Thommo's Two Up

IT CAN often seem that the Great Bunyip, who has quite the sense of humour, played His greatest joke on poor, horny humanity. Some species have it easy – wriggle under a bit of wet bark, address yourself as “Mother” and emerge sometime later as a throng intent on nibbling the Billabong’s roses. Mankind isn’t so lucky. While it is almost inevitable that roses also will figure at some point in humanity’s reproductive process, as may flash dinners and baubles in baby blue boxes from a well known Collins Street emporium, it is the sheer cost of our oviparous urge that sets us apart from all other species. A tasty feed and a night at the flicks, followed by coffees with little Italian poofter biscuits going soggy in the saucer and an evening’s overture to amour can quite easily generate a $200 bill. Of all Creation, when it comes to mating, only the poor salmon is more royally screwed.

That said, and even allowing for a couple of choctops, it is hard to imagine any dalliance generating an overhead of $2475, which is one of the sums our PM’s very special friend Craig Thomson is said to have spent on a single night’s entertainment. Even if the bill included parking and lots of licorice allsorts, that remains such a significant sum it strains belief. Or did until friend of the Billabong, Bob On The Murray, sent a link to a promotional video for Room Service Escorts, whose customer service rep collected Thomson’s signature, credit card impression and licence number.

One possible explanation comes at the 2:13 mark, where the energetic fellow in the blue suit appears to have drawn inspiration from parliamentary protocol and granted himself a pair. Buying in bulk can be a nifty way to make dollars go further, but not always.

Surprisingly, while the video offers naughty secretaries, naughty receptionists and other naughty occupations, there are no naughty nurses – something you might have thought the naughty head of a hospital workers’ union would insist upon, especially as his members were footing the bill.

UPDATE: If things go badly for the beleaguered MP, this company might be just the place  to begin a fresh career. It would certainly be more peaceful than the union he left behind:

For another HSU home movie, consult Andrew Bolt and scroll to the end of his post.

Hotel No Tell

Dear Penthouse,

I’m a freaky kind of girl, always loved my lovin’, if you know what I mean, so a while ago I thought, “Why not do it for a living?” Takes all sorts, and I’m one of them! That was two years ago and I’ve had lots of fun ever since, although some clients are just plain weird. I want to tell you about one them, a bloke I’ll called “Craig”.

He would call me over to his hotel, and at the start it was just normal stuff, you know how it goes, typical $2000-a-night groin-and-groan. But then it got seriously unhinged. This time there was a woman with him, a redhead, looked like she had stepped out of the waxworks. White. Pasty. And only an undertaker could have put her in that pantsuit, because you would have to be dead to wear it. I’m still wondering why anyone built like an avocado wears a short, belted jacket when Craig pipes up and explains how the scene is going to go down.

“She gets off being a zombie voyeur,” he begins. “She’s the walking dead, that’s what gets her hot. So you and me, we’re going to get it on right here.” He was pointing at the coffee table, but she showed no reaction, just stared right through us, like we weren’t there at all. Craig was really smiling now, getting off on the whole idea. I like to see a happy customer, so we were all laughing and smiling -- except the redhead, that is. She didn’t move an eyeball, making like she wouldn’t notice if the roof was caving in. She was very good at it, too.

“If Busty Rusty gets too excited and makes a noise,” he said, pointing to Carrot Top, “then the fun really starts.” I didn’t know what he meant, but you better believe I found out!

So we got down to it on the table, just like Craig wanted, and he turned really, really strange as well. For example, he kept shouting about “his members” and how they should see him now. Well he only had one that I could see, like any other guy, but I got into the spirit of things and started shouting how I loved those members just as much. When he shouted, “Pay your dues, comrades!” I joined in with “Yeah, pay ’em to me.”

“They already are, baby. You and all the others.!” Weird, eh?

