澳總理陸克文忙裏偷閒寫兒童讀物
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has taken time out of his busy schedule to indulge his imagination by penning a children's book featuring his family pets, a spokeswoman said Sunday.
Rudd -- who is so famed for his jet-setting work ethic he has been nicknamed "Kevin 707" by the local press -- wrote the book with Australian children's television star Rhys Muldoon, his spokeswoman told reporters.
Titled "Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle", the book follows Rudd's pet cat and dog on an adventure through the grounds of The Lodge, his family's official residence in the capital, Canberra.
"It's delightful, it's actually very very cute, even cuter than one might imagine," the spokeswoman said.
"Jasper in the flesh is very hoity-toity, in a good cat way, and Abby's gorgeous. They're old family pets, much beloved."
The book will be released on the January 26 Australia Day holiday, which commemorates the landing of the first fleet on Australian shores in 1788. Some profits from the sale of the book will go to children's charities, the spokeswoman said.
The Mandarin-speaking former diplomat Rudd jokingly told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper he had wanted to beat his novelist daughter Jessica into print, and it "wasn't the most demanding" text he had ever worked on.
"It's good to put a more human face on them," he said of his much-loved pets, who he claimed to have interviewed for the story with Muldoon.
澳大利亞政府一名女發言人上週日稱，總理陸克文在繁忙的公務之外還馳騁想象力，寫了一本以家中寵物爲主角的兒童讀物。
陸克文的女發言人告訴記者稱，這本書由陸克文和澳大利亞兒童電視明星里斯•馬爾登合著。陸克文因工作關係，坐着飛機滿世界地跑，被當地媒體戲稱爲“Kevin 707”。
這本名爲《賈斯珀、阿比和混亂的澳大利亞日》的兒童讀物講述了陸克文的愛貓和愛狗在澳大利亞首都堪培拉的總理官邸歷險的故事。
這位女發言人說：“這本書令人開懷，非常非常可愛，可愛程度超乎你的想象。”
“現實生活中的賈斯珀神氣活現，是一隻非常可愛的寵物貓，阿比很漂亮。它們跟隨主人多年，深受寵愛。”
這本書將於本月26日“澳大利亞日”當天發售。這位女發言人稱，圖書銷售的部分收益將捐贈給兒童慈善組織。澳大利亞國慶日是爲了紀念1788年首支艦隊登陸澳大利亞港口。
會說漢語的前外交官陸克文在接受《星期日電訊報》的採訪時開玩笑說，他希望這本書的印刷數量能夠超過自己當小說家的女兒傑西卡，並稱這不是他寫過的“最難寫的東西”。
在談及自己的愛貓和愛狗時，陸克文說：“以擬人化的筆法來寫它們很不錯。”他稱爲寫這本書，他還與馬爾登對它們進行了“專訪”。
Vocabulary:
jet-setting：cosmopolitan, well-off, ritzy, or trendsetting（乘噴氣飛機到處旅遊的，闊氣的，奢華的）
in the flesh：present and alive before one's eyes; in person（活生生的；親自，本人）
hoity-toity：assuming airs; pretentious; haughty（神氣活現的，傲慢的）
