Strewth: Paws for thought

Things took something of a turn for the unexpected when Malcolm Turnbull ventured on to Jonesy and Amanda’s show on Sydney’s WSFM yesterday. And in the process, it yielded one of the better uses of “on reflection” we’ve heard in a little while.

Amanda: “Which G8 mate has a black labrador called Nemo?”

Turnbull: “A black labrador called Nemo? OK, I’ll have a go, would it be (Vladimir) Putin?”

Amanda: “No, it’s actually Emmanuel Macron.”

Jonesy: “I think Putin would have a dog called Rex, wouldn’t he?”

Turnbull: “Or Fang.”

Amanda: “Fang! Sic ’em Fang!”

Jonesy: “Or Stalin.”

Turnbull: “On reflection, yes.”

Not quite shirt-fronting, but it’s nice to know the spirit is there.

The dogs of Vlad

Putin did have a black labrador, but for better or worse she was not named after the purge tsar and slaughterer of the Russian people. Her name was Konni, but alas she departed this earth (figuratively, not as part of the Russian space program) in 2014. These days the Russian President’s pup posse includes a young Japanese akita called Yume and a karakachan (or Bulgarian shepherd) that answers to Buffy, a name Putin insists has nothing to do with the TV show. Yume once attended a Kremlin press conference with the boss and barked his head off at a group of Japanese journalists. As for Putin and Stalin, there is a family connection. In Putin’s words: “My father’s father worked as a cook. Apparently my grandfather cooked rather well, because after World War I he was offered a job in the Hills district on the outskirts of Moscow, where Lenin and the whole Ulyanov family lived. When Lenin died, my grandfather was transferred to one of Stalin’s dachas. He worked there a long time.” Just for the sake of symmetry, we’ll mention in passing that Stalin’s grandson Yevgeny Dzhugashvili took the time a couple of years back to slag off Putin: “We see him skiing, in a plane, then in a submarine, next without a shirt. It is a lack of brains, just showing off.”

Yet to be court out

Meanwhile, lest the nation’s droll little constitutional circus had momentarily slipped your mind due to the plethora of other entertainments on offer, the PM was afforded the opportunity yesterday to make a little deposit in the predictions bank.

Journo: “What about the High Court ruling? Are you still confident that Barnaby Joyce is eligible?”

Turnbull: “Yes, as I have said, it’s now in the hands of the High Court, of course, and we await their decision. But the government, based on the legal advice we have from the solicitor-general, is confident that the Deputy Prime Minister and the other two, senators (Fiona) Nash and (Matt) Canavan, will be found not to be disqualified from sitting in the parliament.” Noted, PM. Elsewhere, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young was taking issue with Pauline Hanson’s previous assertion’s about Malcolm Roberts’s status. To wit: “I can hand-on-heart assure everyone that Malcolm is not a dual citizen. I saw first-hand his renouncement of UK citizenship before he became a candidate for the Senate.” Sure, Hanson’s statement has been rendered droll by subsequent developments, but just to be on the safe side yesterday the One Nation leader in turn suggested yesterday that Hanson-Young was “rude”, “ignorant” and a “pain in the backside”. So, a little bit of something for everyone.

Chairman of the boards

Thanks to Agent 99 public relations, Strewth is aware of the impending visit by “the Guinness World Record holder for the most Monopoly boards owned”. There then followed a list that will likely haunt us for a few weeks: “A few fun facts about Neil (Scallan): He’s spent over $200,000 on Monopoly!; before he had storage he slept with his sets as they didn’t fit in the room (70 per cent of his double bed was filled, so he had to sleep in a particular way to fit); he bought 106 sets on a trip to the US, and that amount meant instead of the convertible car his girlfriend wanted to travel in he hired large monster car to transport them for two weeks.” We consider ourselves warned.

The Shorten harmonies

Could it be possible a beautiful new age is dawning? On Friday, Bill Shorten made this — how shall we put it — uncharacteristic proclamation: “What I am focused on is not spending all our time complaining or talking about the mistakes of the government.” And yesterday, this: “Everyone has been happy to sit in the trenches, and bag everyone else until the cows come home, but it’s not good enough any more is it? It’s just what turns people off politics …” Yes, he got a few things off his chest before arriving at this point — exhibit A: “The government’s dishonest scare campaign” — but it’s a start.