Anticipating benediction by the Cardinal we had these funky logos printed for the games release. Sadly they were ” not compliant”.

Dear reader, in response to the enormous interest in our failed board games we have decided to print details of the games so that some enterprising soul may yet stump up the funds and make this educational tool a reality.  It needs to be appreciated in light of recent events. And we think gives a telling insight into how imagination is the missing tool of contemporary education. Which is why we are seriously worried about any attempt to take chaplains away from public schools. If you don’t believe it we have a character reference from John Howard as testament to the games credentials. And in anyone doubts us we have testimonials to prove it from the Catholic Boys Daily. (the Australian)

Finding Father Finnegan, ‘He’s visiting the orphanage, and no one can find him’

Release date 1966. 

Father Finnegan was released as a very popular adaptation of the father O’Malley game in which Big Crosby played the part of a parish priest  in ‘The Bells of St Mary’s’. The archdiocese of Melbourne and Sydney liked the idea, and thought they’d nuance the plot structure about a young priest and his unruly charges shouldering the  threat of imminent school closure, with a more localised version appropriate to Australian audiences. They proposed to make a film based loosely on the Bing Crosby story, but with Chips Rafferty as the lead, and Roy Rene as the rector in  Cinesound’s, “Father Finnegan visits the Orphanage’. The Ken G Hall production, facing severe post war austerity measures on film and local content was boosted when permission was grated by the Federal government to be allowed access to the entire complement of the passenger ship “SS Fiddle-sticks”, then brimming full with a boat load of post war British child migrants.

Finding Father Finnegan is a game of detective work. It consists of a board, a father counter, players counters, clues cards, clue pieces a clock and a spinning arrow.  The players are entrusted to find the father who is hiding in the institution. One player is the father but pretends he’s one of the ‘finders’. Whilst the players wait for their turn, they must cover their eyes with a copy of the Old Testament (which are supplied).  Each turn they play there are new clues, though not all of them lead to Father Finnegan. Reputedly the game was similar to Cluedo, but with one distinct difference. If the Father Finnegan is found in a short space of time quickly the children are safe, if prolonged searching the children disappear, and can not be found. And father, rather than being ‘found’  is just moved on. 

The Father Finnegan board game could not compete with inter- communion Bingo Championships for popular appeal. Prelate holds up a “blanque-Un”.

This game was a great favourite, but production discontinued in 1978, when the transmigration scheme ceased. In all over 150 thousand were produced, and some can still be at the Catholic Education Office, and in isolated instances in the archdiocese of Ballaarat, where it is still played today.

The game board was of the  simple fold type with of a plan of the orphanage, numerous sick rooms, a chapel and holes for hiding priests and children in. In addition to the previously described game pieces and Father Finnegan, each board held at  least a hundred children as little brown discs, and four bibles, a piece of rope and a long piece of rubber tube and a blindfold.  The game was activated by an arrow on a spigot, and each move would examine another part of the orphanage. Game counters included nuns, in which each player could block a thorough investigation and the player opposite would go back to one. 

A criticism of the game is that it took hours and hours to find Father Finnegan, was impossible for the children to ever win, and the nuns, were often broken as they were made of cheap cardboard, and had a habit of flying of the board the “wind was put up them”. The children game counters, little bakelite discs, were magnetised, so they could not move, unless instructed. A first for locally produced games technology. 

Due to unprecedented demand. 

After a lull of some several years we’ve been swamped, inundated with new orders for our boxed sets of our “old school” board games. You may remember when they were first released, these fascinating, original and groundbreaking games caused quite a stir.

We had it priced, packaged and promoted to sell. Original advance orders were very promising indeed.

Worried about the proliferation of online gaming, the loss of reading as a basic hobby of the young in nurturing the imagination, the games were envisaged as an educational and spiritual breakthrough. As a counter to the all consuming toll of laptops, gameboys, ipads, mobiles and the associated sludge of instant gratificational media.  The hollowing out the human spirit could be reversed and the leaching of the collective soul to crass materialism and consumerism stemmed. 

