CHOIR OF HARD KNOCKERS

In an act of sheer desperation, Jimmy Barnes has been asked to help a dysfunctional group – the Federal Coalition- to sing along in unison. It is an extremely difficult task which if successful will earn Jimmy the Croix de Guerre, a sloppy kiss on both cheeks from General Charles de Gaulle , and the Royal Order of the Nepalese Albino Elephant. The coalition has been singing off key ever since their longstanding bandmeister , Little Johnny Howard, fell off the rostrum and jammed the conductor’s baton up his e-flat major, very painful.


His replacement, Brendan Nelson, favoured sea shanties, but his crew became seasick in the doldrums and Lord Nelson went down with scurvy . Up popped the promising troubadour , Malcolm Turnbull , a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music but, despite his credentials, he started to sound like a cracked recording of the Great Caruso . A prominent soprano fell off the back bench , tore her stockings , and called it a day . Another castrata, who nearly made it to the top of the charts, developed laryngitis and withdrew from public appearances and now passes his time writing exceedingly passionate Mills and Boons romances .


And to add to the deafening Coalition cacophony , hayseed National Party members have increasingly become noisier than a gumleaf band high on moonshine . A new Liberal Party choir boy from South Australia today described the squawks of the National Party as annoying as Jimmy Durante’s lost chord . Another prominent Iiberal who officiated at the North Australian Eisteddfod for many years , and thus knows talent when he hears it , said the Nats should buzz off and scare the Hillsong crowd during passage of the donations wheelie bin.

THIS TAKES THE TECHNICOLOURED CAKE

Aborigines have over the years been described as primitive, living remnants of the Stone Age and incapable of coping with modern civilization . Yet it seems they were nuclear scientists, probably carried out hydrogen bomb tests at Kakadu and composed the Chooky Dancers’ hit song , Mellow Yellow , long before Westerners climbed out of the bogs. How come ? According to the NT News obituary for former politician , Joe Fisher , he was a pioneer miner who “ found yellow cake in the South Alligator River Valley”.

This is an astounding revelation which has stunned anthropologists, scientists and archaeologists. Yellow cake is the product of uranium mining , so Territory Aborigines obviously split the atom aeons ago, taught Lord Rutherford all he knew about radioactivity and Darwin is sitting on an Aboriginal nuclear waste dump. Few people are aware that Aborigines set up a top secret anti-missile missile base at the dawn of time on Kwajalein Island in the South Pacific at which they developed the boomerang. Genial Joe actually found uranium ore deposits . May he be irradiated in peace.

PLAIN OLD EARTHA KITT

During the long struggle to obtain a community radio station in Townsville, a move strongly opposed by commercial interests and slowly handled by the Federal government, a test broadcast was made in l979 from what was then the Townsville Hotel, known as the “Sugar Shaker” because of its design. As the enthusiasts went about setting up their makeshift studio, an hotel guest, “ a plain looking woman”, sans make up and wearing a kimono, poked her head around the door and asked what they were doing. Told it was part of a campaign to get a community radio station, she wished them well. Who was that woman ? It was the fiery singer Eartha Kitt, described by Orson Welles as “ the most stunning woman in the world ”.

When she died in New York last month , aged 81, Greens Senator Bob Brown recalled she had visited Tasmania and supported the Franklin River protests of the l980s. A part Cherokee, she opposed the Vietnam War and in l992 called for Aborigines to form a political party to advance their cause in Federal parliament .

Unlikely to be branded the most stunning male in the universe, one of the supporters of the successful drive for the Townsville radio station, 4TTT-FM, was Chips Mackinolty , now one of the NT government’s politicati . Peg Havnen, involved in Aboriginal radio station ventures , was also connected with 4TTT-FM.

Deluded individuals who believe that under the much vaunted “ free enterprise ” capitalist system competition is welcome and big business does not act like the Mafia should study the following parable. When another test broadcast was planned for the l980 Anzac weekend it was warned that the public could not be told to listen in because 4TTT did not have a licence to broadcast to the public. As a result , an oddly worded classified advertisement appeared in the Townsville Bulletin general notices reminding members of the Townsville FM Broadcasting Society of the 3-day event commencing at 6pm on 100.7 MHZ (FM) . The successful event provided jazz, popular classics, big bands , folk and children’s music , and ethnic affairs covering three groups - Italian, Greek and Aboriginal/Islander.

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY-OR BUST

This wicked Little Darwin scribe nearly fell out of his recliner when the busty blonde actress Sabrina made an unexpected fleeting appearance in the superb ABC TV film ,The Eternity Man .Why? Because Sabrina figured in one of the biggest let downs in my life right here in Darwin some 50 odd years ago. A callow youth , still suffering from teenage acne, I was driven to the airport, a tape measure in my pocket , to have an encounter of the close kind with Sabrina . If you get my drift, she was really big news in those days . Darwin based Melbourne Herald journalist Doug Lockwood had been tipped off that she was going to fly into Darwin from England and in a discussion at the old NT News office enlisted my help for a stunt to run the tape measure over Sabrina’s vital statistics for a photograph .

