Thomas Sutcliffe was a mid level Canberra bureaucrat who worked in intelligence for thirty years. However finally he decided he had had enough and wanted revenge on the bastards loosely described on his tax return as his employers. He did have a plan involving a water tower and a shot gun, but decided that moving to the Gold Coast and writing a book would be more fun and provide years of psychological angst for all those creeps he used to work with who would spend ages trying to work out if the wanker on page 197 was, in fact, based on them or really Terry from intelligence analysis.

Sadly Thomas Sutcliffe died suddenly in his Gold Coast home, merely minutes after contacting Channel Nine and agreeing to tell all in return for an incredible amount of money. Kerry Packer and Ray Martin flew down there on the Channel Nine chopper armed with promotional T-Shirts, sun visors and Eddie McGuire to tempt Sutcliffe to tell his story, but unfortunately by the time they got there Sutcliffe was dead.

There is speculation that he was murdered by Australian security agents in an attempt to stop him from revealing sensitive information. This theory has never been proven as experts have argued it is inconceivable: The probability of an Australian security agent getting the address right is virtually impossible. *

Although the coroner officially ruled Sutcliffe’s death as suicide, many questioned the probability that, although Sutcliffe was a very stupid man, how he could have managed to drown himself in his own dishwasher. There has also been much speculation on his ability to programme the rinse cycle to run twice from inside the machine.

However six weeks after his death I found his journal under a large rock in the communal rock garden and, after the payment of various body corporate fees, retrieved and transcribed Sutcliffe’s drunken scrawlings.

Although only working as a casual lawn mower at the time I immediately saw a chance to put those three years in an undergraduate journalism course, the two years working on a masters of investigative journalism, the three years working on a PHD in analytical journalistic studies and that two week Centrelink course in typing to good use. I realized it was my journalistic duty to uncover the truth of Sutcliffe’s story, make a shit load of money and tell Chris Masters to go take a running jump. 

To that end I began to piece Sutcliffe’s slightly nawed notes together. The gaps in Sutcliffe’s story have been painstakingly filled in using secondary sources, recollections from disgruntled colleagues and outright lies.

I discovered that, like most government employees Sutcliffe was a very bitter and twisted individual in serious need of all sorts of professional help.

If the old adage ‘looking at the world from the bottom of a beer glass’ could be applied in Sutcliffe’s case, it would probably be more accurate to say he looked at the world through the bottom of a vodka bottle. Hence Sutcliffe’s constant ‘tired and emotional’ state,  and the somewhat scatty and disorderly state of this journal.

This, combined with the government invoking just about every national security rule they could think of to try to stop the public from being able to get hold of information has meant Sutcliffe's story has never been told...

Until now.

Trevor Spall 2010

Zombies on national television

This disturbing phenomenon has taken over Australian television. The networks claim that zombies are providing a quality service, but I ask is: can a zombie Naomi Robson provide the same sort of smug self righteousness as she did when she was alive?

This disturbing picture was mistakenly released by Channel Nine publicity. I feel this is conclusive proof that Eddie McGuire is really the embodiment of the undead.