Flick of the Week: “Real diamonds! They must be worth their weight in gold!”

This week’s Flick of the Week takes us with Billy Wilder from Witness for the Prosecution to the greatest comedy film of all-time – Some Like it Hot.

When it comes to discussing the greatest director in history, Billy Wilder has to be included in the conversation. In fact, in terms of breadth of scale, he pretty much has everyone else covered. Check out this list of films: Double Indemnity (film noir), The Lost Weekend (drama), Sunset Blvd (savage attack on Hollywood), Ace in the Hole (even more savage attack on the media), Stalag 17 (WWII flick), Sabrina and The Seven Year Itch (romantic comedy), Witness for the Prosecution (whodunnit), Some Like it Hot (comedy), The Apartment (comedy/drama). Every single one is a classic, and many provide cinema with some of its most iconic images and lines (of which he also wrote – he wrote or co-wrote all his films). He was nominated for an Oscar as a director, producer or writer 21 times, and he won six.

Of living directors, perhaps only Spielberg and Scorsese perhaps can hold a candle to him – and yet neither does comedy very well – and would you pay to see a Scorsese or Spielberg romantic comedy? Spielberg tried with Always in 1989 and has since left the genre very well alone. Scorsese has never gone there. And of course neither of those two giants write their own screenplays (though Scorsese occasionally gets a writing credit).

Some Like it Hot is easily my favourite comedy. The story set in the 1920s, of two out of work musicians Jerry and Joe (Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis) who after witnessing the Valentine Day Massacre flee Chicago for Miami disguised as women in an all-female band – which includes singer Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe) – is pure genius. Genius because it could have all been so terribly bad. Drag comedy more often than not ends up being “Sorority Boys”, but this works because of a number of reasons that ensured the pieces gelled perfectly.

First, the film is set in the past – so the costumes were able to be more prim and conservative than those of 1959. Second Wilder shot it in black and white (this was crucial) the lack of colours helps disguise the two lead men, and also ensures there is no sense of garish drag queenness about their appearance. Third, the writing is incredible – Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond screenplay is bursting with zingers and quips:
Sugar: I come from this musical family. My mother is a piano teacher and my father was a conductor.
Joe: Where did he conduct?
Sugar: On the Baltimore and Ohio.

But lastly, the most important aspect of the film is the cast. Lemmon, Curtis and Monroe give a master class in comedy acting. The stories about Monroe’s antics and anxieties while filming this are legendary. She was so nervous and out of it, that many of her scenes are shot in close up because they were done with her alone and just Wilder there to direct rather than acting with either Curtis or Lemmon. My favourite story is that she was having so much trouble in one scene which required her coming into a room and opening a drawer and asking “Where’s the bourbon” that Wilder decide to tape the line on the bottom of the drawer; and then on the next take she came into the room and opened the wrong drawer.

But here’s the thing – you wouldn’t know. She is beguiling, sexy, funny, sweet… heck she is Marilyn Monroe. Forget The Seven Year Itch and her dress getting blown up by the subway vent, if you want to see why Marilyn is still known 47 years after her death as “Marilyn” see this film – and especially watch her perform “I Wanna Be Loved By You” (below) and “Running Wild”. You’ll understand why JFK was prepared to risk his Presidency for her.

As great as she is (and I think she deserves the Oscar for Best Actress for the performance), she is nothing next to Lemmon and Curtis. The two pull out all the stops and bounce lines back and forth off of each other like they have been best friends for years. Neither of them are all that successful at convincing you they are female, but ironically it doesn’t matter (this is a comedy after all), but they are brilliant at conveying the difficulties men would have conducting such a ruse (especially when surrounded by so many attractive and single women). Lemmon as “Daphne” goes fully into the role of a female – and spends almost all of the film after donning the disguise as his female alter ego – he comes to appreciate the difficulties – but also the safety – of being a female at the time. For a guy who has been struggling to pay the bills and is now being chased by violent gangsters, it is little wonder that his character Jerry would feel comfort in his role as a woman being wooed by a millionaire.

