Aliens and adjectives, numbers and numbskulls … the usual heady mix in the Magpie’s Nest.

Oh, dem numbers. … The Astonisher falls off the readership cliff, and the circulation figs yet to come.

Mayor Mullet takes us for mugs - or else she stripped her mental gears.  

But the touching tale of her unrequited love goes on, as The ‘Pie records the latest chapter in Simpo and The Mullet’s quest for true togetherness.

This week, history throws back one of the great but little known witty quotes of the last century, and a Judge Clive Wall gem has surfaced in The ‘Pie’s papers.

 All here in the nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

A word on photobombing, when someone sneaks into a photo for comic effect, often deflating egos, as KRudd found out too late. Well, pal Hugo from England has found that just about everybody - make that everything - is in on photobombing.

Let’s give clever words prominence this week and leave the local flapdoodle for later.

The quotes dept, we delve back into history for a witty remark on the 30^th anniversary of the death of British peer the 8^th Earl of Arran. 

Lord Arran was a courageous campaigner on several fronts but history remembers him for his successful efforts to get homosexuality decriminalised in the UK. He wasn’t gay himself, but his 1965 speech in the Lords took great courage, given the climate in the country at the time. His other great passion was to protect badgers in the countryside from senseless slaughter. He explained his two diverse enthusiasms when he told a reporter ‘ One bill was to stop people badgering buggers, the other stop people buggering badgers’. 

Asked why homosexual reform bill passed through the Lords untroubled but his badger legislation had faced strong opposition, he replied ‘Not many badgers in the Lords.’ Remarks worthy of Churchill.

And due to Queen Victoria’s persistent belief that there was no such thing as lesbianism (‘they haven’t got anything to do anything with!’), the law all but ignored homosexual women. In essence, the gals who like to have a look in didn’t get a look in.

Lord Arran and missus: not keen on his dad's legacy.

An unusual footnote is that the 9^th Earl who succeeded his father when he died in 1983, has subsequently shown that while not disrespecting his father’s convictions about gay life, he made it clear recently that he thought things had gone too far, when he told the Lords …

‘The Roman empire fell for three reasons. There was the worship of sporting heroes, widespread corruption and the decadence and flaunting of homosexuality. I fear that in this country we aren’t too far from being decadent.'

Uh, oh, sounds familiar, looks like Oz is already down (or up, if you will) the tubes ... buggered in more ways than one.

Other matters. Honestly, Townsville Bulletin iditor Lachlan Heywood couldn’t find his own arse with a mirror and two hands. And a flashlight.

Yesterday, there was this pathetic perennial idiocy from a smirky bloke taking the willing paper for a UFO ride with a pic of probably a car’s interior light reflecting on the windscreen …..

Indeed, tired old intelligence-insulting stuff, but even more so when the real deal, a genuine shit-your-pants alien was amongst us just four days earlier, the paper was too chicken to call it for what it was ...

They don’t get much more alien than that, but nice timing by Rupert.

The Great Man managed to haul his lip-bruised bum out of Dodge just a few days before the latest disastrous set of readership figures came galloping down the main street for what he called ‘an excellent regional newspaper’. Seems he is practically alone in that generous assessment, according to the latest readership figures. Not that you’ll ever see them in the Townsville Bulletin, that is nowadays left to The Magpie.
The first and third figures are the thousands for last year, the latest are the numbers directly below. 

Townsville Bulletin

64

51

86

74

-

Cairns Post

69

61

109

89

-

-

Gold Coast Bulletin

88

87

124

98

-

Remember these are readership figures (based on an assumption about how many people read each copy the paper ) and usually come out before the audited (papers actually sold) circulation figures are released.

The Townsville Bulletin's Saturday flagship has shed an alarming 12,000 readers in the last year, down to 74,000, and weekdays even worse, down 13,000, from 64,000 to 51,000. These readership figures are harbingers of the audited figures, which are generally more touchy.

Here’s the full list for those interested in such arcane matters; Typo’s weaving his mournful magic at the Sunday Mail, where he has become the first editor under a million copies for many years.

