Strewth: Among equines

Among the horses in the Cox Plate was Savvy Coup, who was most certainly not named after the events in Canberra.

Among the horses pounding the turf in the Cox Plate on the weekend was Savvy Coup, who was most certainly not named after the events in Canberra in late August. Another was called Humidor, which did at least bring back cheering memories of when the biggest strife Mathias Cormann found himself in was for puffing a cheeky cigar with Joe Hockey. Meanwhile, amid the excitement over Winx, we were sorry that Kings Will Dream — the hayburner in which federal Nationals MP Damian Drum and a few state Victorian MPs own small shares — didn’t finish the race. Imagine if Winx had been beaten by a horse part-owned by pollies. Alas, Kings Will Dream pulled up after 500m with a fractured pelvis and was fighting for his life yesterday.

The boss of loss

The Victorian state election has given Bill Shorten a chance to brush up on his demarcation skills.

Journo: “Labor has actually lost two candidates in the last two days. What do you make of that? Are you concerned?”

Shorten: “Well, I think (Premier) Daniel Andrews has got the better policy offering for Victorians. If we want to look at who’s lost candidates, (Scott) Morrison’s lost the candidate for Chisholm in the next neighbouring electorate here …” (Many more examples were offered at this point, but Strewth is regrettably finite.) “I think if you want to look at a loss of candidates and instability, my observation is that Scott Morrison’s divided and unstable government are the gold standard for losing candidates.”

Putting aside the troubling combination of “government” and “are”, it was time for the fourth estate to try again: “But do you think there’s concerns about the quality of candidates who are getting picked up? One of them, Peter Lockwood, is being investigated for assault and he allegedly called someone the C- word at a council meeting.” Time for the trump card. “I don’t know anything about that,” Shorten said. “I’m running for PM, not for premier.”

Big in Iceland

At last count, Strewth had relegated the Liberal Party’s Wentworth candidate Dave Sharma from his perch as Australia’s Youngest Ever Ambassador to fifth-youngest. Still impressive, if not quite as immediately catchy. The last word for now belongs to Strewth reader Jeff Tunbridge: “I worked at the Australian embassy in Stockholm during the 1970s when our ambassador was former deputy PM Lance Barnard. Lance was also accredited to Finland, Norway and Iceland, but official visits to Iceland were very rare. When I went there on a week-long field trip in 1977 I was the first Australian embassy official to have done so for years. And I wasn’t even a real diplomat. I worked for immigration, and was merely attached to the embassy in Stockholm. By some freaky twist my short sojourn to Reykjavik was misconstrued as an ambassadorial visit. I thought something was amiss when I was welcomed by the doorman at the Hotel Saga with: ‘Welcome, your excellency.’ This was soon confirmed when the bowing reception staff informed me the Presidential Suite was ready, and that an Australian flag had been fixed to the door. Jeez, they thought I was Lance! What to do? I weighed the options carefully. Naturally the need for terminological exactitude weighed heavily. But so too did the need to flatter one’s host and avoid any risk of diplomatic incident. Fortunately I was familiar with Ambrose Bierce’s definition of diplomacy as the patriotic art of lying for one’s country, and because there was no prospect of me negotiating a treaty or delivering a demarche, I allowed the patriotic art to triumph. I inclined my ambassadorial bonce, said one was extremely grateful and allowed oneself to be led off to La Suite Presidencial. So there you are. Me, Australian ambassador for one week in 1977, commissioned by the staff of the Hotel Saga in Reykjavik, the same hotel that later hosted a meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. I like to think that a worm-like Australian ambassador gave the staff a trial-run for that momentous meeting. I was only 28. Sorry, Dave.”

Exit music

Back in the day, if Bill Leak was ever grumpy about something, all we had to do was to mention his dear mate Richard Gill and all would be sunshine again. Now Gill is gone, too, and music has lost one of its greatest friends. Thanks to everyone who took part in the brass instrument-powered flash mob that gathered outside Gill’s house on what proved to be his final day and blasted out his beloved Dam Busters theme; no going quietly into the night for him. May he rest in something more melodious than mere peace.

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