Paul on Paul on Shane on everything with a pulse

This morning, tired of staring at job descriptions trying to decide which of my potentially pending options I would like, or hate, or neither, I read the Good Weekend extract from Paul Barry's expose on Shane Warne.

I had already read that Simone (now) Callahan is considering suing, and in chattering with the missus (who is a far smarter lawyer than I) reached the conclusion that she would be mad to go there. All litigation is uphill, destructive, and best avoided if you have the chance. The shorter version of it is that Barry's book suggests Warne had lots of affairs and it casts aspertions on their marriage.

A law suit based on this seems destined to be ugly, and largely futile, as well as guaranteeing much higher sales of the book.

However going by the tone of the Good Weekend extract, by the end of brekky I understood why she'd be hurting beyond logic. And it did occur to me that she may have a winning case. So much appears to be imputed, or credited to vague-sounding sources, that the book may well be littered with the key elements for a good defo action: allegations of fact that are defamatory and whose existence cannot be proven.

It also has a whiff of malice, an unnecessary nastyness directed at the wife. She's just a stupid, big-titted blonde apparently, even though he also describes a revolting 'boys only' culture in the cricket scene that makes Aussie Rules and Rugby players sound like trappist monks, a culture that as he describes it pretty much forces wives to stay apart and away from the on-tour lives of their husbands.

Typical that the heat for Warney's slappery and the throwback conduct of the cricketers will be mostly felt by his wife and kids.

There you go Howard, that's what the sport you love and its concept of 'mateship' do for families.

While Barry waits to see if he'll be eviscerated on the stand by the likes of Stuart Littlemore QC, his namesake Toohey has laid into him with a cleaver in the Bulletin:

Now we know about Barry. Which is that he’s no good at writing trash. Trash needs love! Warmth! Fun! A tickle under the armpits! It does not require someone to be stripped naked, blindfolded, tied to a filthy dunny and smashed around the kidneys with an iron pipe. That’s what he’s done to Warne. And Simone.

Found via the Blair Wing project.