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AFAIK tim’s wasting his time – that Knight of the Garter vacancy has already gone.
scratches head
Let’s see, is this
(a) One of those – what did Ken call it – those boy bloggy Niall things?
(b) No, it’s about the cyclads. Cyclads are wounded, wounded I tell ya. Silenced by the tree ferns! Plant rights for cyclads. All plants are not equal!
(c) Someone confessing to a secret crush on Joomie Drooory (does Jen know?).
(d) Something about a grumpy old man with no sense of humour
(e) Something about Tim Blair?
Pugnacious me, Troppo thinks I’m ken
And Ken thinks (f) missing link
That’s tim off the hook, Jacques, but what’s the Dook of Edinboig’s excuse?
Kens upset that Troppo isn’t listed at my new site. Oh, well; at least he didnt call me an obsequious Tory blogger with cancer (ha! ha!), in the manner of his preferred bloggers.
Not likely to be listed either, is it, Timmy?
Lighten up Ken. It’s a good news story all round:
Grumpy yet weirdly loveable old bloke in his 80’s may or may not have said something curmudgeonly after receiving an unwanted botanical exposition – possibly he mistook Jamie for Robert Manne; I would have fled as well – when he was only trying to be polite and hence confirms his well-deserved reputation as a man who doesn’t mince his words.
Great Australian Cycad Custodian – and intended recipient of alleged curmudgeonly comment – strategically leaks details of what might have been said.
Brit media run the story as front-page news.
Australian garden at Chelsea Flower Show is inundated with visitors desirous of checking out controversial cycad and its custodian – who has come a long way from the days when he used to make a living waving his cycads at pissed hen’s night parties.
Jamie Durie returns a hero and is appointed to head a federal government review of the Australian cycad industry with reportback no later than 2010.
Where’s the downside?
I’m surprised Jamie Durie wasn’t invited to the 2020 summit to be honest.
At the very least, he’s experienced life as a sex worker. He has a lot more knowledge of the real world than Claudia Karvan.
I could mistake Durie for Manne. I could see how that could happen.
I am a devout republican.
But I have to admit the Duke is in touch with most of his Missus’ subjects on this.
Who gives a rats *rse what the flaming tree like things are? The old codger was only trying to be polite, and got a bloody lecture for his pains.
What next? Abuse him because he can’t tell the difference between a Melbourne W type tram and a Sydney O type?
“I could mistake Durie for Manne. I could see how that could happen.”
Liam, when you’re pushing 90, in the shade of a treefern, I imagine that all lecturing Australians would kind of fade to blend…….He could probably still spot the difference in a Manpower line-up, but.
I wish I could say I am surprised that a good quarter of the commenters don’t appear to have read the article. Going off without bothering to understand what you’re talking about: a very Phillipian (and perhaps Blairite?) trait.
All he he got served with was, “Actually -” That Jamie Durie, what an uppity little prick, hey? Had a bit of a downstairs look to him, that’s for sure.
Precisely. The only person who characterised Durie’s entirely reasonable response as a “lecture” was Philip, one of the world’s great publicly funded human leeches. Durie’s amiable, laid back public persona hardly suggests that he would have “lectured” or hectored the prince. What are you supposed to do when someone makes a conversational opening apparently expressing interest in the plants you’re displaying but makes a mistake about them? Assume that they’re not really interested at all and are just making a patently insincere remark (even though you’d know that was very likely to be the case)? Or assume that they really DID have some degree of interest in the topic as their opneing remark attempted to convey? Surely it would have been downright rude to automatically assume that Philip was utterly disinterested and just making a meaningless remark. Replying that the plant was a cycad not a tree-fern is hardly a “lecture” unless you’re the sort of arrogant, boorish waste of space that Phil the Greek manifestly is.
Garbage Ken. Even the Brits didn’t see it that way.
And as one commenter said:
And as another commenter on the same article said:
This one’s good too:
Both sock-puppeting Aussies no doubt.
“What are you supposed to do when someone makes a conversational opening apparently expressing interest in the plants youre displaying but makes a mistake about them?”
I guess you could try, “yes. It is a magnificent plant, isn’t it.”
Jesus, Ken. I didn’t want a bloody lecture …
Nice weather we’re having.
