Adult Entertainment Highlight of Sydney Newscast
As the first Australian internet meme of 2010, this really showed just how far we’ve come with these sorts of viral videos. This ill-fated Channel 7 cross to Macquarie Bank’s finance studio aired at 2:30pm, shortly after the Australian Reserve Bank had decided to keep interest rates on hold. Within a matter of an hour (if that) someone had caught frames of it, spread it via Twitter and the blogosphere and there was a poor quality video up on YouTube shortly after.
And showing how much more clued in TV news and mainstream media outlets are, both the 7PM Project and A Current Affair reveled in the schadenfreude of the clip on their shows that evening. By the next day radio and the papers had caught up. discussing whether or not this was acceptable behaviour, and in one case, highlighting that the photos (Miranda Kerr from her GQ shoot, I imagine they both love the publicity) were aimed squarely at bankers. And it also went international.
As “Dave the Banker” is keeping his job, this meme will be dead next week. As far as Australian memes go, given the previous top two were Corey Worthington and the Chk-Chk Boom girl, you’ve come a long way baby.
National Party Counting
Ahh Barnaby “Barnyard” Joyce. The accountant turned politician who pretends to be a farmer who pretends to be a Shadow Finance Minister. Oh wait, he actually is. One of the more lulz worthy appointments in the Tony Abbott shadow cabinet (and there were a few) was Joyce to the portfolio of Shadow Finance.
This clip of the shadow minister at the National Press Club this week shows either a failed attempt by Joyce to mislead people on basic spending numbers or an incompetant politician who left his abacus at home. You decide.
Happy Birthday, Minister
I have to admit, when Yes, Minister was on the ABC when I was a kid and my parents would watch it, I would beg them to switch to The Simpsons because I didn’t get it. Now, after 30 years, it is clearly one of a growing number of British sitcoms that remain funny no matter how many times you watch it (Blackadder and Fawlty Towers being the top two).
Why Aren’t Conservatives Funny?
Apart from PJ O’Rourke, I struggle to think of any well-known conservative who is funny, so this piece is totally on the money. You only have to look at the sparring match between Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart this week to see a perfect example of this. Stewart is intelligent, self-deprecating and goddamn hilarious. On the other hand, O’Reilly tries really hard to be funny and comes off as condescending, bullying and really kinda lame.
I’ve been trying to think of comedians who are conservative or conservatives who are funny in Australia and I really can’t think of a single example. Gerard Henderson, Miranda Devine, Andrew Bolt, they’re all just so angry and take themselves too seriously.
On the other hand, on the extremely unfunny left we have Catherine Deveny. Who by all accounts I should like and find but I find her columns like fingernails down a chalkboard as she discusses which bogans she doesn’t like this week.
Sex in the time of GPS
Grindr is one of the more interesting uses of the iPhone and its GPS capabilities. Trust the gays to think of it. I’ve yet to see much of Grindr covered in the press in Australia but I’m thinking it’s only a matter of time before some sort of moral panic comes out about the GPS semi-stalking capabilities, or just the fact that “OMG gays close to us might be having sex!”.
Westboro Baptist Church Protests Outside Twitter
Not much to add to this, I just love the counter-protest signs.