And despite opening up this side of the role, Lemmon never forgets the comedic aspect or his comic timing, such as when he is giving some advice to Sugar: “Now, if I were a girl – and I am…”. It is a particular achievement that his character is able to accept a proposal of marriage to a man, and yet he never falls into the “mincing gay” stereotype – in fact his acceptance almost has a ring of logic to it. It is one of the great film performances of all time, and shamefully got beat for the Oscar by Charlton Heston in Ben Hur!

Curtis’s character Joe on the other hand quickly adopts another disguise in an attempt to seduce Sugar – he pretends to be a millionaire and puts on the Cary Grant impersonation to end all Cary Grant impersonations – in fact when people do a Cary Grant voice, they are more likely doing a Curtis-does-Grant voice. The oft quoted comment from him was that kissing Marilyn was like kissing Hitler, though since then he has retracted the statement, and it had more to do with the frustrations of working with her than the actual kissing. So fragile was Marilyn’s mood that Wilder had to use whichever take she was best in, meaning Curtis and Lemmon had to be good every take in case that was the one Marilyn nailed.

Since its release, the film has only grown in stature. The only Oscar it won was for Best Costume, as that was the Year Ben-Hur won everything. Were that year’s award revoted now, that situation would be reversed – it is almost inconceivable to think this would not win Best Picture now (and pretty much everything else). In 2000, the American Film Institute named it the All-time Best Comedy (coincidentally the other great male-disguised-as-female comedy Tootsie came second).

I agree with them.

A Song a Year: 1993, Aunty Raelene

When you are at uni, you need a band that is yours through hell or high water. If you were at uni in the early 90s it could be Nirvana (if you were a bit of a sheep), The Pixies (if you really wanted to pretend that you were cool), U2 (if you wanted to be middle of the road – like I guess I did), My Bloody Valentine (if you thought The Smiths were just too damn cheery) or perhaps Living Colour (if you wanted to be funky radical).

Now all these choices were good, and you had to make one; but to be really in the groove, to be a true uni student, you had to have a local band that you followed, went to see play at dingy little pubs and were prepared to argue with others that with just a bit of luck they could be the next Lemonheads or Happy Mondays.

For me that band was Aunty Raelene.

Aunty Raelene were a four piece band made up of three blokes and one chick (she played bass). Two of the blokes were brothers – Basil and Derek Shields. Basil played lead guitar and vocals, Derek played violin in a manner that bore much lineage to John Cale of the Velvet Underground. They all went to Adelaide Uni and were out on the edge, sticking it to the man, protesting about the things that mattered, and doing it all while dressed in frocks.

That was the gimmick – they all wore dresses bought from op-shops and they wore them workers boots. I once asked Basil why they wore them, thinking perhaps there was some deeper statement being made, he looked at me weirdly, and said “Why do you reckon? It’s a gimmick”. “Oh,” I said, feeling rather stupid, but also somewhat disappointed that there was no deeper context.

Aunty Raelene were an odd mix – their songs were all protest and anger, yet also full of humour. The songs were great to sing along to (not so good to dance to), and the band themselves were laid back and funny during the set. They had songs like the great “Lionel Long Rap” which was written in the context of the first Gulf War and contained the following lyrics:

“Well my name is Lionel Long
And I want to go to war
’Cause I’ve heard they’ve got a lot of oil
And I think that’s worth dying for.”

Or “Mozambique”:

“Down in Mozambique
They don’t eat Mars Bars
And there’s not much to do
If you don’t like burnt out cars”

(admittedly my memory is bit faded, so the lyrics there might be a bit skewiff)

and “World Bank”

“If you are poor
You need a loan
So get the World Bank on the phone
666 and triple 5
You’re lucky if you stay alive”

Ok maybe they were a bit more self righteous than they needed to be – but bugger that, why not be more self righteous than you need to be, when you’re young and at uni? And they also had a cool T-shirt – a black one with an “A” and an “R” with the picture of a kangaroo between (or was it a dog? I didn’t know then, don’t know now) This pic –is the only photographic evidence I have of me wearing it – the T-Shirt, alas, has long since disintegrated.

I got to know Basil through his connection with my boarding college. For a year or so he was going out with a friend of mine who boarded there, and so for perhaps the only time in my life I was able to go back stage after a concert. Except given they only performed at pubs, back stage pretty much meant standing out the front of the pub after the gig trying to look cool, but not to look too cool or too desperate nor too desperately trying to look cool (I failed, I was easily the least cool person ever to hang out with a band after a gig).

