For better or worse.
I love the Age. I really do. I love that the new editor had to eat shit by reinstating my beloved Danny Katz as a columnist. I love the daily target word game. I am hot - hot! - for the buttery prose of Epicure food critic John Lethlean. I even love the codewords crossword puzzle in Saturday's A2 section.
But I guess with every blissful moment comes others that make you a bit embarrassed.
I have been trying so very hard to form a relationship with The Age Diary's Suzanne Carbone and Lawrence Money. But it's proving difficult when they conduct an interview like this with ex-Olympian Tatiana Grigorieva:
CARBONE: So, Tatiana the pole vaulter is aiming high as an actor.
GRIGORIEVA: If you can call it acting, because we didn't have to learn any lines.
CARBONE: Don't worry, the tragics in the flop TV show Chances had to learn lines and they called it acting.
GRIGORIEVA: I'm starring in the Vodafone mobile soap opera Random Place. I didn't have to learn any lines because there is no speaking. The story is written underneath the picture.
CARBONE: It sounds like Melrose Place with the mute button on.
GRIGORIEVA: I play the role of Eva, but I can't disclose too much yet. She adds quite a bit of spice to the whole story.
CARBONE: Like a sprinkling of pepper in a bowl of borscht. Did you have acting lessons?
GRIGORIEVA: No. The first few days I found it pretty hard, but the director was guiding me and giving me feedback and tips.
CARBONE: Watch out that you don't get any text messages from Warnie now that you're single. Are you still in touch with your love-rat husband Viktor Chistiakov, who cheated on you?
GRIGORIEVA: Viktor and I are separated but we still talk. It would be quite awful not talking - we spent 13 years together.
CARBONE: Speaking of excruciating pain (RYWHM NOTE: YES SHE REALLY FUCKING SAID THIS), tell me about your acupuncture studies.
GRIGORIEVA: I believe the human body is not just bones and flesh - the spiritual aspect is very fascinating for me. Acupuncture gives you the chance to work on the physical and spiritual body.
CARBONE: Hey, you could jab the needles in Viktor. I heard Derryn Hinch say that you were going to compete in the hurdles at the Commonwealth Games.
GRIGORIEVA: That's the first time I'm hearing it. Definitely not.
CARBONE: Maybe Hinch could compete instead and use grizzleguts Steve Price as one of the hurdles. Now, back to the other froth. Are you a soapie fan?
GRIGORIEVA: I don't watch much tv. This is the most time I've spent involving a soap.
CARBONE: I've spent a lot of time watching soaps for research. The spiritual aspect is very fascinating for me.
Now, why Suzanne Carbone didn't conduct the interview as follows is beyond me:
'Hey, dumbfuck! I hear you're involved in some idiotic project I look down on. Perhaps I can take a glib swipe at your rich cultural heritage before being a cunt about your shattered marriage. Oh, you'd prefer to handle your relationship breakup with quiet dignity? ARE YOU SURE I CAN'T CHANGE YOUR MIND? While we're here, can I make some unsubstantiated comment about your career which I know will lead nowhere except a boom-tish unfunny joke about two radio announcers? I'd also like to finish off by snootily taking the complete piss out of you and your life. Thanks so much for talking to The Age Diary. Have a nice day.'
Honestly. I'm not averse to having a crack, but at least I like the people I interview.
887 days til the next election.
Comments
That was the worst thing I've ever read.
I actually thought it was you taking the piss until about 3/4 of the way through.
"Like a sprinkling of pepper in a bowl of borscht."
I physically cringed.
Jesus that is fucked
She is a fucking cow.
I had to go check the paper to confirm you weren't joking.
I am even struggling to identify the most offensive comment.
Hold on, so they sack a humourous genius for mocking himself, and making his job sound slack, yet they have an arrogant, rude cow who is a shit interviewer and so up her own arse she keeps trying to make jokes that aren't funny?
Surely she has to go down for this? Neatly may create an opening? Cunning Ms Fits.
Should the title be Fits-Money or Money-Fits. I know the first article can be entitled "money-fits, carbone walks"
If cileo at cfsmtb.blogspot was listening, she has probably made crapface carbone her TWUNT of The Week by now. and I have too.
I am making myself a t-shirt that says "I Will Quote You Warmly And Accurately"
Hahahaaa.
And by anonymous I mean ny's own CP ;)
Carbone's "off-the-cuff" witticisms and segues are so overwritten I must conclude she added them after the "interview".
If you take out her questions and commentary, what you're left with is a series of bland Grigorieva quotes. My guess is Carbone grabbed them off a press release and used them to forge a fake Q&A.
Dishonest, mean and probably unethical.
Bra-fucking-vo, Ms Fits.
Carbone sucks arse.
So does Money.
"Which madam double parked her Mercedes in Toorak village on the weekend - busy as she was picking up pastries for hubby's big do?"
Who gives a shit, Lawrence, you boring old tit.
I love you, Peter x
Yeah I'm going for the press release theory - there's no way an interviewee would take this crap face to face. Suzanne Carbone is one of the journalists that Daniel Kitson referred to as "vapid whores" to such brilliant comedic effect in his stand-up show.
I can't believe that the bitch has a job. WTF?
Oh man, it was that page that made me physically yearn for the Sydney Morning Herald, Spike and Column 8 when I was in Melbourne...
Exactly.
This sort of crap belongs in the Herald-Sun. Or Who Magazine. Or MX. Not the Age.
Money was, I dunno, better as Spy on Sundays. Yes he had gossipy rubbish that no one cared about a lot of the time, but sometimes he had some genuinely funny things. Carbone's just rubbish...the whole back page stinks.
I hate the self-commentaries. Twats.
Oh come on, that's the stuff Walkleys are made of!
The Age is bleeding circulation. Most of its reporters are clueless stuck up yuppie turds. Hopefully that mad Scottish bastard they imported to run the show will start the mass sackings soon - starting with this pair.
If I see another major story that in the Age that begins: "It was a aday like any other..." and then takes ten pars to tell us what happens, I'll scream.
Money is a turd on a stick. Carbone looks like a right little goer though.
Ms F
Right - elephants in room, Emperor & new clothes, waking up and smelling the coffee. Loving The Age is a mass Melbourne delusion - and for confirmation try and convice anyone who now lives here but comes from a place with a real newspaper. You so want to be in a city which has a decent newspaper you project your aspirations on what is a second rate publication trading on past glories. The NY Times, The Guardian, The Independent, even The Spectator, these are good newspapers. These are the papers that The Age sources its better material from. These are the papers that Age journos wish they worked for. The Age? I've been away 10 years and have come back to find Schembri, Attwood, Courtis STILL writing for it and doing the same old same old. The Age is self indulgence in a conversation with itself and that you think the Money/Carbone tripe an aberration is evidence of your wilful self-delusion. Give The Age away.
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