We were making it hot and heavy when I first heard it. She was murmuring low, so low you couldn’t make it out except in isolated words. It sounded like “Abbott always says no”, so I figured it was some private fantasy about nuns or something, and I went back to working on Craig, who was going wild by that stage. God help me, but I do wish they wouldn’t put pineapples in those hotel fruit bowls.

That did it for Rusty. The eyes were bugging out of her head and she was wailing, “Why me? Why me?  Don’t do it to me, Craig. Please don’t do it to me.”

“I’ll do what I like and you can pay for it too,” he snarled as a passionfruit rolled under the sofa.

Now Carrot Top was making to move off the couch, but she didn’t get far.

Suddenly the bathroom door flew open and there was another woman in the room! She was getting on, ugly hair, looked tired, and those bottle-bottom glasses didn’t help.

“It’s Michelle,” she whispered to Carrot Top, “and I’ve come to help you stay in your seat, just as I always have. Remember, if anyone asks about this, just take a hint from Bill Clinton and say people’s personal lives are their own business and everyone lies about sex. Got that?”

She nodded, blank and wide-eyed.

And for the rest of the session, surprise guests kept coming out of the bathroom, every one wearing a press gallery ID. They were all giving Carrot Top advice on how not to notice what Craig was doing with me. She would nod in her mechanical way, make a noise like un-oiled clockwork, gather her resolve and then resume the walking dead routine all over again.

When it was over, Craig was radiant and I was another $2000 better off.

As for Carrot Top, she enjoyed herself too.

I know that for a fact because, as Craig led her out the door, I distinctly heard her saying over and over again, “I am so rooted. I am so rooted. I am so rooted......

Yours sincerely,

Bambi

Fairfax, Fit For The Chop

IS IT dishonesty or just plain stupidity? You be the judge.

In Thursday’s Age, the homepage headline on a story about Tony Abbott’s hastily re-located photo op states, My mis-steak: Abbott's butcher blunder. The opposition leader screws up, right, does something dim and stupid? That is certainly what the headline proclaims.

Now read the story and find out what actually happened. Be warned, you will need to dive deep into reporter Richard Willingham’s pun-infested prose to learn why Abbott’s handlers were forced to find him another location at the last minute.

''… the business in question received an aggressive phone call … I thought under all the circumstances it was best to change the venue because the last thing I would want to do is to cause needless grief to small business people,'' Mr Abbott said.

The call was later revealed to be a threat of a boycott of the business if Mr Abbott visited.

If you think a warmist bully’s semi-successful bid to silence a political opponent by threatening an innocent an business is the real lesson of this incident, you are definitely not a Fairfax journalist.

But let us be charitable and give whoever wrote the headline the benefit of the doubt. Let us assume that having seized upon the “mis-steak” gag, the writer was so taken with his or her little joke that the alliterative “butcher blunder” could not be resisted, despite the overall message being grossly inaccurate. It may have happened that way – but even so, that possibility raises the question of basic literacy. If the writer’s heart was set on meaty mirth, there are several ways the gist of the incident might have been expressed with both wit and accuracy.

What about, “Phone Threat Bones Abbott’s Photo Op”. Or “Threat to Abbott Was Lard and Clear”. Perhaps “Abbott Won’t Risk It With The Brisket” might have sufficed, while “Abbott’s Beef With Photo-Op Saboteur” would certainly have done the trick. Instead, we got a headline that made Abbott out to be both culprit and dill.

Hey, it’s Fairfax, so what else can you expect?.

Grate Scott .... Please

THOSE public spirited youngsters at Our Say have gained much attention of late, courtesy of Andrew Bolt, who alerted his readers to The Sunday Age's request that readers submit questions about global warming. The query leading the tally is written in a sceptic's ink, so it will be fun to watch the paper's team of crack warmists squirm and wriggle. If you haven't voted and can be bothered registering, you should do so.

