He lives to write again

PROFESSIONAL dandy and MasterChef critic Matt Preston must have a strong stomach.

PROFESSIONAL dandy and MasterChef critic Matt Preston must have a strong stomach.

Eating at the world's best restaurants might be considered a bit of a pushover by most of us, but Preston ate at The Fat Duck in England, and survived. After 529 diners at the world's second-best restaurant (as judged by Restaurant magazine) suffered from vomiting and diarrhoea earlier this year, Fat Duck chef Heston Blumenthal wrote an apology and invited them back for a free feed. In Fairfax Media's Good Weekend magazine on Saturday, Preston made Strewth a bit queasy with his descriptions of the tucker on offer at this joint, but he says he would like to have his birthday there every year. Bacon-and-egg ice-cream? No? How about some nice ox tongue and pork fat with pickled cucumber? Not today? Norovirus, probably from contaminated shellfish, was to blame for the upset stomachs; the lime and green-tea meringues poached in liquid nitrogen were cleared. Blumenthal says he was originally advised by lawyers and insurers not to apologise.

Ruddy the younger

WHEN Kevin Rudd visited Papua New Guinea in March last year, a boy was born at Goroka hospital in the Eastern Highland Province. He arrived five minutes after the Prime Minister's visit and his parents, Esau and Lina Kitgi, promptly named the child Kevin Rudd Junior. Whether this will be a blessing as the boy grows up is one of the great unknowns, but Ilya Gridneff reports from Port Moresby that although Junior can say "mum" and "dad", he is struggling with "programmatic specificity". Looks like a career in the Labor Party is out of the question. But Junior has become a modest tourist attraction as Australians make the pilgrimage to his remote village. Moresby-based Matt Carr took his parents, Elizabeth and John, from Toowoomba, Queensland, to see Rudd Junior. "He looked like an Eastern Highlands Jesus - naked with local finery."

Red carpet readings

MUCH can be read into body language, as The New York Times's Helene Cooper demonstrates in her red carpet report on Barack and Michelle Obama greeting guests to the G20 dinner in Pittsburgh. British PM Gordon Brown and wife Sarah got "hugs, kisses, more hugs, more kisses, hand holding, you name it". UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon got "cordiality", Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi was given "familiarity". Carla Bruni Sarkozy and husband French President Nicholas were treated to "a lot of touching" ... "Obama kisses her four times". Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein got "familiarity and warmth". Obama says: "Kevin, you finally brought your better half."

Translator cracks up

AS eccentric Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi neared the end of his rambling, sometimes incoherent 96-minute speech at the UN last week, his translator broke down, shouting, "I just can't take it any more", The New York Post has revealed. The Libyan translator matched Gaddafi word for word for 90 minutes before collapsing from exhaustion. Gaddafi spoke six times longer than the 15-minute limit, but he did not come close to Fidel Castro's 1960 record of 4 1/2 hours. The translator was bailed out by the UN's Arabic section chief, Rasha Ajalyqeen, who seemed to be laughing at Gaddafi's language.

The Key to publicity

NEW Zealand Prime Minister John Key is trying to emulate, if not out-manoeuvre, his buddy Kevin from Queensland. Key got himself on David Letterman's chat show where he probably got more publicity for his country than all previous New Zealand PMs put together. "Tourism New Zealand looked at advertising on Letterman and the reason we didn't do that was because a 30-second slot was in the millions of dollars. We got probably five minutes of him (Letterman) talking about New Zealand beforehand, five minutes afterwards." His appearance generated 113,000 hits on YouTube. The Rudd government has put up $20million to find a new Australian brand that it hopes will attract hordes of cashed-up tourists. Perhaps Australia should hire Key as a consultant. At the UN, Key launched New Zealand's bid for a seat on the Security Council, an ambition of the Rudd government.