"Here's to you, Lynnie!"

And so she goes. A four-hour marriage to Paul Robinson and she's off. To the Maldives. Without so much as a yellow cab out of Pinoak Court.

Lyn Scully burst into my life in a leopard print bodysuit sometime in 1999, replacing the tired, old Fat Phil Martin with her bogan husband and troupe of daughters. And an improbable A-grade footballing son in the UK. For while there my heart yearned for the down-to-earth realism of Ailsa Piper's Ruth Wilkinson, but, as these things are, Lynnie was. And her leopard print became nothing more than the wallpaper of my life.

But then, alongside a powerhouse of Australian acting talent which included Val Jellay, Bud Tingwell and Joan Sidney, Lynnie got HER storyline, probably the best-executed storyline Erinsborough has seen in my long history of Neighbours watching. For so long Lynnie had been a doormat to her dull, gruff, bogan husband, but finally she had her chance to shine. Slowly, it was revealed that the woman she had considered her aunt for all her 40-odd years as indeed her mother, and the appropriate crisis of personality followed, the tears, the shouting, the desperation.

All soap characters, regardless of stripe, become endeared to viewers by by the traumas they survive. It is only in these moments of extreme duress and emotional firewalking that we really get an actor's or actress' range, they have to plumb the depths of their character with all the raw nerves exposed. And Janet Andrewartha showed 'em how it is done, accompanied by the stirling performances of Bud as her adopted father Henry, and Joan as the tearaway biological mother Valda.

And so we got an insight into Lynnie, and she emerged from her ordeal a stronger, more independent woman. But, as the Neighbours writers are wont to do, the transformation didn't last long. A few knock-down, drag-outs Ramsay Street stylee with Nat Bass' Izzy, and it was all over, red rover. Back to boring old doormat Lyn. The gumption, the self-righteousness, the indignation—the possibility of a Mrs Mangel for the 21st century—all out the window in favour her trademark nervous titter. And what a waste it was.

Neither did I get the Load Ship that I was after, either.

Which all goes to prove two things:

• that the current crop of Neighbours writers can't write a strong matriarch—Anne Charleston left for that reason: Madge, too, had lost the fire in her belly.
• and that I am a very, very tragic individual.

The Honeymoon is over

Just a week into his leadership of the federal ALP and Kevin Rudd has been served up a typical manoeuvre from Our Man of Tinsel. And what a beautiful wedge it is:



Consider a recent proposal made by a certain opposition leader that immigrants to Australia undergo a Citizenship Test—you know, bone up on our national language and its idiom, and understand a few things about our history—Captain Cook 's arrival, say, or convict settlement, squatocracy, or the White Australia Policy spring to mind as pivotal periods of our nation's great past. And then there's our culture—the triple-fronted cream brick veneer, the hero worship of outlaws and sportsmen, the Hawaiian pizza, Ern Malley and the denigration of anything vaguely intellectual (other than cricket statistics of course, which should probably have their own university canon should Our Dear Leader have his way). Naturally, these are all important parts of all the daily life of all Australians, and each and every one of us should be able to identify them on a multiple-choice quiz. Hell, maybe we should hold this Citizenship Test in a smoky pub where the winner gets to take home a passport rather than a slab of VB? Second Place would of course win a meat tray, culled from all the animals represented on our coins.

But I digress. This idea was originally proposed by former Opposition Leader Kim Beazley who was trying to outflank the Government on "Border Protection". And I quote The Economist:

Mr Beazley himself, however, has consistently fared badly in the polls, because he has been unable to explain how, or indeed if, Labor differs from the conservatives.

And so, with Bomber gone and many of his rightist policies under a question mark, what better time to raise the stakes thinks Johnnie. A silly idea which will unite his own cherished hansonites and cause a schism between the indignant Left and bickering Right of the ALP. And thereby they begin to tear themselves apart again.

This is the first true test of Mr Rudd's mettle.

There is a god!

HALLELUJAH!

As evidenced by the following, from Mr Murdoch's minions:

But last night, the new Opposition Leader pledged to stare down colleagues pushing favourites for the shadow ministry, saying he and newly elected Deputy Leader Julia Gillard would "significantly shape" the front bench.

"I will be leading this show and when it comes to the outcomes I want, I will get them," he said on ABC TV's 7.30 Report. "I don't particularly care if anyone has opposing views - that's what's going to happen."

And while I'm at it, what was so spectacularly bad about MedicareGold?