Dates with plates

GOOD news if you’ve ever wanted a hint of what it’s like to taste from life’s cup of plenty the way Malcolm Turnbull has.

IF you’ve ever wanted a hint of what it’s like to taste from life’s cup of plenty the way Malcolm Turnbull has, good news: you now have the opportunity to chow down with Clive Palmer.

Yes, the federal parliamentary press gallery Midwinter Ball is imminent, and so its charity auction is under way on eBay. Dinner for four with Palmer in a Canberra noshery is just one of the items up for offer; perhaps you could organise a media ambush after dessert for added authenticity. (Given Andrew Bolt did so much of the heavy lifting on the Turnbull/Palmer dinner, we asked whether he’d be interested. “Dinner for four with Clive Palmer? But what would his guests get to eat?” he mused, a tad cruelly.) The Communications Minister himself — together with Julie Bishop — is offering dinner chez Turnbull “where Malcolm will cook his famous yabby pasta ... and Julie will make dessert — Eton Mess”. Tony Abbott has also offered himself as a dinner guest (a little more sedate than previous years when he’s offered surfing lessons). Likewise the Greens, and Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek (“After six years in government, find out what’s driving the Labor leadership team in opposition”). But if you’re watching your waistline, there’s always a tennis lesson with the member for Bennelong, John Alexander, and the one and only Ken Rosewall. It’s all for a good cause, so go utterly hog wild at http://stores.ebay.com.au/Bids
ForGood/MidwinterBall

Fresh prey

SPEAKING of Clive Palmer, it’s been refreshing to see him turn his sights on a media entity other than The Australian. Palmer enjoys giving this august organ a good towelling; certainly more than he likes us asking him pointed questions. But now, Palmer has redirected his crossness following Mike Willesee’s Sunday night interview with Palmer ally, senator-elect Ricky Muir — an encounter in which Muir came across as so hapless, we managed to momentarily overlook his $195,000 salary and his imminent power and feel a bit sorry for him. We may have even rejoiced for a moment in the knowledge that the Steve Fielding-shaped void in our heart is being filled. But not Palmer, who called Willesee a “dickhead” and suggested he had “a plum stuck up his arse”. Democracy is a rich tapestry.

Detectives at work

FOR the Queen’s Birthday gongs, the ABC news website has an interactive guide that allows you to “explore the honours list by recipient location”. It is, however, something of a work in progress. Among those obscure recipients it has listed under “location unavailable” are NSW Chief Justice Tom Bathurst, Labor megamind Barry Jones and author Les Carlyon.

Plane speaking

WHEN the presumably jet-lagged Tony Abbott was caught on camera appearing to nod off for a moment at the D-Day commemoration at Normandy, it wasn’t so bad. Closing one’s eyes was surely the most natural reaction to the interpretative dance that was being so mercilessly committed on that sand of slaughter and liberation. Yesterday, there was more excitement over the PM saying “Canadia”, then correcting himself. While we appreciate Abbott’s undimmable generosity on the gaffe front, we are only too aware of the perils of jet lag; when in its grip, we can’t even give our own name without double-checking it in our passport.

Wag with the swag

LAST week, we mentioned Black Inc’s forthcoming collection of Paul Keating quotes, and its misattribution of Gareth Evans’s famous directive to Bob Hawke: “Pull out Digger, the dogs are pissing on your swag.” Thanks to reader Paul Nicholls for alerting us to an earlier outing for this fine expression. Here’s John Pringle in Australian Accent (1958): “On one occasion a Liberal minister, noted for his long and boring speeches, had been on his feet for many minutes when a Liberal whip was seen to scribble something on a sheet of paper which was passed up to him. The minister glanced at it, paled with anger and crumpled up the paper, which he threw away. However, he sat down shortly afterwards. At the end of a debate another member rescued the piece of paper ... and unrolled it. The message said: ‘Pull out, Dig. The dogs are pissing on your swag!’ ” Who could it have been? Nicholls suggests Bernard Henry Corser: “Corser was the whip for much of the period 1926-51, either for the Country Party or jointly for the two non-Labor parties, second, because Corser had the reputation for being a wit and a wag, and third because the phrasing suggests the sort of rural background that characterised Corser.” If anyone has other ideas, we are — as Billy McMahon would have said in a more just universe — all ears.

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