In politics, blandness is forever

So, John Howard's staying. I'm a little surprised, I thought he'd want to hand over the difficult task of winning a fifth election to the obvious fall guy that Peter Costello is, take a victory lap, and leave the party floundering. And it raises a truly terrifying prospect for those of us who wouldn't mind at least some variety after a decade of the Howard Government. What if Howard's formula of remaining leader "for as long as the party want me to" in fact amounts to forever?

As someone who makes a living by taking the complex, serious issues of politics and reducing them to a series of trivial jokes, the prospect of yet another Howard v Beazley contest fills me with dread. Not only have all the jokes been made before, but this pair must surely be the most bland politicians of their generation. Yes, including Philip Ruddock and Kevin Rudd. (Actually – how good would a Rudd v Ruddock campaign be? Imagine the massive voter confusion.) The thought of spending yet another year combing the minutiae of what these drab men do in the vain hope of finding anything amusing to say about it is a truly horrifying proposition.

It speaks volumes about our political apathy that Howard and Beazley have proven so enduring. Is it because they never surprise us? Is it because they tend not to infiltrate our consciousness much on any individual occasion, their featureless speeches blending into one dull morass? Or is it that our contempt for politicians is so great that the more the media's attention focusses on any one of them, the less we like them? By contrast, one-time media darlings Mark Latham and Natasha Stott-Despoja flared brightly but only lasted one campaign. Latham's burnout is still the last genuinely interesting thing to have happened in politics.

Kim Beazley has been around for decades, and led the party for most of one, and he still can't make a speech without sounding desperate, as if he is trying to assert the appearance of decisiveness and leadership and hoping no-one calls his bluff. When he tries to assert himself, to show ticker, he just sounds shrill and unconvincing. And really, how he can not have learned the art of concise sound bites in all this time is remarkable.

Whereas Howard has used his three decades in Parliament to become the grand master of relentlessly leaching controversy from every statement he makes. He's like an old-fashioned opener blocking every ball into the turf, never taking a run except on a fielding mistake by his opponents. In times of trouble, he is enormously reassuring because he is always exactly the same. But in terms of inspiring his party and nation, of getting the nation to buy into some overarching vision, he is always found wanting. (This may be because many of his visions are about tax and unpalatable IR reforms.) Howard is the leader for an age of terror, not an age of nation-building.

The same problem is endemic in State politics. Peter Beattie, Steve Bracks and Bob Carr have all won multiple elections with a dull but reliable approach, stifling every controversy and refusing to alienate the mainstream. It's hardly surprising more young people are interested in reading NW.

The one interesting aspect everyone's focussing on in all this, of course, is Peter Costello. He has far more flair than Howard, but also far more flaws. After his last round of petulance, he has adopted his leader's straight bat, knowing that he has to do that to have any chance of succeeding him now. He did the decent – well, only viable – thing and quickly followed Howard's announcement with his own commitment to hang around until a shock election loss or sheer inevitability makes him leader.

Perhaps they have finally concluded that long-overdue Kirribilli Agreement now? Costello has denied it, but it would have been a brilliant way to silence him. But the Deputy Leader would probably have agreed to anything just to keep the gig. He kicked the tyres on a challenge, and found he wouldn't get anywhere. The backbench must be looking almost as unattractive as being in the Democrats right now.

Who knows how long John Howard has in him? 5 years? 10? You'd be crazy to bet against him. So the only prospect of change – other than in the ALP, when Beazley finally retires after probably losing election #3 – is a rumour in Crikey today that Alexander Downer might be stepping aside if the Deputy Leader's position doesn't become vacant soon. Which means we may soon be deprived the one pollie who can still be relied on for an entertaining gaffe. Who'd have thought there was a way Australian politics could become even duller?

Let's completely legally trade our copyrighted KaZaA stories

I've just learned the most shocking thing. Apparently people have been using Kazaa – sorry, that's KaZaA – for downloading illegal music. And I really feel for parent company Sharman Networks on this one. They were just trying to make the world a better place. All they did was set up a perfectly innocent system that let people trade legal files by the enormous number of worthwhile recording artists who are happy to receive no payment for their work. And pirates went out and took advantage of their generosity. So now they have to pay US $100 million to the fatcat recording companies. Honestly, where's the justice?

It's almost as unfair as nasty 'privacy' experts naming the helpful software they bundle with it as spyware.

And sure, you might cynically allege that Sharman's software is so dodgy they can't even distribute it in its home market of Australia due to a court order (try to download it and you'll see). You might argue that they saw a niche after Napster was shut down and cynically exploited it to earn millions by hiding dodgy software on their users' computers. But that would be nasty of you. Not as nasty as profiteering from a massive international network trading in stolen music, of course. Hypothetically.

I'm just glad my friends at Sharman happened to have $100 million lying around that they could use to settle with the record companies. Wow, there's a lot of money in facilitating completely legal file sharing, wouldn't you say?

Like Napster, they will now become a legal download service. So everyone will be happy – except the pirates who will suffer the minor inconvenience of having to use a slightly different filesharing system.

There aren't many bonzer Aussie software companies, so I reckon we should look after the ones we've got. You know, Advance Australia Filesharing and all that. So I want to help clear KaZaA's name, and reverse this unfair perception that it was all a front for piracy. Post-Napster, it was the net's biggest file-sharing service for some time, so there must be some readers who used the software before it was blocked. So tell us – what stuff did you download? How successfully did you resist the temptation to download free music from the world's best known performers when there was legal music by artists you'd never heard of on offer?

I have every confidence that our anonymous stories of KaZaA usage will be overwhelmingly honest, and prove once and for all that no-one used this system in any dodgy way whatsoever. Let justice be served.



Dominic Knight

PS I've copied the KaZaA logo here without their permission. I hope they aren't too annoyed. After all, as the page says, "Sharman Networks Ltd does not condone activities and actions that breach the rights of copyright owners".

A column about war

The perennial conflict in the Middle East always seems so far away. The ancient, bombing-riven desert landscape that we see on the news bears more in common with George Lucas’ fictional Star Wars landscape of Tattooine than the comfortable, urbanised Sydney we live in. Even further away for us predominantly secular Australians is the mindset that has fuelled this conflict. It’s hard to relate to bearing a massive grievances on the basis of territory and past conflicts. Most Australians only get fired up about land ownership issues at home auctions.

It’s even harder to imagine being willing to die for your religion. You’d have to imagine Hillsong Church’s huge numbers would drop away pretty quickly if they started asking their members to destroy themselves in a rain of holy fire rather than clap their hands and sing uplifting songs.

Most Aussies simply can’t understand why they can’t all sit down and work things out without avoiding such a fuss. Our solution would be for both parties to sit down, and maybe have a barbeque together. Everyone in the Middle East, Jewish or Muslim, loves barbequed meat, and no-one eats pork, so the catering would be simple. It’d be a whole lot better than the current situation, where everyone’s trying to barbeque each other.

But as we’ve seen this week, this conflict isn’t far away at all. Thousands of Australians were stuck in Lebanon needing urgent evacuations. And thouseands more numbers took to the streets last weekend to march against Israel’s bombing campaign. And Asaf Namer, a young Sydney man who had volunteered for the Israeli Army, was killed by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon last Wednesday. I know people who knew him at high school. In this increasingly interconnected world, we’re never more than a few connections from any crisis. As reluctant as I am to admit it, that loathesome Will Smith movie Six Degrees of Separation has a point.

No-one is without blame in this conflict. Lebanon has Hezbollah as part of its government, which was always likely to bring it into conflict with the terrorist group’s sworn enemy, Israel. Virtually all impartial observers agree that Israel has massively overreacted in the current campaign, and the Jewish state has alienated many supporters because of the high number of civilian casualties. Syria and Iran are connected with Hezbollah, and America’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s attempt to negotiate a ceasefire was laughable when her country had sold Israel a load of bombs only a few days earlier.

It’s hard to imagine anything we Australians would less like to do than get involved in a peacekeeping effort in Lebanon. Alexander Downer described the idea as “suicide”. But it’s hard to know what else we can do, because we can no longer trust anyone actually involved in the conflict to even try to resolve it.

The reality is that we as a nation already are involved. The war has dragged all of us into it to a certain degree. Israel has tried to teach Hezbollah the lesson that if it hurts Israel, the reaction will be dramatic. We need to teach Israel that if it hurts innocent civilians, our reaction will also be substantial.

John Howard said that an international deployment would need to be massive to succeed – 10,000 or more. But is there any way? International aggressors must learn that if they kill civilians, the world community’s reaction will be massive in both military and economic terms. It needs to be so inevitable that leaders are discouraged from acting by the inevitability of a fierce response. If they know they cannot achieve their aims (and really, someone should have pointed this out to new-boy Ehud Olmert), the point of a protracted campaign becomes more elusive.

