(Image: AAP/Joe Castro/Private Media)

What a Guy The misfiring clown car that is the Victorian Liberal Party has shuddered off yet more of its engine components. Leader once and leader once more Matthew Guy has launched a website dedicated to Victoria’s worst roads, looking to attack the Andrews government on infrastructure failures. Except that no one will ever talk about that, due to some of the design choices. As initially picked up by Seven Network’s Sharnelle Vella, the Liberals’ initial choice for the website’s main image was not in Victoria, or even Australia, but a stock photo from another country. If you want a hint as to which one, think what would be the most distractingly awful choice at this point in history, and remember this is the Victorian Liberals. Yep, it was a pockmarked road in Ukraine.

Big business Some things are just inevitable, subject to the immutable laws of the universe, and as such they seem to escape moral judgment. That a someone would form a company called Cancel Culture Consulting, aimed at helping brands avoid and/or recover from “cancel culture” is one such event. There is no point being mad — it’s simply a perfect example of Tralfamadorian philosophy. It was always going to happen; it always will have happened. The pitch goes:

Many brands have fallen foul of cancel culture, including established majors such as Heineken, Dove, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Nike, Kellogg’s and Mastercard. Even relative newcomer Snapchat plummeted US$800 million in market value when a distasteful ad sparked online outrage. It can be hard to avoid cancel culture — but even harder to recover a tarnished reputation.

It points to the inevitable imprecision of such an overused phrase that I can’t say for sure, but the commitment to “help those brands and organisations who are genuinely committed to living their authentic values and strive to avoid offence” seems to imply these guys deal with preventing an awful ad or the CEO tweeting some after-dinner thoughts about whether women should be allowed to pilot planes, but would probably steer clear of endemic sexual harassment or wage theft?

Regardless, we note that one of the services is “Development of external copy, especially on ‘tricky’ topics, such as Australia Day, or supporting LGBTIQA+ communities, where nuance and knowledge is essential”. So if ol’ triple C is looking for a high-profile candidate, we know of one in the northern beaches of Sydney who thinks she’s been “silenced” by an “online pile-on” and could really use a few pointers on how to handle a backlash.

Headline item It’s almost unimaginable in the era of increasingly hysterical clickbait, but it was an in-joke among subeditors around the world and would surface from time to time across the 20th century to compete over who could place the most boring headline in the paper. Famous examples include “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” from The New York Times in the mid 1980s or “Small Earthquake in Chile/Not Many Dead” in London’s The Times in the late 1920s. So there was something reassuring about the following piece in Washington publication The Hill, a nice modern touch on a classic flavour:

Dog acts Pretty interesting to see Guide Dogs Victoria CEO Karen Hayes coming out in explicit support of Josh Frydenberg’s campaign for reelection. Pretty interesting, because last year the government spent considerable time trying to strangle charities’ ability to engage in certain forms of political advocacy.

It’s a sign There are countless dubious websites out there dedicated to divining what someone’s signature tells us about them. We wonder what they would make of the following from Liberal Party candidate for Canberra — the already wonderfully named Slade Minson works a little smiley into the arm of the E at the end of his name. You might expect us to mock him for this, but frankly, we in the bunker find it kind of charming.