MondayIt turned up lost, looking for love in all the wrong places. Expecting inanimate objects to provide it with the food of life. Attacked by sharks, slowly getting weaker.
Yes, the Opposition Leader was back to town.
Not really of course, he wasn't back for a day or two yet, if anyone noticed, and while it would take a week of agonising before experts decided to euthaniase a lost baby whale, Dr Nelson was going to take a bit longer.
In Beijing local officials decide the Games are so good, they don't need to talk about them anymore at the usual morning media briefing. Offically it's because it clashes with a Michael Phelps swim. Actually they don't need the hassle of talking about the embarrasing stuff. Human rights and so on. Briefing cancelled.
Tuesday
The Reserve Bank finally gets the message this column, in it's economic wisdom, had been deliivering for some time, and realises that too many families are trying to sell their children on eBay, thereby driving the rpice down, and it's time to do "something" about interest rates. The trick now is whether the big banks will take any notice.
Treasurer Waye Swan warns them that they better follow suit and cut rates or it could be their first born on the auction block. He says he knows people who know people and it can be arranged.
The banks think they know better until really dark mutterings are heard about "re-regulation". Labor voters with bank shares that have done quite nicely thankyou think this is another reason to play nice with Swan and do the right thing about rates.
Wednesday
One of the not-so-big banks sponsors a survey about quality of life basically so it can get its name in the paper. Utopia for Canberrans apprently is located in Rivett, or Weston Creek more generally.
Now don't get me wrong, some of my best friends live in Rivett. No doubt even some of them deign to look at this column occasionally, but there was an unseemly crowing from that part of town about this result. A bit too much self justification. It's not as if you ever see people from the inner south looking smug do you? That would be ridiculous.
Elsewhere in town but a long way from Utopia, military contractors were having a private forum. The president of the International Peace Operations Association, as it is known, emerged to say, "In Iraq and Afghanistan, you have the best-supported and best-supplied military operations ever." He did not go on to talk about what many people think are the results so far.
Thursday
The ACT Legislative Assembly sees the first ousting of a chief minister in its long and distinguished history when Jon Stanhope is sent to the sin bin for over enthusiastic heckling.
Knowing disarray when they think they see it, the Liberal Party tries to exploit this event. This allows the obvious counter about what the Libs have been doing for the last few years and how many leaders have they had now? Undeterred, the Opposition presses on, or bangs on at least. It's amazing the stamina a sniff of minority government gave give you.
Friday
Aust ralians are fat, and it's costing us a lot. We need to change our ways we are told. Eat less, exercise more. We contemplate this news over a bowl of coco pops and move on quickly to the Olympics pages.
Where we read two women in their 70s have been sentenced to "re-education through labour" for wanting to protest in Beijing. The Games, we are told by organisers are not a "panacea" for the people's problems. Maybe it's more like we fat Australians are the ones needing a year's "re-education through labour."
*The writer owns Commonwealth Bank shares, which are down a lot by the way.