The place I most saw them play was at The Crown and Anchor in Adelaide. My favourite gig was one which had me and my pretty straight laced friends mingling with the most wacked out weirdos going. One guy had dreadlocks, which wasn’t so weird; that he had a mouse crawling around in his hair however did perhaps cause one to look at him and then elbow your mates to say “check out that weirdo”. As this was the early 90s and their fans were all broke uni students and we were in the midst of a recession, they also used to do things like raffle off a meat pack – an odd thing given I’d wager more than a few of their hard-core fans were vegan (and given the smell in the place they certainly were taking a stand against deodorant).

In 1995, Aunty Raelene brought out their only album – they were pretty much splitting up and it was done more as a reminder of what they had done, than in the hope of really scoring it big (though they did send it off to Triple J accompanied with an over the top media release). The album was titled New Dork Nation in reference to George Bush Sr’s phrase about a New World Order. I don’t know if it ever got played on Triple J – no doubt the Adelaide Uni radio station gave it a few turns – and I am sad to say I never bought a copy – I think it cost $20 and I was too skint at the time to buy one. I dubbed it off a mate, and sad to say I have lost that tape. (And obviously it’s not on itunes.)

The wonder of things about the net is however that you can find the most unusual things. After they split up, Derek and Basil kept performing together, first as the Raelene Brothers, and after they moved to Alice Springs, The Super Raelene Brothers. They are still going strong, and in October are performing at “The Concert” in Alice Springs, supporting Jimmy Barnes and The Cat Empire.  They have a myspace page where you can download a few of their more recent songs – “Wombo Lombo” sounds great.

Unfortunately the only existing Aunty Raelene song is “World Bank” being sung in the mid-late 90s by the Raelene Brothers – and it’s embedding has been disabled for some reason, so I can’t post it here (but click on the link – it’s a good representation of the band’s music).

If I had their CD now, would I still listen to it? Probably not; though I have occasionally found myself humming some of their songs which have come into my head for no good reason. But does that mean they weren’t worth following back then? Hell no; they were great – they captured the moment, they captured my moment at uni. And at least for a small, brief moment of time felt like I was one of a select few who were in the know of the coolest band in the world… or at least the Arts faculty of Adelaide Uni part of it.

On the QT – It was the Summer of 69 edition

A commenter yesterday asked me if I had the transcript of Julie Bishop’s “1969 Keating” question from yesterday’s Question Time. In lieu of the fact that today’s QT was mostly pointless – the Opposition moved a censure motion against Gillard that the ALP had been expecting all last week, and also due to the fact I was in a meeting for most of it, today’s edition will just have the Hansard transcript of the Julie/Julia exchange in full.

The only way the Hansard can be improved is though the photo on the front page of today’s SMH which accompanied Annabel Crabb’s excellent sketch on the proceedings:

Women in the Workplace

Ms JULIE BISHOP (3.22 pm)—My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Social Inclusion. I refer to the minister’s attack on the Liberal Party’s support for working women and her reference back to the Menzies era. I ask whether the minister is aware of the statement of former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, who said in this House of the then coalition government:
In the last couple of years the government—as in coalition—has boasted about the increasing number of women in the workforce. Rather than something to be proud of, I feel that this is something of which we should be ashamed.

Doesn’t this demonstrate, Minister, that even 39 years ago the coalition—

Honourable members interjecting—

[At this point the Government MPs are almost rolling in the aisles – does Bishop really believe what someone said 39 years ago is relevant today?]

The SPEAKER—Order! Those on my right will come to order. The House will come to order. The member for Wakefield will leave the chamber under
94(a) for one hour.

Ms Roxon interjecting—
Mr Pyne—You raised Menzies, you idiot.
Ms Roxon interjecting—

[Pyne actually called this out a few times, Hansard dignified it with only one entry – but he thought he was reaching new heights of Oscar Wildean type wit]

The SPEAKER—The Minister for Health and Ageing will cease interjecting. The member for Sturt will withdraw.
Mr Pyne—I withdraw, Mr Speaker.
Mr Sidebottom interjecting—
The SPEAKER—The member for Braddon is again not assisting.

