From con job to cock-up – does the federal government realize what it has done? And does it care? It should – trashing Brand Australia internationally is not the role of this or any other government. What the hell were they thinking? And read ‘em and weep – the Townsville Bulletin’s latest readership figures take a spectacular dive.

And on the subject of the Daily Astonisher, what can Townsville learn from Geelong? Plenty, it would seem, although News Ltd hopes not.

Remember comic book hero The Phantom – the Ghost Who Walks - who disguised himself in overcoat, hat and dark glasses to move about the place as plain ol’ Mr Walker? Seems our own councilor Les Messagebank Walker has a new moniker amongst TCC colleagues … The Ghost Who Talks. Messagebank seems determined to talk about anything and everything lately - and pose for pix even if it means missing vital council committee meetings to do so. The Magpie ponders what’s behind the incessant gabfest.

And are we not all in awe of the speed of the world wide web – the jokes across a variety of newsworthy happenings are coming thick and fast – and instantly - and they’re not always tasteful, so they'll fit in very nicely here in this week’s overflowing nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

First, the political rumour du jour – is Peter Costello planning a comeback to federal parliament.  Here’s what Crikey’s Tips and Rumours column says.

How to grab a Swan by the neck?

Back to the future for Costello? We have our doubts about this one, but we have heard a whisper that Peter Costello just might be considering a return to federal Parliament this year. Our source reckons there was a "very private meeting" in Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu's office in early January at which ways of bringing back Costello were canvassed.

Party powerbroker (and non-Costello fan) Michael Kroger declared last year that Costello had approached him asking to find an MP to give up their seat so the former treasurer could run. Perhaps Costello is still keen on a seat? But if so, which one?

Jolly Joe Hockey may lose more than a heap of weight if the rumour turns out to be true.

Time now for a laugh or two before we get to the bits that will induce tears of rage and frustration.

Fast humorous reaction to often unsettling news stories has been around forever. The ‘Pie remembers it was just 20 minutes after the news of the NASA disaster which killed seven astronauts that he heard the first black quip viz

What does NASA stand for?

Need Another Seven Astronauts.

But that was more than three decades ago, long before instant emails, tweets and the like.

Nowadays, the challenge is to decide if targeted readers are distant enough from the happening for the dark humorists to fire off their jabs. So The ‘Pie hopes he’s judged that correctly when he cites the email he received from a pommy chum early this morning.

Roses are red,

Violets are glorious,

Don’t sneak up

On Oscar Pistorius.

And this effort from Magpie mate Conan the Grammarian just a few hours after Pope Benedict pulled his mitre out of the ring.

That was soon followed by this. 

What made he ‘Pie fall into deep contemplation was the fact that Benedict is retiring to a nunnery within the Vatican walls. The ‘Pie envisages many a jolly evening playing spin the bottle, and no end of games of Twisters with the sisters. Just as well he’s got a pacemaker. 

And a pun-rich vein was mined with the revelation that horsemeat had been found in Tesco supermarket burgers in Britain (allowing all sorts of variations on the ones that went around in 1983 when the champion race horse Shergar was kidnapped, never to be found – it was suggested McDonalds were selling a Shergar Burger).

Again, it was Conan who sent in a selection, the best (?) of which are:

Anyone want a burger from Tesco – yay or neigh?

Waitress in Tesco asked if I wanted anything on my burger, so I had five quid each way.

Had a Tesco burger last night – I’ve still got a bit between my teeth.

Smaller versions of Tesco burgers make great horse d’oeuvres …

…. and the literary minded ‘Pie’s  favourite

‘To beef or not to beef, that is equestrian.’

Boom tish indeed, but that dead horse has been flogged enough.

Then there is a different sort of humour in the august halls of justice.

Two and a half years on, The Magpie still misses his mates and daily reporting chore down around the Walker Streets courts. Among the things he misses most are those not infrequent moments of wit and humour which served to relieve the tension but more often the tedium of some proceedings.

District Court Judge Clive Wall, now on the Gold Coast, often displays an impish humour in court , and loves nothing better than a good bit of banter from the bar table. He recently sent The ‘Pie this exchange in a Victorian tribunal which tickled his fancy.

The matter was before Member Buchanan in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last August, when this rally took place.

Member Buchanan: ‘What do you say to that, Mr Armstrong?’

Mr Montgomery: ‘My name is Montgomery, not Armstrong, sir.’

