletin issued by the cancerous John Marsden reveals for the startled readers on his e-mail distribution list that he has 13 "malignant nodes" in his body.

"The treatment I am having will kill them, dead, and get rid of them out of my system and they will die a painful death, being poisoned by whatever treatment I have." 

Madge thought his readers would be interested to know that he has given names to the cancerous nodes, "because when they are destroyed it means that I can have fun destroying the names". They are called: 

1. Kerry Stokes. 
2. Jim Wood.
3. Paddy Bergen (sic).
4. Bruce Barbour (Ombudsman).
5. John Howard.
6. George Bush.
7. Robert Magabi (sic).
8. Tony Blair.
9. George Pell.
10. McCormack.
11. Olive.
12. Stitt.
13. Nicholas.

If a couple more nodes develop their likely names will be Malleson and Reynolds.

"It is fun being able to do that, to kill those things with their special names," said the distressed Campbelltown solicitor.

*   *   *

THOSE anxiously holding out for copies of the forthcoming Madge Marsden biography, which has the rather terrifying title of I Am What I Am, will be grateful for this update (an unfortunate word, you’ll agree).

There was disappointment that the tome didn't show six or eight months ago and now I'm told that there's no chance it will be available for Christmas stockings.

It'll be April or May 2004 at the earliest before Penguin gets around to putting the rollicking romp on bookshelves around the country.

And the reason for the hitch? According to a worm within Penguin the ghost-writer Martin (Chuckles) Chulov didn't always see eye-to-eye with the subject of the biography on the interpretation of various events and the extent to which the rest of the universe revolved round the Hero of Campbelltown.

Chuckles has withdrawn from the task and his name won't be on the cover, although he's still retained by the publisher to "restructure" some of the remaining author's words, notes and rants. The enterprise has changed from biography to autobiography.

Since Madge has trouble expressing himself in anything approaching succinct or coherent English, the person with the "restructuring" job is in for a devil of a time. 

*   *   *

I'M over the moon to see that among the persons of the female persuasion anointed SC in Victoria is none other that Michelle M. Gordon, otherwise known as Mrs Kenneth Hayne.

Also, can I run past you some statistical information prepared by Ms Ginger Snatch, my research assistant?

The 15 new male nylons in Yarraside have between them an average of 23 years post admission experience and 19 years in the saddle as counsel.

Of the six new female nylons there is an average of 15 years post admission experience and 13 years as a member of counsel.

It is still very much unresolved what is to happen on the silk front now that the Vicar of Bracken's government has deserted the arena.

At the moment there is no system in place that can guide the eager on how to clamber aboard the bandwagon for next year's elevation. This has created a serious vacuum in the machinery of justice.

The Victorian Bar 'n' Lounge doesn't know what to do. Most of the inner sanctum think the Chief Justice should continue to have a big say in who should be swathed in nylon vestments, while a few of the bolder types think the Lounge Council should run the whole thing.

What with so much uncertainty abroad it is a wonder people can concentrate on their briefs.