Channelling Elvis

THERE were touching moments aplenty when Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott took it in turns to have deeply friendly chats with John Laws, whose return to broadcasting yesterday was apparently likened by one listener to the second coming of Christ. Ahem.

But there was a certain magic when Laws dragged Abbott away from the topic of the Murray-Darling Basin by asking, "Have you got any more Elvis albums?" Replied Abbott: "I've been singing Suspicious Minds when the kids aren't in the car because if I try to sing it when the kids are in the car, they demand that I put something else on." Both agreed it's a tremendous song. We know the British Conservative Party went to last year's election campaign with the slogan "We can't go on like this" (and didn't the graffiti artists make merry with the billboards); perhaps the Iron Monk and crew could do something similar for the next campaign here? We're already becoming entranced by the image of Tone serenading the electorate: "We're caught in a trap/ I can't walk out/ Because I love you too much baby/ Why can't you see/ What you're doing to me/ When you don't believe a word I say? . . . When honey, you know/ I've never lied to you/ Mmm yeah yeah." Just a thought.

Role model

CONGRATULATIONS to Victoria's freshly minted Police Minister Peter Ryan for joining the proud tradition of upholders of the law who get pinged during moments of excessive automotive momentum. Admittedly, Ryan wasn't going that fast - he was proceeding at an almost stately 63km/h when he came to the attention of the wallopery - but it was near Royal Melbourne Hospital, so that's surely worthy of a little recognition.

At home in Rome

YESTERDAY, we expressed hope the NSW government would spend its final weeks of power wisely, or in other words, send a horse to the upper house. Reader Roger Stacey has quietly expressed concern we may not have made ourself clear to all. Just in case, we were of course referring to Roman emperor Caligula, who tried to make his horse Incitatus a senator; whether Caligula did this because he was a master satirist or a world-class lunatic is a matter for debate, but whatever the motive, the goal was an inspired one. Incitatus also starred in another stunt, when Caligula rode him across a temporary floating bridge stretching more than 3km from Baiae to the port of Puteoli, in response to an old prediction that Caligula stood "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae". This was of course what sprang to mind when we saw Premier Kristina Keneally on the new bridge in inner-western Sydney's Iron Cove (which as one Strewth's agents in the field notes admiringly, has "moved the traffic jam 500m up the road"). A stretch? Somehow a Caligula parallel struck us as at least marginally less distasteful than portraying NSW Labor in a certain bunker in Berlin in 1945. Besides, NSW Labor staffers beat us to that particular punch long ago with a bunch of Downfall parodies on YouTube.

So who's Hitler?

STILL with the war, this time in Tasmania, where the industry-conservation negotiations over forestry, which are being overseen by former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty, are known as "the forestry peace talks". The local Libs, however, have helpfully fleshed out the war analogy that crucial bit further with opposition forestry spokesman Peter Gutwein deploying the word "appeasement". Does that cast the Australian Conservation Foundation and Wilderness Society as the Nazis, Kelty as Neville Chamberlain (an image for the ages), and anti-peace talks Liberal leader Will Hodgman as Winston Churchill? We wish them the best of British when the Blitz begins.

Got the message

OUT-of-office email replies vary greatly, but University of South Australia law professor Rick Sarre's is particularly top shelf: "If you are one of the dozen or so people I hear from each week with Nigerian gold bullion, or a proposal for marriage, or my winnings from the British lottery, or if your French mother is dying of some disease and wants to transfer all of her wealth to me to avoid the son of her Moldovan lover and his mafia friends, or if you have secret Russian uranium sales planned, please can you wait to contact me again until after February 5 when I will have my marking done. Then I will be ready again to read about the money/winnings/bullion/love/secret plutonium etc."

The prawn is raw

INEXHAUSTIBLE Strewth correspondent, Kevin Rugg of Beaumaris, Victoria, has ventured to Blighty, only to find himself reading the following on a Foster's can (we won't judge him): "This beer was brewed to thirst-quenching perfection in Europe by the fine fellas and sheilas of Heineken UK Ltd" and "Keep the planet bonzer - recycle this little fella." Asks Rugg, "Is it any wonder the Poms have such a dated Bazza McKenzie view of Australia?" (We feel duty bound to mention that Oz contributor Ross Fitzgerald appeared in The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, so if you pass him in the street, be sure to salute.)

James Jeffrey