So What Do You Reckon? Read online

  I don’t know what I’ll write about. Maybe the good readers of People will write to me saying they like my column and suggest something.

  Others might write to say my column smells like grandpa’s socks and suggest I stick my typewriter where the sun don’t shine. I’m not above criticism.

  But I do know I’m looking forward to it. Rest assured I’ll be giving it my best shot every week.

  One thing’s for certain: No matter what I write about, it can’t possibly be any worse than my books.

  I see Trish Goddard is about to have a baby: I think this is a good thing.

  I’m all for motherhood and the family unit, and the more bonny Aussie babies I see bouncing around the more I like it.

  Of course, the fact that Ms Goddard isn’t married makes no difference; where once when your boyfriend got you up the stick, these children born out of wedlock were referred to as ‘illegitimate’ or ‘bastards’. In these more enlightened times these little ones are called ‘love children’.

  No matter what it is, boy or girl, I hope both mother and child are fit and healthy and do well.

  Anyway, I’m sitting on the brasco the other day, pondering and looking for something to read when I pick up an old copy of the Good Weekend. In it is an interview with Trish Goddard, and doesn’t the hostess of the 7.30 Report give Australia a nice slagging?

  Apart from roasting just about everything about the place, she says: ‘Australia is the most racist country in the world’. I found this particular statement curious, to say the least.

  I looked out the brasco window and I’m buggered if I could see the Ku Klux Klan dynamiting churches and burning crosses in people’s front yards.

  I couldn’t see any groups of people marching up the street wearing swastika armbands and chanting Nazi slogans and wanting to burn down synagogues or murder Jews.

  And I can tell you I don’t know of one beach or swimming pool where any people are barred because of the colour of their skin.

  But according to Trish, Australia is the most racist country in the world.

  Well, if so, why would she want to raise a child here?

  I’m a racist myself. I know I am because I’m proud of my country. I’m a white Australian, and I have an Anglo-Saxon name, therefore — according to people like Al Grassby, some bleeding hearts in the media and the people at the *#?@ racial discrimination board who have to foster trouble and dissension to keep their jobs going — I automatically must be a racist. So rather than argue with these people, I’ll take their word for it … even though I do try to help the full-blooded Aboriginal people in my third book.

  ‘Boo, hoo, hoo!’ sniffs Trish. ‘I was in a bus and the children stared at me and one pulled my hair.’

  Well, if you want to get around with your hair looking like someone’s Araldited 200 char-grilled Gippsland worms on your head, what do you expect? Big bloody deal.

  She then goes on to say: ‘Australians better get used to not seeing blonde hair and blue eyes in the future’ and ‘I’m not just another pretty black face’.

  I wonder when Ms Goddard first discovered she was so beautiful? She’s got piggy eyes, a mouth like a Murray cod, and if anyone has ever the misfortune to see her standing up, she’s got a backside big enough to sell advertising on. I’d like to know what brand of mirror she uses — I’ll put one in every room in my house.

  I might be a racist, but I’m definitely not a narcissist. But apart from Ms Goddard’s blatant narcissism, let’s have a look at her form as a hostess on a prime-time TV news show.

  I think the kindest thing one could say about Trish as a newsreader is she has a nice smile: that’s it.

  Apart from Porky Pig, I’ve never heard anyone come up with so many malapropisms in my life: Wollongong becomes Wyalong; some bloke called Dr Herman became Dr Hormone till he eventually became Dr Herman Hormone; a book called About Face came out as About Faced.

  I was also under the impression TV news presenters were supposed to do interviews, like Jana Wendt. I haven’t seen Trish Goddard interview so much as the local dog-catcher.

  Ironically, the only person she ever did interview was the alleged arch-villain of racism, Ron Casey.

  I have to admit I never saw the interview, but they tell me it was as intellectually stimulating and philosophically meaningful as Ma Kettle interviewing Yogi Bear.

