Reprise

Reprise (pronounced ri-prahyz or ruh-preez)

(1) In law, (usually in the plural reprises), an annual deduction, duty, or payment out of a manor or estate, as an annuity or the like (also spelled reprises).

(2) In music, a repetition of a phrase, a return to an earlier theme, or a second rendition or version of a song in a programme or musical.

(3) A recurrence or resumption of an action; To return to an earlier (often first) theme or subject.

(4) To execute a repetition of; repeat.

(5) In fencing, a renewal of a failed attack, after going back into the en garde position.

(6) A taking by way of retaliation.

(7) To take (something) up or on again (obsolete, transitive form).

(8) To recompense; to pay (obsolete).

(9) In admiralty law, a ship recaptured from an enemy or from a pirate.

(10) In masonry, the return of a molding in an internal angle.

1350–1400: The late fourteenth century noun in the sense of "an annual deduction from charges upon a manor or estate" gained its meaning from the thirteenth century Old French reprise (act of taking back), the feminine of repris, past participle of reprendre (take back), from the Latin reprendere (pull back, hold back).  The meaning "resumption of an action" dates from the 1680s while the musical sense of "a repeated passage, act of repeating a passage" has been in use since 1879.  Reprise as a verb dates from the early fifteenth century as reprisen (begin (an activity) again), from the Old French repris, from the Latin reprehendere (to blame, censure, rebuke; seize, restrain ( literally "pull back, hold back).  Obsolete in this sense, the the modern meaning is "to repeat a (theatrical, musical etc.) performance" dates only from circa 1964, a presumably new formation from the verb. The familiar verbs (used with object) are reprised and reprising.

Blonde on Blonde

Bert Stern’s (1929-2013) photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) was commissioned by Vogue magazine and shot over three days, some six weeks before her death.  In book form, the images captured were compiled and published as The Last Sitting (first edition, William Morrow and Company (1982) ISBN 0-688-01173-X).

Stern reprised his work in 2008 with Lindsay Lohan, the photographs published in February 2008’s spring fashion issue of New York magazine.  Stern chose the medium of forty-six years earlier, committing the images to celluloid rather than using anything digital.  The reprised sessions visually echoed the original with a languorous air though the diaphanous fabrics were draped sometimes less artfully than all those years ago.  He later expressed ambivalence about the shoot, hinting regret at having imitated his own work but the photographs remain an exemplar of Lohanary.

Prepone & Postpone

Postpone (pronounced pohst-pohn or pohs-pohn)

(1) To put off to a later time; to defer.

(2) To place after in order of importance or estimation; to subordinate in a hierarchy (rare, probably obsolete).

1490–1500: From the Latin postpōnere (to put after, esteem less, neglect, lay aside), the construct being post- (after) + pōnere (to put, to place) and postpōnō (I put after; I postpone), the construct being post (after) + pōnō (I put; I place).  The usual meaning in Latin was the one now rare (to place something lower in importance); the now almost universal sense of an "act of deferring to a future time" is from 1770, the common form since then postpone + -ment.  Earlier, Dr Johnson in 1755 listed postponence.  The -ment suffix was from the Middle English -ment, from the Late Latin -amentum, from -mentum which came via Old French -ment.  It was used to form nouns from verbs, the nouns having the sense of "the action or result of what is denoted by the verb".  The suffix is most often attached to the stem without change, except when the stem ends in -dge, where the -e is sometimes dropped (abridgment, acknowledgment, judgment, lodgment etc), with the forms without -e preferred in American English.  The most widely known example of the spelling variation is probably judgment vs judgement.  Judgement is said to be a "free variation" word where either spelling is considered acceptable as long as use is consistent.  Like enquiry vs inquiry, this can be a handy where a convention of use can be structured to impart great clarity: judgment used when referring to judicial rulings and judgement for all other purposes although the approach is not without disadvantage given one might write of the judgement a judge exercised before delivering their judgment.  To those not aware of the convention, it could look just like a typo.  Postpone (used with object) is a verb; postponed & postponing are verbs, postponed & postponable are adjectives and postponement & postponer are nouns.  Synonyms include adjourn, defer, delay, forestay, hold up, shelve, suspend, put on ice, pigeonhole, prorogue, posticipate, table, carry over, carry forward, cool it, procrastinate, hang fire, hold off, hold over, lay over, put back & put on hold.

Noting the twentieth anniversary of the body-swap comedy Freaky Friday (2003) staring Lindsay Lohan & Jamie-Lee Curtis (b 1958), it was in early 2023 reported a sequel was in the works with work on the screenplay "well-advanced".  Both actors were reportedly expected to reprise their roles but the project has been postponed because of co-ordinated strike action by the actors and screen writers.

Prepone (pronounced pree-pohn)

To reschedule to an earlier day or time.

Pre 1550: From Middle English, the construct being pre- (before) + (post)pone.  A back formation modeled on postpone, it’s now an antonym of the source.  The modern is patterned on the same basis as the circa 1972 prequel (from sequel).  The prefix pre- was from the Middle English pre-, from the Latin prae-, from the preposition prae (before) (prae- & præ- although archaic, still in occasional use for technical or pedantic purposes).  In most cases, it's usually prefixed to words without a hyphen (prefix, predate etc) but a hyphen is used where (1) excluding a hyphen would be likely to lead to a mispronunciation of the word because "pre" appears not to be a complete syllable, (2) (in British English) before the letter e, (3) (often in British English) before other vowels and (4) before a character other than a letter.

