This is as close to rage meltdown as I think I've ever seen the Prime Minister come, which is to say not very, but you can see it churning away there under the pastels. She's clearly not happy, and if I were Tony Abbott I wouldn't want to run into her on a dark night. He could have put Mark Latham on his arse fairly easily, but I don't like his chances with an enraged Gillard one bit.
I assume that as we speak he's gleefully dancing around giving Crabbe and Goyle and the rest of the Slytherins high fives, like the schoolyard bully he is.
Surely, though, she can't be surprised. It's not as if there's no precedent, from that quarter, for weathervane behaviour, spoiler behaviour, plotting, scheming, lying and deception.
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What I'm reading
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James Meek, Nobody Wants To Hear This, London Review of Books, v46 n22, 21
November 2024
Something like this is happening in the Kharkiv of 2024. Vladimi...
1 hour ago
15 comments:
Abbot as Malfoy. Brilliant, PC.
Surprise, surprise!
oh, that's right. we have a PM, and a woman as a PM, too...how quickly one forgets!
(any typos due to yelling at tortoiseshell)
I suppose it's too much to ask that we can go back to using "told" or "said" instead of "indicated" (used at least twice in this clip)? And it's definitely too much, isn't it, to ask that people not pronounce "a" as "ay"? Yes, thought so.
BTW, that's a totally bipartisan failing.
I'd be all for the dynamic and changing English, if it didn't tend so much towards a kind of cardigan-wearing, biros-in-top-pocket, comb-over old-school feel.
W/V: achheadr, probably how "ahead" will be pronounced in 2014, the way things are going.
Thanks for highlighting her rage. I thought that's what it was too. In fact, for once the 'a' as 'ay' pronunciation didn't seem out of place to me, nor the 'indicated', each of those ticks seemed to be weighted with deep enmity. And she definitely said Mister Rabbit.
Helen, it often occurs to me that Gillard's language choices come from her legal background -- she often talks very much as though she's in court and weighing the significance of every word, even when it's only to obfuscate. I also reckon it's the same sort of sub-cultural dialect you find in cop-speak -- 'The male person is deceased' instead of 'Fark, he's dead.'
Hearing the indefinite article pronounced 'ay' instead of 'uh' which is how your normal Australian pronounces it drives me up the wall too. I think I blogged about it back in the mists of time when the Beazer was Labor leader and used to do it constantly. And he didn't just say ay for uh, he also said thee for thuh, as in 'There is ay dirty great hole in thee Constitution that you could drive ay truck through.'
I think even Keating used to do it occasionally.
Heard Mr Rabbit on the radio this afternoon and shook my head in wonderment at the way the Libs mock Julia's Australian accent when Abbott's own is so very twangy and nasal itself. He said 'guvmint' through his nose five times in two minutes.
I think the 'ay' thing comes from reading writcten speeches etc.
But what difference would that make?
I am just glad the papers have moved on from talking about her absent handbag.
http://infense.blogspot.com/2010/09/bagging-pm.html
On the slightly off-topic subject of word choice, I was surprised that the recent rain in the southern states produced very little flooding, but a great deal of inundation.
Abbott said yesterday that the document he signed for Parliamentary reform was only a "gentlemen's agreement."
And presumably since Abbott is NOT a gentleman, that is all the excuse he needs.
It looks as though we will have a viable Parliament though, with Somlyay saying that he will not block supply, and Katter already having said the same thing. The question is, whenever the next election comes, will Australians continue to vote for a lying scoundrel?
'Abbott said yesterday that the document he signed for Parliamentary reform was only a "gentlemen's agreement."
And presumably since Abbott is NOT a gentleman, that is all the excuse he needs.'
This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder about his basic level of intelligence. Is he really incapable of thinking even as far ahead as the logical conclusion of his own remarks?
Or does he think the rest of us are so stupid that we won't notice?
Or was it just another stupid sexist joke (along the lines of 'When Julia says No') -- gentleman's agreement, but Julia's a lady hur hur.
Today's SMH is full of the jeans and jacket JG wore while hand-in-hand with Mr Tim in the gardens of the Lodge. Bloody 'ell.
Meanwhile, I use thee and ay before nouns beginning with a vowel, and thə and ə before consonants, though sometimes when it's a noun beginning with a vowel, I just elide, as in "th'elephant in thə room". Anything else sounds like a bogus affectation of formality.
"wonderment at the way the Libs mock Julia's Australian accent when Abbott's own is so very twangy and nasal itself"
YES exactly.
Has anybody seen a photo of Mr.Rabbit's Personal ASSISTANT ?
She appears to be the antithesis of what Mrs.Abbott appears to be.
Just sniffin th'wind for the story.
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