Heart stopping

IT was perhaps a case of life attempting partially to imitate art during Opera Australia's premiere of La Boheme in Melbourne on Tuesday night when, as Mimi prepared to draw her last consumptive breath, an audience member had a heart attack.

IT was perhaps a case of life attempting partially to imitate art during Opera Australia's premiere of La Boheme in Melbourne on Tuesday night when, as Mimi prepared to draw her last consumptive breath, an audience member had a heart attack.

At the scene was Live Performance Australia president Andrew Kay, who tells Strewth he did "the male thing": "I panicked and ran and looked for my wife, Robyn." It turned out Robyn, who just happened to have had cardiopulmonary resuscitation training that morning, was holding a torch and counting heartbeats while another patron administered CPR. While it's quite an advertisement for the power of opera, we wish the audience member the speediest of recoveries. And she may want to give the forthcoming production of Verdi's Macbeth a miss.

Just kidding around

IN the wake of Andrew Wilkie's claims of death threats and so forth, another anti-pokies independent, senator Nick Xenophon, was being grilled on 891 ABC Adelaide by Matt Abraham and David Bevan yesterday. Any death threats? "No," Xenophon replied. Incriminating photos? "No. But there's probably a full-length DVD somewhere on the internet, I'm not sure. It was just one goat, but anyway . . ."

Ship hits the sand

DRYING paint's lowly place in the pantheon of spectator sports is being re-evaluated following the live TV fiasco that was the scuttling of the HMAS (emeritus) Adelaide off Avoca Beach on the NSW Central Coast. All seemed to be running to plan when a pod of dolphins materialised in the exclusion zone around the Adelaide. Yes, funsters, they stopped the boat. Cue lots of footage of the Adelaide gently lolling and the dolphins splashing merrily. After what felt like hours, the dolphin delay appeared to be over, and then it wasn't. This may have resulted in some speaking in tongues, as alluded to on-air by ABC News 24 reporter Brigid Glanville: "I won't repeat exactly what I heard, but the dolphins have moved back into the exclusion zone." The Adelaide was sunk eventually, but we did experience deja vu later in the day as we stared through glazed eyes at Greg Combet's address at the National Press Club, wondering how much longer it would be until the dolphins were chased away. Bob Ellis was meanwhile sinking himself on the ABC's Drum website with a piece that managed to invoke The Simpsons and I Love Lucy as he groped his way through the Australian Defence Force Academy sex broadcast to arrive at the thought, ". . . what therefore is the fuss about?" It was more spectacular than the Adelaide. He'll bob up again, of course, and just as well; as our colleague Jack the Insider notes, "I can't see any self-respecting coral attaching themselves to HMAS Bob."

In the vortex

THE Prime Minister's office is continuing its groundbreaking time travel studies. After Tuesday's modest foray into chronological commuting, inviting journos to an event half an hour or so in the past (Strewth, yesterday), Julia Gillard's team amped it up yesterday, announcing "The Prime Minister will visit Japan, the Republic of Korea and China from 20 to 27 March." At this rate, it can't be long until Gillard announces a trip to Canberra on June 24, 2010, so she can manage the, er, transition to power properly.

Hardy spinner

ONE familiar name in new NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell's media unit is Cameron Hamilton. While Hamilton has toiled for BOF in the past, he has taken on trickier projects, such as spinning for James Hardie during what we think of as the Tough Times. Not tough in the way asbestosis is tough (or, as compensation-seekers at one stage knew the word, "Tough!"), but tough nevertheless, as this 2006 item from Jane Fraser's Strewth shows: "Hardie has had six spokespersons in two years. Cameron Hamilton, seconded from Sydney spin doctor firm Third Person a couple of weeks ago, is the new spokesman. Or is he? Hamilton appears hesitant. 'I've been appointed as a contact, as opposed to a spokesman,' he says. So, who is the spokesman? 'It would depend on the situation,' Hamilton says. Third Person heavy Ross Thornton . . . says the actual spokesman might sometimes be Australian operations boss Peter Baker. Baker says he isn't. But Hamilton rang back to admit, without much enthusiasm, that he really is the spokesman, except in situations where somebody else might do the speaking." After that, NSW politics will be a walk in the park.

Pecking back

SA Education Minister Jay Weatherill has for years been stalking Premier Mike Rann. After last year's narrow election win, Weatherill fired his first real salvo, criticising the government's "announce and defend" style of leadership; the term has been used gleefully ever since by media and opposition. In China, Rann so appreciated online newspaper InDaily's criticism yesterday of Weatherill's alternative "consult and decide", he recommended the "interesting article" to his 12,000 Twitter followers.

James Jeffrey