Julia's 50 candles

JULIA Gillard turns 50 today.

JULIA Gillard turns 50 today and the very least we can hope for her is that noted parliamentary warbler Peter Garrett will channel Marilyn Monroe (not a sequence of words that appears often enough) and serenade her with "Happy birthday, Ms Prime Minister".

Alas, it sounds like nothing quite so arresting is on the cards. Word from the Prime Minister's office is she'll be confronting the half-century by working in Melbourne and having dinner with Tim Mathieson, which is bound to be lovely. Also, she'll be taking receipt of a cavoodle-spoodle-thingummy puppy, a beast that apparently will not, despite one early rumour, rejoice in the name of Bill Shorten. Perhaps she'll call it Kevin and have it stuffed. Sorry, that came out wrong. let's try again: Happy birthday, PM!

Punting on Mr Loaf

PRESS release of the day, courtesy of the Australian Football League. We include it only as we get a special tingle whenever singer Meat Loaf is referred to in a formal fashion: "Meat Loaf is the headline musical act at the 2011 Toyota AFL Grand Final. . . . The AFL wishes to advise chief executive officer Andrew Demetriou and Mr Loaf will hold a media conference tomorrow, Thursday, September 29 at the MCG."

Smith's funny bone

FOREIGN Minister Kevin Rudd's lag de jet must be wearing off, for we've been treated to no sequels to his declaration, "I'm a happy little Vegemite being prime minister." Surprisingly, one of the less remarked on elements in the wash-up of that misspoken moment is that Stephen Smith -- yes, he -- cracked a funny. When told that Rudd had immediately corrected himself, an amused Smith replied, "Which bit did he correct, the Vegemite?"

Friendly fire

TONY Abbott may have gleefully hopped into the Rudd slip the other day, but his enthusiasm was considerably fainter yesterday when asked at a press conference how he felt about "Peter Costello's commentary from the sidelines". Replied Abbott, "Look, Peter's a friend, Peter was a colleague for a long, long time. I sat around a cabinet table with Peter Costello for many years. He made a great contribution to our country and he's still making a great contribution to our country. But my argument is with Julia Gillard, not with anyone else, and I'm not saying anything against my friend and colleague." Spoilsport. In the meantime, due to the resulting mental imagery we're yet to decide how we feel about the journo who inquired of Abbott, "Have you kissed and made up with Rob Oakeshott?"

Shoot from the lip

WE know it's become almost de rigueur for Laborites to refer approvingly to a certain, long-serving Liberal prime minister, so it wasn't overly surprising to hear Trade Minister Craig Emerson citing him on 2CC yesterday when addressing the almost-equivalent-to-syphilis popularity of the carbon tax: "Remember John Howard introduced gun control? Now, if he'd just said: 'Let's just check the polls before I make any decision on this,' he probably would have found that it would be -- and he was governed by those polls, not by what he thought he was in the national interest -- there's no way he would have introduced gun control." Righto. Let's check the relevant Newspoll from 1996, shall we? Asked "Do you personally agree or disagree there should be a national gun register?", 92 per cent agreed, as they did with "Do you personally agree or disagree to own a gun a person must be able to prove they have a legitimate reason?" A slightly smaller proportion, 83 per cent, agreed with "Do you personally agree or disagree there should be a total ban in Australia on private civilian ownership of semi-automatic and automatic weapons?" (Not that we should sniff at the size of the "disagree" bloc; that 17 per cent is bigger than Labor's primary approval.) And 80 per cent were in favour of gun control responsibility being transferred to the federal government. Labor must sometimes dream of having to deal with that sort of unpopularity. As for Emmo, he was happy to declare "I read The Australian" on air, so we'll let him off with a caution.

Plat du jour

KEEN to own a silver platter like the one Wayne Swan scored from Euromoney magazine for being finance minister of the year? Thanks to blog Bunyipitude, we now know you can get the very thing (or at least an uncanny facsimile) from Britain's silvertrophy.com for pound stg. 32.50 ($51), though you'll need to chuck in a few extra quid for the smart display stand. As it says on the website, "Whether given as a gift or as a prize to commemorate a great achievement, this award will be treasured for many years to come." Or as Bunyipitude, who possibly isn't an admirer of the government, puts it: "Impress your friends, enhance your mantelpiece, use it to awe the bank manager and extend that overdraft. Who knows when you might feel the need to splash some mad money on ceiling insulation, grace the back yard with a million-dollar shelter shed or write lots of cheques to dead people and strangers at $900 apiece?"