Artful Dodger: in Aussieland we call it "Come in Spinner"

***Same Difference?

The term 'come in spinner' refers not only to the game of two-up, marking the moment at which the coins are tossed. It also refers to the verbal art of the wind-up, marking the moment when the narrator of a shaggy dog story tells the hapless listener s/he's been conned. The stakes in this game are not just the small change of little truths (which you lose to the biggest liar), but the status of truths them­selves. In order to arrive at that delicious moment when you can say 'come in spinner', you have to give away those little truths that will be recognized, picked up and followed; followed right up the garden path. In fact, in order to mislead, you must tell the truth. In order to produce difference, to put your listeners in a different place from where they think you are, you have to convince them they're in the same place.



This is also the politics of the cover up. The deceptiveness of ap­pearance is not just a matter of overriding difference; of covering facts with fictions, or fictions with facts. The deceptiveness of appear­ance is also a uniquely Australian cultural norm. It deceptively ap­peared, for example, that Australia was constitutionally different from Britain until Remembrance Day 1975, when ocker met a Kerr, and difference was overridden. The AJCS is no exception to this cul­tural norm. It too has a politics of the cover-up. Like Gough Whitlam, it is dedicated to uncovering The Truth of the Matter} but like Australia it has made transgression and illegality the true symbols of a national culture.


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