The Mother of Distraction

"Son ... don't just be a Reactionary," my Mother once quietly hoped of me. She caught me off-guard, as she so habitually did with that spooky maternal instinct of hers. I remember being quite taken aback at the time - so much so that I neglected to ask her to detail her apprehension and promptly returned to the baseless, grandiose, sweeping generalisation I was more than likely making at the expense of some poor hapless over-achiever.

It is 1980. The Games of the XXII Olympiad in Moscow. I am 16 ... and I am devoted to the gymnastics. Or to be more precise, the Gymnasts. The male Gymnasts - who are (to borrow a whorey old chestnut) poetry in motion. Beautiful men. Graceful, agile and strong. Focussed. Humble. Determined. Elegant. Our television is my pimp - and no price is too high. I am introduced to Infatuation. I try not to be obvious and (possibly a little too casually) tear myself away to the kitchen for a snack. Commentary connects us. And I am already saturated by their perfection. My Mother's sing-song voice interrupts my reverie:

"Your Gymnast is on!"

Fuck!

*****

It is 1987. I am 23. I have moved out of home and have visited my Mother at our family home. She is walking me to my car.

"Have you got anyone special in your life at the moment, Son?"

"No Mum."

A pause at the end of the driveway.

"Well, when you do, I hope you won't feel uncomfortable about bringing her home to meet us." ... (Beat) ... "Or him."

Jesus!

How the fuck does she know? Not even I know for sure yet!

*****

It is 1992. I am 28. I own a gay newspaper - Brother Sister - and The Australian Opera are staging their brilliant new production of The Mikado in the State Theatre in the Victorian Arts Centre. It is being conducted by a newcomer - Simone Young. My Mother was in a production of The Mikado many years ago, before asthma claimed her ability to sustain her breath in song. I accepted the Australian Opera's invitation to the opening night performance ... and, of course, I took my Mother. We dressed up. I went to the box office to collect our tickets. Which weren't there. Anywhere. My Mother looked on nervously. Embarrassed.

I have embarrassed My Mother ... who is resolutely standing beside me, her now possibly hopelessly deluded son, in the foyer of The State Theatre and my tickets are not there. I don't exist. The foyer is emptying. The final bell is ringing - endlessly. The ushers are cheerfully anticipating their cigarette break. My profound and stomach-churning embarrassment is confused by this newfound murderous capability: if I had had a gun I would have reached for it.

"I'm sorry Mr Williams, but there are no tickets here for you."

Impotency. Failure. I am introduced to a hatred of fatuous poofs.

My Mother can't stand it anymore. Sensibly, as always, she suggests we leave. I see the sadness of resignation in her eyes and my heart breaks. I know, because I hear it. And feel it. We start to walk away, and as soon as we are a respectable distance from the box office, I touch my Mother's arm and ask her to wait a minute. I am introduced to Fury ... and She's demanding Her say. I walk back to the box office and face the tired gaggle of thieving little jobbers behind the counter before I slam my business card down on their shiny black counter.

"I am going to bury this fucking production!" falls from my mouth like an axe.

They scramble for the business card. I cover it with my hand - a slam so intense my hand stings.

"And in less than a week, every faggot in this town is going to despise this fucking tin-pot testimony to artlessness in precisely the same way that I do now - and for precisely the same reason. You see that woman over there you have humiliated this evening? That is my fucking Mother!"

I lift my hand to reveal my business card, turn and walk away. My Mother is desperately searching for that hole in the floor she wished had appeared ten minutes ago.

I stride up to her like a dismemembered knight. Forcing a wan and forlorn smile. How else do you acknowledge this level of defeat?

"Excuse me ... Mr Williams?"

I think about not stopping. I've already composed the opening paragraph of what will be a full page article - page 3 I think - carefully and studiously dissecting The Australian Opera's rampant homophobia. Where, I find myself wondering, would the company be if it weren't for faggots? Would it even exist? Of course not.

My Mother puts her hand on my arm, and together, we turn. Racing across the foyer is a very, very concerned man. And flapping about in his waving hands are what I immediately recognise as theatre tickets. He offers them to me with trembling hands.

"Mr Williams, please accept our apologies."

"Shove your tickets up your arse!" I spit. "I've practically spell-checked this fucking article!"

Almost in spite of herself, my Mother laughs. Here is the boy she imagined she came to the Opera with.

"You're fucked! This whole fucking company is fucked!

His eyes plead. The tickets are offered again. I turn to my Mother.

"Do you want to see it?"