Many dictionaries list the origin of prepone as a creation of Indian English in the early 1970s but the first known instance in the sense of “to set before” predates even the Raj, the first known instance from ecclesiastical writing in 1549.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) credits the first use to Puritan clergyman and polemicist Robert Crowley (1517–1588), who in 1549 wrote: “I do prepone and set the Lord alwaye before myne eyes.”  However, it seems to have gone dormant, apparently not seen in print until published in December 1913 by the New York Times (NYT), in a letter to the editor in which a Mr John D Trenor advised he had decided to “…coin the word prepone as a needed rival of that much revered and oft-invoked standby, postpone.”  A useful word certainly but what the Mr Trenor actually had done was take Mr Crowley’s word and vest it with a new meaning: an antonym of postpone.  Prepone, a back-construction from postpone seems a good word to those who value the elegance of sparseness in sentences.  One can prepone something more effortless than can one “move that appointment earlier” or “advance that deadline” or “bring it forward to an earlier date”.  Nor should it suffer from overuse; given we probably are all prone more to procrastinate than persevere, postponements seem likely to remain more prevalent than preponements.

The idea of prepone being an invention of modern Indian English appears based on a spike in use in the early 1970s after what was probably an independent coining of the word rather than a revival of something from the NYT decades before.  Interestingly, there’s a streak of the linguistic puritanical among some English-speaking Indians.  Prepone, a most useful word, has been a part of Indian English for decades but is shunned by many, particularly the more educated and while it appears in the odd newspaper, it’s almost absent from books, teachers often emphasizing its lowly status.  It’s a curious phenomenon.  While native English speakers delight in adopting Indian-inspired contributions to English (bungalow; pyjamas etc), among highly-educated Indian speakers of English, there is a prejudice against local creations, the phrase “as we say in Indian English” often added, sometimes almost as an apology uttering a linguistic barbarism.  It’s certainly not an aversion to the new, Indians as quick as anyone else to pick up “selfie”, “sext” and of course, “avatar” (actually from Hindu mythology).

Prepone: Not all Indians approve.

Informally (but most stridently), India has an English language "establishment" which uses English with a clipped precision now rare in the West.  Not a humorous lot, they're dedicated to the task of ensuring Indian English doesn't descend to the debased thing it so often is in less civilized places (the UK, Australia, the US etc) and they publish much material to correct use by errant Indians and admonish the linguistically unhygienic.  It's the empire striking back and prepone is on their (long) list of proscribed barbarisms which is a shame because it's fun and a useful word of which Shakespeare surely would have approved.

One sin sometimes identified in Indian English is the tendency to tautology, a phenomenon explained by users wishing to demonstrate their command of the language by packing into sentences as many words from their vocabulary which seem plausibly to fit and the style is often parodied by absurd exaggeration: “Please find attached and appended to this e-mail message a second, additional and replacement copy of my resume and curriculum vitae which misunfortunatistically appears to have been tragically deleted, lost or otherwise misplaced when firstly I initially sent it to you from where I was to where you would have been when you were there.”  However, if some in the ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu-nationalist aggregation in power since 2014) have their way this "word creep" would cease to be a problem, their position being the use of English should be suppressed because, as “…a relic of colonial oppression and exploitation it should “have no place in the modern Indian state.”

Callipygian

Callipygian (pronounced kal-uh-pij-ee-uhn)

Of, pertaining to, or having beautiful buttocks.

Circa 1800: A Latinized form from the Ancient Greek καλλίπυγος (kallípugos) (of, pertaining to, or having beautiful buttocks), the epithet of a statue of Aphrodite at Syracuse, the construct being calli (kalli) (from the Ancient Greek κάλλος (kállos) (beauty)) + πυγή (pugē) (tail; buttocks; rump) + -ian (the adjectival suffix).

Despite the classical association, there were serious critics who deplored the word pygē, dismissing it as mere slang “…completely avoided in epic poetry and higher literature” with “…no convincing etymology" although etymologists trace it back to the primitive Indo-European spugeh with cognates including the Latin pūga, the Old High German fochen, and Old Church Slavonic паоуга (pauga), пѫга (pǫga).  The objection may be because it was used also in the figurative to mean "fat, swelling" but the combinging form  pyg- exists in many technical (often medical) words including pygalgia (pain in the buttocks) and dasypygal (having hairy buttocks).  The lingustic snobbery didn't extend to the taxonomy and systematics of penguins, the Adélie penguin named Pygoscelis adeliae, the construct of the genus Pygoscelis being pygē + skelos (leg").  For those who might think it an anyway handy adjective, the comparative is more callipygian and the superlative most callipygian, applied as appropriate although the TikToK generation has a more accessible lexicon for such purposes.

