He was the people’s bunyip

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Last updated on July 2nd, 2017 at 07:30 am

“Nobody knows who Professor Bunyip was.” So begins Entropy’s fine tribute to Australia’s vanished online titan. One day, like the Hidden Imam, he shall surely return.

UPDATE. “Bunyip was PP McGuiness, right?” emails Tom R. “Ergo, Bunyip won’t be returning …” Paddy admired the Professor, but the Bunyip he wasn’t. And if the Hidden Imam can stage a comeback, who’s to say our Professor is gone forever?

UPDATE II. Other guesses at the Hidden Bunyip’s identity: Frank Devine and Patrick Cook. No and no, although both will be delighted.

Posted by Tim B. on 02/27/2008 at 10:05 PM

I miss Professor Bunyip and The Currency Lad.
Posted by Razor on 2008 02 27 at 10:09 PM • permalink

I gather these two afflicted the left. I did not know of them. Sounds like two good people. TB seems to carry on the tradition very well.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 27 at 10:14 PM • permalink

I also miss the Bunyip. I’d love to have his take on our new “leadership” team of KRudd and Gillard.
Posted by Kami on 2008 02 27 at 10:23 PM • permalink

I miss Professor Bunyip too. He brandished the English language with both skill and elan, in a way that few others can manage.
At the risk of beclowning myself, I’m going against the claim that he was Imre Saluszinsky. While there are similarities in their writing styles (and politics), there are also fundamental differences.
Posted by blandwagon on 2008 02 27 at 10:24 PM • permalink

Bunyip was required reading, he is missed.
A good HK blog that is written well (no not me or anything to do with me) is this guy, Hemlock. he gives an all too accurate insight into things political in HK.
Posted by Nic on 2008 02 27 at 10:54 PM • permalink

Razor and Stack: Currency Lad, most unfortunately for the rest of us, retired from blogging; but he is the “C.L.” who comments here, with much less frequency than could be desired.
Posted by paco on 2008 02 27 at 11:00 PM • permalink

His was one of the first aussie blogs I read, and think I found Tim thru him. He was also called Stanley Gudgeon, I believe. And boy did he have it in for Phatty Adams!
Come back Professor!
Posted by debi L. on 2008 02 27 at 11:39 PM • permalink

Yea Bunyip was great but a bit highbrow for me. Bitchin Monaro was more my style – softcore porn, conservative politics and sideshow freaks. Both are greatly missed.
Posted by Pig Head Sucker on 2008 02 27 at 11:50 PM • permalink

#6
Thanks.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 27 at 11:54 PM • permalink

Amen: the Prof was my introduction to the blogosphere, and I could never have asked for a better. It was like that moment when Robinson Crusoe finds the footprint on the beach. Then felt I like some watcher of the skies.. or like stout Cortez…sorry, what was I saying?
Posted by cuckoo on 2008 02 28 at 12:07 AM • permalink

#6 I’d say it’s even odds that Professor Bunyip reads here as well.
[waves]
Posted by Dan Lewis on 2008 02 28 at 12:13 AM • permalink

In his last post, about 14 months ago, he hinted at some marital troubles with Mrs Bunyip, who evidently a she-who-must-be-obeyed of European (perhaps Italian) origin. He also had it for, as he termed her, A Dill Horan.
He seemed to be in his mid-50s and familiar with the staff room and politics at Melbourne Uni (and a Sydney one too).
His website, which I had flagged for updates, went off-line last month, unchanged for a year.
Posted by walterplinge on 2008 02 28 at 12:44 AM • permalink

The professor’s site is still on my bookmarks toolbar and I have checked it periodically, living in hopes.
It’s now sadly returning a 404 error. But I won’t delete it just yet.
The Internet is a wondrous thing and we do still have the Tardis available. All is not lost.
Posted by Skeeter on 2008 02 28 at 01:07 AM • permalink

I still think of it as the Silly Moaning Hilmer (which I used to misread as “Himmler” until I discovered Freddie Hilmer was an exec at the SMH, thus the professor’s quip).
Posted by andycanuck on 2008 02 28 at 01:32 AM • permalink

Guys, Tim is giving us a BIG HINT it would seem
Posted by Nic on 2008 02 28 at 01:37 AM • permalink

Likewise ABC Watch, dunno its author
Posted by egg_ on 2008 02 28 at 01:39 AM • permalink

I don’t miss the bun yip at all.
I just read him in The Australian once a week under the pseudonym of Frank Devine.
Posted by gubbaboy on 2008 02 28 at 04:20 AM • permalink