These games promised a “Revolution” in  re-positioning the whole concept of “Family Entertainment”. Old style religion would be “Family Fun” once again. Churches of the “True Faith” would be full once again.  Families would rejoice in the notion of original sin, punishment and retribution. Knowing that their children, and other people’s children, and children languishing in institutions would recognise the ineluctable glory of GOD!

Solitary children locked in rooms mesmerised by the spell of electronic media would be freed.  We knew these games would work because they were based upon old fashioned family values. The same values that have given us Family First and the DLP.

Our research indicated this board game would do very well with Baby Boomers, not yet released from the after-effects of being “nurtured in Gods’ name” by old men.

Re- badged and re- packaged as “the Cardinal Series” the games were pitched at middle suburbia and middle Australia. On each game box was printed in bold type, “Good ol’ Mainstream Australian values”.  Initial  market projections indicated sales would eclipse the eternal favourites of Trivial Pursuit, Chess, Monopoly and Old Maid. 

We also knew, (after extensive market research), that in the great tradition of eternal favourites, Test Match, and Scrabble, the general public’s cultural appreciation of the ancient rituals enshrined in the games, would lead to mass acceptance and the prospect of “Rivers of Gold”. All we had to do was establish the distribution network, and the games would literally sell themselves.  With rapt anticipation we released the series in all good Catholic bookstores and offered them for sale (under license) to be sold as a boxed set at church fetes, bottle drives, Easter Fairs and in special stalls at Communion. 

Then nothing happened. 

Rather than selling the games as anticipated we found ourselves in a maelstrom of unwarranted publicity. Then the vitriolic letters began to arrive. What began as a trickle became a flood. 

Taking the Church’s stance on abortion, this game was pitched to Suburbia. We knew it would be a best seller as it enshrined “Good ol fashioned mainstream Australian Values’.

The Archdiocese sent us to court over plagiarism and copyright. And it became clear via the letters and submissions made by previous players that we’d got the rules of the game completely wrong. 

People out there were incensed that we’d misunderstood the ancient rituals performed in the games. They said we’d taken it too far. There was too much fun in “Finding Risdale” and not enough emphasis on the fear of original sin and the promise of retribution. 

We tried to get Good Ol George Pell and Father Risdale to endorse our products as they came up with the rules to the original “Staying at Fathers Risdales House” Game. Sadly, they declined our offer. But word is out that they will soon be sharing another house together. Allegedly; A Big House”.

Also the winner of the game  was in the eyes of many correspondents, not punished enough. We’d misunderstood the principal tenet, that to Win, was to Lose.  That the winner, was encouraged to absorb themselves in loathing, hate, depression and suicide. We’d got that bit spectacularly wrong. Happily, the games have been re-branded, and they offer to the winner, nothing. Or perhaps Winner needs to be re-qualified as the person who “gets to the end”.  A truer reflection of the spirit of the game  and all that’s wholesome and pure about old style religion. 

We tried to get Cardinal Pell to endorse the product, but he’s not answering his phone. Possibly engaged in conversation  on his “Royal Telephone” to God. 

In happier times

Dear reader, you may remember the project we were involved in prior to establishing pcbycp. 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the documentary it requires re-telling,. 

It’s a sage reminder of what happens when the management of a not for profit organisation, seduced by self importance, narcissistic hubris and delusional self belief sends things horribly wrong. For those of you who are sensitive we suggest you stop reading now. There are disturbing images conveyed in print that are not for the faint hearted. 

