Misplaced aggro

THE Greens have been pushing a line about Tony Abbott and aggression for ages — but evidence suggests they may have picked on the wrong guy.

THE Greens have been pushing a line about Tony Abbott and aggression for ages — but weekend evidence suggests they may have been picking on the wrong guy.

“For Tony Abbott the solution to everything is more aggression,” Christine Milne declared on the weekend. “To him, strength is about aggression and leadership is about giving orders. He couldn’t be more wrong and this is why his government is failing.

His leadership style has disabled the government, produced the most cruel and imbalanced budget in a generation.” Close, but no cigar. They should have been focusing their attention on Joe Hockey. For on Saturday night the Treasurer tweeted this photo of himself and a sorry looking moggy with the message “Spending Sat night at a vet hospital with my little mate Bluey. He lost round one to a possum.” But Joe still seemed keen for more biff. A little later came the tweet “Someone has just brought a pet rat into the vet hospital waiting room. Suddenly my cat has found a new life. Round two pending?”

Game senator

A FURTHER feline fact from the weekend. Yesterday David Leyonhjelm shared a video from Turkish TV of a cat being groomed with a vacuum cleaner on his Facebook page. One may have imagined he would have thought twice in the wake of the controversy that has snared Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee but clearly the senator has no fear.

Ram raid

IT’S official. Or semi-official, anyway. It’s not the Year of the Goat or the Sheep. No. Bill Shorten greeted media at a function yesterday with a “Good afternoon everyone. It’s great to be here in Melbourne celebrating Chinese New Year, the Year of Ram.” Only a cynic — a well-educated cynic, to boot — would suggest that he was attempting to link himself with our nation’s first great source of prosperity.

Wet ’n’ wild

THE little-known final verse of Advance Australia Fair goes “Should foreign foe e’er sight our coast/Or dare a foot to land/We’ll rouse to arms like sires of yore/To guard our native strand.” A similar sort of defiance was evident on the Gold Coast as Cyclone Marcia bore down. The Surfers Paradise nightclub Shooters hosted a Cyclone Marcia-themed party for Friday. “Come in wet for free entry”, the flyers read. The only evidence of the nanny state was to be found in a small print disclaimer that says: “Warning: This advertisement is for marketing purposes. Always remember to put safety first.”

Statue you

SELFIES not enough — even with the stick? Well, you could always trot along to one of the outlets of German company DOOB-3D to get a detailed 3-D printed figurine of yourself. Wired magazine says the business is going great guns. There’s the original DOOB in Dusseldorf, one in Tokyo, another in New York’s fashionable Chelsea district and — oh, such a surprise — a fourth in LA. The basic statuette, about the size of a Star Wars action figure, goes for $US95, but other options are available. A 25 centimetre Barbie sized job will set you back $US395 while an Action Man style 40cm tall reproduction costs $US695. You can get a life-size you for $US75,000, but be prepared for a bit of a wait. The company’s printers can only churn out around 2.5cm per hour. And despite the hefty price tags, DOOB doesn’t fill in your bald spot or shave off that gut. It does, however, offer a unique memento.

Which might explain why company officials say that close to 10 per cent of business comes from customers wanting to immortalise their beloved, pampered pets.

Ties that blind

WE close with correspondence, from the highest office in the land. After Strewth’s sark last week about the Prime Minister’s monotonously monochromatic neckwear, his advisers were in touch with a reminder that he broke with practice to don a blue and yellow number when Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko visited last year, blue and yellow being the national colours of the embattled country. Strewth acknowledges the departure — but also has this dare for the PM. Will he sport the Norwegian colours during King Harald V and Queen Sonja’s visit this week? They’re blue, white — and red.

[e-mail]