  One could be cynical here, like a lot of others, and say that the only reason Trish Goddard got the job was so the ABC could appease all the whingeing feminists that work there, and show the world that it’s neither sexist nor racist. In that case, why not use Justine Saunders or Lydia Miller, two proud and very attractive Aboriginal women?

  I’m certain they could have performed the job just as well, and even pulled off the odd interview now and again … and without having to spend enough money every week doing up their hair to feed about 20 black kids starving in the Sudan.

  But I’m not really a cynic. I’m merely a failed optimist.

  We get more than a fair slathering of anti-racism and anti-apartheid now Ms Goddard has taken over the 7.30 Report.

  Well, maybe Ms Goddard could clear up a few points for me: Why is it a coloured person can wear a T-shirt with ‘Black is Beautiful’ printed on the front, yet if I wear one with ‘White is Wonderful’ on it I can be arrested for being a racist?

  Some black lawyer in England put up a terrific stink about the term ‘blackmail’.

  It was the most offensive and racist term he’d ever come across, he screamed.

  Yet the ANC, the African National Congress, has a blacklist — their term — of all the sportsmen and women that have competed in South Africa.

  They’re not a bad bunch of chaps in the ANC either.

  Apart from letting off bombs in shopping centres, they have a real lot of love for their black brothers and sisters. Anyone they don’t like they kill by tying their hands behind their backs and placing a tyre full of burning petrol around their necks.

  It’s called ‘necklacing’.

  So much for your black brothers and sisters, and our government gives them money.

  Then a month or two ago there were all those Chinese students at Beijing University.

  They beat up all the black students studying at the university, stole all their belongings then chased them to the airport and out of the country shouting ‘kill the black devils’.

  These are the same students we’re giving political asylum to.

  Maybe Ms Goddard might like to enrol in Beijing University and further her studies.

  Then she might think twice before slagging a country that pays a whingeing Pommy ingrate $100,000 a year for doing virtually bugger all.

  Then again, looking out my brasco window at the country I happen to be very fond of, I could be a bit biased and blinkered in my views, and perhaps Trish Goddard is right.

  This is the most racist country in the world — all the men are racist, and the women are all hedonistic frumps, and maybe Australia is just a bastard of a place all round.

  But if so, why would you want to raise another one here?

  Compared with life in the city, living in the country can at times have its disadvantages.

  There’s the heat, the flies, the tyranny of distance, I suppose, and employment can be a bit hard to find.

  Then, on the other hand, the air’s cleaner, you can go out and leave your door unlocked, a friend in the country is a friend indeed and, for some unknown reason, beer in a country pub always tastes 10 times better than beer in a city hotel.

  One definite thing about living in the country as opposed to living in Sydney is that the people in the bush don’t have to put up with that annual, boring parade of sordid exhibitionism, the Gay Mardi Gras.

  To tell you the truth, I’m even wondering why I’m bothering to write about this asinine assemblage of arseholes. But a couple of things in the news lately have brought it to mind.

  Some mob of horses’ hoofs in San Francisco calling thems
elves GRINCH (Gay Retaliation for Inexcusable Negligence and Criminal Homophobia) is planning to stink-bomb department stores, stuff up airline flights, block traffic etc. around Christmas.

  They want to bring more attention to the AIDS epidemic.

  Look, blind Freddy knows the surest way to get AIDS is to be a junkie or a doughnut-puncher. Why these dag rattlers have to blame heterosexuals, and anybody else that can’t condone their lifestyle or feel over-sorry for the predicament they’ve got themselves in and are spreading throughout the community, is beyond me.

  Don’t cop it up the date and you won’t get AIDS — it’s as simple as that. But leave the rest of us alone for Christ’s sake and stop blaming everybody else.

  The other thing that caught me eye was our old mate, fearless Fred Nile. Fred assembled his flock of holy rollers and bible-bashers from the Call To Australia party and, armed with the good book and singing hymns, off they marched along Oxford Street, taking the route of the Gay Mardi Gras and the battle right into the enemy’s camp.

  I thought this was hilarious, and on this occasion I have to give Fred and the Christians 10 points for ticker.

