Never Read Matt Price With A Mouthful Of Coffee
Harold Hark
2 June 2003

Out the door scooted I for a Sat'dy brekkie free of the teeming hordes consisting of wife and daughter. Armed with The Age's Insight and The Australian's Inquirer, I made my way to Frenchy's, that bit of old Europe in Glen Bloody Waverley. Greeted by the silver haired patron and his genial staff, I made my way to a table in the lightly peppered shadow of a glorious sunny morning filtering through the window and pot plants. There I unfurled my papyri of political wisdom.

Eggs Florentine ordered (hey, it's a real time warp here) to the sound of Edith Piaf belting out a heartfelt response to life in the pre-consumerist era, I settled in to Shaun Carney's blistering treatise on our heartless era's icon, John Howard, followed by life-affirming Hugh Mackay and his blistering treatise on same. William Deane's speech put me in a suitably earnest, if revolutionary, mood.

Then I started on Matt Price's Nigh impossible with all that's Left. No sooner had the immaculately haberdashed jeune garçon brought the long Lavazza black, than I came upon the paragraph:

"And the assignment? To unearth one thing -- anything -- that Richard Alston hasn't comprehensively botched during almost eight years as Communications Minister."

I should have known it was coming, or something like it. Perhaps it was the delay, following several paragraphs of seductive satire which had lulled me into a quietly blissful delight.

In any event, a mouthful of the succulent java was seen to leave my gob and shower the slender glass containing some twenty sticks of sugar. The other patrons, genteel Europe lovers like myself, pretended not to notice. Nor did Monsieur le patron and his genial staff.

By the time the Eggs Florentine arrived, I had thoroughly embarrassed myself, not with further spewings, but with uncontrollable guffaws, nearly toppling from my chair at the following:

"...you need the investigative nous of a UN weapons inspector to uncover anyone who owns a HDTV.

"Which is a shame, since Alston's vision of datacasting seemed a hoot. Under the minister's guidelines, new players could screen anything they liked except 'drama, current affairs, sporting programs and events, music programs, infotainment and lifestyle programs, comedy, documentaries, reality television programs, children's programs, light entertainment and variety programs, compilation programs, quiz programs and game shows'.

"People squawked that Alston was simply trying to protect the existing free-to-air companies, which was unkind. Despite the restrictions, there was plenty of room left for innovative shows such as Great Speeches of Philip Ruddock and Who Wants to be a Young Liberal?"

I left sometime later (after adding a hefty tip to the bill, bien sûr), well fed but drained. As I joined the throng in that home away from home, The Glen, for the purchase of everything from chicken cubes to the lottery ticket to paradise, I resolved hereafter to curtail my reading in public to the relative safety of articles by Paul Kelly and/or Dennis Shanahan.

As I sailed up the organic Tampax and down the absorbent polenta aisles, I reflected that this solution might lull me in another, equally problematic, way. It would hardly be fair to expect the assembled celebrants of Saturday morning petit dejeuner to turn their heads away when the head of one of their own has just fallen into his plate, this time snoring instead of guffawing.

Life is not without its hazards, I was thinking, as I turned up at the til which, fortunately for those such as I who are tormented with grandes indécisions, was womaned by a lovely lass with minutely pored olive skin and the slenderest of fingers, so long indeed that there appeared to be a last-chance saloon at each knuckle.

What, me worry? was one of the last thoughts to graze my consciousness as I trolleyed forth to the parking lot which contained what appeared to be my car. Rendering unto the boot that which had been Coles, I sailed away with naught but visions of sawdust and frosted glasses of beer in what would have been my mind had I just stayed home and left the shopping to She who should always be obeyed.

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