Overheard at Darling Harbour, Sydney, today from a woman talking to her child: "It tastes all right, but the mouthfeel is all wrong."
Mouthfeel?

Why are there no visible-from-a-distance clocks in airport terminals?

They do things differently in television land, but a lot of people at one Brisbane station are wondering whether it was wise for a particular person to turn up for the farewell drinks for the person he was replacing-- especially when the new person allegedly knew about the change weeks before the one being "boned".

This morning on 612 ABC, Spencer Howson and I spoke about the things that go wrong in supermarkets, the location of the Dendy cinema, Australian TV networks screening (and promoting) shows that have already flopped in the US, and the most dangerous show on television, Australia's Funniest Home Videos.

Doctor Who has been officially confirmed as the longest-running sci-fi television show. The show debuted on November 23, 1963, and was revived in 2005 after 16 years off the screen. Nevertheless, it has clocked up 723 episodes featuring 10 different Doctors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davidson, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. American series Stargate SG-1 holds the record for longest-running consecutive sci-fi show.
PS: In unrelated TV news, congratulations to new father Shannon Noll. There's more at the ie blog.

Reports of the death of Paul Vance, writer of the song Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini have been, in the words of Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated. A 68-year-old man named Paul Van Valkenburgh, who claimed the novelty hit as his own, is dead, but the man who really wrote the song is still alive at the age of 76. "Do you know what it's like to have grandchildren calling you and say, 'Grandpa, you're still alive?' " the real Paul Vance has said from Florida. Details here.

Good on Peter Garrett for publically pointing out what's been pretty obvious to me and many others for some time: that Australian politicians make a show of being mad about footy and cricket but don't give a rat's about the arts. "Politicians continually associate themselves with sport and sporting success and yet at the national level are virtually absent from any meaningful discussion or involvement with the arts." I'd add that it's not just sport per se that they get into - it's popular mainstream sport that strikes a chord with the voters. Now if one of them got up and said, "Well, actually, I'm rather fond of bareback backgammon*", then I'd have a little more respect. More here.
* I just made tha

An actual phone conversation (edited):
Me: Hi I've been trying to get on to you urgently but I keep on getting through to answering machines.
Other person: You would never get put through to an answering machine when you call [Name of company].
Me: But I have been - three time today...
(It emerges that, in this person's mind, there is a difference between voicemail and an answering machine. It also turns out that one of the people I was trying to contact was on leave but not only did his voicemail message not reflect that fact, the switch operator who put me through to the machine didn't even know.)

I attended the official opening of the Dendy Cinemas at the new Portside complex in Hamilton, Brisbane last night and saw Little Miss Sunshine, a fabulous dark comedy with a terrific ensemble cast (Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin and Paul Dano). The only dampner on the night (apart from the rain) was the fact that, when it was time to leave, the operator from the cab company insisted that the place didn't exist and the only Dendy in Brisbane was the one in George St, in the CBD.

So what is it that brings people to this site. According to my latest stats, search engines are pointing web surfers in my direction when they look for information on: Brett Debritz (as you'd expect), recently departed Channel 9 staffers Rick Burnett and John Schluter, radio funnyman Jamie Dunn, spammer emilycoolplums, Queensland Theatre Company's production of A Woman Before, singer-songwriter Bernard Fanning and, curiously, Brazilian waxing*. I don't claim to be an expert in that last category, but I'm willing to try anything once**.
* I think it referred to my item about Stav Davidson from B105 undergoing a treatment in the name of entertainment.
** On second thoughts, no I'm not.

An article in today's Courier-Mail has Australia's Funniest Home Videos host Toni Pearen saying that she doesn't pay too much attention to criticisms such as a recent newspaper article calling her a "pissy" celebrity. I have no issue with Pearen at all - in fact, I met her many years ago when she was doing a stage show in Brisbane and found her to be a bright and charming person. I do have an issue with her show, though. I don't watch it, but from what I've seen on the promos, it just amounts to "funny" footage of people - often children - and animals being hurt. A few years ago, I saw a group of boys filming each other riding wheely bins down an innercity street in the hope of winning a prize on the show. How would Pearen, or her producers, have felt if these kids had

"Hitler, there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two coats!" So says Franz Leibkind in Mel Brooks' The Producers. But the real-world sale of some of Hitler's watercolours and sketches in England has been no laughing matter. The event was gatecrashed by self-styled "comedy terrorists" and condemned as being in "very bad taste" by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

The Germans have given us Oktoberfest, the BMW, The Woman Before and now the "separation agency". Businessman Bernd Dressler, nicknamed "The Terminator", charges people to inform their significant others that they are no longer wanted. The 52-year-old former dating-agency owner says his new venture is not too different. "If you want to have a new partnership, then you have to quit your previous one," he says. "I think it's the same market - just in reverse."

Is this World Series Cricket over again? I think not, but Channel 10 is obviously aiming to have a bit of fun - and draw some audiences - with its XXXX Gold Beach Cricket series over summer. With stars like Allan Border, Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, even I might watch. More here.

It would appear that I was wrong when I wrote (and broadcast) that the closure of Campbell Street, Bowen Hills was permanent. The barricades have been removed on one side of the railway line to allow traffic access to a side road that leads to Queensland Railway Mayne Junction. The road is closed to general traffic, however, so I'd still question the need for boom gates.
PS: It's also confusing for some general-public motorists who now believe the street has reopened. I watched a car drive across the line, then do a U-turn and come back.

"Why is slandering Kazakhstan so funny and innocent, but antisemitism or homophobia or hating black people is rightly condemned? Is there perhaps a double standard here?" So says one contributor to a BBC forum on Sacha Baron Cohen's fictional Kazakhstani character Borat. Another says: "The Irish have been slagged off for years and we're still well able to take a joke. In fact, probably most of Paddy Irishman jokes came from here! The Kazazhs should lighten up a bit."

I must be psychic, sort of, in relation to my item this morning about US TV flops that get sold over here and promoted as hits. Channel 10 has just announced it is screening an American sitcom called Out of Practice on Saturdays at 6.30pm. According to my research - i.e. looking up its WikiPedia entry - the show had a troubled debut in America late last year, was put on hiatus mid-season, and then cancelled after two more episodes. Still, it does have Henry "The Fonz" Winkler in it, so it may be worth viewing for curiousity value alone.

Brilliant But Cancelled is a website that's monitoring the fate of the new shows that have just debuted on US television. Chances are, about half the shows won't survive a full first season, let alone go on to become hits. If I had the energy, I'd link up the shows with the Australian networks that have already purchased them. Then I'd wait to see which of them has the nerve to promote an already-cancelled show as a potential hit here.

Love cats but can't have one because you're allergic to them? Fear no more, for a mere US$3950 (A$5265), you can buy a hypoallergenic kitten.

At afternoon tea with my extended family today, one of them asked in relation to my spots on 612 ABC: "Do you have to have a grumble about something every week?" I pointed out that it wasn't compulsory, but I usually found something about everyday life annoying enough to talk about. I soon realised I wasn't alone. We got on to the subject of bad service in supermarkets and discount stores. Complaints ran thick and fast, about:
+ How you can set out your things in a sensible order - all the cold things together, the vegetables and meat in one place - and then the person at the checkout will then just put them randomly in different bags;
+ How there's been a new staff intake at one major chain and everybody is hopeless;
+ How the checkout operators can't identify fruit and vegetables (I suggested that next time an operator ask what an item is, the respond with something like: "It's either a cucumber or a zucchini, depending on which is cheaper").