Comments on: Our Germs gets a gong

By: David Tiley

David Tiley — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 06:56:57 +0000

John – this is what happens when the survivors of a penal colony get universal education. And then our passion for sport collides with a love of language. We become devoted spectators of the crime of literary fraud.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 05:03:08 +0000

“Norma is in a place all her own.” Far from it. In Australia, the literary hoax is a major and respected genre, with its own critical literature, expert commentators and so on. If the Nobel committee ever gets around to recognising its importance, there’s be a string of Aussies in line for the prize.

By: roger

roger — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 00:52:29 +0000

Hey, where is Norma Khouri? To my mind, at the moment, she is definitely the only Australian who should be up for a Nobel Prize. Unfortunately, the category—Fake—has yet to get by the Swedish senate. But screw those blond haired bigots! Norma is in a place all her own.

By: David Tiley

David Tiley — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 19:06:14 +0000

Iain, you just ruined Germs for me forever! Let me join the conga line of patriots pointing out that Lord Robert May is one of ours. And he is a genuine heavy.

By: Iain J Coleman

Iain J Coleman — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 16:44:54 +0000

The best Greer moment was when she was on a panel discussing Britain’s best-loved books (A BBC TV project called “The Big Read”). She held forth at great length about how awful “Lord of the Rings” is, how childish, how naive, how politically objectionable. After some probing by the chair, Andy Marr, she finally conceded that she’d never actually read it.

By: JamesB

JamesB — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 13:52:33 +0000

Personally, I’d put Clive James above Greer and Humphries. Best export from Oz after Penfolds….

By: Ken Houghton

Ken Houghton — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 13:36:16 +0000

Hitchens over Heaney; Frayn over Stoppard; Pullman tied with Kermode; Pullman and Amis on the list at all; Maxwell-Davies, but none of the composers he champions. For Aussies, the biggest insult is Thomas Keneally NOT being on it.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 13:24:42 +0000

Reuben, that was Australian Rules baseball she was discussing.

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 10:30:55 +0000

“Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right.” – Donald Norman

By: Giles

Giles — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 09:55:52 +0000

Since when has it been necessary to be right to be an intelectual

By: reuben

reuben — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 09:31:40 +0000

I haven’t been able to trust a word dear Germaine says since the time I heard her holding forth on one of the few topics I’m better versed than her on: baseball. Literally every one of the ten or so statements she overwhelmed her fellow British panelists with was either completely wrong or the result of a lack of understanding of the game. But of course the British intellectuals knew even less than she did, so no one called her out – though as loudly as I was shouting at my TV, I’m surprised no one at the White City studios heard me. And she said everything with such self-confidence and conviction. Perhaps that over the top self-belief in the rightness of everything one says is a key part of being a public intellectual, and part of the reason that men, with our tendency towards self-confident bluster, are more likely to hold forth in the public eye.

By: VJ

VJ — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 07:50:44 +0000

Cor! Dame Edna as an ‘public’ intellectual? Dems slim pickins! Too bad Betty Bowers was’nt born outback, right? Hughes at least plays the part. Murdoch is arguably the scourge of the media/entertainment everywhere. Isn’t that enough to count for something?

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 06:26:13 +0000

To be fair, it’s not just a list of ‘intellectuals, it’s ‘public intellectuals’, a wholly different and inadequately defined subspecies. And Germs is nothing if not public.