It’s hard to write anything at all. Which is why I am sorely tempted to communicate solely in emoji form from now on. Indeed, after perusing the various emoji options available, there’s no prize for guessing which emoticon best expresses my thoughts. I knew we’d reached a tipping point when I switched from ABC News 24’s continuous coverage on Tuesday night to Australian Survivor and, save that participants on the latter program were more sparsely dressed, there was little difference.
It’s hard to write anything at all. Which is why I am sorely tempted to communicate solely in emoji form from now on. Indeed, after perusing the various emoji options available, there’s no prize for guessing which emoticon best expresses my thoughts. I knew we’d reached a tipping point when I switched from ABC News 24’s continuous coverage on Tuesday night to Australian Survivor and, save that participants on the latter program were more sparsely dressed, there was little difference.
But as horrifying as recent events have been, it’s really only the latest example of leadership spills and thrills reaching back several centuries. History now has it that Caligula was a deranged tyrant who went totally insane and tried to make his horse a senator when, in actual fact, he was done over after seeking to introduce an emissions trading scheme. As for the horse thing, that was true, but nobody laughed when Mr. Ed represented the third congressional district of Oklahoma between 1968 and 1972 – a job to which he was uniquely suited, even though he always voted ‘neigh’. Besides, Caligula’s horse was probably loyal, which counts for a lot in politics.
We’re not the first ones to experience a glitch like this. Other civilizations have also had to endure their own periods of instability. Take the Byzantine Empire back in the sixth century. Emperor Maurice won a war against the Persians and ruled for twenty years but had significant debt and deficit issues, eventually being white-anted and overthrown by the spectacularly-monikered Flavius Phocas, known to his friends as ‘Ford’. As Ford Phocas seized control, the Emperor hightailed it for Nicomedia. Sadly, it proved to be a Maurice minor victory as he was later caught and executed. Ford Phocas lasted a mere eight years before being removed for general incompetence. Which is often the case.
King Wamba of the Visigoths was kidnapped, drugged and had his head partly shaved before being dressed up like a monk. If this sounds bizarrely cruel, there was an underlying purpose to it all. Turns out, under section forty-four of the Visigoth constitution, members of the clergy were ineligible to be King. Confronted with this change in circumstances, King Wamba happily lived out his days as a monk which, I suspect, is the Visigoth equivalent of moving to the backbench.
More recently, there was Oliver Cromwell; a Puritan who became so concerned that no one was advocating for the conservative base, he supported the execution of King Charles. As luck would have it, this resulted in a promotion for Oliver to the role of ‘Lord Protector’ which is kind of like the role of Prime Minister, Governor General and Captain of the national cricket team, all rolled in to one. Not that it ended well. Although he died of natural causes, Oliver Cromwell was ultimately exhumed and posthumously executed. Which was fair enough.
Then there’s the case of William Bligh – a man who seemed to inspire mutiny in all he met. He was in charge of the HMS Bounty on its voyage in search of breadfruit plants when he was deposed in what must still rate as the worst trip to the shops of all time. Fletcher Christian immediately renamed the ship the ‘HMS Cherry Ripe’ and dumped poor Bligh and eighteen others in a small boat with four cutlasses but nothing resembling a Melways, much less a Sat Nav. Miraculously, Bligh managed to navigate the boat over 47 days and three and half thousand kilometers to the nearest European settlement, in Timor.
He was later made Governor of New South Wales, a post he held until 26 January 1808 when he was arrested in what may be the earliest example of a Hottest 100 barbecue gone seriously awry. He was also given a petition with one hundred and fifty one signatures on it, which is a lot more than the forty-three required these days. That earlier skirmish was known as the ‘Rum Rebellion’ although, to the best of my knowledge, the Bundaberg Rum Bear was not directly involved in rallying numbers, even if he had a lot to say about it during his nightly slot on Sky News.
There’s some irony that some who shares a name with one of history’s most memorable mutineer targets has, himself, been rolled in utterly mystifying circumstances. Granted, there was lots of talk about electricity prices (as if a consensus that they’re too high didn’t exist) and heaps of discussion about ‘the base’ (as though the other 97% of the country are immaterial), but none of it made any sense. It was a rum exercise, that’s all. Which is why I think that we should refer to recent events as ‘The Rum Rebellion II – Electric Boogaloo’.
There’s a lot of talk about the revolving door of leadership. I don’t think it’s a revolving door at all. More a catflap. Change happens whenever these days. It’s profoundly disappointing. So to the outgoing PM, best wishes and take as much stationery as you want on the way out. You’ve earned it. To the new PM, best of luck. To anyone of any political persuasion who finds themselves in Parliament; please, please, please try and avoid outbreaks of this kind of lunacy. Because even the Visigoths would be embarrassed by this.