Tuckey's mute point

AS the poll numbers finally shone a bit for Malcolm Turnbull, Strewth braced itself for the all but inevitable publicity-stealing contribution from Wilson Tuckey.

AS the poll numbers finally shone a bit for Malcolm Turnbull, Strewth braced itself for the all but inevitable publicity-stealing contribution from Wilson Tuckey.

But a curious thing came from the west: silence. How could this have been? We searched nervously for signs of the coming apocalypse but, other than Daryl Somers's return to TV, there was nothing. It turned out the computers were down in Tuckey's electoral lair in Albany; the timing was too remarkable to be coincidence, surely? Strewth asked Turnbull's office if there were any plans to make Tuckey's electronic silence a permanent state of affairs, but they declined to comment, possibly because they were all far too busy whooping it up, leaping from desk to desk and necking bottles of Krug. As it was, Tuckey was back in action within a couple of hours (one Lib commented: "Computer's obviously back up; didn't last very long"), marking the occasion with a mass email mentioning "a loud and spontaneous round of applause" for Turnbull at the WA State Liberal annual conference, and concluding with a breezy, "Just thought I might cheer you up."

A delicate operation

AS Geoffrey Cousins launched Paul Barry's book on James Packer yesterday, he spent some time pondering the hypocrisy of people who have made their fortunes from publishing magazines that scrutinise other people's lives but object to anyone wishing to do the same to them. But in one of life's happy symmetries, the book's commissioning editor was Richard Walsh, a long-time stormtrooper for Packer the elder at ACP. Cousins deftly used a get-out clause: "Indeed many of the Packer magazines - after Richard Walsh's time, naturally - haven't done too much else other than buy for large sums of money photographs of well known people in all sorts of unattractive or compromising situations." This is called diplomacy.

Rein hails GFC benefits

LAUNCHING Anglicare Australia's Beyond Economics: Families in the Forefront report in Canberra yesterday, Therese Rein noted the one way the world economic hiccup has enriched us (cheap soup recipes notwithstanding): "Over the past year or so we have all acquired some new vocabulary around the global financial crisis. We have learned a whole lot of new words: subprime - who knew what that was 18 months ago?; toxic debt; as well as the acronym GFC." Given that it was Rein's husband who encapsulated the whole messy business so much more succinctly than anyone else, we were surprised shitstorm didn't get a guernsey.

Lagerfeld lunacy

KYLE Sandilands and his profitable stream of conscious could be facing competition from unlikely quarters, by which we mean Karl Lagerfeld. The fashion designer has taken umbrage at moves against emaciated models populating the catwalks. "No one wants to see curvy women," quoth he. "You've got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly." Which would be at least mildly offensive, but happily in this instance is lifted into the realm of the amusing by the mere act of being delivered by someone who looks like an alien cadaver in a neck brace.

Well-connected caller

"REMEMBER Alastair Gaisford?" we asked with such confidence on the weekend. Alas, this was what we may term an accidental trick question; the man and long-suffering Telstra customer we were referring to was actually Alastair Marshall, but we managed, to cut a convoluted story short, to use the male equivalent of a maiden name (please don't ask). As Marshall put it: "A cock-up, and we can't even blame Telstra." While Marshall continues with his struggles to have his home connected to the interwebs, another Telstra customer - Queensland reader Dick Garner - has found inspiration in Marshall's quest and met with success: "After two months of no response, obfuscation, broken commitments and a trip to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, I was fed up with Telstra. An item in Strewth about (Marshall) going direct to new chief executive David Thodey prompted some internet searching. I contacted his office and within 20 hours there was a solution. I hope this response is indicative of a new customer service culture and that I can finally be rid of my visceral hatred of an organisation that I cannot do without."