We became a “household name”

Way back in the noughties, we ran a horse training facility. The facility kept lots of people employed. Even people who were described by the employment agency as being “functionally useless” found satisfying rewarding work in our enterprise. The name of the facility, “Windy Hollow”, was promoted by  a dedicated group of young people. These young people came from a diverse background. All their parents were wealthy. So wealthy, they established a “Saddle Club”, where they could ride horses exclusively, and learn the fundamentals of comradeship, companionship and society in a nurturing environment. We organised the development strategy, as we felt that a profound grounding in social responsibility for spoilt over-indulged materialistic offspring would counter their tendency to be isolated and inherently anti social. We felt that this process was vital to avoid the schism between the “haves and the have nots” and the tendency for the elites to think that just because they have money, horses and tax free franking credits they can rule the world. 

The Saddle Club was entirely successful. It ended up employing thousands, never made a profit, but that was not the point, it gave meaning to people and established within that community a “ society”. 

Shady figures calculated our demise.

The Saddle Club staff, headed by Lisa, Carole and  Stevie  promoted the enterprise, and  their horses “Flopsy”, “Blossom” and “Tinker” became famous. We had a promotional theme song that went viral; “ Hello World”. Promoted on books, CD’s, Videos and merchandising. We became an “overnight sensation” and a “household name”. 

Our benign leadership ethos made it very popular, and we had enquiries from around the world to see this enterprise at work.

Mr Cocky and Mr Burns

Sadly, the General Manager didn’t see it that way. For the record his name was Joe Cocky. Mr Cocky pretended he was interested in horses. We subsequently found out that his interest was solely to use our enterprise as a springboard to a cushy sinecure where he’d never ever have to work EVER! He thought the whole enterprises sole function was to make money for himself. He eventually closed us down. Told all the organisations connected to the enterprise to “Bugger Off”! and before closing it down completely, got a job as Australian representative on the UN on Animal Rights. 

Our favourite horses, “Flopsy”, “Blossom” and “Tinker” were sold off to IDMC (International Dog meat Conglomerate). We were unable to form a collective and save them. He changed the equine association rules and promised we’d be SENT TO JAIL if we protested. Our dear horses were sent to the knackery. And  converted to dog meat. The infrastructure, stables, training yards and equipage sold in a job lot for one dollar to an obscure bidder by the name of Mr Carpet Burns.  When  we protested, we were issued with a suppression order, and made to watch the smoke issuing from the chimney of the conversion factory at the knackery. An image we can never forget. 

Mr Burns is well known for his brutal leadership. famously remembered for his quote; ” Cocky owes me BIG-TIME”!

Turns our years later, the wounds still deep and bitter, that the manager,  who closed us down, Mr Cocky got promoted to the top job in the industry, the International Equine Persons Institute. And is on a huge salary of four hundred billion million. Turns out he always had shares in the enterprise and made a fortune converting the facility to dog food. A blatant conflict of interest. 

Turns out whilst he was running our enterprise he was offered a lifetime of  free dog food at no charge by a business associate Mr Carpet Burns who is president of the international dog meat conglomerate. They now rule the dog meat world and have interests in horse studs and the racing industry as a sideline. They seduce politicians with free dog food, and tickets to dog shows.  

Though our future has been destroyed and the industry closed down, and we are powerless to stop his enterprise from ruling the world we take solace in knowing that somewhere in neighbourhood a little bit of “Flopsy”, “Blossom” and “Tinker” has nurtured a little household doggy. 

The final insult, our theme song,” Hello World” has been stolen!

But there is closure. On a street corner somewhere, a little bleached dog turd stands as a talisman of happier times. 

Lest we forget. 

We at pcbycp are Cheesed off. 

It really sticks in our craw. 

WE didn’t get so much as a cracker at this years Ozzie day awards, and we’ve given up on expecting a gong for Queens Birthday. Since Clarrie

Lloyd, an inspiration for Great Barrier Reef enthusiasts. Also gave excellent advice on offshore investments. (for those who like wearing wetsuits, and general rubber goods).

