Cup half full

AFTER years of standing at the crucial hour before a TV with a plastic beaker of tepid bubbles, or crammed into the Hieronymus Bosch tableau of a nearby drinking establishment, Strewth decided yesterday to tackle the big question: Does the Melbourne Cup really stop the nation?

AFTER years of standing at the crucial hour before a TV with a plastic beaker of tepid bubbles, or crammed into the Hieronymus Bosch tableau of a nearby drinking establishment, Strewth decided yesterday to tackle the big question: Does the Melbourne Cup really stop the nation?

Following painstaking research (by which we mean walking a few blocks at 3pm), we can reveal the shocking truth: it does not. Against all expectations, we did not stroll the city streets like Charlton Heston in The Omega Man, but instead found Sydney's CBD awash with humanity: people, buses, cars and one fire engine, none of them brought to a halt. Even the trains seemed to be running like clockwork (though in Sydney, that is a little out of the ordinary). We asked a beggar if he thought it was un-Australian to be ignoring the Race That Doesn't Quite Stop The Nation. "Don't be an idiot," he murmured. Which struck us as sound advice.

Lacking horse sense

SUCH small details are unlikely to derail Strewth's patron saint Bob Katter, who outed himself as a true believer in the most hallowed of ways: he has called for Cup day to be made a public holiday. Declared His Bobness: "Let's face it. The Melbourne Cup is not just about Melbourne. It's about Australia." If it had been a holiday yesterday, it might at least have protected Jeremy Kriewaldt at Sydney law firm Atanaskovic Hartnell from his own mouth. When two female guests were bidding on a horse to back during the firm's Melbourne Cup lunch, Kriewaldt opted - in front of boss (and former Australian Securities Commission chairman) Tony Hartnell and a host of top silks - to bellow: "It's the battle of the bottle blondes." A brave effort, but apparently not one met with universal acclaim from the crowd. Still, Sydney audiences are tough; ask any stand-up comedian.

Awash with irony

FOLLOWING Tony Abbott's reminiscences about his Half Ironman pre-election appearances in Port Macquarie and his quip about the one person in the northern NSW town who didn't share the crowd's pro-Tony sentiment (Strewth, yesterday), that one person has come good on Twitter. Take it away, Rob Oakeshott: "Well done to all who helped and participated in the PMQ Half Ironman on Sunday. And yes, that includes No 31 Tony Abbott. Well done to all!" Meanwhile, Strewth reader Bev Baker assures us that, going by some of the sentiments being shouted by the crowd that day as Abbott waded into the ocean, the Iron Monk may have been underestimating matters when he declared last weekend "there was one person in Port Macquarie who didn't share the spectators' feelings". So, perhaps two?

Dream team

A CALIFORNIAN of our acquaintance recently received her guide to casting an absentee vote in this week's US congressional elections. Rather sweetly, the candidates given on the example ballot are Eleanor Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington, Diego Rivera, Arthur Miller, Shirley Horn and Bruce Lee.

Thumb's up

IN Foreign Etiquette Corner, Julia Gillard's been a bit busy with the old index finger in Malaysia, pointing out this and that in the presence of her hosts. Troubled by the niggling thought this falls squarely into the Just Isn't Done category (like pointing the soles of your feet at someone in Arabic societies, or gargling tea in front of the Queen), we consulted our colleague and Malaysian affairs adviser Greg Sheridan. "It is the height of bad manners to point in Malaysia," Sheridan tells us. "It's astonishing, really, that Gillard was not briefed on this. The correct form is to use your thumb, by rolling your fingers into a fist and indicating a direction with the thumb." This has been a free Strewth service.

Weighing in

KEVIN Rudd's tweet about how "Everything here happens on a massive scale", reproduced here yesterday with a thoughtful lack of context, prompted guesses from Strewth readers that ranged far and wide. There was Graham Thomas ("He was touring the North Korean collective that makes the prime ministerial trouser suits") and Chris Oates ("Possibly a reference to the heavy vehicle inspection centre at Marulan, NSW"). Rudd's near namesake Kevin Rugg thought he might have been "a guest at a soiree with septuagenarian superman Silvio Berlusconi", while Dave Burton leaned more towards the Gulliveresque: "Our Foreign Minister is obviously visiting the king of Brobdingnag." Michael Kellock raked over old and hazily remembered coals: "Is it possible that he has again taken to frequenting gentlemen's clubs and is referring to surgically enhanced ecdysiasts?" Judi Cox was slightly more barbed: "Would the massive scale perhaps be the instrument that weighs Mr Rudd's 'third way with China' , kowtowing on one side and conflict on the other?" Rudd was in fact tweeting from Shanghai after the World Expo had drawn to an end. We think Peter Gibson got closest to this with his guess that Rudd was tweeting from "a dodgy Chinese citrus orchard". Not close, but closest.