Off with his head!

EMERITUS chat show king Michael Parkinson's fondness for Australia is no secret, but as he said in his Australia Day speech at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music last night, it could have been more official.

Had his cricket tragic father got his wish, Parky would have had Melbourne as his middle name in honour of the scene of England's then latest trouncing of Australia in the cricket. A bit of an eyebrow-raiser, but not as much as his revelation about when his fondness metamorphosed into something bigger: "I think I truly fell in love with Australia when years later I watched the then prime minister, Paul Keating, put his arm around the Queen. Those who believed it was a terrible lapse of protocol, that Mr Keating should be sent to the Tower and tried for treason, missed the point. Mr Keating wasn't being disloyal, he was merely reaching out in a friendly gesture, one human being to another."

All this but no Rann

SOUTH Australian Premier Mike Rann gets to have the last laugh over this week's SA4QLD gala fundraiser and pantomime. Despite a SA4QLD press release promising Rann would be starring in the show this Friday (hopefully appearing as a fairytale character and raising dough for Queensland's flood victims in the process), it is as Rann said: not to be. There is no question. The SA4QLD committee has admitted never receiving confirmation Rann would be taking part. And while we're here, PR firm Foster Hill was not, despite our claim to the contrary, involved with the press release. All in all, more cock-up action than a flock of roosters in a space shuttle. In the meantime, SA4QLD has so far pulled in $40,000 before the event and confirms the panto will feature Adelaide Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood, Opposition Leader Isobel Redmond, member for Adelaide Rachel Sanderson and federal Employment Participation Minister Kate Ellis. Meanwhile, Premier, as you have the last laugh, can you not feel the sorrow around you? The dream is alight in our hearts, not least Julia Gillard's; it's not too late.

Light on Lycra

THE dream-crushing industry is in full swing and even Kevin Rudd is getting in on the act. "With thousands of riders in Brisbane raising funds for flood relief," he tweeted promisingly about yesterday's Ride for Relief. "Great to see such a turnout." So far so good. But then the bitter disappointment: "No Lycra for me, which I think is a very good thing for Australia's international diplomacy." Not even Rann would have denied us Lycra.

You can pray on it

THERE'S no rest for Catch the Fire Ministries, who are preparing for Australia Day and "a colourful gathering of around 1000 Christians from different denominations and cultures" at Springvale Town Hall, Melbourne. The aim is to pray for the post-flood rebuilding efforts. As Catch the Fire Ministries president Daniel Nalliah explains, "We should all play our part in helping to overhaul the damaged places in our nation. All of us can do something." Which makes a welcome change of pace from the other week when Nalliah pondered (with the aid of a direct quote from our heavenly father) the possibility the floods might be a case of God opening a can of whoop-ass after Nambour-born Kevin Rudd criticised Israel.

Don't shoot the . . .

AFTER Tasmanian premier David Bartlett Facebooked his way out of the job on Sunday, he did the more analog thing and held a press conference in his backyard to confirm it. His son Hudson, 7, certainly seemed to take a dim view of the media, leaning out of a top-storey window with a toy gun and shooting arriving journos with plastic bullets. Strewth's ever resilient man on the ground can confirm Bartlett the younger is an uncannily good shot; we like the lad's style. Meanwhile, we visited the website of Bartlett's successor, Lara Giddings, yesterday and received the message, "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit".

Why is it so?

CHANNEL Ten has been heavily promoting its new 6pm national news bulletin, hosted by George Negus, which aired for the first time last night. Negus used the promos to suggest not enough journalists ask one simple question: "why?" If his first interview with Julia Gillard is anything to go by, Negus isn't planning to take his own advice. In the nearly 800 words of discussion, Negus claimed a 40 per cent share of everything that was said, without a "why" anywhere in sight. It left us asking one simple question: why?

Toledo torpedo

WE don't think we're going out on a limb to say that it's probably a bit bumpy being Kristina Keneally, the Toledo-raised NSW Premier. Why, only on Sunday there was another poll published suggesting there won't be much more left than a few random ALP molecules after the state election in March. Happily, there was a Paul Kelly gig to attend at Sydney's City Recital Hall that night, where Kelly dedicated a song to "Kristina from Toledo". Keneally laughed. Though possibly not as much as Mike Rann (see above).

James Jeffrey