Scholarly discussions often take place , always sober, fair and balanced , with Pete Steedman , of Melbourne , especially when discussing Gerard Henderson of the Sydney Institute and others of his persuasion.
The same cannot be said for a recent exchange on the ABC Insiders between Henderson and mild mannered journalist and author , David Marr, centre , who told Gerard , left , appearing about to deliver a judo /mutton chop, what he was saying was bullshit , the kind of language you do not expect to hear on the national broadcaster, no words at all going out over the airwaves if goosesteppers in the Coalition and rabid supporters have their way.
We have digressed from the main theme . Information came through that Steedman had received a visit from a Kiwi who had been an Auckland University activist back in the l960s, who had admired and copied Pete's fearless editing of Melbourne uni publications around the same period.
Showing this blogger still has some of his marbles, he recalled that when he worked on the Sunday News in Auckland, back in the 1960s , under the one legged editor , John Canning , there was a fiend called the Phantom Piddler , possibly a university student, who left his painted name and splash pattern on construction sites .
Could this Kiwi visitor have been the infamous, annoying Phantom Piddler who dodged about Auckland in his younger days , hunted like the Scarlet Pimpernel , never apprehended ? This implausible theory will almost certainly not hold water on investigation , but why ruin a good story with the facts?
Angry members of the constabulary indicated that if they got hold of the Phantom Piddler he would no longer be able to pass water and might sing like Hinemoa with a weta in her throat . His artwork came to a sudden halt and it was suggested by a frustrated bounty hunter that he had pissed off overseas .