Vénus callipyge (First century BC) in white marble by an unknown sculptor, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

The Ἀφροδίτη Καλλίπυγος (Aphrodite Kallipygos), known also as the Venus Callipyge or Callipygian Venus (all translating literally as “Venus (or Aphrodite) of the beautiful buttocks”, is a marble statue, carved in Ancient Rome and assumed to be a copy of a Greek original.  It’s one of the most famous examples of a sculptor’s interpretation of the device ἀνάσυρμα (anasyrma, the construct being ἀνά (ana) (up, against, back) + σύρμα (syrma) (skirt) (ἀνασύρματα & ἀνασυρμός (anasyrmata & anasyrmos) the plural), the gesture of lifting the skirt or kilt.  Known also from religious rituals, eroticism and vulgar humor, the technique in art pre-dates antiquity.  The statue depicts a partially draped woman, raising her light peplos (a woman’s ankle-length gown) to uncover the hips and buttocks, her gaze cast back down her shoulder.  Although most often identified as being of Venus (Aphrodite), this has never been certain.

The dates from the first century BC, the lost Greek original thought to have been rendered in bronze and executed around 300 BC, very early in the classical Hellenistic era although nothing is known of its history until it was rediscovered, missing its head, during The Renaissance.  The head was recreated, first in the sixteenth century and later the eighteenth when the sculptor closely followed the earlier restoration, the head made to look over the shoulder which had the effect further to draw attention to the bare buttocks, something thought greatly to enhance its popularity and certainly influence those who would later reprise the work.  This would not be the only time the artists of the high Renaissance would modify reality a bit to so construct an idealized vision of the classical world of Antiquity.  It was in the seventeenth century the statue was identified as Venus and associated with a temple to Aphrodite Kallipygos at Syracuse.

Lindsay Lohan displaying callipygian qualities with feet nicely juxtaposed, Playboy Magazine shoot, 2011.

That association is however tenuous because it was discussed by the (third century AD) writer Athenaeus of Naucratis in his fifteen-volume Deipnosophists (dinner-table philosophers).  According to Athenaeus, two beautiful sisters from a farm near Syracuse argued over which of them had the shapelier buttocks, and accosted a passer-by, asking him to judge.  The young man, the son of a rich local merchant voted for the older sister and found himself quite smitten with her, quickly falling in love.  In one of the fortunate coincidences which pepper myths ancient and modern, the man’s younger brother heard of this and went to see the girls for himself and, as much of an emo as his sibling, fell in love with the younger sister.  The brothers refused to consider other brides, so their father arranged the marriages.  The citizens dubbed the sisters Kallipugoi (the women with beautiful asses) and dedicated a temple to Aphrodite, calling her Kallipygos.  The cult of Aphrodite attracted other writers, the Christian author Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-215) included it in his table of the erotic manifestations of paganism and variations of Athenaeus’s tale circulated in copies of Vincenzo Cartari’s (1531-1590) retelling in Le Imagini con la sposizione dei dei de gli antichi (The Images of the Gods of the Ancients and their Explanations (1556)) some of the stories from classical mythology.

Vénus callipyge (1683-1686) in white marble by François Barois (1656–1726), Musée du Louvre, Paris.

The Venus Callipyge in the Louvre Museum in Paris is one of several copies of the Roman version of the Venus from the Farnese Collection.  Then as now, the taste of the public ebbed and flowed and what was declared to be obscene moved in the arc of a pendulum, this rendition modified with additional marble layers which, as historians of art note, were draped across the eponymous feature “so as not to offend an increasingly prudish public taste”.  After the French Revolution, it was displayed in the Jardin des Tuileries (the public garden between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde), reflecting the politics of 1789.  That a statue in in a French museum has the buttocks depicted in swirling fabric while those on show in Italy are bare is mere coincidence and no inferences about national character should be drawn.

The adjective callipygian need not be restricted to the human form and can be applied anthropomorphically.  In different ways, stylists can apply to machinery the motifs of the baroque, the sensuous the athletic or the muscular.

1 1974 Dino 246 GTS (C&F) by Ferrari.

2 1958 De Soto Firesweep convertible by Chrysler.

3 1965 Jaguar E-Type (modified as Eagle Speedster 4.7).

4 1971 Chevrolet Corvette Coupé LS6 by General Motors.

5 1967 Alfa Romeo Spider 1600 (Duetto).

6 1971 Mercedes-Benz W111 (280SE 3.5 Coupé).

7 1973 BMW E9 (3.0 CSi).

8 1971 Lamborghini Miura P400SV.

9 1966 AC Shelby Cobra 427 S/C.

Melon

Melon (pronounced mel-uhn)

(1) Any of various plants of two cucurbitaceous vines (the gourd family) including the watermelon, muskmelon etc.  Variations include Genus Cucumis (various musk melons, including honeydew, cantaloupes, and horned melon); Genus Citrullus (watermelons and others); Genus Benincasa (winter melon); Genus Momordica (a bitter melon).

(2) The fruit of any of these plants.

(3) A color ranging between a medium crimson and a deep pink, noted for the orange tinge.

(4) In zoology, the visible upper portion of the head of a surfacing whale or dolphin, including the beak, eyes, and blowhole (a mass of adipose tissue used to focus and modulate vocalizations).

