Tim Gurner, placebo prince
Gym owners are just the most respectable type of cult leader.
Australia's prominent people continue to practice the art of character self-assassination under the expert guidance of Good Weekend, available each Saturday in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
There is nothing quite like watching the masters of this craft at work, drawing the dissonance out of their subjects. Two of the funniest pieces of journalism I have ever read were Jane Cadzow's Good Weekend profiles of Andrew Forrest (2022) and Michaelia Cash (2021). A recent feature on billionaire barrister Allan Myers by the Australian Financial Review's star recruit Greg Bearup was equally devastating.
Last Saturday, it was high-profile Melbourne apartment developer Tim Gurner lured into Good Weekend's web.
Gurner became vaguely renowned as a Melbourne property guy, then genuinely famous as a Millennial anti-hero for saying that "unemployment has to jump 40 to 50 per cent… to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around".
Lately, he's become Australia's answer to American longevity Frankenstein Bryan Johnson, propounding his punctilious daily regimen of ice baths, infrared saunas, stretching, meditation and gratitude journalling (all before sunrise).