After getting home from work yesterday evening, I turned on the telly for my usual bout of post-work laziness and encountered the tail end of the Steve Irwin memorial service at Australia Zoo. To be honest, after watching a parade of quintessentially "aussie" celebrities strut their stuff, I had to turn it off as our Great and Noble Leader took the microphone to wax lyrical about the Australian-ness of the Crocodile Hunter. It was tragic. Not because of the forced sentiment of the performers, but because it seemed to reinforce Irwin's cult of celebrity, and take from the family the intensely personal experience of the death of a loved one. Nowhere was this more evident than the speech of Bindi Irwin, Steve's eight year-old daughter. I speak from experience as someone who has been on the wrong end of a parent's death. Bindi's speech , while remarkable for it's apparent composure, was a performance for an international television audience. It was not t...
I know!
ReplyDeletewho is going to say LIBARIAN now???
Ha!
ReplyDeleteI wonder who we'll get now. Pretty-boy in budgie smugglers Thwaitesy? or lego-haired straight man Brumby-y?
I'm pretty sure it was all a cunning Labor scheme to distract people from John Howard's housing plan.
It will without doubt be Brumby, I fancy. Bracksy practically anointed him in his press conference.
ReplyDeleteHis nickname, my public service colleagues assure me, is JB.
Yeah, I think Bracksy sealed Thwaitesy's fate when he said, "And Brumby's really awesome I'll totes be voting for him". So Thwaitesy went to himself, "Today is a good day to die (politically)."
ReplyDelete