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Our national broadcaster, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), as part of its evening TV news segment has a Finance Report by Alan Kohler. Alan makes these reports more interesting than the subject matter might suggest, with a quirky witty approach, and of late he’s been featuring a book-stack prominently visible on his desk.

Tonight I was very happy to see that it was Leonard related, with two of Leonard’s books, ‘The Flame’ and ‘Book of Longing’, along with ‘So Long Marianne - A Love Story’ by Kari Hesthamar.

However, this was not particularly surprising for me, as I was aware for some years that Alan is a Leonard Cohen fan, having heard him interviewed on ABC and choose ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ as one of the songs for the show, I seem to recall adding it was one of the best songs ever written.

Furthermore, on Twitter, in response to our recent national budget, he aptly posted
“Leonard also had a comment on the budget:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes”

Cheers,
Andrew

Hi Andrew,
Ha! I'm not prone to watching financial reports but I do watch the ABC - actually I prefer SBS
Leonard has a way of making an appearance where you least expect him so I'm not surprised to see that!
And Everybody Knows it has been proved (by me) that men have a preference for the song Famous Blue Raincoat