Newspaper Readership Australia

	M-F	M-F	Sat	Sat	Sun	Sun
	September 2012	September 2013	September 2012	September 2013	September 2012	September 2013
Newspapers	R'ship ('000s)	R'ship ('000s)	R'ship ('000s)	R'ship ('000s)	R'ship ('000s)	R'ship ('000s)
National
The Australian	411	363	784	769	-	-
Aust. Financial Review	229	239	145	148	-	-
NSW
Daily Telegraph	799	763	734	687	-	-
Sydney Morning Herald	629	545	899	784	-	-
Sunday Telegraph	-	-	-	-	1,292	1,198
The Sun-Herald	-	-	-	-	922	779
MX	125	159	-	-	-	-
Newcastle Herald	98	101	146	159	-	-
Illawarra Mercury	47	47	63	59	-	-
Canberra Times	79	74	117	107	78	68
VIC
Herald Sun	1,118	1,059	1,079	1,040	-	-
The Age	587	522	724	698	-	-
Sunday Herald Sun	-	-	-	-	1,140	1,062
The Sunday Age	-	-	-	-	609	554
MX	170	135	-	-	-	-
Geelong Advertiser	57	58	82	85	-	-
QLD
Courier-Mail	509	483	657	602	-	-
The Sunday Mail	-	-	-	-	1,008	905
MX	55	62	-	-	-	-
Cairns Post	69	61	109	89	-	-
Gold Coast Bulletin	88	87	124	98	-	-
Townsville Bulletin	64	51	86	74	-	-
SA
Adelaide Advertiser	457	413	543	511	-	-
Sunday Mail	-	-	-	-	597	555
WA
West Australian	508	504	-	-	-	-
Weekend West	-	-	725	675	-	-
Sunday Times	-	-	-	-	610	563
Tasmania
The Mercury	97	89	129	117	-	-
The Examiner	71	58	81	77	-	-
The Advocate	47	39	55	48	-	-
Sunday Tasmanian (Tas)	-	-	-	-	108	101
Sunday Examiner	-	-	-	-	75	67
Northern Territory
Northern Territory News	35	41	57	52	-	-
Sunday Territorian	-	-	-	-	35	36

But in there is a great and deserved success story. In times when even holding steady is hailed as a success, have a look at what can only be described as the spectacular gains by the Newcastle Herald (a Fairfax paper). The Magpie guesses that is all on the back of an award winning campaign of courage and dogged investigative journalism revealing the Catholic Church’s appalling cover-up of child abuse by priests over decades in the Hunter Valley. A real story bringing its own real reward. Three cheers.

And with the circulation figs imminent, here’s an old dodge used by the Gold Coast Bulletin (the Astonisher did it a few years ago, too)

Neat idea - fill both the mind and the body up with junk at the same time. Like the kids would bother. Targeted beautifully for Schoolies Week, it will certainly boost circ figures for editor Cath Webber, who inherited Typo’s disaster and seems to have steadied at least weekday readership.

Now back to the ‘Ville again.

It’s a truism that there’s no use complaining, no bugger wants to know, but The ‘Pie will inform you that he has been confined to his virginal couch for a few days with the ‘flu. He tells you this because it may explain some of the fevered imaginings that he serves up in this week’s cold leftovers.

On Monday, the old bird thought delirium had set in when he read this article (WARNING: THIS LINK CONTAINS IMAGES WHICH SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTURBING - DO NOT LET CHILDREN UNDER 8 VIEW IT) in The Astonisher. In a nutshell, this jaw-dropper contained the Quote of the Week from Mayor Mullet, when it was announced that the council has achieved a surplus of $1.5 million, the first surplus in 13 years.

Sayeth the mayor:

‘I am proud of my role in repairing the city’s finances. It's fantastic for the city to bring in a surplus and I am very happy I am the mayor that brought us back into the black."

Huh? You what?!? Pull the other one, it yodels.

Either her grasp on reality is slipping away or Mayor Mullet takes us all for mugs.

Here is the simple truth.

You may remember that last year, two budgets had to be brought down to the vote. The mayor’s contained the fiscally loopy and unaffordable populist vote catchers of a rates freeze and a water rebate. The conservative majority of councillors put together a different version, which did not include those two measures. It was this one that was adopted, with just the mayor and her Labor off-siders, the goggled-eyed union goof Les Messagebank Walker and Boo Hoo Doyle voting against it. 

Yes, she voted against the budget that laid the foundation for the surplus; if the mayor’s version had been adopted, last week’s announcement would’ve been that there was a $5.5 million deficit.

Both she and reporter Anthony Simpo Templeton knew this, but acting as the mayor’s PR, he made not a single query about this blatant and impudent falsifying of recent history. However, when Deputy Doo Dah Vern Veitch calmly and politely pointed out these facts, his comments suddenly became  ‘a rant’ that 'ripped the unity of the council to pieces'. This follow-up by Simpleton, and this childish iditorial by Lachlan Heywood tried to promote this nontroversy, but it just stirred up more apathy and antipathy towards the Bulletin. The cherry on top was the poster for that day’s paper which boomed ‘Council in Crisis’. Insulting Grade A bullshit by any measure.

And these two cancerous blow-ins wonder why the paper is losing the numbers and has already lost the respect of the community.    

Moving on, or in this case, back.

The Pie was sorting out some old notebooks from his days in court when he came across yet another little pearl from Judge Clive Wall, a judge that even Campbell Newman wouldn’t have the gall to suggest was out of touch. 