"Has it started?" she asks - with the timing and instinct I've always admired. And tried to emulate.

The poor hapless messenger panics and practically pirouettes back to the box office. Heads shake and bad hair-dos fall further apart. He turns back to us from his safe space, furiously shaking his head ... and as he trips over himself, my Mother and I (less than a little reluctantly) accompany him to Door 1. He escorts us down the stairs. The Houselights are at half. It's H Row. Right in the middle. And knowing as much as I did at the time about ticketing protocol, they were the seats the Director and his vain little sycophantic oxygen thieving partner might have been sitting in.

"It's a female conductor!" my Mother marvels as the domes introduce us to Simone Young for the first time. And we are away.

At interval, the company's publicist spots us and invites us to the VIP Room for champagne. We accent the buzz about the production, which is very good, and more importantly, my Mother is having the time of her life. As she leaves us to go to the bathroom, the publicist seizes her opportunity to apologise, very discreetly, for the "problem" with my tickets. There is no sign of my Mother returning, so I, too, seize my opportunity to, equally as discreetly, respond by saying that the greatest disservice that has been done to my Mother and I this evening is that it has made this sparkling new production of The Mikado rather impossible to truly enjoy. Or review. So I won't be.

And I didn't.

And up until this day, other than my exclusive and wonderfully candid interview with Simone Young for homo, I have never written a word about the Australian Opera. They, in mind - and much like the tickets that were to be under my name - didn't and don't exist.

*****

It is 1993. I am 29. Robert Chuter is seducing Melbourne with his promenade production of Julia Britton's An Indian Summer in the grounds of Rippon Lea. I still own a gay newspaper, but I am now also a Publicist. A well-connected fag about town. I have some clout ... and I also have a group booking: friends, clients, a couple of heavy-hitters ... and my boyfriend. Scattered around my blankets, it's champagne, fresh fruit, names, picnics and faces for days. I invite my Mother. She doesn't think my Father would like to come ... which is just as well, I say ... because he's not invited. He drops her off outside the gates. She has her folding chair, her blanket and her picnic in an all too-familiar tupperware container. I don't recall much about the performance ... but my Mother was entranced and enchanting! As one with her clever son. My friends adored her ... and all night, her eyes sparkled with delight.

It is a sight I will never forget ... and one I have rarely witnessed since. Our tragedy. My responsibility ... but not entirely my fault. It's one of the aspects of being brought up in a trenchantly Christian household I still resent so completely: the subjugation of women. "The Wife and Mother" as sole purpose, not context. Silenced to circumstance.

But that, as they say, is another story. Right now, I think I need to take my Mother to the opera. In Sydney. And pay for the flight, the accommodation and the fucking tickets! The Sheraton on The Park for a night or two I think. Don't you?

Image: Aleksandr Dityatin. Moscow, 24 July 1980. Games of the XXII Olympiad. Aleksandr Dityatin of the Soviet Union, gold medallist of the individual all-round competition, at the medal ceremony.

Waves of distraction

After a brief but intense conversation with myself yesterday, I've decided that the essential purpose of my blog is to be A Journal. 'What', 'Who', 'Where' and 'When' as opposed to 'Why'. At least some of the time. I'm a little fatigued by the obsession. It's like the beginning of every love-affair, when you disappear into bed for days ... weeks ... 'making' love, kissing, holding, believing again - unquestionably - in the power of intimacy. The whisper of breath on your neck ... and the blissful ignorance of the rest of the world and all the people you knew and loved in it. Quick showers and endless embraces. The stomach is empty ... but the soul is full. And the soundtrack is Mahler. Eating, drinking, and any and every thing else become ad breaks in the 'end-of-season cliffhanger' of So, This Is Love.

Until one day, you realise you've lost the remote and you're stuck 'on' Ten. Seriously. The days of hungry embellishment become minutes of interminable obligation. The breath on your neck stinks. You run out of toothpaste. The voice cracks concrete and comes not only in another language but also from another room. The smile is toothless. The conversation is secondhand. The silence is preferable. The intimacy is acidic and the simplicity is complicated. The soundtrack is Trance. You're on SBS.

My parents called me yesterday ... our annual Easter catch-up. It goes like this: my Father tells me that the Uniting Church has decided to defend itself from the 'pressure of the gay and lesbian lobby'. "Well it's about time Daddy", I say ... without a hint of sarcasm. I am the archetypal son of a Preacher Man. It's the reason I over-react - the fatal flaw in my otherwise hopeful persona. I engage with the sentiment for two reasons: 1) I agree with, and encourage, him completely; and 2) he'll eventually put my Mother on. He and I politely ignore the fact that the chicken's a bit pink. She and I share dessert.

