Top marks...

...for the most annoying and pretentious newspaper blogger/writer head shot ever devised:



Yes, for some reason, I recently made the click from the Sydney Morning Herald to have a look at what long time irritant, but puzzlingly popular, writer Sam de Brito was talking about now*, and once again grimaced at this photo, which seems to have been there for so many years I wouldn't be surprised if he has less hair now.

Maybe it wasn't his idea. Maybe it was his girlfriend at the time. But truly, how can it not grate?

I have posted before about how distasteful I find his all too public disclosure of his private life; but I think I have overlooked mentioning that Sam noticed the last time I talked about him here, and bagged me in his column! He refused to link to me, though, which is fair enough, but enough of his readers promptly Googled to find the source of complaint that I realised something was up via my Sitemeter.

So, what is he up to now? As far as I can gather, Sam is in a custody dispute over his young child, the mother of whom broke up with him when the baby was either very young, or (perhaps) not even born.

This is not funny for anyone, I'll grant you: particularly for a male with an unseemly urge to write about absolutely every intimate detail of his life, body and self perceived character.

As someone in comments at his blog made mention to Sam that perhaps he should not talk about his custody fight on Twitter, I went looking for it. Of course, if ever there was a type of person Twitter was designed for, it's de Brito. Hence, we get gems like these (keep in mind, this is a man - with a big media profile - having custody issues over his one year old):

Do you really need to wash all baby clothes before you put them on the kid?

Ok. Finally seem to have got rolling on the second half of this novel. The words are flowing. About time. Feel like having sex now.

I had no idea how heavily the law weighs in women's favour when it comes to child custody: never put yourself or your child through it.

Precursor chemicals for meth? Hypophosphorous acid, iodine, pseudo, benzene, metho, toluene ... since I asked, I shall inform as well.

Damn these kids next door and their basketball. I'm gonna leave some ice in the letter box. And a pipe.

Damn, just sucked my little finger and forgot I'd had it in my earhole ten minutes earlier. Nasty.

Well, it seems wrong to kick a man when he's down (although it seems he is having the kid sleep over now, so maybe he's not that down, and he can afford a $850 a week two bedroom apartment), but hasn't his lawyer told him something like this: "For God's sake Sam, no good ever comes of running a Twitter feed on every silly thought that comes into that inky faced head of yours when you're having custody fight with your ex! Just stop it. The world will get by without knowing you just tasted ear wax, or the age at which you grew your pubic hair!"

And Sam, if you're reading: it's just a bit of friendly advice to someone who seriously needs it.

* given that he's previously shared with us his the varieties of venereal bugs and infections he's picked up, as well as what an idiot he was when he last took cocaine, I was hardly surprised to see a recent column was all about he was relatively late in developing pubic hair.