Dying to know
WE suppose it was inevitable, but that doesn’t lessen the hurt at learning someone else’s obsession with Craig Emerson’s hair could possibly be greater than ours.
Strewth
Maggie Streep?
THE mind boggles thrice at the prospect of Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher in a forthcoming biopic, set in the fortnight before the Falklands War.
Take money, run
WHEN we approached Fairfax columnist and trenchant critic of The Age, Gerard Henderson, about relocating to Melbourne and editing the broadsheet (Strewth, yesterday), one of the reasons he cited for staying in Sydney was to collect $500 that Bob Ellis owes him for “failed punditry”.
Foley falls
“STOP all the clocks, cut off the telephone/ Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.” You’ll have to bear with us for a moment.
In other news
IT was late Wednesday afternoon, a time when most of the nation was mesmerised by the spectacle of Cyclone Yasi lumbering inexorably towards the Queensland coast.
Thorpedoed
OF course we were excited by Ian Thorpe’s confirmation he’s returning to the pool, but not as excited as we were by the performance of the man who introduced him.
Age of regret
TONY Abbott is well known to have suffered a major dose of mortgage stress when he first landed in opposition without a ministerial wage.
Channelling Elvis
THERE were touching moments aplenty when Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott took it in turns to have deeply friendly chats with John Laws.
Bitter pill
WITH the NSW Labor government’s members jumping/getting pushed at such a rate, we feared it may run out of tricks with which to delight its captive audience.
Levy lifting
AS the flood levy talk descends to hand-to-hand combat (we are thinking mainly, if not exclusively, about Julia “don’t patronise me” Gillard’s session with Melbourne broadcaster Neil Mitchell yesterday), we salute The Courier-Mail for bringing a measure of calm with its front page yesterday.
Cave paintings
IN news from England, it seems the speed camera Nick Cave left as bent as some of his earlier lyrics (Strewth, Wednesday) has been cleansed of the graffiti “Nick Cave waz ere Xmas 2010”. Sigh.
World-class crier
AS the residents of flood-ravaged Toowoomba work to rebuild their homes, infrastructure and spirit, they should take some comfort in knowing they have possibly the best town crier in the country.
Off with his head!
EMERITUS chat show king Michael Parkinson’s fondness for Australia is no secret, but as he said in his Australia Day speech at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music last night, it could have been more official.
Julia and Giuliani
JULIA Gillard just can’t win. As her adopted state of Victoria went underwater, the Prime Minister was still in Brisbane, home of comeback kid Anna Bligh.
Browned off
GREENS leader Bob Brown is determined to kickstart an industry in Brown-shaped pinatas.
Foot in the door
AS Jacki Weaver didn’t win a Golden Globe yesterday, we’re embarking on a fit of parochial petulance and ignoring the event almost entirely.
Sold down river
AMID the deluge, it’s pleasing to see The Australian Financial Review embodying the spirit of Winston Churchill’s defiant wartime mantra of KBO, or Keep Buggering On.
Rudd to rescue
ONCE we were assured Kevin Rudd wasn’t part of a looting party, we did get a kick watching that footage of him lugging a suitcase on his head along a flooded street in Brisbane’s Norman Park.
Heartbreak kids
ONE of South Australia’s less discussed but nevertheless significant exports is politically based heartbreak.
Rising tide
IT seems perversely appropriate that when a Spanish girl, La Nina, arrives uninvited to warm up our northern waters – thereby setting off a chain of events that leads to death and destruction in southeast Queensland – it’s a woman who seizes the hour.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/strewth/page/116