And while inspecting the Our Say site, do have a look at the second issue, which is soliciting questions for Australia's Media Leaders -- the ABC's Mark Scott and Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood. Crikey's Sophie Black will also be turning up for the discussion, but will probably nod off if she has been reading her own site. Perhaps Scott can wake her up with the offer of a shower scene in Crownies, an offer made in the context of the commercials' market failure to show enough young, firm women wearing nought but soap suds or filmy bits of nothing.

A modest citizen is seeking Scott's guidance, and so far his question has garnered only seven votes. Reproduced below, it would seem worthy of much more support than that.

How can you produce get-ya-gear-off rubbish like Crownies and bill the Australian taxpayer for the dubious pleasure of turning it off? Do you enjoy Crownies? if so, should a low-brow vulgarian be running the national broadcaster? And finally, some career advice. Does Fred Hilmer have any openings for additional godsons. I, too, would like to scoot up the Fairfax hierarchy and then switch to an ABC gig auditioning Crownies nymphettes. Any advice?

It would not require too many votes to see that question zoom to the top of the list, a status that conveys a special prize, as the poster will be invited to join Scott, Hywood and the snoozin' Soph' on Our Say's online panel. Now that could be tremendous fun!

Visitors to Our Say may also post their own questions, and surely a few readers would wish to know why Hywood continues to inflict on Melbourne a paper written primarily for the tight little knot of green leftards who produce it?

So pop over if you have a chance and cast a vote or seven. Just remember not to use salty language. While that is just fine on Hungry Beast et al, Scott might be offended if the ABC's favourite vulgarities were to be directed at him.

The Man On Whom Gillard Depends

VIA 2GB's Ray Hadley, more on brothel creeper Craig Thomson, his spittle-fest at Mingara Social Club and, on another front, a Labor MP bares the real reason Gillard's crew is keen to further regulate pokies.

Hear here

UPDATE: Those interested in staying up to date on the Thomson matter might want to keep an eye on #hookergate. Lots of tweets and some interesting links.

Manne On The Move

ROBERT MANNE is stepping away from The Monthly, the magazine's eager young editor telling Caroline Overington that his mentor is keen to "start blogging on a daily basis, and he wanted to do so as his own man, rather than as chairman of The Monthly. He wanted to express his own views, freely and independently, and he was worried that people might think that his views were those of the magazine, if he stayed on as chairman."

That may prove to be the case, but a reasonable person cannot help but wonder if  Bundoora Bob might not have been tapped for another little project. As we all know, there is much talk at the moment about the need to examine the state of Australia's media, and the first priority of any government establishing such a panel will always be to produce the conclusions its backers expect -- in this instance that Rupert Murdoch is the spawn of Satan and the noble Fairfax press could do with a handout..

Who better to make sure the inquiry produces all the right findings than the LaTrobe academic (please forgive that contradiction in terms)? Now that he has severed his Monthly connection, we will probably see the announcement of Manne's involvement soonish.He will not need any riding instructions.

Prize Luvvies

HOW does the New Establishment look out for its own? With money extracted from the ignorant, dim, knuckle-dragging rest of us, that’s how. Case in point, another of Alene Composta’s supporters, the warmist blogger John Cook, is up for the $10,000 prize administered by Australian Museum as a token of appreciation for those shedding the most light on the climate debate. But only a certain kind of light, as the entry details make clear: 

Australia's average surface temperature has risen by 0.9° C since 1910 and 2009 was the hottest year on record in the Southern Hemisphere. The evidence is clear - our climate is changing. The consensus is that the main cause is human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, mining, agriculture and land clearing. So, decisive action now is one of the most important steps we can take to reduce the risks from global warming.

The Children’s Climate Crusade also gets a berth in the category’s list of finalists, possibly because the judges believe that rudeness in support of a cooler planet is no vice.

What may surprise NSW voters, who recently winnowed the ranks of the former Labor government’s incompetents, is that the prize money is offered in the name of Premier Barry O’Farrell and his colleagues. No doubt arrangements were locked in long before the Coalition took charge of Macquarie Street, but it would be hugely re-assuring to hear O’Farrell announce that next year’s awards will need to find another sponsor.