“if, every time someone alluded to the nice weather we are having, we should feel the need to give the full seven-day forecast”
But if in fact it was pouring with rain and blowing a gale at the time, would you just answer “Yes, superb weather, your highness”? Probably the answer is yes, because he’d either be joking or so utterly senile that any meaningful response is pointless, so it’s a poor analogy. However, if someone seemingly expresses a genuine or at least polite interest in the plant you’re displaying, I would regard it as rude and demeaning to answer as Geoff would have me do yes. It is a magnificent plant, isnt it. I wouldn’t insult him by assuming he was just making an inane remark with no interest whatever in the topic. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if it turned out that the intent was indeed meaningless conversational filler (like “hallo, how are you?” when the last thing the person actually wants to know is how you really are). But I would be both surprised and appalled (as would Saint if being honest rather than arguing for the sake of it) if they just walked away muttering about being “lectured”. Clearly manners are superfluous when you’re a royal personage.
This thread is actually pretty funny. Except for the lecture…
(And I have revealed for all time my relationship with popular culture, at least as regards television. I had to google Jamie Durie to see what he looks like. In light of which, I second Yobbo’s suggestion).
In England, yes. But it would be ironic.
Crikey Ken. Might as well tell me Durie is an exhibitionist but don’t tell me you really care about Durie, tree-fern look alikes, Philip or manners. (And I’ve lived and worked in Greece with Greeks, and in Britain with Brits, and can probably tell you more about their manners than you can.)
And it’s sunny and warm here today.
“And its sunny and warm here today.
Yes, saint. It’s quite splendid.
Tempest in a tea-pot or yet another opportunity to slag off the royals and those who pander to their protection from public ridicule. I’ll take the latter every time. On Ya, KP!
On ya Geoff.
No Niall, judging by Ken’s tortuous explanations it seems that like you, he just likes to take gratuitous swipes at Tim.
aha, stripper in male revue = the real world, actress involved in many films, TV shows equals what? the unreal world? A parallel universe? Cosseted taxpayer funded shangri-la?
What are you supposed to do when someone makes a conversational opening apparently expressing interest in the plants youre displaying but makes a mistake about them? Assume that theyre not really interested at all and are just making a patently insincere remark (even though youd know that was very likely to be the case)? Or assume that they really DID have some degree of interest in the topic as their opneing remark attempted to convey?
Yes, in a country,and with a subset of the inhabitants of that country, which are renowned for making gardens. WTF? Yes, it was rude (but true to form for Phil the Greek, what’s new!)
And Geoff H, “weirdly lovable old bloke”? Speak for yourself!
I don’t think I could ever correct anyone who was needlessly showing a passing, casual interest in whatever I was displaying by starting with the word Acutally as it implies that they be, compared to me, purveyor and evidently all-round expert on specimen in question, a blithering idiot in dire need of re-education. I never like to point out in so many words, to people particularly strangers or royalty, that they be blithering idiots as I think it far more effectively achieved through that which is left unsaid.
Arrogance meets arrogance in this case. Who doe these people think they are?
Ken is on the right track at #22, but a better analogy might have been a visit to the zoo. If HRH had said alligator when it was a crocodile, it would have been pedantic to contradict him: convention allows us to be sloppy about this precisely because most people are actually aware of the distinction. But emu/cassowary would have warranted an intervention — a genuine, but understandable mistake that any remotely curious person would expect to be corrected on.
Paul Theroux has a hilarious essay about an encounter with Phil in My Other Life.
Speaking of crocodiles, it’s crocodile tears (and cassowary-like ccnviction) that I’m detecting here on the part of those allegedly seeking reparative civility for the Cycad Ecdysiast.
Comments like: – “senile old turd,” “Phil the Greek” (he’s actually “Phil the German Danish” for those interested in genealogically accurate vituperation), “rude and arrogant” etc, lead me to conclude that the primary motivation of those posting here is to savagely beat up on a defenceless, elderly old Returned Man in a Panama hat (and I’m not talking about Tim Blair).
As a bunch of aspirant Miss Manners you’d make a good NRL team on an off-season trip to Bali.
James, I think it would be permissible to offer a corrective to HRH were he to remark on the beauty of one’s treefern when it was actually a crocodile – or a cassowary – particularly if he was intent on stroking the “foliage.” However, Parish et al would no doubt sing a very different tune in those circumstances.
James, you are exactly right, in fact I was going to make an almost identical comment only with a kangaroo and a wombat standing in for tree fern and cycad. Only then I started thinking about siberian hamsters and it was off to the land of dreams again for me.
“I started thinking about siberian hamsters”
Filigree, I hope.
fricassee?