INTERVIEW WITH GREG TINGLE, MEDIAMAN.COM.AU.
JOHN
LAWS – PRESENTER:
Hello.
GREG
TINGLE – MEDIAMAN.COM.AU:
Hello,
John.
LAWS:
Yeah.
TINGLE:
It's
Greg Tingle again.
How are you doing?
LAWS:
Pretty
good Greg. What
about you?
TINGLE:
I'm
really well, thanks.
LAWS:
Good.
TINGLE:
It's
great to get through to you finally.
You've got a lot of phone calls in recently.
The phone lines have been jammed.
LAWS:
Yes
they have, absolutely jammed, but we've got to you.
What do you want to talk about?
TINGLE:
A
number of things.
Basically, I spent time in the Australian
Army Reserve a number of years ago …
LAWS:
Yeah.
TINGLE:
And
I tell you what, I would have been prepared to lose,
like, to risk my life in a heartbeat to defend our
great country.
LAWS:
Yeah.
TINGLE:
But,
I mean, I didn't feel too great about a lot of the
anti-war protests going on recently. Don't get me wrong, I'm not for war, I'm for
peace.
LAWS:
I'm
for peace too, and I wouldn't have minded the anti-war
protests if they had have been anti-war and not
anti-John Howard and anti-George Bush and anti-what's
his name, Tony Blair.
TINGLE:
This
is true. I think many years ago they should have sent
in the CEI [sic] or … CIA, beg your pardon, and
… or an organisation along those lines and taken
Saddam Hussein out.
And while they were there, they should have
taken out bin Laden as well.
LAWS:
Yeah,
well, they didn't know him back then but W's daddy
had the opportunity to do it and didn't do it.
TINGLE:
Well,
this is true. Now,
let me tell you, a lot of people, they know about
the crimes that Saddam Hussein's committed against
humanity, but have you heard about his son?
LAWS:
Oh,
he's worse.
TINGLE:
Apparently
so, yeah, Abu's his name.
Do you know what he does for hobbies?
LAWS:
Tell
me.
TINGLE:
He
rapes women and he rapes – not rapes – he beats
up, he tortures Iraqi Olympians, and the like, which
couldn't quite get the gold medal, along those lines.
LAWS:
Yeah,
well, a bit of this, Greg, it could be hearsay.
I mean, you know, we wouldn't know that for
a fact. But I'm quite sure – like Idi Amin – I mean, these despots become
lunatics. They
become raving lunatics.
Idi Amin was just an extraordinary man.
TINGLE:
Yes,
they did a documentary.
It was shown on TV last weekend.
LAWS:
About
who?
TINGLE:
It
is fact – about Abu – and the likes of his …
LAWS:
Yeah,
well, I guess they're all the same.
I suppose Robert Mugabe, given half a chance,
would be the same. He's been responsible for deaths and it's the way, it would appear,
of some of those countries.
TINGLE:
Yes.
LAWS:
Once
they get a dictator who is a dictator of great strength
and great charismatic appeal then it's all over.
I mean, the power goes to his head.
Somebody accuses me of that, here somewhere
this morning, too.
I'll come to it in a moment.
TINGLE:
You
get accused of a lot of things John and most of
the time they are very wrong but that happens in
life. People
get successful and there's already so many … there's
always so many people that tear people down, isn't
there?
LAWS:
Yeah,
true, Greg.
TINGLE:
Such
is life. Can I give you a short update on my TAFE course?
LAWS:
Yeah,
by all means.
TINGLE:
Great. Well, as you know, I'm doing that media related
web site … oh sorry, the course.
I'm also doing a web site, which is going
to be mediaman.com.au.
LAWS:
Okay.
TINGLE:
It's
going to be a portal for media in Australia.
In addition to that I recently had a short
stint at a prominent Sydney newspaper.
They actually did something along the lines
of what John Howard would say; there was a little
bit of untoward activity that actually happened.
But what I've learnt from all this is the
sales and marketing business is not tough.
Media is tough and you would know that better
than anybody.
LAWS:
Yeah.
TINGLE:
And
I found out in a hurry as well.
LAWS:
(Laughs)
Well, it's a good thing you're forewarned.
TINGLE:
That's
right, and speaking about tough, I went to the funeral
yesterday of my late, great friend, Mr Tim Bristow.
LAWS:
I
went to school with Timmy.
I went to school with Tim and his younger
brother.
TINGLE:
Okay. Well, look I genuinely found them very nice
people. I
found Tim a very giving, kind person, very giving
on his time, very giving of his heart. And I think he absolutely delighted in helping
out people, which sometimes other people wouldn't
help out and Tim was always there for the call and
to lend a hand.
LAWS:
Yeah,
well, if you had him on your side you were in good
shape. You
didn't want him on the other side.
TINGLE:
He
was on my side and you're very true, the people
that feared him normally had something to fear and
a lot of people in life they can't cop their own
medicine. But Tim was generally a good person.
LAWS:
And
he was a great character and I'll tell you what,
came from a really, really lovely family.
TINGLE:
Yeah,
and I met some of his family yesterday, they are
lovely.
LAWS:
Did
you meet his brother, Max?
TINGLE:
I
did meet Max and, yeah, great man, great man.
LAWS:
Yeah,
terrific man and really, you know, a terrific family.
Tim just was the black sheep, as they used
to call him, but he was just rebellious.
TINGLE:
That's
right and my dad used to do a bit of debt collecting
with him, Tricky Ricky Tingle, and myself …
LAWS:
(Laughs)
TINGLE:
…
I was a little bit of (laughs) an understudy with
Tricky Ricky and the Black Mack.
LAWS:
Okay,
well, you're well schooled for the media, son.
You'll fly ahead in the media (laughs).
TINGLE:
Well,
thanks a lot. I
appreciate that.
LAWS:
With
a background like that and connections like that
you're going to have no trouble at all.
TINGLE:
Kevin
Perkins is writing a book on Bristow and I can't
wait till it's released. I was having a chat to Kevin and I'll give
him a little bit of information and some of it may
or may not get in there. Speaking of books John, look, what would I
have to say sir in order to secure a copy of one
of your great books with an autograph?
That would mean so much to me.
LAWS:
Well,
you just hang on there, Greg.
We'll see what we can do.
I'm not sure that we've got any lying … have
we got any books?
If we've got any books we'll send you a book.
I don't know that we've got any lying around.
We'll do our best for you Greg.
I appreciate the call.
Don't hang up.
Wait right there.
END
OF SEGMENT