Nice submarine”Precursor to bottom of the harbour investment schemes. Lloyd pioneered the use of Submarines for tax mineralisation purposes”, ( Hockey, J, “Making Parliament Pay” 2014)

  increased the size of the fish tank in the office we thought we’d be CERT for the half billion granted to do valuable research on the Great Barrier Reef. Cecil was so excited he bought himself a genuine Jacques Cousteau type aqualung outfit .
He painted it the same colour as Nemo, sort of orange with white dots. He said he was inspired by the film, that’s what got him interested in the first place. And just to bone up on Barrier Reef research I bought the complete Lloyd Bridges “Underwater World” on VHS.
It was captivating, Lloyd did a lot of fishing and what he and Lee Marvin didn’t know about Marlin was nobody’s business. And cos, we thought we might get an edge on the submarine contract we bought the complete dvd box set of “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”.

WE thought, taking due diligence, and the nature of the tender process we’d be a shoe in… 

But when the contacts were awarded we received NOTHING!

Not even a telegram. After the bitterness had subsided, we got a call. You’d never believe who it was from? A bloke who sounded colloquial, wore a big hat, looked like an over ripe tomato, went by the call sign “the rooter”.  He was really helpful, told us the reason why we didn’t make it on the board of the Murray Darling Basin Authority was because we didn’t have enough clout. Same reason why we got looked over for a gong. He said, we needed to be in the company of powerful people. It would make our efforts GOLD!

He said if we knew the right people we’d be first running on a really big contract. 

So Cecil decided he’d become a shareholder. Went to AGM’s and started wearing a proper Henry Bucks jacket which he wore to the members at the Bulladelah Bowls Club. It’s a who’s who, on the committee. Real movers and shakers who reflect leadership in contemporary Australia. We have two real estate agents, a car salesman and a real  pokies operator. 

Then the moment came, a tender just between us and an obscure bloke who called himself Palladin. Cecil did a bit of research and found out Palladin rented a beach shack on Kangaroo Island, had an office behind a container in Hong Kong, and that was that. 

“Hogans Heroes”, ( previous title ” Humouring Hitler”. Valuable primary source material in dealing with illegal law breaking beyond the pale refugee types.

So we bought the complete dvd of ‘Hogans Heroes’, to bone up on prisons, and “Escape from Alcatraz”, cos we were entrusted to keep criminal illegal boat people in jail, for their own good. 

Turns out,  in spite of all the research and an offer to take the entire parliamentary committee to the Bulladelah Bowls chop night, we didn’t get the contract. 

WE only wanted 400 million and expenses, The Palladin bloke got 450 plus, and unlimited expenses. 

‘Something’s crook’, says Cecil. 

We found out. The Palladin bloke got the gig off the strength of his Hong Kong container. Seems he qualified as being an “International organisation of high standing” . We’ve just got a suburban office and people on disability pensions. Figured that’s why we lost. Palladin is well connected in New Guinea. That’s why he’s banned from visiting. He’s a few “Maserati’s short of the container”. 

Cecil reckons it’s ‘Cultural cringe’. We had no overseas connections. 

Pcbycp’s Headquarters. An anonymous Milk Bar, somewhere in Sth Australia. But not exotically placed like Kangaroo Island.

Still, we’re gonna try for the next naval contract. Just bought an Airfix model and the complete “McHales Navy”. As the experts say… “You’ve gotta be in it”. 

This from Ira Maine (I hope you make more of it than I did. Ed)

Galway Kinnel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Poetry (USA) for his Selected Poems in 1980, and his New Selected Poems was a finalist for the National Book award in 2000

Kurt Vonnegut wrote to him thus:

December 22 1997
New York City

Dear Galway Kinnel
At the age of 75, I had come to doubt that any words written in the present could make me like being alive a lot.  I was mistaken.  Your great poem Why Regret? restored my soul.  Jesus!  What a language!  What a poet!  What a world!
Cheers
Kurt Vonnegut

Why Regret?

