Category - Television

Sam’s back.

Sam Kekovich used to play Australian Rules Football but these days he’s better known for causing controversy around Australia Day each year for simply suggesting that Australians choose to eat lamb on our national day.

Well …. to be perfectly honest it may not be the suggestion itself but rather the way he chooses to phrase that suggestion.

He started his regular Australia Day lamb advertisements a few years back in 2005. He had a number of people heading for the phones to protest when the advertisement he fronted contained the following.

Do you think the diggers in the trenches were fighting for tofu sausages? No. They were thinking of grabbing a lamb chop off the barbie with their bare fingers, sustaining third degree burns, then sticking their hands into a relieving esky to fish out a cold one.

Look at our national song, Waltzing Matilda. It’s about a bloke trying to get a nice bit of lamb into his tuckerbag, not spicy chicken wings.

The soap-avoiding, pot-smoking, hippy vegetarians may disagree with me, but they can get stuffed. They know the way to the airport, and if they don’t I’ll show them.

Some vegetarians were outraged. How dare anyone suggest that they were unAustralian simply because they refused to eat a lamb chop?

The theme has stayed the same since. Sam talks about activities that he thinks are unAustralian with the cure for all our ills being to have a lamb barbecue on January the 26th, Australia Day.

The 2007 advertisements are now showing on the commercial television networks and they run a full three minutes. This year the campaign takes the form of election advertising and suggests you vote for the Australia Day Party.

If you want to see who Sam’s targetted in this year’s rant just head to the campaign’s home page where you can watch the video and even download a poster or two.

The humour is quite Australian so you may not understand it fully if you haven’t spent a bit of time down under. Either way, let me know what you think.

Posted by Rodney Olsen

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Technorati Tags: Sam Kekovich – Lamb – Australia Day

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Another dream drifts away.

I’ve never really watched much of Backyard Blitz but there was always the hope, a very distant hope, that one day Jamie Durie and the gang would turn up at our place and turn our backyard into a garden paradise.

That hope is now dashed with the announcement that Channel 9 has decided to axe the show. A strange decision you’d think, considering that it was still pulling in a considerable audience and won a logie this year.

Oh well, we’ll continue to be content with the wilderness that awaits outside our back door. I wish I was a gardner but I’m just not wired that way. I can appreciate a nice garden but creating one is a very different story.

Mind you, if the Backyard Blitz team is looking for something to do now that their show’s been canned, they’re more than welcome to drop over.

Posted by Rodney Olsen

Technorati Tags: Backyard Blitz – Jamie Durie – Television

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Did you catch Father Bob on David Tench last night. If you missed it you can see some highlights by clicking here.

It was good to see that he got in a good plug for the Fr. Bob Maguire Foundation.

He’s looking for a bit of feedback so if you saw the show please drop in and tell him what you thought.

Posted by Rodney Olsen

Technorati Tags: Father Bob – David Tench – Television

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I’m not a big fan of David Tench, the animated talk show host on Channel 10, but I may try to get beyond that to watch next Thursday (9th November at 9:30pm) when he chats to Father Bob.

For those unfamiliar with Father Bob Maguire, here’s the bio from his blog.

Fr Maguire began parish work in the 1960’s. He Joined the Army Reserve in 1965 and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During the Vietnam War, he led the Character Training Unit for young officers. He came to Sts Peter and Paul’s as Parish Priest in 1973.

Fr Maguire co-founded Open Family in 1978 in what was a natural progression of his career in helping others. In what started off as a solo effort outside his role of South Melbourne parish priest, Fr Bob found himself working with the street-people of St Kilda. As Open Family’s Chairman, he has been an outspoken advocate of the poor and disadvantaged.

Throughout his Life, Fr Maguire’s goal has been to provide a semblance of basic human relationships to young people who have been rejected by their family, the education system and the welfare system.

For his work with street children, Fr Bob Maguire was awarded with the Order of Australia in 1989.

Posted by Rodney Olsen

Technorati Tags: Father Bob – David Tench – Television

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One of the special guests on Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope on ABC Television in Australia on Monday night was the original shock rocker, Alice Cooper. He certainly seems like an interesting character. When I heard that he was touring Australia a couple of months ago I immediately put in a request to interview him for my radio programme. I’m still waiting on confirmation one way or the other but I know that the publicist who is representing him while he’s in Perth will do her best to organise an interview for me.

He was a very entertaining guest on Enough Rope and if you missed the show you can read the transcript here. He touched on everything from his healing from alcoholism to his wild stage shows, playing golf and his Christian faith.

Denton has another interesting guest this coming Monday night when he talks to Johnny Lee Clary, a former Grand Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Johnny has an amazing story of how he was freed from a bitter, hateful, racist existance.

Update: It seems that the interview with Johhny Lee Clary won’t be airing this Monday night. The interview was being advertised on-line and on television until yesterday when they started promoting an exclusive interview with former QLD chief magistrate, Di Fingleton. I would assume that Johnny’s interview will be on within the next couple of weeks.

Posted by Rodney Olsen

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