As the world has shrunk, we were supposed to become friends and stop killing each other. We haven’t. Instead, one group of our friends – and more significantly, one country in which many of our compatriots hold dual citizenship – is killing another. Intervening will be highly dangerous and unpleasant. But less so, ultimately than allowing this situation to continue. The only thing you can predict in the Middle East is that the conflict simply won’t ever stop while the region is drawn up with the current parameters. So it will simply have to be stopped instead.

Quizmania: Hotdogs never looked so good

Last year, I was fortunate enough to be watching the first night that Hotdogs exploded onto our airwaves with his Up Late Game Show. (He has been trying to 'rebrand' himself as Simon Deering since coming off Big Brother. I say we should never, ever let him.) This week, I've had the rare privilege of watching the debut an extremely similar, yet immeasurably worse programme. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Nine's Quizmania.

Nine's actually bothered to license this format from an English show, which seems unbelievable – it's so like Hotdogs' effort that surely they could just have ripped it off. Unlike Marathon Man Hotdogs, there are three hosts, one for the three ludicrous hours this remains on air. Like Hotdogs, though, two of them – Amy Parks and Brodie Young – are from Big Brother – a group of individuals so desperate they will do pretty much anything to stay in the public eye.

The reason the game's far worse even than Hotdogs' atrocity is the game format. Its signature 'tower' puzzle is basically the hosts playing 'Guess what's in my head'. "Nothing" is pretty clearly the correct answer, judging by the inaneness of their patter, so it's probably more accurately termed 'Guess what's in the producer's head'. In other words, the game is so pointlessly arbitrary that it can be strung out for literally hours. And so it was – over two and a half of the show's agonisingly bad introductory effort on Monday night.

The first-ever challenge on Monday was "Guess a male singer". They had a board with 8 singers on it, and if you flukily name one of the ones listed, you get a certain amount of money. So there's no challenge whatsoever, and it's just a question of luck. Monday's easier efforts were George Michael, Slim Dusty, Guy Sebastian, Justin Timberlake, Elton John and Sting. All pretty well-known. But there were still, of course, an abundance of wrong answers throughout the night.

To get $500, though, you had to guess Roland Gift. I happen to know that he's the singer of the Fine Young Cannibals, but that's only because I was in Year 7 when they were big, and bought their album. And even I, Giftmaniac that I was, would never have guessed him. No-one else did either. Which is why they eventually had to reduce his name to R_L_ND G_FT, after which it was guessed immediately.

But get this. To win the maximum prize of $1000, the random male singer you named had to be Clark Datchler. That's right. After over 150 minutes of television, they would only give away a grand if you came up with CLARK FRIGGING DATCHLER.

Who is he, you might ask? Why, the lead singer of Johnny Hates Jazz. Who isn't even in Wikipedia (well, except in the band's entry.) He may well be the most obscure person they could possibly have thought of. Meaning that they had to just awkwardly abandon the final step and give the money away for something else. By which time, let me tell you, Dommy Hated Quizmania.

A fellow-insomniac friend cleverly pointed out that this probably meant that they had just nicked the questions from the UK version. As Datchler lives there, presumably he at least might have guessed himself.

The most outrageous aspect of the show, though, is not the insanely hard and random nature of the quiz. Or the way that they end up having to make the questions stupidly easy. It's that they almost never take calls. The show is on such a painfully tight budget that they spend the entire time telling you to call, and almost never actually talk to anyone lest whey win. There were entire 15-minute periods of padding, including one highly awkward bit of banter between perky host Nikki Osborne (to be fair, the least worst thing about the show, probably because she's not from BB) and a cameraman. She established that this grey-haired gentleman likes going out for "a bit of a boogie" on Oxford St. Hilarious.

Even during the "Speed round", they spent far more time telling us they were going to take heaps of calls than actually doing so. At the 150 minute mark, they only had six correct answers, leading them to give a bit more away with easy questions towards the end.

The patter's particularly awful. Nikki Osbourne (to be fair, the least awful thing about the show, since she's not from BB) likes to tell lame jokes. Such as "One cow said to the other "Are you worried about mad cow disease?" She said "No I'm not, I'm a helicopter"." I guess it's to make you wish they were playing the stupid competitions instead. But Nikki's miles better than Amy Parks, who spent an entire hour on variations of two sentences: "Give us a call, we're going to take heaps of calls", and "Wouldn't it be awesome if you won? How awesome would that be? $50! Awesome! What could you do with that". All of which are broken up by what must be television's worst sound effects. The "B-b-b-bonus" sound in particular is still haunting my nightmares like ghostly quiz-host fingernails on a crappy television-effect blackboard.

The truly worrying thing, though, is that judging by the UK experience, this is the future of television. Not only is this show on ITV for up to five hours every weekend, but they have an entire channel full of this rubbish – ITV Play. (You can watch UK Quizmania on the website, and marvel at how slightly less excruciating it is with slick hosts.) The reason why it's spread like a malignant tumour, of course, is that it makes lots of money – apparently, Quizmania netted over £1.2million during its first two weeks on ITV1. And the proliferation of these shows has led to a raft of complaints in the UK.

The Dogs is apparently returning next week after BB ends, and it's surely only a matter of time before Seven launches its own version – presumably it'll wait until Nine sacks some of these guys, sign them and then outrate Nine. And the new potentially-commercial ABC might not be far away either.

So what can we do? It may be tempting to prank call them, like the guy who apparently rang Hotdogs and told him he was God, calling from the future to answer a question, and made him stare blankly at the screen for a full minute. But the joke is ultimately on us, at 55c a time (higher from mobiles.)

Like pokies, Quizmania and shows like it would not exist if we, the public, weren't stupid enough to waste money on them. (And they both distract us with flashing lights when we've had a bit to drink.) We must all pull together to boycott them and force them off our screens. Then late-night television can return to the high-quality viewing options for which it has become justly renowned. Like infomercials.



Dominic Knight

Saint Bob's short on converts

Sometimes a truly hilarious story gets posted to the SMH site on the weekend, and those who use their computers purely at work miss out. And I'd hate to think of anyone missing out on this one. "Saint Bob" Geldof recently had one of the most humiliating experiences I've ever heard of. What if you gave a concert at a 12,000 seat venue and only 45 turned up? That number again... 45.

Here's the AFP story: Live 8 hero Bob Geldof has been forced to cancel two concerts in Italy because of lack of public interest, after only 45 people turned up to see him perform in Milan, Italy's La Stampa newspaper reported.

Geldof walked out of Milan's 12,000-capacity Arena Civica without playing, given the paltry attendance.

His manager explained that a concert for less than 400 people would not be viable, the newspaper said.

The 54-year-old Irish rocker, who said he had flown in from South Africa for the gig, sought to placate angry fans afterwards by promising to give a free concert in September.

A scheduled performance in Rome, for which 300 tickets had been sold, was also cancelled, La Stampa said.

Live 8 indeed. I love the manager's comment – they've booked a 12,000 seat arena and they think that fewer than 400 would be viable?

And how many complaints could there have been, exactly if he only sold 345 tickets? He could pretty much give that free concert in his lounge room.

Geldof's relief efforts have been admirable, with the significant exception of him giving Bono yet another platform to tiresomely preach on about the state of the world. (He really need to change his name from the Latin for "Good voice" to the Latin for "whiny, self-righteous voice") But I can't imagine wanting to see him perform. The only song of his I can think of is the Boomtown Rats' I Don't Like Mondays, which is about a gun massacre. Not exactly a pleasant night out.

Looks like Geldof's better off with live gigs where he doesn't play.



Dominic Knight

Jessica's laughing all the way to the nursery

Since I don't have a cynical or mean-spirited bone in my body, I wouldn't dream of suggesting that career issues have impacted on Jessica Rowe's pregnancy. Even though she got maximum impact out of it by announcing it on air this morning. And did a live chat with her husband about it. No, it was just one of those completely spontaneous moments that have endeared Today so much to Australian viewers.

But in an alternate universe where people were that calculating, there could be no better way to preserve her career – and perhaps even her show. I reckon the only way this could have played better is if the father was Todd or Brant.

Not only does the news give her lots of good publicity, but now that Peter Overton has, there's no way Eddie McGuire will be able to 'bone' her. It would look terrible if Nine sacked her, and also potentially be illegal under what remains of our unfair dismissal laws. Mothers are about the only group the Liberals protect these days.

And then of course at the end of this year, she will leave. As she probably would have anyway, given the year she's had. The timing's perfect – she's three months in, so Christmas is perfect. Expect an announcement that she won't be returning next year because the hours are terrible for a new mum, and that she's "exploring less physically demanding opportunities" with the network. In particular, ones where she reads the news. And doesn't laugh.

In the meantime, it will give Today great 'relatable' content that's the stuff (and, of course, the source of the banality) of successful breakfast shows. Viewers will be able to experience Rowe's pregnancy along with her. I fully expect exciting ultrasound footage and a hugely-hyped announcement of its sex. Viewers may even be able to vote for its name on an SMS poll. Or perhaps one of Nine's corporate partners could supply its moniker?