Didn’t you like the way the ants help
the peony globes open by eating the glue off?
Weren’t you cheered to see the ironworkers
sitting on an I-beam dangling from a cable,
in a row, like starlings, eating lunch, maybe
baloney on white with fluorescent mustard?
Wasn’t it a revelation to waggle
from the estuary all the way up the river,
the kill, the pirle, the run, the rent, the beck,
the sike barely trickling, to the shock of a spring?
Didn’t you almost shiver, hearing book lice
clicking their sexual dissonance inside an old
Webster’s New International, perhaps having just
eaten out of it izle, xyster, and thalassacon?
What did you imagine lies in wait anyway
at the end of a world whose sub-substance
is glaim, gleet, birdlime, slime, mucus, muck?
Forget about becoming emaciated. Think of the wren
and how little flesh is needed to make a song.
Didn’t it seem somehow familiar when the nymph
split open and the mayfly struggled free
and flew and perched and then its own back
broke open and the imago, the true adult,
somersaulted out and took flight, seeking
the swarm, mouth-parts vestigial,
alimentary canal come to a stop,
a day or hour left to find the desired one?
Or when Casanova took up the platter
of linguine in squid’s ink and slid the stuff
out the window, telling his startled companion,
‘The perfected lover does not eat.’
As a child, didn’t you find it calming to imagine
pinworms as some kind of tiny batons
giving cadence to the squeezes and releases
around the downward march of debris?
Didn’t you glimpse in the monarchs
what seemed your own inner blazonry
flapping and gliding, in desire, in the middle air?
Weren’t you reassured to think these flimsy
hinged beings, and then their offspring,
and then their offspring’s offspring, could
navigate, working in shifts, all the way to Mexico,
to the exact plot, perhaps the very tree,
by tracing the flair of the bodies of ancestors
who fell in this same migration a year ago?
Doesn’t it outdo the pleasures of the brilliant concert
to wake in the night and find ourselves
holding hands in our sleep?

Galway Kinnell.

WHO IS ZALI STEGGAL?

Dear reader, there are some terrible things happening in the Australian Body politic. And its not just about fish kills being less important than blocks of coal in parliament.. 

Zali, is spelt with a Z

Since the rise of the middle L Independents, and the outing of the Coalition as a party of Climate Change denying, anti women, homophobes, there’s been a challenge to the status quo. 

People who have had a very real life outside of politics, people who’ve worked in real jobs, and paid real taxes, and people who are even, (this is the dangerous part) are qualified to talk about stuff they really do know about. Are HAVING A GO!

All of this is confronting. 

Behrouz Boochani. No one had ever heard of him till the four independents got into parliament.

It’s about individuals out there in the community representing the community interests. Some interest has even been expressed for Illegal Asylum seeking rent seekers who are not even considered HUMAN. And some interests question the very orthodoxy of “Clean Coal” and Non-stop Consumerism. 

At this rate the stellar influence of lobbyists working for big business will wane. 

The influence of corporations and ultra conservative lobby groups to hand pick candidates for their capacity to robotically align ideologically straightjacketed automatons for the likes of the IPA and Lord Rupert of Murdoch will go unheeded, 

The influence of Sky News, The Catholic Boys Daily and other liberating influence, the Menzies Foundation will be severely depleted. 

More powerful than COAL. The four independents. Inspired by Cathy Macgowan in Indi

This is a catastrophe, 

The latest affront to good governance is Zali Steggal. 

Which begs the question….Who the hell is Zali Steggal?

“I am the Light”, (Saint Tome of Santamaria)

Apparently she’s a barrister with two decades of experience in law. What’s worse, bits of business, corporate, and family law.

Worse still,, she’s an Olympian.  And most frighteningly, together with Macgowan, Blake, Phelps and Sharkie, she’s a WOMAN!!!

This is an affront and it has to stop. 

She is standing against Tony Abbott, . The Rhodes Scholar. A man of conviction who’s done more to import a U.S Style of T Party negativity onto the Australian public.  TONE thrives on hate politics, division and humour as he is the self elected special envoy for Aboriginal Australians. . 

