ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese is in isolation today after catching the spicy cough that’s been going around for the past two and a bit years.
While he’s only complaining of having a scratchy throat and general malaise, Albo’s next-door neighbour threw a fresh deck of Benson & Hedges Classics over their shared fence this morning and told the budding Prime Minister to smoke them.
“He told me they will help me with the cough,” said Mr Albanese to our reporter this morning.
“I came out into the backyard for a bit of air and there’s George looking over the fence, pointing at this packet of cigarettes on the pavers. Anthony, he said, one an hour. 12 milligrams per hour. Tell you what, I haven’t had a cigarette since I was labouring back in the day, when the bloke I was carrying bricks for all-day said he’d make me wear a dress to work if I didn’t have a ham sandwich and a Rothmans with him,”
“George was in the cafe trade so he’s no doctor but he is 94. I reckon he probably spent 90 of those years smoking. I told him thanks but no thanks and he just rolled his eyes at me. I mean, they’re $50 a pop these days, they’d be wasted on someone like me. A non-smoker.”
More to come.