Judge Wall continues to hand down tough sentences, often above even that asked for by the prosecution. He also remains the only Queensland judge to exercise his power to fine the parents of errant juveniles which they have failed to at least attempt to adequately supervise. 

But it was his humour from the bench that delighted the great unwashed while prompting a lot of tut-tutting from the bar table. Some years ago, in Townsville, Judge Wall was somewhat peeved that a Burdekin kid had not turned up at the due time for a sentencing hearing for multiple car stealing charges. The kid’s defence barrister (Greg Lynham, if memory serves) asked that his client’s lateness be excused because he had rung in to say he was having car trouble. You knew something was coming when the trademark grin flickered from the bench. ‘What was the matter, couldn’t he find one?’ As P.G Wodehouse would say, collapse of stout party at media desk.

Couple of things on the word front. Did you know that ‘ergon’ is from the Greek for ‘work’? Keep this in mind next time there’s a blackout.

Bentley is somewhat pre-occupied with the double standards and jiggery pokery of the language down in Canberra. Clive Barrage Balloon Palmer will be keeping us entertained with his take on conflict of interest issues (there isn’t any such thing for a parliamentarian, he says). And here we were all thinking it applied mainly to parliamentarians.

Finally, it may have been the ague of the fever, but the following tableau danced before The Magpie's mind - a modern tale for our times.

"As the council meeting was breaking up and councillors and media were filing out, Mayor Jenny Hill snatched at the sleeve of Anthony Simpleton, the Astonisher’s ace revealing reporter. ‘Pop around to our usual place, I’ve got something for you,’ she said in a husky whisper, with a brief bat of an eyelid.

Young Simpleton went bright red, and a vein started to throb – also another one in his temple. His thoughts seemed to be elsewhere as he watched the departing figure of the mayor … she was wearing the best of her five frocks, it was very becoming but she hadn’t worn it for a while, she’d only just found the time to let it out a size or two.

Soon afterwards, Simpo had slipped in to her office through the side door.

‘Have I got a story for you, darl,’ she said, ‘something no else has ever known until now. A little bit of history, sweety, since you’re a bit of a blow-in around here. You have probably guessed that I was responsible for getting the Strand rejuvenated – oh, I know, I know, but I let Tony be the front man for that, he needed a bit of boost after that Shepherdson disaster – nothing like nearly going to jail to put you off your corn flakes. And it must be common knowledge that the cruise ship terminal is down to my behind-the-scenes negotiations, but again, poor old Dave Kippin has been looking a bit desperate lately, what with people wondering why he earns more than me, the mayor, so I let him make the running on that.’

She stepped across the room, leant down to look the seated Simpo in a bloodshot eye. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and he thrilled to faint whiff of garlic and bananas on her breathe.

‘Simpo, you don’t think it’s an accident that the word ‘hill’ is attached to Castle Hill, do you?’

Simpo somewhat reluctantly raised his eyes to meet hers. ‘W…what?’ he stammered.

‘The other day, an indigenous elder called Waddadahel Jdinkijdi who is in regular touch with the spirits – no not the Jim Beam kind, I mean ancestral spirits - popped in to see me. Actually I’ve known her for years, I’ve been paying her dues at the Railway Estate branch of the ALP for years. Her real name is Dulcie Wombat, but as Waddadahel, she has mystical powers.’’

‘Oh, golly,’ breathed Simpo, struggling to keep his eyes above chin level.

‘Here’s the thing. Speaking as Waddadahel, Dulcie revealed to me that long ago in the Dreamworld, I had immense powers, and was the head of the Jhilljmutterubba tribe. We lived in this area, but Waddadahel said I got tired of the flatness of the place, where my people had no real exercise challenge, so I summoned up the Dreamtime serpents to create a monolithic rock. And because the serpents were so impressed with my idea, they decreed that the rock would forever have the name Jhill associated with it.

‘And so it is today, though dem bloody white fellas dropped the fu#kin’ J,’ Waddadahel told me.

The mayor straightened up, a confident grin playing on her girlish features.‘Good story eh? Should make the front page, ya think?’’

‘Absolutely!! But … ummm … do you think people will believe it?’

‘Course they will … if they swallowed that bit last week about me being responsible for the $1.5million surplus – the first in 13 years – they’ll believe anything. Simpo, darl, remember our agreed motto - I say it, you write it and they’ll believe it. Now off you go.’

Simpo trudged back to the Astonisher office, his thoughts filled with whiffs of garlic and bananas and what might have been. Although not a humid day, the paper’s ace revealer was sweating somewhat when he returned to the newsroom, and when someone made a ribald comment about the mayor’s dress that day, he suddenly disappeared into the toilet block.

Where he stayed for an inordinately long time. And when he emerged, it was noted he was sweating even more."