April 2010
1 post
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Lisa Pryor goes after the intern
So I am late in blogging on this one, but I thought I should mention Lisa Pryor’s column in Sydney Morning Herald a couple of weeks ago.
In the piece, Lisa Pryor mentioned an article I wrote for Crikey about the Hey Dad! scandal. I gave A Current Affair a ‘Wankley’ award for their coverage of Sarah Monahan’s allegations against former co-star Robert Hughes.
Pryor...
March 2010
4 posts
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Today’s ‘me-first’ culture only impedes our will...
Sitting on the kitchen table is a copy of the document that everyone wants to read. It is a short file – maybe ten pages long – and has a light brown coffee stain next to the staple in the top left-hand corner.
Its appearance gives no indication of its significance, however, to this family the importance of this slender document cannot be understated. The contents of these pages have the power to...
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Buck's nights have become a parody
It has just struck 11pm on a Saturday night and John has decided to mark tonight’s occasion by changing into a new outfit.
Accessorising with a large pair of clip-on earrings and a brown silk scarf, John has struggled into a floral dress that barely covers his hairy 187-centimetre frame.
On his feet, John is employing all of his power and balance to stay upright, as he battles a pair of...
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Black Saturday from afar
f the town of Chuy, on the Uruguayan/Brazilian border, is renowned for anything, it is duty free shopping.
Walking its unsealed boulevard of ‘free shops’, it would seem entirely appropriate if Chuy’s streets were paved with its livelihood; cigarettes, liquor and pirated DVDs.
It is a town of contrasts and, as a result, acts as a microcosm for South America as a whole. It is in Chuy where you can...
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The Meredith Gift
With one short, sharp blast of an air horn they’re off. Fifteen sets of exposed genitals whizz past the gathered crowd with the speed and ferocity of an Olympic 100m final.
Fifty metres of pushing, shoving and biting sits between the naked runners and their prize – a crimson red cap that will guarantee passage to the next round.
All too quickly, it’s over. The Meredith Gift has been run and won....
October 2009
11 posts
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Coffee and cardamon Kuwaiti style
As Doctor Sa’ad Al-Ajmi welcomes us into his house, it is not hard to believe that Kuwaiti citizens are some of the wealthiest in the world.
His house is an opulent dwelling – tastefully decorated with plush, long couches and enormous pieces of Middle Eastern artwork.
As we take our seats, a Kuwaiti man offers us some gawa – a kind of Arab coffee – to settle the nerves. Apparently, the calming...
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The Lessons Of #IranElection
Until the internet age, visions of government upheaval could only be transmitted to lounge rooms via a trusted and experienced foreign correspondent.
Images of brave journalists – complete with sweat-covered brow and khaki shorts – filled television screens around the globe. It was their job to earnestly inform viewers of the unspeakable atrocities that were being committed around them.
In 2009,...
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Just A Tinge Of Cultural Cringe
By now its official. YouTube showed them, Twitter told them and The View sold them. We’re all a bunch of blackface-wearing, iSnack-hating, midget-riding rednecks.
Never has one week shown that the cultural cringe is still very much alive and kicking in the depths of Australian media.
First there was the iSnack 2.0 debacle. Trying to explain the front page outrage to a visitor from another...
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Blueprint Deep In The Red
So it turns out the organisers of the failed Blueprint Festival are half a million bones in the red.
According to The Courier, Ballarat’s local paper, more than fifty bands are unlikely to be paid for playing at Blueprint because the festival ‘failed to make enough money to cover costs.’
Apparently the organisers, brothers Tristan and Aaron Gray, have gone into hiding and disconnected their...
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Transmission In Progress
Despite the never-ending march of gentrification, inner-city Melbourne will forever remain a cultural lifeblood.
From street art to live music, it is impossible to imagine Fitzroy and Collingwood as anything but a vibrant creative hub (no matter how many boutique baby stores line their streets).
It is fitting then that community radio stations such as 3MBS, PBS and 3CR call these suburbs home....
September 2009
7 posts
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Nivea's Law of Gravity
Apparently, the fountain of youth is in Florida, USA.
Which is kind of strange because years of watching Seinfeld in the 90s taught me that loads of old people live there.
Nonetheless, despite Jerry’s hilariously monotonous ‘whats the deal with old people’ routine, Juan Ponce de León did indeed anoint the Sunshine State as the home of eternal youth way back in the 1500s.
...
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Front and Centre
Despite any grand illusions of fully informed democracies and whatnot, choosing a political party is often as sophisticated as picking a football team. The choice usually comes down to one of three things – breeding, bandwagons and buddies.
Just like Collingwood supporters are bred black-and-white (or should that be spawned black-and-white?), many a first-time voter has ticked Liberal because of...
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The Festival Blueprint
I’m not sure who to blame, but extortion has infested the Australian summer. Call it a ‘music festival’ if you want, however a porta-loo by any other name would still smell as rotten. Sure, the concoction sounds alluring – bands, camping, large amounts of cask wine – however the reality is often much different. Ticket prices are usually astonishingly high, the sound quality is often poor and the...
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Joining The Twitterverse
I think it’s about time I let you in on a little secret – Malcolm Turnbull, the leader of the opposition, asks my advice before every parliamentary question time. It’s true. Who else but the Silvertail would take time out of his busy schedule to rack this reporter’s brain for ideas on how to grill Kevin Rudd and his government lackeys. Welcome, gentle social media user, to the micro-blogging...
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Memories For Sale
Nostalgia is a very powerful feeling. It forces people to do strange and sometimes crazy things.
Dads refuse to throw out their ‘awesome’ vinyl collections, despite owning neither a turntable nor a decent record. Mums hold on to all their old Women’s Weekly cookbooks, no matter how outdated the recipes are (fondue anyone?).
And then there’s the grandparents, who hoard their coveted...
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