Strewth: a little birdie told him

It was only a matter of kilos, but Clive Palmer has squeezed himself into the great budgie-smuggler debate.

Clive Palmer takes it Lite n’ Easy.

It was only a matter of kilos, but Clive Palmer has squeezed himself into the great budgie-smuggler debate raging across the nation. Just after sending forth a picture of his new-look slightly more streamlined self chowing down on his Lite n’ Easy lunch, the former federal politician tweeted: “If I lose a little bit more weight, I can get into my budgie-smugglers.” Quelle horreur. But he couldn’t stop there, given the rumours around town: “The greatest budgie-smuggler of all time, @TonyAbbottMHR is on the way back. Watch out @TurnbullMalcolm he hates board shorts. #auspol.”

Premature elation

A big congratulations to Donald Trump’s vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence, who was declared the big winner of the wannabe-veep debate against Hillary Clinton’s No 2, Tim Kaine.Unfortunately, that was by the Republican National Committee several hours before the clash had even begun. Oops. Yes, the RNC website pushed out a post titled “Who Won the Vice Presidential Debate”, boldly stating that Pence was the “clear winner”. And it went on: “The other clear winner from tonight’s debate was Donald Trump. His running mate perfectly shared Trump’s vision to make America great again and that message is resonating with Americans all across the country.” As Twitter, not always politely, pointed out the peculiar timing of the bold announcement, it was quickly taken down, but not quick enough to avoid the inevitable “print screen” and retweets. As for the Donald, he delivered on his threat to live-tweet the debate, opening up with: “Wow, @CNN is so negative. Their panel is a joke, biased and very dumb. I’m turning to @FoxNews where we get a fair shake! Mike will do great” — and in doing so became the first pollie since Kevin Rudd to use the expression “fair shake”.

Never too young

Few politicians could pull off a biography called Telling It Straight without at least a slice of sarcasm. But Anthony Albanese, perhaps. That’s the title of press gallery scribe Karen Middleton’s tome on Grayndler’s main man, and its arrival on bookshelves caused ABC Melbourne Drive’s Rafael Epstein to ask: “How old are you?” Albo: “Fifty-three.” Epstein: “Bit young for a biography?” Albo: “Well, you know, this is volume one. Volume two will be sensational.”

The main reason for the early release was to tell the story of Albanese’s father, Carlo, who Anthony didn’t realise was alive until he was about 15, and whom he didn’t meet until 2009 in Italy.

“There I was, sitting in an office, we had an intermediary, and in he walked with two people I didn’t know existed, my brother and sister … I was meeting them for the first time. And of course, I didn’t know what reaction to expect. He opened his arms and embraced me, and it was quite an extraordinary moment in my life.”

Power and the passion

Epstein couldn’t resist hitting Albo with one other detail from the work: “My favourite description of you in the book is from Peter Garrett, who says, ‘Albo isn’t a sinner in my book, but you couldn’t describe him as a saint.’ ” Albo: “That’s a fair description.” Perhaps they’re both hoping the next book will be titled King of the Mountain.

Fly the forgetful skies

It’s a glorious treasure trove of forgetfulness — Sydney airport’s annual lost property charity auction, which kicks off online next week. And with 40 million passengers a year there are some crackers in the 5000 items sadly left waiting for their owners. Strewth’s lady on the inside got an early rummage and can reveal that among the items you simply can’t believe were left behind were a mountain bike, a Monterey guitar, violin, a Foucault’s pendulum (of course), a glass table, a metric spanner kit and a set of 24-carat-gold-edged plates. Wait, what? We can't imagine for a second that at some stage someone didn’t say, “Have you seen my spanners?”

End of the line

Finally, it’s probably time Malcolm Turnbull gave up taking the train. Yesterday at Sydney’s Central Station the Prime Minister was accosted by a woman losing a fight with her Opal card. “I come from the country and I’m stuck,” she yelled at him from behind the ticket gate. “I don’t come from another country … We’re stuck in our own country. How do you think foreigners are feeling and they don’t know how to work the Opal system?” Last week on the train to Campbelltown with wife Lucy it was the opposite problem, as Sky News’ Paul Murray was quick to point out: “They’re on a train with the Prime Minister and no one is looking up! No one! No one high-fiving, no one selfying, no one cares. Isn’t that incredible?” If it wasn’t for bad luck, the Prime Minister would have no luck at all.

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