(5) In the slang of (mostly North American) financial markets, an especially large additional dividend (often in the form of stock) distributed to stockholders (often as “cut a melon”).

(6) By extension, any windfall of money to be divided among specified beneficiaries.

(7) In slang, the breasts of the human female (almost always in the plural).  The alternative slang is "chest melons" and a woman generously endowed can be dubbed melonious.

(8) In slang, the head; the skull.  Those deemed vague or of limited intelligence dubbed "melon heads".

(9) In slang, a derogatory term for members of a green political party, or similar environmental groups (rare and mostly Australia & New Zealand).

1350–1400: From the Middle English meloun & melon (herbaceous, succulent trailing annual plant or its sweet, edible fruit), from the Old Portuguese (via the thirteenth century Old French melon) melon, from the Late Latin melonem & mēlōn- (stem of mēlō and a shortening of mēlopepō (the “gourd apple”, a large apple-shaped melon)), from the Ancient Greek μηλοπέπων (mēlopépōn) (large apple-shaped melon), the construct being μηλο (mêlo(n)) (apple) + πέπων (pépōn) (ripe), from πέπτω (péptō) (to ripen).  Confusingly for historians seeking to reconstruct the recipes of Antiquity the Latin melopeponem was a kind of pumpkin while the Greek mēlopepon (gourd-apple) was applied to several kinds of gourds bearing sweet fruit, the origin of that in the noun use of pépōn (ripe) distinguishing the fruit on the vine ready for harvest from those yet to ripen.  As a modifier, melon is appended as appropriate (based on color, shape, diet, environmental niche, habitat etc) including melon beetle, melon cactus, Melon rugose mosaic virus, melon thistle & melon-headed.  The best known is probably the watermelon, dating from the 1610s and so named for their high content of water-like juice; in French, the more pleasing term is melon d'eau.  Melonade is a (non-alcoholic) drink made from melons while the (definitely alcoholic) melontini is a martini cocktail made with melon.  The adjective melonic is unrelated to melons and is used in chemistry to mean "of or pertaining to a type of complex heterocyclic triazine related to melem".  Melem is the heptazine (a certain chemical compound) with three amino substituents.  Melon is a noun & adjective and melonious, melony, melonous & melonlike are adjectives; the noun plural is melons.

The Cold War won, in 1992, Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 and POTUS 1969-1974) returned to Moscow, a place more than once he’d visited as an adversary.  Visiting the markets, he bought a juicy melon.

Being prolific and undemanding to grow, melons were among the earliest plants domesticated and in Greek, “melon” was used in a generic way for many foreign fruits, a fate which would also befall "apple", thus the naming of the pineapple and in some Old English texts, cucumbers are referred to as eorþæppla (literally "earth-apples"), the deductive process that produced the French pomme de terre (potato (literally “earth-apple”)), the French pomme from the Latin pomum (apple; fruit).  Apple was from the Old English æppel (apple; any kind of fruit; fruit in general), from the from Proto-Germanic ap(a)laz (source also of the Old Saxon, Old Frisian & Dutch appel, the Old Norse eple, the Old High German apful & the German Apfel), from the primitive Indo-European ab(e)l- (apple), (source also of the Gaulish avallo (fruit), the Old Irish ubull, the Lithuanian obuolys, & the Old Church Slavonic jabloko (apple)) but etymologists caution the original sense of these and their relationship(s) to what is now understood as “an apple” is uncertain.  In Middle English, as late as the seventeenth century (even the earliest compliers of recipe books aren’t always explicit so some reverse-engineering based on supposition has been undertaken), it was a generic term for all fruit other than berries but including nuts (such as Old English fingeræppla (dates (literally "finger-apples) and the late fourteenth century Middle English appel of paradis (banana (literally apple of paradise)).

The twenty-first century judgment of Paris: Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, left), Britney Spears (b 1981, centre) & Paris Hilton (b 1981, right) reprise Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, New York City, 29 November, 2006.  The car was a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Coupé (C199, 2003-2010) leased by Ms Hilton.  It was a paparazzi photo from this moment used in the infamous "Bimbo Summit" headline by Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) New York Post. 

That generality of meaning saw “apple” named as the fruit with which the serpent tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, leading to the downfall of man and creating the original sin with which we’ve all since been damned.  The Biblical apportionment of blame to Eve has been held by feminists to account for at least some of the oppression suffered by women for the last two millennia.  However, the “fruit of the forbidden tree” was unspecified in the original texts of the Book of Genesis and, despite the wishful thinking of a few, in Biblical scholarship there’s no support for the notion the fruit was even hinted at being an appel of paradis, however appropriate, given the context, a nice plump banana might seem.  Nor is the forbidden fruit explicitly mentioned in the Holy Quran but according to traditional Islamic commentaries, it was not an apple but wheat.  The Prophet may not have been concerned but in Greek mythology there was the μῆλον τῆς Ἔριδος (Golden Apple of Discord) in the story of the Judgment of Paris which the goddess Ἔρις (Eris) (Strife), tossed in the midst of the feast of the gods at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis as a prize of beauty, thus sparking a vanity-fueled dispute among Hera, Athena and Aphrodite; it was that squabble that triggered the Trojan War.  Eris was the goddess of chaos and discord who (perhaps unsurprisingly), having not received a wedding invitation, was miffed and inscribed kallisti (To the prettiest one) on her “wedding gift” handing it to Πάρις (Paris, AKA Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros) (Alexander), the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy) who was told to choose the goddess he found most beautiful.  Judging what turned out to be one of Antiquity's more significant beauty contests, Paris chose Aphrodite, offending Hera and Athena, the most famous consequence of their feud being the Trojan War.  Tragedy did thereafter stalk the marriage of Peleus and Thetis; of their seven sons, the only one to survive beyond infancy was Achilles.

Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit (circa 1620-1625), oil on canvas by Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627).

Beginning probably in Holland in the early seventeenth century and apparently first painted by Pieter Aertsen (circa 1533-circa 1573) "cookmaid and market scenes" was a genre in painting combining representations of produce and kitchens with themes often borrowed from the New Testament.  Two other examples of Sir Nathaniel's works in this vein are known still to exist: (1) Cookmaid with Still Life of Game and (2) Cookmaid with Still Life of Birds, both featuring healthy young ladies and there is obviously some artistic license in Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit given that although every piece of produce depicted was at the time grown somewhere in England, not all simultaneously would have been in season.  Sir Nathaniel's lengthy title was too much for many, clipped often to the punchier "Maid with Melons".  This slang use of "melons" (ie female breasts) is listed by many dictionaries as “vulgar” or “mildly vulgar” but does travel with the vague respectability of a classical origin: In Antiquity the plural of the Greek melon (μῆλα) (mela) was used for “a girl's breasts” and in that tradition, in her youth, Lady Helen Taylor (née Windsor; b 1964 and a great-granddaughter of George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936)) was nicknamed “melons”.  In the line of succession to the British throne, Lady Helen comes in at number 49. 

Juicy Melons, Euston Station, London.

The world record price for a pair of juicy melons was set in May 2026 when a two “premium crown melons”, grown on Japan's northern main island of Hokkaido, realized ¥5.8 million yen (US$36,500) at the season’s first auction in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan; the result beat the previous mark of ¥5 million, achieved in 2019.  Although doubtlessly succulent, the prized examples were purchased not only for their taste but also as a promotional device, the successful bidder a Kushiro-based fruit and vegetable wholesaler who sold them to a supermarket where they would be “placed on display”.  Large, juicy melons should of course be put "on display"; everybody knows that, 

A cantaloupe as one would appear in most of the world (left) and a rockmelon down under (right).

Globalization has to some extent standardized in the English language spellings and meanings once disparate, sometimes reversing the trend towards diversity noted as one of the linguistic effects of the British Empire, especially in India under the Raj where the British pillaged the local languages with only slightly less enthusiasm than they showed for gold, diamonds and such.  However, the names of food seem often resistant to change, presumably most often where forms are well-established and supplied by local production.  Thus what is in some places eggplant is elsewhere the aubergine.  It’s also a melon matter because in Australia, what most of the world knows as the cantaloupe (from the French cantaloup, from the Italian place name Cantalupo, a former Papal summer estate near Rome, where the melons were first grown after being introduced to Europe from the Middle East), is called the rockmelon (occasionally rock-melon) and the antipodean quirkiness is not unique, the cantaloupe in some places called “sweet melon” or “Crenshaw melon” while in South Africa where it’s not uncommon to see fruit-stalls side-by-side, one selling cantaloupes and the other spanspeks (from the Afrikaans Spaanse spek (literally “Spanish bacon”)).  The Australian use, once deconstructed, does make sense in that a cantaloupe does (vaguely) resemble (some) rocks and has a "hard skin" but the case seems not compelling, cantaloupe a much more attractive word.  Visiting foodies will be gratified Australians follow the rest of the world when it comes to the honeydew (or honey-dew) melon, the name from the late sixteenth century honeydew (sticky sweet substance found in small drops on trees and plants), a replication of the formations in the Dutch honigdaauw and the German Honigthau.  That melon was first named in 1916 when selective breeding produced a cross between the cantaloupe and a melon native to southern African.

Anthony Albanese, shaggate & melongate

Applied kinesics: Linguists and anthropologists call the use of hand gestures as an accompaniment to speech (much associated with Italians): “gesticulations”.  Mr Albanese gesticulates (left) and Nova’s promotional banner for Nikki Osborne’s “Bushie” persona on Bush Deep (right).

