Toes of destiny

GIVEN that he'd just bagged himself the arts portfolio, Simon Crean found himself facing something of a dilemma on Saturday night: pointe shoes or pigskin?

GIVEN that he'd just bagged himself the arts portfolio, Simon Crean found himself facing something of a dilemma on Saturday night: pointe shoes or pigskin?

Or, in other words, the Australian Ballet's production of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, or the footy? What's a freshly minted arts minister to do? As Crean carefully explains to this most august of organs, "I'm a lover of lots of things [now there's an image with no expiry date]; you just have to organise your time. It's football season, finals season, and it's particularly part of the culture of Melbourne and is internationally recognised as such." Which is a carefully thought-out way of saying the AFL won out. But Crean is set to go to the ballet on Thursday. Meanwhile, cabinet colleague Tony Burke was demonstrating the enthusiasm with which he's taking to his new environment portfolio, tweeting yesterday: "Drove through a national park today. With the new job I instinctively started checking for weeds."

Tatts my girl

SPEAKING of new portfolios, we're pleased to announce the Zoo Weekly debut of Staci Child, the daughter of Tim Mathieson and Julia Gillard's more-or-less-sort-of-stepdaughter. Here she is striking a pose for the lads' journal of record, posing with a flag and wearing a patriotic bikini and almost as much decorative ink as an illuminated medieval manuscript. In another shot, she's pictured with a ballot box, which will all be too much for anyone who's seen too many Carry On movies (that is, one or more). What can we say but bravo. And nice tatts.

Ruddbot returns

THERE was a strange period that stretched from Kevin Rudd's suddenly-if-temporarily-put-out-to-pasture episode in June to his gall bladder-free re-entry to the election campaign, during which the former PM stopped talking in the manner to which we'd become accustomed: that is, like an old-fashioned and somewhat priggish school master who'd just emerged from a colonoscopy. Instead, we had a Rudd who gave orations powered by passion, vigour and fire; there were moments the man who once gave us "programmatic specificity" was damn near magnetic. It was exciting, yet unsettling, like an accidental glimpse into a parallel universe none of us were ever meant to see. So once it was confirmed Rudd was back in the tent, Strewth experienced some nervy moments. Would we experience magnetic Kev and feel that parallel universe drawing us in ever deeper, or would we resume regular programming? "First of all, can I just say," he began encouragingly and more than a touch post-colonoscopically, "how much I appreciated the Prime Minister's invitation for me to be foreign minister of Australia." Also, Peter Dutton said something but we cannot remember a word of it, so it looks like we're safely ensconced in the regular universe again.

Stigs of yore

ON behalf of all of us (a) who've been following the dramas at Top Gear and the contentious unmasking of its secret racing driver, the Stig, and (b) are hopelessly parochial, we'd like to thank The Times for throwing us a local angle. And that local angle is Jerry Austen, who these days lives in Sydney and tools about in nothing racier than a Mazda 6, but was once at school in Repton, Derbyshire, where he was the British private school system's equivalent of an indentured slave to an older pupil called Jeremy Clarkson. As The Times explains, "He was, in public school parlance, a fag [no need for apologies this time, Stephanie Rice] - or, as they were known at Repton, a stig. 'Yes, he was my Stig,' said Clarkson last week. 'A pretty-faced boy, if I remember rightly.' . . . Also at Repton was Andy Wilman, the co-inventor of the revamped Top Gear . . . When Clarkson visited Wilman in the adjoining study, Jeremy shouted 'Stig' and I had to go and make them both coffee,' recalled Austen. . . . 'I have fond memories of the guy. He was always pleasant to me and usually called me by my first name, except when there were other people around and then he called me Stig.' And here endeth our glimpse of the other side of the beautiful paywall.

Labor looks to 70s

SOME would argue the horse has already bolted, but someone has snapped up a rare treasure from eBay: a campaign handbook published for the Labor Party in 1970, evocatively titled How to Win. Perhaps the ALP is just taking every precaution possible to ensure there's never a repeat of this year's debacle, in which case the winning bid of $162.50 (plus a couple of bucks for postage) was a bargain. Another small Labor treasure is this snippet from the Prime Minister's office's official transcript of Julia Gillard's press conference in Melbourne at the weekend. But modesty of scale is no barrier to the sublime, so we reproduce it here for your reading pleasure. Just put down any hot liquids first.

Journalist: "Mark Arbib and Bill Shorten are . . ."

Gillard: "Just a tickle at the back of my throat."