  A series of nine XMM-Newton observations of the radio-loud quasar 3C 273 are
presented, concentrating mainly on the soft excess. Although most of the
individual observations do not show evidence for iron emission, co-adding them
reveals a weak, broad line (EW ~ 56 eV). The soft excess component is found to
vary, confirming previous work, and can be well fitted with multiple blackbody
components, with temperatures ranging between ~40 and ~330 eV, together with a
power-law. Alternatively, a Comptonisation model also provides a good fit, with
a mean electron temperature of ~350 eV, although this value is higher when the
soft excess is more luminous over the 0.5-10 keV energy band. In the RGS
spectrum of 3C 273, a strong detection of the OVII He-alpha absorption line at
zero redshift is made; this may originate in warm gas in the local
intergalactic medium, consistent with the findings of both Fang et al. (2003)
and Rasmussen et al. (2003).
