Cave paintings

IN news from England, it seems the speed camera Nick Cave left as bent as some of his earlier lyrics (Strewth, Wednesday) has been cleansed of the graffiti "Nick Cave waz ere Xmas 2010". Sigh.

We've been brought up to date by Hove denizen Gaythorne Silvester, who has written on hovepeople.co.uk about a visit to the camera "still leaning drunkenly in the middle of the highway. No sign of interesting inscriptions on it, however, no messages, flowers, or anything at all that commemorated the event. Anyway, a trip to this hot spot is definitely not recommended. We have a genuine rock demigod in our midst - mean, moody and very magnificent - but this is not the place to do homage." Silvester tells Strewth, "Mr Cave is a very popular resident in Hove. We are always cheered up by a sighting, and we especially like his outrageous winklepickers."

Present-tense PM

AS well as occasionally tackling the trivia that actually holds our universe together (a bit like Strewth; no, really), Senate estimates also zeroes in on the big stuff, such as what prezzies Julia Gillard has scored since she became PM. More specifically, at the gentle prodding of West Australian senator Mathias Cormann, which gifts she has hung on to and which have gone to the rather magical sounding Gifts Storeroom. Some books to be kept in the prime ministerial vicinity include: First Dog On The Moon's Christmas Story (natch), David Hicks's Guantanamo - My Journey, Good Food Guide (courtesy of Fairfax big cheese Roger Corbett), Tim Flannery's Here On Earth and Tony Blair's A Journey. Others don't: Gideon Bible (multiple copies, bless), Solving Tough Problems, Securing Your Retirement Dreams, Choosing the Republic, My Precious Spine and I (not, it transpires, the rebadged memoirs of Peter Costello), Have a Nice Doomsday and the surely redundant So You Want to be Prime Minister. Also, blue is either not Gillard's colour, or she's already overloaded; of two identical sets of Skalli Paris earrings and necklaces, the orange one was kept and the blue dispatched to the federal Aladdin's cave. Some random items "retained by the recipient" were SK11 Skin Signature Melting Rich Cream (we're not sure what this means), herbal bath tea bags (we're not sure we want to know what this means), a bag of muesli and two pairs of Voodoo stockings "from the Sweaty Betty range". Compared with her two predecessors, Jools seems a total gift magnet. Just don't send her any more copies of the Hawke telemovie; she's already stuck 10 of them in storage.

Trained to retrieve

LOCOMOTIVE-LOVING national treasure and ambassador to the Holy See, Tim Fischer, will be in one of his natural environments today, by which we mean: at a train station. After flying into Melbourne from Rome this morning, His Timness will head north to Albury station to return a wedding ring to Maria Evans, who mislaid it during her visit for the Mary MacKillop canonisation. Observes His Timness, "I am happy to help and the diversity of work as an ambassador never ceases to amaze. One day there is this, proving there are many great and honest people in Rome, to helping clergy with deep vein thrombosis, through to boosting the Australian case for the SKA Radio Telescope project and site in Western Australia. It is a pleasure to do this in liaison with my colleague to Italy, ambassador David Ritchie, and the SKA Project Team." Tim, you never cease to amaze us, either.

Abbott's big break

HAVE we been premature in celebrating the return of the Great Big New Tax? At Tony Abbott's press conference yesterday, when it seemed the time to pull it out was at its ripest, he wielded it not once. While we appreciate the effort of "expensive and unnecessary white elephant", it's not quite the same.

State of disarray

ON Australia Day, we got stuck briefly behind the limo of NSW Governor Marie Bashir as it crept at a stately pace towards Sydney's Botanic Gardens. Our taxi driver couldn't decide what appalled him most: (a) that Bashir had three motorcycle wallopers in front but none behind ("She's totally exposed!"), or (b) that she was obliged to ride in an older model car (honestly, they all look the same to us). Nevertheless, Bashir alighted from her limo the same moment we stumbled from our cab, so it felt like we were receiving the official salute; we may grow accustomed. Things are looking a little less cheery for the state government serving at Bashir's pleasure: Centrebet is offering $11 for a Labor victory, but just $1.03 for a Coalition one. Centrebet's Neil Evans, who rarely struggles to find the best way to express himself, spells it out: "You know the writing's more than on the wall when punters are putting up $5000 to win just $200. That's like saying, 'I'll risk a small car for three cartons of beer.' There is no risk!"

Fab formula

CONGRATULATIONS to Reuters for this early contender for the title of paragraph of the year: "A former beauty queen has become the first person in the world to graduate with a masters degree in Beatles studies."

James Jeffrey