Ronald Thump and Vladimir Putrid
Re THE ASCENT OF EVEREST by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen,(Hybrid Publishers:Melbourne 2024).
How many pundits know that, in the boxed set of Grafton Everest political satires THE ASCENT OF EVEREST, the autocratic American president Ronald Thump and Russian dictatorial president for life Vladimir Putrid are both assassinated?
How spooky is this!
Prof Ross Fitzgerald AM0419 661869
Re Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen: The Ascent of Everest : a four boxed set, Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne, 2024, $49.99.
‘I reckon I laugh out loud at least once on every page, it’s bloody brilliant and hilarious!
Brendan Clarke, leading Australian jazz musician.’
Check the page: https://www.hybridpublishers.com.au/product/the-ascent-of-everest-boxed-set/
HYBRID PUBLISHERSPO Box 52 Ormond VIC 3204Australia
Tel: (03) 9504 3462See our website at:https://www.hybridpublishers.com.au
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THE ART OF FAILING UPWARDS
THE ASCENT OF EVEREST (BOXED SET) by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyenHybrid Publishers, 2024ISBN. 9781922768278RRP: $49.99 (PB)Reviewed by Rocco Loiacono
The four novels of the satirical series concerning Professor Grafton Everest, a rambunctious, overweight, fictional academic written together by Ross Fitzgerald (emeritus professor of history and history) and Ian McFadyen (of the Comedy Company fame) have now been published as a boxed set so that readers can chart from start to finish the uproarious story of how this hapless, work-shy anti-hero made it from a provincial Australian …
The Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024 is set to be debated and voted on in the Senate on June 24. If the Senate bill is passed, Australia’s eight state and territory parliaments will each have to pass corresponding legislation. If they don’t, the survival of Australia’s restrictive approach to vaping is doubtful.
The federal Health Minister, Mark Butler, is leading these de facto prohibition changes.
Australia began restricting nicotine vaping, a much safer way of taking nicotine than deadly smoking, in 2011.
Since then governments have intensified the …
The Muddle-Headed Wombat Abroad
Matthew WhiteQuadrant, June 2024 pp 81-84
Is there any point in being a satirist in the postmodern world, especially in present-day liberal democracies? How can one create a sense of just ridicule of social and political conduct when the daily newsfeed promises to produce examples that are more absurd than the satirist’s imagination, leaving even his or her best work the loser in a sinister game of psychic one-upmanship?
Who can better as satire the Prime Minister refusing to comment on his telephonic argument with Father Frank Brennan about …
‘Waggy Bill’ (William Norman Kerrigan) funeral service,10.30am Tuesday 28 May, 2024 at St Mary’s Church, Manly.
As a long-time member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I would like to pay tribute to ‘Waggy Bill’ (William Norman Kerrigan) who was a great help to me and to so many other alcoholics, especially to newcomers.
Although he took some time to stop drinking, Bill was one of a kind.
As a member who would have been 60 years sober on 28 May, the day of his funeral, he was a fine example of AA in action.
In …
Jailing of whistleblower a travesty
As Wilcox’s fine cartoon makes clear (Editorial cartoon, May 15), the sentencing in the ACT Supreme Court of military whistleblower David McBride to 5 years and 8 months imprisonment is an utter travesty.
It is not only a serious blow to justice and democracy, but such a punitive prison sentence sends a powerful message of deterrence to any potential whistleblowers in the future.
Surely it is well and truly time for federal Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus, to intervene? I can testify that Mr McBride is a person of good …
Launch of The Ascent of Everest : The Outrageous Adventures of Grafton Everest by Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen.(Hybrid Publishers, Melbourne, $49.99)
The Olsen Gallery Woollahra, Sydney 6pm May 9, 2024.
Tuesday morning, when I was stumbling around Surry Hills, a middle-aged woman asked: “Are you Professor Fitzgerald, author of the Grafton books?”
After I responded “Yes”, she said , “You look much better on the television!”
When, as many people do, she then inquired, “Is Grafton you?”, I responded : “Of course not. He’s what I could become if I let myself go!”
But …
The #MeToo predictor: How Grafton Everest is always one step ahead
Who knew when Prof Ross Fitzgerald created his fictional character Grafton Everest to satirise Queensland politics and academia that Grafton would go on to conquer the world in novels that predict waves of key events.
We find it fascinating that however fanciful the satire, it so often gazumped by political and academic reality.
The first Grafton novel, Pushed From The Wings (1986) predicted the rise of the Me-Too movement in academia and the growing dependency of universities on full fee-paying foreign students.
In Busy in the …
Fred Paterson & the St Patrick’s Day Bash
When the ‘people’s champion’ got walloped
Fred Paterson… on March 17 1948, Australia’s only Communist Party MP Fred Paterson was smashed from behind by a Queensland policeman.
By Ross Fitzgerald
As we approach St Patrick’s Day, politically aware readers should know that in Brisbane on March 17 1948, Australia’s only Communist Party MP Fred Paterson was savagely smashed from behind by a Queensland policeman.
Prof Ross Fitzgerald.
Some time after it occurred, this attack on Paterson became known as The Great St Patrick’s Day Bash.
Yet most Australians, including a …
Friends FYI the first review of Rowan Dean’s bio of Barry H. cheers Roscoe 0419 661869
The last laugh: The unforgettable and irreplaceable Barry Humphries
Rowan Dean’s book about the late great Barry Humphries is as edifying as it is entertaining
Written by Phil Brown
Barry Humphries and Ross Fitzgerald lunching in Sydney – a photo from The Many Lives of Barry Humphries by Rowan Dean
Phil Brown
It’s still hard to believe that Barry Humphries has left the building (a euphemism for the planet) for good. Mind you, he had a pretty good innings. An …