Ms JULIE BISHOP—I was at the point where I quoted former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating when he said:
In the last couple of years the government has boasted about the increasing number of women in the workforce. Rather than something to be proud of, I feel that this is something of which we should be ashamed.
Doesn’t this demonstrate that even 39 years ago the coalition was way ahead of Labor’s thinking when it came to choice for women?

[Yes she does think it is relevant… oh dear… pity the question isn’t in order because it is asking about Coalition policy – which you can’t do – and Coalition policy from 1969, which probably stretches the bounds of pointlessness to an amount much more than they could conceivably bear]

Honourable members interjecting—

[the Honourable members were on the Government side yelling for it to be called in order!]

The SPEAKER—Order! The House will come to order. Before giving the call to the Deputy Prime Minister, and if the House would settle down, this question time is not one of the greatest moments for the House. If the House would just calm down, that was an example of a question where, if we were to strictly apply the standing orders, I would be in the position to rule it out. But I will allow it.

[Harry is being rather cruel here. A kinder speaker would have ruled it out of order… instead he throws Julie to the wolf pack]

Ms GILLARD—I genuinely thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for her question. This year I was exposed on television as not smarter than a fifth
grader, it is true, but the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is taking me back to when I was not even in fifth grade. And, no, I have to confess that when I was in Mitcham Primary School they were not playing maiden speeches, first speeches, in the House of Representatives. Actually, looking back on it, I am not sure that we had a TV in the classroom. I think we had a radio, but we did not have a TV, so long ago it is that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is referring to.

[Nice mention of her bit on Rove’s show – good chance of getting a snippet of it on the TV later. You would think Bishop realises she is about to be killed here…]

Ms Julie Bishop—Mr Speaker, on a point of order: if the Deputy Prime Minister wishes to disown Labor thinking she should say so. She has not answered the question.

[Oh no, she doesn’t]

The SPEAKER—The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has asked her question.

Ms GILLARD—I believe that statement was made in 1969. Apparently they have gone this strange because I used the word ‘Menzies’ when I was reading the letter from the principal. Can I say to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that, whether or not they realise it over there, life has moved on. Mr Keating has moved on and has made public statements to that effect. The nation has moved on. Policy has moved on.

The only people who, for almost 40 years now have obviously been out circling in the wilderness, are not understanding that things have moved on are those people in front of me—the members of the Liberal Party. This question is reminiscent of the old sitcoms we used to see about fighters from World War II who did not realise that the war was over.

Ms Julie Bishop—Mr Speaker, on a point of order: as the minister has difficulty answering this question, I seek leave to table the Hansard where Mr Keating said that this was something of which we should be ashamed.

[Yes, ignoring the fact that Gillard has said Keating, the ALP and Gillard herself no longer agree with the views of 1969 on this issue, Bishop thinks Julia is dodging the question! And to top it off she asks to table in Hansard a speech already in Hansard… oh the political genius]

Leave not granted.
Ms GILLARD—We do have the Hansard, so the Deputy Leader of the Opposition does not need to table the extract from it. Can I say to the Deputy Leader if the Opposition that while she and the Liberal Party might be stuck thinking about 1969 we as a government are dealing with the challenges of the modern age.

The problem for the Liberal Party is that in this modern age, a modern age where people believe that women are equal and extend them the same opportunities, the Liberal Party is stuck in the past. Its website was stuck in the past until raised in question time. Of course you can change a website; what you cannot change is the dinosaur attitudes we are seeing displayed by the Liberal Party today. They are stuck in the past, unable to move into the future and unable to embrace the future. They are stuck in the past on the role of women, stuck in the past on the question of climate change and stuck in the past in the embrace of Work Choices. This has been an embarrassment for the Liberal Party.

I woke up this morning, read the newspaper and thought that it was pretty bad that the Liberal Party did not give a fair share of questions to women. Now I have come to question time and watched them gag women speaking. However, having seen this performance from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, maybe the deputy leader is better off without questions.

