Not The Best Timing For The Pub With No Bets

The Age

Thursday October 30, 2008

LAWRENCE MONEY

CUP week approacheth and punters are on tenterhooks - particularly at tiny Meredith on the Midland Highway between Ballarat and Geelong. Seems the only TAB within cooee is in the Meredith Hotel and, after one hell of a barney, that pub has closed its doors.

"No, it won't be open next week," says local real-estate agent Frank Parnell, whose agency is right opposite. "But it will reopen eventually."

Already the stories swirl around the 200-population hamlet like blowflies around a barbie. That, after a change of management, the former proprietor would not let in the new proprietor. That the new proprietor kicked in the front door. That the former and new proprietors came to blows. And that there were hiccups in the paperwork and the joint has been shut down by the Liquor Licensing blokes for a while.

Diary could not raise anyone at the pub, although a recorded message said that the "call is important to us". Agent Parnell told us, rather mysteriously, that he knew the inside story but was sworn to secrecy.

Tabcorp went scampering off to check when Diary inquired. What are the odds on an emergency tote?

Footnote: Meredith pub is famous for its "Henry Bolte's Corner", the corner of the bar where the late Victorian premier used to sit for a soothing ale. No bets on cup day? Henry wouldn't be amused.

Buddy, can you spare a dime?

WHITHER the runaway premier, Steve Bracks? First off, he was appointed adviser to East Timor, badgering Canberra for more money for the fledgling government. Then he got the nod as chairman of the pay TV industry's lobby group, pushing Canberra for funds for the idiot box. Now arise Steve Bracks, board member of the Bionic Ear Institute and lobbyist charged with levering $100million out of Canberra and Spring Street for the institute's Melbourne research centre. He'll be wearing out his welcome.

Saints preserve us

TELEMARKETER defence No.3. "I learned Latin years ago for altar service in the Catholic Church," says John Buckle of Drysdale. "When they ring me, I just reel off a few Latin phrases." And it's exitus celeritus soon afterwards.

Short and sweet

OK, BAYSIDE Council has decided against heritage-listing the old Bob Hawke house in Sandringham (Diary, yesterday) but what's the chance of having Bob's shorts bronzed? Age scribe Denise Gadd recalls visiting Captain Hawke's cottage decades ago and finding him in a pair of shorts so small that Warwick Capper's looked like Bombay bloomers in comparison. "I didn't know where to look," recalls Gadd. "I also interviewed wife Hazel there after a rather bruising encounter we'd had at a mayoral dinner. We were both a bit under the weather and she called me a 'royalist c--t' because I said the Queen wasn't all bad!"

A bit short

THESE are strange times. "When you receive a letter from the bank saying 'insufficient funds'," asks Gerry Bullon, "do they mean yours or theirs?"

Jump to it

OUR old mate Popeye Doyle is snapping at the heels of the leader, according to yesterday's betting odds on the lord mayoral race. They have Peter McMullin as favourite at 3.25 and Popeye at 3.5, with craggy sex symbol Nick Columb, who has been getting a golden run in the Murdoch tabloid lately (he even bobbed up among the daily vox pop faces a week ago) at 11s. Popeye is fit enough. We found that out a couple of years ago when scary guy Mick Gatto gave him a trick "exploding" pen. Popeye jumped two metres in the air.

Big help

FAT, fat, fat. We live in the Age of Blubber so what joy yesterday at news that Melbourne scientists are working on some sort of "fat switch" to avert a huge humankind. How fat have we got so far? Well, just check out the heart-rate monitors selling at Aldi stores. They give a read-out on the amount of fat burnt in each exercise session. Its maximum reading is 99.999 kilograms!

Free plug

OUR thanks to Laurie Daniel of Black Rock who, after careful scrutiny of our photo yesterday, concludes that the Plug the Pipe protest wagon had copped a "broken axle", not a flat tyre, in Yea. What this means to the future water supply is unclear.

A bit rich

THE heavy-hitters around town have received an invitation to dinner with Prime Minister Rudd (below right), most of his cabinet AND the premiers of NSW and South Australia. Cost: $550 a head. Now there's a second dinner on the go. The local brass have been invited to dine with Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu (below left) and the shadow cabinet. Cost: $1100 a head. Who's running this country anyhow?

© 2008 The Age

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