In today’s election-free* column, The Outsider explores death by real estate, the fun police and lawyers’ letters.
Death by real estate
“Tempted?”, asked the Real Estate Institute’s advertisement in The Advertiser on Monday.
“But still have a few questions?”, the ad went on to ask.
An arrow on the ad pointed left – with the copywriters hoping against hope that the ad would be placed next to a real estate listing.
Unfortunately, the institute’s message took on a rather more sinister meaning.
It pointed to the Funeral Notices.
But it could have been much worse, considering The Advertiser’s other most lucrative classified category is “adult relaxation services”.
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Tell the fun police to stay home
There was much jubilation after Adelaide High School won its annual sports exchange against its Melbourne rivals this week.
Minister Tom Koutsantonis sparked our interest – Tweeting a congratulations to the locals – and a quick Googling later, and we were sold on the event’s merits.
The “Melbourne Exchange”, as it’s called, is contested over 11 different sports, with the boys this year playing elite Victorian public school Melbourne High in Adelaide and the girls travelling across the border to compete at Mac.Robertson Girls School.
Melbourne’s bullyboys have traditionally bossed West Terrace’s finest around. Not so this year, with a 1-0 win to the boy’s soccer team on Wednesday in the last game of the 11-match series snaring the series 6-5 for Adelaide High.
Images of said jubilation have been doing the rounds.
True to soccer’s traditions, flares were set off on the Adelaide High pitch – but no-one has batted an eyelid.
Good on ’em we say – the video of the students celebrating the win (the celebration starts at 4 minutes) is an infectious portrait of youthful exuberance.
Bravo (but don’t try this at home kids).
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Letterboxing
Observant listeners of ABC 891 breakfasts would have noticed that Matt Abraham has taken to reading a rather bland statement about the Debelle Royal Commission over the past week.
He’s done it twice while The Outsider has been listening, and this morning revealed the reason – some correspondence from Premier Jay Weatherill’s lawyers.
Weatherill took umbrage at 891’s “Spin Cycle” segment two weeks ago.
The Spin Cycle, for non-listeners, is a regular Friday segment in which Abraham and broadcast partner David Bevan dissect the week in politics with the help of local political journalists.
The segment in question included The Australian’s combative local bureau chief Michael Owen, and it was an interchange between him and Abraham that apparently sparked the Premier’s ire.
We won’t repeat what was said (for obvious reasons), but discerning readers will be able to the draw the dots from Abraham’s set-piece comment:
“On August 2nd we discussed in this segment the report by Commissioner Debelle and an email from Mark Butler’s office which had been released to the media by the Opposition. We’d like to remind our audience that in his report former Justice Debelle found that Premier Weatherill as Education Minister at the time was completely unaware of a claim that an employee in a school had been arrested on charges of a sexual offence against a child. Mr Debelle also accepted the evidence which Premier Weatherill gave to the Commissioner about this matter. Obviously this remains an interest of great public interest, we’ll continue to cover it rigorously as a program.”
What wasn’t revealed this morning was that Michael Owen has also received a lawyer’s letter. Undeterred, he’s been writing stories about the Debelle report every day this week.
*Except for this bit
The Outsider has been doggedly writing a daily diary about the federal election campaign since the Prime Minister called it on.
But, dear readers, the moribund, fatuous, pudding-headed and trogladytic nature of the circus has simply defeated us.
We might return to it in the final week of the campaign but, until then, we’ll stick to our usual Friday spot and our usual obsessions.
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