[ Meeting Mary Franks
]
Mary Franks is the local Win
TV newsreader of many years standing (or should that be sitting?). She
has large red-painted lips in a pale oval face shrouded by a rather helmet
like bob of jet black hair. Her grooming is always immaculate (some might
say rather anally so, although I wouldn't be that callous) and her choice
of clothes can be a bit suspect, veering towards the 'pretty uniforms'
look that highlights such weird fashion elements as epaulettes and such.
The most startling thing about her is her delivery which is 70 parts of
precise enunciation combined with 30 parts of blandness. Her smile does
NOT light up the room although I'm fairly certain she thinks that it does.
Kerryn Banks is her rival on
Prime TV. She's a bit younger (this IS television and so it's a bit hard
to tell) and has a too tanned face (that can only come from a bottle, girls)
framed by soft browny, reddy hair that cascades gently down to her shoulders.
Her grooming is too perfect as well but her choice of clothes seems a bit
more suitable for the nightlights combining soft shifts with a vaguely
feminine fluffiness. I think she has a small speech impediment which cuts
down on her enunciation precision. However, she more than compensates for
this by upping the blandness quotient. I'm sure she thinks that she has
a 'Mona Lisa' smile but it reminds me more of the rictus of death.
By the way, the inherent blandness
of regional newsreaders is of a totally different kind to that shown by
their metro counterparts. I mean, even Sandra Sully from Sydney's Channel
10 has the ability to form a frown when something awfull is being shown
- these two can bearly move the eyebrows with the weight of makeup that
cakes their foreheads. It may also have something to do with the absolutely
rock bottom writing and reporting that they have to deal with - god, local
news is crap!
I saw Kerryn in the flesh for
the first time a year or so ago. She was sipping a cup of the normally
bad cappucinno from the excreble Italian restaurant in Thirroul's main
street and (gasp) she looked EXACTLY the same as she does on TV. The only
real difference was in the fake tan which was even more prominent than
I'd ever thought possible - quite a dark brown with yellow tinges. However,
I was pleased to note that the amount of makeup seemed to be at least 2
cms thick : she obviously can't wash it off.
I saw Mary's dog yesterday.
It was attached to it's owner as the couple of hundred or so of us walked
the good walk on the RSPCA's Million Paws Walk (I still prefer it's old
title of the 'walk-your-dog-a-thon' : much friendlier). She owns a Jack
Russell terrier (as do we) and, therefore, at the midway point by Towradgi
beach, Annette just couldn't help herself and started patting it and asked
questions of Ms Frank like "what's it's name" and "how old is it" and so
on. Mary was quite pleasant and asked the perennial JR question : is it
true that they become a bit nasty at around 3 years old? We answered, sadly,
in the affirmative but this didn't break her newsreader's composure one
iota. No, instead, she soldiered on (this time sans eppaulettes) like the
rest of us for the cause of our lives... or somesuch...
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