Thursday, November 21, 2002

Politics Carr got the wrong girl!
In the end, the cause belongs to all of us. We'd better realise it before it is too late.
No haters like Labor haters, are there?
· Imitating Communists [Web Diary]

Literature Taming the Beast — The Fears and Joys of Being a Writer
There’s a voice inside our heads that’s always heralding doom and disaster even before we get started on something.
· Writing Alone, Writing Together [Absolute Write]

A library of literary frauds

Tom Carew, alias Philip Sessarego, wrote an account of his service with the SAS in Afghanistan shortly after September 11, 2001. Jihad! sold 50,000 copies before the BBC correspondent George Eykyn accused him of being a charlatan on Newsnight. The author denied the charge and stormed off, shoving a cameraman out of his way. He threatened legal action but, one year on, the BBC has not heard from him.

Alan Sokal succeeded in publishing an essay on Post-Modernism entitled Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity in the respected journal, Social Text. It was, he later revealed, a completely meaningless hoax designed to expose the trend for fatuous babble within academia.
· Jack Malvern [Times On Line]

Thought on Crossed Lines - Toaster

Itchy backs appeared a common problem as Mirvac threw a 30th anniversary lunch for itself and it many property and political pals at Sydney's Pier One Sebel House Hotel yesterday.

An increasingly good mate of the property development industry, NSW Premier Bob Carr, obligingly agreed to speak at the function and waxed lyrical about Mirvac's track record of design excellence. So good were its designs, Carr said, that the group was sure to pick up a swag of awards for its nearby Walsh Bay whaves development.

Carr then looked back at what he described as the hysterical
protest over the East Circular Quay (so-called Toaster) development, in which protesters had virtually immolated themselves like Saigon monks.

Returning the back sratch, Mirvac chair Adrian Lane then took the microphone, with a copy of Carr's recently published biography, Thoughtlines in hand, and tales of Carr's
childhood followed.


For those who's who hadn't dropped off, Mirva's cult hero boss Bob Hamilton the provided a story worth hearing.
Struggling to find a name for their new company 30 years ago,
Mirvac's founders decided to stick with the name of the shelf company they had established. Only later did the pair find out that it was also the name of a racehorse which had performed well in country meetings for a while before suddenly dropping dead.
-Rear Window Australian Financial Review 21 November 2002 p 46