How to stay awake during the World Cup

It's great that Australia's in the World Cup, but it will come at a terrible price to our body clocks. Hardcore soccer fans have always stayed up into the painful, wee hours of the night to watch the world game, but for many Australians, this will be the first time they've regularly gotten up at ridiculous times just to stare at a bunch of guys passing a ball. Here are some tips on how you can stay awake throughout Germany 2006.

Adjust your body clock. The simplest way to enjoy the Cup is to adjust your body clock so you sleep during the day. Your work performance may be detrimentally affected if you choose to take your regular 8 hours between 9am and 5pm, but it'll be worth it to enjoy football's month of months. Some say that taking melatonin helps, but there's an easier way. When it's time for you to force your body to go to sleep, simply read one of the collected speeches of Phillip Ruddock, and you'll be dozing before you can say "Amnesty badge". I've put a sample at the end of the article, because I want you to finish reading all of my suggestions before you go to sleep right here and now. Caution – it's a powerful sedative.

Make your body think it's in Germany. A similar process, but conducted using cultural triggers rather than adjusting the body clock. Simply don lederhosen for the next four weeks, eat schnitzel and schnapps, yodel whenever possible and speak only in obtuse compound nouns. Then you will find you truly become a personthebodyofwhomshallhavebeensuccessfullyconvincedthatitisindeedingermanythroughout-
thetwothousandandsixfifaworldcup, to literally translate the German noun that was coined specially for the occasion.

Drink energy drinks. Red Bull, V and Sprite Recharge aren't bad, but you'll need more than that after a couple of nights. That's where an intravenous adrenaline drip comes in. It really is the ultimate energy drink!



Have friends over to watch the games. Make sure they are extremely interesting, have more energy than you and aren't afraid to prod you if you seem to be dozing off. But on no account invite over Phillip Ruddock (see below.)

Get on the phone. If you're too pathetic to have friends who'll watch the football with you, you still need not watch the game alone! And talking will help you stay awake. But don't wake up anyone in Australia who might not be interested in the game. Germany is a very hospitable country. Just dial any random number and chat away while you both watch the game. It's the least they can do as official hosts of the World Cup. But don't on any account call anyone in France, though, lest you be forced to spend 45 minutes discussing how they would definitely be winning if Djibril Cissé hadn't been injured – which anyone who's watched Liverpool during the past few seasons will recognise as a ridiculous notion.

Apply pain to your body. As even the most humble trainee guard at Guantanamo Bay knows, it's very hard for people to sleep while they're experiencing excruciating pain. So simply apply a nipple clamp during the game. If you don't have one, you can alternatively put a staple into your bottom. This won't be necessary when watching the Socceroos, when Australian fans will feel indescribable agony whenever Mark Viduka has the ball in what for other players would be a scoring position.

Go out to a pub that's screening it. Visit a backpacker pub in particular, and you'll find you won't be able to go to sleep during the game. However you will be able to sleep with a backpacker that you'll regret hooking up with in the morning, so please be careful.

Play loud music. If you play dodgy techno at high volumes, your body will involuntary twitch, as if it was in the gym, generating the energy you need to stay awake. As an added bonus, the atmosphere created by the crap Euro house music will make you feel like you're really in Germany. In 1991.

Swap your armchair for a unicycle. As any circus clown or indeed person familiar with gravity knows, you can't stay still on a unicycle. You have to pedal backwards and forwards, which will keep you awake. And if you drift off all the same, the pain from your collision with the floor and mangled unicycle will wake you back up again immediately.

Fly to Germany. If you are actually in the host nation, the time zone and general excitement will keep you awake. But don't wait – leave today. Guus Hiddink has until Saturday to finalise his team, and there's no way you won't be able to slot in at the last minute to take the penalties ahead of Mark Viduka. No experience required – his hasn't exactly helped.

WARNING – Transcript of Phillip Ruddock speech.



Beware, the following WILL put you to sleep. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading the following paragraphs. In particular, if you care to leave a comment thanking me for these helpful tips, please do so before embarking upon the following speech.

Welcome to the launch of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Modelling and Analysis Program – or as it is will be more commonly referred to ‘CIPMA’.

2. CIPMA is important for a number of reasons.

- It recognises that our critical infrastructure is complex and inter-related and vital to the well-being of our economy and society.

- It is a strong and practical example of business and government working together to protect our critical infrastructure from all hazards - including crime, natural disasters and terrorism.

- And it puts Australia firmly at the forefront of critical infrastructure planning and analysis.

3. But most all - CIPMA is important because it represents the next step in the genuine partnership between business and government to protect our critical infrastructure.

4. To date, much of the critical infrastructure protection effort has focussed on the immediate tasks of identifying where threats or vulnerabilities exist and acting quickly to address them. This work continues to be important - but it is only part of the critical infrastructure protection equation.

5. Apart from identifying and rectifying weaknesses, we also need to understand how the different pieces of the critical infrastructure jigsaw fit together. Once armed with this knowledge, we then need to plan accordingly.

6. Quite clearly, the time is right to advance a more strategic, long term and sophisticated approach to the protection of our critical infrastructure.

7. This is where CIPMA comes to the fore.

- CIPMA will help us understand what parts of critical infrastructure are most important.

- It will help us to identify areas of greatest risk.

- It will help us gauge what the flow on effects will be if one part of our critical infrastructure is compromised - And it will help us assess which critical infrastructure relationships are strong and to pinpoint those relationships that need reinforcing.

8. These new insights will feed directly into the decision making processes of both businesses and governments.

9. CIPMA will offer new solutions. It will identify better courses of action. And it will guide investment, risk management and business continuity strategies.

10. In essence, CIPMA will contribute to more targeted, cost efficient and critical infrastructure protection policies.

And ultimately it will ensure our critical infrastructure is better protected.

Business-Government Cooperation

11. To say that we live in a complex world and that we need to understand the dependencies and inter-dependencies that exist is almost stating the obvious in a gathering of industry and research representatives such as the one we have here today.

12. But to ensure that understanding flows from the top to the bottom of government and private companies requires the cooperation and input of all those involved.

13. Business and government share a vested interest in the insights CIPMA offers - but CIPMA could not exist without the input and cooperation of both parties.

- Industry has the raw data that the model needs.

- The Government has the capability and the security guarantees needed to turn that data into meaningful output.

14. CIPMA represents yet another example of what can be achieved when business and government work together in the national interest. It is a testament to the effectiveness of the Trusted Information Sharing Network (TISN) and the goodwill, mutual trust and productive partnerships it is fostering.

15. Over the past three years the TISN has succeeded in bringing business and government together.

Once again it has played a key role in bringing together all those involved in CIPMA.

Scope of CIPMA

16. Initially CIPMA will focus on three hig h priority sectors – energy, communications, and banking and finance.

17. We have with us today leading industry representatives from these sectors. I would like to congratulate Keith Orchison, Bill Davey, and John Guerts for their roles in the TISN and for their commitment to CIPMA.

18. The success of CIPMA depends on industry input. The support you have shown, and the support of your sector has been integral to getting us to this stage.

19. I know from an industry perspective, confidentiality of data is paramount. I want to assure you the Australian Government fully appreciates your concerns.

20. I think you can see - from the lengths we have gone to with the secure facility and from the security restrictions surrounding this program - just how seriously we are treating the integrity and confidentiality of the information you have entrusted us with.