Maternal guidance is a quiet thing. Dads are the song and dance. Mums are the phrasing.

"Hello Geoffrey. Have you been behaving yourself?"

"Yes I have actually ... perfectly."

"Oh, what a shame. Why?"

Phwoomp. Harpooned. Again. She's famous for it ... and it's one of the things I love about her the most. Like the time she put "Cunt" on the Scrabble board and, in response to my seizure, my sister's plain-faced horror and my father's hotpot of shock, adoration and laughter, she brightly - if not somewhat rhetorically - asked: "Well, that's a word, isn't it?"

It was time to play hard. Sydney hard. It's the only way to begin to defy Mother's rather all too-clearly articulated disappointment.


The destination: Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club. The occasion: The world premiere screening of The Inaugural Surf Life Saving Association 2007 Sydney Gay + Lesbian Mardi Gras Float DVD. The relevance: I had participated (and was duly credited) by helping to dispose of 1,000 beachballs into the crowd along the parade route. The reason: Surely it's obvious.

I need to get 'off the grid' more often.

And I will write more about this wonderful evening when I stop catching sight of huge black fourteen legged spiders crawling from all directions toward my keyboard.

In the meantime ...

Blank verse

I cleaned up 'my office' yesterday.* It's never a good sign. It usually means I imagine I'm going somewhere. Or that my housemate's cat, Miss Sin Sin - who is wandering dazed and confused through the advanced stages of both pussy dementia and renal failure - has managed to find what can only be the tiniest piece of carpet (beneath the plastic storage boxes, cardboard storage boxes and veritable pyramids of papers, yet-to-be-reconciled receipts, yet-to-be-filed file notes, newspapers, books, plastic bags, paper bags, sleeping bag, poster tubes, production samples, incense burners, spiral-bound notepads, yoga mat (!), first proofs, corrected proofs, second proofs, corrected second proofs, envelopes, million dollar ideas scribbled on the back of said - now takeaway coffee cup and cigarette ash stained - proofs, books, CDs, video tapes, shoe-boxes, photos - framed and unframed, press clippings, finished and unfinished scripts, unopened mail, pieces of no-longer-spiral-bound notepad paper, and ring-binders) on which to shit.

I respect her opinion. She's a cat. What choice do I have? That, and the fact that I think I'd have no choice but to respect even a human who, in the advanced stages of both dementia and renal failure, could manage to pull off a feat like that!

And I couldn't write. Oh no, it's not going to be one of those pieces is it? Well, I could ... BORING! ... but not about anything very interesting. Just words ... and writing is? ... Starved of comprehension. Well, it had to happen.

Where's the through-line, I asked myself. Oh dear. What's the point? It was all going so swimmingly! What's the reason? Here we go! Where's the irony? What's the difference? Humourless. Witless. Artless. Shit. Stop taking yourself so seriously! ... too seriously ... don't get too carried away ... don't be so self-indulgent! ... don't self-edit ... wanker! ... stop doubting yourself! ... unless you're right to ... judging yourself ... someone's got to ... why such high expectations? ... think of the reader, your audience ... they don't want to read about how fucking complex it all is ... they want ... who cares what 'they' want? ... I'm not doing this for them ... of course you are! ... it's a journal ... you're a fucking show-off ... a record of my time ... wow! how thrilling! ... so that this time next year ... too optimistic ... I will be able to look back ... not with all those melanomas .... at all I have written ... rivetting as it is ... and not have to wonder ... did I mention 'verbose'? ... what I did ... or didn't do ... all year. Where I was ... and where was that ... what it meant ... here we go ... how it felt ... "meaning" something all the time ... finally comprehending why, all those years ago, you and I stopped writing in the first place.

I beg your pardon?

Fuck off!

Because it's too hard.

Sometimes.

Exhausting.

You literary genius you.

Questions.

Answers.

Thief.

Liar.

Borrowed observations.

It's all been said before.

Possibly.

By people better than you.

Possibly.

Much better than you.

Definitely.

You are a fraud.

Yes.

A liar.

No.

And ultimately, no-one cares.

I know.

So?

So just how responsible should I be feeling for what hasn't become of this little boy's dreams, plans and ambitions?




*See: The Encyclopedia of Distraction, pp 48-56.

