News Corp, James Hardie spinner takes Eat, Pray, Love retirement
What are the live-in nannies slipping into the morning OJ of corporate Australia at the moment? Everyone’s sucking on epiphanies.
The latest is Greg Baxter, the former spin doctor of SEC Newgate and consigliere at News Limited and James Hardie, who told his Commonwealth Bank colleagues on Thursday he’s seen the light.
Former News Corp spinner Greg Baxter outside a James Hardie hearing. Peter Braig
“After almost 45 years fighting fires – starting a few and getting caught in a few more – it’s time to retire, if not gracefully,” Baxter wrote. “Following a quadruple heart bypass in July I looked around and thought, if I want to do all the things I want to do before I die, I better start now.”
Baxter’s “Adieu not Amen” email was as colourful as you’d expect for someone who has spent more than four decades protecting reputations and spinning yarns in media releases, with varying degrees of quality. But there’s a very strong take-home message: Retire and live, while you can!
“My demise should be many years off given how well my recovery is tracking, but as people wiser than me have known for a long time, it’s never too early to start focussing on your health so you can live your very best life as you get older.
“I have been exercising every day, started reading the thousands of books on my bedside table, and intend to travel extensively overseas, including perhaps some study for the pure pleasure of it, and, pursue my passions for ideas, art, music, history, architecture and gardening.”
It’s the Eat, Pray, Love retirement. More should try it. You never know where you’ll end up. On the back of a yacht off Corfu in the warm embrace of a Russian oligarch’s ex-wife’s mum? Sure, go off!
“My cardiologist says I should avoid things
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