Katter patter

OF all the federal independents, Bob Katter has always been Strewth's favourite.

OF all the federal independents, Bob Katter has always been Strewth's favourite. It's not his magnificent hat nor the antique blunderbuss he has on his living room wall. It's not his attention-seeking nor even his politics. It is his sheer in-your-face demeanour. It's not always a pretty sight but when he's got his gander up there are few more engaging sights in Australian life. And now he's got his own political party, the gorgeously named Katter's Australian Party, an organisation that will stand up for your right to boil a billy on a campfire, to catch a fish for dinner and to banish big-brother policies that prevent the construction of tree houses. As for his more serious policies, the idea of restricting Woolies and Coles to a 22.5 per cent market share will get a round of applause from Cooma to Geraldton. Katter says party members will be able to speak out on issues such as daylight saving, but not on the core policy of breaking the supermarket duopoly. "If they don't vote against Coles or Woolies, they will get their bloody toes cut off with a rusty razor blade," Katter warns.

Palin puzzle

IN the US, Sarah Palin is not starting a new political party, but she has started an elaborate guessing game: is she running for president or is she promoting her next book or television show? Her motorbike stunt -- she's your archetypal biker chick, according to our advisers -- and her bus tour that keeps the media guessing has revealed many a non-story. For instance, she avoided a twister. Actually her bus passed a section of road that had previously been hit by a tornado. She wore a pair of shorts, leading The Huffington Post to ask: "Michelle Obama versus Sarah Palin -- whose shorts are more scandalous?" There has been detailed reporting on her admittedly complicated family life and Strewth can reveal she's not getting divorced. And apparently Barack Obama doesn't think about Palin. We know that because he told TV journalist Barbara Walters.

On her bike

SYDNEY Lord Mayor Clover Moore may not be particularly well known in Katter country, or indeed anywhere else outside the inner confines of the harbour city. But in Surry Hills, she's on the nose for digging up perfectly good parking spots to install bicycle lanes that cyclists never seem to use. The Sunday Telegraph -- not a paper that plays bruise-free politics -- yesterday splashed on its front page "It's time to go . . . Clover" and noted that Moore had been absent from parliament (she's also an inner-city MP) on a bike-lane study tour of Brazil and New York. Moreover, she can't do two jobs at once, the paper quoted other mayors saying. Moore's response shows windbaggery is still an option for pollies under pressure."My role enables me to be more effective -- advocating for the Sydney community, championing their causes and often getting outcomes, while at the city we are implementing our long-term plan, Sustainable Sydney 2030, building beautifully designed and sustainable community facilities, creating wonderful parks, providing innovative services and magic events." No mention of bike lanes.

Writer's block

A LOVELY literary stink has erupted in England where novelist V. S. Naipaul, 78, has laid claim to the title of the World's Crankiest Old Man of Letters. The Trinidad-born Naipaul reckons female writers are doomed to inferiority by their sentimental attitudes. Moreover, his former publisher Diana Athill is a writer of "feminine tosh". The press jumped in, calling Naipaul delusional, narcissistic and arrogant. It has been open season on the novelist. The travel writer Paul Theroux (with whom Naipaul recently patched up a 15-year quarrel) once said of VS, among his kinder comments: "I wanted to write about his cruelty to his wife, his crazed domination of his mistress that lasted almost 25 years, his screaming fits, his depressions, his absurd contention that he was the greatest writer in the English language." Robert Harris, among many others, has jumped in, accusing Naipaul of being toxic and a fascist.

Man of the world

GLOBE-TROTTING Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is setting new standards in ways to stay out of the country. He is off to the Asia-Europe Meeting in Hungary -- he is the first Australian foreign minister to take part in this important forum -- and then he's high-tailing it to the UN High Level (is there a Low Level?) Meeting on HIV/AIDS in New York where he is co-chairman, no less. A couple of beers with New York Post editor Col Allan might be on the agenda. After all that, Rudd wings it to London where he will attend the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations conference. Sydney's The Daily Telegraph recently calculated that Rudd's air miles added up to the equivalent of a flight to the moon. Now he's racking them up for the return journey.

Winning ways

MALCOLM Turnbull has tweeted: "Mae West once asked W. C. Fields if poker was a game of chance, to which he replied, 'not the way I play it'." Is Turnbull playing his cards close to his chest, or what?