When Rupert Murdoch talks about his dad

he’s talking about a man who was born in 1885.

Australia forever

From Vulture’s* timeline of “How The Interview Got Made”:

October 27, 2014
Clark sends an even-more-toned-down version of the ending to the film’s international distributors. Most take the softer cut, but the Australian distributor requests the unedited version, saying it would prefer to “sock it to ’em.”

* yes in general I agree it’s wrong to read these private emails

Koalas and shirtfronting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bCWkfUuYKk

If you don’t follow Australia as closely as we do here at Helytimes, you may have missed a good scandal.

Thirty-eight Australians were killed when Malaysia Airlines 17 was shot down over the Ukraine in July.  In anticipation of encounters with Vladimir Putin in Beijing and then Australia for the G20 summit, Australia’s prime minister Tony Abbott said (on a pretty bland TV interview it appears, hard to find the all important context) he would “shirtfront” Putin:

“I am going to shirtfront Mr Putin – you bet I am – I am going to be saying to Mr Putin Australians were murdered, they were murdered by Russian backed rebels,” Abbott said.

Urban Dictionary tells us shirtfront is:

A brutal shoulder charge in Australian rules football (AFL) where a player instead of tackling an opponent, bumps them forcefully in the chest. Often leads to heavy concussions due to incidental contact to the head.

Australian English is a barroom language. It is not a language for a woman.

AFP Photo / Andrew Taylo

can’t find the photographer, I found it here: http://rt.com/news/205855-g20-abbott-putin-koala/

There’s even a sub-scandal about a sarcastic news segment that aired about the shirtfronting (you can watch it here – I think it’s been inaccurately described as a “skit”).  The perpetrators have been sentenced to Australia’s cruelest punishment:

The ABC is being urged to have a “long, hard think” about a skit it aired mocking the Prime Minister’s threat to shirtfront the Russian President over the MH17 tragedy with Julie Bishop warning it had the potential to devastate the families of the victims.

(Australia you know I love you baby)

Rupert Murdoch

Murdoch is, in person, charming. Everyone agrees. You get a glimpse of this in the account of working for him written by Philip Townsend, who was his butler in London during the 1980s. (Townsend had a dog who died, and whom he kept in Murdoch’s freezer.) When Murdoch made the switch to living more healthily – influenced by the fact that his father died at 67 – he did so by announcing to his butler: ‘Phil, I’m into yin and yang and all that shit.’

here, from an amazing profile by the great John Lanchester, England’s Michael Lewis.

Been meaning to write for awhile now (will get to) Rupert Murdoch’s parents. Before you talk shit about Rupert Murdoch, Rupert as Mr. Burns, consider that in his head he probably remembers himself as the scared child of two of the toughest, most badass Australians who ever lived.

Rupert’s dad — like, his actual father* — was one of the most powerful forces influencing the 1919 Versailles Conference.  Like: his dad was in on the end of World War I.

Every Helytimes reader should devour this book by the great Margaret MacMillan:

If you want to understand Iraq, say, or Palestine?  Start here.  Learn about how Ho Chi Minh desperately sought a meeting with Woodrow Wilson about the French Indochina/Vietnam situation (no luck).

(I read this book.  Still don’t know anything.)

(disclosure: I am a subcontractor/essentially employee of Rupert Murdoch)

* In 1927 he [Keith Murdoch] saw a photograph of an attractive 18-year-old débutante, Elisabeth Joy Greene, in Table Talk magazine, and arranged for a friend to introduce him. [Keith Murdoch was, at that time, 42.  Elisabeth is Rupert’s mom.  She died two years ago in 2012.]