Knee's up

NEWS that Barnaby Joyce had come a cropper on his motorbike while mustering cattle (not a euphemism) filled our head yesterday with terrible visions of him hurtling over the handlebars a la Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.

NEWS that Barnaby Joyce had come a cropper on his motorbike while mustering cattle (not a euphemism) filled our head yesterday with terrible visions of him hurtling over the handlebars a la Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.

It resulted in a rock-pierced kneecap (blech!) which, like the proposed marriage of the Australian Stock Exchange to the Singapore Exchange, was a merger Joyce would rather have done without. The good news is he's on the mend, telling Strewth he's receiving lots of sympathy: "You can tell by the flowers, one bunch left by the previous occupant of the room. The ASX is asking doctors if it is very painful. I'm still waiting for a call of concern from Tony; maybe I am only now informed on a 'kneed' to know basis." So knee notwithstanding, it seems like everything else is well and truly intact.

Looking-glass world

SO where was Tony Abbott during Barnaby's hour of need? Why, he was rolling about in a New England field at the feet of a bemused farmer; we all express grief differently. Besides, he has to do something to get noticed while he's off on his bike. Indeed, the Abbott roll was a worthy addition to this week's visions of Liberal leaders doing odd things, maybe even surpassing NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell's straddling of a stone snail. These spectacles have had a discombulating effect, making our brain fuzzy and susceptible to hallucinations. For example, when we got a press release yesterday from Science Minister Kim Carr about the "world's biggest telescope", we thought it included the line "to enable you to see where Julia Gillard is sending Kevin Rudd next". Not so. Peter Garrett may have been suffering similarly when he cranked out a release adding a year and a half to the life of the Howard government (even more generously bipartisan than anything Rudd did) and made Christopher Pyne opposition education spokesman before he was in opposition. Still, what are a few details?

Hypervowels

SOMEHOW we missed Wednesday night's instalment of ABC1's 7.30 (how sadly naked it looks without Report) but, thanks to our ominously creaking inbox yesterday morning, we were soon up to speed. For those of you who, like Strewth, were busy engaging with other aspects of life, Julia Gillard was on and pronounced "hyperbole" as hyperbowl. Admittedly, it's not ideal, but unlike "negosiate", hyperbowl (just like the Superbowl, only more so!) has yet to fill us with an urge to tear out our eardrums and throw them on the fire. Then again, it could just be a matter of time and, with mercilessly repeated use, we may well end up suffering an attack of hyperbowel. And nobody wants that, PM.

Missive impossible

NOW that Greens leader Bob Brown is having a little break from being kicked from pillar to post by Gillard, he's getting stern with this august organ. Admittedly, he caught us in something of a pincer movement yesterday, telling our colleague Matthew Franklin he doesn't answer our questions because The Oz doesn't figure in his party's priorities. Then, in almost the same breath, "Anytime, anyplace, anywhere. I'm very happy to take you on." To celebrate this moment of tactical genius, a little flashback to Strewth last October: "You know it's going to be a good day when your desk is graced with a missive from Bob Brown's office. So it was yesterday, when an envelope arrived from the Greens leader, containing a small note declaring: 'Sent to our office in error.' This was in turn attached to a North Korean postcard, and it is a beauty: a lantern-jawed soldier of the Democratic People's Republic with a machinegun and a thrusting array of missiles, presumably pointed at Seoul, all laid out before a fetching backdrop of revolutionary scarlet. It's addressed to this newspaper, complete with a North Korean stamp and Pyongyang postmark, and conveys the following message: 'Leave Bob Brown alone. Or else we will cancel our subscription.' " Incidentally, we still have the postcard and touch it now and then for good luck; we're fairly sure it wasn't sent by Lee Rhiannon.

Swede kills

DESPITE Volvo, Ikea and the world's plague of Abba cover bands, we've been conditioned to think of Sweden, like the Greens, as essentially nice, so we're a little jarred after our encounter with The Local ("Sweden's news in English"). The first story we read was, "Swedish flamingoes massacred in frenzied anteater attack". In related coverage, we were presented with " 'Missing snake' note rattles Malmo"; "Swedish infant scarred in violent ferret attack"; and "Man facing prison for catching 13,000 birds". Over to the right, under "Today's Most Commented", lingered more headlines: "Swedish church: don't christen asylum-seekers", "Swede extradited over 'Muhammad cartoon plot' "; "Murder pics posted on Sweden Democrat blog", and "Most young Swedes don't use condoms: study" (no Julian Assange commentary please). All in all, it came as a relief to find a story up the top headlined "The Swedish people are so nice", or at least until we realised it was an ad.

James Jeffrey