Inter-Agency Cooperation

21. I would also make mention of those government agencies that have made such a vital contribution to this project.

CSIRO and Geoscience Australia, led by the Attorney-General’s Department, have established a formidable development team. And the Defence and Science Technology Organisation is also offering assistance to the CSIRO on specific aspects of the capability.

Collaboration with the United States

22. Earlier this afternoon I was shown around the secure facility that houses CIPMA.

I was very impressed with what I saw. Without doubt, Australia has now become a world leader in detailed critical infrastructure modelling and analysis.

23. Many of you would be aware that the United States is also working on its own critical infrastructure modelling program. Plans are well underway for Australia and the US to cooperate on this type of work in future. And I understand the US is very impressed with the detailed scale of the CIPMA model.

24. This recognition is another example of the high esteem with which Australia is held in the international community.

- Our research and increased capability will ensure we continue to be at the forefront of critical infrastructure protection and security issues.

- And it reinforces the point that a Homeland Security type Department in itself is not a panacea for achieving cooperation between government agencies to ensure an effective approach to national security issues.

Conclusion

25. As I said earlier, we do live in a world where relationships get more complex and more inter-dependant every day.

26. CIPMA will help to build a more complete picture of the complexities and inter-dependencies that lie below the surface of our critical infrastructure. It is a challenging technical and intellectual exercise which will guide policy and decision making and ultimately deliver real world benefits for all Australians.

27. We are entering a new, exciting and sophisticated phase of critical infrastructure protection planning in Australia.

I offer my congratulations to all those associated with CIPMA and I eagerly await the first round of outcomes from the modelling and analysis capability.

Porn to Queen Four

I don't know much about the heady world of international chess. But I do know it doesn't need an Anna Kournikova. No sport does. During her brief period of trying to play tennis, Kournikova grabbed headlines and sponsorship dollars, turning her matches into a sideshow, and failed to win one singles title. So the fuss over Australian Arianne Caoili seems a little unfortunate, because what the Kournikova label actually means is that she's a laughing stock.

It's not a particularly reasonable comparison, either. All that the newspapers have to go on is that she's ranked a mere seventh in a fairly lame Internet Chess Beauties competition. (How lame? Its founders write "Fortunately, we, who believe that chess can be not only serious and tiresome work but also just fun, are not two few, indeed!" Sound like real party guys.) A "respectable seventh", the Herald article calls it. Boy, talk about drawing a long bow. Bobby Fischer's probably eighth.

Of course, no-one's actually suggesting that Caoili is going to start raking in Kournikova-like income – let's not forget she was the highest-paid sportswoman in the world, depressingly for any sportswoman who, unlike Kournikova, is great at their sport. She seems like a precocious girl, who's also more than a little naive – her website, which will presumably be relaunched with heaps of attractive shots now the media's interested, displays a fairly charming lack of self-awareness. For instance, her 'thoughts' page, which she claims is reserved for "random craziness" and which will surely disappear as soon as she hires a PR agent:

Socks: Why do socks have to be paired? What has society done to make anyone who doesn't wear the same paired sock on each foot feel guilty? Why can't we wear odd paired socks without the traditional, high class fashion police gasping out of shock? (Sorry, Arianne, Edmund Capon got there first.)

Dwarfs: Sensitive little souls they are.

Breathing: Why is it that we can't eat through our nose, but we can eat and breathe through our mouth? We don't eat and breath through the bottom, I think this is a blessing. Is this a good point, or not really?

Not really, Arianne. But it's better than the one about 'dwarfs', who are particularly sensitive about being called that.

She's also whacked up a few singing samples, just in case she gets any visits from record producers who might be interested in signing chess starlets who can sing a natty version of 'Over The Rainbow'.

Let's face it – the reason everyone's interested in Caoili is not because they're swooning over her. It's because her story's become an internet phenomenon to snigger at. Because the idea of chess having any kind of glamour babe is a contradiction in terms. It's a bit like dubbing someone the Pamela Anderson of librarians.

All this, though, was before yesterday's story, though. Now, the main reason everyone's giggling is that two chess players fought over her. In other words, there was a nerdfight. Specifically, 30-year-old Danny Gormally punched 24-year-old Levon Aronion at the Chess Olympics. And if that wasn't funny enough, both guys have glasses. Brilliant. Come on, guys, there's no need to resort to violence. Settle it like men – with a chessboard.

But really, who'd fight over the Anna Kournikova of chess? Winning would make you – shudder – the Enrique Iglesias of chess. Although according to the Herald-Sun, he's the David Beckham of chess. Which is even more wishful thinking than calling her daughter the sport's Kournikova. Where's the evidence of Aronion's sarongs or difficulty stringing a sentence together?

Of course, this incident – which may lead to disciplinary action for Gormally, another hilarious notion – was an instant checkmate as one of those 'quirky' stories that media organisations love to add a 'lighter side' to the generally dreary news. And when it's about a pretty girl, they get to chuck in a cheesecake photo. Check out the Hun's, which puts the usually-reliable SMH's one to shame.

Let's hope Caoili enjoys her 15 minutes of fame, and that she doesn't suffer under the delusion she'll have many more. Sure, Kournikova hung around for years, but she got shots of her underwear on TV all the time. Whereas the best Arianne can hope for, probably, is a follow-up piece when she hook ups with Aronion. Unless she isn't next attacked by a sensitive dwarf next time, irate about being patronised on her website. That'd be a lighter-side-of double-whammy.

Okay, onto the next quirky internet story. Has that three-armed Chinese baby done anything interesting lately? Forget Arianne already, he's just had one of them cut off!

Dominic Knight

Photo taken from Caoili's website

Schapelle: The Anniversary

How soon we forget, Australia. A year ago, we had only one name on our lips and a ghastly one at that: Schapelle. You remember her, right? Because back before the media flipped over Beaconsfield, their tawdry sensationalism was directed at a “Gold Coast beauty student” caught with enough marijuana to fuel Cheech and Chong’s entire careers.

Schapellegate didn’t exactly show the public at its best. Not only did we all know she was innocent despite inadequate evidence, but we indignantly rang up 60 Minutes’s People’s Trial to say so.
The voting worm overwhelmingly exonerated her but then again, it had also predicted Mark Latham would be the next Prime Minister.
Even more contemptible were the large number of Australians who rang Jakarta to demand that their tsunami donations be reversed. Their thinking being that we only reach out to victims of unthinkable tragedy on the understanding they’ll rig their justice system for us a few months later.
The main reason we’ve quietly forgotten Schapelle, though, is that we aren’t as sure of her innocence any more. The Bali Nine reminded us that it is actually possible for young Australians to be guilty of serving as drug mules.
Even more damaging, the reports about the rest of Schapelle’s family didn’t exactly provide her with innocence by association.
Her father, Michael, has been fined, but not convicted, for possessing cannabis and her half-brother, James Kisina, has been arrested on drug charges. Meanwhile, her mother unhelpfully uttered the immortal phrase that she wasn’t too bothered about the jail sentences because at least she knew where her children were.
That’s not to say Schapelle’s guilty. If her family were into drugs, she may have been framed, and the dodgy baggage handler theory has some weight. All we know is you’d have to be an idiot to try to get into Bali with a bulging boogie board bag, and even more of an idiot not to DNA-test that bag during the trial.
Which brings us to Hotman Paris Hutapea, the lawyer whose best idea for freeing Schapelle was to pay a famous soapie actress to say that “the Corby” was innocent. Jakarta’s so-called defence gun proved even less helpful than “Mad” Ron Bakir, and that’s saying something. And now the drugs have been destroyed, the truth will never be known.
By contrast, we are unable to forget Michelle Leslie, who went on 60 Minutes last week to complain yet again about being in the public eye. So let’s forget her instead, and take a moment to remember Our Schapelle, now very much Their Schapelle. How she must wish that instead of being trapped in Kerokoban prison, she’d been trapped in a Beaconsfield mine instead.

