It’s customary to distinguish between two Alan Bonds: the shonky high-flyer, and the yachting victor. Truth is, in Labor’s embrace they were the same man
“Any employer who sacks a worker for not coming in today is a bum.”
In the wake of Alan Bond’s death, it’s worth thinking about Bob Hawke’s famous declaration at the America’s Cup victory party at the Royal Perth Yacht Club in 1983.
Related: Alan Bond: the rise, spectacular fall and rise again of the America's Cup hero
If Australia had put a man on the moon, the excitement could hardly have matched it. No-one could say it was only a yacht race. Nor did anyone point out that the ‘we’ who had won the Cup was a little-loved millionaire from Western Australia.
There were retrospectives such as Diner, Stand By Me, and Peggy Sue Got Married and biopics of fifties icons such as The Right Stuff, La Bamba, and Great Balls of Fire! There was Hoosiers, with its bucolic small towns, its short shorts, and its non breakaway rims. There were Broadway plays such as Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues, commemorating the honor, frugality, and innocence of the World War II years. And there was a glut of new Eisenhower biographies.
There’s a lot of sloppy talk going around this country that there should be no place ... for the Alan Bonds
Related: Alan Bond obituary
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