[And with that Question Time ended, and Julie Bishop, no doubt drawing on every ounce of self denial that has seen her rise to the position she holds today, thought she left the winner]

Federer loses the US Open. Ok, so he is human. Bugger

As I sort of predicated yesterday, Juan Martin Del Potro beat Roger Federer in the US Open final. Sigh… deep breaths… I can get through this…

Del Potro started slow, but played some excellent tennis in the 4th and 5th sets to take the win.

Federer played so-so. He only got in 50% of his first serves. Del Potro by contrast got in 65%. That pretty much is enough to be the difference between a win and a loss. That Federer was able to get to within 2 points of winning shows how good even his below par performance is.

But all credit to Del Porto, he was brutal in the 5th set and you can’t say the better player on the day didn’t win.

Here’s Federer’s take:

ROGER FEDERER: … I got off to a pretty good start, and had things under control as well in the second set. I think that one cost me the match eventually. But I had many chances before that to make the difference. So it was tough luck today, but I you thought Juan Martin played great. I thought he hung in there and gave himself chances, and in the end was the better man.

Q. How disappointing is this not to get No. 6?
ROGER FEDERER: Five was great, four was great, too. Six would have been a dream, too. Can't have them all. I've had an amazing summer and a great run. I'm not too disappointed just because I thought I played another wonderful tournament. Had chances today to win, but couldn't take them. It was unfortunate.

Q. How do you look back at the Grand Slam results of this year? You got two titles of Grand Slam, two finalists. How did you look back?
ROGER FEDERER: Unbelievable. Unbelievable run. Being in all major finals and winning two of those, I'm losing the other two in five sets. Sure, I would have loved to win those two as well. Being so close, I think was two points from the match today. That's the way it goes sometimes. But year has been amazing already and it's not over yet. Got married and had kids, don't know how much more I want.

Q. With all the good that's happened this year, will that eventually help ease the sting of this?
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, I mean, this one I think is easy to get over just because I've had the most amazing summer. I tried everything, you know. Didn't work. I missed chances. He played well and in the end it was a tough fifth set. It's acceptable. But life goes on. No problem.

Q. You were fully in control early on, and then the match start to change. Was there a moment where you said, uh‑oh, I got to get more serious or things aren't going the way I need them to go?
ROGER FEDERER: Not really. I thought I had him under control for the first two sets. I should never have lost so many chances. It was just a pity. I think if I win the second set, I'm in a great position to come through. Unfortunately, I didn't win that and that was it.

One of the reasons the loss wasn’t too hard to take (ok, I lie, I was shattered) was that Del Potro is a nice guy. Here’s his post match comments:

JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO: I don't know, I just want to live this moment. Of course I will be in the history of this tournament. That's amazing for me. I have new opportunities in the other Grand Slams to win, because if I did here, if I beat Nadal, Federer and many good players, maybe I can do one more time. But of course, will be difficult, because I was so close to lose today.

Q. You double faulted twice to go down two sets to one. How did you get yourself back into that match? What were you telling yourself?
JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO: Well, I was so...
Q. Were you momentarily down?
JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO: Yeah, but that moment I start to think the final, playing with Roger, the best player of the history, nothing to lose. And be two sets to one down, but I think, okay, you never lose until the last point, so keep fighting. The crowd help me, and they saw my fight in every point.
So I think that's help me.

Q. You came this close to almost breaking the racquet after the third set. All of a sudden there seemed to be a new spark in you.
JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO: Well, I was so nervous. But for respect to me and respect to everyone, I don't do that, because maybe when I feel nervous I saw Roger and he's a gentleman player, you know. We have to learn many things about him. Many times I do that today.

Q. In the first set, he handled pretty well. Was it nerves on your end that you got a little nervous playing the first set? In the second set, what adjustments did you make to your game?
JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO: Yes, the beginning of the match I was so nervous, I can't sleep last night. I don't take a breakfast today. That's part of the final, you know.  But Roger start very good. I start little down. I miss ‑‑ I was bad with my serve, and that's important weapon of my game. When I broke his serve for first time, I start to believe in my game. To change.

Q. Does this victory, is it even more special because you beat Roger in the final?
JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO: Yeah, of course. Beat Roger for first time here in my favorite Grand Slam, and two sets to one down, everything, I think it's the best final ever in my life, of course.  But if I beat Roger if three sets straight will be better. But it's impossible.

