Year of tears

THE approach of Kevin Rudd's special anniversary has got plenty of people excited.

THE approach of Kevin Rudd's special anniversary has got plenty of people excited, not least the Liberal Party advertising department (which just extended its ever popular citrus range) and Julie Bishop, who tweeted yesterday, "Heading back to Canberra- just wondering whether it's BYO wine at Kevin's on Wednesday night or should we all just bring a plate?"

 (We're sure she cracks a similar annual gag for an appreciative Malcolm Turnbull.) Not that anyone's suggesting Rudd himself is tossing up which line he should use to start the first speech of his prime ministership version 2.0: "Now, where was I?", or "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted . . ." Not at all; hell would have to freeze over first. Though as Dante noted in Inferno, it already has. At least the bit that has Satan in it.

Foreign country

IN the meantime, expect more exchanges such as this one from Queensland on the weekend:

Journo: "Prime Minister, you're in Kevin country today. How is your relationship with the Foreign Minister, Mr Rudd?"

Julia Gillard: "Well, we work very closely together on foreign affairs questions, and I'm very confident Kevin's going to share my sense of disgust at this recent announcement by the opposition, and I'm looking forward to addressing Queensland state conference today."

If we were cynical, we would dip our lid to Gillard for smuggling "disgust" into her reply; but we're not, so we won't. Still, on days like these, the thought of sitting down to dinner with a bunch of same-sex couples eager to talk marriage and whatnot must come as a blessed relief.

Over-egged

A MODERN incarnation of the curate's egg, as demonstrated during this exchange on the vexed topic of an emissions trading scheme during yesterday morning's instalment of ABC1's Insiders:

Host Barrie Cassidy: "You mentioned the carbon tax and the emissions trading scheme. You must wonder in retrospect how it was that your own party supported an ETS?"

Christopher Pyne: "Well, that is a good question in some respects, Barrie."

Quite. Also good in some respects was this Pyne-ism: "The only thing Kevin Rudd hasn't done is ride a unicycle into question time blowing on a vuvuzela, demanding the leadership back."

Rex's lexicon

WE do like to pay attention to the great wordsmiths of our political sphere and beyond. In that spirit, we mark the death of rugby league player turned commentator Rex "the Moose" Mossop, whose electrifying relationship with the English language made such an impression on us when we were young, we eventually turned our back on sport altogether, certain anything it might have to offer post-Moose could only be a letdown. Mossop could tackle matters of sport ("He seems to have suffered a groin injury at the top of his leg"; "He's making forward progress"), the spirit ("I don't want to sound incredulous but I can't believe it"), and the flesh, such as in this timeless observation on nude beaches: "I don't think the male genitals or the female genitals should be rammed down people's throats." Now that he's gone, we can never follow his advice: "We must revert back to the status quo as it was before."

Fat buster

FORMER NSW premier Bob Carr is in San Francisco, lapping up the Wagner and feeling so emboldened by the power of the music, he's ready to tackle the fats of life. Blogged he: "The singers, unlike those in the last San Francisco Ring we saw, were not obese. Yes, sorry to say it, but beautiful-voiced stamps [a phrase fresh to us] can't persuade me they are Brunnhilde or Siegmunde if rolling with fat, and the same with the male roles . . . We were saved fat farm singing here and the drama was enhanced . . ."

Shed shocked

HAVING started with Rudd, we'll finish with regular Strewth correspondent Kevin Rugg, whom the weekend found in a reflective mode. Possibly it was the one-week anniversary (yes, a misuse of anniversary, but let's go on) of that 60 Minutes story that showed the PM meekly obeying Tim Mathieson's no-chicks-in-the-shed rule; that could be enough to turn anyone's thoughts inwards. Over to Kevin: "I went down to my men's shed the other night. I was seeking enlightenment. I looked at the tools and the tools looked back at me. I looked at the chaos of packing boxes, the dusty plastic bottle of transmission fluid, the rusty hacksaw blades, and the forlorn-looking cardboard Christmas reindeer with a broken antler. As I said, I was seeking enlightenment. It didn't come. I left the shed and went back to the house, back to the company of women, back to the society I left to seek solace in my men's shed. Perhaps I've got it wrong; men's sheds are shrines. Shrines to the mute anti-intellectualism of the Aussie bloke . . . A sign from the gods, among the anaemic transmission fluid and the broken reindeer, of the chaos awaiting males who fail to embrace the healing power of womanhood."