Established distraction

I've always considered myself 'anti-establishment'. To my very core. Homosexual, unfortunately ... sadly even. Single, passionately. Broke, cyclically. Imaginative, cursedly. Independent, determinedly. Creative, habitually. Leftist, necessarily. Anti-establishment ... single-mindedly. And in spite of the feisty arguments and passionate altercations my blind faith in any and every thing anti-establishment may have fueled over the years, it's actually one of the aspects of my character I've never been entirely comfortable with.

Until yesterday ... when Rosemary Neill wrote into my life.

With this - the single most fearless piece of Theatre Arts journalism written for an Australian newspaper since ... for as long as I can remember.

Why has Rosemary Neill's article had such a major impact on me?

Ms Neill has dared to rise above the suspicion that dare not speak its name: that taxpayer funded Arts organisations - their internal processes and procedures - are somehow impervious to media scrutiny. The Sydney Theatre Company - in fact possibly any performing arts company in Australia - has, to my knowledge, never been scrutinised with this much tenacious spirit and clarity. Ms Neill's article is meticulously researched, authoritative, beautifully structured, razor sharp, and written with great detail, style and courage.

And just like the screenplays for Mississippi Burning and Silence of the Lambs, it's something I truly wish I'd written.

Perhaps most critically, it finally bucks the increasingly disturbing trend throughout the Australian media generally of hapless fawning over the insidious nature of both 'minor' and 'major' celebrity ... to the point where you could almost be forgiven for thinking that New Weekly is our national journal of record ... our New Yorker ... our Time, as it were.

Valid Passport? Check.

I mean, really! In the blog-eyed and Google-eyed blur that was my last week, our increasingly story-addled The Sydney Morning Herald, via their almost perfunctory online edition smh.com.au led - yes led - with a huge photo story about Shane and Simone Warne getting back together! Well roll me over and fuck me sideways with a dead dingo's donga - that's news! And what are they 'photo story leading' with this evening? Well might you ask: "Dehydrated Chappell in hospital: Former Australian cricket captain Greg Chappell, who quit as India coach this week, undergoes hospital tests." Give the man a glass of water, not a fucking headline!

Big suitcase? Check.

I love Cate Blanchett as much as the next person, but please - she's not the greatest actress of this or any century. And in case you missed the critical word in that sentence, it was 'actress' ... so can we please all try and keep this thing in perspective? I mean, I've typographically and graphically designed some nice looking shit in my day and I've been nominated for - and won - an award or two, but hello? ... reality check? ... it doesn't automatically qualify me for the Creative/Artistic Director job at Saatchi & Saatchi. Even if the job were to have been advertised - which, perhaps not ironically - the Artistic Director position ... er, positions ... at the Sydney Theatre Company was/were not.

Visas? Check.

I predict that the Sydney Theatre Company's response will be as cynical as it is well-rehearsed. Ms Neill will be accused of subscribing (pardon the pun) to the "Tall Poppy Syndrome". She will probably be called "Un-Australian" and accused of gross unfairness to Ms Blanchett and Mr Upton by daring to pre-empt 'what we're sure will be a dazzling, daring and successful 2009 Sydney Theatre Company Season'. They will probably be referred to as 'easy targets'. She will be accused of parochialism of the highest order by even questioning the decision to import Phillip Seymour Hoffman to direct one of Mr Upton's plays at the expense of a job for a local director. And in an 'industry' where the unemployment rate rarely falls below about 78 percent - that is a shameful ego-centric crime against the creative talent in this country. One almost wonders what the Media and Entertainment Arts Alliance might have to say about it. I doubt we'll ever know.

But it's the penalty for even faintly suggesting that Robyn Nevin is nepotistic that obliterates even my rampant imagination! (If the wind had changed direction this morning, I'm convinced I might have heard the reaction from here!)

Credit card with zero balance? Check.

Rosemary Neill is responsible for the fact that a few things about who I am mean more to me today than they did yesterday. Chief among them is the realisation that we must read - and write - about unpopular truths. They might keep us poor, but they keep us honest ... just as much as they help us to nurture, value, understand, develop and maintain our personal and creative ambition and integrity. That arrogance and conceit are weapons employed, quite strategically and selfishly, by those in privileged positions to keep the less well-connected and more faint-hearted but equally as capable folk at bay. And that 'anti-establishment' sensibilities are, collectively, equal to significantly more than my ever-faithful flame-thrower, habitually tucked under my arm in preparation for what might turn out to be impossibly boring dinner party conversation.

Anti-establishment is a cultural responsibility.

Shit! Wait!