Q. Do you think the match you played against him in Paris helped you here?
JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO: Yeah, sometimes help me, but sometimes no, because I was 4‑5 serving and I did two double faults, same like Paris when I was 3‑All in the fifth set. I think that, but fortunately it was early. I have two more set to fight. Maybe that's help me.

Q. The fact that you in your first Grand Slam final beat Roger, who is in the prime of his brilliant tennis career and the way did you it, what did you learn about yourself today and throughout the course of this tournament?
JUAN MARTIN DEL POTRO: Well, I think everything is to learn about this match. I have many things to improve to be better. Of course I would like to be in top 4, top 3, or top 1 in the future. But I have to play like today many, many weeks in the year. If I still working and still going in the same way, maybe in the future I can do.

A very gracious and humble response.

The tennis blog GoToTennis, came up with a great post for Federer fans struggling to cope with the loss. It argues the fans need to go through the 7 steps of despair. Here’s the last – acceptance:

I accept that Roger Federer holds the all-time record of 15 Major titles. I accept that Roger Federer is the Greatest Tennis Player of All Time. I accept that he’s had an unprecedented 2009 – reaching the finals of all 4 majors, completing the career slam at Roland Garros, regaining his beloved Wimbledon title and retaking the No. 1 ranking. Oh, and he got married and fathered twin girls, to boot. I accept that Federer’s beaten his main rivals – Murray, Djokovic and Nadal – more recently than they’ve beaten him.  I accept that Roger’s hair will always reign supreme. I accept that his practice t-shirts will always make me smile. I accept that he’s richer, more talented and better dressed than I am. I accept that he can’t win every match, even though I really, really want him to. I accept that he lost the US Open to a nice young Fed fan named Juan Martin del Potro (and not one of the infidels – you know who I’m talking about!) I accept that even Roger Federer can’t have it all.

Brilliant.

And for those wondering, one of the infidels is Andy Murray.

On the QT: Nyah, Nyah, Nyah Edition

This morning in The Age there was a story about how rarely women Liberal MPs got to ask questions. It must have hit a nerve, because after Turnbull and Hockey had their goes, they let Susan Ley ask a question – and in doing so she became only the third female Liberal MP to have asked more than 2 questions this year.

Also this morning, Tony Abbott was hitting the airwaves and TV shows pointedly not ruling out boycotting Question Time. It was a typically juvenile threat by Abbott, especially as it was never going to be carried out, and would only serve to make the Libs look like sooks. Australians might not think much of the proceedings in parliament, but they have never taken kindly to people who when things don’t go their way take their bat and ball and go home.

So instead of a boycott the Liberals decided to interrupt Question Time by twice moving the the speaker no longer be heard. This requires a vote and stops everything for about 10 minutes. The first time they did it was while Tanya Plibersek was roasting the Liberals over a “Women’s Issues” page on its website that still referred to John Howard as PM and begins with a 1944 speech by Robert Menzies. The second occurred during an answer by Julia Gillard where she was avoiding answering the question from Susan Ley on the comments by the head of a Parents and Children's organisation by instead reading out a letter from the principal of another school. Either way you can bet your life that both the head of the P&C and the principal involved each have pretty obvious political leanings.

The whole thing was a complete farce as the Libs became rowdier and more childish – Pyne was screaming out “you idiots! you fools!”, Abbott was muttering under his breath at the speaker, and then getting huffy when the Speaker pulled him up on it, the ALP Member of Solomon was kicked out for not doing anything, but volunteering to go anyway. However, just when things couldn’t possibly get more pathetic, up stepped Julie Bishop to ask Julia Gillard a question.

Thinking she was being oh so frightfully clever, Bishop referred to the mention of Menzies in Plibersek’s earlier answer and asked Julia whether she agreed with a speech made in parliament by Paul Keating which criticised the Coalition Government for being proud of the fact that more women were being employed than ever before. Here’s the kicker. Keating’s speech was from 1969!

