There’s been lot of talk about dining at The Lodge over the last couple of days. Two intriguing angles stand out.

Firstly, Crikey hears one tale about the good old days when politics was much more gentlemanly.

Crikey understands that Malcolm Fraser invited John and Janette Howard to dinner after Howard gave his first budget, but that Janette couldn’t come so Howard took his mum.

The details would be in the official archives –- and perhaps available under the 30-year rule — which sorta says something for just how long Howard has been with us.

And the second refers to today’s brutal political discourse. It’s a nuance you may have picked up in the Van Errington articles and interviews – that it was Cossie’s boosters rather than Cossie himself who talked about the lack of invitations to the Treasurer and his wife for dinners at The Lodge or Kirribilli.

Which sorta suggests to us that if they – emphasis on the plural, too – thought it was significant, then clearly Cossie complains about it quite a bit. Poor pet.