Sensitive soul at Queensland Poetry Festival

Brisbane’s literati have just spent the weekend being entertained and enlightened at the Queensland Poetry Festival.

Brisbane’s lucky literati have just spent the weekend being entertained and enlightened at the Queensland Poetry Festival. All tastes were catered for. Les Murray was there. Then there were some other guests with distinctive facial hair, piercings and tattoos. And then there was Clive Palmer. No. He wasn’t sponsoring the event. He was participating. Way back in 1981 Palmer published a collection of verse: Dreams, Hopes and Reflections. Whether it was a vanity job, alas, Strewth cannot tell. But when your columnist fed the name of the publisher into Google, up popped a farm equipment suppliers in Denver, Colorado.

Poet for the ages

Palmer’s publication has become a much sought-after item. Indeed, the National Library of Australia includes it on the list of titles it most wants to acquire. Here’s a sample. Readers will see how it inspired the great man’s career:

Gandhi I know you

Though I was not born

Gandhi I love you

Though your life was torn.

Homage to Clive

As a preview, Palmer appeared on local ABC Radio on Friday to recite his works. He’d be chuffed to know that he’s inspired people to pick up the pen the length and breadth of the whole Sunshine State. Here’s an example shared with Strewth:

There was an old man from Mineralogy,

Who claimed to have written an anthology.

Its torturous rhyme was declared a great crime,

As repulsive as forensic pathology.

Have fun with Isis

Also in Queensland, LNP Senator James McGrath dropped into the Isis Club in Childers yesterday. He was at pains to point out to social media followers that while the club’s logo is Pharaonic, the name actually derives from the River Isis, that part of the Thames that flows through Oxford. He really didn’t need to. A glance at the club’s website and the focus it puts on the pokies and the bar makes it crystal clear the place shares no affiliation with some other groupings in the news that share its name.

He’s behind you!

Kevin Rudd’s stint in Christiane Amanpour’s seat on CNN on Saturday got a good run locally, so Strewth went in search of international reviews. There were bound to be some. The bloke after all is a former prime minister with a reputation as a dab hand in foreign affairs. Alas, none could be found. Perhaps if the Ruddster really wants an international audience he should emulate those Neighbours stars who regularly do Christmas pantomime in the UK. It’s lucrative, or so Strewth understands.

Strike from home

Two weeks ago it was the loo cleaners in Parliament House who went on strike. Last week it was the turn of some of the staff in the Parliamentary Library. Strewth has it on the highest authority the impact of the stoppage was minimal. All the staff in the section affected had gone home before it was due to begin.

A matter of taste

Strewth reads endless media releases so you don’t have to. And so it is with the pizza map of Australia, a breakdown of our ordering habits nation wide. Here’s all you need to know. The sun and sea-loving folk of Western and South Australia prefer Hawaiian. The State of Origin prowess of Queensland no doubt reflects banana benders’ fondness for meat lover’s. The people in the self-proclaimed premier state of NSW unsurprisingly go for supreme. In Tasmania it’s garlic pizza all the way. And, food snobs that they are, Victorians go for the basic, most authentic pizza of them all — margherita.

Feeding the chooks

Nutritionists appear to be changing their mind about cholesterol, but if you need a little reassurance about breakfast googs, this item from Friday’s Japan Times might be all you need. Eggs with whitish yolks, it says, are attracting attention in the country. “The colour of an egg yolk reflects the colour of what the hen that laid it was fed,” it says. “Rice-fed hens lay eggs with yolks that are close to white, in contrast to the yellow yolks of eggs from chickens given feed that mainly comprises imported corn.” So you can enjoy the yolk and pretend it’s all white.

The eyes have it

Let us close by acknowledging the death of Bart Cummings. Much has been said and written about the great man in the past 24 hours, but his eyebrows may well deserve an obituary of their own. Two, perhaps.

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