“Sod the wine, I want to suck on the writing. This man White is an instinctive writer, bloody rare to find one who actually pulls it off, as in still gets a meaning across with concision. Sharp arbitrage of speed and risk, closest thing I can think of to Cicero’s ‘motus continuum animi.’

Probably takes a drink or two to connect like that: he literally paints his senses on the page.”


DBC Pierre (Vernon God Little, Ludmila’s Broken English, Lights Out In Wonderland ... Winner: Booker prize; Whitbread prize; Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman prize; James Joyce Award from the Literary & Historical Society of University College Dublin)


.

.

.

.

26 September 2014

AG MINISTER STILL WASHING HIS BOOTS

Adding his clarification to confusion over whether or not the SA Premier's welcome purge of Government advisory boards meant the end of the Phylloxera Board, Agriculture Minister Leon Bignell answered DRINKSTER's query with this snap of him with his shoes in a phylloxera wash.  



Which is what all travellers should do before entering a vineyard.

"Great to hear from you Whitey," he wrote in the spirit of the government's new era of glasnost and perestroika. 

"Phylloxera Board is still in place and we will continue to dip our boots! 

"Tourism commission board and Motorsport board are gone. The Entertainment Centre and Convention Centre will have one board. 

"Sorry it's taken all day to get back to you. It's been a pretty full-on week." 

'Biggles' is also Minister for Tourism, Food, Fisheries, Forests, Tourism, Recreation and Sport, and Racing. His seat of Mawson includes most of McLaren Vale's vineyard area and the string of seaside suburbs along the Gulf St Vincent.

He is fairly easily lobbied most Saturday mornings while he shops at the Willunga Farmers' market. Biggles is, after all, the son of a dairy farmer. That was before he became a gun right-hand-page reporter and sports commentator. At the market you can measure his need for privacy by the austerity of the veggies in his bag. When it's lean on, it means he's too worried about other things to even buy his own food properly. In which case it's polite to wait to allow him to make the introduction.

The Premier's office has said that any new members of the Phylloxera Board will be selected and appointed by the CEO of the Department of Primary Industries and Resources. 

The advisory committee which previously selected these board members has been abolished.



3 comments:

admirer said...

too much limo not enough bike Biggles

Anonymous said...

Any news on restrictions on Tour Down Under visitors comng from phylloxera country to picnic in SA vineyards while they watch the cyclists ride past? Specially if next one starts in Coonawarra!?! This is all really stupid risk. The old pre-phylloxera vine heritage that sets us apart will be over. Kalimina, Hill of Grace, Langmeil, any real old stock on its own roots is a goner. Govt should use the Tour to do a huge anti-phylloxera educational push. Signed by Owner of 122 yo Shyraz

Anonymous said...

One cool Premier coming up. Watch yr bottom, Jay!