Steggall’s message is, we want politics to return to basic values, moderate values, and the values that lead and prosper within a multicultural pluralistic, liberal society. 

See how insidious this is. Old White men are being attacked left right and centre, their virtue to keep society and women in check is under siege. The principles of stoning women and ignoring the pleas of science, reason, and common sense are being destroyed to make the world a more empathetic, considered and happy place. 

This will spell DOOM for all of us. 

It will destroy struggling artists who need persecution to survive, 

It will KILL the spirit of community and will erode, the godhead of ANZAC as the one unifying principle of Australian politics. 

Zali’s followers are family. Repudiating Party solidarity for community values. SHOCKING!

Stand with us at Pcbycp and help us in our fight to protect Tone, “Tone Alone” from the tide of progressive politics. Without Tone we’re doomed.  Doomed to the freedom of questioning the status quo.

Our universities will crumble, our institutions buckle under the weight of a mate-ship less oligarchy and the land will be laid to waste, (Corinthians chapter 4, V11). 

The rise of the moderates must be defeated. 

Lobbyists have families too,….. and feelings.

Just ask Andrew Robb? 

Terrible news, A new mine proposed for the Gloucester Valley in New South Wales has been knocked back. Not because it wasn’t big enough. 

Not because it wasn’t filthy enough. Not because it wasn’t gonna be seen from the moon. But because it was not viable on “Environmental Grounds”. 

WE at Pcbycp are Shocked. What is this specious, “On Environmental grounds”? Isn’t coal old forests, recycled into life affirming COAL?

LEFTY RATBAG Environmentalists Giving a “FREE KICK” (Australian Mining Monthly) to US Resources.

This ruling questions COAL. It questions COAL’s worth as “being good for Humanity”, as described by Lord Tone of Santamaria. 

This questions Coal as the saviour of everything we hold dear.

This, and wait for it, places the environment above making lots of money in the short term and not giving a stuff about the cost to future generations. 

Tone ALONE! Is that Light at the end of the Tunnel?

Worse has Happened. 

In the same week a bunch of do good lefty independents have swayed the vote on the floor of parliament and will allow doctors to check the viability of some poor bastard being repatriated from Nauru or Manaus Island. It says Doctors, as medical professionals are better to judge illness than Border Force guards in Gauleiter Uniforms. 

A Whole VERANDAH Chock FULL with Lefty Ratbag Environmentalists, who mistakenly believe that they have a voice on Parliament. UNLIKE COAL!

This puts COMPASSION above PUNISHMENT!!! 

If you don’t understand the immensity of this, we have prepared a simple equation. 

PUNISHMENT V COMPASSION

MONEY V THE ENVIRONMENT

BIBLICAL FAITH AND SUBJECTIVE BIAS V SCIENCE

And the clear winner  is COMPASSION, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND SCIENCE. 

Disgusting!! Lefty Environmentalist RATBAGS inculcating little kiddies with their insidious ENVIRO-MANIA!

THIS repudiates GODS WILL.

WE are in such a state of shock we checked the Catholic Boys Daily, (The Australian) for reassurance, and as the earth is flat it reassured us that this decision was a VERY BAD ONE. A blip in the normal process of governance. The green vote will wither away, and coal will be sacred and unquestioned. And, you’ll be Glad to hear COAL will still have a vote in parliament. 

Australia will STILL be open for Business.. 

Some people just don’t get PROGRESS!!!

There is still hope that Old White Men may shape the destiny for all Australians. 

And with bit of luck, the Wilderness of South West Tasmania will be converted into Real Estate. 

The hundreds of thousands of cattle that are dead as a consequence of catastrophic global warmed flood may be converted into compost

The Great Barrier Reef may yet be KILLED and  MINED for PROFIT.

And , the coastal regions of Australia, when flooded will prove to be a boon for REAL ESTATE AGENTS. 

