Leslie Seymour: The Everywhere Man — Have Camera Will Travel

“Who the hell is Leslie Seymour?” That’s what journalist and broadcaster Ray Martin asks facetiously in his foreword to the autobiography of Les Seymour, his long-time mate, and it’s a fair question. Unless you’re a veteran journo or a media junkie, you may not have heard about cameraman extraordinaire, Les Seymour. All he’s ever done …

Cricket Australia: The Tamper Crisis

During my years in the control room putting the Nine Sunday Program to air, inevitably there were mistakes: some more serious than others, usually, though, only the wrong caption name or a misspelling. But inevitably there was an angry outburst from the senior producer of the day that often had a director’s assistant or technical …

Comic duo Laurel and Hardy’s moments to remember: Tales of Hollywood stranger than fiction

Laurel and Hardy were two of my favourite comedians. Every year on Thanksgiving, a US TV network played one of their old films. We laughed at their jokes and slapstick, with perfect timing and the sheepish face of Stan Laurel and the exasperated reactions of Oliver Hardy providing moments to remember. What brought back that …

The Buttons: Speechless but never at a loss for words

It’s taken me a while to read Speechless, a lovely book about speechwriting by James Button, Walkley Award-winning journalist and author and son of John, a senator and a former minister in the Labor Governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. It’s not only a story about speeches but a father and son relationship, the …

The coup that led to a Liberal dose of leadership blues

Journo 1: “Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull. Isn’t it incredible? Since June 2013, four Prime Ministers.” Journo 2: “And Rudd twice. Rudd, Gillard, Rudd.” Journo 1: “Quite incredible.” Journo 2: “So much dysfunction.” Journo 1: “So much dysfunction, or is it so much lack of care in choosing your party leaders because although the system would …

A hell of a day in Sydney

Writing a blog in the middle of a firestorm wiping out dozens, possibly scores, of homes on the outskirts of Sydney makes you realise what really matters. I had started the original post with the speech by former Health Minister Nicola Roxon blasting her former boss, Kevin Rudd. But as soon as I looked out …

Is blogging really necessary?

Ellen Fanning: “Isn’t it a bit silly that people in your position in political life are expected to tweet and blog on all this stuff, instead of just going out and talking to people?” Bob Carr: “I think it is silly. I think interest may have peaked. Look, all these blogs, I’m sure many of …

Where Bob Carr found his voice and poetry

As I predicted in a previous post, helping to produce a weekly television program means I have less time for my blog. But one of the joys of working on a show like The Observer Effect is watching politicians like Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr talking to our host, Ellen Fanning. So I thought I'd …

My life as a bibliophile

As I await my next hip revision, I decided to put an old favourite on my blog this week. Please forgive me for plagiarising myself! It’s a blog about books, and as another one of my old favourites, Walt Whitman, once said: “Camerado, this is no book/Who touches this touches a man.” I love books, …

A line in the sand for Australian sport

It’s the biggest story in Melbourne and possibly the largest scandal in AFL history, which now involves every sport in the nation, following an Australian Crime Commission report released today. Eighty per cent of players on the Essendon football club used a supplement last year injected by club fitness staff to boost body mass and …