This is part of the story of an extraordinary Australian.
Frederick Septimus Kelly is one of Australia’s greatest sons. A century after his death on the last day of the first Battle of the Somme, the time has finally come for his music to be played again, for the notes to rise off the page, like ghosts taking form, and move towards us through time with arms outstretched, before finally embracing us, here, in the present. This is a gift to all who love beauty – the music of a deeply, sensitive soul, who was an Olympic Gold medal-winning athlete, Pablo Casals’ preferred pianist and a composer of real genius – Australia’s Vaughan Williams. It is time to finally hear his music and savour the sweetness of his flowers – for Australia to love its lovely boy.
The person who probably knew ‘Sep’ Kelly best was his brother Bertie, himself an amateur violinist who had studied with Joseph Joachim. “Born in 1881, as the youngest member of a musical family, Sep soon decided to copy his elders,” Bertie wrote. “I can remember him as a baby climbing onto a music stool and imitating the actions of a pianist.”
“For a while Sep was limited to what he could create with his small closed fist, but clearly he was not satisfied with that. To the astonishment of his family he rapidly succeeded in playing what he wanted. He seemed to pass in one bound from the stage of a boisterous child using the piano as a toy, to that of a miniature musician. I cannot remember him ever learning the piano. He just seemed to play it as a duck suddenly finds it can swim.”
At 12-years old, the child virtuoso went from Sydney Grammar to Eton for specialist tuition. Here began Sep’s introduction to rowing as a cox, then stroke, of one of their boats. Having spent his youth on Sydney harbour sailing with his father, he had always loved the water. Within a few short years he would be considered the greatest amateur sculler of his time.
Sep had composed music from his teenage years and his early songs are unusually eloquent. He had always preferred to play music by heart. He wrote music in his head without referring to a piano, polishing the works to perfection before committing them to paper. There are very few corrections in his mature works, if any. There are very few drafts. As with Mozart, the pieces seemed to come into being perfectly formed, as if they had always existed.
After Oxford, Kelly studied piano and composition for five years at the Frankfurt Conservatory, the leading music school of the time, where Percy Grainger also studied. In 1908, Kelly ended his studies to train for the London Olympics. He aimed to beat the Canadian rower L.F. Scholes, the only man who had ever bettered him. He rowed in the eights and won Gold in commanding fashion – his Australian nationality no obstacle to rowing for England in those very different days. However, his fame as an oarsman presented many obstacles to his musical career. The public thought he was an athlete dabbling in music, rather than the other way round. Reviews of his piano performances always referred to him as a sculler and Kelly eventually would realise that only in composition would he be able to escape his own shadow.
Kelly’s professional musical life commenced in earnest after the 1908 Olympics. He quickly took on a leading role in London, becoming the cellist Pablo Casals’ recital partner and also appearing as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, amongst others.
Kelly’s great return to Australia occurred in 1911 when he appeared as piano soloist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the Sydney Town Hall. The Bulletin review said: “The orchestra had the help of F. S. Kelly, a returned Australian, in Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto for piano and orchestra. This was his first appearance in Sydney after many European successes and his brilliant performance justified a remarkable outburst of enthusiasm!” He followed this with three marathon piano recitals in ten days, two chamber recitals, and conducting a chamber orchestra concert, all of which featured his works.
When war broke out, Kelly was back working in London. He rushed to sign up and was soon commissioned in the Royal Naval Division (RND). He became part of the famous Latin Club, a group of officers from the Hood Battalion. Kelly served alongside the poet Rupert Brooke, the composer William Denis Browne, the British Prime Minister’s second son “Ock” Asquith, and New Zealand’s Bernard Freyberg, later commander of their WWII forces and finally their Governor General. The war would take all of them except Asquith, who lost his leg, and Freyberg, who was wounded seven times, eventually dying from one of those wounds when it ruptured 50 years later.
