It's Almost As Tough As Catching Gabbo

The Age

Thursday May 29, 2008

Lawrence Money

TONY Anderson was the poor Demon with the job of trying to catch big lumbering Ray Gabelich, the Magpie ruckman, when he did his famous (but ultimately futile) run to the goal square to boot a spine-tingling major in the 1964 grand final (right). Ando didn't catch Gabbo but Anderson's a hero nevertheless. "Yes, a sporting hero and my hero," says new County Court judge Barbara Cotterell (below right), which is not surprising: she's married to him. Judge Cotterell is the 65-year-old beak with a challenging assignment herself: she's the new-style "acting judge", an appointment that has sent the barristerial set into apoplexy. The Victorian Bar Council boycotted Cotterell's welcome and swearing-in ceremony on Monday, claiming the "acting" nature of the five-year appointment was an "intolerable" attack on the court's independence. Pity - the learned pouters missed some entertaining stuff. Seems that, while studying law years ago amid a phalanx of chain-smoking tweed-coated blokes given to swigging rough red at Jimmy Watson's, Cotterell threw down the sartorial gauntlet: "pastel twin-sets, golden stilettos and beehive hair - aiming for a Brigitte Bardot with brains effect". Seems to have paid off.

Footnote: Hubby Anderson may be her hero but beak Barbara doesn't follow the AFL. She's an Italian soccer fan. Carn Roma!

With the lot

MIXED messages from ad land. On morning radio: EPA ad urges listeners to dob in litterbugs dropping butts and wrappers. "27,000 phoned in last year." Just report those disgusting bums to 1800 LITTER. On TV same day: McCain's pizza ad shows pizza-delivery lad, tired of his task, taking his motorbike to a cliff in otherwise pristine countryside and pushing it over. Motorbike bursts into flames (potential bushfire?), wreckage left to rust. We checked the Environment Protection Act 1970: that will be a $215 on-the-spot fine or $4297 in court for "depositing burning litter" and another $215 or $4297 for "general littering on or into land or water". Did anyone get the rego on that thing?

Good grief

MORE good weather ahead, said newsreader David Armstrong on AW yesterday, welcoming the dry forecasts for the next few days. Dams yesterday were more than two-thirds empty. That's good weather?

Forward ho (cont)

AGE Diary welcomes harried Transport Minister Lynne "I don't want to talk to the public" Kosky to the Forward pocket. "That's $350 million added to the budget going forward," she told the media on Monday. That's not to be confused with a retrospective $350 million going backwards to the 1983 Cain government budget - which is probably when The Place To Be needed to pull out the digit and fix public transport anyhow.

For Pete's sake

IT'S a right old crisis of thought for the free-thinking intelligentsia who, having cheered the blessed Kev07 into office, now find him making free-thinking comments they don't like. Photographer Henson's nudie snaps "revolting"? How dare he! Meanwhile, Peter Garrett, the fearless crusader who once flouted US laws by playing protest songs outside the Exxon building in New York, has announced that "while artists have a right to challenge and confront audiences, they also have a responsibility to operate within the law". It all becomes so much harder when you actually have to govern.

Ruddy smokey

AND talking of Kev07, that sure looked like him in the limousine registered "C1" on the Calder Highway last week, three security SUVs riding shotgun. Passing motorist noted the back tyres smoking. Did the driver leave the handbrake on? Or was Kev letting off steam over those spoil-sport petrol prices?

Miraculous Andre

SOME people shouldn't get out of bed. Take poor Andre Frank (below), for example. Ten years ago he was motoring home happily from church in South Africa when there was a prang. According to his biog, he "lay unconscious, broken and bleeding on a busy multi-lane highway and was found only by chance when he was spotted by an ambulance crew that was en route to another accident. When doctors switched off his life-support machines two days later, his family fasted and prayed for a miracle." You guessed it: Andre bounced back and is touring a "Miracle Crusade" through Melbourne's Inner City Christian Church right now. We sure hope he gets to the pulpit OK. The blurb says he has also "survived violent armed robberies . . . during a car robbery recently he was untouched when four bullets were fired directly at him!" Aha, sounds like the work of the Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight!

© 2008 The Age

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