Family gems

BOB Katter's overdue ascent to the pinnacle of power makes us tingle with excitement, not least after his magnificent return to Canberra yesterday.

BOB Katter's overdue ascent to the pinnacle of power makes us tingle with excitement, not least after his magnificent return to Canberra yesterday.

Strewth reader John Arlidge has meanwhile been having flashbacks to when he was a young ABC reporter during the long reign of a former member for Kennedy, Bob Katter Sr: "I interviewed [Katter the elder] once in a hotel room in Rockhampton. He was freshly showered and naked, sitting on the foot of the bed with a towel covering his privates, bemoaning the fate of the sugar industry at the hands of the Whitlam government. It was long, rambling and well before anyone had the temerity to remove the industry's generous tariff protection. I got back to the office and berated everyone: 'An hour and a half with a naked madman and I have no idea what he was talking about. It certainly wasn't news.' 'That,' retorted the amused senior journalist, 'is why we sent you.' " So it seemed somehow symmetrical yesterday when Katter Jr arrived in the south in a shower of indignation and proceeded to put the boot into journos.

Fleetwood 'myth'

FOLLOWING this paper's mention yesterday that NSW Green and federal Senate hopeful Lee Rhiannon had taken her name from a Fleetwood Mac song, ABC radio host Adam Spencer asked listeners what songs they'd change their names to. The calls came thick and fast. Example: I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That); these things always draw out the Meat Loaf fans. And then Spencer's team rang Rhiannon, who dismissed it as an urban myth created by our very own NSW political correspondent Imre Salusinszky. Salusinszky was surprised, explaining to Strewth that the FM connection was "what she told me for a profile I did last year. I wrote it twice; she never raised an objection." Rhiannon, on the other hand, tells Strewth the quote in the original profile exonerates her. Here it is, from June last year: "So how come she now bears as her surname the name of a Celtic queen-goddess -- or, in some versions, witch -- who was the subject of a Fleetwood Mac song? 'When I turned 30, I took the same name as my children, but when I turned 40 I thought it was a good time to change my name. I put the word out among friends that I was looking for a name and that was the one at the top of the list. At the time it didn't grab me, but it grew on me. I do enjoy the music [of Fleetwood Mac]. It certainly had nothing to do with the meaning of the word; it's just the sound." Should've gone with Spinal Tap.

From both sides now

WHO said this? In the blue

corner we have statement No. 1: "I say to federal Labor and some of those who think that the way through these difficult issues is to point the finger and blame others -- we all need to hear the message." And in the red corner, finger-pointing statement No. 2: "I don't intend to let the NSW disease that sees leadership as a revolving door undermine a democratic mandate in Queensland. It hasn't worked in NSW and it failed miserably federally." If you guessed that both issued from one pair of lips, give yourself a pat on the back. And if you answered Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, throw a nice cup of tea into the bargain.

Red taint for Greens

LIKE the earthworms stirred into action when one goes digging in the garden, the present electoral upheaval has the Wikipedia vandals on the move through the rich humus of democracy. One in particular, Del Dodgy (possibly not their real name, but let's not rule out anything), has been particularly industrious, liberally larding entries for the Greens with words such as "extreme left" and "Karl Marx", and tweaking quotes such as "neither left nor right but forward" to read "as far left as it is possible to go in the Australian political landscape". For good measure, Dodgy also attended to the entry for the member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, reversing the latter's support for same-sex marriage. The changes were pounced on even faster than when Larry Emdur's entry was so sadly and scatologically vandalised last year.

Missing link

WHILE many of us have been preoccupied with the aftermath of the ballot axe, another significant event is under way this week: the first anniversary of the appearance in Strewth of Alastair and Dorothy Marshall. After Strewth made mention of then new Telstra chief executive David Thodey and his iron-willed vow to make customer satisfaction Telstra's top priority, many customers called for smelling salts. Not the Marshalls. As Alastair told us at the time: "I emailed Thodey direct on August 15, seeking that he now personally resolve our compensation payment for Telstra's two-year delay in putting our Inet on here at Hall, 18km from the centre of the national capital." After our initial mention, something beautiful happened: Thodey took the case into his own hands. There were long chats, promises of things to come. So, 12 months on, what better way to celebrate than to tell you everything got sorted? Perhaps the truth: bugger-all has happened. Still, given the Marshalls' hassles with Telstra go back to 1999, it's starting to take on the venerable patina of tradition.

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