Although if she suffers from morning sickness, it could make for some uncomfortable viewing. Judging by the ratings, though, Today has made people feel off-colour all year, so it'll be a great source of empathy.

It's also excellent news for those who have worried about Rowe's weight. Since she's pregnant, she'll now have to eat for at least one.

The interesting thing is how Sunrise will react. I can't help but think that this puts major pressure on Kochie and Mel. To stay ahead of their rivals, they may need to go one step further and conceive a child together.



So, finally some good news for Today. There could well be more on the way as well. Anyone tip Karl Stefanovic to be the next celebrity to wind up with a horrific ice injury?

Dominic Knight

The Sabrina scam – exposed!

Regular visitors to this site will know that my recent post about Miss World Australia Sabrina Houssami – and beauty pageants in general – has sparked a massive number of replies in her defence. Well, I discovered almost all of them were posted from the same computer. This amounts to a bizarrely massive effort to dupe the readers of this blog into thinking that there was a groundswell of support in her favour. And I'm so flattered that I really feel we should do this enormous effort justice. So I've compiled a huge list of every single bogus post. Glance through and marvel at the ingenuity and sheer misguidedness of whoever bothered to do this.

For those who aren't geeks – all these posts have come from the one IP address. An IP address is assigned to every internet connection. So these posts have all come from either the same physical computer, or the same wireless network or something. The writer also made one post about her to the Chaser website (look under "Patricia Watson").

I wouldn't normally have bothered with this, but the sheer scale of it is remarkable. Someone has devoted literally hours – and an astonishing 3500 words – to trying to manipulate public opinion on this site. I know we're all an awesome bunch of people here, but let's face it – this site isn't exactly hugely influential.

Looking over them as a literary body of work, if you will, I realise I should have twigged earlier. There are certain common features:

• occasional errors in spelling and grammar
• quaint tone of voice – eg "that stunning angel face lady"
• constant use of "Miss Houssami", which is unusually formal
• way, way too much information about Sabrina

This last point is what really makes me wonder.

Let's not necessarily assume these messages come from Sabrina herself, though. For one thing, she probably doesn't have this much time on her hands what with being a student, Miss World Australia, a member of Mensa and all that.

Now, without any further ado, please marvel at the enormous effort put in by a staunch defender of the reigning Miss World Australia. It was so nearly a successful scam. Well, except in terms of changing anyone's mind. But I certainly thought an army of rabid Sabrinaites had hijacked the page – not just one incredibly hardcore one.

Oh, and just for the record, I'm not in the least bit annoyed by this – I think it's brilliant! But I will be more vigilant about IP addresses in future.

Dominic Knight





Alisha

If you had the right info, you would know that the internet IQ test she took was last year & sat for the MENSA test about 6 weeks.

Do your homework before you presume.

Alisha again



Mr. Knight,

I am amazed at your pointing fingers at a young woman who is nothing but class. It seems you have too much time but nothing worthwhile to utilise it.

Well, let me give you a few ideas that might get you busy...

1) Big Brother... a prime time TV show that only spreads immorality & sleeze.

2) Smart people can have fun too...

3) Beauty & Brain... God gave all of us both these attributes, but unfortunately, there are only very few who can use both.

4) Australia's multicultural society & its contribution in shaping of this great nation.

Hope thes will help you realise your true potential & flair for writing something worthwhile.

Have a great day.

Brent Luke Maguire



Although I understand what Mr. Knight was trying to say I must point to him that this New beauty queen is changing the concept of beauty pageants.

When we see an astonishing pretty young woman showing that a woman doesn't have to be a stereotype limbo to win a pageant and that she can be in fact be an ultra intelligent talent AND a very active Charity worker (sabrina has raised more than $60 000)in her work to help the sick and needy children.

More importantly, Sabrina is setting an example for young women that being blessed with external beauty isn't an achievement, it's a GOD's gift, and that it should be followed by hard work and study and helping the society.

This marvelous young lady is really impressing me with her role as a new icon for young Australians.

She has won MENSA membership, is an accomplished Red Cross ambassador,a champion debator, a speech motivator at NSW public schools and a uniting young leader in a society that needs many like her to form its evolutions among the world's nations... and yet, she has just sompleted her 19 years of life.

I truly feel that responsible journalism, and Mr. Knight is admitably a leading member of it, must play the needed supportive role to stand behind upcoming young leaders like Sabrina.

She needs to read different words from you and us Mr. Knight !!

Sarah – this is a cracker – how contrived is it?! "I now remember her name..."



Mr. Knight,

I read your article just hours after I came back from a charity function to help a critically ill child who needed financial support to have a major operation.

happily, the charity was able to raise the money needed on the night.

I now remember that stunning angel face lady who came to my table asking for my support.

I have obliged and did what I could and was left stunned with her grace and angelic smile.

I now remember her name: Miss world Australia Sabrina Houssami...

Should I say anymore mr. Knight ??

Amanda – plays the race card, if not the spelling card



Sad to see some racial remarks slipping into this forum in an attempt to undermine Sabrina's Success.

Jealousy can blind some sower loosers and all I can say while Sabrina is continuing her impressive campaign and charity work here we see some bitter losers coming to srop few lines of hatred.

Go Sabrina.... Don't look behind.

Go Australia.

Proud Aussie



She is a great ambassador to Australia.

I have no doubt that she will do very well for our great country.

what an amazing new style beauty queen.

Leena



Brain and beauty ... and a BIG heart.

This young lass has them all.

I understand why some youngsters envy her; but this should not turn into bitterness.

sabrina is going to Poland to represent ALL OF US and we must show our true values by voting for her and supporting her strongly.

after all .... she is MISS WORLD AUSTRALIA and that's how the world look at her now.

wondering amy



So this Girl's fault is that, despite being intelligent and beautiful, she entered the Miss australia beauty pageant !!!

What is wrong with that ????

If she found that this is a way to achieve her aims in doing charity work and winning the title and becoming a famous person, What on hell is wrong with this???

We should be encouraging our youngsters to become active like this instead of dishing them like they are doing something wrong !!

AdvanceOz



By far the best Aussie beauty queen ever.

I hope she will bring home the world's crown.

I want to see what more stories they will make up here then -)))))



George

Very Impressive Young Lass.

Turning a beauty contest into a more interesting event.

My Vote is surely for her.



Deborah

Miss Houssami is doing a wonderful job and is a great ambassador to our nation.

We should all give her our support instead of just saying "she is intellingent, she is beautiful, so why she entered the beauty competetion!!!".

What a logic.

well done Miss world Australia organisation for this more than perfect choice.



MWAadmirer

New Fundraising Records achieved by Sabrina Houssami !!!

this is the latest news coming from MWA organisation circles who are thrilled with this superb Charity worker.

As if Miss Houssami needed more scores to add to her outstanding achievements !!

Well done Sabrina .... you are the pride of our nation +++++

Anne



When brains, beauty collide

SABRINA Houssami is a beauty queen with a difference. Australia's Miss World entrant has just been accepted by Mensa, which claims to be for those in the top 1 per cent for intelligence.

The university student, 19, says she is more interested in helping charity than trading on her looks.

Ms Houssami says she is keen to break down stereotypes about beauty pageants, in particular Miss World.

"Every contestant is not an airhead," she says. "We are very strong-willed, smart women; more ambassadors than typical beauty pageant queens."

Smily Anne



Emmmmm ..... Never before an Australian beauty queen has won so much media coverage and publicity. I wonder why this time only Things have changed !!

Is it because Sabrina is "different" in a way from the others ?? and I don't want to elaborate on what "different" here really means, or is it because of her success and unusual active style specially in Charity??

I agree with someone on this forum that it is Like that moment in the zombie movie where the couple are kissing in the car, and suddenly you're aware that dozens of the Undead are converging from out of the bushes ... but surely these are her few critics and not her supporters.

Brandon



Dodgy thinking is more dangerous ...

Menzies



The Sydney's Observer is out today with a lovely giant photo of Miss Houssami on its front cover plus 3 more pages inside under the heading (This is Australia).

The article is full of praise and support for the charming new face of Australia.

two more northern beaches magazines have published front cover photos and coverage for Miss Houssami with wonderful editorials and support.

It is really lovely to see the northern region coming strongly to pledge their support for Miss Houssami.

This is really true blue Australian.



Renae

Hey , Flatbag ... since you are telling us that your boss is "more competent than any male" and we believe you -))) It is about time that he should reward you with a promotion in return, isn't ??

You don't need IQ or intelligence or anything like that. Your thoughts and class show you can be talented in other fields -)))

Say hello to your boss (wink).

Alisha



In reply to your comments...

1)The girl from Manly - pulled out of the contest last year at a state level cos she did not win Miss NSW, even though she was offered a place in the national final. Now she is back claiming she should have been considered this time around!! She forfeited her chance. Now that's illogical!