With a bit of 'Googlestraction', it would seem that Rosemary Neill is certainly no stranger to controversy - or the concept of 'unpopular truths'. Here is a link to her book - published in 2002.

Cancel that cab! Let's put on a play! Maestro?

Flights of distraction

I am an aviation junkie. There. I've said it. "Stricken airliners" litter my dreamscape. "Under the flightpath" is a rental property imperative. The unmistakable smell of an airport sets my nerves and senses alight ... and in the days when I used to have a car, I would often spontaneously drive down to Botany Bay, park my car, and walk along the sandy path to my precious 'plane spotting enclosure' - only metres from runway 16R/34L (Kingsford Smith's main north-south runway). And here, I would spend hours and hours happily high on aviation-fuelled distraction.

There is something utterly compelling about the sight of a Boeing 747 powering up the runway, heavy with fuel, cargo, passengers and crew. It is a majestic and awe-inspiring event. Every time. One jaw-dropping thrill after another. O Fortuna invariably sweeps through my internal stereo system as the gigantic conglomeration of man's mastery of aerodynamics, chemistry, science and design thunders down the runway. The front wheels lift off ... and there is that moment where that peculiar little angle of an aircraft's tail suddenly displays its truth of purpose - gliding, only ever a few thrillingly exact few feet it seems, perfectly parallel to the runway. And then the ultimate show of strength and vision ... the conquest of the point of no return ... as the aircraft leaves the ground, heaving itself with laborious thrust and utter determination into the sky. I always hold my breath. The landing gear folds neatly away into the hold. It's better than sex. I have never been known to wish for it to end. And the experience is always punctuated by a little tinge of sadness and regret when the glittering object of my affection - and undivided attention - is but a speck in the distance. Unlike almost every film I've ever seen, I always want to see it again. I was paying attention but I might have missed something of this utterly hypnotic display. Theatre has rarely been this good ... but unlike Theatre, I have absolutely no idea how this happens. It defies my comprehension, each and every single time.

Plane spotting is a fixation - a hobby that, unlike stamp collecting, gives something back. Absolutely. Even just waiting for an airplane to put in an appearance on the tarmac and taxi past us invokes the rare thrill of anticipation ... and I am rarely alone in my cyclone fenced Utopia. People come with their children, cameras, tripods, and ladders ... and if I am really lucky, radios locked on to the Air Traffic Control Tower frequency are clipped to the fence for the intimate, private pleasure of our merry band of worshippers. It's so much fun I'm surprised there's not a law against it. Or a tax. Or, at the very least, an entry fee.

If plane spotting is my addiction, then actually flying is - surely - a fix as close to heaven as I'm ever going to get ... a silent, illicit thrill that triggers an almost unbearable manifestation of fear, apprehension, delight, and wonder. On my most recent flight to Melbourne, I was sitting behind a father and his two very young daughters, one of whom, like me, had managed to secure the First Prize - A Window Seat. Our push back from the terminal was late. Our wait on the tarmac was interminable. The Pilot informed us, wryly, that it was always like this at Kingsford Smith on a Friday night. His voice immediately went through some kind of internal filter I think we all share in some small, but incredibly significant way: does this sound like the voice of a man who knows what he's doing? Am I prepared to trust this man with my life? Have I done the right thing accepting a window seat at the rear of the aircraft? I did have a choice ... 23C (aisle) or 47A (window) ... I can't get Jane Froman out of my head.

We were running late. Our taxi to take-off is a jolly affair ... and fast ... an added treat! I strain in my seat to glimpse behind us.

"Look Daddy!" the little girl in front of me exclaims. "Look at all the other planes behind us!"

I thought the very words I was thinking had inadvertently escaped. Had I really just shouted? Was my delinquent, internal dialogue unable to help itself? I glanced quickly around to make sure no-one was looking at me ... nervously ... the way I'm sure we all do, almost innately these days, to reassure ourselves that our fellow passengers reveal a complete lack of visible 'hijack' or 'random act of sharpened chop-stick wielding terrorism' potential.

Our 737 turns on her heels and settles at the end of the runway.

"Look Daddy!"

Power. A shift ... my new girlfriend gives me a sexy little shimmy ... and here we go into the sequence that always, for me anyway, more than entirely justifies the cost of a seat on a plane. Every last cent.

"Wow! Daddy! We're going so fast!"

For some reason, it's a longer than anticipated race.

"Get up, get up" I urge, soundlessly.

"When are we going to take-off Daddy?

Shut up little girl.

