Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, September 10, 2003


TAKING SWINGS WITH POLITICAL BIAS


THE only saving grace in attending management conferences and leadership seminars is the opportunity they provide to catch up with old faces. Which, in the case of the conference I had to attend recently in the Hunter Valley of NSW, meant Sylvia B. She turned up in typical Sylvia style: jumper, leggings and boots, all in black except for red fireman's socks; green jewellery; henna hair cut into a flyaway bob; and electric blue glasses with strong lenses that gave her a half-blind quizzical look. Among the conference papers was a list of stipulations including that ``smart casual'' attire must be worn during the day and ``very smart casual'' at dinner. No one knew for sure what the difference meant.``Very smart casual is when I suck my stomach in,'' Sylvia said. While many women her age would be starting work on a facelift, Sylvia said she was chuffed recently to receive a letter asking for $87 to pay for another year's storage of two frozen embryos. She took perverse satisfaction in knowing she still was able to cast her offspring upon the planet, beyond her own reproductive shelf life. Revenge is a meal best served frozen. Sylvia has at least two kids of her own that I know of, possibly more. She says her parenting style has been simple: if you cannot be a good example to your kids, be a horrible warning. When I first saw her in action nearly 20 years ag, she was working as a marketer at The Age. She told a conference of newspaper executives that she had visited a primary school in working class Footscray to ask what the kids thought of The Age. "Effing boring," one had replied. Sylvia wanted to know where the kid had learned the word boring? She won me over, there and then. We did not meet on that occasion but I assumed anyone who worked on The Age at a time when it was laying waste to the Liberal cronyism and corruption in Victoria, she must also have been cut on the same left-wing bias. She had departed The Age by the time I next saw her at a conference in the Parramatta Park Royal, and we quickly became drinking buddies. When the downstairs lounge closed at midnight she invited herself into my room to help empty the contents of the bar fridge. Had I known what was going to happen next, I would never have let her in. Nooo, not that. Instead she harangued me with her wacky political views that were far, far to the right of mine, and of Genghis Khan's, and I was shattered. We argued fiercely all night until I finally managed to throw her out, fearing that if she were spotted leaving my room at dawn I would never live down the shame, not of sexual innuendo but of political mortification. She now claims to have mellowed politically although her natural bent is still what is called Neo-Conservative, or NeoCon. At their core, I told her, NeoCons had a fundamental belief in inequality. "That's right," she said, beaming. That night in the Hunter Valley I kept my door locked and bolted.