Diary hears that Rudd is penning a long and crucial essay for The Monthly. Has not he accomplished that once before? Why, indeed, he has. It had been in October 2006, was an 8000-word piece on Rudd’s religious mentors as well as on John Howard’s Brutopia, also it was printed just weeks ahead of Rudd’s choice to seize the leadership from the Labor Party, and set himself up for the job of Pm. Just sayin’.
Fitz’s shindig
Still with Kim Beazley, for he was the man Rudd rolled to do the job, guess in which he was over the past weekend? He was in Washington DC, essentially, exactly where he’s ambassador towards the US, but his beaming experience was being broadcast into the residence of 1 Peter FitzSimons.
The author, journalist and former Wallaby celebrated his 50th birthday with a black-tie, sit-down dinner on Saturday night on the tennis court of his sprawling, and beautiful home that books built. FitzSimons was Beazley’s biographer; there was hope the Bomber may well come out to Oz for the shindig, however it could not be done. But never mind, simply because everybody else was there, such as Andrew Denton and Jennifer Byrne; pollies (Joe Hockey); journos from Seven (Mark Riley and Mark Ferguson); and everyone from Nine’s Currently display, including Fitz’s spouse, Lisa Wilkinson, who everyone agreed was “beyond stunning”.
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Related Protection
* Knives out once more for anniversary The Australian, 7 days in the past
* Tony Koch calls time The Australian, 12 Jun 2011
* Paul Gallen’s State of Origin diary Adelaide Now, 21 May 2011
* Asylum shut-out will get Bartlett heading The Australian, fifteen May perhaps 2011
* When forced silence is absurd The Australian, 24 Apr 2011
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Fitz was pleased to see every person but, truth be told, his mood of late has been a lot more reflective than is his custom made and Diary understands like he was truly humbled to obtain a gong within the Queen’s Birthday honours checklist, not only while he did not expect it but due to the fact his beloved mum was Beatrice Helen Booth OAM, meaning she’d a gong. Now he is received 1 also, and he is often thought that his mum was the most amazing lady whatever person lived (together with his wife, obviously) and he desired nothing a lot for her to be proud of him, and today, he thinks, possibly, she is.
Waley on the mend
It’s been a little more than a year because the beloved Jim Waley left Sky, and he’s performing fantastically well, and thank you for asking. Waley has suffered a couple of health issues in recent years, starting with the dreaded “BCC” — basal cell carcinoma — in the left ear. He tells Diary: “I left Sky in May possibly 2010, and had a major operation in June, winding up using the removal of my ear on the left side, and radiation, but now I am in virtually great wellness, close to jumping from my skin, actually”, and doing every thing, except deep-sea diving, that he was once addicted.
“You have to be in a position to equalise, and I have been able to do that inside a pool, and the oncologist says I can give it a try within the ocean,” he says, “and I’ll give that a attempt, but I am also a glass-half-full kind of person and, if it can’t be completed, you will find compensations. I have been snorkelling with whales off Tonga, so I cannot actually complain.” Regarding going back to Sky, Waley states: “It’s beginning but. We’ll see.”
ACP talent drain
A NUMBER of critical individuals have decided to depart ACP, all of them from the men’s mags division. We speak of Michael Koslowski (former head of sport at Fairfax, now publisher of ACP’s men’s way of life titles), who’ll remain on for that Rugby Planet Cup, and then go; Paul Merrill, editor of Zoo, who has no other career in mind; and Janis Carter, who’s research director, men’s and professional titles. A few people are saying that ACP wants to offer the men’s unit; resources tell Diary it’s not so.
Malone departs Fox
FOX Sports activities leader David Malone was farewelled from the gig he is been doing for twelve years during a long and entertaining lunch at Sydney’s Bambini Believe in a week ago. Also departing: chief operating officer Jon Marguard who, like Malone, continues to be using the corporation since it was one analog station, 12 years ago. Malone’s alternative is just one of Foxtel leader Kim Williams’s key executives, Patrick Delaney.
AFR’s NYC blues
DIARY were built with a note last week about the tradition of AFR reporters becoming sent to Ny and refusing to return, starting with Aaron Patrick, who had been there in 2000. In Diary’s inbox on Monday would be a note from Brian Hale, who has agreed the custom is grand but goes back longer than that: “When I became the AFR’s NY correspondent in 1993 my predecessor was Martin Friends . . . who would not get home and began for Variety. At the conclusion of 1997, once the AFR wished me back again, I too would not get home and rather became the very first, and last, business enterprise correspondent in Ny jointly for that SMH, The Age and BRW. That appointment lasted till 2002; in all, an eight-year spell with Fairfax, and I still did not return, though I’m home now.” Also corresponding was Patrick himself, who says he did return to Canberra for a year, then returned to Ny below their own steam, to study at Harvard, after which it he went to London (he, also, is now household.)
Jones’s age liberties
What age do you reckon Tony Jones is? We ask because there was an odd moment on the ABC’s QandA last Monday, when among the panel of Gen-Yers said setting up a Facebook account or perhaps a blog was “more efficient than 400 people running around in the street turning automobiles over”, to which Jones stated: “Well, I have to inform you that I was involved in an era that went in the streets, turned autos over throughout the Vietnam War.” Gerard Henderson didn’t purchase it and, in the always entertaining Media Watch Dog newsletter on Friday, he wrote: “How numerous cars did young Mr Jones and the mates turn over during the Vietnam War? . . . (I have) a relatively superior memory but can not recall any significant functions of civil insurrection during the Vietnam War . . . After which, you have the few age. According to the Newington College Sign-up of Past Students, Tony Jones attended between 1970 and 1974. This suggests that he was created circa 1956. All Australian overcome troops were withdrawn from Vietnam towards the end of 1971 (when) Master Jones was in Year 9..”
Diary put all this to a good-humoured Jones, who stated: “Yes. As well young to stay the streets demonstrating by a few several years, that’s accurate.
But I in no way said Used to do such things myself. I stated I was in a era exactly where individuals took to the streets to demonstrate from the Vietnam War.
My memory is that persons jumped in front of vehicles once they had LBJ on board . . . (and) turning police cars over and burning them came considerably later, when thousands of people rioted in protest from the closure from the Star Hotel in Newcastle.”
Burley Griffin bio
THE Australian’s Glenda Korporaal takes six months off to publish a bio on Walter Burley Griffin, and her timing couldn’t be superior. Subsequent May well is the 100th anniversary of the picking of Burley Griffin’s plan as the one for Canberra (and 2013 may be the 12 months of the Canberra centenary).
As Korporaal has discovered, there was a press conference in Melbourne in Could 1912 to announce Griffin’s program because the winner, and who is that, in the background of this official photograph?
It is Keith Murdoch, who had been just 26 at that time, a cadet in the Age (he was soon to start in the Sydney Sun), and not very many many years away from travelling to Gallipoli, in which he earned his name, permanently.
antoniaesjohn 