WOOLWICH DOCKYARD: "Stoke the fire with pringles!" P.L. Inkletter ordered. "One day we'll be off as a beagle to Darwin to study crocodile evolution...

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

'In other news…'

11^th May 2010

Tuesday: It shouldn't come as a surprise to the billions of daily readers of this blog that I was very late to bed, not long before sun up, and I was not a well boy when I finally succumbed to Mistress Nodette's embrace, with a painful throat explaining to me why I have felt so extra tired and unwell these last few days – I have a cold!

I curled up alone because Missus Inkletter left me last Saturday… – she will return on Saturday next; she is on her annual holiday with the pree Inkletter clan, comprising herself and brutha and farter. Sleep was disturbed by having to take white comforters several times during the 'night'. It wasn't more than a couple of hours before dark that I summoned the energy to arise and face the 'day'.

Celestial Kitty Cadbury appeared at the back glass door, bringing a ray of sunshine with her. She was ill last week to the point of worrying us deeply that she would waste away to just a spirit, but she is thriving again. I had her on my lap many times during the night, for hours, stroking her smoothest of fur, gazing into her pure little tabby face, the face of a cat angel. I didn't want to, but in the last two months since she appeared as a scrawny starving kitten I've fallen head over heels in love with her. I am very fond of cats, thus all the more painful the sacrifice not to have had one for over thirty years.

My last pet cat died in 1978, at 18 years of age (taking over from my sister Mary, whose pet she was first, until she left home), and I had a psychic connection with her, Almondblossom. For years, when I fell ill, she fell ill, to the day; four thousand miles away in far North Queensland I became very ill, and I learnt from Mum by letter a week later that she did also, on the very day, and I was at my worst three days in, and Almondblossom died that day.

I have felt so under the weather tonight that I stayed in front of Aunty and SBS (where a giant crocodile was dissected and studied) till late, then watched Letterman, all the time with Cadbury for company.

Lateline: The (Leigh) Sales Graph: An important day for our nation, Federal Budget Day. From Canberra Ms Sales interviewed the leftovers from Kezza the Great, who got the big gun, the Treasurer Wayne Swan, for his 7.30 Report interview.

Never mind, because Ms Sales veritably glowed, looking magnificent, proving that talent and intelligence can exist with beauty and elegance without compromising a kind soul; she wore a light grey jacket with a layered wheat blouse, no necklace, tiny earrings, gorgeous coiffured hair, falling loose and flared, and the most subtle effect make-up, being a perfect example of less being more, especially letting her incomparable eyes shine without competing with dark and heavy eye shadow, dark and  heavy eyeliner, nor dark and heavy mascara. The only thing that I would have changed is the shade of the blouse she wore, for it was dangerously close to skin tone, but the ruffles saved the day. Imagine the effect had her blouse been the very colour of Access Economics' Chris Richardson's tie, a pumpkin to burnt orange shade! It would have set her face and hair aglow the more. Of course, rags cost money, and Aunty would not provide a wardrobe stipend I'd bet my left testicle.

The two pollies Ms Sales interviewed one at a time were Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner and his shadow, Andrew Robb. Mr Tanner looked great in his dark jacket and lavender shirt, set off with a striped pink tie, his 19 strands of hair lovingly arranged back. Very few people know this, but he has named each strand of hair after former Labor Party leaders; and I understand one of them is called 'Keynes'. Mr Robb was equally smartly attired, with his dark jacket and white and grey striped shirt, set off with a striped rufous tie, and he looks so wise with his glasses. I think Mr Tanner would gladly scalp Mr Robb and slap it on his noggin if there were no immune response issues.

Both these men were highly predictable, but I do find Mr Tanner the more enjoyable fellow to listen to, in fact there are few in Canberra who match him; for example, compare a chat with Kevin Rudd with a chat with Lindsay Tanner: I rest my case!

I admire Mr Tanner's intelligent salesmanship for the Government, with lines like "I think I've said hundreds of times publicly that, to me, good policy is always good politics…"; whether Labor can claim to have a monopoly on good policy is highly debatable of course.

It was a nice moment when Ms Sales interjected with Mr Robb: Mr Robb: "Well, again, did they acknowledge that they took over an economy, they inherited an economy which was the best in the world?"

Leigh Sales: "I have heard them acknowledge that, actually."

Oh, by the way, poor old Phillip Lasker, in an introduction piece, looked like I do at the moment, in fact like I do most of the time – in need of a month's sleep.

Anyway, Ms Sales certainly made the Budget much more interesting than otherwise with her efforts in Canberra today.

I have not forgotten, nor will I ever, that my mother and I were one second from death or very serious injury on Sunday, when I was driving her to visit sister-daughter Mary in East Victoria Park late in the afternoon, when on Oats Street a car crossed in front of us through a stop sign at the 60 kmh limit, either not having seen the sign or not caring, I'm not sure which. Mum would have taken the impact in the passenger seat, and we would have been pushed into the other lane for a head on collision with oncoming traffic.

+paytontedwithlove+