Even twits on their tweets agree Kerri-Anne is the goods

SHE gets all kind of requests but this one took even Kerri-Anne Kennerley by surprise.

SHE gets all kind of requests but this one took even Kerri-Anne Kennerley by surprise. A young man, Julian Morrow, wanted to take her up to a rooftop at Ultimo in Sydney and nibble on her toes.

Not in private, mind. There would be lights and cameras and fluffy microphones on poles. The footage would go to air as part of the opening skit for the new season of the ABC's The Chaser's War on Everything.

KAK happily agreed because that's just KAK. She's not at all precious or snobbish and she's up for pretty much anything, provided it sounds like fun. So up she went, to the windswept roof, where she lounged back in a white towelling robe with her pretty foot extended. She thought Julian would just pretend but no, he put her little toes into his mouth and gave them a good old suck, and the whole thing was captured on a long-range lens, ready to air on Wednesday night.

I heard about it a week or so ago and I thought I'd have a little fun with it on Twitter. I put up a post that said: "New sex scandal breaking - stay tuned", then I put up another that said: "Involves Kerri-Anne Kennerley apparently, she's been caught on long-range lens in a hot embrace with a much younger man."

I thought people would say: "Whoa! KAK's been caught out!" and "Who's the guy?" and "How much younger is he?" but in fact what happened was that others on Twitter immediately began scolding me, saying: "So what!?" and "Who cares?" and "You leave KAK alone!" and "Good for her!" and "I hope her lawyers are watching your tweets" and so on, overloading my Twitter account until I was the one rocking back in my chair, thinking: "Whoa! This woman is loved!"

Part of me already knew that, of course. I'm occasionally a guest on Mornings with Kerri-Anne and the thing that always gets me is how everybody else is, too. I've run into two prime ministers in the corridor outside her studio and at least one first lady, a treasurer, writer Peter FitzSimons, former head of the ABC (and Soccer Australia) David Hill, ex-boss of Britain's MI5 Stella Rimington and local lovelies including Sky newsreader Jacinta Tynan, who was there last week with a soft swelling barely visible under her silk blouse because she's expecting a baby, and well, everyone.

Then, too, there are the people who watch KAK's show, which is also everyone. Margy Osmond, who is chief executive of the Australian National Retailers Association and sits on the Bell Shakespeare board, and who also often appears on KAK's show, likes to tell the story of how she was coming down Collins Street in Melbourne one morning, with her pearls and her heels and her BlackBerry in hand, when a senior counsel, all horsehair wig and flapping robes, ran up to her, into her, saying: "Margy, Margy! I saw you on TV the other day!"

Osmond stopped dead and said: "What were you doing, watching morning TV?" and the QC said he always had KAK on in chambers when he was robing up for court.

You watch it, too. Yes, you do. It may be when you're laid up sniffling, or sacked from work or exhausted from lack of sleep, with a baby on the breast, feeling a bit low and hopeless, but you watch it. And here's the best thing. When the time comes to get up off the couch, dust yourself off and go back into the world, you do so knowing that the next time you're down and home, you can turn the TV back on and KAK will still be there, making an effort with her heels and diamonds and her exercise machines and her mineral make-up kits, trying to lift your spirits a little.

She's like that in real life, too. She's incredibly loyal. There aren't many people in show biz prepared to meet you at the bottom, but KAK is one of them. She did this most recently for Gretel Killeen after the Logies. We all know it didn't go so well and Killeen was upset. KAK put her into make-up and did up her hair, and put her on the couch and talked the whole thing up. I've loved her for a long time, but I think I loved her most then.

KAK's critics love to snipe, saying she's had Botox, and they get quite flummoxed when she happily admits this is so. They assume she's all froth and bubble, a woman who gave up children in the chase for fame. They are wrong. She did want a family and for a time was pregnant, but lost the baby. It left a chip in her heart, and if you look closely, you can sometimes see a touch of sadness in her eyes, but what can you do? You play the cards you're dealt, is what, and so KAK soldiered on. Given all that, I suppose it's no surprise that tweeters wanted nothing more than wish KAK well in her rooftop adventures with Morrow. Perhaps you saw the footage, as it were, on Wednesday night? That smile she was wearing? It's genuine.