{"id":4443,"date":"2019-11-30T14:50:56","date_gmt":"2019-11-30T14:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=4443"},"modified":"2019-11-30T14:50:56","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T14:50:56","slug":"labor-statement-vale-clive-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/11\/30\/labor-statement-vale-clive-james\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor Statement \u2013 Vale Clive James"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Clive James was a giant of Australian letters, and one of the greatest poets and intellectuals this country has ever produced.<br \/>\nClive passed away at his home in the UK at the weekend after a long illness, aged 80.<br \/>\nThe \u201cKid from Kogarah\u201d started his working life as an assistant editor at\u00a0<em>The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>\u00a0before forging a 50-year career as a scholar, poet, lyricist, essayist, novelist, memoirist, critic and broadcaster.<br \/>\nAt home and abroad, he entertained and moved readers and TV audiences with his profound and provocative insights, acerbic wit and boundless sense of humour.<br \/>\n\u201cCommon sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds,\u201d Clive once wrote. \u201cA sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgement and should be trusted with nothing.\u201d<br \/>\nDespite all the impressive achievements that made him a household name in Australia and the UK, he never lost his connection to his working-class roots or his commitment to a \u201cfair go for the workers\u201d.<br \/>\nHe was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992 and that was upgraded to Officer level in 2013. He was similarly honoured in the UK for his services to literature and the media.<br \/>\nAs Clive once said: \u201cFiction is life with the dull bits left out\u201d.<br \/>\nClive\u2019s life was certainly not dull \u2013 but the world without him is a less intelligent and less colourful place.<br \/>\nVale Clive James.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clive James was a giant of Australian letters, and one of the greatest poets and intellectuals this country has ever produced. Clive passed away at his home in the UK at the weekend after a long illness, aged 80. The \u201cKid from Kogarah\u201d started his working life as an assistant editor at\u00a0The Sydney Morning Herald\u00a0before &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/11\/30\/labor-statement-vale-clive-james\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Labor Statement \u2013 Vale Clive James&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}