2)Get your facts right about Mensa - it is not an internet test. It is an international society that tests potential members via an in-person, supervised test session that can only be sat for once in a lifetime. You can visit their website at au.mensa.org for more information.

3)I've read in numerous interviews that Sabrina is studying Liberal STUDIES, which is a 4 year course that is a precursor to overseas medicine and law degrees. Sounds smart to me.

4)If you look up the Miss World Australia website, the 2007 contest is currently taking place at the fundamental regional level. Anyone interested in raising funds or entering can do so, right now. No missed opportunities for anyone, then!



Lost freedom

DOM, the moderator of this forum, has now showed his true colors by allowing this last dirty message or he wrote it himself.

Freedom of expression is lost here and DOM is a party to this debate.

We shall remember this forever...Thanks



Freddy

What is this garbage now ??

Where is the Mr. Dominic knight who is screening this board !!!

William



this catfight here clearly reflects the style of a girl or two who are still finding it hard to accept losing in a sportmanship way, instead they took their bitterness to the media and again they lost and Miss Houssami was endorsed by Miss World Headquarter.

Now they have nothing to do except going to various internet forums and bitching around.

They are not interested in charity or anything of this nature. It is a story of "me or no-one else".

This is sad and un-Australian.

Get over it girls. Enough rubbish.



AussiePride

While Sabrina continues her rise to fame and is all over the front covers of Australian and world magazines and is working like a busy bee in fundraising and charity functions we see the losing girl spending all her time on the internet spreading rumours and saying the wrong thing.

Using different names in her postings to give the impression of public uproar -))) doesn't work and "true blue Aussie" is the last handle she should be using.

Get off the PC girl and find a job or something !!!



Danny

Seems that this argument has no end.

Life has to carry on with or without these girls on the forum here.

A lot of spiteful girls for and against.

sounds more like loosers taking their dissapointment to the web.

Melissa



I cracked up when I read this last posting pretending to be a married man and from Adelaide, special the "very very unprofessional' side of it.

secondly Sabrina never called anyone bitch and bimbo, actually everyone who knows her talk of her extreme politeness.

I don't know why you are fabricating these lies, specially the poll side of it.

The whole world is praising this new Miss Australia and one bored loser (or two) are spending their time on the internet trying to dish her !! This is lame.



John

I saw Sabrina at a charity function last week and I thought she was graceful in her speech and class.

reading what some are writing here I can now understand why the Miss world Organisation selected her outright.



Noelene

Looks like the wonderful Melanie Freeman who is from Manly has lost her nerves completely.

Regret to read her language and see her frustration.

signs of the end of the trip.

Hope she will give up now and stop her drama and croc tears.



Paula

Miss Houssami is undoubtly of different quality to these bloggers. She's in the press on daily basis and you can tell her class.

Dominic has raised some points in his article and they should have discussed here, instead some very upset girl or girls are turning this board into a personal hatred issues.



Louis

I think they should let these sour kids run in some sort of competetion again.

At least hey will get off this forum and do something useful.

Erghhhhhh ....... Snake bites alright.



Observer

From a cheerleader to a gangleader; How sad!!



Mathew



Sabrina is different quality to all these here, everybody knows that, even her critis, therefore it is no surprise to read some of the insults here.

Did anyone say Bimbos ?



Sebastian

Mr. Dom,

only one question in my mind: what is wrong if an intelligent female enters a beauty pageant if she feels that she can achieve things this way ??

you were criticising skin shallows and I agree, but you are still unhappy if a brainy girl participates ??

Are you suggesting that no one should be part of beauty pageants ???

I believe that young Australians should be encouraged to compete and be involved in Charity and humanitarian work .... and yes catwalk , what is wrong with that ??

I think Miss World Australia did a great job this year and they have chosen a queen with different image to project to our youngsters ... not like the other competetion's nude example.



Wally

It is so ugly that the hatred and bitterness of some came to a stage where they want us to vote for Miss equador instead of Miss Australia !!

I was against sending our troops to Iraq, but once they were there I am standing behind them to the end.

No matter what happened here, my vote will go to Miss Australia and no one else.



Natalie

I think Sabrina Houssami is an inspiration young woman. The work she does for charity is absolutely phenominal.

ask the cancer kids of NSW, they will give you better opinion than few jealous girls here.

Patriotic



I see, so now because she did not win, True blue Aussie or Michael or whatever handle she keeps on changing, wants us to vote for Miss Equador instead of miss Australia !!!

True blue Aussie you said ?

unreal



Here we have an intellectual representing Australia on world stage, a beauty queen qualified as the top 1% on this planet's intelligent ...

On the other hand we have a school leaver and a cheerleader who want to do her job.

Where do we go ?????????

Samantha



Oh well..... that's it.

It's all over now.

They want us to vote Equador against Australia !!

Really the debate is over for me now.

Anthony



Oh my God, what a bunch of losers.

Go and get a life girls.



Alan

I highly respect your editorial DOM and agree with almost all of it.

I only like to add that the best way for our nation to avoid seeing ugly tragic scenes in its street is not to take side in a very unfair conflict in the middle east.

If we can not help or fix the problems then at least stay out of it and keep our image clean and not follow George Bush blindly in his crazy policy.

Nancy



Sabrina Houssami is known to be top writer in english and this is her major smarty.

It is people like you and the other kids who are having a war here and making this whole issue look so ugly.

DOM should close this subject and throw you all out.

Winston



I saw Miss Houssami before she won Miss world Australia at the young Australian of the year award night as she was nominated by Bankstown council.

I knew then that I was looking at an outstanding kid.

Today,I feel I was right and I really expect big things from her.

Well done young lady.

Nicole



She is out there earning fame and success and few bitter girls sitting here all days and nights trying to dish her.

her only fault is that she is toooooo good for them and the organisers saw that too.

I want to see what will happen to them if she wins Miss world or if she does well in Poland?

Few heart attacks maybe (wink).



Amanda

Listen to this Mel fellow (or lass):

"Miss World Australia organisers handed the title to Sabrina on a platter, she should suffer the consequences."

now that is logic, isn't ???

well done Mel.

AussieAussieAussie



The countdown has started for Miss world final, check this:

http://www.tftj.com/Miss/World/a_delegates.htm

Go Australia.



Jonathan

This is a wonderful shot for the stunning Miss world Australia:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5724/887/400/sabrina_1.jpg

I am sure she will do very well in Europe for us.

TheBigKahuna



I read about the Australian girl named Sabrina Houssami who represents her country in this year's Miss World. Damn gorgeous she is. And she's a member of MENSA, a group of people whose IQ is exceptional (and only 2% of the world's population are MENSA members, mind you). So, beauty with brains, huh? Phew, a tough combination. Usually we hear:

pretty + hot body + sexy = DUMB

ugly + fat + geeky = INTELLIGENT

but this one is like, pretty + hot body + sexy + not geeky = EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT.

which reminds me of Natalie Portman and Queen Rania of Jordan. Both very beautiful people, and both very bright. Natalie Portman went to Harvard. Queen Rania worked at Apple Computer.

Where can I find my dream woman who's quite like all these people? I'm not asking her to be a MENSA member, because that makes her become out of my league. And being more stupid than your girlfriend sucks.

This is Sabrina Houssami. Please, after looking at her photos, take some tissues and wipe that saliva on your keyboard. No use drooling over her, she's out of your league.

Abigail



yes DOM, why???

admirer



What a stunner:

http://www.missworldaustralia.com.au/uploaded_images/hm9-715112.jpg



SadRenae

Dominic,

This huge interest in thic topis is obviously because of that manly's girl insistance on creating negative media for Miss world Australia organisation after her dismayal loss last year.

She tried last year and did not make the grade as everyone knows, so why is she coming back now and spending her life on the internet chasing any forum where she can release her frustration and spread her lies and poisonous comments ?

Bill

not only snake bites and croc tears but also lies and lies and lies.

Sabrina is a full member of Mensa and you can look up her Mensa certificate displayed on Miss world Australia site:

www.missworldaustralia.com.au

The internet test the bitter loser is referring to here is a much earlier test taken by Sabrina when she was much younger.

This shows you once again how bitter, missleading and defeated these false claimers (or single claimer I really should say) are.



Alanx

Last year, Miss Houssami won the titles of Miss Bankstown, Miss NSW and then was first runner up to Miss Australia when many thought that she should have won that title as well.

Showing a rare dedication to her belief, and instead of complaining and crying over that loss, Miss Houssami continued her charity work and kept on working hard improving her already impressive tally of achievements until she was selected as the New Miss Australia.

On the otherside, her newly born critics, some who have pulled out of the competetion last year because they did not win (examine closely this attitude) have vanished completely and lost interest in charity and social work ..... and then suddenly, after Miss Houssami was selected, started their smear campaign trying to get to the new queen.

They went to the press shedding crocodile tears and even made up lies on few internet forums to support their story.

It doesn't take an Einshtein to see the difference in class and attitude between Miss Houssami and her born again critics.

