Humor: Beware the half-cocked Nelson

Beware the half-cocked Nelson

I have to admit it: I was the one who put a gun into Federal Minister Brendan Nelson's hands.

At least I think it was him.

Heck, it was a long time ago. It was in the mid-1960s and I have lost a lot of brain cells since then.

I was invited to the seventh or eighth birthday party of a boy at my primary school named Brendan Nelson and the gun was my present.
Admittedly, it was just a toy space gun but I have often wondered what became of it.

Brendan Nelson and I both lived in the child-chockers young suburb of Newnham in Launceston, Tasmania.
It was a upwardly mobile suburb, though few of us were quite there yet.
A bloke at one end of my street emptied our pig tin (so called because our food scraps were feed to swine) once a week and a bloke at the other end delivered our milk in bottles (with a layer of cream at the very top). The bloke next door to us used to go out catching rabbits at the weekend.

I doubt there are many garbos, milkmen or ferrets in the electorate of Bradfield in Sydney where Dr Nelson now hangs his hat and pin-stripe suit.

Nor could I find mention of our humble Catholic nun-run primary school, Our Lady Help of Christians, on his profile on the official ministerial web site.

It was a nice little school so I cannot understand why he would not mention it.

It gave us a good foundation.
We learnt about the 1062 commandments.
The head nun, Sister Bernadette, was very hip and taught us all the words to the Seekers' songs on the hit parade and every song from The Sound Of Music soundtrack.
She also filled in as our football coach and taught us how to do drop kicks.

I imagine that skill would come in very handy for a Federal Minister.

Um, unless, of course, Brendan Nelson, MP, is a totally different Brendan Nelson to the one I tooled up. Maybe he has never even held a toy space gun, in which case I must apologise.

This would no doubt come as a relief to the Prime Minister, John Howard, too. The last thing the PM needs is for ministers to bring their toy guns to play with during Cabinet.
(Though he only has himself to blame. I understand you cannot get anything at all back on toy space guns on the goverrnment's gun buyback scheme).
And, sheesh, the PM certainly does not want ministers at the back of the room surreptitiously humming High On A Hill Was a Lonely Goat Herd or In a World of Our Own while he is trying to lay down government tactics.

I suspect I might catch some flak for revealing anything at all about Brendan's birthday party.

But, heck, I think there's a 35-year statute of limitations on party documents.

And it is not as if I am revealing the flavour of ice-cream or the colour of the jelly we had.

All I am saying is, if he's the same Brendan Nelson I used to know, be very, very careful. He could be armed as well as dogmatic.

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it