A three-pointer

WHEN "Moving forward" was killed in action during the 2010 campaign, Strewth was engulfed by an episode of grief that lasted until someone noticed we were actually in the grip of hysteria and slapped us back into reality.

WHEN "Moving forward" was killed in action during the 2010 campaign, Strewth was engulfed by an episode of grief that lasted until someone noticed we were actually in the grip of hysteria and slapped us back into reality.

Julia Gillard's latest schtick is to thunder at the opposition about the dangers of three-word-slogans. She's been at it for a few days now, never losing the mystifying but apparently all-important emphasis on the word count. It's almost Animal Farm-ish: "Three words bad, two words vaguely OK (if not actually successful)." During question time yesterday, Gillard was firing away repeatedly: Three-word-slogans did not constitute an answer, she chastised, later insisting Labor would never rely on a three-word-slogan. It's becoming so regular, it's almost metronomic; a slow beat to be sure, but you could dance to it. Perhaps it's just a secret way of hypnotising Doug Cameron's backbench "zombies" into a state of undead docility.

Howard goes geek

JOHN Howard has come a long way in his internet adventures since his YouTube debut during the Kevin07 onslaught. Who can forget that stiff "Good morning", delivered by a PM who (a) looked as relaxed as a man being lowered into a barrel of polecats and (b) had clearly not been informed that the internet is like a casino: there is no morning, afternoon nor evening. Yet there he was yesterday, live blogging for this august organ. Among the smaller nuggets were his sorrow at Wilson Tuckey's defeat (well, yes); coming up with "relentless" for a one-word description of Paul Keating; and also in a single word, indicating his lack of enthusiasm for legalising pot. We hear Howard had a ball and is keen for more, though our guess is he's not quite ready to unleash himself on Twitter. Wrote Howard: "Politicians should resist communication forms which trivialise, but they shouldn't decry them."

Humour bypass

WHILE most people are aware Lazarus Rising refers to Howard's "Lazarus with a triple bypass" quip, that hasn't stopped broader speculation. Take this comment from Doug T., posted under an internet article by our erstwhile colleague Glenn Milne: "Is he comparing himself to the biblical figure? Or is it the scientific term 'Lazarus taxon', which denotes organisms that reappear in the fossil record after a period of apparent extinction? Or it could be the Lazarus phenomenon that refers to an event in which a person spontaneously returns to life after resuscitation has been given up."

Captivated Spectator

WE conclude our Howard trifecta with a visit to The Spectator Australia, which has marked Lazarus Rising with characteristic understatement: a cover trumpeting "Howard the Great", accompanied by a cartoon that verges on the tremendous, even if the eyes are an alarmingly socialist-realist shade of red. The Howard the Great editorial column takes up a whole page, and makes a fascinating read after the previous issue, in which Spectator Australia editor Tom Switzer co-wrote a piece getting stuck into the "hawkish" incumbent's views on the Afghanistan war and Australia's involvement in it. The flavour of the piece is hinted at by the headline, "Julia Gillard is a warmonger". But in the generous Howard editorial, guess how many mentions there are that it was Howard who took us into Afghanistan and Iraq? If you guessed "none whatsoever", you'd be right. Still, it's probably best to not take a a black armband approach to these things.

A lighter touch

STREWTH has fond memories of a nonchalant Russian pilot who narrowly escaped a fiery death in an airshow crash. Interviewed immediately afterwards, parachute spread like a bridal train behind him while flames leaped into the sky, he shrugged his shoulders laconically and lit up a cigarette. At the time we thought: only in Russia. We sit corrected after a blaze in the basement of ambulance-chasing law firm Maurice Blackburn's Melbourne HQ yesterday. Staff had to make a hasty exit from the 10th floor via smoky stairwells. There were lots of coughs and splutters on the way down to Lonsdale Street, but the nicotine buffs in the pack took it in their stride: safely back on terra firma, they pulled out cigarettes and lit up.

Aunty drops the ball

THERE has been a number of times ABC News 24 has managed to miss important, well-publicised political press conferences. But it's early days at the station and teething troubles are inevitable. Aunty's main news website, on the other hand, has been around somewhat longer, but when scrolling down to sport, the four stories advertised are "Delhi 2010" ("Keep up to date with all the action from Delhi via Grandstand's Commonwealth Games website"); "The Sunday Inquisition: Grand Final Edition" (that'd be the AFL, and even Strewth knows that's done and dusted); "The Round-up: Grand Final Edition" (see previous comment); and, most touchingly, "[Chris] Noffke still motivated for Delhi". It seems apt that the broadcaster that gives us Doctor Who is also the one that lets you feel like a time traveller.