Dom has raised some worthy points in his article and I agree with most of his view and the discussions here should have focused on this, but unfortunately the losing pack took advantage of the freedom of expression on this board to launch yet another ugly campaign full of lies and made-up stories.



At this point I finally bothered to look at the IP addresses, and commented on it – and they stopped. For now.

He writes the songs...

Someone at Rockdale Council is a genius. An evil genius. They’ve been blasting out Barry Manilow recordings to stop hoons congregating in Cook Park and it’s been a brilliant success. It’s no surprise – the saccharine strains of Copacabana would kill the mood of anyone outside a nursing home. Still, hasn’t public order in Rockdale come at a terrible price!

Residents say the non-stop Manilow marathon is driving them bananas; surely the council should at least mix up the assault so they get some variety? You can’t tell me Richard Clayderman or Vanessa-Mae would be any less effective.
In fact, rather than replicating WS-FM’s playlist, why not just pump the classic hits station directly into the park? Far more variety for the residents and the same hoon-repelling effect.
The only danger is that the park might become a mecca for dags instead. The revving that irritates the residents might be replaced by raucous all-night Scrabble marathons. Better to stick with Manilow and guarantee the park stays empty.
If drivers of garish muscle cars really can’t stand Manilow, having his Greatest Hits at the ready in your CD stacker could well prove a motoring essential. A quick burst of Can’t Smile Without You at the traffic lights could give a hoon more discomfort than their irritating bass-thumping gives the rest of us. Barry could also prove useful to stave off an attempted carjacking.
Which makes one think – if only they’d had him down at Cronulla beach last year. His dulcet tones would’ve convinced Sydney’s racists to stay home, or better yet, unite in a common cause: trashing his music.
The NSW Riot Police should purchase some compilation CDs and giant speakers immediately. Music can have powerful emotional effects.
Recently, a five-year-old girl came out of a coma after James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful whimpered out of the hospital radio. (Presumably the agonising pressure to her ears snapped her out of it.) Perhaps Philip Nitschke could look into using Manilow as the gentlest euthanasia method yet? I’m sure my subconscious would gladly pack it in after a couple of rounds of Mandy.
“I write the songs,” croons Manilow in one of his corniest hits of all. For the first time ever, the rest of us can be grateful.

Read more of Dominic Knight on the Radar blog, www.radar.smh.com.au.

Torvill and Deane's Horrific Injuries On Ice

Well, Dancing On Ice finally seems to have hit on a winning formula. The inclusion of Torvill and Deane – which just made it feel 1980s-ish – and the concept of celebrities ice-skating certainly didn't pack in the punters. But watching B-grade celebrities like Michael Slater and Giaan Rooney get horrific injuries? I'm there.

And what was Rooney doing injuring herself in training, anyway? I hope the cameras were rolling. Because who wouldn't tune in to scenes like this, as described by Slater?

"It was a gaping hole [...] it was the biggest flesh wound I've seen on my body and it was sort of in a V shape on my left index finger.

"Plenty of blood. I was spurting blood all over the ice which was impressive.

"But then I thought: 'I'm going to lose too much blood here. I could be brown bread'."

Of course, I feel really sorry for Giaan Rooney – broken legs are horrible. And not as telegenic as huge gashes like Slats'. But what did they expect? Ice-skating is really hard, and quite dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. You've got amateur celebs wearing razor-sharp knives on your feet. It's not just a bit of harmless fun, like an episode of Dancing With The Stars that doesn't include Pauline Hanson.

Maybe the publicity-gathering injuries were all part of the plan? In which case we may soon see even more celebrity injury events. Celebrity Skirmish, for instance. Perhaps with live rounds? Here are a few ideas for new shows. Please note that any networks who wish to use them must pay me royalties.

• Celebrity Sumo – Merv Hughes enters the ring with yokozuna Iain 'Huey' Hewitson

• Celebrity Duel – the centuries-old tradition turned into nailbiting entertainment. After ten paces, former Test speedster Craig 'Billy' McDermott shoots former ring-in Scott Muller dead. Can't bowl, can't throw, can't shoot.
• Celebrity Archery – Soap stars such as Tammin Sursok are taught how to use a bow. As an added twist, the now-obscure celebs whose jobs they took are used as live targets. Finally, new gigs for Bruce Samazan and Rebekah Elmaloglou!
• Celebrity Jousting – the members of 1927 take turns trying to knock members of the Daddo family off a horse. The show would be dedicated to the memory of Christopher Reeve.
• Celebrity Commandoes – Everyone loves those shows where a pro is partnered with a celebrity amateur, like Dancing With The Stars or On Ice. We pair highly trained members of the special forces with celebrities. Watch as former pop sensation Collette accompanies her partner on a black-ops raid in Iraq, where she's regrettably killed by insurgents.

Is all this implausible? Not judging by my favourite celebrity humiliation-fest – Celebrity Boxing, from the redoubtable Fox network in the US. Who wouldn't want to watch Danny Partridge taking on Greg Brady? Even better was Willis from Diff'rent Strokes beating the crap out of Vanilla Ice. Capped off with Bill Clinton's "friend" Paula Jones getting hammered by Tonya Harding – who's clearly extremely violent, given her plot to injure Nancy Kerrigan.

Celebrity Boxing 2 didn't have quite the same lame-celebrity-gets-pummelled appeal. It only had one interesting celebrity – but it was a doozy. Screech from Saved By The Bell. No, you can't live it down with a cool goatee, Dustin. We know where you've been.

Why on earth doesn't Ten put on something like this here? My ultimate matchup would have to be Nudge from Hey Dad vs the little fat kid. Who I now read is a Mormon missionary – all the more reason for him to be punched repeatedly for our entertainment.

Sorry, I keep getting distracted by still-more hilarious obscure celebrity trivia. I read that Foxtel has just bought the Hey Dad...! rerun rights. WHY? And did you know that Nudge provided the voice for one of those allegedly racist Trade Federation guys in Star Wars Episode II? Darn Wikipedia.

Anyway, in summary: Hilariously obscure celebrities. Getting injured in some way. Outstanding entertainment. Please add your own ideas below. I'll be sure to give you 25% when I pitch them to a network.

The many headbutts of Zinedine Zidane

Okay, here's something somewhat more amusing fun for a Friday arvo, from an email I was just forwarded. Since my last post was so dour and all. And while we're on Zinedine Zidane, here's my favourite article on what Materazzi said to Zidane... five different lipreads from five different newspapers.

Here's how the Germans saw the headbutt:

Here's how the French saw it:

Here's how the Italians saw it:

Here's how the Americans saw it:

And here's how the press reported it.

Some people have far too much time on their hands. And too much access to high-powered animation programmes.

The best comment of all on the whole incident, though, came from Mme Zidane, his allegedly insulted mother. What a violent family.



Dominic Knight

The war without end?

Another awful week in the war on terror. The anniversary of the London bombings was quickly followed by another terrible attack on random commuters in Mumbai, and then Israel yet again made the somewhat mistaken assumption that a massive overreaction in Lebanon would somehow reduce its risk of terrorism. As ever, Australia seems a long way away from it, but as ever, we can't help but reflect on whether Mumbai/London/Madrid could happen here.

Of course it could. And probably will. The sting in the tail of that SMH article is that yet another expert has agreed that John Howard's policies have made us more susceptible to terrorism. Like "Iraq is a complete disaster with no end in sight," It's a point so obvious that it would be hardly worth repeating if our government hadn't refused to acknowledge it.

Israel is now effectively at war with Lebanon, having bombed the airport and imposed a blockade. Do they really think that bombing Hezbollah is going to prevent, rather than increase, terrorist attacks against Israeli troops? And of course, the flow-on effects will be that more young Muslims hate Israel, and its Western allies, so our own streets become unsafe as well. Like the bombing of Baghdad, these kinds of victories are inevitably Pyrrhic.

The bottom line is that if someone is willing to blow themselves up, there's not much you can do about it. And while we can certainly try to make our train system as safe as possible, with pop-out roofs and windows that lessen the impact of a blast, there's only so much you can do. It's kind of like arguing over what size baseball mitt you need to catch a meteorite.

Put it this way – if the Israelis, with all their vast experience, can't stop terrorist bombings, then Sydney hasn't got much of a chance. The only way of genuinely preventing train bombings is to scan every single person entering the network, which is what London's been experimenting with. But how on earth would that work in Sydney, with its network stretching far out into the suburbs, with many stations unstaffed; or at best staffed by one person?

So what can we do? Stop catching the train? Hardly. And removing rubbish bins in stations is only going to do so much – both the London and Mumbai bombers used backpacks. The only truly effective counter-measures that can prevent terrorism in Sydney lie in effective surveillance and intelligence-gathering efforts, like the raid at the end of last year. Or hoping that we're so far down Al Qaeda's list that Osama bin Laden can't be bothered with us.

