Rowan Dean

Diary – 3 September 2011 | 3 September 2011

Rowan Dean opens his Diary

The three girls sitting opposite can’t take their eyes off us. Eventually it becomes too much for one of them (the pretty one) and she saunters over and shyly introduces herself. To Mark, of course, not to the rest of us. Mark smiles and shakes her hand, and that’s all it takes for the other two to rush over, pen and napkin poised for an autograph, mobile phones at the ready for the inevitable photograph. ‘We really miss you,’ gushes one of them. She even grabs his hand. ‘You should sooo never have quit. You should be the PM, not her.’ The other two giggle in agreement. Mark smiles bashfully and gives a dismissive wave of his over-sized hand. ‘Naah,’ he says in his unmistakable Werriwa drawl, ‘I had my crack at it.’

•••

An evening with Mark Latham is an enlightening affair. The pub he has chosen is the Kirribilli Hotel in Tory-town, only a stone’s throw from the large house on the harbour he nearly got to call home. He would have fitted in well. The locals can’t seem to get enough of him. A man who introduces himself as ‘the Mayor of Kirribilli’, and who bears more than a passing resemblance to Ray ‘Rabbits’ Warren, is just one of the many patrons of the pub who finds an excuse to drift over and tell Mark the same two things: how much they like him, and how much they dislike Julia. ‘Come back, mate. All is forgiven!’ ‘Rabbits’ growls, to the nodding approval of those around him. Even as we attempt to leave the pub, Mark is bailed up by more people on the pavement, echoing the sentiment. Like the best pollies with the ‘common touch’, he insists on chatting to each and every one of them in turn while the rest of us wait patiently on the sidewalk, shivering.

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