  Not that I’m a fan of Fred Nile. Fred’s dirty on the world, especially sex of any description.

  I pondered on this until I tried to imagine Fred’s missus, Elaine, in a gymslip or fellow Call To Australia pollie Marie Bignold in a suspender belt and fish-net stockings. God, if Fred has his way, women would need a prescription to buy a bra and men would still have to wear their Reg Grundys when taking a shower or having a crap.

  And it wasn’t all that long ago that zealots like Fred were burning people at the stake for talking in their sleep or laughing on Sunday, believing them to be possessed by the devil.

  Anyway, off they marched, Fred and his gang, and didn’t the poofs and the dykes get the hump? They jostled and abused the marchers, threw condoms full of urine, rubbish and other things at them, screamed obscenities and threatened Fred and his faithful followers with all manner of dreadful things.

  Ironically, if the gays had been marching and you or I had taken the same action, we’d have been arrested for discrimination against homosexuals. But that’s just part of the double standards we poor, silly straights are forced to live under in this State.

  Anyway, despite the harassment, Fred and his gang made it to Taylor Square where they got up on a stage for a bit of eye rolling, breast beating, teeth gnashing and hymn singing.

  Some skinny little poof jumped up, grabbed the microphone and trilled: ‘Gay love is best, gay love is best’.

  Well, I don’t really know about this. Never having sodomised any of the blokes I have a drink with, I can’t make a comparison either.

  I’m just a straight, a square. I’ve spoken to a few girls who said they tried lesbianism, and all it did was leave a nasty taste in their mouths. But the young gentleman in question seemed quite sincere, so I shall give him the benefit of the doubt.

  But fair dinkum, if you’ve seen one Gay Mardi Gras, you’ve seen the lot.

  It’s a drag and a pain in the arse — and I don’t mean that as a pun.

  It’s the same thing every year.

  Squads of simpering, sniggering men pushing floats, either dressed up as fairies or done up in sequin G-strings flashing their hairy bums to the multitude.

  And believe me, if you’ve seen one bloke’s hairy khyber, you’ve seen them all. They’re not very appetising. I was forced to look at mine in the mirror once when I had to pull a tick out of it, and I wasn’t turned on by the sight of my hairy blurter.

  Other blokes’ turn me on even less, especially ones that have been punched around the ring more times than Mike Tyson’s sparring partners.

  The poofs’ other thrill seems to be getting dressed up as nuns and slagging the church. I suppose slagging religion could be construed as funny, but when I think of nuns, I think of one who is dying in India — Mother Theresa. She spent her life helping the underprivileged and the lepers.

  Personally, I wouldn’t swap one Mother Theresa for a thousand of those dills from the strip who kiss each other and flash their dates to the crowd.

  But if you’ve ever met any of the mob from Oxford Street, they’re oh-so-hip. They’ve been there, done that, and everybody else is prosaic and mundane.

  Well I reckon their Mardi Gras is passé and boring. So why not liven it up?

  Instead of slagging the church and nuns all the time, why not have a go at the Muslims? They hate poofters. Abou el Moundhir in Algeria cuts their throats on sight. Death to the poofters. Organise a few floats rubbishing Islam. Leave the nun’s habits and priest’s collars at home. Get done up as mullahs or wear kaftans with the backs cut away and have their hairy quoits sticking out of those. But make sure you let all the blokes with the bushy, black moustaches who visit the mosque at Lakemba in on the joke too. Then we would all see a gay old time at the Mardi Gras.

  There would be lumps of lesbians and pieces of poofs scattered from one end of Oxford Street to the other. At least the taxpayers would be getting some value for the half million dollars or so the government give the gay community for putting it on.

  Oh, and if any queens read this and claim I’m poofter bashing, check out one of the blokes I dedicated my latest book to. He made a great contribution to Australia and didn’t waste his life flashing his bum around Oxford Street.

  There’s this thing in Australia they keep talking about called the tall poppy syndrome.