The real challenge is to minimise extremism. We need to make sure that clerics preaching hate can't recruit followers in Sydney. And that's not just about deporting inflammatory preachers, but it's about winning the battle for the minds of young people who, under other circumstances, would be willing to die for the cause. That's much harder than redesigning our train network.

Sorry for this somewhat depressing Friday post – it's supposed to be lighter-side-of day, right? – but it's hard to feel upbeat in light of what's been in the news this week. I don't think even tomorrow's Paris Hilton interview (so helpfully plugged in this "story") will cheer me up.

Ah, yeah it will. At least until the next bombing. Did you read she's given up sex for a year? I'm predicting three weeks. But why wouldn't you be fascinated by trashy celebrities when the other news is like this?

Dominic Knight



Photo: Reuters

Your blogging stories here...

Hey y'all. Sorry to distract you from the terribly important Sabrina Houssami debate, but I need your help. I'm writing an article for the print edition of Radar about people who spend their work days online blogging and commenting. Click on if you can help me. Or wish to jeer, of course; or defend the honour of a Lebanese-Indian-Australian beauty queen.

Firstly, this is completely anonymous – we don't anyone to get justifiably sacked for buggering around on the internet all day. Please either post a public comment in response, or email radar -at- chaser dotcom dotau and I'll fish your email out from the deluge of spam.

Some of the questions you might like to answer are:

1) How much time do you spend mucking around on the internet at work? Do you do so every day?

2) What sites do you visit regularly?

3) Do you have your own blog? What's its address?

4) Do your workmates know that you do this? Does your boss? Have you ever been busted?

5) Has your workplace tried to restrict internet use?

6) Do you know anyone else who's a hardcore addict, and have you got any good stories about them?

7) When you're on holidays, do you still visit the same sites?

8) What makes a site addictive?

9) Why do you do it?

10) Why does Sian do it? (Special bonus question)

But don't be restricted to these questions: any interesting facts or anecdotes would be much appreciated, especially if you're a regular here.

thanks

Dom

Aussie Stadium

Australia'’s first World Cup in 32 years was a remarkable experience that no one wanted to end. We'’re accustomed to matching it with the best, and we want more, such as hosting the 2014 or 2018 World Cup. I wish the A-League success, but I'’m not sure derbies between Newcastle and the Central Coast are going to cut it.

The best reason to host the World Cup is that we'’d automatically qualify, a rule brilliantly exploited by the hosts of next year'’s Asian Cup:– Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam – which have grabbed an unprecedented quarter of the spots. Anyone who'’s suffered through the agony of 32 years of unsuccessful qualification campaigns won’t begrudge the Socceroos one free ride.

Perhaps our old pals the South Africans might even let us host a token game here and sneak in for 2010? It’'d be nice, too, if the games didn’t stretch beyond midnight to give the Europeans a taste of their own time-zone medicine.

They talk about about how Aussies aren'’t real football fans, but throughout the cup, millions of us showed our commitment by waking up at painful hours of the morning. And I’'m tired of reading about how England fans have the most spirit. (Which seems to simply reflect that England fans drink the most.) Let’'s see how many of them wake at 4am to watch their team flop out in a penalty shoot-out.

Then there’'s the home-crowd advantage that propelled the South Koreans to a semifinal in 2002. Many World Cups have been won by host nations and Germany’'s third place win –– where Portugal (ironically) couldn’t buy a free kick –– showed why. After our treatment by officials this year, FIFA owes us a bit of biased refereeing.

There is one potential problem with the 2014 bid, which is that, so far, it'’s been spearheaded by the South Australian Premier, Mike Rann. Frankly, if we’re hosting the World Cup, Adelaide'’s not getting more than a quarter-final. It'’s got to be Homebush, or, begrudgingly, the MCG.
Then again, the event requires at least 10 stadiums, so Wollongong, Newcastle and even Canberra would probably get a crack.

Next to Kaiserslautern, a town of less than 100,000, Adelaide is a bustling metropolis. So come on, FIFA, bring the World Cup down under to build the game in Oceania and Asia. We might even give a match or two to New Zealand. If we have to.

Read more of Dominic Knight on the Radar blog, www.radar.smh.com.au.

$10,000 to drink with rich tossers, anyone?

"Will Sydneysiders pay to skip to the front of the queue and drink with beautiful people?", Amy Wild asks in an article about a new member's bar, De Nom. In a word, nup. Especially when the going rate is $10,000.

Apparently members' bars are the thing in London and New York. Yawn. Those cities have always been full of tossers who make themselves feel better about the general emptiness of their lives by participating in activities that exclude other people. It's the whole basis of the aristocracy. Some people judge coolness purely on the basis of how difficult it is to get in, imagining crowds of people who are desperately jealous of them. Some people have a problem.

De Nom's co-owner, Paul Schell, says he thinks the idea hasn't taken off here previously because "Aussies don't believe in elitism". No, we don't. We are generally uncomfortable with exclusivity – with being treated as if we're special while the riff-raff wait outside. Most Aussies would rather have a beer with those riff-raff.

After all, there wasn't a special section at Gallipoli for privileged Diggers who could sip champagne behind a velvet rope rather than going over the top. And if the Diggers didn't do it, then I'm against it. (Then again, as if people as rich as this had to go to war.)

To be fair, I can understand something of the appeal of an exclusive bar, because any half-decent watering-hole in Sydney is packed to the gills on Friday and Saturday nights. You can't ever hear yourself talk, let alone sit down. Sometimes that's fun, but if you want to enjoy conversation – let's say you're on a date or something – it's completely impossible. I don't know anywhere that's guaranteed to be quiet and pleasant.

But bars like this aren't a good solution. Can you imagine the kind of people who'd frequent a bar which costs $10k to join? That price point automatically excludes anyone creative (not to mention journalists), and any academics or students, or anyone who works for the government or an NGO. Virtually anyone interesting, in other words. Anyone genuinely cool probably can't afford the drinks, let alone the membership fee. In fact, pretty much everyone besides investment bankers and 'old money' snobs is going to be frozen out. I can't imagine a less attractive crowd.

As luck would have it, though, I found myself accompanying a friend to this bar a few months ago – I don't think it had a name or a pricetag at that point. (I don't usually move in such refined circles, but it's nice to see how the other half live sometimes.) It is extremely beautiful – the atmosphere was lovely and the service very friendly. I'd have liked to go there again before I read about this. Now, I'll clearly never visit again. Which I'm sure the door policy would've guaranteed anyway.

The disturbing thing, though, I found, is that to enjoy De Nom, you have to be comfortable whooping it up in a Versailles-like environment. Whereas I couldn't help but remember why the French invented the guillotine.

The plan will probably work brilliantly, because those privileged enough to get inside will take enormous delight from that, and from their ostentatious little solid-gold cards, and the feeling that they're special. Whereas the rest of us will be absolutely delighted that we can't get in to De Nom.

Deal or no deal, Howard should go

I wrote a piece last week saying that this was just another tepid iteration of the same old Howard-Costello story, but things have changed dramatically since then. A former minister, Ian McLachlan, sensationally claimed that Howard had offered to hand over the leadership after 2 terms. Now Costello has just come forward to say that Howard had offered to leave after a term and a half, in order to dissuade the then-Deputy from taking a tilt at the leadership in 1994. In other words, he's calling the PM a liar – a very Green Left Weekly moment.

I've just seen the footage of Costello's press conference. He was far from his usual confident self, with a half-smile on his face showing how clearly he realised the gravity of what he was doing. He also seemed fairly upset, and he seemed to be taking considerable offence at the PM's denial of Ian McLachlan's allegations. I almost didn't recognise him without his usual smirk.

He's unlikely to want to be pressured into leaving by Costello. In fact, this controversy has probably removed any chance of Howard leaving in the next month or two. But it's hard to see how leaving isn't a good idea for the PM. He has to hand over soon to give the Liberals any chance of winning the next election, as another poll is due next year, and the electorate would need to get to know his replacement. So it's really now, or in 2-3 years – and that might not be attractive for a man who would then be approaching seventy.

The other thing is that the Government seems to be running out of puff this year. 2005 finished in a legislative frenzy, with the Coalition using its control of the Senate to push through much all of the legislation that has been on the backburner for years – workplace relations reforms, VSU, the sale of Telstra. Even the ABC has now been largely stacked with conservatives. The only reform on the horizon presently is to the media laws – and the rapidly changing online landscape has reduced their potential impact. The PM has now achieved virtually everything on his long-term agenda, and it's hard to see what else there is left to smash.

What's more, the builders are in at the Howards' home in Wollstonecraft, leading to further speculation that Howard is on the verge of departing.

It's also been a relatively difficult year politically for the PM. WorkChoices has proven enduringly unpopular, with the surprising revelation that there's life in the union movement yet, and the AWB enquiry has substantially undermined credibility in the government. Labor has been regularly performing well in the polls, even though Kim Beazley is hardly spectacular. You can only imagine what a half-decent leader might do.

