Number crunch

ONE of Julia Gillard's duties in Launceston yesterday was to attend the opening of a new stand at Aurora Stadium.

ONE of Julia Gillard's duties in Launceston yesterday was to attend the opening of a new stand at Aurora Stadium, though there seemed to be a little fuzziness about how much dough the federal government had pumped into it.

The PM was initially welcomed to the podium with a reference to a $5.5 million contribution. Gillard corrected it to $4.7m during her speech before Geoff Lyons, the local member, put the sum at $4.2m. If only they could have found a few more speakers, it could have ended up being a very cheap day for the feds indeed.

Behind that smile

THERE were other subjects to tackle [weak pun licence #453, single-use only] at Aurora Stadium before Hawthorn and North Melbourne hit the field, not least Jeff Kennett, who was in Tasmania for the last time as Hawthorn president. Gillard, inevitably, said lovely things about Kennett ("Certainly not about his days as premier of Victoria but in my view, he has improved a lot since then"). Even more inevitably, the PM said something about being a Bulldogs supporter, which Strewth cannot even pretend to understand. [Correct - Ed.] What didn't seem so inevitable was Gillard's alluding to the possibility that a certain former Labor leader might, for all his bonhomie, be a figure of fear: "I can't stay for the match today, which is possibly just as well as I wouldn't have known who to barrack for in these circumstances. Jeff [is] persuasive and some would say loud, and on the other hand I have cabinet tomorrow with Simon Crean, who is possibly the maddest Shinboner [a North Melbourne supporter, as we were illuminated yesterday] ever born, so I couldn't very well go for Hawthorn and then turn up at a government or cabinet meeting, so I am barracking for a draw." She now risks a call from Paul Keating, who doesn't have much truck with this sort of fence-sitting.

Semicolonists

FOLLOWING Imre Salusinszky's cri de coeur in The Weekend Australian against the fading of the semicolon (which, for those of you wondering, does not mean half-arsed), none other than Tim Fischer has taken up the torch. Speaking on Saturday at the Byron Bay Writers' Festival, our ambassador to the Holy See and former deputy PM said he not only joined the semicolon campaign last year in Rome, he used them in his new book, Trains Unlimited. Here is his breakdown: "Page 9 (dubious usage) page 55 (splendid) page 73 (two semis) and more." Fischer said he was prepared to stake a prize at a future BBWF for the best entry completing the following: "[insert words here] Byron Bay; Writers Festival [insert more words here]" As he told Strewth yesterday entrants could use as many words as they liked as long as they made the semicolon in the middle "splendid and correct".

Niche bestseller

IN its coverage of that dreadful collar bomb business, The Sunday Telegraph yesterday referred to James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan, which played a cameo in the saga, as an "obscure book". Which would presumably make the movie version starring Bryan Brown and Joan Chen a little-known arthouse gem. If only that were the case.

Kevin 87?

TRADE Minister Craig Emerson gave a speech on the weekend at the Sheraton in Changsha, Hunan Province, noting that "by 2020, China will have no fewer than 93 cities each with a population greater than Australia's most populous city of Sydney. On this mission, we will have visited six of them, so there's only 87 to go!" We'd say the odds of the PM this week announcing an exciting new Chinese gig for her Mandarin-speaking predecessor are roughly three to one.

Had him in stitches

WHILE Kevin Rudd recuperates from his ticker surgery, Therese Rein has been on Twitter: "DVD patrol. So far, we're halfway through Modern Family 2. Great recommendation. K would say 'side-splitting', but that sounds dangerous."

Bottoms, barrels

TIRED of the same old politics? Sample this from The Moscow News: "Young ladies have been taking their clothes off for beer and their president. Inviting passers by to pour their booze into a barrel they promised to strip down if the liquid reached a certain level." The paper noted that this particular thread from democracy's rich tapestry was a show of support for Russian President Dmitry Medvedevand his recent anti-alcohol legislation. The story continues: "Some enthusiasts for temperance and partial nudity did take up the offer but most preferred to keep their beer and watch the show anyway. Those who sacrificed their beer or any other alcoholic drinks had to be quick if they wanted to get a glimpse of the women's bikinis, and the agitation among journalists was more visible than among anyone else. Particularly as they blocked the view to anyone else." If Malcolm Turnbull could see his way to arranging events along such lines, some of his critics might stop asking him to join the ALP.