Good thing they had a plan B. Just last week, the Channel 10 folk were talking up "reality" show Rene's Getting Married, where a young woman had set the date but was still looking for a groom. Bad news for Ten is that Rene now has found a man, and won't be taking part in the show. Step forward Yasmin, and now it's Yasmin's Getting Married. They'll have to keep her locked away until the show starts... Meanwhile, B105 says it is going ahead with its promotion, Giving away Gabby.

It's good to see former Number 96 star Elaine Lee back in the gossip columns. She told Sydney Confidential the seminal soapie "paved the way for all soap operas in this country. And at the time it did have a lot of issues that hadn't been raised." The article doesn't mention it, but Lee has a role in one of the student films screened by the Australian Film, Television and Radio School at the Centro last week. Lee plays a doctor in a short sci-fi film which also stars Alex Dimitriades.

I saw (for the second time) the Australian Ballet's Sleeping Beauty. Although its almost-three-hour length tested some of the younger audience members, it's a stunningly beautiful production that's a must-see for anybody who is at all interested in classical dance.
PS: Also well worth a look is Opera Queensland's Die Fledermaus. Watch our for my review in next week's Brisbane News.
PS: Maybe it was because of all the kids there, but I was amused at the ballet to hear the foyer announcement: "No food or drinks in the theatre. No ice-creams, no nothing."

Movie star June Allyson and TV host Jack Smith (who, like me, you may remember from the infamous "Fearless Fonzarelli" episode of Happy Days) are the latest additions to my Celebrity Deaths Archive.
PS: The vandalised grave of AC/DC frontman Bon Scott will get a new plaque. More here.

Do you like what you read here but are too busy (or can't be bothered) to visit the blog every day? You can now subscribe to my semi-regular newsletters which will bring you up to date with the best of what's on the blog, and feature some new material. Just enter your email address into the form on the top right-hand side of the page (above the poll) and press the subscribe button. You'll receive an email asking you whether you really want to subscribe and, when you confirm it by following the link, you'll receive the newsletter whenever it's sent. (Don't panic if you don't get one right away, the system may take some time to catch up with you). You can unsubscribe at any time.

I'm probably not the first to make this observation, and almost certainly won't be the last, but if John Howard did promise Peter Costello (as Costello claims) to hand over the leadership, it must have been a non-core promise.

A couple of months ago, I received a call at work from a publicist I'd never spoke to before and whose name I can't now recall (although I did write it down at the time). He said he was offering me an interview with Russell Crowe and that Crowe was especially keen for it to take place because he'd heard good things about me. I was suitably flattered but couldn't work out why the Oscar-winning star would want to talk to me. We had done one interview before, back when he was promoting a film called The Silver Brumby, but that was before he was on the A list. This new interview was to be about Crowe's CD and the tour that would bring him to Brisbane. As it turned out, it never took place because my paper picked up another story, but I'll remember the way it all unfolded because it seemed so unusual. Today, a friend sent me a link to this article from The Sunday Times and suddenly it all makes sense. Without stealing writer Jack Marx's thunder, let's just say that Russell Crowe's world is very strange indeed. Either that, or he is incredibly misunderstood - even by those who know him well.

Darren Hayes, the boy from Logan, south of Brisbane, who hit it big with Savage Garden, has declared he's in love and is apparently wearing a wedding ring. According to The Courier-Mail's Q Confidential column today, Hayes refers only to "the person" he is in love with, and says they are living together in London. The last time I saw him, about 18 months ago, Hayes was enthusing about his move to San Francisco. He certainly gets around.

Yet another scam, this time telling me I've won 2.5 million pounds in a Coca-Cola UK promotion that I never entered. All I have to do is send them my banking details. Strange how the email that purports to come from "coca cola" (somehow I don't think the company would render its name in lower case and without the hyphen) has been sent from an ISP in Italy.

A website called My Heritage has a feature that matches your facial features to those of a celebrity (after a lot of fiddling around with pop-ups and registration, that is). Apparently the celebrity I most look like is Gemma Ward - the young model described as "the new Kate Moss". Poor girl. When I ask for purely male matches, the software suggests I'm a ringer for Art Garfunkel. Must be the high forehead. Apparently I also look like Rachel Weisz, Michele Morgan, Neve Campbell, Jane Fonda, Michelle Rodriguez, Neil Diamond, Ethan Hawke and Benjamin Britten.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has set the record for the biggest box-office take in one day. The film, starring Johnny Depp, grossed US$55.5 million on Friday, outdoing the previous record holder, Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. I guess I'd better go see it. I'd hate to be the only one who hasn't ...

