Kid Crisafulli hits the big time, and The Green's Bob Brown does it just for larfs.

Yup, Bob The Undertaker’ Brown has a stab at stand-up comedy (pretty successfully – hilarious stuff), and The Brisbane Bantam quickly demonstrates what you can do with a massive majority.

On the local scene, the mayoral race turns into a pinball game, with candidates zinging and pinging off the issue of a new convention center.

It’s all here in an overloaded nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

The Mid-week Magpie looks back on Labor’s train wreck – and muses over some local government implications, one of which has already happened.

Also, Aussie politics has offered a rich vein of chortles when it comes to the names of those boarding, or trying to board, the gravy train (remember Abbot and Costello suing Bob Ellis about alleged sexual hanky panky as students).  So The ‘Pie has decided to have some old fashioned fun with some of the names of candidates across Queensland – an item which carries a very heavy warning ‘PUN AND WEAK JOKE ZONE’.

And we have a farewell song for Anna – all here in this bonus offering of guano from the nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

Time for a singalong. Let's go this day with that old favorite "Now is the hour, when we must say goodbye ....'

The Magpie is sure the Kiwis won't mind us using their dreary little ditty as a celebratory melody, as it is predicted the Queensland voters will provide a soaring chorus of the same sentiment as they trundle off to the polls this fateful day.

But we all surely must have a question mark in our minds about a certain outcome, and resident cartoonist Bentley is worth a thousand words.

But 'Now is the hour ... et-bloody- cetera' - could also be dreared out for The Magpie himself, as he makes his shameful confession of the secret funding he has been receiving for this blog - a reveleation that may well be the end of the road for this whole load of weekly drivel.

Also, a truish  (well, read shaggy dog) story about the Cut Snake Party's non-candidate The Mad Katter and his campaign visit to an old folks home - and The Magpie's exclusive revelation of a rare medical condition afflicting one of our most maligned minorities about which the Federal Government has shamefully neglected to inform us - the swine.

If you can be bothered, it's all here in the nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

Suddenly the Flood Inquiry finding makes this a good election to lose for Labor … and a poisoned chalice for the Brisbane Bantam (or whoever is second best in the LNP).

Yacht builders and helipad installers are rubbing their hands in glee.


Because class action flood claims will have legal bods ordering up new spinnakers, even new yachts or maybe even a modest chopper or two with the juicy prospect of the government (read taxpayers)  forking out squillions for the Blight Government's incompetence.

In other matters of the week, choosing the right word isn’t always easy – The Moaning Mullet chose a four letter one, Seven 'Local' News was a block away from the right one, but The Bulletin and Jeff Jimmieson beat them all, getting their word 100% wrong on the front page yesterday.

And a confused Cuddlepie makes a mysterious pronouncement on the subject of entertainment centers. It’s all here, in the latest nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

Council hopeful Colin Edwards pulls himself out of the race for TCC, and forget about Bob The Builder, up this way, we can boast our own Bob The Bludger.

Prospective independent Colin ‘Sweethearts’ Edwards will not be nominating for Townsville City Council.

Colin tells the Magpie he is disillusioned with what he sees as the prevailing cult of personality at all levels of community service, and the complete lack of reasonable community debate about issues of inclusivity. He made his decision in the wake of this week’s events involving ‘the emphasis on personalities and not issues’.

Now, a general statement of the Magpie’s sticky-beaking.   

Because of the pace that things are happening in these extraordinary political times, The Magpie apologises but feels it necessary to inflict himself upon you a little more frequently than just on Saturdays. So, for the moment,  the old bird will ramble on when the idiocy at large prompts him to do so. Like now.

Right now, the letter du jour is B – it stands for, inter alia,  bludger, bat, and befuddled, – and we’re only halfway through the political week.

The Mad Katter admits he’s on the bludge by shirking his place in Canberra – where he’s paid to be -  but said on radio twice this week that he’s useless down there. So he’s  devoting his federal time to a state campaign in which he is not a candidate. More on that shortly, as well as a candidate for the ‘Bob The Bludger‘s Party’ making a startling admission (almost).

Also, Cuddlepie Wallace, earns not a B but a C word for a bumbling attempt to play the man and not the ball in Thuringowa.

Unless you suffer from another C word – Coulrophobi, the fear of clowns - read on about it in this midweek nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

Now there doesn’t seem to be any doubt - Craig Cuddlepie Wallace wants to lose this election. And for good reason.

You’d be excused for believing that Cuddlepie is vying for a spot on the Olympic gymnastics team.  Although we have been spared the spectacle of the Minister for Mean Roads donning some frilly-hemmed powder-blue  lycra outfits from an Olga Corbett garage sale, the breath-taking back-flipping, running and tumbling this week would make him a shoo-in for London.

The ‘Pie will explain why there are compelling financial arguments and compelling evidence that he wants out.

On the local front, there is a completely overlooked factor in all the financial flapdoodle about Townsville’s proposed combined entertainment/basketball/rugby league/CWA Bake-off Kitchen/Thread and Thimble Club crocheting rooms and Convention Centre. There’s one player who hasn’t been mentioned, but who could hold the key to the whole project’s viability.

And in the latest Nanny State files, the rule that says – this is true, you can read about it - British emergency workers can’t work in water more than ankle deep resulted in more than a dozen 'emergency workers' standing by watching a man drown in a metre-deep pond of still water. (No kidding).

And the Aussie wuss who has beaten whingeing Poms at their own game – all the way to the European Courts. It’s all here in this week’s nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au

Could the Townsville Bulletin be facing a hefty payout for a serious cock-up – and the possibility of a fine in the tens of thousands of spondooliks?. This is serious, folks.

You may recall, gentle reader, several previous revelations of news suppressed by the Townsville Bulletin general manager Michael The Ogre of Ogden Street Wilkins for purely commercial purposes – let’s not upset the advertisers even if the community has a right to know and so on. Those matters were reported under the headline All The News That’s Fit To Print But Isn’t.

But this time – oh, the irony – the story you won’t read in the pristine pages of the Daily Astonisher is brought to you under the headline – All The News That Wasn’t Fit To Print, But Was.

And the fallout could be very serious indeed.

Also The Magpie has collected a few of the better lines prompted by the Labor implosion in Canberra, Bentley and the legendary Larry Pickering put in their rib-tickling two bob’s worth, and read one of the single most stupid lines ever uttered by a TV reporter.

All here in this week’s nest at www.townsvillemagpie.com.au