Recollections of a Failed Human Being

A Eulogy of Hatred and Bitterness: The Journal of Australian Intelligence Officer Thomas Sutcliffe

January 2006

I hate that little bastard. If you have ever used Microsoft Word on your computer you know what I mean: That fucking paperclip. Whenever you go into Word to write a document there he is. That smarmy self satisfied paperclip with his self satisfied smirk and his ‘office tips’. That paperclip is Bill Gate’s revenge on the world – ‘so you thought I was a nerd did you? You used to call me ‘four eyes’ at school. Well not only do I own you and your family, but I will torment you all day with a paperclip as smug as I am’. I know that with a flick of a wrist adorned by paper clipped shaped cufflinks Bill could sue me to hell and back, but the suffering and misery that paperclip inflicts is on a par with third world war crimes. It needs to be recognized. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops. People should wear little ribbons at the Oscars to commemorate ‘I Hate That Paperclip’ day’.

I know it is not just me. Everyone everywhere hates that paperclip. It is like a universal constant: Death, religion, war, taxes and that bloody know it all bit of bent wire. They are all conspiring to make my life, your life, everyone’s life a total and utter misery from which death at our own hands is the only escape.

I am sorry if that sounds a bit depressing, but that is how I get after half an hour of staring at that paper clip – and he keeps winking at me in a suggestive manner, cheeky sod.

What does that say about your life when you are taking advice from bent wire?

But enough about the paper fastener from hell.

This is my journal from my excrutiating time working with Nicholas Upwood, our esteemed and idiotic foreign minister.

Nicholas Upwood’s getting up everyone’s nose again. Get it? It’s a joke. The man lives up to his name simply because he could get up god’s jacksie with his stupidity and his brain is full of wood.

I admit it is not the greatest literary allusion in the history of human existence, but it keeps his loyal slaves amused as we try to ‘knot’ (get it – wood – knot – rope – tie him up and throw him in the river with lead weights attached to his feet) out the latest Nicholaserism or attempt to stave off a war after a particularly disastrous peace mission.

Nicholas’s peace missions are the most dangerous thing about him. We never should have let him have that lunch with the UN secretary general. It gave him ideas. When he occasionally deigns to take his foot out of his mouth he decides that he is a slightly fatter, stupider modern day Ghandi and makes us organize good will trips to ‘deserving’ nations so that he can insult them in person, instead of from a far as he usually does.

I say insult because Nicholas has the tact of Hitler reincarnated as a very peeved rhino in a synagogue.

When he gets to the deserving nation his first words are usually along the lines of ‘so, how are you little fuzzie wuzzies coping without those nice Sahibs to tell you what to do’.

Then generally we have to whisk him away from the fuming natives and convince him that peace would best be served if he stayed in the hotel room and preferably away from the windows. 

Thank god and government travel expenses for the mini bar.

Now one would think that Nicholas could just be shot with a tranquilizer dart and safely lost somewhere in the detention center system. While this may be a dream come true for many of my friends and acquaintances he is not only my boss but a legitimately elected official of the government and sort of, in a lose sense, in charge of the government intelligence agencies.

Yes. I am a spook, a spy, an intelligence operative, James Bond 003 and a half – ha ha ha – I have heard it all before so can it.

I am actually the ‘Dep Dir Strat Anal Int Gath Proc’, or to give it it’s full title the Deputy Director of Strategical Analysis (Intelligence Gathering and Processing) at the Office of National Assessments. Personally I prefer the long title as it doesn’t make me sound like a kinky proctologist hell bent on some deep anal intelligence gathering expedition on some unsuspecting Tasmanians.

Conned by James Bond the public believe that espionage is a glamorous business. That wanker who went public over the Iraq scandal wrote about the state of the art test tube revolving security doors we have in our ‘secret HQ’. What he didn’t mention was the Kindergarten.

That is the first thing I see every day when I come to work: the state of the art top secret defence kindergarten. It sits right next to the ASIO building. Fucking hell - is that a metaphor or what?