Tickled pink

WE'VE seen more books launched by Malcolm Turnbull than any other individual; perhaps we need to get out more.

WE'VE seen more books launched by Malcolm Turnbull than any other individual; perhaps we need to get out more.

Yesterday's launch was A. J. Brown's biography of Michael Kirby, Michael Kirby: Paradoxes and Principles, in NSW Parliament House before an audience including former chief justice Gerard Brennan, NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell, former premier Neville Wran and Kirby's father, Don Kirby. Turnbull reminisced about profiling Kirby for The Bulletin, ooh, probably more years ago than any of us care to remember. It included a photo of Kirby wearing what Turnbull characterised as a movie-star smile. "Any journalists and photographers in the room will appreciate this, but it took ages," Turnbull said. "Eventually the snapper said, 'Oh, Malcolm, can't you tickle him or something?'." It may have been sudden nervousness on Kirby's part, but Turnbull said that's when the smile made its appearance. It was a charming anecdote, and there it might have rested had Kirby not lifted it into the realm of the immortal with his reply: "Malcolm, you can tickle me any time." Which raised the bar rather high for former attorney-general Michael Lavarch as he prepared for the Brisbane launch last night.

Love in the air

SERIAL launcher he may be, but Turnbull found himself on the receiving end of advice from Kirby: "You failed to mention the typo on page 148; to indicate typos of that type indicates you've read the book carefully. That's why I point them out." And regarding their clashes during the republican campaign: "Malcolm, you just don't get the constitution." As for the warts-'n'-all biography, Kirby warned of Brown's "sharp judgments and cruel serpentine words". But, he conceded, it was a good read, "unlike many books about judges and lawyers". It was very jolly and there was plenty of love in the room, not least when Kirby reflected on how Australia had come so far that he could now acknowledge his partner of 42 years, Johan van Vloten. "We don't have equal citizenship yet," he said. "But equality is coming."

Trade secret

HEADING inland from Bellingen on the NSW north coast, the Waterfall Way winds past Thora then up the rainforest-cloaked mountainside to Dorrigo. Strewth finds it challenging enough in the car, so we were a little alarmed to discover Tony Abbott had cycled up it yesterday. He revealed the secret ingredients to 2SM's Grant Goldman: "A Mars Bar and a Coke at the start of the hill; that helped." As did, we suspect, replaying Monday night's Q & A in his head on high rotation.

Loose lips

SPEAKING of which, as troubling as it was at the time, Kevin Rudd's almost romantic reminiscence about first meeting Julie Bishop in Zimbabwe was a moment of relative innocence on ABC1's Q & A before the storm. (Well, almost. Rudd's insistence on shortening of Zimbabwe to "Zim" did elicit parallel tweets from self-described "simpering fop" Jules Schiller and Chaser member Chas Licciardello asking: 'if Zimbabwe was Zim, what would Rudd do with Fukushima?'. Then, a little like Vesuvius firing up on the day of the All Pompeii Poodle-bending Championship*, a disturbing event was utterly overshadowed. The ABC news website had a crack at covering the aftermath yesterday under the headline "Labor in damage control over Rudd revelations". We hunted high and low in the story for any hint of damage control and found only Julia Gillard's "I'm sure historians will be interested in these matters over many years to come", and Penny Wong's equally unhelpful "I'm not going to go back over the past. I'm focused on the pretty tough fight we've got now, which is to put a price on carbon". (*Not an actual event. No, really it isn't.)

Safe dispatch

A STREWTH agent who is relaxed enough in our company to overshare tells us that since buying some prophylactics made by Japanese firm (weak pun licence #4401) Sagami, he has received the following missive: "We understand you are deeply concerned about the recent Japan earthquake and the after effect. This short message is to assure our customers that Japanese-owned Sagami 002 condoms are made in the manufacturing house in Malaysia. The production is not affected by the Japan earthquake or the tsunami, and it is guaranteed radiation free. Please feel free to order our products online . . . as they are the same best products all the time: allergy-free, and the thinnest in the world."

Spaced out

POETRY in motion at The Northern Territory News as Larine Statham begins a paean to the wet season: "Condensation glides down the outside of the glass sliding door like a lime wedge being pushed down the neck of a beer bottle." Meanwhile, we're indebted to a couple of sharp-eyed readers who spotted a new verb in this august organ on the weekend. Perhaps it's just a missing space, but it strikes us as apposite: "Labor desperately needs to replenishits [sic] parliamentary ranks from outside the usual cadre of union officials and political staffers."

James Jeffrey