  You become very successful in your field or make a lot of money and supposedly jealous people, who have either got or done nothing themselves, knock your efforts and can’t wait to see you go bad.

  Even a lowlife like me gets it occasionally to some degree, mainly from dopey sheilas who are frustrated writers.

  They’re convinced I’m a millionaire and it burns their arses to think that a wombat like me can be a successful writer while they, through absolutely no fault of their own and any lack of talent, can’t quite seem to get it together.

  So they come out with the sarcastic remarks and snide innuendoes.

  If they had half a brain in their heads and approached me with a little civility instead of trying to show me how clever they are, I’d only be too happy to help them as best I could.

  Instead, I feel like pissing on them from a great height. But this tall poppy syndrome still intrigues me.

  It’s almost as if we’re supposed to worship people with money or position. Not that for an instant I’m against making a buck.

  If by some strange quirk of fate my books started to take off overseas I’d be straight down to buy a new car tomorrow; I don’t think I’ve ever driven one let alone owned one.

  I’d probably buy a bit of property up the North Coast, then a boat and then do some travelling.

  I’m in no way against making money. But I detest the vulgarity of wealth. I call it ‘the short daisy syndrome’.

  The tall poppy syndrome in reverse. How many people do you know with money that are totally convinced their crap doesn’t stink and everybody’s a mug bar them?

  One minute they’ve got the arse out of their pants getting around in old bangers. The next time you see them they’re driving red Mercs, wearing Gucci leather and with enough gold chains round them to sink a Manly ferry.

  Eastern suburbs real estate salesmen, advertising yuppies and some drug dealers I have met slip easily into this category. But two particular high-flying tall poppies have been in the news lately: Alan Bond and Christopher Skase. So I thought I might take a look at them and the vulgarity of their wealth.

  Take Alan Bond. A little, fat demigod in a pinstripe suit surrounded by ‘yes’ men. Not all of them yes men. If Alan said ‘no’ they’d say no too.

  He’s supposed to be a hot-shot wheeler-dealer yet he’s in all sorts of strife. So he won the America’s Cup a few years back — blowing millions on a giant ego trip. Big bloody deal.

  The Seppos got it straight back and where is it now? The Kiwis have
got it in a milk shed somewhere in the North Island. And the Yanks are about to get it straight back off them.

  Frank Hardy summed up the America’s Cup in a few succinct words: ‘The new rich, fighting the old rich, and boring the tits off the poor.’

  Bond paid $50 million for Van Gogh’s Irises — another ego trip to hang on his wall. Then we find out it’s half in hock to Sotheby’s in London, and now they want it back. What a load of crap!

  Then there’s the coiffed and groomed Christopher Skase and the lovely Trixie or Dixie or whatever her name is.

  Like Bond he’s borrowed to the hilt overseas, upsetting our balance of payments even more. Now to get himself out of hock he’s going to flog off his resorts to the kindly Japanese.

  Then you find out the Queensland National Party has $50 million invested in Skase’s Qintex. Pooh. Even the mention of this bunch makes you immediately reach for the can of Glen–20.

  The way they make their money bugs me even more. You never hear of Bond or Skase starting up a factory to recycle waste paper and help save our dwindling forests.

  They wouldn’t put money into researching a new, environmentally safe motor or finance some scientists to find a way of eradicating industrial pollution. No, destroy a rainforest and put in a pulp mill or a petro-chemical complex. Bulldoze a wetland or a mangrove forest and build another resort, complete with giant swimming pools and artificial waterfalls. A plastic imitation of Babylon for the overseas rich.

  But the vulgarity of their wealth is what really gives me the hump. Alan Bond spent a million dollars on his kid’s wedding: flying in guests, hangers-on, lobster and champagne to Perth from all over Australia.

  Skase bulldozed three huge, old houses in Brisbane to build just one for the lovely Trixie or Dixie or whatever her name is and himself.

  Bond has got a 50-metre cruiser. Skase has a 33-metre one.

  Skase is the darling of the Brisbane social set, according to one gushing social cockroach who writes for one of the Brisbane papers.