Bye Bye, Bobby Carr

Oh the shame, the shame of it. That one of the biggest political stories of the year should break while I'm away from my computer, with no other connection to the outside world than a mobile phone beeping near-lifelessly in my bag!

The news broke shortly after 11am - I saw it during this morning's Channel 9 news - which, I might add, did not see fit to broadcast Carr's entire resignation speech (sure, he was going on about wandering in the sunshine with Helena - you could see some cigar chomping Packerite going `bugger me if he starts going on about bloody Marcus Aurelius - cross to the farken sport report) despite rushing in helicopters to film snails that happened to be slithering up the wall of the Opera House while Bec Cartwright and Lleyton Hewitt were getting married inside.

I rarely use the hackneyed phrase intentionally, but tributes are literally pouring in as I type - Steve Price has Andrew Refshauge on 2UE (who, intriguingly and disappointingly, has apparently counted himself out of the leadership race), and 702's Richard Glover has former Premier Neville Wran. Price has gone so far - and with some legitimacy - to suggest Carr's political skill will one day be regarded as legendary. Carr's skill in handling the media cannot be doubted (he shall be remembered forevermore as his alter ego in Mike Carlton's Friday News Review, `Bob Starr'). Whether he strictly stuck to Labor ideals can. Despite the recent troubles in NSW, his time as premier will ultimately been seen as an extremely significant epoch. It is easy to forget Carr's unassailable popularity until only eighteen or so months ago, something even the most conservative of critics are conceding.

Meanwhile, despute Carl Scully being tipped to succeed Carr (groan - as Steve Price points out, as part of a surprisingly laudatory summary of Carr's career, a selection that will be a hard sell if the factions anoint him), the far more endearing method of 702's James Valentine's snap competition, Macquarie St Idol puts Morris Iemma as favourite for the top job, followed by John Watkins, Andrew Refshauge, and Carmel Tebbutt and Frank Sartor tying for fourth.

Of course, we're neglecting the most important question of all here: what music will they play on the evening news? I clearly remember Nick `Kermit' Greiner's resignation being accompanied by `The Rainbow Connection'. 2GB's Chris Smith has started the bidding with John Denver's Leaving On A Jet Plane (sceptical me, was it a masterful and typical `I swear I'm not promoting Channel 9 despite working for them and mentioning them every ten minutes' way of promoting 2GB's current competition to win a flight on - ahem - a jet plane, AND the new John Denver Greatest Hits album???). But I'd like to offer this suggestion, from Noel Coward's `I've Been To A Marvellous Party' ...

It was the most fabulous excitement
I've never seen such a carry-on!
Obviously, it couldn't happen
Anywhere else but on the Riviera...
It was most peculiar?
You know, people's behaviour
Away from Belgravia
Would make you aghast!
So much variety,
Watching society
Scampering past...
You know, if you have any mind at all,
Gibbon's divine "Decline And Fall"?
Well, it sounds pretty flimsy
No more than a whimsy...
By way of contrast,
On Wednesday last

I went to a marvellous party
We didn't sit down 'til ten
You know, young Bobby Carr
Did a stunt at the bar
With a lot of extraordinary men!
And then Freda arrived with a turtle,
(Which shattered us all to the core)
And then the duchess passed out at a quarter to three
And suddenly Cyril cried "Fiddle-de-dee!",
Then he ripped off his trousers
And jumped in the sea!
And I couldn't have liked it more!