There are special words used in the papers these days, perhaps the news is a little slow, or they need to sell a few more copies…often they are used completely out of context, often they are a little hyperbolic, and well, often they just don’t really make much sense, but one thing is for certain, they are always golden…By Max Skilbeck-Porter.

It’s a word, but perhaps it is more, perhaps it is a feeling. A little jolt that slowly diffuses in the bottom of your spine as your eyes pass over those little letters, each one slowly sending your heart a little faster aflutter, it begins with a P and then swings back for an A, it surprises you with an E but then you come across the D – at this your heart is in full tilt as your eyes peel over O-P-H and JESUS CHRIST HELP ME I CAN’T FUCKING HANDLE THIS the last three letters are really just a blur I-L-EEEEEEE. PAEDOPHILE.  Oh my sweet Jesus, another fucking paedo you think. The humanity… where’s the fucking humanity in this world.? But then, you read on, and…wait a second, this isn’t about children, it’s not even about sex…disappointed?

About a month ago I noticed a story with the rather striking headline in the Sydney Morning Herald SMOKERS AND PAEDOPHILES SPOKEN IN THE SAME BREATH in classic fence-sitting, non-committal SMH style the article went on to explain how a medical expert from the Northern Territory named Peter Beaumont thought that letting doctors who smoke around hospitals is akin to allowing convicted paedophiles to roam among children. Medical expert perhaps, but in terms of analogies… amateur doesn’t quite cut it, perhaps simply retard is closer to the mark.  But my miff didn’t lie with this man, people say stupid things all the time, but they don’t all have to end up on the front page of a popular newspaper. And why is that where I found it? Because it’s one of the latest golden eggs of the vernacular, it’s a paper seller baby, get an empty story, bang on a golden word and you’ve got a front page, sell-like-hot-cakes article right there.

Another I’ve noticed, is a little more biblical, a little more cheery… you stir in your seat as you read the first three letters M-I-R a golden light starts to surge through your being as you read on to A-C- oh MAN your foot is tapping on the ground now, you begin to shake as you cruise over U-L- oh LORD GIVE ME A HALLELUJAH the finally two letters arrive like a lightning bolt delivered straight from Babylon, O-U-S.  YES YES YES! MIRACULOUS. There seem to be a lot of miracles occurring at the moment, not quite resurrection level, but none the less…type the word into SMH.com.au and you get pages and pages of miracles, say what you like about this being the darkest time for spirituality in history.

A man survives crashing over some parked cars, fortunate perhaps, but the hand of god? It didn’t stop the article headline being: MIRACULOUS ESCAPE, BUT CAR KOMPRESSED. That isn’t a typo on my behalf, I should add, but a great Mercedes pun from the true wizards of the craft. To not turn this into an anti Fairfax rant I shall move over to Murdoch press, where if you search the word miraculous on the Australian website you find over 690 miracles. Whether it’s a return to the footy pitch, someone scoring a goal or someone surviving a shark attack,…it just makes me feel so good to know that God’s looking over us, and he ain’t skimpin’ on the miracles either.

Now I’ll end on a short one, one that every man woman and child in Australia loves to see. It hits you like a bludgeon of pride – four simple letters: H-E-R-O. Often used in the contexts of: ‘Aussie hero’, ‘bloody hero’ or perhaps just ‘Aussie fucking bloody hero’.  Regardless of how it’s said, it always means the same thing. You type this word into the The Australian website and get no less than 8,115 heroes looking back at you. As much as I would have loved to read through all of these stories of courage and bravery, time ran short, and I could only read a few. Amongst which headlines like Kyoto Kev's still a green hero about our favourite prime-minister, Mr. 74%, Kevin Rudd. And it’s true, He is a bloody hero, it doesn’t matter what he does…

Golden words, there are more out there and they are beautiful in a way, they keep us on the edge of our seats, on the tips of our toes on the balls of our feet – they flip us one way then send us reeling back the other, it’s like being in a washing machine… Golden words: giving excitement to nothing in a paper near you.

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