The Thin Captain has been produced for 146 years, first by Guest's, which was taken over by Brockoff's, which was taken over by Arnott's, which was taken over by Nabisco. But the "prince of crackers" is no more. In March, it joined Rosella Tomato Sauce, Golden Circle canned vegetable and fruit products, Darrell Lea chocolates and other once staples of the Australian pantry in the discard pile. As James Campbell put it in the Herald Sun: ...the Thin Captain is an Australian classic with no peer anywhere in the world. Waterford crackers? Too thin and prone to becoming soggy in dips. Captain's Table crackers? Ditto. Saos? Too thick and they don't complement cheese well. Neither does the … [Read more...]
The political tragedy of Julia Gillard
28/06/2013 by
The Conversation | 29 June 2013 In the middle of the 2012 winter, an influential supporter of Julia Gillard laid out for me the intricacies of the Labor caucus’ power structures, the labour movement’s web of personal antagonisms and the federal government’s dire predicament. At the end of his treatise, with a wide-eyed look of resignation and a despairing tone, he summed up: The whole show is f—-ed and no-one can work out how to unf—– it. A few weeks later, a highly experienced Labor figure with deep knowledge of public attitudes to the Gillard government and how to harness voter support shared his assessment. He’d concluded that Labor was headed for defeat and had lost the … [Read more...]