Take that, tunnels and ticket touts

Our city, it is becoming increasingly clear, is run by halfwits. One bunch of bureaucratic fools tried to improve our road system, but instead they gave us Cross-City congestion and a tunnel no-one uses. Another pack of incompetents tried to protect our precious Ashes tickets from being swamped by English fans, and ensured that the only place you can now buy tickets is the Barmy Army website. We Sydneysiders are a placid lot, and it takes a lot to get us riled. But we've had enough, and we're taking matters into our own hands.

The Cross-City tunnel's 50% discount ends today, and will be replaced with a permanent reduction of just 17c. People had started to use it because they felt that it was quite a good deal at $1.78. But now that it's going back up, guess what'll happen, Cross City Motorway Pty Ltd? We'll stop. It doesn't matter how much advertising there is. Sydney has made its position to the operators entirely clear: with all due respect, we contend that it's a bloody rip-off. And we simply aren't going to use it. So there. We'd rather sit in an interminable traffic jam, thanks all the same.

Nor do we appreciate being bullied into paying an exorbitant toll by road closures. A toll road should offer a superior service at an attractive price. You don't just bully people into using it. That's tantamount to extortion.

It's not a good thing that the government's decided to reopen the closed roads, though; with the possible exception of the Druitt St dogleg which just seems like a deliberate attempt to irritate motorists. Making William St less trafficky and keeping cars off Darlinghurst residential streets is clearly a good idea. Cars should be bypassing the city from east to west on a motorway, the same way they do from north to south. If they aren't, everyone loses: the residents, the operators of an unprofitable tunnel, the government which is clearly going to lose the inevitable court case and have to shell out even more compensation than the contract specified, and above all the drivers who sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Only Sydney could take a great idea and botch it so badly through bureaucratic penny-pinching and mismanagement.

These State bureaucrats are the same geniuses that redesigned Australia's one world-famous building, the Opera House, so that it didn't have enough seats to host opera profitably, and priced ordinary people out of the market.

We're at the point now, I suspect, where the government should just buy the stupid thing – they're going to have to shell up whopping fines as it is – charge $1.50 and hope they don't lose too much money on the deal. At least it'll deal with the congestion, the original point of the whole exercise. Except for the tunnel operators, who foolishly thought they'd been issued a license to print money. Next time, do your market research.

But the Cross-City Tunnel looks like a work of prophetic genius next to the "Australian Cricket Family", Cricket Australia's attempt to keep Ashes tickets for Aussie fans. The English fans had their own smaller allocation in designated areas, as you'd expect, and we wanted to keep our home-crowd advantage. So how did they do it? Rather than giving first dibs to people like my parents, who've shelled out to watch SCG Tests for the past few years and therefore count as genuine fans who actually support Australian cricket, they shafted us and set up a "foolproof" anti-scalper and English fan system. They didn't even get an email from Ticketek to say – hey guys, CA's got a new, stupid-ass system you might like to know about. Thanks, Cricket Australia. Enjoy the sea of Union Jacks at every Test this summer.

CA created an Aussie test in an online questionnaire where you had to tick which team you supported and nominate your favourite player – as if scalpers and dodgy English backpackers have too much integrity to lie. You can just imagine the sunburnt lager louts wrestling with their consciences, saying "Cor, I'd love to watch them Ashes, but if it means tickin' a box sayin' me favourite player's Warney on an online form no-one will ever read, then no flippin' way."

Then there was the requirement that you needed an Australian mobile and address. Well, I challenge the ACB to identify one single cricket fan in the entire United Kingdom who doesn't have some compatriot mate down here on a working holiday visa whose details they could use.

But dumbest of all was the decision to set the number of tickets anyone could buy at 10. What possible justification is there for so many? They may as well have just dumped the tickets into a truck and shipped them directly to dodgy scalpers. And what nationality is virtually every scalper in Australia, by the way – as anyone who's ever queued outside a cricket ground could tell you? English.

We're spitefully getting some of our own back, though. I love that we've launched a fake-bidding vendetta against the eBay scalpers who've ruined our summer of Ashes-watching. May the Don heap blessings on everyone who frustrates an English scalper. And I hope every Australian fan remembers the way we've been treated, and refuses to buy a single ticket to next summer's Tests. Let's see how many of the Barmy Army members who've joined the Australian "cricket family" turn up to next year's Tests against India, shall we?

And next time some idiot bureaucrat stuffs up our lives with this kind of moronic bungling, let's adopt the same principle we're using for the Cross-City Tunnel and eBay. Swift popular punishment that directly affects their bottom line. That's what they care about, so that's where they must be hit. Hard. I vote that when the Ashes start, we divert all the English tour buses into the Cross-City Tunnel and then seal the stupid thing off at both ends for five days, successfully killing two birds with one stone. Then we'll go and reclaim the seats that are rightfully ours. Now there's a land rights movement to reclaim sacred sites (for instance, Yabba's Hill) that even John Howard would support.

Latest odds on the Socceroos

The Socceroos have raised fans' hopes with a win over European champions Greece, and a valiant 1-1 draw against third-ranked Holland. What has it done to their odds of going through to the second round in Germany?

Harry Kewell leaves field with groin strain – 99 to 100

Harry Kewell leaves field with groin strain within first ten minutes of firt match – 98 to 100

Australia beat Japan, giving nation false hope – 4 to 1

Socceroo defender wins ball without fouling – 50 to 1

Australia-Croatia match a dull, defensive nil-all draw – 3 to 1

Mark Viduka allowed to take another penalty after failing against Uruguay and Holland – nil

Viduka grabs the ball and doing it anyway – 3 to 2

Australia scores against Brazil –5 to 4

Australia scores against Brazil, not including own goals – 25 to 1

Public support Socceroos passionately until five minutes after they're eliminated – 5 to 6

Dominic Knight

It's time to go... to a psychiatrist

I've often suggested that anyone who went on Big Brother probably needed their head read. But the producers of UK Big Brother have taken this a step further this year, assembling a motley collection of mentally ill housemates for the entertainment of Channel 4 viewers. They've been slammed by various mental health groups for exploiting sufferers, and then the families of those involved have come out to defend their offspring's right to participate. So, when is it affirming and progressive for people with problems to be featured on national television, and when is it little more than a horrific freakshow? Hint – when it doesn't involve a Big Brother house.

There's a lot of political correctness in all this, of course. For instance, in the first paragraph above, I implied that BB housemates were "mad" to go on the show. But to do so is deeply insensitiveto people with mental health issues. It's not kind to call people "mad" when what you really mean to imply is just that they're losers.

So let me clarify. People who appear on BB should not "have their head read – unless they're on UK BB, where it seems to be an entry requirement. People who appear on Australian BB should instead be thrown to a pack of wild jackals, and then what's left of their entrails should be left abandoned on a mountainside. Which is roughly what happens when they get out of the house, appear at a series of dodgy Gold Coast nightclubs, and are then promptly forgotten forevermore.

Now, I don't want to get cheap laughs by sensationalising the mentally ill. So instead I'll let The Sun do it for me. Here's their description of the individuals with a few personal issues who have been put in the BB house this year:

Pre-op transsexual Sam Brodie (who's just been added)... Sam, 18, has already told housemates: "I'm" the most paranoid person ever." He was booted out of home at 14 after telling his family he wanted to become a woman, say his pals.

