Woof!

MEDIA WATCH DOG is up and Gerard Henderson is in fine form, with items on Media Watch, self-described "eminent journalist" Margaret Simons, Q&A, the Finko & Rickety Review, and Bob Ellis, who has climbed back aboard the Labor gravy train and is once again advising Bob Carr in his capacity as foreign minister. No mention if Ellis is being paid for his insights, but as Carr is a good Labor man, Ellis a mate, and the public purse open and handy, to think otherwise would defy history.

Oh, and there is a note to Bruce Belsham, now head of ABC Current Affairs, to which the man who hired Jonathan Green and launched The Drum has yet to respond.

A bumper edition, with only one disappointment. Nowhere does Henderson mention that Green, having kept the ABC legal department busy with matters related to defamation, is now being moved to a compere's gig on Radio National. The question is, who will replace Green?

Reader suggestions on the best person to continue Green's brave legacy are welcome.

By the way, is it only the Professor who understands "drum" to be archaic Australian slang for a brothel? Perhaps Craig Thomson, the Kleenex Kid, would make a good editor.

UPDATE: It seems drum's use as a term for a house of ill repute goes back quite some way, according to one self-proclaimed authority.