There’s quite a few of them in Parliament and they know how to turn a quick buck and allow the trickle down effect to do the rest. 

They say in America that a thousand billionaires is a failure of policy.. 

We disagree, the 1 percent demonstrate REAL LEADERSHIP. 

To Make DAVOS Meaningful and SELF CONGRATULATORY for those who do VERY HARD WORK, and have earnt their SPECIAL STATUS. 

Decisive leadership is what Australia Needs, 

To destroy the Murray Darling, to Clear the old growth forests, to wipe out the biota. 

And prove once and for all that we can do it..

Community Action is very bad for BIG BUSINESS!!

Because we CAN!

And for those triumphalist Gloucester Valley environmentalists, 

The environment will wait, it has all the patience in the world. and will take us all. 

Environment 2.0 will be a monoculture. 

So was Australian Politics.

Open Country is useless unless it is MINED!!

In the words of Commander Kirk: “It’s Life Jim, but not as we know it”.

Barnaby Joyce. Tossing for our future

Good news for the Murray Darling. 

Smoothing the pillow. Federal Environment and Energy Ministers thinking big.

The Morrison government has been copping quite a bit of stick lately for they tardy response to climate change. They’ve been criticised for sitting on their hands in regard to coral bleaching and the death of the Great Barrier Reef. They’ve been seen worshipping unelected lumps of coal on the floor of parliament, and they’ve been absolutely silent on the death of irreplaceable fauna and flora as Tassie burns. 

On every front  they’re silent. And why? Because they’re too compassionate for little animals and Gods creatures. Their silence is not an admission of guilt for letting entire eco-systems die. It’s an expression of the humility and grace they give to departing creatures under the all seeing mantle of a Christian, (some may say decidedly Catholic) GOD. 

They are spewing as they grant licences to Adani to despoil on a scale unprecedented.They only do it because they know it is mankind’s destiny via the Old Testament to establish progress. And consequently the extinction of humans as species in the long term. It is Gods WILL. 

So spare a thought for their silence, 

Man of action

Their silence is DEEP. 

On climate change, Tony Abbott is hoping that Zali Steggal will defeat him. To release him from the  burden of caring as “Santas little helper” for all creatures great and small. Tony weeps for little creatures, unborn kiddies and aborigines. That’s why he’s special envoy. Cos he knows how the weak, the unprotected, the vulnerable have feelings. Poor Tony, that’s why he understands women. That’s why he wants to nurture those few aboriginals not yet in jail and why in all his humility, he worships the Catholic Boys Daily, (the Australian) in lock step with Lord Rupert of Murdoch. He has principles that are held through common bond of understanding that beyond  an all seeing God, that COAL IS GOOD FOR HUMANITY!  Via God’s telephone he can communicate directly with his patron Saint Bob of Santamaria and steer the Coalition closer to the edict of the DLP. To govern for all of us, though the divine wisdom of very old and conservative white men. 

NSW and VIC Environment Ministers demonstrate Fish ecology knowledge.

So be sympathetic. 

The Murray Darling is dying. Just an open sewer at the end of a cotton production line. For Tone, it‘s a new beginning. He and his colleagues have a plan. To transport the few remaining fish to a dam somewhere. 

We don’t know which dam this is. Which veritable Eden will sustain them. But we do know this, that with Gods blessing those lucky few fish may be saved. This is environmental direct action. Smooth the pillow for a dying eco system, as was done before. Find a safe place of refuge, with proper supervision and guidelines aimed at protecting them. Then, once established in remote, disconnected isolated outreach of humanity somewhere in the vastness. Throw away the key and walk away, because those fish chose to uphold that lifestyle. To die. For their own good.

Ludmilla leading the MUP Board. Before it walked off into the sunset.

Dear reader, this explosive piece has been edited to preserve us from the taint of slander. For legalistic purposes the names of the principal characters have been altered to protect the value of philanthropy, vanity projects and self absorption. Names changed beyond recognition have been marked with an Asterix.

