Here's one from the fancy-that file: Russell Crowe's son Tennyson was conceived while he was in Provence filming A Good Year. "And," says Peter Mayle, who wrote the book on which the film is based, "the local mayor was so delighted, he offered the little boy an honorary citizenship."

Whilst fruit-and-veg shopping at the organic market in Windsor this morning, it occured to me how many different types of potato are now available. Now I appreciate that each type has its own distinct quality and uses, but when I was growing up in Brisbane, there only ever seemed to be one type of potato. I'm not even sure which one it was - although I do know that the single type of lettuce we had is what's now known as iceberg.

You'd think everyone at Queensland Rail would at least know the names of the stations it services. Not so on the Brisbane suburban network, where a timetable posted at Indooroopilly station advertises trains to "Shornecliffe". They almost got it right.

On 612 ABC this morning, Spencer Howson and I spoke about the spelling of "brekkie" (or is it brekky or breaky?), the strange world of "ready to wear" fashion, non-swearing curse words and the fact that I really do enjoy going to the opera. We also solved the mystery of the newspaper scoop on the Kyle Sandilands-Spencer Howson childhood friendship. More on that last subject on Sunday.

"The cheques get less and less as the time goes by," Paul Hogan says of the royalties from Crocodile Dundee, his hit film which is being released in a special 20th anniversary DVD. "I think (his wife and co-star) Linda got a cheque a few months ago for $12 - that was exciting, probably from DVD sales in Thailand or something."
Still, it's hard to feel sorry for them.

"Diva-like conduct is certainly not unusual. You have a lot of egos there, and you have a lot of creative people who think they're more creative than the other." That's what TV historian Tim Brooks said when asked about reports of fights on the set of Grey's Anatomy between actors Isaiah Washington and Patrick Dempsey. He cited incidents in Moonlighting, Desperate Housewives and Charmed.

Is the popular Australian shortform of the word "breakfast" correctly rendered:
a) Brekky
b) Brekkie
c) Breakie
d) Breaky
e) None of the above?

Actual conversation:
Me: So 20 per cent of the people in this room work for your company?
Other Person: No, there's only seven of us.
Me: So how many people do you reckon are here?
OP: Oh, 35.

At 35, Kiran Desai has become the youngest female winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for British and Commonwealth authors. Her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss, beat short-listed novels by Sarah Waters, Hisham Matar, M J Hyland and Edward St Aubyn and Australia's Kate Grenville. The BBC has details here, where, at least at the time of writing, Grenville's name is misspelled Greenville.

All the attention might be on YouTube this week, thanks to the takeover bid by Google. However, according to new research by comScore Media Metrix, MySpace is the No. 1 portal for people who wanty to watch videos online. The research reveals that 37.4 million unique individuals watched a total 1.4 billion videos on the service in July alone. A media statement based on the research says the MySpace video serive, launched just six months ago, already accounts for 20 per cent of the 7.2 billion streams across the Web. The statement says YouTube ranked third in the survey, with 649 million video streams.

I've heard some pretty strong language in my day but nothing could have prepared me for what I heard from a young man for whom things were obviously going badly yesterday. As I walked towards him on my way home from work, I saw him jumping up and down, throwing his fist into the air. When I got close enough to hear, he was yelling ... "Curses!" I immediately felt like I'd been transported into a Victorian melodrama or, perhaps, an episode of Wacky Races where Dick Dastardly's evil plans had come unstuck yet again.
PS: In this interview about the controversial Sex:Cubed production at La Boite, did d

When we refer to somebody born in Dublin, why do we say they are Irish-born? Shouldn't we say they are Ireland-born?* It is, of course, possible to be born somewhere and not be of that ethnicity.
* The smae applies for Spanish-born, German-born, American-born etc

Looks like a few young people are heading for disappointment. According to networking website FunkySexyCool, 78 per cent of Australians aged 16-24 believe they have what it takes to be famous and nearly one in four [23 per cent] believe fame is a certainty in their lifetime. In the survey of 1017 Generation Y-ers,30 per cent said they sometimes daydream about being famous and an additional 29 per cent reported that they regularly fantasise about being a celebrity.

You Tube, home to some of my silly little videos (see the link at left), is in the news. First there's news that Google about to buy it, now comes word that more music labels have signed deals with the service. It's all good. I think.

Is absolutely everything about Australian Idol contrived to be controversial? From Kyle Sandilands' unkind remarks about contestants to the Marcia Hines "miming" incident, it's ready made for coverage in other media. A cynic might think it's all been planned that way...

I used to read the British comics Cor!! and Whizzer and Chips* when I was a kid, and remember the stories about conker fights. Little did I know that it's an actual sport. The good news is that this year's 42nd World Conker Championships has gone ahead despite fears that drought last year would produce nuts that were too small and too soft for competition.
* It was two comics in one; I was a Chipite, while my brother was a Whizz Kid. Toonhound has more about the comics here.

In common with many cities around the world, Brisbane is now facing severe water shortages. That's meant I've just spent a big chunk of this afternoon filling watering cans to tend to our vegie garden. There is nothing like the taste of freshly grown vegetables, but soon that will be a distant memory. When the next level of water restrictions kicks in, we won't even be able to use watering cans (despite the fact that they are less efficient on gardens than hoses, given the spillage between tap and garden). I'm wet and I'm angry! I can understand a hose ban for people who wash their cars or spray leaves off their driveways, but not for people who have spent years building up gardens - be they for food or for simple pleasure. A reliable source tells me that less than 9 per cent of water usage is by households; the rest is by government and industry.

You could write what I know about fashion on the back of a postage stamp. That's obvious to me when I look at what's on offer at the "ready to wear" parades in Europe and wonder why it is that I never see anybody in the street actually wearing these clothes that expose young women's breasts and other private parts and offer no protection at all from the elements.

I'm more than a little concerned to read that Whale Rider and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith star Keisha Castle-Hughes is pregnant at the age of just 16. The Oscar nominee, who (ironically?) plays the Virgin Mary in her latest film, The Nativity Story, is expecting to her 19-year-old boyfriend, Bradley Hull, with whom she has been for three years. It seems to me that there are many other things a person of her talent and priveleged position could be doing at this stage of her life. Particularly worrying is the comment that "Castle-Hughes' accelerated life experience has reportedly given her a maturity beyond her years".

The Dalai Lama is a force for good in the world and, from what I've seen and heard on television interviews, he also has a great sense of humour. That's why I'm sure he wouldn't mind me greeting the news that he's coming to Brisbane next year with the observation that he seems to be a big fan of the Broncos, our rugby league team. He's almost always wearing their colours.