I'm experimenting with publishing polls on this site. The first one is on the right-hand side of this page at the top.
Update: There was a glitch before that let only registered users vote. Now everyone can, if they care to.

I'm a big fan of SBS's World News Australia for several reasons, especially the fact that it covers far more ground than the other television news services. You might think, then, that I'd be happy with the decision to expand it to a one-hour service. Well, maybe not - because the new show is apparently going to incporporate sport as well. The existing half-hour service has been much diminished lately because of the decision to integrate sports reports in the absence of the Toyota World Sport program during the World Cup. Now it seems TWS has been axed forever and WNA will be just like any other TV news program, albeit longer than most. I'm not anti-sport, but surely there is room for a news program that is just about news. There are certainly enough shows that are just about sport. The reasoning behind the move seems a little odd. According to the smh.com.au report, SBS bosses were worried about the drop-off in viewers after the current half-hour 6.30pm news. There's no mystery about that; they are "news junkies" like me who are turning over to the ABC's 7pm offering. And that's something we'll continue to do because, as good as the SBS service is, it doesn't tell us what's happening in our own back yard.

As today's Sunday Mail reveals, last weekend's "turkey-slapping" incident isn't the only problem in the Big Brother house, with several housemates apparently "cracking under the strain". It's alleged that would-be contestants were required to audition for the show naked, by making a so-called "nudie run". And it shocks me that, despite regular psychological counselling, Michael "Ashley" Cox still thinks rubbing his groin in someone's face is "just a joke". Still, he is only 20 and he's been deliberately placed by a television production company into a totally unnatural situation - all in the name of "reality" television. Having said all that, I'm not calling for the show to be banned outright. I think adults have the right to watch what they want, as long as nobody is hurt in the process of making the show - and I would argue that the "tukey-slapping" incident crossed the line in that area - and as long as serious steps are taken to keep adults-only material away from minors. I also hope that the network and the producers are prepared to fund the long-term psychological care of any housemate who needs it.

A new site member has kindly pointed out that the Theatre link isn't working. I can't work out what's going on with brisbanetheatre.com but, in the meantime, you can access the 2006 Brisbane theatre calendar here. If you have suggestions for additions or alterations to the calendar, please email me.

The Saturday AM program on ABC Radio has tracked down the protaganists in this amazing story about two men with almost the same name: Daryl R. Peebles and Darryl R. Peebles. One lives in the US state of North Carolina, one in Tasmania, but the list of similarities between these two blokes is incredible. They are the same age, they have the same number of children, their fathers had similar occupations, and they are both amateur singers, magicians and ventriloquists. One discovered the other by googling (there's that word again) his own name. The Greensboro News-Record is also on top of this amazing coincidence.

I must admit I'd never heard of the Laughing Samoans until I discovered today that they are coming to Brisbane. I googled (and that is now officially a verb) the name of the act and found the duo's official website, which includes this video of what they do, plus some audience endorsements (and some interesting stuff about their experiences with an apparently dodgy Las Vegas promoter).

Former prime minsiter Gough Whitlam turns 90 next week and, to mark the occasion, he gave an audience to The Weekend Australian's Mike Steketee. One passage in the article resonates especially with me. Whitlam says: "Never a week goes by when someone doesn't write to me about my government's abolition of tertiary fees. It is a matter on which women write more than any other subject because families used to scrape and struggle to get a child into university and it was always a boy. The letters I get from women mostly mention the fact that my government gave them an education and they often add that this made a difference to their children. It lifted horizons." As someone who was only able to go to

Mozart has been dead for 215 years and, in my mind at least, he belongs to an era way before modern technology and mass media. Remarkably, however, a photograph has emerged of his widow, Constance. It was taken in Bavaria, at the home of Swiss composer Max Keller, in 1840.

In the ongoing controversy over the Chris Masters' biography of Alan Jones, Jonestown, it's the role of the ABC TV's Media Watch program that interests me most. The fact that the ABC board had made the decision (not to publish the book) previously attributed to the management of ABC Enterprises was revealed by one of the ABC's own programs. That fact alone says a lot about why the ABC remains an essential part of the Australian media landscape.