You Slacker!

To answer Jana, Alison and Geoffrey - it is true - I have been extremely slack with my 'unnannounced hiatus' and left my poor blog to squalor in the virtual basement of the world wide web.

I can put it down to teething problems after I took on the role of reviewer at The Sun Herald. I can put it down to my full-time day job as a political media advisor (yes, I am still doing that). Or I can put it down to the fact I have had a horrendous flu twice this winter. Or that the Tour is on. Or how about the Ashes...

Regardless, they're all just useless excuses and my July resolution is to update SAJ far more regularly. I also need to go back and upload the last two months of published reviews, which I can hopefully finish by the start of next week.

In the meantime, the biggest arts news today is the decision by the Productivity Commission on the future of literature industry. I am still not quite sure why this Howard-era bastion of conservative gnawers had the right to make this call, but either way I'm still very much in two minds about the affair.

You have Bob Carr on one hand saying the decision is "a win for Australian literacy, as downward pressure on book prices brings more books into homes and puts them within reach of youngsters."

And then you have David Marr stating that the Commission's "enthusiasm to get rid of the old isn't matched by any great clarity about the future".

Indeed - what is the future?

The Commission talks of a need to "directly subsidise any deserving writers".

What will that subsidy look like and who or what is deserving?

Hopefully it won't look anything like the gradually diminishing local television content rules which networks flagrantly ignore... which brings me to the other great news item of today - "The Nine Network has axed its news and current affairs program This Afternoon after just three weeks on air."

Thank god their determination to create some type of 24 hour news channel just got a spoke in its wheel. Maybe you people could try to make a locally made program that isn't reality TV or about cops and robbers or doesn't have Eddie Maguire in it? Just a suggestion.

I wonder what Kevin Rudd has to say about the cancellation of This Afternoon? Surely he'd be sad to see another Daddo job disappear.

If he doesn't say anything about the Nine Network, then at least he may say something about the Melbourne International Film Festival after his mates in the Chinese Government demanded the festival 'dump a documentary about an exiled minority leader whom it labels a terrorist'.

I think we can all just be thankful that our illustrious Arts Minister has given the nod to another uranium mine. That might shut the Chinese up about the festival and even get Stern Hu out of gaol as well.