Dr Mumbo

News gods, a forgettable festival and stabbing yourself in the eye

Julia ZemiroLast night was the newspaper industry’s night of nights, with the PANPA newspaper of the year awards being hosted by comedienne Julia Zemiro.

Most of the crowd thought Zemiro killed, in terms of comedy, with a special highlight being when News Corp’s boss Julian Clarke was being grilled by the SBS TV host.

“Nothing from you Julian?”, asked Zemiro, to which he replied no. “That’s not what this (the run sheet) says but ok…”

She then decided it would be a good time for an impromptu quiz with the 74-year-old News Corp boss, asking him: “what was the last concert you went to?”

“I’d be delighted to know, because it must have been a long time ago…”, she said, to the CEO who came out of retirement to take the role 12 months ago.

Clarke took it all in good humour, refusing to give a date, or more importantly a band or genre, before conceding it was definitely “last century”.

But that wasn’t enough for Zemiro who grilled Clarke for more detail. “It was a festival in Melbourne”, said Clarke.

“Which one?,” replied an excited Zemiro, keen for a insight into the music tastes of the News Corp head honcho.

It wasn’t to be. “Sadly I can’t remember”, said Clarke, to much laughter.

Clarke was not the only News Corp employee to be roasted with News.com.au entertainment reporter Nick Bond also in line for a roasting.

Dr Mumbo understands Bond wasn’t actually in the room last night but Zemiro decided to tell the audience of senior news execs and editors about a story he filed on her “drunken” Eurovision hosting.

The Eurovision story she explained was entitled “Was Julia Zemiro drunk?”

Zemiro noted that no, sadly, she wasn’t drunk while live on national TV, commentating the Eurovision song contest, and did question their attempts to reach her. “What did he do just look at his phone and imagine it was calling Copenhagen?”, she said.

But it was the suggestion by Bond of having her as a candidate for “2015 Logies host: the campaign starts here”, which appears to most have offended her the most…

“Can it end here as well Nick?”, Zemiro told the crowd, “I would rather stab myself in the eye rather than even go to the Logies let alone even host them”.

But the best line of the night came when at the end of the awards Zemiro noted how she was: “surprised how no one had thank god tonight”.

“Cause after all Rupert needs all the help he can get right now”, she said in a less than veiled reference to some documents that may or not have just been pulled down…  

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