By the time war broke out, Kelly had composed enough music to fill five CDs but there was far more that remained in his head, un-notated. “Before dinner I looked through my recent unpublished works and revised some passages before going to bed,” he wrote on Sunday January 3, 1915. “In view of going to the front I am somewhat conscious of Keats’ sonnet:
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain“I am anxious to leave my unpublished work as far as possible ready for the press. Unfortunately there is no time to notate the works in my head – the Symphony in E Major, the Lyric Phantasy for large orchestra, the F Minor Piano Sonata, the Aubade for flute and strings, a String Quartet in E Minor and about a dozen songs.”
In the remaining 22 months before his death at the Somme on November 13, 1916, there never was enough time to write them all down and record them for history. They live now only as titles, the music dying with the bullet that cleaved his ‘teeming brain’.
In Australia artists are called many things, but rarely war heroes. Kelly was certainly that. More importantly, he wrote the most music of any composer who served. His war music is remarkably serene, as elusive as trying to collect moonlight.
Quickly written poems or drawings in the trenches are often cathartic, expressing and expelling bitter experience. Music, on the other hand, requires weeks of sustained concentration. It becomes a place of refuge on the battlefield – an oasis of calm transporting the mind to a more peaceful place. Kelly – like Mandela in Robben Island prison – transcended his environment, writing music in his mind over months at Gallipoli and France. He was able to sustain musical ideas coherently, notable for their lack of angst, even amidst danger and chaos.
Kelly fought throughout the Gallipoli campaign. He was wounded in the foot, allowing him the chance to notate his masterpiece, the Elegy for his friend Rupert Brooke. In the second half of the campaign, he wrote a sonata for the great Hungarian virtuoso, Jelly D’Aranyi, the most famous female violinist of her day. When the Royal Naval Division was transferred to the Western Front, Sep continued to compose, including trying to notate his aforementioned F Minor Piano Sonata, but which remained unfinished at the time of his death.
Kelly was a soldier who seemed to have no real hatred of his enemy. He spoke German fluently from his studies in Frankfurt and had mastered the musical language of Schumann and Brahms. He blended that with a very English sensibility, much like Handel did, creating a musical language that is closest to Ralph Vaughan Williams, but remains clearly his own. If Vaughan Williams had also died at 35, their two catalogues would be almost identical in quality and quantity, with Kelly writing more piano music and Vaughan Williams more chamber music.
There are layers of contradictions with Kelly: he was an Australian living within the highest levels of English society, whose manner was the epitome of an English gentleman but who was not accepted as such. He was often laughed at by his fellow officers for writing music in his dugout, along with his habit of constantly wearing gloves (though logical for a pianist protecting his hands), which they took as proof of his eccentricity. His Australian directness of expression caused fits of laughter, as did his love of cats, which he seemed somehow to collect in the trenches, particularly in France. However, it is very moving to read, how, after his death, his fellow officers came to realise how much they missed him – how life was a lot less interesting after he was gone.
Kelly’s last completed work was written on October 28, 1916 in Mesnil, near Thiepval, opposite Pozières. Lt. Commander Bernard Freyberg wrote: “Kelly and his fellow officers are situated in a small cellar of a bombed out house – indeed the whole town of Mesnil has been reduced to rubble by shell fire, and in this basement, only a few feet square, they cook, eat and sleep – the staircase serving the dual role of chimney and entrance.”
The work is an introduction and theme for a planned set of orchestral variations which Kelly marked Lento and Lamentoso, and which history will remember as The Somme Lament. The manuscript, in his perfect handwriting, scored as if for piano but with some details of orchestration, is impossibly clean, with no trace of dirt or soot, and not a single correction or error. It seems as pristine as if it had been written yesterday. It will shortly be orchestrated in order to represent the nearby battle of Pozières in the upcoming Diggers’ Requiem, the bookend companion piece to the Gallipoli Symphony, which will premiere in 2018 to mark the centenary of the end of the Great War.
On X Day, November 13, 1916, the day of the big push to take to take Beaumont-Hamel, the final battle of the Somme, Freyberg wrote: “On the extreme right I stopped to talk to Kelly who was in command of B company. We had been daily companions for the last two years and he, Asquith, Edgerton and I were the sole survivors of the Battalion who left Avonmouth for Gallipoli in February 1915. I wanted to take both his hands and wish him ‘God speed’ but somehow it seemed too theatrical, so instead we talked awkwardly and synchronised our watches.”
