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Over dinner we get the famous ‘taxi-driver-with-the-broken-elbow’ yarn, complete with a visual re-enactment of the bone-snapping tackle and plateloads of humour and self-deprecation. He must’ve told it a thousand times before, but he makes the story sound as fresh as the tuna sashimi we tuck into. The meal is in a Japanese restaurant, around a low table, with dishes intended to share. Mark takes the beef hot-pot and picks up a knife and fork. ‘What are you lot having?’ he asks, tucking in. It suddenly occurs to me that the ‘handshake episode’ that possibly cost him the election was completely misunderstood.
Latham wasn’t trying to intimidate Howard. He was probably quite pleased to bump into him and was just being himself — a brusque, forthright, no-frills Aussie bloke. Also present are Tom Switzer, Michael Kroger, Janet Albrechtsen and former NSW minister Michael Yabsley. Two safe topics of conversation present themselves. One is Michael Yabsley’s passion for the byzantine inner workings of antique lamps. The other is the byzantine inner workings of the ABC. Sorry Michael, we’ll have to do the lamps next time.
•••
Five days later I am standing in the foyer of the ABC, no longer contemplating her inner workings, but rather heading off to lunch in Chinatown with an old advertising friend, Paul Comrie-Thomson, who now, along with Michael Duffy, presents Radio National’s Counterpoint program. Paul and I first met filming a TV commercial featuring a dog called Spot Dixon, whose owner had a unique way of getting the gunk out of the corner of the dog’s eye for its close-ups. She’d lick it out. Paul and I had discussed the carbon tax ads on a previous show, where I’d suggested they were nothing more than (taxpayer-funded) highly polished corporate ads for some mob called Infigen. Today we learn that Infigen had debts of $1.25 billion at the end of the 2011 financial year. No mention of that among the beautiful imagery and heartfelt eulogies to windmills and solar power.
•••
Having never actually listened to Counterpoint before my first appearance, I made a point of tuning in the previous week. Paul was interviewing Peter Toohey, an academic, about his book Boredom: A Lively History. I listened for the full 20 minutes, convinced I had stumbled upon the greatest comic duo since Derek and Clive, as they managed to turn a lengthy discussion about ‘how boredom can be good for you’ into something that was achingly, compellingly, and utterly, er, uninteresting. Sheer genius.
•••
Paul and I have been exploring the theme of the Truth Well Told, which is the old McCann’s advertising slogan. Qantas, in its latest campaign, seems to have turned the idea on its head by delivering Half-truths Poorly Told. We reminisce about the days when a Qantas trip symbolised a rite of passage for an entire generation, as we all headed off to ‘do Europe’. Hilariously, you could even smoke on planes in those days, and the in-flight entertainment involved seeing how many tinnies you could skull before you landed in London. That was the real spirit of Qantas. I can’t wait to see what the ‘new’ one will be.
•••
Listening to the radio on the way home, it’s clear there’s a new spirit in Canberra. This one’s called ‘defeat’, and it must be hanging in the spring air as visibly as the pollen from the Floriade. ‘This is a dagger through the heart of the Gillard government,’ opines Graham Richardson, as the news comes through that the High Court has pronounced the Malaysian solution unlawful. Some months ago I wrote a spoof article in this magazine about how people-smugglers would be encouraged, rather than deterred, by this ham-fisted policy. But even drawing on whatever meagre satirical skills I may possess, I couldn’t have imagined how farcical this whole shemozzle would become. Come back Mark, all is forgiven.
Rowan Dean is a regular contributor to The Spectator Australia and panellist on The Gruen Transfer.
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