… to Lily the Pink the Pink the Pink!

The column that has fun with the smaller mistakes and missteps of Australia’s mainstream mediocre; that pays homage to those sweet little fishes that individually don’t amount to a full meal but collectively can cause a tummy upset over the overall state of the once great and noble craft of journalism in this country.

Please ignore the heading to this edition of Mediocre Bytes. One of our column compilers always bursts out with a rendition of the hit song Lily the Pink by British group The Scaffold in 1968 whenever he sees Lily Greer on Nine National News.

Yes, like the song itself, our compiler is very old and very childish. He says he can’t help his outbursts, especially as Lily Greer often wears pink.

Now, back to why our feature image above has Ms Greer thinking certain thoughts as she read Nine News Queensland’s 6pm bulletin last night (Saturday).

Here’s what she read out…

A ute has flipped onto its roof in a dramatic crash at Oxenford on the Gold Coast this morning.

Nine News understands the driver clipped the wheel of another car causing it to roll over and collide into a traffic light.

The driver in his 50s was taken to [hospital] in a stable condition; the driver of the other car was uninjured.

Can you BUGgers see the bit that really interested our MB compilers even as they threw icecubes at their colleague who had burst out, rather loudly and very off key, with the Lily the Pink lyrics for the umpteenth time this month.

All of our compilers are bitter and twisted, washed-up, old hacks who were taught on day one as newspaper and electronic mediocre cadets that two moving objects collide; one moving object HITS an immoveable object such as a tree, a fence, a house or even a traffic light.

They’d all like a dollar for every time they’ve heard a journo – and not just the tyros – report that a car had collided with said tree, a fence, a house or even a traffic light.

But “collide into a traffic light” is a sensational new variation of that. COLLIDE INTO! The craft of journalism is breaking new ground here!

But wait, there’s more. Our Mediocre Bytes staffers then took a closer look at Greer’s words.

The way it reads ….

A ute has flipped onto its roof in a dramatic crash at Oxenford on the Gold Coast this morning.

Nine News understands the driver clipped the wheel of another car causing it to roll over and collide into a traffic light.

…. it’s the ute’s driver who has clipped the wheel of another car, causing it (which has to be the other car, right? “It” can’t be the other driver) to be clipped and flipped.

So do we have two flipped cars? Maybe they were both utes. And we still have no idea which of the two vehicles is shown in the Nine footage above. Still, it was good news that the driver (the clipper) of the ute that caused the other vehicle to crash was not injured, and the driver (the clippee) of the vehicle that was hit and flipped and collided into a traffic light was in a stable condition otherwise. Or was it the other way around?

Thank goodness that Nine News Queensland understands what happened. We at MB don’t have a fucking clue!

***

We now look at the very next story on last night’s Nine News Queensland bulletin. Unlike our segment above that had no reporter on the ground to share the blame for what Lily the Pink The Pink The Pink had to read out, read out, read out, Penelope Liersch was on the ground in Melbourne to report on the public naming and shaming of a man found guilty of rape after court suppression orders were lifted!

Take it away, Penelope! “Tom Silvagni is now publicly known as a convicted rapist, not just the son of a football dynasty”.

Can someone be the son of a football dynasty? Let’s grab a paragraph from The
Sydney Morning Herald to help make our point.

Tom is the youngest son of Carlton great Stephen Silvagni and the grandson of Blues Hall of Famer Sergio. Tom’s older brother, Jack, followed in the family footsteps to start an AFL career at the Blues before switching to St Kilda for the 2026 season.

So, it would seem that convicted rapist Tom is the son of his father, his grandfather and his older brother. Calling him a member of an AFL family dynasty (perhaps even that needs a bit of work) would have been a helluva improvement on “son”.

We all remain confident that, as Ms Liersch’s career unfolds, she’ll develop that automatic ring in the head that really good journos develop, one warning her of a gap in logic in what she prepares for broadcast.

***

Back to our top story for a sec. We’re also still trying to work out what this online snippet from The Courier-Mail a few days ago means.

It sure reads like Greer Greer Greer will be doing her first Washington report this weekend; not reading Nine News Queensland’s 6pm bulletin. And we suspect her new position is what’s coveted. Although there is that senior compiler of ours who indeed thinks Lily the Pink, the Pink, the Pink is indeed greatly desired desired desired or envied envied envied. He is old but he’s not that bloody old!

Want to be alerted immediately a new blog hits Australia’s longest running and most offensive satire site? Simply click on the Follow sign or the link below to be emailed new yarns the moment they are uploaded! The very second we go far too far – and trust us we will – you can then quickly unfollow via the three dots!

Follow The Bug Online on WordPress.com

Want to be alerted immediately a new blog hits Australia’s longest running and most offensive satire site? Simply click on the Follow sign or the link below to be emailed new yarns the moment they are uploaded! The very second we go far too far – and trust us we will – you can then quickly unfollow via the three dots!

Follow The Bug Online on WordPress.com