Shahbaz threatened to kill himself on live TV before walking out.

Lea has tried to commit suicide and suffers from body dysmorphia – hating her looks.

Nikki has been sectioned (ie institutionalised against her will, for her own protection) over her anorexia

And (last but not least) Pete has Tourette's Syndrome.

"One charity warned it was "only a matter of time" before the show was responsible for a tragedy," The Sun said. Well, as long as it happens in front of the cameras.

On the show's website, Lea claims to have the largest breast implants in the UK. And while they don't mention the suicide attempt, they do reveal she's "grumpy in the morning until she's had a cup of tea!" Sharvaz was more upfront, telling TV viewers "I'm a dead man walking. I came to die on this program, I'm going to prove it". Does the Lifeline service in the UK now put callers straight through to the BB audition hotline?

Let's leave aside, then, the obviously foolish idea of putting mentally fragile people under the enormous pressure of being on TV, filmed 24 hours a day. Probably not a great environment for the paranoid. And the producers' line – as quoted in The Sun – that a psychologist is on hand is clearly pretty inadequate. Would anyone who's heard her commentary during the show trust our own Carmel Hill in a life-or-death situation?

The interesting character in all this – yes, even more interesting than the UK's largest implants, except perhaps to Sun readers – is Pete, who has Tourette's Syndrome. (And you can see in that Wikipedia link that he's already drawn enormous attention to the disease. ) That is, the recurrence of physical and spoken 'tics'.

It's presented a dilemma for the audience, who aren't sure whether they're laughing with or at him. He twitches a lot, swears in every single sentence and makes animal noises. Channel 4 has had to move the live crosses to the house to after 9pm in case he utters an expletive and shocks young ears. But of course, it's rating through the roof.

Pete's mum reckons it's all fine. But, as Jelena Dokic might tell you, parents aren't always the best judge of whether their children are overexposed. And overexposed is certainly what Pete's being – after some ambiguous action in the pool last year, the BB team have installed underwater cameras, which have already revealed that he's very well-endowed. Ah, it's so classy. Although of course, this being Britain, his helpful bandmates had already told it all to the tabloids.

Nevertheless, these various gifts and limitations have ultimately made Pete the favourite to win with both bookies and the BBC. It seems UK voters are the opposite of their Australian counterparts, who always vote for the dullest contestant on offer. We had the Logans, but they had transsexual Nadia.

So, is Pete's inclusion empowering? Should having a formal disability be no barrier to being a housemate? Is he breaking new ground for Tourette's sufferers? I don't think so, I just don't believe most people are laughing at him. Let's be honest, Tourette's is funny if you don't know what it is. Because swearing is funny, which is why it's the resort of all two-bit comedians. And that's why there was a hilarious Tourette's character in Deuce Bigalow, that clearing-house of all disabilities which can be exploited for cheap laughs.

I'm embarrassed to say that when I was about 13, I thought that the wheelchair-bound man who sits shouting and swearing outside Woolies on George St and on Glebe Pt Rd was the funniest thing in the world. I assumed his constant invective at passers-by was a result of drunkenness, rather than a mental illness. (Well, the drinking couldn't have helped, could it?) For years I've felt guilty whenever I see him. So I hope the UK viewing public feel equally guilty that they laugh at Pete, and that it makes them give him the prize. But I can't avoid the sensation that BB has crossed the point in the UK where it's now turned into a kind of old-fashioned travelling circus, where the freaks are all lined up for us to point at.

So ultimately, hearing about the direction UK Big Brother has taken makes me appreciate our own bland housemates. Sure, they're as boring as hell to watch, but at least no-one's threatening to kill themselves live-to-air or completely degrading themselves. Well, not since Hotdogs' Up Late Game Show got cancelled, anyway.

Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt ... a better name than Suri?

You have to hand it to Brad and Angelina (I refuse to dub them Brangelina, which sounds like a breakfast cereal). By ensconcing themselves in Namibia, with a friendly government doing everything to protect their privacy, they have devised the most effective solution to harassment by paparazzi. Up there on her cloud, Princess Diana must be so jealous.

Namibia hasn't been in the news much, other than as a punchline to Commonwealth Games jokes. But it's been placed firmly on the media map as the birthplace of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, the most eagerly awaited, badly named celebrity baby yet.
The government's complicity in arresting photographers has meant that instead of intrusive long-lens shots, the celebrity press has been forced to concoct bizarre stories out of sheer desperation. Such as the one about the local tribal chief who had been invited to name the child. Not true, although poor Shiloh will no doubt grow up wishing he had.
The Namibian solution is great for all of us who've had to endure less irritating coverage because of the lack of images. But it's also been a boon for the Namibians, who reportedly wanted to make the day of the child's birth a holiday, an honour usually reserved for national heroes.
That seems appropriate. After all, with the influx of gutter journalists, this child has done more than anyone else for the basket-case Namibian economy.
In fact, becoming the world's celebrity birthing clinic could be a fantastic new industry for Namibia. If it's true that the couple has sold exclusive pictures for $7 million (to be donated to UNICEF), baby photos could well replace diamonds as the country's biggest export.
Better still, the whole country could be set up as a gated community for the rich and famous, allowing them to have their weddings, botox injections and embarrassing stints in rehab away from our prying eyes.
Cameras would be a prohibited import and gossip magazines everywhere would go broke for lack of photos to illustrate their made-up stories. What a wonderful gift from Namibia to us all.
That said, though, let's hope Paris Hilton doesn't move to Namibia. The world has to get its cheap entertainment from somewhere.

PHOTO: Big birther ... Angelina Jolie with NBC's Ann Curry, who was in Nambia to interview the star. Photo: AP/NBC/Christian Martin.

Dressing for success at DIMIA

That fearless reformer Amanda Vanstone is at it again, this time tinkering with the dress code of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. What are her besieged staff likely to end up wearing?

• Singlets, stubbies and thongs to introduce visitors to the real Australia. 15-1.
• Just a bit of needle and thread across their mouths. 20-1.
• White cloaks and hoods. 5000-1.
• Modest shirt and tie. No need to go overboard. 12-1.
• Dull grey suits, as a memento of Philip Ruddock's time as minister. 10-1.
• Wallaby tracksuits as a tribute to the PM. 5-1.
• Inspired by the minister, something bright, floral and hideous. 3-2.

Dominic Knight



PS I am unwell today, having eaten a rice paper roll that disagreed with me fairly forcefully. Sorry I haven't got a bigger update!

Morris Iemma learns to exclude

I wish I didn't have to be disappointed so regularly by reports of Premier Iemma's craven attempts to avoid losing the next election. His latest bit of swing-voter-wooing is his decision to slam a Tempe childcare centre for using a book that features a little boy with two fathers, The Rainbow Cubby House. I'm increasingly hoping that somewhere over the rainbow lies a less spinelessly mediocre NSW Premier.

(By the way, is anyone else seeing that story illustrated by a photo of a Norwegian director of a film called Sniffer? Strange, but I'm thankful there isn't an image of Morris Iemma.)

"2-year-olds should not be dragged into a debate about gay rights," he said, making it sound as if the centre was requiring toddlers to march down Oxford St on Mardi Gras night wearing spandex shorts. Children learn about the world through the stories they're exposed to, and introducing them to a reality that includes same-sex couples just seems sensible, not like some controversial statement about sexuality. I'm sorry, but what is the harm in familiarising kids with a social reality? Particularly when, as we saw yesterday, NSW is the centre of same-sex artificial insemination.

