The Harsh Couch

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. - George Orwell

** Apologies guys, some serious audio quality issues with this one. As far as we can tell, Gob called in from a Thai prison where he had been chained to a toilet. Early in the show he breaks the toilet off the wall and he can be heard dragging it around. For convenience he is not holding the microphone, which is instead lying in the bottom of the toilet bowl. **

RIP Rod Taylor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Taylor

RIP Bernard Jordan http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/08/d-day-veteran-bernard-jordan-wife-irene-dies

RIP Boris Morukov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Morukov

RIP Anita Ekberg http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-12/anita-ekberg-la-dolce-vita-actress-dies-aged-83/6011610

RIP (sort of) Keith Wright. A convicted kiddy fiddler who had almost become Premier of Qld in 1983. Died in Vietnam.

RIP Some people in Frogland

RIP Heaps more people in Nigeria ... then a few more, cos 2000 wasn't enough.

RIP 150,000 civilians due to violence in Iraq over the last 13 years

Bananaland

Tony Abbott and the Cairns Funeral

Election time

Announcement timing meant people, many on holidays, had 1 day to enrol and be eligible to vote in the election. Nice bit of democracy there.

Campbell is spending like a drunken sailor, hasn't even received any money from the assets 'leasing' plan.

Queensland economy is not travelling well, so their policies of last 2 and a half years have been a failure, as have those of their federal counterparts, obviously.

http://theconversation.com/the-true-state-of-queenslands-economy-without-the-spin-35959

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/jan/13/campbell-newman-strong-queensland-election-2015-video

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/13/state-of-emergency-this-election-will-show-whether-queensland-really-is-different