There is no huge impetus for Howard to retire, and I imagine he won't. The PM's usual response to these situations is to tough it out. His personal popularity is still enormous, and it's highly unlikely the party would want to drop him for Costello, deal or no deal.

But with the next election looming as a difficult fight, I really can't see why he would want to stay.

Here's Radar's latest odds on when Howard will actually leave the building.

• At a time of his choosing – 20/1
• At a time of Janette's choosing – 2/1
• Whenever the party room wants him to step aside for Tony Abbott – 5/1
• When Peter Costello goes under a bus – 250 /1
• When his approval ratings average matches Bradman's 99.94 – 1000/1
• When Labor has a strong, popular leader with a good enough platform to threaten him – 100,000/1
• When his colleagues use WorkChoices to make him do the same job for half the pay – 50/1
• When the renovators finish installing the white picket fence around his Wollstonecraft home – 5/1
• When Richard or Melanie is old enough to take over – 20/1
• When Costello gets the numbers – Never

Beauty pageants are skin shallow

I know I'm going to get into trouble for this from a legion of geeky fans, just like I did with the chess piece – but I can't help but comment on the media frenzy over Sabrina Houssami. As with the chess thing, we have the perfect ingredients for a 'lighter side of' piece – an amusingly petty feud in a group that's fun to sneer at, and an photogenic heroine. But reading about the Sydney Uni psychology student who's been controversially crowned Miss World Australia, I couldn't help but ask myself one thing: why would anyone intelligent want to enter a beauty pageant in the first place?

To begin with, Houssami's ethnicity and religion are raised in this article yesterday, which makes the point that she's "Australia's "first contestant of Islamic and mixed cultural background". I guess it's possible to argue that she's raising the profile of those communities – being a kind of cross-cultural ambassador. Combating racism is a fine thing. But surely all that entering a pageant really does is raise awareness that women of Indian-Lebanese background can be hot? Other than for complete Neanderthals, that's not exactly an astonishing revelation.

The article also mentions that Houssami's a member of Mensa, and a bit of Googling reveals that she claims to have an IQ of 140. If I were a member of Mensa, I'd hope I was smart enough not to mention it publicly for fear of being sniggered at, or worse yet, perceived as a bit of a snob. But let's assume for argument's sake that she is, in fact, terrifyingly smart. That makes it even harder to understand why she's willing to parade around wearing a sash.

I take most ranting about the patriarchy with a grain of salt. But surely if a sinister global brotherhood of men does run the world, beauty pageants are one of the most transparent frauds it's ever perpetrated. They are ogle-fests, nothing more; a walking, talking version of FHM dressed in a layer of patronising trash about global understanding that infuriates anyone who actually works towards it. The constant appeals to 'world peace' are a comedy cliché. Sure, you can change the world while being perved on in a swimsuit, but only for millions of teenage boys.

So will Houssami swimsuit up? Yesterday's article contained this gem of a paragraph:

Miss Houssami also hopes to dispel myths about Islam by competing. "Religion is something that is interpreted by the individual and I try to focus on the moral values of religion," she said. "I will wear a bikini but not a string bikini, so as long as it is not skimpy."



How does quibbling slightly over the precise degree of skimpiness of your bikini encourage a focus on the moral values of religion? I don't know what her beliefs are – but seriously, what on earth do bikinis have to do with religion. The only thing I can think of is that her actions would outrage many devout Muslims and Hindus, and that's hardly a myth. Is she going to get the radical wing of the BJP to stop protesting beauty pageants? Does she plan to convince the Muslims who rioted in Nigeria when Miss World was scheduled to take place there that they shouldn't have burned churches and killed over 100 people?

The real myth here is that beauty pageants are about more than physical appearance. Sure, winners spend a year doing charity work, and pay constant lip service to a variety of causes. Houssami may be able to accomplish more than most. But look at the achievements of Australia's most successful beauty queen, former Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins. I'm sure she presided at hundreds of unnoticed charity events, but the only time she generated real headlines was when she accidentally showing her buttocks at a Westfield. Since her 'reign' ended, she's done really important work on Dancing With The Stars and The Great Outdoors. That's fine for someone who aspires to be a lifestyle TV presenter, but no-one should kid themselves that beauty pageants are about more than that.

The definitive scholarly work on the subject, Miss Congeniality, concluded with the character played by Hollywood's most openly nerdy actress, Sandra Bullock, still feeling uncomfortable about the whole idea, but seeing more worth than she'd expected in her fellow contestants. That ultimately makes it all the more distressing that they've been conned into a competition that is ultimately only interested in their bodies. And the film, like so many other pop-culture treatments of the subject, mocks beauty pageants, and in particular their charitable ambitions. Sadly, I have yet to see Miss Congeniality II: Armed And Fabulous.

This myth that if you get famous for your beauty, people will care about your brains as well was even perpetrated by Sydney University in its gushing writeup of Houssami's success. Presumably the marketing department hopes she'll encourage international and full-fee student enrolments, which seems to be its major aim these days. The university tackily compared itself to Houssami as a place of great beauty that's also top-notch intellectually. How completely embarrassing.

Perhaps the university would like to host the 2008 event, which is apparently planned for Australia? It could give all the contestants honorary degrees.

Our society looks down on beauty pageant contestants, the same way it looks down on celebrities like Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson. Sneering at them allows the mainstream to feel better about their own lives, and that's why we like to be amused by silly fights like this one over Miss World Australia. If Houssami really is smart, she'll relinquish the title and spend the time working in an area where her brains will be the main thing people notice. Oh, and where she doesn't have to wear a swimsuit.

When you're beautiful and intelligent, many doors are open to you. What a shame to go through the one marked "demeaning".



Dominic Knight

Yawn, it's another leadership 'challenge'

I am utterly sick to death of Liberal leadership speculation. It is truly the most irritating, repetitive news story I can remember, recurring with even more frequency than those perennial "Scud knocked out in first few days of Grand Slam" headlines – the latest iteration is the 9142nd, by my count. In fact, I reckon I'm even more sick to death of the phoney war between Costello and Howard than I am of Kim Beazley.

Pete, it's time to put up or shut up. And since we all know you don't dare take on the PM, it's time to zip it.

But no. Instead we're trapped in an endless cycle of identical leadership speculation stories. They always works like this.

Step one: Peter Costello does something ever so slightly provocative – in this case, refusing to rule out the existence of a leadership deal with John Howard. Of course, he didn't exactly rule it in. In effect, he said nothing at all. So it's pretty desperate headline grabbing by either him or the media – both, probably. Here's what he actually said:

PETER COSTELLO, TREASURER: I'm certainly not going to speculate on these things in the jungles of the Solomon Islands.

NARDA GILMORE: There has been speculation that John Howard is preparing to make an elegant departure at the end of this year. Today, Peter Costello wouldn't rule out a deal.

REPORTER 1: Is there an understanding between you and Mr Howard as to his departure?

PETER COSTELLO: Look, these things are worked in the interests of the Australian people and the Liberal Party and the people concerned, and there's no point in speculating on them.

NARDA GILMORE: When asked whether he thought that voters had a right to know, he was just as ambiguous.

PETER COSTELLO: Well, voters get the right to vote. That's the critical thing, and they'll get the right to vote on who they want to run the country.

REPORTER 2: So you wont be telling them any time soon whether there'll be a leadership transition before the next election?

PETER COSTELLO: And they'll have plenty of information at the time of the election.

It couldn't be more vague. Certainly unworthy of the 107 stories indexed on Google News.

Step two: John Howard flatly rejects the idea, usually by saying that he will remain as leader as long as the party room wants him to, like he did three years ago. (Update: he just did again.)

Step three: Just about every other senior Liberal comes forward supporting Howard, because they know he's far more popular than Costello. Today, Downer and Nelson.

Step four: Costello invariably retreats, tail between legs, and the waiting continues until his next vague comments are interpreted as a leadership bid by a media desperate for political headlines in a situation where we have the same dull leaders we had ten years ago. Here's the one from last December. And the one from last July. And one from August 2004. And so on, ad infinitum.

Paul Keating showed how you win the leadership. You mount a bid, fail if needs be, retreat to the backbench, get the numbers and then go for it.

But the problem, of course, is that unlike the Hawke-Keating situation, where he was seen as arrogant and out-of-touch (Hawke, that is, not Keating – that came later!) the only person who's the least bit interested in Costello becoming leader is Costello. And the desperate media.

Well, and me, now, because I really can't stand any more of these articles. Is that his strategy, perhaps?

Of course, if Costello were to retreat to the backbench, and not hold the deputy leadership he's had – astonishingly – since the Downer disaster of 1994, he wouldn't be seen as the leader in waiting. He'd quickly be forgotten.

And this whole strategy of calling for greater federalism is hardly going to inspire anyone to support him. I happen to think he's right, and that our system is an unfortunate political compromise from Victorian times, foisted on us by the need to convince small states to sign up to Federation. It's stupid to have duplicated education, health and other systems when there are states as small as Victoria, Tasmania, WA and South Australia. But if Costello starts arguing that, all he's going to do is lose the Senate – in which these smaller states are overrepresented, something they really rather like.

