PM's big finish

IT was early last year when Kevin Rudd "accidentally" let slip the word shitstorm while talking on television about the global financial apocalypse.

IT was early last year when Kevin Rudd "accidentally" let slip the word shitstorm while talking on television about the global financial apocalypse.

With that word now emblazoned across the cover of David Uren and Lenore Taylor's new book (in raised dots, no less, which is a thoughtful touch for the blind), Strewth was anxious to hear whether the PM would repeat the word yesterday as he launched the tome or dodge it altogether. Rudd began his speech without mentioning the title, then talked, and talked, and talked. With the 2000-word mark in sight and not a hint of shitstorm, it looked tantalisingly as if Rudd would get off, ahem, scat-free - then he reached the final lines: "This is an important contribution to Australian political history and Australian political economy. I'm delighted to launch Shitstorm."

Never-ending query

THERE'S a theory that if travel at the speed of light were possible, passengers would experience something called a time dilation effect, with, say, one year passing on their spaceship while centuries whizzed by back on Earth. Strewth's favourite independent pollie, north Queensland MP Bob Katter, further underlined what a marvel he is yesterday by giving us a taste of reverse time dilation, when he asked a question with more segments than a Jurassic centipede, encompassing everything from dairy farming and foreign ownership to supermarkets and the mining tax. Re-reading it later, a Douglas Adams line sprang to mind: " 'Extremely rickety' was one phrase that sprang to mind, and 'Please may I get out?' was another." By the time it was over a couple of minutes later, we felt as though a decade had come and gone. Even the normally attentive Speaker Harry Jenkins looked dazed and had to ask Katter who the question was for. When Katter offered to continue, the panic in Jenkins's "Order!" was palpable.

Paged from the dead

THE story of the mining executives missing in Africa has been a sombre one, so we express our gratitude to The Daily Telegraph for one tiny glitch that momentarily brightened the way. On its list of those missing, feared dead, the Tele accidentally accompanied Craig Oliver's name with a cheery photo of AMP economist Shane Oliver. But the Tele takes pride in fixing errors speedily, and the same photo appeared in the business section with the right name. As Oliver told Strewth semi-biblically, "It's nice to see that I have been resurrected after just a few pages. I thought it usually took a couple of days."

Soviet soliloquy

DOES Ross Cameron have a fetishistic yearning for Russian authoritarianism or are we just misconstruing him? A few months ago, the former Liberal MP penned a paean to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, noting that while it was "distressing and disturbing that several Russian journalists have been murdered during Putin's administration [14 unsolved killings, last time Strewth checked]", it was worth bearing in mind that "in view of his extraordinary record of achievement in office, it's hard for me to see how anyone of good faith could regret [Putin's] continued influence in Russia and the world". At the time, we noted that having worked in the media in Putin's wonderland, we felt Ross was talking out of an orifice other than the one he used for Weet-Bix. Now he's at it again, writing with lip-smacking relish: "The Prime Minister has never experienced political hardship. He's never felt pressure. Now he is being squeezed. Like a dissident in a Soviet concentration camp, he's learning about pain." Millions dead or permanently damaged, but now they've been used for some point-scoring in Australia, so their suffering wasn't in vain. Still, just as well Cameron didn't use a concentration camp from farther west for his metaphor or there would have been trouble.

Vegan vengeance

FEW things disappoint us more than artists/authors/restaurateurs/gorillagrams who claim to ignore negative reviews. So we salute Perth businesswoman Radhika Oswal who has, with the help of The West Australian, gone out of her way to draw attention to a pasting she copped in The New York Times for Otarian, her vegetarian restaurant in the Big Apple. In the West Oz, she slams the write-up as "irresponsible", one bad review among many positive ones. But surely the responsible thing to do would have been to have at least given a taste of the terrible review? This much would have done the trick: "Everything at Otarian has an eco-narrative . . . There are 'carbon saving combo meals' and every receipt has the motto 'Saving the Planet one Otarian meal at a time'. There are flat-screen TVs showing cartoons that make a case for eating less meat: ashen figures representing the world's hungry look sad; adorable cows headed for a busy slaughterhouse look alarmed. Does that mean we need to suffer through the dense veggie patty of the Tex Mex 'burger' ($7.95)? Even the listless spinach and potato tart ($7.45) is a punishment, the crust turned limp by a warming drawer. And if the apple and parsnip soup ($5.45 for a small) is flavourful and satisfying, the clumpy red curry noodles ($8.95) will put an end to that." Hmm, probably best not to draw attention to the bad reviews after all; we sit corrected.