Masterchef - winner announced, but scoring a bit wiffy

For the non-Australians reading this blog who haven't the faintest idea about the TV phenomenon that is Masterchef - it might be time to make a cup of tea.

So, the record-breaking finale of Masterchef has delivered what all the pundits were predicting - a win to Adam Liaw from Tokyo (via Adelaide), and a win to channel 10 in the ratings.

My favourite contestant right from the 1st episode was Liaw’s fellow grand-finalist and South Australian, the happy-awkward former engineering student, Callum Hann.

Although the odds were stacked against Callum to win the title, the fact that a 20-year old kitchen hand with no formal cooking training went as far as he did in the competition is a great credit to him.

In last night's episode, I was happy with the way it all went, except for the final round of scoring - which had me raising my eyebrows to new heights.

I think Callum was robbed of three points on the final dish, the guava snowball dessert. Adam scored four nines for his effort, and Callum got one 9 and three 8s. In my opinion Callum's desert looked better and got just as favourable, if not better comments, from most of the judges. So why didn't the scoring reflect this? Surely if both contestants’ invention test dishes got nines across the board, the pressure test round should have been scored likewise. It would have made the scoring very boring, but it demonstrates how matched both Hann and Liaw were on their cooking skills. It was Liaw’s food knowledge that won him an early, and ultimately, unsurpassable lead.

Even if Callum had received four nines for his dessert, he still would have trailed Adam at the end of the night, but I would hope that, for future series, the scoring is far more transparent, and at least is consistent with the judges' comments.

Adam deserved to win the competition, just as much as Callum deserved to be in the grand final with him.

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Memo to Liberal HQ: Tell the people to Vote Liberal. There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

I am bored to tears with this election and it’s only the end of week one. This doesn’t auger well for the month of campaigning to come.

Speaking of which, if there is one sure bet, one dead certainty in this election, it will be that the coalition will have a disastrous campaign. Even if they win, it will be a terrible campaign. It always is.

Here are the problems the coalition faces:

1. Television ads. The Libs never do them well. They are nearly always too polite, too weak and too subliminal. You never see or hear the Liberal Party brand mentioned, except in the virtually inaudible authorisation mumble right at the end. SOLUTION: Change your advertising agency or get rid of the old farts in HQ who approve the tosh that the agency gives them. Get punchy and mention the brand - use it, or lose it.

2. First term governments hardly ever get kicked out. Added to the problem with this election is the fact many voters have too much of the 'fair go' spirit in them for their own good and will want to give Julia Gillard a chance, seeing as she’s only been PM for a few weeks. SOLUTION: The Libs need to go for the jugular and point out that Gillard is Rudd-light. She was there when all of Rudd’s disastrous decisions were made. She backed them, she supported them. Now she wants the public to move forward with her. Like lemmings, we probably will.

3. The coalition never get traction in the mainstream media, and when they do the coverage is usually negative. SOLUTION: Lack of media coverage of coalition policy announcements needs to be counter-acted by targeted TV advertising (see point 1 above.) Also, a radical alternative to the established media is sorely needed in this country. A Fox News-style channel would be a good start.

4. Leadership. I happen to like Tony Abbott. I think he will be a very good Prime Minister. Unfortunately this view is not shared by a majority of voters. SOLUTION: After this election is over, and playing devil’s advocate by assuming Labor will get re-elected, the Liberal Party should do a Lazarus, this time on Peter Costello, and pre-select him, posthaste, in a safe Melbourne electorate.

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Moving forward ... hopefully to oblivion

To the lexicon-challenged, eco-fascist Whitlam worshippers in cloud-ALP-cuckoo land who dreamed up the ‘moving forward’ slogan: Don't you realise that there are enough people to loathe in the world already without your working so hard to give us more? As if ‘working families’ wasn’t bad enough. Once again the Australian public are being assailed by slogans that mean nothing, deliver nothing and promise nothing. Voters are being treated as if we have the IQ of lint, by people who clearly do.

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Neil Perry gives a spray to Masterchef

Want to read a jealous, embittered rant by someone frightened of a bit of competition?

The schadenfreude is barely masked; the inflated view of his own importance, is not.

I really hope one of this years' Masterchef contestants goes on to open their own establishment, and give Perry a run for his money.

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My source was correct

The federal election will be August 21.

My previous blog post is here. Speaking of which, to allay any confusion ... while my source was indeed correct, and did tell me August 21, it was my failing memory, together with a lot of background noise at the time of our conversation, that led me to write a date for October also. As the weeks have unfolded since, however, it became increasingly obvious that it would be August.

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A dream is a wish your heart makes

Omne solum forti patria est...

A young pal of mine has been working as a volunteer English teacher in Japan for the past three months. He had applied for a working Visa, but when the expiry date of his tourist visa got nearer, he started to pack, thinking that he would have to leave his rural idyll.

Yesterday I heard via ‘effbook’ (he calls it that), that his working visa came though and that he can now stay in Japan and work (and get paid) for the next three years. He's ecstatic, and I'm really happy for him, too.

They say that youth is wasted on the young, but when the dream you imagine becomes the reality you live, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the earlier you dream the better your chances are. I wish I’d started dreaming a bit earlier…

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Sir Charles Mackerras

I am quite partial to classical music. I occasionally listen to ABC Classic FM on my way to work when the signal to 2GB gets a bit static-y.

For a long time, though, I undervalued the role of orchestra conductor. Indeed, I was of the belief that going to the opera based on who was conducting was a bit like betting on a horse depending on who was riding it.

A giant among conductors has put his baton down for the last time.

Sir Charles Mackerras was 84.

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The flawed UN convention on refugees

Greg Sheridan writes in The Weekend Australian:

...At the heart of the problem is the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. It is not only not working any more, it is setting up positively perverse incentives and having all manner of unintended and destructive consequences.

It is in desperate need of reform, but any conservative politician who addresses such a question will instantly be denounced as a racist, and almost all progressive politicians lack the stomach to confront the leftward end of their own constituencies on it. Julia Gillard's pretty bizarre balancing act, where she has accepted the absolute need to stop the boats getting to Australia illegally, but has proposed an almost certainly fanciful regional centre in East Timor, is an illustration of the dilemma progressive politicians face in office.

The rest of the article is here. It is an eloquent disquisition of the problems in and the misunderstandings of the UN refugee convention.

However, I need to bring to Mr Sheridan and others' attention, that the correct name for East Timor is 'Timor Leste.' Following its independence, its government requested that the nation be called 'Timor Leste', and we should have the decency to abide by this naming protocol.

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Decisions, decisions...

Can't make up my mind whether to buy one of these

or go on on of these instead.

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Let's hope Rudd was a one-off

Rather long, this - but hardly surprising, given the subject: A damning critique of the former Prime Minister:

On the evening of June 2 this year, the Labor Prime Minister was at it again. This time, he was holding court in his Parliament House suite to a handful of the country's top miners over drinks. It was at the height of the furore over the new mining tax and Rudd had been advised to extend the hand of friendship to guests such as BHP Billiton chief Marius Kloppers, Minerals and Metals Group boss, Andrew Michelmore, Xstrata Coal's Peter Freyberg.

The cream of business, arguably with the future of the nation's economy in their hands, they were ripe for some charm from the PM. Instead Rudd began skiting about his international credentials.

" I am," he announced to this startled group of senior executives of global business "the most globally recognised person here."

Not any more!

It is great, indeed, to see the back of this megalomanic; and may political parties give more careful consideration as to who they choose as leader, less the likes of such an arrogant and amateurish individual be once more placed in the role of Prime Minister.

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