Red flag, white crescent and star. Name it.

Wednesday lunchtime. The traffic lights weren’t changing. Two motorcycle cops zoomed up, lights flashing, shouting instructions, gesticulating and giving a blast from their sirens to gain attention. “You! Do your hook turn! You wait there!” We lunchtime pedestrians looked on, bemused.

Intersection cleared, traffic and people waiting. Who was coming?

More motorcycle cops came, zooming down Collins Street, left turn and south down Exhibition Street, tooting their way forward to clear the next intersection.

A minute or two later the VIPs came. More police vehicles sped through the intersection, followed by a big white car, the red and white flag attached to the front. Inside were numerous people — a woman the most prominent, in a headscarf. More unflagged white cars with dignitaries, and a couple more police cars.

Who warrants attention like that? A head of state? Perhaps an Ambassador in times of trouble.

It was the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan. Welcome, sir, to our country.

Now that I’ve got a dishwasher, I’ve been making sure I have two of everything. Unless you’re a water-wasting Wally enviro-bastard, the cardinal rule of the dishwasher is only to run it when it’s full, so I’ve bought some extra cutlery so that in a typical week, I can run it every second day.

I’ve also solved a little mystery, that of the dishwasher stopping midway through the cycle and complaining that something, somewhere, is in a condition of “U1″.

I should have followed Marita and Andrew’s advice from the start and spurned the Morning Fresh brand dishwashing tablets. I’ve used their dishwashing liquid for years, so it seemed logical at the time. But now I’ve tried Finish. And by golly where MF caused the machine to give-up halfway through, with Finish it… uhhh… finishes.

May the Gods of consumer appliances be praised.