Buried pleasure

AMID the gathering economic gloom, one figure is offering hope.

AMID the gathering economic gloom, one figure is offering hope. We refer, of course, to none other than Wayne Swan, who appears to be burying upbeat clues in his weekly Treasurer's Economic Note.

Take his latest one, where rather than anything so graceless as "told you so", he writes: "As I have been saying for some time, the US and many European countries are confronting a long and painful road ahead to reduce their debt burdens and get their budgets back on a sustainable footing." So how long is "some time"? Handily, "saying for some time" is hyperlinked, which when clicked takes you to a speech the Treasurer gave back on, ooh, July 6 this year. Ergo, "some time" equals a month, give or take a day. Which brings us to the sentence that follows shortly afterwards: "I'm not going to sugarcoat the fact that the global economic outlook remains uncertain and this uncertainty is likely to continue for some time." Some time. We think Swannie's trying to tell us it'll be over before Father's Day. (And if you think this is flimsy, you should see how the stockmarket works.)

Supersize it

MEANWHILE, Nationals leader Warren Truss (the Dmitry Medvedev to Barnaby Joyce's Vladimir Putin? Discuss) has clearly decided the gravity of the world economic situation requires nothing short of a full upgrade of Coalition terminology. During a press conference yesterday, Truss dumped Tony Abbott's beloved great big new tax and went all out with "giant new tax". Full points to Truss for saying it out loud, but minus 20 points for making ABC's News 24 choose between his presser and Joe Hockey's. Joe was just hitting his stride, too.

Going, not gone

SPEAKING of News 24, all was going well with its political press conference coverage until it threw to the presser we'd been dreading: South Australian Premier Mike Rann's resign-now-quit-later announcement. Given the bleak, cold sensation this entirely expected shock spread through our heart, it seemed fitting that News 24's audio-only coverage of it sounded as if it were being delivered by means of a wax cylinder being played into a telephone receiver in Mawson's hut. Without visuals, the channel's viewers were denied images such as Walloper Minister Kevin Foley's eyes welling up with tears. Asked whether he was sad it was the end of an era, Foley said, "I'm not teary emotional but emotional to the extent that Mike Rann has been a great boss, a great friend and a great premier". All that's missing now is a commemorative edition of Winestate, but as Rann won't bow out until October 20, there's time.

Cubs runneth over

AT a federal level, meanwhile, Anthony Albanese put a brave face -- or at least an emoticon -- on things with this tweet to Rann: "Congratulations on providing SA with fantastic leadership on infrastructure, services, climate change and urban policy :)" Albo's opposition counterpart, Christopher Pyne, tried a different approach: "This has been more painful to watch than the slow death of a wildebeest being torn down by lion cubs. The losers from all of this are the people of South Australia we are now led by a lame duck Premier and a training wheel premier in waiting. In his press conference today [heir Jay] Weatherill looked and spoke like the schoolboy who had just emerged from the principal's office." A smorgasbord of images, though we're struggling to get past the first one: a wildebeest being slaughtered by lion cubs.

In Rudd he trusts

PHILLIP Adams may be known as an atheist, but there's one area in which his belief appears unshakeable. Adams was on stage at the Byron Bay Writers Festival at the weekend, speaking about his departure from the Labor Party when his mobile phone went off. Adams declared it must be a call from the Prime Minister, whereupon he glanced at the phone and added: "Yes, it is Kevin." Apparently it went down well with the audience; the Queensland border is very close to Byron.

Accept no imitations

ACROSS the world there are hints of the spirit that so enlivens The Northern Territory News. Say, this effort on the weekend from Associated Press in Germany: "Police free woman from pig swarm". US site Boing Boing meanwhile yielded this treasure: "Police in Milton, New Hampshire, found the carcass of a shark in woods more than an hour's drive from the sea." But, as we were reminded yesterday when we read The NT News for the first time since our return to Australia, the original cannot be beaten. To wit, a piece lamenting the shortage of women in Darwin: "Ironically in a city with a place [called] Fannie Bay there is a large lack of ladies. The gender imbalance is to a point where those who have the power to do so, may have to look at renaming it Bay of Bloke . . . The Territory is the geographical equivalent to Bunnings on a Saturday; a sausage sizzle." Luckily, researcher Andrew Taylor assures the paper things are changing: "Darwin is slowly getting there -- more women will come as the number of coffee shops and walking tracks increase." Walking tracks?