“Owing to our heavy casualties, it was never known really how Kelly was killed, but it appears that someone on Kelly’s left had missed a dugout entrance from which the enemy was starting to shoot. The situation was critical. Unless the strong point was captured at once enemy machine guns would pop up everywhere. Hesitation would have endangered the success of the whole attack on our front.”
“Kelly, being an experienced soldier, knew this quite well, as he must have known the risk he was taking, when with the few men he had hastily gathered, he rushed the machine gun. A few men reached the position, but Kelly, with most of them, was killed at the moment of victory.”
Freyberg, wounded four times, won the Victoria Cross. Kelly’s surviving men, as a sign of respect, carried him back through No Man’s Land in order that he might be properly buried. He is the only one of the dozen composers killed in the Somme to have a marked grave.
On the occasion of the centenary of Sep’s death, we must come at last to realise just how immense his loss was to our young culture. Our small population did not have composers to spare. Like so many countries, we paid a preposterous price in the First World War. The stories from this period are our modern-day Greek Tragedies, yet too often they are stories we do not know. If we did we would not risk war again.
We cannot recover Australia’s 60,000 dead from the Great War, but we can bring back Kelly. Following his death, Sep’s obituary was run in almost every major paper in England, Scotland, Ireland and Australia, and yet now he is largely forgotten. It is well past time for us to grieve for Kelly, to realise just what we lost, and to finally know him through his music, as Kelly himself foresaw when he quoted Callimachus in the foreword to his Elegy for Rupert Brooke:
Still your works live on, and Death, the universal snatcher, cannot lay his hand on them.
THE PUB 
Jaeger – A treasure trove of data, part of which can also be applied to shallower waters, by mining companies.
Underwater volcano eruptions allow new bacteria to take over seafloor
http://newatlas.com/venus-hair-bacteria-tagoro-volcano/49193/
Russian intelligence ship sinks off Turkey’s Black Sea coast after collision, authorities say
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-27/russian-intelligence-ship-sinks-off-black-sea-coast-turkey/8478256
Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
John Hewson writes that we are at the mercy of two mad men.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/danni-roche-calls-for-external-party-to-conduct-aoc-review-20170427-gvtrmj.html
A senior Liberal has come out saying that the party will be decimated and tells us why. “Turnbull has nothing left,” he said. “There are no other constituencies his government can attack.”
http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2017/04/27/liberal-party-insider-speaks-out/
Michelle Grattan has a good look at Turnbull’s week and concludes with ” One thing that nobody around the Prime Minister has a big idea for resolving is the debilitating Abbott issue.”
https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-turnbulls-pipe-dreams-channel-ghost-of-rex-connor-76801
Unsurprisingly gas producers are calling BS on Turnbull’s claim that gas prices will halve as a result of his intervention.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbull-asked-to-justify-gas-price-claims-as-industry-pans-export-intervention-20170427-gvu1ig.html
Peter Martin looks at how the intervention came about and how it contradicted a lot of prior ministerial utterings.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/gas-companies-find-out-that-politics-affects-markets-too-20170427-gvtvtl.html
Michael West goes deeply into the gas crisis and says it was desperation that drove Turnbull to intervene.
http://www.michaelwest.com.au/behind-the-intervention-in-gas-desperation/
Anne Aly’s Anzac Day experience demonstrate two things – the power and rapidity of social media and the spite of right wing groups.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/muslim-mp-anne-aly-falsely-accused-of-refusing-to-lay-wreath-on-anzac-day-20170427-gvu0jb.html
The Turnbull government is forging ahead with reforms to GP care despite fears its policy is rushed and underfunded.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbull-to-forge-ahead-on-gp-reforms-despite-doctors-funding-fears-20170426-gvtf89.html
Peter Martin on what we can expect from Morrison’s accounting gymnastics.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/federal-budget-2017-reporting-shakeup-sparks-debt-spree-concerns-20170427-gvtt60.html
The Pentagon’s top watchdog has launched an investigation into money that former national security adviser General Michael Flynn received from foreign groups.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/pentagon-to-investigate-former-trump-adviser-michael-flynns-payments-from-foreign-groups-20170427-gvu87b.html
Section 2 . . .
