PREDAPPIO: “Yes madam, I was a proper gander. My star has fallen. I honk and cry, yet know that all is but a farce, I feel I am the last of dictators”

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

29^th July 2009:

Wednesday: I dragged myself up about noon, after a very broken night’s sleep, but with the long session of sneezing and tickled throat feeling before retiring having subsided now, thankfully. Yet another fine day, damn it.

The priceless daughter worked again around at The Dear Leader’s place, preparing for the house inspection by Homeswest, then took him shopping for several hours till almost six. All I got done all afternoon was a kitchen clean up, having little energy for much else, other than some odd computer tasks, although I had excavated four huge plastic boxes of materials out of the bowels of Baby Inkletter’s old bedroom for the material girl to sort through, and put them back, a task not for the faint hearted.

Today is the second day now that I’ve had big plans to get some gardening jobs done, but dark has arrived before I’ve managed to get to it. The Supreme Leader spent the evening here, and it was Aunty’s big night on television. My highlight was Rebecca Baillie’s 7.30 Report interview with entrepreneur Steve Killelea. What an inspiration he and his wife Debbie are with their self funded foreign aid work, and targeted at enabling their beneficiaries. I am so glad I caught this interview, and may the Killeleas motivate us all to become more part of the solution. Poor old Kezza had an underlying sore throat tonight, methinks.

I am not sorry to see the finish of The Chaser’s War on Everything, given its patchiness, ranging from dross to the inspired, but I still feel the upswell of outrage over the ‘Make-A-Wish Foundation’ skit recently was a load of politically correct phenol splash, and rather feel that it was one of their better skits: arresting, shocking, black, absurd.

The (Leigh) sales graph: I had been back writing at the computer while the delinquents were watching their stuff, but returned in time for Lateline. Wow, Ms Sales was, I hesitate to say ‘stunning’, but having used the lull in my verbal flow to find a better word I don’t think I can, except maybe to say that her ‘stunning’ appearance was nuanced with a professional tincture. Her dark jacket with white modesty panel was just spot on, her hair great, her make up subtle and just right, I could go on… So I will: such apparel and styling when overlayed upon a beautiful woman with intelligence and articulateness is a powerful combination, and one which leverages the lady considerably when she assays to interview the movers and shakers, the intellectuals and the bastar..., er, the politicians, of this world.

Leigh Sales’ interview with Rory Stewart, Professor of Human Rights at Harvard was wonderful, and joins the growing stable of such excellent interviews Ms Sales has undertaken at Lateline. Professor Stewart is obviously a remarkable fellow, with a sense of humour and understatement rare, and Ms Sales tapped into these qualities nicely, and drew them out. There was very little I did not completely agree with in his analysis of the Afghanistan shemozzle, and I’ve expressed my reservations several times before in this diary about the bottomless pit such adventures as these can become. I cringe whenever I learn that an Australian (or Allied) soldier so much as stubs his or her toe in that hell hole, while their Government, the populace, and neighbouring Pakistan are riddled with opposite value holding people to ourselves. Gordon Brown, Kevin Rudd, Barack Obama, all could benefit greatly from a deep think about the reservations so well delineated by Professor Stewart. Thank you Ms Sales for this interview.

Now imagine my state when Ali Moore appeared next on Lateline Business, as elegantly professionally attired and styled as all get out, on top of the visual delight that Leigh Sales had just been. I had to reach for the heart medication and asthma puffer simultaneously…

Letterman kept me and Janny amused as he usually does (Pa pree having been home for quite some time by now), and the sweet and capable Katie Couric held the floor for much of the show.

I returned to writing at the computer, and my sneezing and throat problems of last night fired up again during the wee small hours, bummer…

+paytontedwithlove+