The plane arrived , I fidgeted with the tape measure , and out stepped –Sabrina’s buxom mother! Lockwood had been given a bum steer. Still, mum was a good sport , had a kind of gor’blimey accent , giggled , and apologised for not being her dazzling daughter .

I sat up late to watch The Eternity Man , about reformed petty thief and alcoholic Arthur Stace who wrote Eternity in chalk on footpaths and walls all over Sydney in a bid to save sinners . As I had seen Stace going about his work when I was cadet reporter in Sydney , I was eager to see how he was treated in the unusual film of an opera originally performed in London . The film version was a tour de force capturing the seductive seediness, glitter and destructiveness of the metropolis in which Mr Eternity used graffiti for God.

Directed by Julien Temple , it was an astonishing exposition of Australian talent and because of its content , unfortunately, was run at an ungodly hour on a Sunday night meaning not many people would have seen it. In l956 the Sydney Morning Herald published a poem about Stace who had served in WW1.

Many nights he walked, and early mornings of the week,
Treading with silent steps the silent town
Where none but drunks and whores were still awake,
His great word burning where he wrote it down.
ETERNITY he wrote, clear pure and pale ,
And underlined it with the y’s long tail.
Sometime’s when midnight chimed in Martin Place
Behind the arches of the GPO
A shadow moved, but was it Arthur Stace?
Some flickering thing perhaps crept soft and low
On the dark pavement of the Opera House
But was it hands that moved there , or a mouse?
No one could say ;only one knew for certain
That there and here in unexpected places
Somewhere that night the great word had been written
And Arthur Stace once more had left his trace.
That was –Arthur Stace.

Yea and verily, it is said God moves in mysterious ways. An article about Stace in Australia’s Outback Patrol, a Christian community service to people of the outback, said that Stace was the kind of person who reminds us that when God measures a man’s greatness , he puts a tape around his heart and not his head. This is exactly what I was going to do to Sabrina at Darwin Airport.

LAURIE OAKES BOOK DELIGHTS

Thanks to Santa , Little Darwin has had the opportunity to peruse POWER PLAYS The Real Stories of Australian Politics, by Laurie Oakes , published by Hatchette Australia. Consisting of weekly columns Oakes wrote from l987 to 2007 for the now sadly defunct Bulletin, it brings to life the political scene and its many characters.

They are all there : Captain Wacky (Paul Keating) ; Billy Bigears (Billy McMahon ) ; the self destructive members of the Democrat Party, ( thankfully nobody cares nowadays if a politician wears Doc Martens ); Bronwyn Bishop (Who?), the lady who from early coffee shop days in Angel Place, Sydney, averred she wanted to be PM of Australia ; mother’s battered baby, Alexander Downer ; Andrew Peacock , described by gifted political pundit Mungo MacCallum as having gone prematurely black after a whisp of grey hair disappeared mysteriously. And there are others : Kennett , Cheroyl who went feral, Gareth who made a nasty suggestion about what should be done to Amanda , the Mad Monk (Tony Abbott ) and many others jossling on the national stage.

It brought back many memories for this writer. I was in the media pack which chased Prime Minister jolly John Gorton and his principal private secretary, Ainslie Gotto, she with the wiggle that brought some grumpy old Libs out in prickly heat , when they came to Sydney seeking support from the NSW Liberals against those plotting to turf out the PM . A larrikin and his own man, it was said that Gorton, his face smashed due to a wartime fighter plane crash, injected some flotsam and jetsam into the swimming pool at the Lodge.

( Gorton was not your typical Liberal: he had real guts, clearly stated what he felt and stood up for Australia. He stood up to the Yanks over the Vietnam War, saved the Barrier Reef from being drilled by oil companies and tried to make the Commonwealth take a stronger role in other national issues. Joining in a stunt, he once announced from the steps of parliament house that he could not stand around answering Press questions because he was off to watch Count Down with Molly Meldrum.)

With my flapping journo ears, I stood close to Gorton and Gotto as they conversed outside the lift in a Sydney hotel on that fateful day. The PM spotted me, turned his battered pumpkin face to me, made waving gestures with his hand , and said, “Would you kindly go away. We are having a private conversation.” Later , in Martin Place, people crowded around him as he got out of a car , and one well wisher cried out, “ Don’t let the bastards get you down , John .” The bastards did . At a vote on his leadership it was fifty fifty and Gorton , having the final casting vote, removed himself as PM. Can you imagine Howard doing this if his jelly babies had been brave enough to issue a challenge ? In came the disastrous Billy McMahon.