Professor Bunyip was my very favourite Australian blog (apologies Tim). He was insightful, exceedingly intelligent and very politically astute. Personally, my money is on Patrick Cook being the man behind the mask.
Posted by AusDoug on 2008 02 28 at 04:23 AM • permalink

I was fond of him as well, he was about the 3rd blog I read regularly .
Maybe hes been kidnapped for the ideas summit?
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 02 28 at 05:07 AM • permalink

Bunyip, Currency Lad and Arthur Chrenkoff. 3 Blogs I read daily along with TB.
And Evil Pundit, whatever happened to Evil?
Posted by 8_8_8 on 2008 02 28 at 07:58 AM • permalink

Amongst the pantheon of lost bloggers: BargeArz, Evil Pundit of Doom, Gnu Hunter, USS Clueless, Chrenkoff, ABC Watch, Reoriented, and Gweilo Diaries, the Professor is perhaps most missed.
Like Fleetwood Mac waiting for their lost guitarist, we pine every day with wet eyes and aching hearts.
Posted by Craig Mc on 2008 02 28 at 08:31 AM • permalink

BargeArz was good. I miss EP. Chrenkoff was great.
Posted by murph on 2008 02 28 at 09:00 AM • permalink

Evil Pundit is now at Evil Pundit of Doom II (evilpundit.mee.nu). And I really miss the USS Clueless, but I hope Steven is doing well.
Elizabeth
Imperial Keeper
Posted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2008 02 28 at 11:09 AM • permalink

I started reading Bunyip about the same time (or soon thereafter) that I started reading Tim Blair. He was great. *sigh* So many lost blogs.
Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 02 28 at 12:46 PM • permalink

I had a bunyip on my foot once.
Posted by blogagog on 2008 02 28 at 01:53 PM • permalink

“Stanley Gudgeon” is a pseudonym, taken from a 1930 Australian novel, Here’s Luck, by Lennie Lower. You can read about it here (nice coincidence, hey?) and download a copy here.
Whoever the real Professor Bunyip is, he’s brilliant.
Posted by Chris Chittleborough on 2008 02 28 at 02:21 PM • permalink

Of all the names floated, Imre is the closest imo. He wrote the lyrics for the Coodabeenchampions in their early days “Where do you go to Fitzpatrick?” and “Alone Again, Lethal Leigh” and they have never been bettered!
Posted by bb on 2008 02 28 at 04:02 PM • permalink

Elizabeth
Steven pops up occasionally in the comments at Brian Thieman’s blog. He has a link to Steven’s current commentary.Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2008 02 28 at 07:10 PM • permalink

Elizabeth: Seconded – I hope Steven’s health is better than when he last wrote about it.
Posted by Craig Mc on 2008 02 28 at 07:45 PM • permalink

<sits fanning self in relief>
I thought this was an obituary for the Bunyip, for a minute.
Patiently awaiting his return to blogging, nevertheless.
Posted by steveH on 2008 02 28 at 08:37 PM • permalink

Given the Bunyip’s familiarity with academia and Australian literature, maybe he is Peter Ryan, publisher, editor, and writer for Quadrant Magazine?
Posted by TimT on 2008 02 28 at 09:23 PM • permalink

I too miss the Dear Bunyip and C.L. Mangled Thoughts/Garry Gravatt seem to have been wiped of the net-He was rude and crude but I suspect he managed to offend too many of both sides of the fence- but he had some very intesting comments.
Thank the Lord for TB and AB,
I do hope Mrs Bunyip is coping well.
Posted by Hillyminx on 2008 02 28 at 10:13 PM • permalink

Like many above, the Bunyip was my first blog-love. I called on the billabong every day for a few years, largely because I shared the Bunyip’s loathing of that millionaire socialist bludger, Phatty Adams.
To my delight, I fed the Bunyip one of his later Phatty plagiarism scoops (GOMER from the New Yorker; Tim ran it on one of his earlier blogs). I waited vainly hoping for some private correspondence from the ‘yip, but he coolly ran the piece without giving me a skerrick of an idea who he was.
I don’t think it was Imre, Cook, or Devine. It could have been Paddy; and Ryan is also a good guess. There’s also a Canberra academic, whose name eludes me, who wrote a couple of letters to the Australian in a style startlingly similar to the Bunyip, critical of Adams.
Posted by Bearded Mullah on 2008 02 28 at 10:17 PM • permalink

As a late 60s feminist I dearly cherish the Prof’s advice to any and all males challenged by the 90s version, which can be summarised thus:
Don’t engage in fruitless verbal combat
just
go
down.
The Prof is sorely missed.
Posted by bb on 2008 02 29 at 05:35 AM • permalink