Newsflash! This is not news!

Have you seen the headlines this week?

Bush-Rudd handshake shakey

Bush on handshake: "I don't understand the fuss. Kevin smells and has girl germs. Everyone knows this. Why would I want to shake his hand for longer than necessary?"

International Diplomatic Crisis! Cretinous creationist with the attention-span of a tea-spoon gets a bit distracted after shaking hands with 20 uppity world leaders. Ennui mistaken for informed opinion of Kevin Rudd! War imminent!

I’m sorry, but do we really care?

No one really cared what Bush 'thought' at the best of times.

And with only a couple of months before he slips the keys to the White House under the mat and slinks off into history, I think the real story is, could this be any more irrelevant?

Hot, crowded and conflicted - must be the Newtown Festival!

Yesterday, as the consumer palaces of the inner west echoed emptily, the free community festival of Newtown celebrated its 30th anniversary with record crowds and booming business.

Or anti-business, as the festival's director, Sue Andersen, put it. "The reason it's so unique and popular is, firstly, that it's free, but secondly, because it's not about consumer brands. One year we had a stall for [a large homewares concern], and people shunned it, like there was a big 'boo' over it. We realised it was a big mistake, and have never had a major brand since."

Full article here.

Well, a couple of observations, Sue Anderson:

• My bottle of (tap) water was confiscated at the gate because “water is sold on-site. You can’t bring in any food or drink.”
• Someone forgot to tell Sue Anderson that Fitness First, whose minions were wandering around spruiking their new Newtown venue, is a major consumer brand.

Apart from that, hooray for counterfeit Mighty Boosh t-shirts, fisherman’s pants and those teeny little pancake thingies.

Festivals, hurrah!

Australian Idol: les escargots ont interdit

My top five observations from attending last night’s filming of the Australian Idol Top Five:

1. If there are 3 minutes and 40 seconds for each ad break, and allowing for 6 ad breaks, that means that Andrew G spent a cumulative 22 minutes fluffing and smoothing his fringe. Whilst other presenters/judges would spend the commercial breaks having a drink, chatting to the audience or having their make-up retouched, each and every spare second of Andrew G’s time was spent with the hair stylist. Why don’t they just save themselves the trouble and get him some lego hair.
   




2. I don’t understand how they make such a polished looking program from the big shemozzle that takes place in the studio during filming. It's like a 12-year old's birthday's party in someone's garage. Thanks goodness for unidirectional microphones I guess.
   


3. Everything in the studio is a lot smaller than it appears on TV (except Kyle). We were sitting in the third-last row of seats, but I reckon I could still have hit Luke Dickens fair in the face with an anvil, if I so chose.
   


4. Each of Andrew G and James Mathison had siblings in the audience last night. Not that this was announced. It was just rather obvious. Andrew G’s sister was pretty much Andrew G with longer bouncier hair and a dress. I only worked out that the bloke in the next aisle was not James Mathison, and was, in fact, his brother, when James Mathison walked out on stage in different clothes. It was freaky, people.
   


5. We dropped a friend home to Coogee at the end of the evening and drove past the Coogee Bay Hotel. The place was faecal packed. Go figure.