Politics is unpredictable but even in the long tradition of "storm in a tea cup" scandals, few would have expected melons to play a role although, delightfully, Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022) managed a "storm in a D-cup", "melongate" the result of the second of his gaffes while in July 2026 appearing on the Bush Deep podcast.  Interviewed by comedian Nikki Osborne (b 1981), he was asked to play the “shag, marry, date” game, three Australian females from pop culture (singer Kylie Minogue (b 1968), actor Nicole Kidman (b 1967) & singer Rhonda Burchmore (b 1960)) offered as his options.  He started well by mentioning he was “newly married” (to his second wife) but Ms Osborne was tenacious and after boxing him into admitting “Kylie, clearly”, managed to press him into saying (with a slight giggle): “all of the above” (that apparently in answer to: “You’d marry Kylie? And shag her? And date her?” rather than thoughts of intimacy (concurrent or otherwise), with all three nominees but Ms Osborne, seeming pleased, did conclude: "all right, a triple" so who knows?).  The public reaction wasn’t good (although muted compared with what would have been the outrage had the remarks been made by a conservative) and quickly his office issued a one-line statement: “I apologise unequivocally for the comments”.  Educated by the Congregation of Christian Brothers (a branch of the Roman Catholic Church), the Australian arm of which was dissolved after shifting the bulk of its assets to a related but legally separate entity to protect them from civil litigation brought by victims child sexual abuse by Christian Brothers, Mr Albanese (selectively) operates on the church's long-established principle of “confess and be forgiven”.  What he should have done was make the joke one of self-deprecation, telling his host a more interesting question would be to ask the trio if any of them would contemplate shagging him and all three were anyway “too good for him”.  His second wife, by now well-acquainted with politics, would have forgiven him.

Pampered crown melons in a Shizuoka hothouse.

It turned out to be an eventful podcast because he also told the tale of meeting Sanae Takaichi san (b 1961, Prime Minister of Japan since 2025) during her Australian visit in May 2026.  Knowing a comedian would likely be not interested in trade negotiations or maritime boundaries in the South China Sea, he instead described his surprise when presented with the gift of a pair of crown melons, a fruit grown only in the western region of Japan's Shizuoka Prefecture.  The nation’s most exalted and expensive melons, farmers tending the vines in climate-controlled greenhouses each season cut away all but the most obviously fecund bud so each plant’s energy & nutrients feed a single fruit, ensuring “perfect melons”.  Understandably, crown melons are a gift presented to someone as a mark of respect or appreciation, often in the intricately constructed packaging famously used in Japan for goods from sandwiches to stilettos.  Mr Albanese described the gift as “strange” but said he found them “quite good”.  While it's not reasonable to expect him to have been aware of the cultural significance in Japan of a fruit he’d have associated with the Aus$3.99 item familiar in Australian supermarkets, his office presumably was informed so it was bad staff work he wasn’t briefed on what to say.  An additional reason for the choice of gift was to mark the “delectably honey-sweet” melons now being exported (tariff-free) to Australia.

Pamela Anderson (mostly real) on the cover of Playboy magazine, November 1994.

Things got worse.  Ms Osborne likened the melons to Canadian-US actor Pamela Anderson (b 1967) which must have amused Mr Albanese because almost instinctively he raised his hands to his chest and, making a cupping gesture, observed: “She brought two… as you do”.  There was laughter in the recording studio and it would have been a good joke in the locker room of the South Sydney Rabbitohs (the NRL (National Rugby League) club the prime minister takes every opportunity to remind the country he supports) but as the clip went around the world, he’d have understood he’d put his foot in it… again.  Well into the twenty-first century, it might be assumed politicians would by now be adept in handling the “new media” (social media, podcasts and such) but, beyond a certain age, many remain uncertain and often make the worst mistake of all: trying very hard to be “authentic” which is, of course, recognized instantly as “inauthentic”.  Politicians have before had to attempt to master “changes in platforms”.  In the nineteenth century, it was the shift from speeches being made on the floors of parliaments to public meetings; early in the twentieth it was the advent of radio (a medium better mastered by George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom & Emperor of India 1910-1936) than most of his ministers), then in the post-war world it was television.  Social media & podcasts are just the latest “shock of the new” and hopefully the ALP’s operatives will arrange additional training.  Still, something good did come from the interview: Ms Osborne learning the Japanese prime minister is female.  As the first woman ever to gain the office, there had in 2025 been extensive international coverage of her accession but presumably that was something crowded out of Ms Osborne's news-feeds by the algorithms selecting matters of greater interest such as Ariana Grande's (b 1993) weight or Kylie Jenner's (b 1997) new hairstyle.

Lord Voldemort, played in this scene by Ralph Fiennes (b 1962).

Making the “melons quip” was a bit hypocritical because it hadn’t long before that Mr Albanese had issued a schoolmasteresque rebuke to a member of his shadow cabinet (Tanya Plibersek b 1969), saying she’d made “a mistake” in likening the Liberal Party’s Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the Liberal Party of Australia 2022-2025) to the villainous Lord Voldemort in the film adaptations of the Harry Potter children’s books.  Had the comparison been one of their political philosophy or methods (something that might still be worth pursuing) it would have been OK but in saying “I think there will be a lot of children who have watched a lot of Harry Potter films who will be very frightened of what they are seeing on TV at night” it did seem she was commenting on some physical similarity.  Asked to clarify, she said: “I am saying he looks a bit like Voldemort.  We will see whether he can do what he promised he would do when he was last running for leader, which is smile more.”  Perhaps sensing danger, she added: “I am just saying he is not the warm and friendly face of the Liberal party and, if this last election taught us anything, it taught us that the Liberal party has moved too far to the extremes of politics.”  Before long, a statement was issued from Ms Plibersek’s office saying she had “reached out” to Mr Dutton “unreservedly” to apologize, adding she acknowledged the remark should not have been made.  Mr Albanese went further, saying: “It was a mistake.  It shouldn’t have been said, we all make mistakes from time to time.  What we need to do is to move on from them and it is how we respond to them.  Tanya Plibersek responded appropriately. Tanya Plibersek did the right thing by apologising.  We should not refer to people’s appearance.”

