Amnesias a Real Bitch, The Age, August 17, 2009

Amnesia's a Real Bitch

The Age
August 17, 2009

http://blogs.theage.com.au/moderntimes/archives/2009/08/wonderful_memories.html

Honest to God, Melbourne's Catholic Archbishop says he has no memory of telling a parishioner: "Go to hell, bitch." You'd reckon that, as a top man of the cloth, he would have some vague recollection of something like that - you know, it's not exactly part of morning vespers - but Denis Hart (below) says it is a "number of years ago" and he can't remember. However a magistrate says he did say it so I reckon it's gospel. Apparently His Grace was "very very angry" because the bitch threw stones through his window. Go to hell, bitch.

I might start a Celebrity Amnesiacs List because, while we have had all sorts of people suffering black-outs in the past, this is the first Archbishop. I think it was corporate crook and America's Cup hero Alan Bond who started the ball rolling. He seemed so brain-damaged back in the 1990s that he could not even remember the question, let alone the answer, when grilled in the dock during his trial at the Federal Court in Sydney. I was playing tennis regularly with a group of medicos at the time. "You'd be vague too," one told me, "if you took two Mogadon for breakfast."

The Cole Inquiry in 1996 into the wheat scandal provided a rich vein. Trade Minister Mark Vaile clocked up 62 "I can't recalls", 41 in his written statement and 21 while being questioned. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer went blank 21 times in his written statement and, under questioning, became beset by "distant recollections".

Western Australia, which gave us Bondy, has been a real amnesia hot spot. You have your former Premier, and latterday political leper, Brian Burke who went blank in the royal commission in to WA Inc. "I don't recall the detail," said Burkey, "but I can speculate if you want." It didn't even help when Burkey was shown copies of a "Regards Brian Burke" email acknowledging a $3000 cheque. Nope, not even that could "jog my memory".

Carmen Lawrence (below) went blank too. Poor Carmen. She was Health Minister when she was grilled in the Marks commission in to the Penny Easton scandal. Her count: 14 "I don't recalls', six "I don't remembers" and four "I can't remember".

One of my sisters, Rosemary, reckons she read somewhere that too much sugar as a kid damages your memory. Could be that they have been putting too much in the parliamentary pastries. And the communion wafers.

Still, amnesia doesn't necessarily stunt your growth. At last report Bondy, who went bankrupt and was thrown in jail, was well on the way back to being a billionaire, having sewn up some deal on diamond mines in Africa and oil in Madagascar.

I don't suppose he would think of paying back all those creditors he had back in the 1990s,. Nah, he probably can't remember them.