I see that hasbeen old hag Germaine Greer, master (mistress?) of self-publicity, has used Irwin's death to get her name back into the newspapers.
In a rant in the Guardian (UK) she declares that
"The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin."
I'm sure his grieving wife and family will derive great comfort from reading that about a husband and father who's not even buried yet.
She claims he's set a bad example to "a whole generation of kids in shorts seven sizes too small", and claims "every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress."
Irwin was lauded as a fine conservationist because he deplored the slaughter of crocodiles and had purchased large tracts of land to keep their habitat alive. He was the face of a quarantine campaign, designed to keep foreign pests out of Australia. But that doesn't stop Greer dismissing him as "an entertainer, a 21st-century version of a lion tamer, with crocodiles instead of lions".
Predictably, she drags up the controversial incident when Irwin held his baby in one arm while feeding a croc with the other, and reminds readers that Irwin was accused of "illegally encroaching on the space of penguins, seals and humpback whales in Antarctica, where he was filming a documentary called Ice Breaker" - even though an investigation by the Australian environmental department cleared him.
"A parrot once did its best to rip his nose off his face. Parrots are a lot smarter than crocodiles."
That vile comment about a man who's just been killed says more about her than him.
"There was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement to the skies. "
And there's no depths to which some people won't stoop to trumpet their name to the world.
It only confirms what I've always thought about the woman. It must have been very irritating that another Australian was on television much more often than her.
She made a successful media/tv career out of being a professional Ozzy in England and saying things to shock, and now attacks Australia and Australians in her efforts to stay in the media.
A recent example:
"If your ambition is to live where nobody has ever been heard to discuss a book or a movie, let alone an international event, then Australia may be the place for you."
She says she has 12 venomous snakes on her property in Queensland.
Wouldn't it be a terrible shame if one of them bit her.
