Introducing the Mid-week Magpie

Yes, two slices of `Pie most weeks for the same price, ie nothing.

This will be an occasional Wednesday column, with The Magpie returning to his founding style aimed strictly at the world's trivia and strictly for (hopefully) laughs. Watch out for world shattering information such as some problems with place names, weird medical conditions, famous last words, how well hung is an elephant - the subject of this first mid-week column - and any other bright trinkets of oddness that catch The Magpie's eye.

The regular Saturday drivel will continue to infest your computers each week, giving The `Pie's jaundiced view of the week's happening.

But for now, have a nibble of your extra slice of `Pie here at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

Tales of a miffed Mullet, a konfused Katter, and rapture ratbaggery.

This week: doing the political hokey pokey in The Mullet's Mundingburra, hocus pocus in Katter's Kennedy, and why Rapture could become a popular new Christian name.

First to local issues, and yet another pre-selection polka.

Labor folk out Mundingburra way should adopt as their official branch song the Hokey Pokey, the 1949 ditty that exhorts people to put the right one in, then take the right one out, then put the left one in and turn yourself all about. 

Because that is exactly what has happened this week, with ALP right-winger and long-serving foot soldier Paul Fletcher was declared the winner of a tight pre-selection race to face Kid Crisafulli in the state seat of Mundingburra, only to have that result overturned on a recount and the left faction's Mark Harrison placed first after the 'steward's inquiry' in Brisbane.

And Paul Fletcher isn't the only loser in this cock-up, The Moaning Mullet and Cuddlepie Wallace have had their influence and standing in the party  challenged at grassroots level. And even maybe - just maybe - by Brisbane. 

Read on for what's happened.

Jenny HIll wins a contest and earns a new title, arnie's chicks come home to roost, and 'plankers' ... rhymes with?

Also, one boozer laughing all the way to the bank, and Hinchinbrook MP Andrew Cripps has a 'deliverance' moment.

So, this week, let's skip the sublime and go from the ridiculous to the ridiculous.

Forget the kids, let's get our pollies and other influence peddlers to take the NAPLAN test.

On the evidence of this week, most wouldn't pass.
More on that shortly, but wasn't that great news about the budget funding for mental health in Australia?

Long overdue, if you ask The `Pie, especially since most of us suffer from that debilitating but often undiagnosed condition Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. Everywhere you turn, you can't get away from them, be they politicians, newspaper editors, Dancing With The Stars judges, or even avian-inspired bloggers ... heh, heh, heh.

EXCLUSIVE: A Steal For Steel - Council Scrap That Is - Or How To Get Less Than 1% On Your Money - Two Senior Qld Pollies Let Slip Their Post Politics Plans - And Ozzie bin Laden's Possible Fate

If, at the time, you thought that the purchase of Jackson Pollack's Blue Poles was a dodgy proposition with public money, it was a rock solid investment next to Townsville's light poles.

Specifically, the Flinders Street East monstrosities installed a few years back and recently ripped out to all-round approval for the latest revamp of Via Vomitorium. They went under the auctioneer's hammer - which also pounded the ratepayers wallets - late last month. You may well have trouble believing the outcome, but The Magpie will shed more light shortly.

Also this week, pictorial proof that Anna Blight and Cuddlepie Wallace have all but given up on re-election - both are caught rehearsing together for their life after politics. The Magpie also falls about laughing with glee at the latest nickel-plated, rolled-gold spanner thrown into the works of Townsville's next council election. It's all here this week in the Magpie's Nest. 

Scorecard: Chris Condon 8 v Police 0 - Townsville show boss and political dabbler beats a bum rap yet again.

This is an extra column, the regular Saturday offering will be posted as usual.

He's done it again. Or perhaps more accurately, the police have yet again not done it - again. Chris Condon has been cleared of illegally slapping  a man to the ground injuring his jaw when the show boss confronted what he believed to be a trespasser on showground property.

For background on the incident and the the appeal which resulted in a re-trial being ordered, read this beautifully written (heh heh heh) article here.

After the expense of a trial, a successful appeal against the conviction and sentence on a charge of grievous bodily harm, and a successful hearing to have the re-trial moved to Mackay (opposed by the Crown), the DPP earlier this week decided to take their bat and ball and go home.

Retired hurt would be the better analogy when the Crown declined to go ahead with the fresh trial in the neutral territory of Mackay. The official term is Nolle prosequi 'to be unwilling to pursue', and it is hoped that this touch of erudite and cultured language will be balm for the  the severely mauled taxpayers who foot the bill for legal misadventures like this.