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.