As his championing of an issue that will only lose him votes proves, the Treasurer hasn't half John Howard's street-smarts, and never will. His only hope of becoming leader is for Howard to retire, or even more unlikely, Beazley to beat him. In the interim – let's say for the next decade or so – he may as well take up some sort of hobby, golf perhaps, and keep on being the next cab off the rank.

Costello is truly the Prince Charles of Australian politics – the eternally frustrated successor that no-one really likes. His Royal Highness took up watercolours to cope with being eternally frustrated in his hopes of taking on the top job, and eternally less popular than the incumbent. The Queen won't leave Buckingham Palace except in a hearse, and we know how much the PM admires her.

In the meantime, all we can do is beg Costello to stop this ridiculous cycle of incredibly puny leadership challenges. Otherwise the public may do something really rash, like vote Labor.

No ifs or butts

It’s rare that NSW is left behind by Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania on matters of social policy. But those three states banned smoking in pubs on July 1, while NSW has merely reduced the floor space available to smokers from 50 per cent of the venue to 25 per cent.
Nonsmokers here will have to wait another year for a complete ban.

As an asthmatic, I’ve got a medical excuse for my whingeing, but I’ve always hated smokers for polluting my air, stinking up my clothes and making me feel less cool. We passive smokers get neither the benefit of a filter nor the opportunity of striking James Dean-like poses on bar stools.
I can’t wait until smokers are forced to shiver outside while those of us without addictions sit in the warmth, composing the eulogies we’ll deliver at their premature funerals.
A pub ban isn’t just sensible because cigarette smoke is unpleasant and dangerous for patrons and bar staff. Most addicts I know began as social smokers – an ironic term given how antisocial it is to include others in your decision to contract lung cancer.
Many of life’s foolish decisions – ordering a Budweiser or doubling up on Queen of the Nile – are made in pubs. Starting smoking is but another. Smokers are gradually, and rightly, becoming a lower class of citizens who are forced to huddle in doorways and view photos of gangrene. But I think we should make the choice to smoke a constant irritation, the same way smoking has inconvenienced the rest of us for decades.
Cigarette vending machines should be banned and smokers instead forced
to sign lengthy contracts whenever they buy a packet, writing their initials next to every single known health risk. Also, more effective warning slogans, such as SMOKING MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE WARNEY should be introduced. Why not print them on the actual cigarettes?
But the best way of discouraging smoking would be to raise taxes to $20 a pack, and then print a picture of that $20 note on the pack.
There’s nothing the public hates more than forking out money to the Government. Imagine the disincentive if they printed Peter Costello’s grinning face on the box as well. Better yet, the State Government could impose an additional $3.50 cigarette tax that went straight to the Cross City Tunnel operators.
It’s time Aussie drinkers treated smokers the same way they treat teetotallers and blokes who order drinks that come with little paper umbrellas – as pariahs.


Photo: Angela Wylie; digital mischief: Kate Oliver

The next threat to our troops in Iraq: Lee Harding

Like anyone with even part of an intact brain these days, I'm not a massive fan of the war in Iraq. But – to echo the caveat given by every American Democrat – I don't want anyone to think I'm against Our Troops. On the contrary. I think they're magnificently brave for going to Iraq, which is still an appallingly dangerous place. Because instead of welcoming us with "open arms", as we were promised, the Iraqis are welcoming us with just plain arms. So, I say good on the troops for representing Australia's national interest in sucking up to America no matter how stupid the cause. I really respect their bravery. Which is why I don't think they should have to be 'entertained' by Lee Harding.

In case you've forgotten who he is – and who could blame you? – Harding is the annoying punk with multicoloured hair from Australian Idol. He's released an album, What's Wrong With This Picture. To which the answer is surely obvious, if it's a picture of his hair.

Still doesn't ring a bell? Read Wikipedia's incredibly harsh description, which refreshingly violates their 'neutrality' rule:

The image that Lee Harding has come to associate himself with has come under fire from many aspects of the music community, and the consumer public in general. Many fans of punk rock music accuse Lee of being ignorant of what punk really is, and simply marketing himself in a watered-down version suitable for viewers of Australia Idol. He's also been targeted as blatantly forging his career in a mainstream environment with big-label backing, akin to "selling out" (although that term implies a degree of integrity existed in the first place). Many critics of this manufactured artist laughed at the irony in the title of his first album, "What's Wrong With This Picture?". Many label Lee as a poseur of the punk-music industry, who compromises his interpretation of punk with what suits a more commercial market. Sadly, many people despise him for his idiocy and stupidity. He lacks interest and "flavour", and some claim he is a stereotype and a loser.

Harding's also become increasingly known for the tastelessness of his lyrics, as Wikipedia points out:

He has also come under recent criticism over the lyrics to his track "Call The Nurse", in which he warbles: Cos I need drugs, I need drugs, something that works. It ain't good, cos I get wood, lying here, thinking of her, more than I should. Many parents have consequently banned their children from listening to Lee Harding's debut album.

And really, if kids aren't listening to Harding, who is? Apart from our unfortunate troops, I mean.

Although for sheer insensitivity I prefer the lyric from his first single 'Wasabi', where he, in a desperately contrived attempt to rhyme with the Japanese horseradish dip, says a girl is "like a tsunami / could wipe out an army". Specifically, an army of 229,866 innocent people. An appalling tragedy has never had such a glib lyrical reference.

Perhaps he'll update it for the Iraq situation? "Like al-Zarqawi / could wipe out an army" would scan beautifully.

And Lee, if you read this, here's a freebie for your next album: "She takes me up to heaven / Like those killed on 9/11". Just give me some of your royalties, would you?

(Actually, to be fair – or in fact, even harsher – it's not like Lee actually writes his own lyrics.)

Just how unpopular is Harding? Even the Herald-Sun – not generally the arbiter of cool – mocks him, calling him a "punk wannabe" and "faux-punkster". That's gotta hurt – it's like being dissed by your nan.

And fair enough. Even though he sings over thrashy guitar, his vocals have that irritating trademark Idol inflection – too much whiny vibrato, the hallmark of a singer with no taste. He's like a member of N'Sync whose head's been hit by several paintbombs. Really, no punk would ever sing like that. In fact, no rock star of any description would ever sing so effetely (if you don't believe me, check out his latest single.) Even Shannon Noll makes him look like a wuss.

Harding calls it a "once-in-a-lifetime experience", which I guess it will be if he's immediately killed.

Look, I shouldn't be too harsh on the guy – he's a soft target (and I'm sure the insurgents will think so too.) And at least he's trying to help as well as resuscitate his career. Plus, there's a long and proud tradition of great artists going to entertain troops, including one of my favourite American comedians, Al Franken.

As hard as it is for someone who enjoys sitting on his backside as much as I do to relate to the plight of an Aussie soldier, I strongly suspect that if I was stuck in Iraq, terrified that the insurgents were going to kill me, having Harding come to sing wouldn't exactly brighten my day.

Although his willingness to go over there has inspired this weary cynic to actually believe in something for a change. Conscription.



Dominic Knight

JK, you're killing us

So, J.K. Rowling has revealed that two characters will die in the final Harry Potter novel, sparking off the now-traditional speculation over exactly who she's killing off. A third has been saved the chop, apparently. It's all very dull to the non-believers, I'm sure. But as a paid-up Potter nerd – yeah, I'm quite the hipster – I can't resist speculating on who's getting the axe.

Voldemort: Well, either he dies or takes over the world and kills everyone. Which would make for a much more entertaining movie. Evens

Ron Weasley: A tragedy for book fans, a blessed relief for movie viewers. Although the overacting that would be involved in his demise has me terrified already. 40–1

Nearly-Headless Nick: It's a shame he's already a ghost, because it'd be fantastic to know John Cleese could never come back. Impossible

Luna Lovegood: The Athena Starwoman of the series should have been offed two books ago, before the joke got old. 10–1

Ginny Weasley: Dumped by Harry so she wouldn't be killed – a far better breakup line than "It's not you, it's me." 50–1

Dobby the house-elf: The Jar-Jar Binks of the series, and the character I'd most like to see killed. 100–1

Draco Malfoy: I'd like to see him offed, just to upset all the teenage girls who think Tom Felton's hot. 25–1

Professor Dumbledore: Already dead, but I wanted to include him just to spoil it for everyone who hasn't read book 6 yet. Get with the programme, people! Impossible

Cho Chang: Rowling's far too politically correct to kill her token Asian character. 200–1



Hagrid: A waste of space for several books now. And a lot of space at that. 5–1

Hermione Granger: As irritating as she is, she can't be killed, or the old men in dirty raincoats won't stump up for the movie. 100–1



Harry Potter(TM): The subject of much speculation, but JK Rowling won't kill him off. The action figurine manufacturers wouldn't let her. 1000–1

Dominic Knight