Richard Farmer’s chunky bits

Decision day approaching. I can’t remember a prime minister who knowingly called an election when the pollsters were indicating an almost certain loss — which makes choosing the election day a nerve-racking matter for Kevin Rudd. Based on the latest lot of findings, things at the start of this week might have been pretty close to even-stevens but there was a general expectation among both the major campaign teams that the government’s support would decline rather than improve once the date was set.

The Prime Minister thus will be hoping that the results of the surveying this weekend puts Labor clearly in front so he can minimise the time available for the Coalition to undermine him by ending the phoney war. Should Rudd hesitate because defeat looks likely then my guess is that defeat is what he will eventually end up with.

The verdict of the readers. That might be my guess, but I am more interested in your combined wisdom. Hence another of our little surveys of what Crikey readers think.

A weekend recipe. For those of you influenced by my recent musings on the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation advocacy of increased insect-eating, here’s a little something more:

The suggestion comes from the new “Eat-a-Bug Cook Book” which also has a nice recipe for deep-fried tarantula spider dusted with smoked paprika.

From the We Need That Word department:

deceipt(n.): a piece of paper given to you by a corporation, as proof that you’ve been had.

News and views noted along the way.

• Alfred Brendel: a pianist’s A–V — “There are those who believe that delving into the biography of artists ensures a deeper perception of their art. I am not one of them. The notion that a work of art has to mirror the person of the artist, that man and work are an equation, that the integrity of the person warrants the integrity of his production—such belief seems to me to belong, particularly in the area of music, to the realm of wishful thinking … Brahms conceived his D-Minor Piano Concerto under the impact of Schumann’s plunge into the Rhine.”
• New study shows that dogs use color vision
• Nelson Mandela’s less attractive legacy — how will history judge the world’s favorite saint?
• I can’t hear myself eat — “Ask any weary gastronaut about the single most disruptive restaurant trend over the past decade or so, and they’ll give you a succinct, one-sentence answer. It’s the noise, stupid.”
• Public policy: are we safer now? — “There is great debate over whether falling crime rates in the US and UK are due to smarter policing, generational change — or bad statistics.”