High culture

ALEXANDER Downer has only been high commissioner in London for a matter of months, but he’s already guaranteeing the nation is noticed in all the right places.

ALEXANDER Downer has only been high commissioner in London for a matter of months, but he’s already guaranteeing the nation is noticed in all the right places.

“We get a run” he Facebooked in jubilation from a weekend Monty Python reunion performance as the staff of the School of Philosophy at the University of Woolloomooloo took to the stage. “Bruce, Bruce, Bruce and Bruce.”

Motoring to the top

RICKY Muir will formally replace Liberal Helen Kroger as a senator from Victoria when he is sworn in today, but that’s the only title he’ll take from her — despite what parliament’s website has said. Mind you, throwing kangaroo poo could be an interesting disciplinary tool.

Love finds a way

IT wasn’t the police that stopped yesterday’s Bust the Budget rally in Melbourne. Instead, the protesters paused on Swanston Street so a pair of newlyweds posing outside St Paul’s Cathedral could get their happy snaps. They squeezed in a special shot with the rally mascot — a particularly homemade-looking Peppa Pig — to loud cheers, then the marchers went on their way.

Brevity the soul of wit

GIVEN that these sorts of marches seem to be on every second week at the moment, one might think that by now we’d be seeing some especially snappy slogans. But no. One Melbourne banner read “The avaricious rich has inculcated the unconscientious Liberals with the notion of greed and suppression, and the Liberals are out to smother the poor.” Try chanting that.

Mostly rainwater

WITH Andy Murray bundled out of Wimbledon long before last night’s clash between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, Brits did the only sensible thing and sought solace in a courtside Pimms. That solace, however, proved even more elusive than a British win. Now The Sunday Times has explained why. The All England Club has scarcely been patriotic with the Pimms. The traditional recipe for a glass with lemonade comes in at a gently comforting 6.5 per cent alcohol to volume. The Sunday Times found the stuff on offer at the tennis watered down as low as 2.5 per cent — at £8 ($14.70) a throw.

Gracious in victory

SPOTTED in the stands of Homebush Bay’s Spotless Stadium yesterday was opposition Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen, resplendent in his GWS Giants jacket, chatting with our Chris Kenny in his Adelaide Crows ambassador-issue scarf. The game went all Adelaide’s way and, respectful as he was on Bowen’s turf, Kenny resisted the temptation to rub it in. Never mind, within seconds of the siren Bowen received a gloating text from another Crows ambassador, fellow frontbencher Kate Ellis. It’s always the enemies within …

Tickets please

IF you thought the days when Brits boldly broke speed records are long gone, think again. A 16-year-old schoolboy has travelled from Land’s End to John o’Groats — using nothing but public buses — in four days, 10 hours and 44 minutes, shaving close to 24 hours off the previous best time. Adam Muglison spent months poring over timetables before embarking on his epic dash. “I’m in Year 11 and this is my way of celebrating finishing my exams,” the young hero, who hopes to work in transport scheduling, told the London Daily Telegraph. There was a moment of drama on the second day when a number 801 from Cheltenham to Moreton-in-Marsh in Glouscestershire arrived nine minutes late, but Mugliston won through to board the 22 to Stratford-upon-Avon on time. His adventures out of the way, he will spend the remainder of the summer doing work experience with London Transport.

Into the scrum

SPOTTED in a Canberra hostelry yesterday: Clive Palmer, enjoying a few and showing baby pictures to his senator, Glenn Lazarus. The nation will be agog this week as we wait to see the Brick with Eyes and his colleagues Jacquie Lambie, Dio Wang and Ricky Muir take their first legislative steps.

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