When they're a little older, I might teach my children a few lessons by showing them articles like this one in the Daily Telegraph that caused the fuss, as an example of shoddy journalism that cynically beats up an issue to expose the prejudice of its readers. "At that age, the under-fives, they don't even need to know about sex," a Concerned Mother says. I'm sorry, but who's telling the kids about gay sex, exactly? Does she think that books involving a mummy and daddy similarly educate children about heterosexual sex? What's she reading to her children, The Bride Stripped Bare?

Federal Family and Community Services Minister Mal Brough suggest that the kids instead spend their time "fingerpainting and having fun". Okay, so little Jenny who has two dads makes a lil picture of them with her fingers. That's going to raise questions for the other kids. What's the centre supposed to do, ignore them?

That said, I don't particularly want to defend books from a series called "Learn To Include", which sounds like an incredibly lame piece of social engineering. I'm not sure I'd give my children, had I any, a book called The Rainbow Cubby House purely on grounds of earnestness. I think I would find another way to alert them to the concept that it's permissible in our society for gay parents to be considered a family, because Iemma's Labor colleague Tanya Plibersek's quote makes them sound unbelievably daggy:

"I know that the kids who are reading these books might just start life with the wonderful gift of growing up without homophobic prejudice. That's great for those individual kids and it's wonderful for our whole community too."



Personally, I was introduced to the idea that some men like to share a bed by a more acclaimed children's book series – Noddy.

Still, I'd be willing for my children be subjected to do-gooder books like these ones if they'll grow up learning not to cynically court the votes of people who are scared of gay rights, as Premier Iemma did this morning.



Dominic Knight

Send the troops to Dili already

Gunfire around Dili? Terrified civilians heading to the hills? Rebels killing police? Now here's a situation where military intervention is actually called for. I know I banged on about this yesterday as ever, but really, John Howard should take note, just by way of contrast with Iraq. It's always good when your army goes into a foreign country to solve a dangerous civil war, rather than provoke one.

I have every confidence that the ADF is about to make us proud of them all over again, just as they did when we intervened in Timor under the auspices of Interfet. It's times like these that we should be very glad we're a prosperous democracy that can afford to get involved in humanitarian missions. As well as misguided excursions to Iraq.

Acting PM Peter Costello must be loving this. Our third leader in line is actually going to get to send the troops into battle! Let's hope for his sake that he doesn't get too used to it, because there's surely not much chance of it happening again. Unless he also deploys that famous bus to take out John Howard

Of course, this would be much easier if a lot of our crack troops, the real hardarse special forces who scared the militia groups away last time, weren't already in Iraq. Okay, I'll stop.

I'm no expert in what's happening on the ground, but I don't imagine Kevin Rudd is either, judging by his comment that we should take it slowly and cautiously. I don't imagine the 800 Australian expats are urging delays, and we all know that even if suffering natives can't ever move us, the plight of one single Australian is enough to make us all leap into action. Or two, as we saw in Beaconsfield.

So sure, let's be cautious, of course. But thumb-twiddling delays are not what's called for in a crisis. If Jose Ramos-Horta has called for troops, I say we back him and send them in. The guy's got a Nobel prize. What's Rudd got, other than a bad haircut?

Actually, what am I saying? Of course he'd be an expert on Timor, and insufferably so. He'll have read the briefing papers ad infinitum, and be able to regurgitate them in minute detail to anyone foolish enough to ask him about them. But his judgement seems lacking, and that's what you need in a Foreign Minister at these moments. As Alexander Downer so consistently illustrates.

And while the troops are there, let's hope the Australian Government takes the opportunity to renegotiate the Timor Gap oil treaty again. East Timor's desperate! Now's the time for our trade people to take that impoverished nation for all it's worth. A great way to once again undo all the goodwill we've generated by helping them in their latest hour of need.

Dominic Knight



Photo: Reuters

Johnny's world tour

John Howard's $700,000 world trip has been described by some cynics as a "victory lap". That's unfair to the Prime Minister: in no respect can the war in Iraq be described as a victory.

When John Howard boards an international flight, he can't help stopping over in Washington for a photo op with George Bush. This was his second visit to Washington in a year and he stayed for five nights. At what point do these jaunts stop being the visit of a close ally and start constituting stalking?
This time, of course, John Howard's loyalty was finally rewarded with all the trimmings of a State visit - the marching bands, the banquet and the rest. And it's not surprising the White House pulled out all stops. Ahead of the US midterm elections, John Howard must be the only politician Bush's cronies can get who's willing to be seen with Mr 32 per cent these days. President Bush's figures make Kim Beazley's look good.
Bush praised his ally's trustworthiness, saying "you can take it to the bank" when Howard tells you something. Australian voters might be tempted to protest that the bank you take the PM's promises to will still raise interest rates twice.
Bush also predicted Howard would outlast him, which most pundits took to mean the PM would last until at least 2008. Not so. Given the growing mood in favour of impeachment in Washington and Rupert Murdoch suggesting that Howard quit while he's ahead, neither may be there at the end of this year.
Iraq loomed over the self-congratulatory affair, giving the leaders an air of fiddling while Baghdad burned. The most significant moment in the backslapping festival came when the PM reiterated his commitment to keep troops in Iraq.
And no matter how strongly public opinion swings in favour of withdrawal, Australia's continuing involvement in Iraq is one commitment President Bush can take to the bank.

The five-bladed razor from tomorrow (and The Onion)

Comedians have been dining out on the ever-increasing number of blades in razors for years. Gillette's Mach 3 seemed ridiculous, but then Schick took it to the next level with the Quattro. Now, I'm possibly the hairiest person alive, so I am generally happy to sign up for the latest in exorbitant razor technology. But even I will draw the line at the new Gillette Fusion, with a ridiculous five blades. No, it's not a late April Fool's joke – you can order it from Amazon.com. Evidently the engineering wizards at Gillette have fused a razor with a hilarious parody of a razor. Yes, an Onion article literally came true. I hope they're on commission.

I wrote about this when it was first announced, and now, finally, it's here. But the Fusion website's sillier than anything a satirist could dream up. Noting with regret that like all cutting-edge technologies (sorry), it isn't available in Australia, I selected the full-shebang US site. There I met Cassandra, the sexy directress of Fusion Labs, the amazing yet sadly fictional desert location where they design razors with five blades. I think it's a sister school of the Ponds Institute.

Now, unlike any common or garden lab you'd be familiar with, hers has a 'holosphere'. Amazing. But not as amazing as the Gillette Fusion. Especially since if five ridiculous blades isn't enough, you can even get a vibrating battery model.

I'm not sure that having five extremely sharp pieces of metal vibrating near my face is a good idea. But Cassandra knows about these things. Here she is in her hottie-holosphere, alongside the world's most expensive razor ever.

So, what technological wizardry do they use to justify the necessity of five blades? To explain – or rather, to distract us shallow men from the question – Cassandra takes off her faux-lab white coat so we can see her hot arms. "Isn't it time to slip into something a little more comfortable," she asks? Apparently the advantage of five blades is that they're spaced closer together, and that's more comfortable. Well, of course they're closer together. Otherwise the blade would be an inch long.

But how is it more comfortable to have five blades irritating your skin? Remember how they used to have animations in the Mach 3 ad where each of the three blades shaved the hair closer than the one before? Well, they haven't bothered here. And you can't tell me that by the time blade #5 kicks in, it isn't shaving thin air – or your skin.