Mr Dutton at Mr Boswell’s funeral.

Mr Dutton called the comments “unfortunate” but said they were “water off a duck’s back” and there was no need for politicians to be “nasty and mean”, concluding the affair by saying “I’m not the prettiest bloke on the block but I hope that I’m going to be pretty effective.”  Students of political phraseology enjoyed that last remark, the original used by John Howard (b 1939; Prime Minister of Australia 1996-2007) as an election campaign hook for the not at all photogenic Queensland National Party’s Senator Ron Boswell (1940–2026; senator for Queensland 1983-2014): “He may not be pretty but he’s pretty effective”.  That worked well and, in retirement, Mr Boswell wrote his memoirs, published as Ron Boswell: Not Pretty, But Pretty Effective (2023).  As leader of the opposition, Mr Dutton’s effectiveness was limited, suffering the ignominy of losing his own seat in parliament at the 2025 general election in which the Liberal party suffered its worst defeat since formation in 1944.  During the campaign, Mr Dutton limited his media appearances mostly to Mr Murdoch’s Sky News (now re-branded News24) where he could be asked “helpful” questions by other right-wing fanatics, the exchanges enjoyed by the channel’s small audience of the already converted, the only sceptical faction of which complained Mr Dutton was “not conservative enough”.  Had he dabbled in the anarchic world(s) of the Tiktokers and podcasters things might have been worse still so his handlers were right to “draw the line somewhere”.

The photogenic TERF Katherine Deves (left) and that tweet (right).

Mr Albanese’s reaction to the brief “Plibersek-Voldemort-Dutton affair” must have been something of a special case.  Although there are some things he’s done his best to forget (hoping others will do the same), otherwise his memory is typically ALP-sharp and he certainly remembered the occasions when Ms Plibersek told people she rather than him would have won the ballot for the party leadership had she chosen to contest.  Had a close factional ally pointed out Mr Dutton’s resemblance to Lord Voldemort, Mr Albanese’s reaction might have been limited to a quite chat (over a beer and a laugh) rather than a public censuring.  Sadly, the one who seemed to receive no sympathy was Lord Voldemort who was slighted by being called, by implication, “Duttonesque”; surely he had as much right to be offended by the comparison.  Amusingly, even within the Liberal Party, there are those who have seen the resemblance and commented.  Lawyer Katherine Deves (b 1978) is a (self-described) TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) with a cult-following in the party and on Twitter (now X) on 1 December, 2021, while watching the televised proceedings of parliament, she tweeted: “New speaker [presiding officer of the House of Representatives] …struggles to keep order as Albo [Mr Albanese, then leader of the opposition) …calls Voldemort [Mr Dutton, then minister of defence] …‘boof head’”  The tweet has since been deleted.

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963, left) being shown the Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer by Sir Clive Sinclair (1940–2021, right), London, 1984.

Old Harold Macmillan had his problems with women (being bi-sexual, he may not have been wholly blameless for his wife’s infidelity) but was fortunate to be prime minister during the last days when journalists were still deferential towards politicians (at least until they smelled blood in the water).  Clearly, at least in his dealings with the press, he’d led a sheltered life because in his memoirs he compared the still polite English journalists to the breed he encountered in Australia during his Commonwealth tour (Jan-Feb 1958), noting they were as capable as the bowlers in the nation’s cricket team of “sending down a few fast deliveries”.  By the standards of 2026 the questions he received (and played mostly with a straight bat although there was the occasional square cut) would be thought “tame” and while it can’t be certain how the old Etonian would have handled TikTokers, podcasters and YouTubers, he’d doubtlessly have been appalled and thought them all vulgarians to be avoided.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi san: In what was obviously a misspent youth, she was a drummer in a heavy metal band and still sometimes "picks up the sticks".  A Deep Purple (a heavy metal band formed in 1968) fan-girl, she got to meet the band during their 2026 tour of Japan. 

Mr Albanese probably wishes he could avoid appearances on the “new media” but knows a significant chunk of those with a vote long ago tuned-out of the “old media” where he for decades honed to a high-level his skills of spin and obfuscation; his office also would prefer his appearances be restricted to “more easily managed” platforms but know they must play the cards dealt.  Those in his office take pride at being thought “political pros” but curiously, by August 2026 they appeared to have forgotten the wise adage from the Watergate affair (1972-1974) that claimed the scalp of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 and POTUS 1969-1974) that in politics what’s lethal: “is not the crime, it's the cover-up”.  Just returned from holiday, Mr Albanese “furiously denied” making a crude joke about Sanae Takaichi san’s ‘melons’ in the anyway notorious ‘shag Kylie Minogue’ interview.  At this point, rather than digging deeper, it would have been a better tactic to apologize and hope for forgiveness but Mr Albanese learned his stuff in the “non-Trotskyite” wing of the ALP’s Socialist Left faction in which “never apologize” was less a mantra than a way of life.  In what was described as a “terse statement” a spokeswoman for Mr Albanese denied the comments were a joke about prime ministerial mammary glands, stating: “This assertion is wrong.”  Unfortunately, the "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!" approach is a tactic and not a strategy, the efficacy of "plausible deniability" depending not on the term's second element but the first. 

