Hey, Jude.
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
I SEE television’s Judge Judy is zipping around Australia at the
moment, spruiking her new book. Many a night I have watched the
motor-mouthed Judge Judy, her tongue so caustic it could strip an oven and have enough bile left over for the microwave.
I have been struck, in that car-accident-ogling sort of way, by her
sudden, shrieked bursts of invective like ‘‘horse MANURE’’, ‘‘TWADDLE’’ and
‘‘RE-SPON-SIBILITY’’.
These she delivers virtually bouncing a foot taller in her seat,
leaning over a desk the size of a car-park building and prodding holes in
the air with an accusatory finger. It’s like being 10-years-old again and
facing your parents. Only, you’re not the one in trouble - nya nya.
Still, you’ve got to admire the fact Judge Judy can at least name her own books better than 99 per cent of other memoirs’ writers. Indeed, Judy Sheindlin’s first book was called Don’t Pee Against My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining.
I am filled with admiration. That’s the sort of title that screams ‘‘mass-marketed bestseller’’ (not to mention ‘‘serious bladder-control issues’’).
Frankly, if I was to ever write my memoirs, I would want a title
just as classy as Judge Judy’s - one to appeal to the average pub and
sports-loving Aussie, but also encompassing volcanologists, because these
would, obviously, be a large portion of my readership.
After much thought, I believe my book would be called: The Chook
Raffle, the Footy Chief, His Wife and Her Lava. Sure, sure, technically, I
may not know any footy chiefs, their wives or lava flows. But I did put in
for a chook raffle once. (Lost.)
I’ll just call it creative licence and blame it on the judge.
HarperCollins et al, you know where to reach me ...
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 23 NOV 1999