And they said he'd never make it - The Magpie becomes a double centurion!

It is about to be your pleasure – or, if you are a lawyer, work for News Corp or Townsville Enterprise, or are certain TCC councillors, it may be your distasteful but essential duty – to peruse the old bird’s double century in cyberspace.

Yup, welcome to Magpie’s Nest blog #200.

But this regular load of cobblers is proof of the adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same, soooo …

To paraphrase the Creedence Clearwater ditty ‘Still I wonder, who’ll stop the drain’ – the latest readership figures show that the Townsville Bulletin’s readership is well and truly down the gurgler.

Returning the compliment: Simpo Templeton graced us with his assessment of councillors’ performances last week, so we thought this week, it's only fair we should start rating journos’ performances …

And is Kid Crisafulli seeking Federal office, with a bid to join Tony Rabbit’s new style diplomatic corps? He gets Quote of the Week, and political pest Paul Jacob gets joke of the week …  and wait, that’s not all,  The ‘Pie will throw in a few extra verbal steak knives as well at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

First, breaking news, which greatly saddens The 'Pie.

First the Catholic Church, then the YMCA, also the Salvation Army, they've all been at it. 

AND NOW, BLOODY HELL, 

BOWLS QUEENSLAND!?!?!    

Was that bloke in blue your schoolteacher?

Seems bowls is a lot more fun in ways other than just chatting up the white leghorns in the clubhouse. As they say, it looks the ideal way to widen the circle of your friends. But say it ain't so, Joe ... but alas, the back of the bus seems to confirm The 'Pie's darkest suspicions.

Hastily moving on.

To re-work the old cliché, you can take the boy out of journalism, but you can’t take the journalist out of the boy.

A worried looking Kid.

Minister for Rates Roads and (lots of) Rubbish, former journo David ‘The Kid’ Crisafulli has decided to tell it how it is – or at least how he sees it – with a policy of well-rehearsed spontaneous remarks about all sorts of issues. 

He has already inferred that the Courts of Justice should be replaced with the Courts of Revenge, a word that startled the wig and gown brigade recently. He followed that up with what appeared to be the view that armed vigilante groups out to stop juvenile thieves was ‘understandable’. He made no suggestion that this was highly illegal … carrying arms in public for any reason unless authorised to do so is an offence, as is meteing out ‘summary revenge’. (But The Kid's quote was in the Townsville Bulletin, so it may have been highly selective, with any qualification conveniently left out.)

But The Kid gets the Quote of this Week for his out-of-hand dismissal of yet another critic of the Newman Government’s new laws. 

An apparently caffeine-crazed Claire Mallinson,
her pointy head cut off by the camera.

Speaking about Townsville youth crime, The Kid trotted out an irrelevant and muddled-headed bit of NQ xenophobic populism when he gave Amnesty boss Claire Mallinson a free character reading. ‘I’m not going to be lectured to by some latte-sipping pointy head’, quoth The Kid.

Now here’s a bloke tailor-made for PM Tony Rabbit’s style of diplomacy.  He’d sort out those Indonesian whingers tout-bloody-suite, if you'll pardon my French. Especially that moaning minnie  president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. You can just hear it … ‘I’m not going to be lectured by some pointy head of state with a name like the background harmony to a 1950’s rock’n’roll tune. And he wears a silly hat’ 

There, that’d fix ‘im.

Indeed The Kid was on the warpath against the loathed ‘southerners’ (whom he also represents as minister but then, they're not in his electorate) but The ‘Pie agrees that sometimes, their effete ways can make you spit.

Try this menu note from a Melbourne café.

And that's THREE bloody dollars, thanks, sucker.

Ideal for John Ando Andersen to carry a few as he goes about his rural rounds out west. And what Melbourne does, Brissy won’t be far behind.

But sometimes, difficult situations can be handled with menacing wit, like this.

Moving back thisaway, they'll be needing a few espressos down at the Daily Astonisher about now.

Like an endless wave of bats coming out of the gloaming, those chickens keep arriving home to roost for the Townsville Bulletin.

