KAMMERER: “Surely it’s no coincidence that I obsessively pat my wife’s bottom, and so did my father pat my mum’s?” Payton L. Inkletter quizzes his DNA

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

23^rd September 2009:

Wednesday: A couple of alarm resets were the order of the morning, after yet another very poor sleep, broken, I having resorted to listening for hours to my favourite talking book while lying there waiting for Mistress Nodette to envelop me in her night season charms.

The fact that it was not long before dawn when I had retreated to the low thread polycottons didn’t help, nor did the green gilled gargoyle’s several hour middle of the night spell of heart racing and general unwellness, which she eventually nailed down to the Chinese food she had for dinner, a present from a kindly Meg Deeler, who dropped it off as a thank you. The slightest touch of MSG and the delicate daffodil is floored.

So I dragged myself up at midday, and somehow got to Bob’s at Guildford before half three, with a kitchen clean up and stop over for fruit and vegetables at Benara Fresh on the way thrown in. For me that’s moving like lightning. Poor Bob, he’d got Derek to phone to check if I was going to come today, as it’s 16 days since I last took him out, due to my ill-health, my virus serious.

We had a productive time at Swan Aquatic – Bob lapping like a drake possessed, and I actually did a practice new first page for Venty Still (I’m getting bestirred about the project, which I began a year ago and have essentially shelved) – followed by a walk at near on dark, along the river at Fish Market Reserve and a cup of tea for Bob, water for moi (Reeve Chocson, in case you read this!).

I called into the Commonwealth Bank’s ATM’s in Malaga on my way home, well after dark, and mine was the only car to park in front of them. It took all of three seconds for me to decide to reverse away and leave, despite being low on cash, for a couple of youngish adults were sitting-laying a couple of feet away from them, surveying me, and appearing to be somewhat under the influence of some kind of mind altering chemicals, be they of the alcoholic genus or otherwise. The fact that they were of Aboriginal descent made no difference to my decision, but I mention it because if they were on mischief bent – which could be in the form of asking for a donation, or enforcing one – and had already spurred similar decisions from folk before me and would after me, then how sad that our law-abiding Aboriginal citizens keep battling uphill with the stigma caused by such episodes and sights. And I do appreciate fairly well how this marginalised cohort can come to be in this sad situation in the first place, as well as my role in general to contributing to its perpetuation, as one of a more advantaged class.

The darling dilettante fed me, while I caught the Paul Keating interview with Kezza the Great on The 7.30 Report: The More O’Kerry (O’Brien) Volume: I was tired, so I might not have concentrated as well as I’d liked, but my overwhelming feeling from this enjoyable in-studio interview is how calm, relaxed, and dignified it was. Old Prime Ministers can actually become mellow and cuddly and almost likeable, but I suppose time will tell if John Howard can ever morph so, like Malcom Fraser did, to his credit.

We watched the Aunty line-up together till half nine when I had to hit the sack, and was woken after an hour and a half by a headache, and somehow managed to stay up. And so I relied on a few minutes of recording the paranormal pomegranate had done for me on the end of our full disc to see the start of Lateline: The (Leigh) Sales Graph: Did Ms Sales look superb? Ms Sales looked superb! Everything was in place for a professional and elegant appearance: a dark long sleeved jacket with ideally contrastive maroon modesty panel – to both skin and jacket – very fine and minimalist jewellery on her décolletage, subtle understated make-up, flattering hair style; definitely a template for how to present for this role. The interview tonight was with an initially slightly acerbic Malcolm Turnbull: The (Malcolm Turnbull) Beef: looking jet-lagged in London – at least from what I could divine from my later vodcast download (it was approaching half ten in the morning in London, so jet lag is a fair bet for the banker turned polly’s haggard appearance) – I speak only of Mr Turnbull’s mug, for as usual, he dressed most spiffendipitously, he was in no hurry to give up the limelight. Ms Sales acceptably tried to keep out of his comfort zone throughout the 15 minute interview, but there were some moments of levity generously mirrored on both sides of the equator. Mr Turnbull got a laugh from Ms Sales when he remarked that he didn’t think ‘Wilson Tuckey at one end and Greg Hunt at the other’ – Ms Sales’ words – were exactly polar opposites regarding the ETS legislation.

Mr Turnbull has my ears when he correctly points out the the ETS is a work in progress, and the devil is in the regulations which haven’t been worked out. I liked his point that ‘you cannot allow your conception of the perfect to be the enemy of the good’, and it wasn’t the only wisdom which he offered this interview. Overall, despite his jet lag, I think he presented himself very well, his arguments and responses were very good, even though he drifted whenever he could into the pure political void, but Ms Sales kept the discipline up and caught these drifts early, with cracks of the whip such as ‘We’ve made that point…’, and to his credit, the polly responded to the discipline maturely.

I think Mr Turnbull is more right than wrong with his insistence that waiting till February rather than November this year is the more prudent and sensible approach, and although it is always a matter of the slug calling the snail slimey, I think the Rudd Government is guilty of politicking on this rush for a November decision on the ETS. And Mr Turnbull bravely answered Ms Sales’ charge/question that his party was no better off after a year under his leadership than under Brendan Nelson, not missing a beat. In a final attempt to get Mr Turnbull to get ruffled and into some mud slinging with Mr Nelson, he masterfully and immediately turned the request to give an assessment of Mr Nelson’s personality into a good natured humorous riposte, and this elicited a cheerful ‘You know you want to!’ from Ms Sales, giving us an unexpectedly goodwill note to end this interview on. Well done Ms Sales, for keeping the pressure on, asking some icky questions, and making the polly earn his sausages and eggs in London, all the while oiling the flow of humour when it unexpectedly arose. This interview was a kickshaw.

The tasty titbit and I watched Letterman interview Bill Clinton, and then she went her way, and I went mine, to write and titivate all the remainder of the night, until I phoned Mum in St John of God Murdoch about half seven in the morning for a progress report on her possible gall stone problem, but she is none the wiser, still waiting (3 days now) to speak to a specialist who can tell her if she needs an operation. It was after half eight when I finally crawled in beside the chalcedony chameleon.

+paytontedwithlove+