The Queensland CCC is ignoring the big question: why are councillors such targets for corruption writes Dr Cameron Murray.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/queensland-cccs-operation-belcarra-missing-the-point-on-corruption,10240
Here’s what Trump’s first 100 days have done for women.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/04/27/heres-what-trump-has-done-for-women-in-his-first-100-days_a_22058434/?utm_hp_ref=au-homepage
Weleed Aly says that Turnbull’s “tough” stance on migration is doomed to fail.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/malcolm-turnbulls-tough-stance-on-migration-is-doomed-to-fail-20170427-gvth38.html
Labor has denounced the move for a super-sized homeland security ministry, calling the Turnbull government’s consideration of the idea “deeply concerning” and a “power grab” by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/plan-for-homeland-security-ministry-a-peter-dutton-power-grab-says-labor-20170427-gvtni3.html
Barnaby pooh poohs the Productivity Commission’s report on decentralisation of the APS. The guy is barking mad.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/barnaby-joyce-dismisses-productivity-commission-warning-on-decentralisation-20170427-gvtr57.html
Laura Tingle launches a tirade on government IT being a black hole in every sense of the word. Google.
/opinion/columnists/laura-tingle/government-it-a-budget-black-hole-in-every-sense-of-the-word-20170427-gvtu9x
Australia’s electricity and gas transmission industry has intensified a call for a market mechanism to drive orderly transformation in the energy sector, warning a lack of clear regulation will result in higher prices for consumers and a less secure grid.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/28/australians-could-save-100bn-on-electricity-if-government-had-clear-policy
LOW-cost airline Jetstar has been rated as the worst in the world by travellers who blame long delays and lack of cost transparency as their biggest gripes. Nice work! Google.
/travel/travel-news/jetstar-ranks-as-the-worst-airline-in-the-world-with-lengthy-delays-and-poor-service-to-blame/news-story/4666b12ef40edda94a4e6b0b672d4211
Angela Merkel has delivered a sidewinder at the illusions Britons have about an easy ride out of the EU.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/angela-merkel-warns-the-uk-against-illusions-about-brexit-in-hardline-speech-20170427-gvu7y1.html
Can Marine Le Pen still win the French election if her opponents don’t show up to vote in the run-off vote on May 7?
http://www.smh.com.au/world/marine-le-pens-path-to-victory-is-much-narrower-than-donald-trumps-was-in-2016-20170427-gvu80q.html
Section 3 . . .
The charming family man Ross Cameron is appealing his suspension from the Liberal Party.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/ross-cameron-appealing-suspension-from-nsw-liberals-20170427-gvtqwq.html
Optus and Telstra are complicit in a predatory multimillion-dollar billing scam. Another good exposé from Michael West.
http://www.michaelwest.com.au/optus-and-telstras-billing-scams-hit-customers-in-droves/
Richard Olger writes that Macron is the moderate revolutionary that France needs.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/emmanuel-macron-is-the-moderate-revolutionary-france-needs-20170427-gvthnm.html
Josh Gordon previews Dan Andrews’ “make or break” budget to be announced next Tuesday.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/daniel-andrews-make-or-break-budget-approaches-20170427-gvtltp.html
The “Aussie values” test will get very tricky says this contributor.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/testing-for-aussie-values-gets-awfully-tricky-awfully-quickly-20170425-gvselr.html
Andrew Street and the national anthem Australia deserves.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/the-national-anthem-australia-really-deserves-20170427-gvtmh4.html
Faced with a national crisis that killed 71 women last year, the government has responded with little more than empty words and crocodile tears. If that mindset goes unchallenged, domestic violence runs the risk of becoming an issue we only care about when something particularly awful happens. Alex McKinnon gets stuck in to Brandis and Cash.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-governments-commitment-to-domestic-violence-funding-is-hollow-20170427-gvtjn0.html
Madonna King says that if Yassmin’s comment was out of line her attackers were worse.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/that-thinking-feeling/if-yassmin-abdelmagied-was-out-of-line-her-attackers-were-worse-20170426-gvtb7t.html
The AOC is descending into clusterf**k territory!