The latest readership figures from the Gary Morgan group confirm that the editorial policy is right off the readership rails, leaving the most dynamic city in north Queensland without any authoritative or trusted voice in print anymore.

In the 12 months to December, The Townsville Bulletin has shed close to an astounding 30% of its readership, Monday to Friday, down from an average of 65,000 readers in 2012 to a dismal 47,000 over 2013. Saturday’s faired better, but still lost around 4%, dropping 3000 readers, from 81,000 to 78,000, propped up by the property guide and reasonably good long-form reads in the magazine insert.

Here's the state carnage.

Read in thousands L to R, weekdays 2012-weekdays 2013, weekends 2012, weekends 2013. 

Using the same News Corp ‘one-size-fits-all’ hysterical tabloid format, Cairns didn’t travel much better although Cath Webber looks as though she might have slowed the train wreck down a bit on the Gold Coast. Not so Typo Gleeson, whose dead-hand touch has seen the Sunday Mail alienate a further 114,000 more  readers, and slide even further away from the once-proud million+ readership.

So indeed, with apologies to Pete seeger, 
‘Where have all the readers gone,

Long time gasping.’

Since we appear to be on a musical theme, the second line of ‘Who’ll stop the rain’ ….

‘Clouds of mystery pourin’ confusion on the ground’

… seems apt to introduce the first of our Astonisher reporter assessments, that being of Anthony Simpo Simpleton.

Simpo

You will remember Simpo last week deigned to share with us his wisdom and insight into local politics with individual assessments of each TCC councilor. So, in the first of this week’s three assessments, The ‘Pie will employ all the balance, insight and generous judgment of an unbiased spirit that Simpo employed in his own blockbuster review.

Name: Anthony ‘Simpo’ Templeton

Born: So it is believed, although aliens have been mentioned. Wherever, it wasn’t here.

Simpo (a cruel and undeserved jibe on Simpleton by inferiors) is known amongst his colleagues as a modest, self-effacing reporter with a sweet nature that makes him a favorite in the Astonisher newsroom. Always willing to help others less talented than himself – i.e all the other staff, and everybody he has ever worked with -  he selflessly gives of himself to help others in their less stellar careers. Possessed of a sly, self-deprecating sense of humor, he is often heard laughing merrily with his colleagues and with councillors in Walker Street at the latest weak attempt at drollery by his one public critic but secret admirer, The Magpie.

As a tribute to his professionalism, Simpo has taken out more of the Editor’s weekly MIM (Molehills Into Mountains) Awards than any of the other very deserving candidates, for his uncanny ability to turn a two-par positive story into a front page negative. (See Saturday's Pallarenda waterpark story). He is particularly adept at this unique talent on council matters. He is quite rightly the envy of his peers, who all wish they were him.

His humour is understated to the point that some of his colleagues mistakenly believe he is either humorless or drunk most of the time.  But anyone who can say of Les Messagebank Walker that ‘he is readily available for residents with concerns’ obviously possesses a subversive sense of fun … and the absurd. As does Mayor Mullet, who favors him with secret little morsels, as a dowager gives treats to her favourite lapdog.

The ‘Pie was all set to award Simpo a well-deserved A+, but somehow, he got wind that assessment was coming up, so he begged The Pie (in a dream, which is where The ‘Pie gets all his reliable information for this blog) not to mark him up, because, by his own high standards, he believes he should have done better … and did not want to further embarrass those who struggle to keep up with his example at the paper. So …

Anthony 'Simpo' Templeton. F minus

Kate' I Can't Believe I'm Not Married Yet' Higgins.

Name: Kate Higgins

Born: Yes, although we’re yet to see the column giving us the fascinating details of her 'term', including her kicking regime preceding her emergence.

Kate, a somewhat shy and withdrawn lass -  colleagues have trouble getting a word out of her– obviously saves her innermost thoughts for her weekly column. Her wide ranging curiosity, which she is unstintingly willing to share with us, has let us into the mysteries of knitting, (booties for her kittens are on the cards) moving house, what she thinks about Christmas, and that she keeps ticket stubs from her lively lifestyle. And this is just touching the surface a deep well of fascinating experiences.

