The Outsider: Probing Adelaide’s obsessions
In today’s column, State Labor signs up the Kevin 07 marketing guru to run next year’s campaign, dogs that look like Chewbacca, the perfect moniker for the Crows’ reserves team, and the Ombudsman tells Adelaide’s most divided council to stop bothering him with trivia.
Spleen 14
State Labor has signed up the marketing guru behind the Kevin 07 campaign to run Jay Weatherill’s election bid in 2014.
Neil Lawrence, familiar to audiences of Gruen Transfer and Q&A, was spotted on Tuesday having a coffee with ALP state secretary Reggie Martin in Victoria Square’s Blefari Cafe.
The Outsider understands it was more than coffee – Lawrence has inked an agreement to carry Labor’s hopes through the campaign.
He has significant – and somewhat ecumenical – credentials. After helping Rudd to his historic victory in 2007, Lawrence happily took a brief from the mining industry to all but destroy one of Rudd’s grand plans – the mining tax.
Lawrence was the creative brains behind the “Keep mining strong” ads for the Australian Minerals Council, and the more touchy-feely follow-up, “This is our story“.
In between, he ran marketing for Anna Bligh’s successful campaign at the 2009 Queensland state election.
You might like
Labor is chuffed to have him on board, but Lawrence will need to produce one hell of a campaign.
Don’t make me come in there
Even the Ombudsman has had enough of the whinge-fest which is the Charles Sturt Council.
The squabbling crew at Adelaide’s most divided council were told by the Ombudsman to try to sort out their own problems after he fielded a complaint from a resident, via the Mayor, that – and we kid you not – a councillor who had excused himself from a debate because of a conflict of interest didn’t move far enough away from the chamber.
Ombudsman Richard Bingham upheld the complaint because councillor Edgar Agius was in an adjoining room which, according to the rules, is still “in the vicinity of the chamber”, and therefore a no, no.
Not surprisingly, Bingham didn’t recommend any action against Agius.
However, according to the Portside Messenger, he did have this to say: “we have always said sending a complaint to my office should be the last resort and we encourage councillors to work out issues between themselves if possible”.
In other words – grow up and stop wasting my time.
Surfing dog shocks topless model and wakes Royal Baby
It’s called “click bait” in the trade – prurient fluff that’s designed only to attract “clicks” to a news website.
Stay informed, daily
Exhibit A: News Limited’s flagship website, news.com.au, yesterday, which included the following prominent stories: “The diaries of sex slaves”, “The most terrifying selfie of all time”, “Dog eats paralysed man’s testicle” and “Why is Bradley Cooper rocking a perm?”, to name just a few of their “news” items.
Exhibit B: The Advertiser’s shock story this week: “‘Bear Grylls’ missing in Adelaide Hills”.
When last we looked the story was still heading the popularity list on the Tiser’s website.
Exciting, no? No. The real story is that a poster of the TV adventurer was stolen from a Hills church.
A poster.
Ah well, back to Googling pictures of dogs that look like Chewbacca.
What a bunch of Merchant Bankers
If the Adelaide Crows get their way and field a reserves team in the SANFL next year, they will need a new name and mascot, according to the rules set down by the South Australian football custodians this week.
The Outsider thought we’d peer deep into the the history of the SANFL for inspiration for a new nickname for this proposed “team”.
[But first, we went to the excellent website of American custom T-shirt outfit, CustomInk, who provide a list of the best, most amusing names of sporting teams that come to them for uniforms – such as the classy Tittsburgh Feelers, No Glove – No Love and Blue Balls.]
In the first full year of the SA Football Association (the SANFL’s predecessor) in 1877, the team roster included the likes of South Park (“oh my god, they killed the SANFL!”), Willunga, Prince Alfred College, Gawler, Kapunda and the bizarrely-named “Victorian” (which might be appropriate, given the cultural imperialism of the Big V).
There was another team, though, that fits the bill perfectly.
This club was formed in 1877, lost all 15 games, and disbanded to never appear again. The club was considered such an embarrassment that an Advertiser correspondent that year expressed the fervent wish that the outfit not continue.
Now, in 2013, we have the chance to resurrect the inglorious legacy of this forgotten, but historically significant, club.
The name fits in all sorts of ways – it encapsulates the reason why the SANFL is being bastardized to suit the AFL, and it also sums up the way most hardcore SANFL fans will feel about the team.
Ladies and gentlemen, fans of rhyming slang, we give you – the Adelaide Bankers.
