Just married ... or not

THE disintegration of Greg Norman and Chris Evert's marriage has prompted a number of spectacles, not least the previous Mrs Norman - Laura Andrassy - bursting out of the blocks to say "Mwahahahaha!", or something along those lines.

THE disintegration of Greg Norman and Chris Evert's marriage has prompted a number of spectacles, not least the previous Mrs Norman - Laura Andrassy - bursting out of the blocks to say "Mwahahahaha!", or something along those lines.

Apart from that, much of the reaction has been to reflect on the almost mayfly-brief lifespan of the marriage. But while 15 months of conjugal felicity doesn't sound like much, it's an aeon compared with some celeb marriages. For example, Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman managed just 32 days before they called it quits, an epic marriage compared with the concise nine days managed by Cher and muso Gregg Allman. But at least those couplings could be measured in days. Rudolph Valentino and Jean Acker parted six hours after tying the knot and, going by some reports, Britney Spears and Jason Allen Alexander reached for annulment even faster.

He who rings Pell's bell

WE can rest assured that no cat has ever come close to getting the tongue of Christopher Hitchens. The writer, occasional waterboarding enthusiast and Bible basher-basher regaled the audience at Sydney's Festival of Dangerous Ideas for 40 minutes on the topic Religion Poisons Everything - but he was merely warming up. In the interview that followed, host Tony Jones had trouble getting a question out without being interrupted. But the highlight was probably Hitch's rendition, in the packed Concert Hall of the Opera House, of Monty Python's Philosophers Song ("Rene Descartes was a drunken fart, I drink therefore I am", and so on). Afterwards, Opera House chief executive Richard Evans thanked Hitchens, then said he was sure Cardinal George Pell would provide a "neat counterpoint" the following day with his talk, Without God We Are Nothing. "I very much doubt it," Hitchens responded from the crowd. Evans said Pell had wished to be present for Hitchens's talk but was hosting pre-Sleaze Ball drinks.

And another thing

ALSO at the Hitchens talk, the Apropos of Nothing award of the night - if such a thing existed - would probably go to The Sydney Morning Herald's deputy editor Amanda Wilson, who used the occasion to praise her paper's coverage of the murder of developer Michael McGurk. Images of Pell and the Sleaze Ball notwithstanding, it was what the young and hip might refer to as the evening's Whisky Tango Foxtrot moment.

The sun always shines

WHILE watching ABC1's Insiders yesterday, it was nice to see the good folks at Aunty fiddling with the weather. As Melbourne-based host Barrie Cassidy interviewed Malcolm Turnbull about his climate change ultimatum, Turnbull was given a backdrop of a sun-gilt Sydney Harbour. In Sydney itself, as Mal talked, the rain continued to descend in sufficient quantities to send some of the more jittery locals out in search of sufficient cubits of gopher wood.

This means animosity

SPEAKING of the federal Opposition Leader, Strewth is thankful to The Sunday Telegraph for this teaser for a column by our very own Peter van Onselen: "I was staggered by the level of anonymity towards Turnbull." Perhaps it was just a play on Robert Menzies' phrase about faceless men.

We're all over utes

THIS Strewth columnist returned to Sydney at the weekend and became vaguely aware that a large rugby league event was about to happen. (Somewhat symmetrically, we turned up in Melbourne the weekend before, blissfully unaware that the AFL grand final was set to begin. Many thanks to the Melbourne natives who kept the scorn out of their voices when we asked which teams were playing.) And no, we're not proud of our ignorance. Well, not especially. But Strewth was most definitely aware of the Deniliquin Ute Muster in southern NSW, where a new world record has been set for the largest number of people in one place wearing blue shearer's singlets. Pleasingly, the first of the 2230 people through the gates for the ultimately successful record attempt was a South Australian truckie by the name of Clint Eastwood.