Member Buchanan: ‘Sorry, Mr Montgomery, I must have been thinking about the astronaut Armstrong (Neil) who has just died.’

Mr Montgomery: That’s OK sir, as long as your order doesn’t also strip me of seven Tour de France titles.’

Oh, the drollery of those on $5000 a day.

OK, if you were laughing, you can stop laughing now.

Of all the things this stumble-bum federal government has done, this election campaign stunt about sporting drugs and match fixing is perhaps the most cynically reprehensible. They have intentionally and internationally trashed Brand Australia – and have done so without providing any proof. And two weeks on, there’s been bugger all of substance to justify for this blanket smear. 

This farcical attempt for electoral cred  has also deliberately embroiled people not even remotely concerned with drugs or match fixing, despite the Townsville Bulletin front page screamer 'Cowboys Embroiled ...', which forced the paper to the spent the rest of the week pointing out how wrong they were.

The overseas reaction to that politically driven three ring circus in Canberra and the following non-fallout of solid, indictable information was at first one of disbelief and then resignation; if what has long been considered a world-leading clean-skin Australian sports model was awash in drugs and match-fixing, there was now nowhere to turn for a way forward.

There may well be some major revelations and charges to come, but before publicly naming someone as a murderer, convention seems to have it that you wait until AFTER someone has been bumped off and you've caught the perp before you denounce the crime and the criminal

Three ring circus? Yes, the best of Barnum and Bailey, but with a few vital elements missing. The jugglers were juggling with imaginary balls, the knife-thrower was hurling invisible daggers at his rotating lady target, and the lion tamer was cracking his whip and prodding at invisible lions.

in one of his most eloquent efforts, a disgusted Bentley says it all with a brilliant mini-gallery of pictures.

No matter what comes out of this down the track, this low level political campaign stunt is starting to be seen for being just that. Mud sticks, faith is shaken, and all sporting outcomes will now be met with cynicism by the losing supporters and niggling doubts even by those cheering the victors.

Yes, mud sticks, and if there is any justice in this world, some of this mud will stick around until September, where the perpetrators of this disgraceful exercise in gutter politics will get a bit of their well-deserved own back.

Now to the local scene.

The latest readership figures for the Townsville Bulletin make grim reading, as the community turns further away from our only daily paper.

The Roy Morgan readership figures released two days ago show that the slide is really on in Ogden Street, especially with the flagship Saturday edition in alarming strife, recording a massive 20% readership drop in the year to last December. In that period, the Saturday Bulletin shed 21,000 readers , plummeting from 102,000 to  81,000. Week day average readership was down a troubling 8%, from 70,000 to 65,000.

But readership is based on informed guesses about how many people reach each paper, so even more damaging are the latest audited figures, those that show actual sales - these are the numbers on which advertising rates are based. papers face big penalties if they fibs about this stuff The Bulletin's monday to friday average has fallen in a heap, down from around 26,000 to just over 23,000, (around 12% down) while Saturday is in a nose spin, falling from an already dismal 38,300 to 36,709. In two years, Saturday's has shrunk by about 14%. The printed paper is going backwards, and the digital take-up figures - understandably a closely guarded secret about which many a fib is told - are nowhere near making up the gap. Not even close. 

Now this really is nervous territory, because although pin pricks of criticism like those of The Magpie are batted away as a minor annoyance, these figures go to the heart of North Queensland Newspapers' raison d'etre - money. When the floor opens up and swallows circulation like this, then advertisers can start getting more than a touch miffed at the advertising rates they are paying, which The Magpie understands haven't changed one jot since the paper enjoyed figures of circulation and readership more than 20% of the current dismal numbers.

And sadly, there's  a bucket or two of salt to be rubbed into these statistical wounds. 

The first and most obvious is that while The Astonisher was dropping those numbers, the population of the community in which it circulates rose by more than 6000 potential readers during the year, as the city and environs continued to grow at on of the fastest rates in the entire nation.

And perhaps even more galling, it can’t be said that it is simply indicative of the times and all papers are shedding readers. Well, not the Cairns Post anyway, at least not on Saturday – they’ve actually gone up, from 105,000 readers to 108,000. Weekdays sales are down, but at an average of 68,000, are some 3000 better than the potential Townsville audience.

But darker and more dangerous financial storm clouds could be on the horizon, if events in far off Geelong are noted.