A master (mistress?) of the graphic word picture, Kate spun a magically evocative web of imagery when she once wrote an article about the current obsession with body shape, which included these lines which you will always remember … or at least never be able to forget - 

'It's been touted as the next box gap - which is the idea the tops of your thighs should be so devoid of fat they don't touch. I don't know about the rest of you, but the only gap between my thighs may someday double as a birth canal.'

Yes, quite … and thank you, Jane Austen.

Kate has a cornucopia of subjects with which to delight us in the future, but she continues to hold out on the ones for which we clamor. She firmly refuses to reveal the secrets of how she folds her washing,  the order in which she washes her body parts in the shower (and her private names for same), or the reasons behind her obsessional love of Twinings English Breakfast tea. She’s a tease, but we’ll hang on in there.

With a talent and future like Kate’s there is one Jane Austen line in  Pride and Prejudice which the editor will never utter to her, viz

'That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.'

For her tireless efforts, The ‘Pie awards Jane … errr … Kate a D+.

Daniel Master Bateman (circa 2029)

Name: Daniel Master Bateman

Born: Perhaps

Daniel Master Bateman writes with such authority on weighty matters (‘Beetroot offends me’, ‘UFO Seen Near JCU’ ) that our artist Bentley took him to be much older than the (presumably) 30 something he is, so the portrait shows how Daniel will look in 15 years time.

Master Bateman is very much a ‘curate’s egg’ journalist if ever there was one. Good in parts. Deciding which part is sometimes tricky.

As a social commentator, Master Bateman is about as  successful as a rain gauge franchisee in Cloncurry.

He seems to be one of these folk who will rise without a trace, so The ‘Pie will just award him a C+ .

Some more journo assessments in future blogs.

One bloke is sore need of an assessment – by chaps in white coats carrying restraints - is co-founder of the lovable laughables the Townsville Ratepayers  Association, Paul Jacob.

He is the instigator of this on-line petition which will go before parliament later this year. 

Note the tsunami of outraged interest: 26 signatures, which our man assures us will be - oh, maybe a thousand by the closing date. These fevered folk will seek a CMC investigation into what he claims are links between developers and Townsville City councilors. And by that, he of course means hanky panky links. 

The local MP, David The Kid Crisafulli agreed to ‘sponsor’ the petition, a requirement for petitions to reach the house floor. That is the term used in The Astonisher, but it certainly doesn’t mean endorsement of or approval for the purpose. 

The Kid believes as the local member, it isn’t up to him to pick and choose what petitions are valid, he has a duty to accept and take forward all and any legally constituted E-petitions.  Although The Kid made no comment, The ‘Pie gets the impression that the Minister for Local Government shares The ‘Pie’s opinion which involves the words snowball, chance and hell. 

Jacob’s clear inference is that councillors’ are on the take in one form or another. Evidence would be handy, old son, but there seems to be a distinct and complete lack of any sane proof – or even smoking gun indication - of any misconduct. This is the sort of paranoid idiocy that makes our town a laughing stock – the 26 people who’ve signed up should hang their lolling heads in shame.

But it appears Closeau Jacob, ever desperate to ride his Ratepayers Association  to a seat on council, has received a neat kick in the electoral nuts. Those self-appointed ninnies (and, oh, hi, Daves, both of you) have shown their true colours by deciding they will not be fielding any council candidates come next election. They believe … wait for it … they will be more effective staying on the sidelines and making their points over milky tea and Ice VoVos. Herr Jacob is said to be livid with this decision, and is ready kick over some walking frames.

Poor dear, it is so naughty of The Magpie to mock the afflicted.

Finally, this, without comment, but who needs science.

Well, it's away to Poseurs' Bar in 2014, when it is considerably hotter than 2006, so the old bird will be seeking first hand scientific knowledge of progression in this field from some suitable lass. He hopes that in this particular area he finds nothing.