The Fitz Files

<em>Illustration: Reg Lynch</em>

Illustration: Reg Lynch

All strength to Channel Nine icon Peter Harvey as he fights pancreatic cancer. He had the first of light chemotherapy last week and is hopeful of returning to light duties this week. One thing surely lifting his spirits is the marriage of his son, Adam Harvey, the well-known and Walkley Award-winning journalist from the ABC's 7.30, to Eliza Blue, the highly regarded state political reporter of ABC News, who is the daughter of Geraldine Doogue and her first husband, Tim Blue, both ABC journalists of great distinction. Talk about a merging of journalistic dynasties!

Winfield 3:16

Staggering. Religious billboards outside many churches in Sydney last week have put the following up on their display boards: ''Smoking won't kill you in the next life. Sin will.'' Is it just me, or is there a tacit message there, that Jesus wants you to smoke? In the meantime, on Tuesday, Japan Tobacco announced that it was withdrawing from sale all tobacco grown in the Fukushima region, citing concern about radiation. TFF is just guessing here, but maybe it is because they're worried it will cause cancer!

She wrote it

Even before being released Maxine McKew's political memoir, Tales From the Political Trenches, is making headlines, including the outrageous suggestion that Kevin Rudd ghost-wrote it for her. As if a journalist of McKew's Walkley award-winning distinction would allow Rudd to voice her opinions for her, detail her experiences? Please.

As one who wrote the endorsement for the front cover of the book four months ago, when I read the manuscript, I stand by my assessment: ''Otto von Bismarck said the people should never see what goes into making sausages or the law, because they'd never eat another sausage or respect another law. I am not sure he would have enjoyed this book. But I certainly did - an amazingly frank insider account of an extraordinary time in Australian politics.''

And yes, it is an unashamedly pro-Rudd account. At one point McKew writes: ''Julia Gillard was impatient for the prime ministership, and either worked with or allowed to manufacture a sense of crisis around Rudd's leadership. She then cut down a prime minister in his first term and tried to pretend it was in the national interest to do so. Since then, she has been the architect of her own misfortune.'' As it happens, they are two conclusions I disagree with, but McKew's account is compelling, and all hers!


In mediaeval times, a person falsely convicted of murder was condemned to death and had to choose between three rooms. The first was full of raging fires, the second full of assassins with bows drawn, and the third full of lions that hadn't eaten in three years. A clever woman, which room did she decide was safest for her?

Keep up, Jones

How much can a koala bear? And for how long can Alan Jones go on? Just in this past week it has been confirmed that all of the big sponsors have run screaming from the room and are unlikely to be back; that there is a growing schism between him and majority Macquarie Radio owner John Singleton, who now thinks Ray Hadley is the obvious answer at breakfast; and that because of his egregious falsehoods, Jones and his staff are going to be obliged by ACMA to undergo basic training in getting their facts straight before they go to air! Oh, the humiliation. All that, in just the past week. Yes, he does still have rusted-on supporters, but for the bulk of Sydney he has become a cross between a laughing stock and a pariah - the final, hissing scene of Dangerous Liaisons comes to mind - and it obviously cannot be sustained in the long-term.

My own guess is that some time in the next few months, he will do what the Americans did in Vietnam - declare victory and leave. My vote is for his swansong to be sung by Bob Dylan: ''And you know there's something happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?''

Nada up its sleeves

Meantime, also on Channel Nine, many people have asked how on earth the network - which, I disclose, employs my wife - can go from being a lazy $3 billion in debt one day to having no debt the next? The best explanation I have heard is that it turns on that old line: ''If a man owes you $10,000 and can't pay, he has a problem … but if he owes you $10 million and can't pay, you have a problem.'' Nine owed $3 billion to its creditors and couldn't pay, meaning those creditors had a big problem, and the only way they could get even some of that money back was to accept a small equity position and let it roll on, debt-free. Magic!

Email gag of the week

Ed and Nancy meet while on a singles cruise and the two fall head over heels for each other. After an idyllic fortnight, they return to their home city of LA and continue courting, right to the point that Ed soon takes Nancy to a fine restaurant and lays it on the line. ''Nancy,'' he says, ''I guess you can tell I'm very much in love with you. But I'd like a little serious talk before our relationship continues to the next stage. It's only fair to warn you, I'm a total golf nut. I eat, sleep and breathe golf. If that's going to be a problem for us, you'd better say so now.'' Nancy takes a deep breath and responds: ''Ed, that certainly won't be a problem. I really love golf, too. But, since we're being totally honest with each other, you need to know that for the last five years I've been a hooker.'' Ed replies: ''That's not a problem for me! I bet it's because you're not keeping your wrists straight when you hit the ball!''

Quiz answer


They said ...

Hugh Jackman could put a prawn on my barbie, any time!
Ita Buttrose says the actor should be the new face of Australian tourism.

Nightmare for Israel if Obama wins.
Rupert Murdoch tweets

We say to the people, not since 1789 has there been such tyranny in France. I am very keen to welcome talented French people to London.
The London mayor, Boris Johnson. They're already there, with just under a quarter of a million living in the city.

But we still support this charade called the drug war. We spent a trillion dollars over 40 years and a lot of people have lost their lives over it. It's a backward strategy. It makes no sense and we keep going on the path like we're winning, when it perpetuates more drugs being used.
Brad Pitt, noting the wide availability of illicit substances.

He waited all of 45 seconds to make clear he came not just ready for a fight but ready to pick one.
Peter Baker of The New York Times summarises the approach of Barack Obama in the presidential election debate.

You do not feel the air. It is like swimming without touching the water.
Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner on what it's like to free-fall from a capsule beneath a helium balloon 39 kilometres above the Earth's surface.