But apparently all of this forms a "Shaving Surface(TM) Technology". As opposed to earlier, non-trademarked razors, which didn't involve a surface that shaved you, apparently.

So what other delights has the curvaceous Cassandra got for me in her shaving futuredome? Surely she can't top a magnificent five blades?

Hang on. Whoa. WHOA. Forget five blades.

There are six.

SIX.

My mind just got blown.

Because the Fusion also has a "precision trimmer blade" that you use on the back of the cartridge. Cassandra calls it "the best thing you never knew you wanted so badly." It's perfect for sideburns, under the nose – those "tricky places". Cassandra contends it's her best idea yet. And you know what? I'm inclined to agree with her.

Beam me up, Cassandra. I think I'm in love – with your razor. But just before you do, let me look as the "frequently asked questions" section of your "holosphere".

What? There isn't an entry under "Surely five blades plus one precision trimmer blade equals a colossal waste of money?" Are you honestly trying to tell me that isn't the most frequently-asked question about the Gillette Fusion?

You saucy virtual razor scientist minx, I'm beginning to suspect you don't actually exist in a futuristic Gillette laboratory, but that you're simply a cynical marketing creation, trying to trick foolish men into buying ever-more-expensive razors via a mix of sex and technobabble.

Because, of course, a razor with six blades probably costs twice as much as the already-expensive Mach 3. And that's what this is all about.

Please, someone alert the genuine scientists. For it appears Gillette has devised the theoretical maximum of ridiculous razors. I don't think five plus one razors could possibly be topped. But then again, I don't have Cassandra's genius.

So, will I join the Fusion revolution? Well, it appears that the best this man can get is to grow a beard.



Dominic Knight

Drop my baby one more time

Britney Spears nearly dropped her baby last week, after stumbling out of a hotel carrying a glass in one hand and Sean Preston in the other. She has driven with Sean on her lap and in an illegal baby seat; and he's fallen out of his high chair. Here are the odds on some other awful things that will happen to her unfortunate offspring in the near future

• Forced to appear in a Kevin Federline video clip. 8-1
• Next horrific fall will be captured on America's Funniest Home Video Show. 10-1
• Gets adopted out to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. 25-1
• Brought onstage at the Logies by Bec and Lleyton. 10,000-1
• Traumatising visit with ``uncle'' Michael Jackson. 500-1
• Gets girlfriend pregnant and then walks out on her, just like Daddy. 30-1
• Pre-school friends will mock him mercilessly. 3-1
• Britney lets him drive her car next time. 2-1
• Dead by age five. Certainty

Lucky there's a spare on the way.

The Da Vinci Commercials

It's been truly bizarre watching the extent of Christian overreaction to the Da Vinci Code. I'd be astonished if anyone who read Dan Brown's potboiler took it seriously as a religious text – it's preposterous enough purely as a work of fiction. But the idea that Jesus might be adopted and reinvented by a thriller writer to provoke a reaction has provoked a somewhat panicked reaction from most major Christian groups. Apparently the church gets nervous when someone else tries to make a buck out of Jesus.

Opus Dei made themselves look silly instead of sinister when they tried to make Sony Pictures insert a disclaimer to say that the film was fictional. In so doing, of course, it acknowledged the book's far-fetched claims about their prelature might seem plausible to viewers, which is a terrible thing to admit. Sony, reasonably, suggested that no other fictional film needs a disclaimer, and so they should have. The Da Vinci Code is patently, self-evidently fictional, and it's an insult to anyone's intelligence to presume they'd think otherwise. Brown brilliantly appropriates existing artworks, geographical and screwy conspiracy theories to concoct his over-the-top story, but all thrillers do this to some degree. He's just better at it than most.

Perhaps thriller writers and religions should simply never mix. Look what happened to L. Ron Hubbard.

But really, surely anyone who gives any degree of credibility to the Da Vinci Code has abandoned it by the time Brown starts mentioning the Holy Grail – a sure sign that you're dealing with a nutso conspiracy theory. Or perhaps I just think that because the CIA's New World Order brainwashing satellites have deleted the truth from my memory?

Then there's our local Anglican church, which has decided to blow $38,000 on advertisements diverting moviegoers to their high-budget, re-education website. (By the way, is it just me, or does the voiceover guy sound totally camp at the end, when he says "Hmm"? How'd that get past the Sydney Anglicans?) It's classy effort, but hardly worthwhile. Why anyone would bother to go into detail about how Jesus didn't actually hang around and get married is beyond me. Surely if you buy Christianity, you have to buy the bit about the resurrection and eternal life? Otherwise all the religion has to offer is guys in sandals and acoustic guitars.

But they aren't the only ones who've made a website. Every other Christian group's done the same thing, in the fairly forlorn hope that Da Vinci buffs are genuinely interested in Jesus, instead of being entertained for a few hours on a plane. Typing "Da Vinci Code" into Google brings you a whole pile of paid ads, including this one from a student group, this one from some obscure group that sounds like the Uniting Church but isn't (the "United Church") and this one from poor old Opus Dei.

This film was Google's first-ever movie marketing tie-in deal, and really, you can see why. They must be making a fortune just from all the Christian groups trying to convert Googlers to their own particular brand of Christianity.

But there is one respect in which Dan Brown's novel genuinely threatens the religion, and it's got nothing to do with Jesus' sex life. The idea that there are a whole bunch of other potentially religious texts (the Gnostic gospels cited by Teabing) which were left out of the Bible is a genuine threat to the whole basis of evangelical Christianity – that the Bible is a complete and perfect revelation from God. So much of the religion's appeal is based on the historicity of Jesus – that there actually was this guy, who really lived, and honestly did amazing things. Which requires taking those Gospels that made it into the Bible as historical, indisputable truth.

But Jesus lived long ago, as opposed to religious figures whose existence is indisputable, like L. Ron Hubbard. So the historical record is somewhat sketchy. Much of the New Testament – in particular, the doctrinal rather than the narrative parts – were written by St Paul, who never actually met Jesus, but claimed a miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus.

Of course, there are plenty of guys today who reckon Jesus or his assistants have appeared personally to them – lunatic asylums are full of them. And many of their works doesn't get to make it into the mainstream Bible – take the Book of Mormon, for example. Actually, don't, if a young American guy in a suit offers it to you on a street corner.

So the whole "Jesus is historical" claim gets a serious challenge when you discover that there are a whole bunch of other, somewhat contradictory Gospels – Philip, for example. There are lots of bits missing, but here's the controversial passage, about the woman whom Philip mentions elsewhere as the 'Companion':

And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] more than [...] the disciples, [...] kiss her [...] on her [...]. The rest of the disciples [...]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.

A manner of speaking which sounds somewhat like Jesus. But there's nowhere in the accepted Gospels where the Messiah says that Mary Magdelene is a hottie. You can see why this was kept out of the Bible.

Many brands of Christianity have different versions of the Bible, depending on where they draw the line. I won't go into detail, but to give one example, the Catholic Bible contains several extra books in the Apocrypha. So if there are a whole bunch of other potentially contradictory religious texts, and even mainstream Christian religions can't agree on which ones are sacred, that raises the possibility that perhaps the content of Bible was determined by men, not God? In which case, perhaps the passages against, say, homosexuality, actually reflect human bigotry rather than God's opinion? If we reject Philip, why not reject Paul as well?