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/danni-roche-calls-for-external-party-to-conduct-aoc-review-20170427-gvtrmj.html
An Australian initiative that seeks to combat food wastage and feed those in need has opened its doors in Sydney.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/food-rescue-group-ozharvest-opens-supermarket-to-help-vulnerable-people-20170427-gvttj1.html
Section 4 . . .
Richo reviews Trump’s first “wacky” days in office. Google.
/opinion/columnists/graham-richardson/this-white-house-working-on-a-whim-and-a-tweet/news-story/e8eaea381bacd4f284a218efc891df83
Underworld figure Mick Gatto has used his formidable negotiating powers to settle a $15 million tax bill by paying less than $4 million. It did cost him $1m in legal expenses.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/gatto-settles-15m-tax-bill-for-less-than-4m-20170426-gvsqx3.html
White House Press Secretary Sean (Comical Ali) Spicer tried to blame President Obama for Trump hiring Mike Flynn because Trump never did another background check of Flynn but used the same one that Obama administration did years before.
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/27/sean-spicer-blamed-obama-trump-hiring-mike-flynn.html
Stockland and Mirvac, the country’s two biggest residential developers, will focus on providing more affordable housing through mixed-use urban redevelopments.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/property/stockland-mirvac-home-in-on-affordable-housing-as-profits-tick-along-20170427-gvtihg.html
Workplace induced mental illness is costing toxic businesses plenty.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/mental-illness-workers-compo-claims-cost-toxic-businesses-double-20170427-gvu0j4.html
The aviation safety watchdog is advancing plans to finalise controversial rules allowing fewer cabin crew on Australian aircraft, a move that has angered unions but that airlines insist will bring them into line with global standards. Google.
/business/aviation/casa-pushes-case-for-fewer-flight-attendants/news-story/fa23a3c3910e2165d4458dddb777c3ff
The stage has been set for extraordinary scenes in the NSW upper house next month, as a parliamentary committee into toll roads considered whether to compel a senior executive of WestConnex to appear before it and reveal his salary.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-public-has-the-right-to-know-westconnex-boss-salary-20170427-gvtj2h.html
Network Ten could be broken up and sold off for the benefit of its bank and three billionaire shareholders by the end of the year if a transformation project fails to improve its fortunes. Yesterday its share price got pummelled again, dropping 19%.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/network-ten-facing-fire-sale-if-turnaround-fails-to-improve-earnings-20170427-gvtxl1.html
Coles will cut promotions to stamp-out shopper distrust in the supermarket giant as intense competition forces it to invest in service and every-day low prices to stay ahead of the game.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/supermarket-specials-breed-distrust-says-wesfarmers-20170427-gvtspz.html
The fall of Joe Gutnick into bankruptcy and angry courtroom scenes.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/bankrupt-joseph-gutnick-grilled-over-debts-20170427-gvu0o6.html
Section 5 . . . Cartoon Corner Part 1
Matt Golding on the gas problem.
Cruel work here from Andrew Dyson.
Simon Letch continues in the same vein.
Matt Golding and the reality show that is Network Ten.
Jim Pavlidis on our defence “shield”.
Section 6 . . . Cartoon Corner Part 2
Cathy Wilcox nicely starts off the ridiculing of Morrison’s god debt-bad debt mantra.
Mark David also has a crack at debt redefinition.
Of course David Rowe has a go at Morrison’s debt statement.
Jon Kudelka has a good slant on Morrison and debt definition.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/9617dc2b629d34d648d1fce3fafb68d7
Broelman on free speech (for some).
A very good contribution from Mark Knight and Turnbull’s gas supply intervention.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/2b2cfc41f9352b2fe10b004c1fc39033?width=1024
Today’s cartoon prize goes to David Pope on Morrison “upgrading” the debt truck.
Sorry folks. Here’s the correct link to the John Hewson article.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australia-is-at-the-mercy-of-the-whims-of-two-mad-men-20170427-gvthqx.html
Awww – how sweet.
