Pass the Emmo

AS much as we hate the idea of Craig Emerson being brought crashing back to earth, we accept it's going to happen from time to time; yes, even to him.

AS much as we hate the idea of Craig Emerson being brought crashing back to earth, we accept it's going to happen from time to time; yes, even to him.

After he was announced as Trade Minister designate, Emmo happened to drop into the l20ocal pharmacy, where the teenage girl behind the counter looked up and asked: "You're not . . ." Emmo puffed out his chest, flattered by the face recognition. Then she finished her query: ". . . Emmo's dad, are you?" It seems Emmo Jr, 17, is popular at his local school and, as Emmo assures us, derives his good looks from his mother. (Surely false modesty coming from the man described by Blanche d'Alpuget in Hawke as "tall, dark and handsome, with beautiful brown eyes, a beautiful white smile and a boyish attraction for women that made other men want to thump him"; but we digress). As it was, Emmo the elder left the pharmacy, humbled but content to bask in the, ahem, son shine.

The Cauldron II

SOME of the most fun Strewth had this week was reading the transcript of the behind-the-scenes walkie-talkie conversation when the cauldron got stuck during the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games. It's tense, it's raw and in some places enigmatic (What on earth is a "helicopterf . . k"? But please, no chopper gags), a full roller-coaster of emotions played out in the space of a couple of minutes while Catherine Freeman stood in the spotlight with a conspicuous absence of anything to do. So there was a bit of deja vu for Freeman at the 10th anniversary celebrations this week. The cauldron now resides in a park opposite the Olympic stadium and just minutes before Freeman and Paralympian Louise Sauvage were due to do their bit in the relighting ceremony, it accidentally lit up. Unbeknown to the athletes, the cauldron has a three-minute rebooting time (not entirely unlike your Strewth columnist), so when Freeman raised her flaming torch to give the signal for the cauldron to burst into flames, nothing happened. Once again, Freeman was left with nothing to do but stand and wait. An official from the Sydney Olympic Park Authority was joking afterwards: "For sale. One Olympic cauldron. Only used twice!" (There's probably a Steve Fielding gag lurking in there, but our editor is getting impatient.) [Chop, chop -- Ed.] (See?)

Fight reading

A VERY slightly belated dispatch, but one worth recording, from a Strewth agent who spotted Nicholas Rudd on a Virgin flight from Sydney to Canberra the other day, en route to see his father sworn in as Foreign Minister. Rudd the younger appeared engrossed in book: Robert Mnookin's Dealing with the Devil. It's subtitle sounds just as helpful: When to Negotiate, When to Fight. Tips for Dad, perhaps?

Three-time loser

NICK Xenophon, the man who loved independence even before it was popular, was a little hard on himself when addressing the Australian and International Pilots Association in Sydney the other night: "According to Reader's Digest, pilots are more trusted than doctors, more trusted than police officers, even more trusted than religious leaders and, well, politicians come in at a very low 38, so you're much more trusted than me, too, it would seem. And doubly more trusted because I started my working life as a lawyer [ranked No 30] so I belong to not one but two of the most hated, least trusted occupations in the country. Although, I did do a short stint as a talkback host [ranked No 35] a few years back, so I guess I've managed the trifecta of distrust."

Porky past

WHEN Painters and Dockers singer Paul Stewart appeared on ABC1's Spicks & Specks this week, he reminisced about one of his band's meatier and more notorious gigs. It was at the University of Hobart in the 1980s, and, edgy decade that it was, the audience elected to pelt the band with pigs' heads and bacon. While this strikes us as preferable to a shower of undies, it was apparently an artistic response to the Painters and Dockers video clip for Nude School, which was filmed on a pig farm. (Either that or someone thought the MC had said, "Please give a big ham for Painters and Dockers.") To keep things symmetrical, the Hobart concert also featured nudity from the band and audience. Stewart tells us he got a tweet after the Spicks & Specks from none other than Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett declaring, "I was at that Painters and Dockers gig." Alas, no word on whether Bartlett helped make a pig fly or got his gear off.

Loose talk

DURING those 17 minutes that shook the world, Rob Oakeshott (wet) cemented his reputation as a man who could talk the legs off a giant, ferroconcrete centipede. So we're not sure whether to be exhilarated or terrified by this line of his yesterday: "There have been independent speakers in the parliament before. There was one who died of a cerebral haemorrhage from a 14-hour debate." Just to be on the safe side, though, we suggest Harry Jenkins, patron saint of the perpetually exasperated, take a leaf out of Paul Keating's book and Araldite himself to the Speaker's chair.