Sing for supper

ONCE upon a time, Malcolm Turnbull collaborated with Bob Ellis on a superb but doomed project: a musical based on the life of 1920s NSW premier Jack Lang.

ONCE upon a time, Malcolm Turnbull collaborated with Bob Ellis on a superb but doomed project: a musical based on the life of 1920s NSW premier Jack Lang.

So there was something pleasing about the vision of Turnbull waxing eloquent yesterday in NSW Parliament House just a couple of metres from a picture of Lang in full harangue mode, fist in the air. The occasion was the launch of James Curran and Stuart Ward's book The Unknown Nation: Australia After Empire, and as launcher Turnbull aired his views on the issue of Australia's sense of national identity. He also spoke of tolerance and how we as a people believe in a fair go; it's possible this part of the message was directed at Tony Abbott. Afterwards, the Denmark-based Ward thanked Turnbull: "It says a lot about his generosity of spirit that he's willing to help anyone who hails from the town of Copenhagen." But Strewth is about nothing if not the big questions, so we asked Mal afterwards how he felt about self-described serial fringe candidate Pat Sheil announcing he would be taking him on in Wentworth. "I don't think he stands a chance."

Catherine the grate

MANY of us have a Catherine Deveny moment in the memory banks, that instant when we realise that what we have just read in The Age has appalled or amused. Abbott has his; he was once told by Deveny on ABC1's Q&A show to "get your rosaries off my ovaries". Last year she produced a column that was described by The Australian's political guru Glenn Milne as a piece noteworthy for its "sheer misanthropic virulence". Deveny had visited a shopping centre. "Chadstone is a metastasised tumour of offensive proportions that's easy to find. You simply follow the line of dead-eyed wage slaves attracted to this cynical, hermetically sealed weatherless biosphere by the promise a new phone will fix their punctured soul and homewares and jumbo caramel mugachinos will fill their gaping cavern of disappointment." One of Strewth's students of the human condition says that sociopaths find it difficult to empathise with other people.

A host of talent

BRITAIN is having its most interesting election since Tony Blair was a boy. Endorsements have crept into the mix, too, much as Hollywood celebrities jostle to support the favourite candidates. But would British Conservative leader David Cameron thank television talent judge Simon Cowell for his endorsement? The point about Cowell is that you loathe him or you don't. He has a tendency towards unctiousness and narcissism, and has boasted about sleeping with 100 women, not necessarily a winning combination. Perhaps Cameron will feel a touch of schadenfreude because Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he enjoys Cowell shows such as The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. For good measure, Cowell said Lib Dems leader Nick Clegg is "made for TV", a bit rich given that his fellow American Idol judge Paula Abdul joked that Cowell's "idea of foreplay is staring at himself in the mirror".

Trouble and strife

A SIDESHOW to the British election is the role of the candidates' wives, Samantha Cameron, Sarah Brown and Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, Clegg's missus. Brown, a public relations executive, has thrown herself into the campaign and helped soften her husband's stodgy image. Cameron, a baronet's daughter, would rather stay in the background but can't seem to prise her hand out of her husband's grip. Durantez, a lawyer, is by far the most exciting. Asked if she thought the media's coverage of the leaders' wives was patronising, she said: "Patronising is putting it very diplomatically." When Clegg was asked if she wore the trousers, he said: "She would claim she doesn't and I would claim she does." The journalist did not ask him if he wore the skirts.

Moving goalposts

ONE British party that's unlikely to get the keys of 10 Downing Street is the Scottish Jacobite Party, a low-budget (this is Scotland) outfit fielding one candidate. History students will remember that the Jacobite cause came to grief at Culloden in 1746 but Glasgow philosopher John Black is having a go at a comeback. Not so long ago he raised a Jacobite flag at Glenfinnan, where Bonnie Prince Charlie started the rebellion against the Hanoverian kings of England. Apparently he wants to move the border south, thereby adding Newcastle United, Sunderland, Middlesborough and Carlisle United to the Scottish Premier League. In the 2007 Scottish elections, Black won fewer than 500 votes. But the Scots do like their football, so . . .

Hopelessly devoted

NOW we know what Victorian Premier John Brumby will do with the dosh he squeezed out of Kevin Rudd. Brumby boasted yesterday about the quality of his "advocacy" in getting money for an upgrade of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre. It may have been because he had been serenaded by the Grease star, but his bragging came out thus: "It's why we could do Bendigo hospital, it's why we can do Box Hill, it's why we can do . . . Olivia Newton-John."