Having a ball

WHEN people say a picture's worth a thousand words, it's clearly a figure plucked out of the air, as round as it is random.

WHEN people say a picture's worth a thousand words, it's clearly a figure plucked out of the air, as round as it is random. Some pictures barely warrant a dozen. Some, such as yesterday's wonderfully off-message photo posted on the internet by Malcolm Turnbull of himself with an accordionist, leave you at a loss for words - in the best possible way. Then there are those that do measure up to the 1000-word standard, such as last week's portrait in NSW's Central Coast Express Advocate of deselected Labor MP Belinda Neal in her kitchen with a huge knife, with which she was making short work of a pile of raw meat. Then there are those worth thousands upon thousands of words, such as this one of Tony Abbott and his immigration spokesman Scott Morrison, who, thanks to some visual sleight of hand, appear to be demonstrating some type of private Liberal Party polling yesterday. All in all, it has the air of a medical lecture at university, with Abbott wearing the slightly embarrassed expression of a "volunteer" dragged on stage, and Morrison looking his most professorial as he addresses his students: "Now observe carefully what happens when Tony coughs." Still, as Ray Strange, The Australian's photographer who took the shot, explains, it was all a matter of angles. And no, he adds, Abbott didn't cough.

 Islam dunk

ONE way to take a candidate out of an election is to let them go on Facebook and get a few things off their chest about Muslims, an act of political self-immolation all the more exciting when the offender goes out protesting that they have nothing against Muslims per se, it's just that "as far as I'm concerned every Muslim in parliament is a step towards a Muslim parliament". So, well done David "Voice of God" Barker, who is no longer the Liberal candidate for Chifley. Another, altogether subtler method, as Rob Oakeshott is discovering, is to call them up for jury duty in the middle of a campaign. The independent MP, who is recontesting the NSW mid-north coast seat of Lyne, has been told to turn up to do his civic duty on August 9, nearly two weeks before the poll. A spokesman for Oakeshott tells us a big item on today's to-do list will be "sending the sheriff a request for an exemption 'under the circumstances' ".

Kitchen cabinet

ALL roads lead to MasterChef, even for Sustainable Population, Agriculture and other stuff Minister Tony Burke, who was on 3AW yesterday, sharing his pain: "I have agreed on Sky News to go on their coverage after the debate. But when I agreed to do it, it was when I thought the thing was going to clash with MasterChef anyway, so I was going to miss out. Now, I think I've really done myself in. I'm not sure there'll be anyone watching me, either."

Harsh critics

JOURNALISTS sometimes cop hostile correspondence that can quite put one off one's morning tea. But for a sense of perspective, we turn to Shelley Gare, the journalist who (along with The Australian's Peter Wilson and David Nason) revealed that Sierra Leone's child soldier turned celebrated, mega-selling memoirist Ishmael Beah was, well, not exactly a stranger to fiction. Now someone in Sierra Leone has heard, erroneously, that Gare is on her way to Sierra Leone for a follow up, so has got in touch via Facebook. "Hello Mrs Shelle nasty ass, we are warnin u bastard bitch 2 get d helll away from ishmael beah," starts one missive, followed by another that begins on a slightly more enigmatic note: "You are a real cheap ass slot." Ass slot? But seriously, some of the activities Gare's correspondent says he has planned for her nearly made our hair lose its curl. Gare isn't planning to go to Sierra Leone, but if she shows any signs of changing her mind, we're confiscating her passport.

Stumped

FOLLOWING our reflections about how Julia Gillard's proposed citizens' assembly (garggghhh! make it stop!) sounds like a rip-off of the 2020 Summit, Queensland reader Dick Garner offers this observation: "What is the difference between the 2020 Summit and Twenty20 cricket? The cricket produces a result." Imagine the Twenty20 cricket with Cate Blanchett in it.

Divine intervention

JUST after we were mildly amused by Andrew Robb's assertion he was planning to watch last night's debate in a worm-free format, largely on the grounds that the worm "comes from Mark Arbib's compost heap", we turned to the debate itself, filled with a sense of diminished expectation. But at the very moment Julia Gillard's mouth opened to launch the first of her "moving forward" armada, there was an almighty crash of thunder and for a few blissful seconds, the sound went on our TV. We offer no interpretation.