Energised Julia just like the iconic toy rabbit

AS always, it's good to hear Julia Gillard insist she feels "energised and determined" over the climate-carbon deluge.

AS always, it's good to hear Julia Gillard insist she feels "energised and determined" - a nice change, too, from her assertion that she is "passionate" about something - over the climate-carbon deluge that threatens to swamp the country on Sunday.

An energised Gillard sounds a bit like an advertisement for a certain brand of battery that keeps the toy rabbit walking long after all others have dropped out of the race. And a determined Gillard is the kind of gal who would want to keep her gift from Barack Obama, presented to her during her first visit to Washington this year, and is willing to cough up the $930 so she can continue to admire it in retirement in Altona when her political career runs out of energy. While Obama gave her a "custom Oval Office rug platter with personalised inscription", Gillard gave him an iPod pre-loaded with Australian music -- just what the leader of the free world needs. Gillard was also given an engraved silver water jug by US House of Representatives speaker John Boehner, valued at a modest $300. Glancing further through Gillard's pecuniary items list, we note that she is the No 1 female ticket holder for the Western Bulldogs AFL club and the Melbourne Storm NRL club. At least the Storm has a chance at winning the premiership.

Hello Ms PM

THE Sydney Morning Herald's news conference got a surprise yesterday when a familiar voice interrupted its afternoon news conference hook-up with hard-working Canberra political correspondent Phil Coorey. After a hectic final question time before the winter break, Coorey had sat down on a black leather chair near the PM's suite. As he was speaking a hand reached down, took the phone and the voice behind the hand spoke to the news conference in Sydney. It was Julia Gillard from the thrashing floor of parliament. Coorey is hoping it's seen as a good thing that he can get the PM on the line to the SMH conference and that he gets brownie points for it rather than it being seen as a conspiracy. Perhaps Gillard would like to suggest a few headlines?

Hot air

IT'S refreshingly bracing (if that's not a tautology) to wake up to a good barney on the airwaves as happened in Sydney yesterday when ABC Radio early morning presenter Adam Spencer was told to shut up and stop being childish by British climate change sceptic Christopher Monckton, who also likes to be known as The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. Spencer, a brainy type who can do long division in his head, wanted to know why Monckton had claimed he was a Nobel Laureate. It was all downhill from there as Spencer challenged Monckton's right to be heard on scientific matters. Strewth thinks the Pom won on points because Spencer was impolite to a peer and a guest on his show. But it was great fun.

A man of titles

FOR those unfamiliar with Monckton, we can reveal he is the son of the second Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and Marianna Letitia. He went to Cambridge University where he studied classics. He worked as a journalist and collected quaint titles. For example, he is a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Broderers, an officer of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and a knight of honour of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Just don't call him Mr Monckton. He is also a former shirt salesman. Apart from his energetic climate scepticism, he is famous for a mathematical puzzle which made him quite rich. So, Spencer should show more forbearance.

Undercover blunder

WEST Australian Premier Colin Barnett thinks the state's centralised services agency should be axed because it is "one of the great bungles" in the history of WA administration. This dysfunctional outfit is the Office of Shared Services, or OSS, which as any student of clandestine matters knows, is the same acronym as the Office of Strategic Services set up by the US in World War II as an intelligence agency. It later morphed into the CIA to carry out spy missions overseas. But don't mention the bungles.

Royal castaways

THE latest on Wills and Kate (aka the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge) is that they recently spent three hours together on an uninhabited island in Canada. They watched what is billed as one of the slowest sunsets in the world (insert cheap Canadian joke here) and enjoyed a barbecue. Naturally, we assumed that William would have been wielding the tongs but, no, they weren't entirely alone: a chef accompanied them. That is probably understandable because not every British second-in-line to the Australian throne knows how to cook caribou steaks. They also had bannock bread (wheat flour, baking powder and water with spices and dried fruits and cooked in fat) and cranberries.

Jiang who?

CHINA is censoring its social media preventing any mention of former president Jiang Zemin, 84, who is rumoured to be ill. Specifically censored are "Jiang Zemin", "myocardial infarction" and "general secretary".