Yep, Julie Bishop thought Gillard would be embarrassed about something Keating said 40 years ago. The question was so inane, and so poorly constructed as well that the Speaker contemplated ruling it out of order (because it asked Gillard to comment on something said by someone else about the policy of the Liberal Party and not about Government policy), the Government benches however were screaming at him to rule it in order.

Bishop is easily the most pointless member of the Liberal Party front bench. This question was beyond embarrassing. However, worse still, as Julia slapped her answer into the car park for six, Bishop tried to table the speech – yes she tried to get put in Hansard as speech already in Hansard.

Sigh.

Oh, in other news the Government announced it was going to split Telstra into two parts (unless Telstra splits itself). It is a momentous decision. It didn’t even really get a question – the closest was Turnbull asking about the National Broadband Network.

Sigh.

God I love Tennis

A few weeks back I said athletics was my favourite sport to watch. I have to admit I forgot about tennis. Come the Grand Slams, I am always extremely happy with our decision to get Foxtel, which means we are able to watch almost non-stop tennis for a fortnight.

Today was a great day of tennis – quite often the best day of tennis each year. The “Super Saturday” of the US Open (though due to rain, it was on Sunday this year) on which day the men’s semi-finals and the women’s final are played.

In the first semi, Juan Martin Del Potro had a breakthrough win over Nadal 6-2, 6-2, 6-2. At 20 years of age, Del Potro is on the rise in a big way, and will move up to Number 5 in the world after this tournament. He has had a good year, hindered (as with everyone else in the world) by the fact he has had to play Federer. He met Federer in the semi-finals of the Australian Open – getting obliterated 6-3,6-0,6-0. He then met Federer again in the semi-final of the French Open. That time he won the first two sets before going down 6-4 in the fifth set.  Now he meets Federer in the final of the US Open, and he certainly meets him as a better player than he was back in January in Melbourne.

Federer is not actually playing his best tennis, but of course that doesn’t mean he can’t still be better than anyone else. In his semi final against Novak Djokovic, Federer did pretty much only what he needed to to win (7-6,7-5,7-5) – i.e. he won the crucial points in the crucial games (as all the greats do – that type of match where the opponent is thinking he’s doing OK and then suddenly he’s in the locker room thinking what just happened?).

But in the last game with Djokovic serving to stay in the match down 0-30, Federer uncorked a shot that took about 10 minutes to become dubbed “The Shot”.

Just amazing. Be glad you live at a time when you get to watch Federer play.

That said, I won’t actually be shocked if Del Potro wins on Tuesday afternoon (our time). He is playing the tennis of his life and will feel he was thisclose to beating Roger in Paris, and his big serve is much more suited to the fast hard courts of New York. But tennis is played between the ears as well, so he first has to get to the point where he believes he can beat Federer…

The great news story of the day was Kim Clijsters becoming the first mum (and only third ever) since Evonne Gooloogong to win a Grand Slam – and the first Wild Card entrant of either sex to ever win a US Open title.

How amazing it must be to be able to have your 18 month old daughter come down on the court with you as you get the trophy.

It was great to see, and perhaps shows women that they can stop their career and have a child and still come back. All they need to do is be as outrageously talented and strong as is Clijsters and it’s no worries.

I’m hoping her win inspires Justine Henin to make a comeback – if only so we can all see her perfect backhand one more time.

So yes tennis is perhaps my favourite sport. I do get tense while watching Federer (or in year’s past favourites like Rafter) play; but I think more than any other sport I enjoy watching it played at the highest level for the pure appreciation of talent and sporting prowess on display, regardless of the participants. I also love the pure one-on-one combat nature of tennis.

(That and the possibility of seeing Serena Williams completely go off her nut and threaten to shove a f@$&ing tennis ball down someone’s f@$&ing throat, but that’ll never happen…)

On the QT: Anyone for Twitter?