So the seeking of forgiveness option (if “workshopped”) must have been discarded, the office instead opting for attack, an approach perhaps ill-advised because the spokeswoman was responding to a opinion piece (published in Mr Murdoch’s national daily The Australian) by Tokyo’s former ambassador to Canberra, Shingo Yamagami san (Japanese ambassador to Australia 2020-2023) that criticized the comments as “insulting”, speculating even that they may have damaged Sanae Takaichi san’s reputation: “However light-hearted it was intended to be, the recent joke delivered by prime minister Anthony Albanese at the expense of Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi is how he might be remembered by Japanese who most value the friendship with Australia.  It is a time for toiling and not for crude jokes at another’s expense.  So, prime minister, please enjoy Japan’s sweet and juicy melons without thinking about a woman’s anatomy, and instead focus on what our two countries must do together.”  As a former Director-General of the Intelligence and Analysis Service of the MoFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Shingo Yamagami san was well-informed and concluded his opinion piece by reminding Mr Albanese of the special cultural significance of the revered fruit: “A crown melon is the most prized fruit in Japan and treasured as something special. Moreover, this particular fruit was painstakingly nurtured under intensive care in a special greenhouse. A single melon costs more than 30,000 yen (Aus$270).”  Translation: “Albo has gained melons but has lost face.”

Exhibit One: Shaggate.

While readers of The Australian mostly years ago made up their minds and concluded Mr Albanese “is a dud”, the reason Mr Murdoch continues to print and distribute the paper (despite large losses) is the content widely is reported on other media platforms (old and new) and while the influence is somewhat diminished, what appears can, on occasions, still “set the day’s agenda”.  However, it’s unlikely Shingo Yamagami san’s piece was written in an attempt to change many minds in Australia and was likely intended for “internal consumption” in Japan.  It’s improbable many Japanese voters would think their prime minister’s reputation much “damaged” by a foreign leader’s social ineptitude but, for a number of reasons (some geo-political but mostly economic), Sanae Takaichi san’s popularity has retreated from the stellar heights she enjoyed after assuming the presidency of the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) and leading it to a stunning landslide in the 2026 general election (House of Representatives (lower house)) so the thought is the MoFA may have co-opted Shingo Yamagami san as a stalking horse to “muddy the waters”, seeking to exploit the “melons incident” for a bit of “blame-shifting”.  Of course, in diplomatic circles, it was hardly a secret Shingo Yamagami san was "not a big fan" of the ALP government and he may have been “freelancing”; certainly there's been from Tokyo no suggestion an apology has been sought or is expected and observers suspect  “melongate” will prove a “nine day wonder” that vanishes once Mr Murdoch's journalists conclude the story is "going nowhere" and will likely end up remembered as a “storm in a D-Cup”.

Exhibit Two: Melongate.

One who seemed gleefully to relish the opportunity to defend Mr Albanese against accusations of having violated his own instruction to her (“We should not refer to people’s appearance”) was Tanya Plibersek (an unlikely but energetic Sancho Panzo to Mr Albanese’s Don Quixote) who appeared on morning TV with Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022 and now a convert from the National Party to One Nation), the latter not previously noted for his feminist credentials.  Echoing her leader’s thoughts on the matter, Ms Plibersek said she thought the former ambassador was “…100 per cent wrong, and we have an excellent relationship with Japan.  I think the former ambassador is wrong in his interpretation.”  Now cast in the improbable role of the One Nation Party’s sole intellectual (he's a qualified accountant), Mr Joyce disagreed, saying it was “a really dangerous thing to say”, twisting the blade a little deeper by expressing some faux sympathy for his fellow panellist being bowled up to defend the indefensible: “I know you’re doing the best job you can on this, Tanya, but it’s just like the Kylie Minogue comment – completely wrong, completely trying to be clever. It wasn’t clever.  It just demeans the office of prime minister, and it certainly has created a massive problem with one of our major partners. I know in your heart, Tanya, you know it’s wrong.  Okay? And if you came out now and said, “Yeah, that was a stupid thing to say. You should have apologised for it. People say: ‘Tanya, it’s telling the truth.’”

Lay theologian Mr Joyce conjuring (with no apparent hint of irony) an impromptu encyclical on “truthfulness” was one of the more amusing episodes in the “melon incident”.  Undeterred by that surreal moment, Ms Plibersek maintained focus and insisted it was a “complete misinterpretation by the former ambassador”, unwisely adding: “People watching it for themselves can make their own minds up.”  Not one to miss a “full toss”, Mr Joyce responded: “They do, they do watch it, and they have made up their own mind.  And it is inappropriate.”  In cricketing terms, the English would have called that “being bowled a pie” (ie an “easy hit”) but anyway, Harold Macmillan politely would have applauded Mr Joyce's riposte through the slips to the third man boundary.