This idea is what really worries the church. At the point where you can pick and choose bits of the Bible to believe – like Thomas Jefferson, who believed that St Paul had polluted the teachings of Jesus and could be ignored (in fact, there's a reasonably popular theory that Paul is the Antichrist!) – is the point where the church's authority as the interpreter of definitive texts is undermined. In that scenario, Christians could mix and match their own Bibles, choosing themselves which bits they felt were divine – just like the various councils of religious elders did all those years ago.

And that does genuinely challenge the whole authority of the Christian church. Unlike the stuff about Jesus gettin' busy with Mary Magdelene.

The Mundine bout made me feel Green

I fear I have very little in common with the Bandidos motorcycle club. I can't ride, I don't live a life dedicated to the principles of honour and bravery, and while I do like having coffee on Stanley St, East Sydney, none of my friends have ever been gunned down there. Plus, I'm not into boxing.

The Bandidos were out in full force last night, booking a table at the Mundine-Green bout, while I elected to go to sleep so I could get up at 4.45 to watch my pretentious Anglo-French football team lose the European Cup. Which hurt probably about as much as Danny Green's pride does right now.

Well, of course I went to sleep. Foxtel were charging $49.95 to watch the match on pay-per-view. That's right, $49.95. More than three movies. Which I thought would buy about 30 seconds of Mundine dancing around the ring before being flattened, like he was in the match against Sven Ottke.

And sure, I could have gone to the pub to watch it, but then I would have been surrounded by boxing fans. Not my idea of a good night out.

The bottom line is that I just don't like boxing. Watching it makes me uncomfortable. I tend to think it's a good thing that human society has slowly evolved over centuries to the point where most of us are able to manage our daily lives without feeling the need to punch others in the face. And I don't much like watching two men hurt each other in a manner which, outside a ring, would see them facing a court – and which is so violent that we refuse to allow women to participate. Call me a wuss – and you'd be right – but watching a really good punch land makes me shudder, not feel exhilarated.

Then there's the brain damage. It'd be extremely unsafe even if most boxers had more than two brain cells to rub together. Mundine in particular is in no position to be risking blows to the head.

So I, in the interfering manner of most namby-pamby pinkos, think boxing should be banned, just like cockfighting. In fact, perhaps it already is? The Man can be a bit of a cock.

Actually, now that I think about it – sure, I'd pay fifty bucks to watch The Man being knocked out. When's his world title bout?

In truth, I do admire many things about him. He was a great league player, appearing in several grand finals during a relatively brief period as a player, and giving it away to pursue his dream is quite inspiring. Even though I don't quite understand why anyone would rather punch people than play football brilliantly.

Plus he's always entertaining. A controversial or amusing quote is guaranteed whenever he's near a microphone, which is why he was the best thing about Celebrity Big Brother, apart from the fact it was never repeated. So I'm glad he won last night, because it guarantees more amusing press conferences.

But as a society, it troubles me that we're still mad about boxing. And we are, literally – the fight sparked a series of brawls. There were 14 in Adelaide alone. (Although living in SA, let's face it, you must be close to the edge the whole time.) It's as close as we get to a modern version of the Coliseum. Most combat sports, like fencing and professional wrestling, have been sanitised to the point where no-one actually gets hurt.

So until boxing involves enough protective gear that it's pretty much safe, I don't tend to think we should allow it. I just hope no-one punches me for saying so.



Dominic Knight

Photo: Craig Golding

Who wants to sell their story for $3 million?

Brant Webb and Todd Russell must feel that surviving underground for 320 hours is nothing compared to dealing with a media feeding frenzy. All the usual suspects caught the first flight down to Beaconsfield, circling like sharks at the first whiff of potential heroic rescue.

There were plenty of laughs along the way, particularly at Naomi Robson, who took time out from her vigil to attend the Logies.
Most hilarious was the footage of David Koch entering an ambulance, and Eddie McGuire playing everyone's mate and shouting the bar, as if he were a blue-collar miner instead of a millionaire chief executive. To give him credit, The Footy Show raised millions of dollars for Beaconsfield, but at the same time rescued another dire charity case, Nine's ratings.

This could provide the network with a successful new direction. Wherever there's a disaster, Eddie should fly in, buy a round and raise money in a special charity edition of TV's least sensitive show. I'm sure his flights to Darfur and East Timor are already booked.

The most cynical effort yet, though, comes from New Idea. Not only has the magazine brilliantly found the inevitable Princess Mary cover story angle ("Mary's tears for miners"), they've also got an interview with Brant Webb's father-in-law, in which he reveals exclusively his daughter communicated with her husband telepathically. What a help it would've been if he'd come forward earlier.

Editor-in-chief Robyn Foyster also scoops the prize for the most awful punning on a tragedy yet: "The miner miracle is anything but minor. Major epic springs to mind." Truly, mine-numbing stuff.

My own telepathy says this tabloid tackiness is only going to get worse. Look out for Webb's third cousin's hairdresser's next-door-neighbour selling her story of how Webb and Russell were experimented on by the aliens who live at the bottom of the mine.

In this media-savvy era, it comes as no surprise that even Brant'n'Todd were thinking of television specials while entombed. They filmed highly valuable

mid-ordeal footage with a camera the mine gave them to document conditions for their rescue.

Still, good on them. If I had to go through that, I'd want to make a motza as well. With celebrity agent Max Markson sensibly spurned, let's hope that if anyone's going to cash in on Webb and Russell, it'll be the miners themselves.

At this point, it's mandatory that I pause briefly and poignantly to remember that someone actually died down there. Our thoughts are with Larry Knight's family at this difficult time. OK, back to the cashing in.

Thanks to the media's appalling salivating over disaster survivors, a story of inspiring heroism is being overwhelmed by cynical exploitation.

And on that note, don't miss next week's scoop, where Russell and Webb exclusively reveal how Radar got them through their ordeal, even though they'd never read it. Let's just say it involves telepathy.

UPDATE: So it seems Eddie Everywhere's bar-shouting efforts have been rewarded with the multi-million dollar deal everyone was speculating about. I saw it reported on Sunrise this morning as Nine securing the deal "after 7 pulls out", as if they'd had last-minute scruples about chequebook journalism. Didn't quite ring true, though, in the middle of their "Thanks to Beaconsfield" special, which I guess is the event you have when you can't actually get the two stars. I'm sure the town, weary of grandstanding media stars, immediately followed up their own "Bugger off back to Sydney" special event.

There was a touching moment with the surveyor who helped locate the two men. Kochie's laser-sharp interviewing technique established that his primary school-aged daughter thinks her Dad is a "hero". Oh well, if you can't beat them, fawn over someone else.

But most importantly, it was a great chance to hear Paulini do a plug for Seven's new Idol and Dancing With The Stars hybrid. It's so easy to lose perspective when tragedy strikes, so it was great to see Seven focussing on what really matters – cross-promotion.

Where's the line with Wendell Sailor?

Ding dong, Dell's in trouble again. But if Wendell Sailor played AFL, he'd be spared the embarrassment of having his name dragged through the mud for a first positive test to cocaine – or even a second one – not to mention a potential ban that will cost him a fortune and affect the whole team. Should athletes be outed like this when they are caught using social drugs?

Sailor's no stranger to these situations, having been in trouble for drinking on several occasions now, but this time he's facing a two year ban for testing positive to cocaine. AFL players, though, don't get named until their third positive test for a social drug. And the world body (WADA) doesn't require bans for positive tests to social drugs out of competition. And the AFL Players' Association think the leniency should go even further, especially in terms of marijuana abuse – which is, if anything, a performance-inhibiting drug. (And if I worked for Essendon, I'd sniff carefully around their dressing room). This ban, as I understand it, is a question of the ARU's own code.

