Son gets a taste for Oz

Actor Cate Blanchett is feeding her young son Vegemite to make sure he grows up with a taste of her homeland.

The clumsy writing had me initally thinking that young Catie had named her lad after the black yeasty substance. After Heavenly Hirani Tiger Lily, Fifi Trixiebelle, Peaches and Pixie I'm ready to believe that showbiz parents are willing to lumber their offspring with terrifying millstone nomenclature.

The star takes 18-month-old Dashiell with her on all film shoots, along with her husband Andrew Upton. Blanchett, 34, says having a child has not changed her priorities.

"I don't think having a child shuts anything down, she said.

"If anything, it's opened things up for me. I feel completely energised by it because he's absolutely fascinating," she said in The Times.

Blanchett, who lives in London, is looking forward to hearing her son's first words. "When he starts to talk and his accent is English, then that will be strange, but that will simply be the way he talks," she said.

Cate plumbs the depths of interview shallowness. The reporter has an appointment at the Tyburn assizes at dawn tomorrow.