Crying over spilt satay

Despite the profundity of our Australian leadership spill a couple of weeks back, I dare say a hearty chunk of the population is still more perterbed by the elimination of Marion in MasterChef this week. Unlike KRudd, Marion possessed an array of qualities befitting the post of supreme being in her field: Articulate and without spin, loved by all in the house and, ultimately, cookin' with gas, all the way home. Marion was the best in fact. Probably even, if you took away the nerves and pressures of assumption, the best at satay sauce.

But we'll probably forget her too. Shed a tear. Take a deep breath.

And drink in the amnesia.

Because life moves on to other dramas quicker than you can post a Facebook status or text 140 characters on @Twitter.

And so, to the topic of my poem. We have a new leader at our helm. She can't cook for shit but she's fierce and on fire - at least until the next elimination round when Ms Gillard faces the Australian public once and for all.

My tip? Marion from for PM!


Fair shake o' the sauce bottle

At lunch there was a murmur.
By afternoon some grunting.
By dinner the announcement
which had the punters punting.
The PM’s speech ensued that night
before we’d time to breathe.
A flood of news reports gushed in
we couldn’t quite believe.

Ask some who were watching on
the tele as Rudd spoke
whether they thought this was simply
just a poor timed joke.
After all, the nerve of it,
to cut in to, oh no!
Not just any viewing,
but on MasterChef! No go!

(Meanwhile, in Morocco,
quite insulated there
a quite bemused, a bit confused
Pete Garrett scratched his…hair.
Our Peter, he was whaling
or trying hard to stop
and had no clue about Australia’s
head up for the chop.)

The cauldrons they were burning -
someone had lit a match.
The Redhead type (I know, a pun,
let’s not labour it, Batch).
And whilst we all slept in our beds
our lives as safe as houses,
a dim thought might have sat there quiet
on what Gillard espouses.

By dawn, Rudd pulled the pin on it.
By brekky, new PM!
By lunch the great post mortem.
By dinner, Rudd? Who? What? When?
By evening social networking
was all about her hair.
Oh my Lord, get over it!
(But really, to be fair

if I say it once more now
and then no more forever,
Ms Gillard’s got a wicked stylist,
perfect coiffed endeavour.
He gets up early, 5am
and makes her breakfast too.
Handy when your partner is
a fine hairdresser, phew!)

That is it. My commentary.
And so, back to the soccer.
A woman’s in the top job now;
the stir has been a shocker.
But @Twitter told us yonks ago
and Facebook soon got bored.
With our attentions, oh so short,
we’re only briefly floored.

And then we all get hungry
for something else to #hash.
Another drama, more suspense
on which our teeth can gnash.
Our passions heat like microwaves,
then cool like jellied sweat,
but fair shake o' the sauce bottle,
hope history don’t forget.

© Elise Batchelor June 2010