The government’s new Health Care Homes thing isn’t new at all. It already exists – it’s called the Chronic Disease Management Plan and GPs have been using it for years.
I know this because I was offered this plan a few years ago. I refused it, I didn’t think I needed that level of management, but one day I might take up that offer.
Until Turnbull and Grunt ruin it with their brainfart it works like this.
You are diagnosed with a chronic health condition that needs monitoring and treating for maybe months, maybe the rest of your life. You and your GP work out what treatment you will need, what you need to do, what your GP will do and when you will need reviews. If you need other medical professionals to help manage your condition your GP will set up a Team Management Plan/Multidisciplinary Care Plan and give you referrals. It might be a physiotherapist, a psychologist, a dietitian or whatever you need. The only condition is you must need at least two of them. There is a limit on how many visits you can make in a year. Medicare pays for all or most of this,depending on whether or not you have to pay some sort of co-payment. GPs get Medicare rebates for their work too.
https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/medicare/chronic-disease-management-plan
More detail –
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/mbsprimarycare-factsheet-chronicdisease.htm
You won’t know this scheme exists until you need it, or until a family member or a friend needs it. This lack of knowledge is what the government is going to use to spruik their scheme as something brand new. It’s not, and knowing how well this government manages to ruin every good thing they touch they will end up destroying a damn good scheme that has been working well for a long time.
Helping Turnbull pack for New York – just a few things he will need.
Knee pads to protect his knees while grovelling to Trump.
A travel-size shoe-shine kit for polishing Trump’s boots while he’s on his knees..
Hand sanitiser, disinfecting wipes and disinfectant gel for use after the inevitable arse-licking.
Good old Aussie tomato sauce for making all that crow and humble pie he’ll be eating just a bit easier to swallow.
Hilarious kit, leone. He will indeed need it.
I think you’ve just about covered everything there, Leone.
Great kit, Leone. Brightened up my birthday which is going well.
Perhaps one more item, a bib for all the dribbling that will go on.
How could I have forgotten that?
https://www.thelocal.de/20170427/germany-took-in-three-quarters-of-all-syrian-refugees-in-eu-last-year
Australia took 12,000, hardly anything compared to Germany’s effort and not part of the 2016 influx. . Abbott pledged to take 12,000 in 2015, it’s taken almost two years to get those people here, far too long. It looks like the government considers it has done its duty and won’t be taking in any more.
The last Australian visas were issued not long ago, or so the government says. There’s still a lot of argument over whether or not Christian refugees were given priority over Muslims. No-one is government is willing to say.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/10000-syrian-refugees-settle-in-australia/news-story/122fd6f93db544f6a4779220ba6f59a5
I agree wholeheartedly. 🙂 🙂
GD
Happy birthday! I’m glad it’s going well.
Have a wonderful one, GD.
Gorgeous Dunny,
Have a wonderful day!
Love it, Fiona! Many thanks to all for the good wishes.
gorgeousdunny
Many happy happies.
Happy Birthday Gorgeous Dunny.
.
Many happy’s GD
The lady chaps at the pub may have at some stage wished they could have done a” dragonfly” 🙂
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2129185-female-dragonflies-fake-sudden-death-to-avoid-male-advances/
F.M and the offensunami –
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/28/fire-up-the-outrageomatic-and-make-sure-theres-extra-sanctimonium-in-the-tanks
Westpac rules out backing Adani coal mine
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/04/28/westpac-rules-out-backing-adani-coal-mine
And there I was, looking forward to some of that nice clean coal.
Katharine goes to town
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/28/if-good-women-conform-and-gillard-was-a-witch-then-im-ready-for-a-fight
And where was she when Julia Gillard could have used a bit of support?
Over the road Dave posted this great quote from Deakin. Pick a word that does not belong in a description of the current band of rogues.
.
Sophie is clearly suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder.
Sophie Mirabella sues country paper, editor over claim she shoved Cathy McGowan
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/sophie-mirabella-sues-country-paper-editor-over-claim-she-shoved-cathy-mcgowan-20170427-gvtmkj.html
FRIDAY THREAD
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