The Unusual Coyness of Tim Minchin

Sir: I recently read a review of Tim Minchin’s sold-out performance at the Palais Theatre, as part of his “comeback” 2019 national tour of Australia. Cameron Woodhead, of the Sydney Morning Herald, noted that it was the first time in memory that no complimentary tickets were issued to the press (he had to buy one for $142). The review was mixed, but generally positive, but one part stood out glaringly:

Minchin didn’t sing the one about George Pell and tortured us all explaining why, slaloming for minutes between outraged invective and sympathy for the devil. He baulked at the prospect of kicking a man when he’s down, and even raised the possibility Pell might not have gotten a fair trial …

Minchin’s final whinge is hypocritical, as his atrocious anthem, “Come Home, Cardinal Pell” (which he now doesn’t even sing, in a two-and-a-half-hour show) is an example of the worst sentiment that music is capable of. His was also one of the loudest voices in the choir of lemmings pillorying Pell before his “fair” trial. Perhaps he is covering himself in the event of acquittal at the appeal?

Joe Dolce
North Carlton, Vic

A Grossly Unsafe Verdict

Sir: As a (non-Catholic) journalist and criminal lawyer who has witnessed and taken part in innumerable trials and knows something about evidence, I would like to add my name to those who believe that the trial and conviction of Cardinal Pell was grossly unsafe. There were many aspects which should have told against a conviction and not merely one but many circumstances of reasonable doubt.

Hal G.P. Colebatch
Nedlands, WA

The Sad Future of the Gender-Dysphoric Child

Sir: I share the concerns of Professor John Whitehall (“Conversion Therapy and Gender Dysphoria”, March 2019) about potential legislation limiting therapeutic approaches supporting gender-distressed children and adolescents.

During over forty years of working in child and adolescent psychiatry, my experiences are consistent with those of Professor Kosky in the quoted 1985 paper—that in almost all of these (then relatively uncommon) cases, there were identifiable dynamic pressures in the child, family, or even culture, that explained the desire of the child to change gender. And helping the child and family to deal with these led not only to resolution of the gender issues, but also improved general emotional and social functioning.

Current interventions are using hormone treatments and subsequently surgery, with very limited evidential support and almost certain sterility; any psychological or emotional interventions with the child and family are focused on supporting the conversion of the child to their chosen gender. Minimal consideration, if any, seems to be towards the family and other issues that I, Kosky, Zucker, and many others have found driving this desire for gender change. Indeed it may become illegal to offer this approach if the activist LGBTI community influence is successful.

I am saddened to think of the future for many of these children and adolescents seduced down a medical/surgical path that unfortunately offers an apparent “easy” early resolution but with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Cary Breakey
Fernvale, Qld

We’re All Afraid

Sir: Robert Solomon’s all-embracing review of “The Serious Decline of the Common Language” (March 2019) omitted mention of probably the most commonly misused English word at present, namely phobia as in Islamophobia. The Oxford Dictionary defines a phobia as an extreme or irrational fear. Hence arachnophobia refers to a fear of spiders. By common usage the word Islamophobia has now come to embrace “fear, hatred or prejudice” against the Islamic religion and Muslims.

We all, Muslims included, are Islamophobic in that we fear the worldwide terrorism of radical Islam. Hence the body searches, the metal scanners and the armed guards at airports and public buildings, the CCTV and concrete bollards around public squares and shopping malls and the self-censorship of writers and editors. Even Quadrant is phobic about publishing any article that satirises or denigrates Allah or his prophet, fearing a Charlie Hebdo response. Phobia should mean “fear of” and not “hatred of” nor “prejudice against”. We are all Islamophobic.

Hatred of or prejudice against Muslims should be described as anti-Islam or anti-Islamic (not Islamophobic), a concept as egregious as anti-Semitism or anti-Christian.

One other current misuse of language is the reference to Muslims as being of one “race”. There are over one billion Muslims around the world, in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, of all races. So defining critics of Islam as “Islamophobic racists” is a meaningless misuse of the English language.

Ian Bernadt
Swanbourne, WA

Hardy the Architect

Sir: Thank you for Philip Drew’s wonderful article, “Thomas Hardy the Architect and the Stonemason’s Song” (April 2019).

I’ve read most good biographies of Hardy but Drew provided new information about a largely unexplored aspect of the novelist’s other career, his lifelong architectural expertise. I enjoyed Drew’s description of the lack of drawing and painting skills among modern practitioners: “They no longer know the sensual touch of a graphite extension of their fingers on white paper.” (My favourite uncle was, in the old way, both architect and watercolourist.)

I’m grateful, too, for Drew’s recollection of his visit, “via a bough-bent leafed alley” (perfect Hardyesque language!) to the interior of Hardy’s house in Dorchester. When we went there, as so often happens to eager antipodean tourists, the house was closed to visitors on the day of our pilgrimage; thus now, looking back sadly, I’m only able to picture its exterior.

I was also pleased to be directed to “The Abbey Mason”, a long poem which I’d previously overlooked.

Drew’s argument about the poet’s lifelong love of drawing is supported by the fact that my copy of The Complete Poems contains a brief preface by Hardy himself, including his footnote: “The early editions were illustrated by the writer. T.H. September 1898”. A copy which included those sketches would be a wonderful thing to see.

Suzanne Edgar
Garran, ACT