... and then yes! The magical tilt. I can see what it looks like from inside and I know what we look like from outside. My heart sings.

"Oh Daddy! The buildings are so small ... look at the lights! They are so beautiful! They're beautiful Daddy! Look!"

I'm looking. I'm smiling ... fuck it, beaming. And right there in front of me, the very articulation of my own delight. My odious, adult and silenced joy.

We bank to the right ... and I wonder when it happens, this adult imperative to suppress our innermost squeals of joy and wonder. And when do we learn to accept it? When did silent observance become an acceptable form of expression? Who determined that rule? Certainly not, I would suggest, the people who dreamed that a mass of heaving metal could fly.

Timing is everything

As a tyro Publicist, I used to angst over my media releases ... I mean, journos are a really tough crowd. I used to wonder if there was ever anything written, at any time, for anyone that had either: as much riding on it (media coverage); or that could be passed over with the same snide, know-it-all, super-critical (these people write for a living after all) glance before illiciting a Publicist-hating, now-you've-fucked-up-my-deadline, fuelled cry: 'What a crock of boring, verbose shit! Who do they think gives a fuck!? Fuck these fucking time-wasting, uneducated, moron fucking Publicists! Jesus!' Sound of media release being violently destroyed and chucked in the bin.

I remember a time I was having a few beers with a journalist in Melbourne. (I actually remember more than a few beers with more than a few journalists ... but that's not the point.) This particular journo told me that most journalists actually like to receive media releases ... and that they find them very useful. But, he cautioned, it's all about when we receive them. Good publicists know media schedules. They also learn when to make that 'follow-up' call ... and trust me, it's really not good when you fuck the timing of those up:

PUBLICIST: "What's that sound I can hear in the background, darl?"
JOURNALIST: "That? Oh, that's just our final copy call deadline bell."
PUBLICIST: "Gorgeous! Now, about that media release ..."
JOURNALIST: "I'm going to hang up the phone now."

(Clunk.)

These days, there's also a fantastic online media release dissemination service called PRWeb. You register, you tick your field(s) of interest, and every day, without fail, they send you lots of media releases. I am registered on PRWeb from the days when I was editing, writing, designing and formatting The Pink Broad), and I receive about 30 media releases every day. Right about now. Some of them are actually very interesting and, yes, very useful. Others - after my interpretation of the infamous 'know-it-all, super-critical glance' - go straight into the trash.

Of the dozen or so that arrived today (Good Friday), there was one which absolutely compelled me to reward such a delightful display of initiative ... and it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to their website.

Which just goes to prove that timing is, in fact, everything. And you've really got to admire theirs.

Bless.

The sound we just heard ...

... was a hand grenade landing at the feet of our Prime Minister John Howard and our Treasurer Peter Costello. Call me a 'Conspiracy Theorist' ... call me an 'Old Pinko' ... accuse me of being so socio-politically blinkered that I am only capable of using the 'left' hand side of the stove ... categorise me, for your convenience, as you will - but I am tipping that the undeniable thud we heard last night has marked the beginning of the end of John Howard's Prime Ministership.

Here's why.

As reported on ABC News last night, the Commonwealth Government's Treasury Secretary Ken Henry (whose boss is Peter Costello) took it upon himself to fearlessly announce that 'good policy can often fall victim to political opportunity when an election beckons'. The Australian encapsulates it all rather neatly in their Editorial here.

Howard and Costello were, quite obviously, both caught horribly off-guard. It was easy to recognise because they rarely are. As media performers, Howard is especially hard to beat. Costello's hastily convened media call following Ken Henry's announcement was a brief and jittery appearance - with our Crown Prince of the Facetious Smirk looking and sounding noticeably ruffled. Costello is such a veteran of these sorts of pit-stops that it is rare to see him looking off into the middle distance, even for a second or two, trying to ignore the fact that an elephant has just trampled across the garden behind him. By Costello's impervious standards, it was a wholly unconvincing performance.

Then there was Prime Minister Howard's positively sullen interview last night with Kerry O'Brien on ABC TV's 7.30 Report. Was I the only one to notice Howard's nervous tick - the apparently uncontrollable little twitch courtesy of his right shoulder?

But 'the devil' is in the detail, as it were: the "policy" in question. And what was that? Ah, yes. Water. And who is the Parliamentary Secretary for water?

It would appear that someone, somewhere, has decided that the Government stand little chance of winning the Federal election to be held sometime this year with either Howard or Costello as leader of the Liberal Party. Ladies and gentlemen ... start your engines.