5 Comments

1. TimT

   May 16, 2008

   What a beautiful soul.

   I especially like the way his nostrils flare when he gets angry. The dramatic contrast between sweary-Bill and benevolent-smiling-father-Bill is also especially pleasing.

   Got any more?

2. steve from brisbane

   May 16, 2008

   Wow. It's remarkably dangerous to paint yourself as Mr Old Fashioned Values when you've left a wake of stuff like this behind you. He's always struck me as probably not particularly likeable in person, but I'll still have a look at his show if I notice it on.

   The other thing is, the same trap presumably waits nearly every TV host and politician who has ever appeared on TV. I would be much more impressed if anyone had a recording of Kevin Rudd threatening a staffer over some snafu.

3. Geoff Honnor

   May 17, 2008

   Inevitably, there's now a dance remix of it.....

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j2YDq6FkVE&feature=related

4. Robert

   May 18, 2008

   The other thing is, the same trap presumably waits nearly every TV host and politician who has ever appeared on TV

   Not always handled the same way.

   Back when Derryn Hinch's 'Hinch' was riding high and making waves, I was a guest in the studio, off camera, sitting a few paces away for his live broadcast. A little over ten minutes out he arrives, sits down, and looks to autocue for the first story - one he has been working hard on during the day. Zilch. "Not here," the operator says.

   Cameras adjust, with the opening shot now set.

   Five minutes out, nothing. Some words have been said, cool, not many. Clearly this story is hot and yet it's not rigged up, or even finished. On one of the screens the closing segments of the preceeding show are wrapping up. A commercial break to go.

   One camera, not needed for another five minutes or so has zoomed right up close into Hinch's eyes. That's all you see, filling a monitor. Deep, cool, focused.

   Again, no words around Hinch. Behind, though, now and then, rustlings and heated urgent sotto voce but now with two minutes to go there is nothing but silence and an atmosphere you could hardly breathe in. I wondered how Hinch would ad lib.

   The advertisements are running through. The monitor with the eyes hasn't changed a jot. Staring down the gun barrel staring at him. Thirty seconds out, no opening story, nothing.

   The floor manager is on his feet. "We're going.." he says, and is getting ready for the count.

   Twenty seconds, nothing. The eyes staring, cool, intense.

   Fifteen seconds, a door slams, rushing feet, papers thrust on the desk before Hinch, a quick glance, no autocue, and

   "Three two.."

   And away he went, just like he did, every weeknight. It was impressive, and impossible to imagine what he was up against in those moments. Failure in those circumstances lives on in many different ways for a very long time.

   "We try not to do that," he explained of it after the show. (A thorough gentleman, and genuine).

   It blew me away. Such intensity, five days a week, imagine that. Trouble is, we usually only get to see the fuck ups.

5. Stephen Lloyd

   May 19, 2008

   The only time I act like Mr. O'Reilly there is when I am driving. It's strange, I am ordinarily the calmest person, takes an awful lot to get me worked up and even then it never lasts long, and its not an explosion. Put me in a car, though...