Another slow news day, another round of polls to fill the gap. Fairfax papers led with Labor’s “poll misery” and today Charles Richardson sounds off about reading the tea leaves so far from an election.

Here at Crikey we have a much more appealing set of questions. Forget the daily quiz in The Sydney Morning Herald, never mind the trivia over lunch in The Age, forget Songlines in the Herald Sun. There’s a new quiz in town — every Friday Richard Farmer has pledged to test your comprehension skills in his weekly How well do you read your Crikey? quiz.

A stunning exercise in recapping on the week that was, last week’s multiple choice questions included:

  • Who said this?: “I suspect a lot of currently middle-aged Australian men will be better grandparents than they were parents.”
  • Which of these political parties did First Dog NOT include in his list of political parties desperate to unite under the banner of freedom?
  • In five months the average performance of the 28 stocks in the MT Preferred Stock Portfolio as at 27 March was up: … ?
  • Thousands of Northern Territorians have taken up a new s-x craze known as: … ?

And last but not least:

  • What (who?) was this week’s Crikey bird of the week?

Answer (as if you need it): the spangled drongo.

Keep abreast of all your spangled drongo news by reading today’s offering from cover to cover. And for the lazier readers among you, the cheat sheet for today: keep an eye on Andrew Crook’s story on the real numbers behind the IPA’s Tim Flannery polling; pay particular attention to Glenn Dyer on building approvals and the chances of an interest rate cut (hint: pretty good) and take notes on The Power Index‘s powerful culture couple — yes, that’d be Blanchton, or Upchett … alright, that doesn’t work — the Sydney Theatre Company’s Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton.