Saturday's Aussie newspapers

It'll take more than a fraction of fiction to overcome way too many chords

Richard Glover's column today (above) sticks to his family and life, with his usual witty approach on those topics.

Mike Carlton recounts this story about what he had to do once to get a pay rise:

It was always bare knuckle at the Packer fun factory. I once had to inch my way along an exterior wall of the main building, three storeys from the ground like a human fly, to dive through Sam Chisholm's office window to demand a pay rise. (He gave it to me, laughing like a drain, the wicked old bastard).

He doesn't seem to be joking. Some detail as to why he had to do this would be worthwhile.

Over at The Australian, the start of the lead story ("HUNDREDS of thousands of middle-income families are shouldering a heavier tax burden today than they were 10 years ago, despite the Howard Government's latest tax cuts") turns out just to be following Labor spin on some rather confusing financial analysis, a lot of which (further down in the report) reads quite favourably for the government.

And some interesting work for historians coming up:

POPE Benedict has decided to open all Vatican archives from 1922 to 1939, giving new insight into what the Catholic Church knew and did as Europe saw the rise of Nazism in Germany and the Spanish Civil War.

At The Age, they give a column to a euthanasia advocate trying to drum up support for legislative change in Victoria. Then, in fine print at the bottom of the web version of the article, it says:

For assistance or information visit www.beyondblue.org.au, call Suicide Helpline Victoria on 1300 651 251 or Lifeline on 131 114.

Isn't that sort of like saying "if you believe this article, please call these organisations so you can be talked out of it."