We had a “grads” Christmas party last week, and we’d invited along the summer interns mostly to make up the numbers. As soon as we settled in to start the night, a group pulled out cigarettes. And they kept going through the night. Now, I’d seen it often enough in Europe, and given the reputation of the continent, I could accept it. But my impression of Australia, and Australian ‘youth’, was that smoking was on the way out, a rarity at best. ...

Enough Politics! Casino Royale, the 21st Bond film, goes back to the “start”, the story of how Bond became Bond. Only… it’s not. It’s full of little cues to all those standard Bond quirks. The ignore-what-happened-last-time persists, as in all Bond flicks, but Bond’s never gone backwards, as it were. For cryin’ out loud, Q (or his ertswhile replacement John Cleese) is missing! The whole atmosphere feels like it could be, should be, set against the cloak-and-dagger of the Cold War - but it’s the international terrorist financing that provides the bad guy (don’t worry, this isn’t anything spoilerish). ...

The last week of the year for the parliament was an action-packed one to say the least - the like that goes “one week’s a long time in politics” was shown to be quite true. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard replaced Beazley at the top of the Labor party, something which I would consider just about the smartest move made by the Labor party over the least 5 years. Beazley had lost it somewhere in his mumbles, and someone who’s lost that many times just within his own party was never going to be a serious contender against the master of Australian politics that is John Howard. Rudd started the week with a couple of strong lines against Howard, willing and able to drudge up the 22% interest rates from when Howard was Treasurer. The electorate in general is adopting a wait-and-see approach so far. Rudd doesn’t have the down-to-earth populist appeal that Latham originally had, but he’s got savvy and, more importantly, he knows the areas in which he can pitch battles. To put it briefly, he’s about 10 times more likely than Beazley to have an impact. In a world where China is steadily growing in influence, Rudd’s ability to speak Mandarin (fluently, apparently) should hold him well in the future, should he get past Howard. ...

I genuinely feel sorry for the English; it’s not like they’re that bad, actually. Any other side in the world, they’d do fine (probably), especially if they put this much effort into it. It’s just that the Aussies are just that little bit more arrogant, that little bit more self-believing, that they’ll put in those last hard yards the English just can’t scrounge up, and they beat them. I think it’s cricket that’s suffering; I don’t really want to watch it any more, if every script ends with “Australia wins”. I can’t stand how arrogant and unsporting they are about it. ...

I’ve had this phone for just over a week now and the verdict is in: It’s good. But, and there’s always that inevitable ‘but’, it’s a little bit of a disappointment. The Basics The basic features of this match basically any other phone out there on the market today. Bluetooth, 2 megapixel camera, slider, fairly funky looking overall package. The ‘hook’, I suppose, is the Walkman branding, which Sony Ericsson is pushing as its ‘youthful’ models, trying to hook into the MP3 player market. Well, they got me, because I was considering a replacement for my temperamental iPod, and seeing this phone meant I could reduce two, maybe even three devices to one. It’s got fairly good battery life, with 3 hours talktime, 8 hours Walkman play or a week’s worth standby. It’s also got flight mode so that you can use the Walkman on a plane. ...