Geelong is perhaps the best regional city to make comparisions with Townsville, both in population and the fact that it is a News Ltd one daily paper town.

But last October, the Geelong Advertiser was rocked to its financial roots when a well-heeled free weekly came on the scene, aimed squarely at the lucrative property market. Half owned by Fairfax, the Geelong Weekly Review is a glossy FREE paper that concentrates on lifestyle rather than news to back it's core property and cars advertising– and its advertising rates have undercut the Advertiser by a significant margin. And the Review has a bigger significantly larger print run.

So much so that the Advertiser, according to Crikey.com, has been forced to halve its advertising rates. And there is a ding-dong court battle looming over a breach of contract matter involving allegations of bribery and illegal inducement by a shell-shocked Advertiser. But News Ltd this time can’t count on being the only cashed-up bully boy in the fight. Fairfax and the other Melbourne based property publisher have tens of millions both at stake and available for a down and dirty fight.

Read a bit about it, and then ponder the obvious question: if it can happen in Geelong, could it not here in Townsville and up in Cairns? 

The technology revolution has changed the game forever, a fact that News Ltd has been notoriously and somewhat arrogantly unable or unwilling to fully recognize. When some of the financial enablers of such an start-up enterprise like Richard Ferry, Lozza Lancini or Tony Ireland latch on to the idea that a more reasonably priced advertising vehicle with immense potential for profit under local control (perhaps their own control) is within reach, there will be some serious buttock-clenching and heavy soul searching down in Ogden Street - although seeking a soul within News Ltd or the Bulletin may be an illusory exercise.

Speaking of illusory exercises, what’s with Messagebank Walker?

It is a scientific fact that water seeks its own level, so perhaps that’s why this political drip is suddenly talking gibberish about water slides.  Incessantly.

Here’s a little history behind Les’s almost incoherent babble about water slides and making use of the three very expensive slides that have been in council storage for more than five years.

The slides were bought by the Mooney regime against all expert advice, with the plan being to put them down at the Rockpool on the Strand. But that was a non-starter even for Tony I’ll  Do It My Bloody Way Mooney. Safety laws require that slides dump their users in clear water, so underwater object and other people can be clearly seen. Erecting the ruinously expensive structures and safety fences would rob general Rockpool users of more than half the enclosure, and then there would be the cost of security to watch over the extracurricular after-hours sliding temptation by little feral snots, of which there is no shortage in the berg. So this financial misadventure was tucked away out of sight in storage.

Then our publicity-seeking genius comes along and decides he can gain cheap publicity with a populist call for the slides to be used, which prompted the ever compliant Astonisher to come up with one of it’s oxymoronic contribution to civic argument by suggesting ‘Clr Walker has reignited debate over water parks’. By any measure and that description, it's fizzled.

Mind you, it’s just an idea, and the intellect behind the argument is definitely from the shallow end of this particular gene pool. In essence, Messagebank wants private enterprise to step in and build what – as a stand alone – would be a money-losing enterprise, with the council’s contribution being the slides themselves. Nice to see a Labor bloke supporting the idea of public money supporting private enterprise.

Look, let’s face it, Les is a transparent political dill, so why all the posturing on all manner of subjects that don’t concern him. During the week, though, our man thought this chance at seeing himself in the paper, posing for a pic in front of the dismantled water slides, was worth missing two important council committee meetings that day – you know, the sort of stuff  for which we pay this laziest of councillors $90k+ p.a.

But why this seemingly pointless – and often hilarious – self-promotion?

Well, The ‘Pie will posit that it goes something like this. Our failed pizza shop operator and union heavy probably believes – maybe even reminded – that since the laws have recently been changed, councillors including mayors no longer have to resign to run for higher office.

It is known that Mayor Mullet is already canvassing Labor pre-selection for the state seat of Townsville, having the sense to realize she is probably a one-term mayor. Now, in the most unlikely situation that she even gets pre-selected let alone elected, (although John Hathaway’s Invisible Man act might give her a glimmer of hope), someone would be needed to carry the ALP flag in the council election.

So it is reasonable to assume that Les Walker’s self-delusion has stretched to imagining he has a possible shot at the top job. And The Astonisher hangs on every bit of spindrift  Messagebank spouts like sea foam on a tidal surge.

Can hardly wait for his next cunning plan - maybe expanding local sports to include 'heading the shot' and 'catching the javelin'.