He and wife Sonia flew off to America and she appeared at the White House in that split up the leg dress. A cruel, but inspired scribe described the PM and his lady as The Naked and The Dead. While Sonia was in hospital doing her bit for the nation having a baby, I was sent to interview the proud father at his home. He stressed how busy he had been all year and showed me a nondescript piece of lacquer ware he had been given during an Asian trip . A bemused look on her face, his mother- in - law looked on .

One Saturday night I was instructed by a newspaper to attend a small Sydney function at which Dame Zara Holt, she of the vanished husband, surrounded by gilded members of the Australian Ballet, held court. The one and only Sir Robert Helpmann was there; he told the fabulous story of having been invited to spend a weekend at the ancestral home of an English aristocrat. As Sir Robert strode up the huge staircase, paintings of ancestors with receding chins glared down at him. His Lordship was eventually located in an ornate room – entertaining a Shetland pony to morning tea !

On the Territory side, this writer recalls two colourful events involving Bob Hawke . Tired and emotional during a visit to Darwin when he was the ACTU kingpin, Robert James Lee did not know how close he came to being abused, even castrated, when he described a young Alsatian pup , owned by the ALP female hostess cutting up cheese, etc. with a sharp knife, in the most derogatory terms. She expressed anger at his fruity abuse of the animal and said she had a good mind to go over and give Hawkey a real piece of her mind.

The other piddling bit of gossip relates to the time Hawke was in a small aircraft which flew from Darwin out to Gove, a journalist or two aboard, with an esky full of grog for life support. After several mile high coldies had been consumed by one and all the call of nature made itself known , there was only one solution : the esky, the sloshing water colder than a nun’s nasty. The end result was an unusual coalition cocktail - printers ink and solidarity soda.

In the book Lawrie Oakes recounts the time John Laws and his wife were met at the door by a naked Bob Hawke. One wonders if Laws was , surprisingly, lost for words at the apparition , because I can remember an irate Italian barber once telling me the man with the golden microphone could babble under wet concrete . There are concise words of wisdom in the book for current politicians, especially here in the NT. On another occasion, perhaps, other recollections of old Parliament House and its Non Members’ Bar , may be aired by Little Darwin.

KING CANUTE, FAIRY GODMOTHER S.O.S.

Under pressure from the Country Liberals, the NT Government has buckled and rushed in two highly skilled and respected miracle workers to save the Territory from real life events. King Canute, complete with several changes of underwear, floaties and tinea cream for his toes , has been flown to the Barkly Highway washaway to order the floodwaters to retreat so that the roadway can be repaired and urgently needed supplies of catfood can get through from Brisbane to Darwin and Mafeking. The CLP had been demanding that King Canute be called on the hotline, but the government refused to dial- a - prayer. Then the CLP angry ant brigade declared Kon Vatskalis should sprint down to the Barkly like the marathon runner of ancient Greece , Phidippides, and stick his finger in the dyke . He was in charge of the fish and chips shop at the time, so could notmake the heroic dash. Finally , Delia Lawrie was sent with her bucket and spade ,and it it became evident from TV footage that no earthling could have prevented the road from being washed way. Hence the S.O.S.

Interviewed by Little Darwin, King Canute said he will be available for fancy dress balls, bar mitzvahs and late night Mitchell Street Morris dancing. He would also love to take part in parties held by the East Point rock sitters where his rare powers in hydraulics control and cocktail mixing would prevent revellers from getting overly wet . The King said it was a shame he was not called in earlier because he could have prevented the highway from being washed away . Forcing back massive floodwaters in mud cake mixture soil was a simple task, he said.

His travelling companion-"We are just good friends ”- the Fairy Godmother, with her famous magic wand, is available as back up in the event that King Canute has an accident and falls into the water like a well known person in the Goon Show. Meanwhile, she is busily turning mice into rissoles so that Darwin residents have something to eat , and is also using Cinderella’s loincloth to polish Dawn Lawrie’s jewellery which has gone a bit dull due to the high humidity.

BUSH JOINS CAFE LATTE SOCIETY

After moving out of the White House, George W.(the letter standing for either Woeful, Wanker, Wodent-if you lisp -Wicked or Whelan the Wrecker ) Bush will open a chain of coffee houses in Texas. His venture - called No Bucks Cafe – will offer el cheapo coffee and grits for the rapidly expanding unemployed and bankrupt market . No Bucks coffee will be served in bottomless economy mugs.

In his new life , he will wake up each morning, look under the bed for weapons of mass destruction , and give his wife a sickly double strawberry milkshake. Then he will drive to a McDonalds for a cup of coffee and a word waffle , or is a waffle word ? All No Bucks staff will be wet backs from across the border, paid a pittance and kindly allowed to take home the dregs at the end of a 12 hour day.

Little Darwin understands the well known Starbucks Café, which is exhibiting withdrawal symptoms, is considering legal action against Mr Bush for plagiarism