Pat on the back

LET us start on an upbeat note and celebrate Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's triumph in London.

LET us start on an upbeat note and celebrate Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's triumph in London, where he has been honoured by Global Telecoms Business magazine - as well they might - and given an award for "the most significant personal contribution to telecommunications".

Given that the contribution is ultimately from all of us, we can probably all bathe a little in the reflected glory. While we're somewhat disappointed he didn't even obliquely slag off this august organ in his speech, he's still in our hearts.

Breakfast giggles

VICTORIA'S beleaguered Police Commissioner Simon Overland may be under the pump over his dealings with his departing deputy Ken Jones, but at least he hasn't lost his sense of humour. Stepping out to launch a new public order response team (riot squad), Overland was peppered with 15 questions about the Jones affair. One concerned a front-page story in The Age yesterday, in which Jones reportedly raised concerns with OPI director Michael Strong about the competence of Victoria Police. Asked how he felt reading such stories over his breakfast, Overland replied: "Normally, I have a good laugh." Best medicine.

What's in a rhyme?

WE always suspected something like this the moment a Liberal government was elected in NSW, and so it has come to pass with a press release that begins: "Sydney will be the first city in Australia to have its own 'City Poet' who will celebrate the city's unique language and creativity, Minister for the Arts George Souris said today. Mr Souris today announced $20,000 in NSW government funding for the exciting initiative." Though, if you think it sounds like a lark, bear in mind that one of the conditions for the gig is to write six publishable poems.

Eye on the ball

AFTER the Ultimate Double Whopper horror (Strewth, yesterday), Bear Grylls has helpfully put things in some sort of perspective. Asked on Sunrise yesterday what was the ghastliest (they may have used the word grossest, but Strewth just isn't ready for that) thing he'd ingested, he embarked on this small but hideously formed catalogue of horrors: "Bear poo was bad [we believe this wasn't a reference to his own name; or at least we hope not]. Live scorpions and snakes and camel intestinal fluids." Possibly aware he may have sounded like he was fence-sitting, he got his eye on the ball: "Goat testicles were bad; they were probably the worst. It was huge, the size of a big baseball." At which point his hosts changed the subject.

Wrong address

BIDDING is finally picking up on the federal parliamentary press gallery Midwinter Ball auction, despite our best efforts to throw everyone off the scent by subtly cocking up the website address. Thanks to a few missing letters - literally a case of dropping the "ball" - and, as reader Lee Mathers gently pointed out yesterday, Strewth readers eager to bid on a night at the footy with Wayne Swan (or such like) instead found themselves at the website of a Sydney financial services company. (And, yes Strewth did sigh with relief that that's all it was). Writes Mathers: "I would anticipate that, as a result of this nice little cross-promotion, they are using their increased profits from the extra traffic you drove to their site, to bid on certain items?" A fine sentiment, and one they can act on at midwinterball.com.au.

All poofled out

WHATEVER a poofle valve is (from the mouth of Craig Emerson in yesterday's Strewth), the one in our inbox was nearly busted by the deluge of emails keen to set us straight. First up, the one and only Derryn Hinch: "I suspect the poofle valve is a close relative of the Kiwi variety. My dad used to warn me, 'don't blow your phoofoo valve,' when we got overexcited. It's an expression still used in our family decades later." Queenslander Bill Burton defines it as "a highly technical description of an electrical part that is unknown". Stack Hudson points out another regional difference: "I don't know what Emmo got up to out near the Warrumbungles when he was a boy, but down in Victoria, we Mexicans learned the phrase, 'don't bust your foofer valve.' " Sandra Wilson plumps for phoo phoo (which, in case you were wondering, sounds rude in Hungarian), while Darwin reader Bob White elaborates: "My grandfather and my uncles used the terminology 'Watch you don't bust a poop-poop valve' when you exerted yourself on a task. The la-dee-dahs in the cities must have changed it to 'poofle' or Craig baby copped too many whacks over the ears and suffered a high-frequency decibel loss in his youth so he heard it as 'poofle'." Raymond Adams, however, has a not even remotely la-dee-dah explanation: "During the 1960s, useage of the word poofle or foofle valve was common in the Australian navy in the context of 'so and so was so (physically) flat out that you could cut washers off his poofle valve'." Possibly not what was intended by the authors of a kids' website, where we discovered this: "Puffles are small, furry creatures native to the Club Penguin Island which can currently be purchased in the Pet Shop on Club Penguin."