Tim Smith, the former opposition attorney-general and extremely thorough fence-strength tester, is inching towards the end of his time in Victorian Parliament — and he is not going quietly.
He’s leapt upon the culture war fodder provided by moves toward an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, he’s simped hard for the new monarch, and is using the final weeks where newspapers feel obliged to report on his Twitter outbursts to go after those in the media who he feels have done him wrong — cop a load of this fury (penned late at night and since deleted) directed at 3AW host Neil Mitchell:
Neil Mitchell is the most awful, duplicitous, hateful individual I think I’ve ever met, I did everything he ever wanted, I gave him an exclusive interview when I disgraced myself and he hounded me, like a rabid dog, for weeks thereafter. I hate him.
Apart from anything else, it’s a little insight into what happens when the assumed chumminess between politics and media doesn’t work out how one party expected (“I did everything he ever wanted… “). He also perhaps unintentionally hints at his true public services: his endless commitment to content generation.
And sure, Smith will probably get a show on Sky after dark and keep saying and doing these things. Maybe he can be on a panel with Matthew Guy and we’ll get a Vic Lib equivalent of Mark Latham and Graham Richardson screaming “king rat!” at each other? But will it be as fun as Smith trying to get voters mad at Victorian Premier Dan Andrews because of rain?
Could it match his ability to conclusively lose a Facebook poll he’d attempted to rig? Could anything he does after politics beat the sheer magnificence of Smith using his electorate letterhead to swear “by almighty God that I, and the people of Kew, will be faithful and bear true allegiance to you, our Sovereign, Charles the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Australia”?
No chance.
Tim Smith was not “the former opposition attorney-general”. Governments have attorneys-general; oppositions have shadow attorneys-general.
This is the second time this odd nomenclature has appeared in Crikey in recent times. is it some new house style?
Given that the ‘house style’ is an ignorance of grammar, syntax, sentence structure or correct word use I’d say, “No, not new.”
Re ‘correct word use’ – “…is using the final weeks
whereWHEN newspapers feel obliged to report on his Twitter…”.https://ludwig.guru/s/in+a+time+where
If English is your first language and you read, you would have encountered this use of where in relation to periods of time all your life. If one of the above conditions does not apply, and you still want English to conform to your standards, you are going to have your work cut out for you. The first windmills to tilt at would seem to be the NYT and maybe the Guarniad, given the much greater size of their readership.
If a substandard learning machine keyed to “common usage“, esp amerikan, is your standard you deserve pity.
but the Guardian’s British, innit?
Quite. I had an argument with a journalist about their misuse the mathematical term ‘exponential’. They insisted common usage made it an acceptable and impressive adjective to replace ‘large’.
Similar to Quantum Leap, which is very small, 30 something zeros to the right of the decimal point in metres.
Pretty sure a quantum is just a minimum discrete quantity, context dependent. So on a ruler, a quantum is 1mm.
‘Quantum Leap’ is appropriated from Quantum Physics, where it refers to bound electrons.
I also enjoy the frequent use of “light year” as an expression of time.
This usage is not American, it is English. Is there some reason you don’t recognise it, despite the lost history?
Sorry, long.
I’ll do it then Freyja.
A Light Year is the distance light travels in vacuum in an Earth year, approx 9.46 trillion km.
It is used in Astronomy and Cosmology as it was supposed to be more intuitive and relevant than a Parsec or Astronomical Unit (AU).
I’ve no recollection of it ever being used as a unit of time, even in Lost in Space.
Ta – I didn’t think it worth the (digital) ink.
Yw, I’ve got a cache of EMF and indignation.
Why not just omit the ‘where/when’ altogether? It still makes perfect sense to me.
??? hardly – “he’s…using the final weeks
wherenewspapers feel obliged to report on his Twitter outbursts…” is not even common usage English.To me, Tim makes the Victorian Liberal Party look like a division of QAnon.
Poor turkey!
If he’d be born in England he would be “Sir” Timothy and a peer of the realm by now.
I will miss Tim. He is such a pratt!
I wonder, was he ‘Tim from Altona”?
I assumed that was Blair, or one of his acolyte wannabes.
I intend watching replays of The Upper-Class Twit of the Year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVYA3oTG8fg