Fresh off of being told 55% of the nation are dissatisfied with his performance, Malcolm Turnbull started Question Time by running in from the Yarralumla end and delivered an absolute slow long hop to Julia Gillard. It was a question about the Primary School mentioned ad nauseum last week, and Gillard referring to the Liberal attacks as nit picking. Turnbull asked if the Auditor General's investigation into the school’s stimulus was nitpicking. Gee, how to make it hard for her Mal. You’re asking her to compare your attacks, many of which have been shown to be half baked, with a fully independent audit? Gee what to say…

That was pretty much the highlight for Turnbull. He asked a couple more, and none made it past the bat.  The ones he asked Julia, he (like all the other Liberal MPs) made a big show of reading out her full title of portfolios. In fact he read them out with a smug sense of self satisfaction, as though laughing at his own poorly phrased and ill-timed joke. (You have to give it to Malcolm, few others could come across as smug on the day that a poll says over half the nation thinks you’re stuffing up your job.)

Rudd only got one question - a Dorothy on the history of the world economic crisis over the last 365 days. He proceeded to pretty much give a recap of every day. It was dull, but it served its purpose – to thoroughly annoy the Liberal Party. Most annoyed was Tony Abbott, who stood up to block the camera view of Julia when she was answering her next Dorothy Dix on IR. It was juvenile stuff that you do once and then sit down. Abbott did it again, and got kicked out for his trouble. Like the flat track bully he is, he called for the wambulance and cried to the media that Question Time had become a farce because it was meant to be about the Government stating the truth, not making up lies about the opposition.

Oh gee Tony, I guess that’s why under the Howard Government every Dorothy Dixer ended with the phrase “and are there any alternate policies?”. I guess Parliament was better served when you were at the dispatch box putting on the lamest Tom Cruise impersonation ever, shouting to the ALP “Show me the policies!”

Please. Suck it up princess.

Another lot who can suck it up are all the Liberal MPs tweeting during Question Time in a pathetic attempt to get their message out. Here’s Peter Dutton as Julia began answering a particularly poorly constructed question from Christopher Pyne:

In qn time when answering: if rudd yawns, swanny goes dry in the mouth or gillard starts with a giggle or smile, u know its a good qn.

Sorry Peter, wishing and hoping don’t make it so. You guys have asked about 5 good questions all year (none by Dutton by the way), and when Julia starts with a giggle or smile it means you’re about to get hit over the fence for six.

Here’s Stuart Robert – the MP for Fadden who last week got skewered for telling the press that every other nation in the world was winding back their economic stimulus:

And now we're subject to a Swanny diatribe, Maybe Abbott was right to leave.

First off, Abbott got his arse kicked out, he didn’t choose to leave, and second, grow a pair! You hate being in opposition? Come up with some policies, elect an effective leader; spend less time trying to write a half-witty comment on Twitter and more time wondering what your IR policy will be, what your Environment policy will be, what your Health policy will be. etc, etc, etc.

To the Libs who think the way back into office is by Tweeting during Question Time, enjoy the next decade doing it.

This is how bad it got – Joe Hockey actually cited that great economic wiz David Koch in a question. Yep the bloke with the dumb Dad jokes from Sunrise (you know that program that got nominated for a Logie for Best Light Entertainment) is now the Liberal Party’s economic go to guy. Swan rebuked him for being such a dill, and Joe, in a fit of pique got kicked out as well. But never fear – he kept on Tweeting:

Swan just said that the biggest influence on interest rates is global affairs..he is living in Waynes world where there is no RBA cash rate

Sigh. Oh Joe, you may be right about “Wayne’s World” (get that hipsters – it’s a reference to a film that came out about 16 years ago), except Swan was actually talking about the biggest influence on the RBA cash rate. Sigh. Stop giving the ALP so much free ammunition.

Perhaps the true highlight for the Liberal Party was Wilson Tuckey yelling out as Tanya Plibersek got up to answer a Dorothy Dix on the impact of WorkChoices on women, that women only wanted a job on the weekends when the husbands were home to look after the kids.

Here’s Alex Hawke (young right wing fool from NSW) on twitter:

Imagine a Liberal Government, its easy if you try

Sorry Alex, but on the evidence of your party’s performance today we won’t even be close to imagining a Liberal PM for another 10 years.

Today like last week highlighted that the Liberal Part have stopped trying to get Rudd, they know Swan is safe, and so they are reduced to going after Gillard. And while the media may go on about her “losing some of her gloss” she is still hitting most balls out of the middle. But then given the ball is old, the pitch flat and the attack so weak, that is hardly much of a compliment.