Latest Brisbane radio movements: Robin Bailey starts on Monday at 97.3FM, with Terry Hansen and new anchor Bob Gallagher. Mark Hine takes Gallagher's old job at 4KQ, alongside Laurel Edwards and Gary Clare. Former 97.3FM host Marnie Titheradge has been offered a job in Brisbane with ARN, parent company of both 4KQ and 97.3FM. Word has it that changes at other stations will be announced soon.

Leaving the theatre last night (after seeing the quite wonderful Private Lives), I noticed yet another irritating human habit. Why is it that when people file out of an exit, a good number of them just stop and congregate, thus making it harder for other people to get out? Surely is doesn't require too much brains and effort to move away to one side?

The smoking cowboy known as the Marlborough Man has topped the list of "The 101 most influential people who never lived". A book just launched in the US also lists Big Brother from George Orwell's 1984, King Arthur, Santa Clau, Barbie and the Loch Ness Monster. Perhaps we should add to the list the current star of the Doonesbury comic strip, Fear Itself.

A day earlier than usual, Spencer Howson and I chatted on 612ABC this morning about Opera Queensland's 2007 season launch, my answer to the traffic chaos, the oratorio Not the Messiah, little shampoos from hotels and ubiquitous branding.

I'm bald and pudgy, (arguably) cute, almost like a baby. Can Madonna please adopt me? I'd like to be rich.

Like Bob Hawke before him, George W. Bush gave up drinking before taking on high office. This video from an American late-night show suggests he may have suffered a relapse.

First Monty Python and the Holy Grail became the musical Spamalot. Now Python's Eric Idle has plans to turn Life of Brian into 50-minute oratorio called Not the Messiah. Details here.

The pedant in me simply had to post this story introduction from an online news service:

Three Filipino workers are getting legal advice after they were allegedy sacked by a Queensland welding company for joining a union.

When I read the story I discovered that the workers weren't allegedly sacked, they were sacked. What is alleged is the reason for them being sacked, so the sentence really should read something like this:

Three Filipino workers are getting legal advice after they were sacked by a Queensland welding company allegedly because they joined a union.

Shock. Horror. Cracks found in a South East Freeway on-ramp. It's time to seriously rethink Brisbane's traffic-management strategy. Rather than catering for more and more private vehicles, why don't we follow London's lead and try to reduce the number of cars - and especially single-passenger cars - coming into the city? But before we impose a levy on people who want to bring their cars into the city, let's really improve the public transport. Once that is achieved, here's a further, modest, proposal: let's make public transport really, really cheap and, eventually, free. When you consider everything - including the cost of building more roads, tunnels and bridges; the human dislocation involved in doing so; and the impact on the environment - it makes a lot of sense.

"Hi guys, I'd like you to meet my new best friend - American actor Bill Murray." Murray, who played a middle-aged actor who befriended a young woman in Tokyo in the film Lost in Translation, apparently accompanied a young Norwegian woman to a student party at a flat in the Scottish town of St Andrews. He even drank vodka from a coffee cup and helped do the dishes! The story is here and here (in a Japanese paper). Although there are pictures, I would treat this with just a little caution. There were rumours a little while ago that Murray was in Australia and it just wasn't true.

I wasn't watching, but I gather there's been an upset on Australian Idol tonight. Ijust got this SMS:

Idol is f----d, how dare bobby flynn go. I've turned off.

I guess we'll be reading and hearing more tomorrow.

Not all mobile phone owners are equal - at least not in the eyes of Nova 106.9, it would seem. The station's website lists the following competition rule:

4.4.3 SMS entry is available via compatible mobile phones which are connected to Telstra, Vodafone, Virgin Mobile, Optus mobile digital network and participating service providers. Entry is not currently available to those whose mobile phones are connected to 3, Orange mobile post-paid, Orange mobile pre-paid Optus MobilSat and Optus CDMA.

+ Why is it that, when I am with my wife at a cafe or pub and she pays for something, the waiter inevitably gives the change to me? (Not that I'm complaining ...)
+ Why do we take home the small packs of soap and bottles of shampoo from motels and hotels? The only reason I can think of is so we can have a small amount of the product to use while we're away from home. But then we'd most likely be in another motel or hotel, where they provide enough soap and shampoo for us to use - and take home!

As I said on the ie blog, I really enjoyed Lucia di Lammermoor, but there's one thing that's still nagging me. Has somebody in the costume department got it in for Michael Martin? In Romeo and Juliet, he had the world's worst wig. In Lucia his character, Arturo, he not only has Fabio-like locks, but what looks like doileys stitched on to his trousers.

I suppose I shouldn't complain that somebody put up one of those mobile flashing traffic signs to yell at people that there was no on-site parking at Roma St Parklands yesterday (due to the Multicutural Festival). Exactly why it was still flashing away this morning, I'm not sure.

On Friday, a colleague was sent a link to a video showing some (fully clothed) simulated sexual shenanigans behind the scenes at the Disney theme park in France involving some very well known characters. Now Disney bosses are fuming about the incident or, more specifically, the leak of the video that means the likes of me - i.e. Joe Average Web Use - have seen it. According to this report, Disney officials have refused to say if anyone was sacked over the incident. And, no, I'm not going to post the video. You'll have to find it yourself.

The Secret Policeman's Ball has returned to a London stage after 17 years. John Cleese, who produced the early Amnesty International awareness- and fund-raisers, wasn't there - he was here in Australia doing the dead parrot sketch with John Laws (but that's another story) - but Eddie Izzard, the Gorillaz, Chevy Chase, Ian McKellen, Graham Norton, Tamsin Greig, Jo Brand, Jennifer Saunders, Richard E Grant, Al Murray and Meera Syal were. More here.

"Market research is crap. It doesn't tell you what people are going to like, it tells you what they already like. What you want is bold, fresh ideas. You will never get that from advertisers, commercial people or businessmen." So said the obviously still feisty former ITV boss Sir Denis Forman, 89, in an interview conducted before university media and communications students. He also said: "In the 50s, we had at least two quiz shows in the top 10 ITV programmes, made for absolute peanuts. Now that's the way to run a TV service." Read more here.

American crooner Freddy Fender has joined the great heavenly chorus. There's more at my Celebrity Deaths Archive.

I was chatting to a fan of this blog at the opera last night - no, it's true; I do have some fans - who was unaware that I was also blogging here for The Sunday Mail. If you, too, haven't caught on to the ie blog yet, it's the one where I write about the arts and entertainment scene, with updates on stories in the Inside Entertainment liftout and further arts and showbiz-related news as soon as it comes to hand (or as soon as I can get to a computer). The blog you are reading now also has some showbiz content, but it's a little more opinionated sometimes and it often ties i