Phillip Adams: The real deal

PHILLIP ADAMS: Before you read this column you must sign the "no disclosure" form you'll find within this magazine. If you missed your copy, or it has fallen out, return immediately to your newsagent who will provide you with a duplicate. Alternatively, you could sign a stat dec in the presence of a lawyer or a justice of the peace. For what follows is commercial-in-confidence and must not be revealed to any third party -- and most certainly not to Media Watch.

Before you read this column you must sign the "no disclosure" form you'll find within this magazine. If you missed your copy, or it has fallen out, return immediately to your newsagent who will provide you with a duplicate. Alternatively, you could sign a stat dec in the presence of a lawyer or a justice of the peace. For what follows is commercial-in-confidence and must not be revealed to any third party -- and most certainly not to Media Watch.

Is this asking too much? Then at very least treat it as the confession it most certainly is. For the next few minutes cast yourself in the role of a priest – and please, please keep the secret of the confessional. And remember, I’ve got those tape recordings of your phone calls and the compromising photos. And I know where you live.

The confession has been forced on me by what recently occurred in a dental surgery. In Cessnock, NSW. Midway between the farm and Sydney. The dentist told me. A patient was in the chair, tilted back and ready for a procedure. Which, under the circumstances, I hope was exceedingly painful.

For some reason, as yet unexplained, I came up as a topic of conversation. Or rather, this column did. Not this column, which, at the time, wasn’t written. But the column, in general terms. One of the many thousands – I reckon 5000 of them – I’ve written over the years. Including that one you quite liked in 1978. The one you cut out and stuck on the fridge.

I don’t know how you can have a conversation, at least an audible one, at the dentist’s. He’s got a mask on, which muffles his words. I mean, you can understand “open”… or “wider” … or “spit” … or “oops, sorry mate, that must have hurt”. But more subtle social intercourse? I think not. And you can’t overcome the muffling by lip-reading. No lips.

In any case, there’s the power relationship to consider. It’s like having a chat with someone else in a face mask. Like a bank robber. Or the insurgent who’s kidnapped you in Iraq. You’re not in a congenial conversational situation.

Then there’s you – with a gobful of dentist’s stuff. The little sucking thing that hoovers the dribble and keeps getting stuck under your tongue. Or the great syringe that’s thrusting a needle the size of a crowbar into your gum. Or the big, thick dentist fingers in their smelly, crook-tasting latex gloves. Or the little round mirror on the stick. Your mouth is like an overcrowded cutlery drawer. And that’s before he shoves in the drill as well.

In any case, you’re stricken dumb by your numb tongue. And your lips have gone rubbery and aren’t obeying orders. So making any noise other than a yelp or gurgle is as hard as tap-dancing in a bathful of porridge.

Nonetheless, my sources – reliable – insist that the patient managed to talk a lot about my columns, though he failed to mention the one on the fridge. Perhaps the dental dialogue took place between events. Like after the crowbar needle, while you’re waiting for your lips to die and your tongue to go rigor-mortissy. Or while you’re waiting for the little X-rays. Or for the nurse to mix the concrete for your fillings. There are those moments, those parentheses.

And he made the following allegation. (I’ve no idea who “he” was – the surgery insists on dentist/patient confidentiality, though I’ve never heard that mentioned on Law & Order.) The allegation that “Adams doesn’t write them”.

The dentist, who knows me pretty well – socially, not professionally – expressed curiosity and a degree of disbelief. “Then who?”

“He’s got a team.”

The dentist raised an eyebrow. You could see it clearly above the mask. But the patient insisted. He had inside info. He knew a bloke who knew a bloke. To employ a dental metaphor, he had it straight from the horse’s mouth.

A team. Like Santa’s little helpers at the North Pole. Slaving over hot word processors. Churning them out. Assembly linear.

Okay, cover’s blown. Time to make a clean breast of it. Come out of the closet. Not that closet. The literary closet. Time to remove the mask. No, not the dentist’s mask. The literary mask. They say that confession’s good for the soul.

I know what you’re thinking. That my left-wing rants are really written by Andrew Bolt, Frank and Miranda Devine, Christopher Pearson, Piers Akerman and Gerard Henderson. That after weeks of writing right-wing rants they belt out a left-wing rant as therapy. Not merely to refresh their political palate but to enjoy the art of parody – to mock the lefties in a long-running Ern Malley sort of stunt.
No, that’s not it. The real story is at once simpler and stranger. Here then is the truth of the matter.

Bugger! Out of space.