to Sorry tell you this, but ...
Phillip Adams
The Australian, September 20, 2005
THE whole Latham thing has got somewhat out of hand. So I'm forced, yet again, to intervene. Readers will remember Rupert phoning my rooms at Oxford University begging me to authenticate the Hitler Diaries. After a few hours of study, I had to break the sad news. They were shonky. Elaborate forgeries designed to get some Murdoch money. Well, it's happened again. The Latham Diaries are a hoax. Up there with Ern Malley's poems and Helen Demidenko's nasty novel. And everyone's fallen for them! Not only News Limited, but the Melbourne University Press, Andrew Denton, Lateline and . . . Admittedly, they're quite well done. As you know, the first mistake forgers make, whether counterfeiting currency or producing spurious last wills and testaments for Howard Hughes, involves the paper. Wrong weight, incorrect fibre content. But like the Hitler diarists, the people behind the Latham con got that right. Forensic studies will confirm that the toilet paper on which The Latham Diaries were written comes from rolls identical to those used in the MPs' toilets in new Parliament House, and I've no doubt that the traces of faecal matter adhering to the sheets belongs to the ostensible author. Of course, that would be very easy to get, given Latham's years of shitty behaviour. This brings us to the ink. With the Hitler Diaries I was able to prove that the chemical composition was wrong, that the ink could only have come from bottles employed by calligraphers working with the Stasi in East Germany. The Latham forgers made a similar mistake. The bile in which these juicy journals were written doesn't check out. Yes, the DNA tests confirm traces of ALP, but comparing the genetic code in the bile with example of spittle sprayed on journalists by Mark Latham during the federal election eliminates any possibility of his involvement in the writing. My initial studies point the finger at a mixture of enemies and enemas. There are traces of Robert Ray and John Faulkner, mixed up with members of the Liberal Party's Dirty Tricks Department. Strange bedfellows indeed. But the plot thickens when you consider that the "Mark Latham" currently appearing on television, and on the front cover of The Weekend Australian Magazine is also a forgery. Blind Freddy should be able to see that this is a completely different person to the man-boobied skinhead who gave the finger to politics and the media in his final appearance. public Before revealing the truth about this masquerade, let me restate my credentials in the unmasking business. It was my researches that proved that that poisonous forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was the work of anti-Semites in the right-wing faction of the NSW Liberal Party, that the Shroud of Turin was produced by tailors employed in the House of Armani to boost Italian tourism and that the current President of the US is a malfunctioning audio-animatronic robot from the Disney studios. Now let me state, unequivocally, that the "Mark Latham" on current display is one of the least convincing parodies in the extensive repertoire of Max Gillies. Max does a wonderful Howard, a compelling Ruddock and an awesome Amanda Vanstone, but his skinny Latham misses by a mile and a great many kilograms.
Then what's it all about? Simply this. Max Gillies is married to Louise Adler, head of the Melbourne University Press! The Latham Diaries' publishers! And the whole charade is a desperate attempt to save the MUP from bankruptcy. Max is trying to save Louise's job! When Latham's real diaries arrived on her desk, they were as boring as batshit. Page after page covered in kind words about his erstwhile colleagues, entire chapters chocka with Mark's expressions of regret about years of boorish behaviour towards comrades, taxi drivers, wives and women in general. Here were the gentle reflections of someone changed by his experiences, seeking to heal old ...