There’s a lot of people who have Ludmilla Acton* stories.

Whatever you say about Ludmilla, there’s just about as many people who’ll describe her as a bit of ratbag as will describe her a saint. In balance we suppose that’s what happens when an ambitious enterprising individual puts their weight behind an organisation in the cultural sector. Ludmilla likes power. Just ask Rosa Storelli. Reminds us of a mate  who’s a designer. He pisses off just as many people as he infects with his enthusiasm. In the end he’s a doer. He’s a firebrand. The silly Design Institute kicked him out because he ruffled their feathers. He accurately described one of their supine, lick spittle feather bedders as indulged in a “vanity project”. It was his forensic detection of a conflict of interest that got him into trouble. A member of the Institute, caressing Institute funded pet projects from which to award prizes and citations.  He was quite right. But the bloodletting took him down. His reaction?  “Stuff em”! A good fighter, who claims responsibility for making his own decisions and upsetting  comfortable people in safe places. They accept their responsibility, and when shown the door, instruct their assassin to emphatically and without contradiction to  “GET FUCKED”. 

Airport reading for Dummies

MUP Titles. “Airport Trash”

WE admire that, because most of us are so terrified of losing our peg on the ladder. Acton’s power was in   exercising the freedom to make her own publishing choices.  To own the  publishing brand and bugger the consequences. Her enemies gathered and warmed themselves with simmering discontent. Universities are like parliament. Full of ambitious people who live in burnishing their skills for discontent. But not firebrands. Being a firebrand gets you sacked. And sadly since the era of Horne, etc Universities daren’t challenge the status quo. They want to become heart and soul of it. They are businesses with strict rites of patronage and enshrine the principle of the pack. And consequently we have humanities that don’t challenge the system. Arts institutes that produce patron friendly installations. The questioning, the challenging of societal ‘Norms’ is left to the graffiti artists. 

The other contender, the man who is purported to be Chancellor of the University has done very well. He made his money defending Alan Bond. It is alleged by some, before Bond went bust he made damn sure all the money Alan siphoned from enterprises and dodgy deals and shareholders was re-directed into his personal estate. From this he built an Alan Bond type empire. Uncannily similar, of overseas breweries and trophy properties in very desirable places. His was a quest for another kind of power, The power of the unquestioned exercise of authority. In short, Immortality. 

Failed Archibald contender Rosa Storelli titled: “The reader”. (with draft copy of “Airport reading for Dummies”, permission MUP)

Alternative title read; “Could’ve been Chancellor”.

One can’t help feeling that Murchison*, as the defender for Pell, and Acton’s decision to back the Pell Bio by Milligan their courses were on collision. Acton though did not know that Murchison would soon be Chancellor. His energies, at that time were directed to crafting the national culture as chairman of the NGA.  But a lot can happen in a year or two. For whatever reason the Chancellor represents the culture of contemporary university, self censoring, sanctimonious and unassailable. The firebrands, that activated university culture are all from the era of Germain Greer. Murchison’s influence, (though emphatically denied) over publishing represents a pure conflict of interest. Murchison has made his mark by being interested in everything within his power. His exercise  of power is found in the tradition of the renaissance Papacy. Power is all that counts. Absolute unquestioning power. The old Voltarian, “defending the right to say” has nothing to do with contemporary universities. They are Businesses, Pure and Simple. And since siphoning Bonds money he has made his own authentic conversion as pillar of the establishment, leader and power-broker on the ultra conservatives.  Murchison is a businessman. Or more aptly, (as he likes to see himself)  a modern day Medici. In which the arts, books and ideas, are corralled and pigeon-holed into a decorative niche. 

Acton’s sin was cardinal. She challenged the orthodoxy. She’s gone. Some academics have said it’s a chance for them to publish. But, what, and when in the current climate will they ever publish something that will give us food for thought. 

As the sign at Melb Uni says; “Believe”. 

Believe in what?