The AFL code seems far more mature. Three strikes is probably enough to allow for a few mistakes via youthful exuberance or misjudgement. But although the AFL would argue that the three-strikes system provides players with an incentive to clean up their act once busted – a far more productive solution than ending a player's career, surely – that logic hardly works in Sailor's case. After all the drinking scandals he'd been through, the guy doesn't exactly lack the knowledge of what happens when you get busted for using a social drug.

But even if he used it every weekend, I ultimately fail to see why this is any of our business. Why should we get to hear about a private individual taking cocaine just because he happens to play sport? It's not like he disgraced himself in public (this time at least), which brings the game into disrepute and sets a bad example for the kiddies. If football stars get trashed in the privacy of their own mansions, it's a matter for their employer as to whether it detrimentally affects their performance – and that should be it.

Social drug use is a reality for many young Aussies, and it seems fundamentally unreasonable to stop the man playing football just because he might have snorted coke like any honest, upstanding advertising creative would.

Sure, it's illegal, but that's a matter for the police, not the ARU. Realistically, many people use cocaine with impunity, and seem to suffer no major ill effects other than being incredibly annoying. A trip to any nightclub proves we don't exactly have a zero tolerance regime. And it's a bit rich for anyone in the media to get up in arms about it. Visit to the bathroom at your average media awards night and you'll see more fine white powder on display than your average day at Thredbo.

There's also the matter of a presumption of innocence. Sailor has been denied this. He's banned until the hearing, which hurts the player and his various teams. When the drug isn't performance-enhancing, it's hard to see how this is in any way justified. It may be dumb and irresponsible, but it isn't cheating.

It also seems inappropriate to follow a strict liability approach with cocaine – that is, apply the rules regardless of extenuating circumstances. I know that players' excuses are often lame and ultimately disproven, and Sailor has sensibly not offered any yet. But there's nothing to stop a player having something slipped into his drink as a form of match fixing. It might seem like a far-fetched conspiracy, but a betting ring once went to the trouble of switching off the floodlights at English football matches to manipulate betting, so why not fix matches by getting key players banned? I don't know whether it's be possible to coke to show up in your system for any reason other than an individual voluntarily snorting it – if you share a lift with Kate Moss for instance, might you inhale it along with her perfume? – but if it is, that should be taken into account.

I'm all in favour of throwing the book at any sportsperson who tries to get an unfair advantage through drugs, certainly. But the likes of David Campese who want him kicked out completely, without regard to circumstances, go too far. Even if he made an error of judgement, Sailor is not obliged to live a completely clean life just because he happens to be good at running with a football. He doesn't owe the game that. And I think it should reinstate him whether or not he used cocaine – the scandal itself has been punishment enough. Further, the game should adopt the AFL's more sensible approach to protecting players' privacy.

But failing that, if he really can't escape the rap, he could always go back to rugby league. A guy who gets involved in this many scandals would fit right in at the Bulldogs.



Dominic Knight

Labor's next leader: the form guide

After some disastrous recent polls for Kim Beazley – who can't even make political hay out of WorkChoices – there’s yet another leadership challenge in the air for the beleaguered ALP. The only problem is that there isn’t an obvious successor on the horizon. Or any kind of success, really. Here are the current odds of who's most likely to suffer the humiliation of a defeat by Peter Costello.

• Kevin Rudd. Perceived to be talented, charming and perfect leadership material. But only by Rudd himself. 10 to 1
• Bill Shorten. An irritating self-promoter, but much less so than Kevin Rudd. Also very good with difficult rescue missions, which is Labor’s current situation. 10 to 1.
• Natasha Stott Despoja. Needs a new party due to the pending extinction of the Democrats. Unlikely to join the ALP, though, due to the party rule requiring all incoming Dems to sleep with Gareth Evans. 100 to 1.
• Eddie McGuire. Was seriously rumoured to be running for the ALP at one stage. And as he’d be in front of the cameras where he works best, it’s a less strange notion than him becoming CEO of Nine. 70 to 1
• Tony Blair. He’s not nearly as unpopular in Australia as he is in Britain, and he’s about to have some free time. Plus, unlike most of Federal Labor, he’s actually won an election. Has a plummy English accent, but that doesn’t seem to have hampered Alexander Downer. 50 to 1.
• Jeff Kennett. Unlikely, but a less crazy idea than rejoining the Victorian Liberals, as Federal Labor at least has some chance of winning. Unlikely to assist his mission to cure the nation’s depression, though. 300 to 1
• Paul Keating. If the Libs wanted Kennett back, how much more should the ALP want Keating? After 10 years of the Liberals, suddenly he doesn’t seem so arrogant, does he. Also knows how to land a punch on John Howard, which is more than you can say for Kim Beazley. 50 to 1
• Mark Latham. Actually had some policies and gave the party hope, even though they were the wrong ones and it was ultimately false. The best Labor leader since Keating. In fact, the only Labor leader since Keating. 500 to 1 after publication of The Latham Diaries
• Simon Crean. A well-respected former leader... ah, I'm only kidding. 1,000,000 to 1.
• Peter Garrett. A legendary frontman, although of a rock band. No frontbench experience, which in the current situation is a definite advantage. 20 to 1.
• Julia Gillard. It’s high time a woman led one of Australia’s major parties. Unfortunately the only one on offer is Julia Gillard, who alienated both her colleagues and voters earlier in the year by backstabbing Kim Beazley. Worse still, she's still friendly with Mark Latham. Still, she's the best of an awful bunch. 3 to 1.

Morris Iemma said he thought that Beazley's reply speech showed that he was the best person to lead the party. But in fact this list of alternatives is the only argument that Kim Beazley is the best person to lead it.

Don't mock old moonface

Dominic Knight takes a look at Australian television's night of nights, the Maybelline TV Week Logie Awards, and finds only one shining star. Or, perhaps more accurately, he find only one shining moon.

After last Sunday's monster Logies celebrating 50 years of Australian television, with five hosts and endless packages of classic shows, you could be forgiven for thinking the only really outstanding thing to happen in half a century was Bert Newton.
The hosting quintet represented Gold Logie winners from each decade, but all that served to prove was how much things have gone downhill post-Bert.

Georgie Parker and Lisa McCune were likeable but hardly used, while Daryl Somers was characteristically awkward. Most unfortunate of all, though, was Ray Martin, who promised to cross live to Beaconsfield if the miners came out. By the time he'd finished his pompous speech, most of the audience would rather have been down there with them.
Newton, by contrast, was in his element with an opening monologue that displayed his remarkable skills. He effortlessly switched gears from a riff on this year's favourite joke, Jessica Rowe, to a touching tribute to Richard Carleton, who had died just hours before.
More remarkable still was Newton's homage to his old colleague Graham Kennedy, where he sang alongside footage of the late King. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.
Because television was originally live by necessity, older personalities such as Kennedy and Newton learned to appear completely comfortable when improvising, a skill none of their successors has mastered. Newton is a world away from the inane patter of Idol's Andrew G and James Matheson. It would be a blessing to us all if he hosted the Logies every year.
Certainly, he is wasted on Family Feud. Nine should put him at the helm of a genuine variety show where he can crack jokes and muck around with guests. We haven't too many years left to enjoy the finest performer in the history of Australian television, so please, let's have a format that allows him to shine. It would make Rove Live look dead by comparison.
The 50th-anniversary Logies provided an apt summary of the half-century of Australian television: an ill-conceived hotchpotch with only a few moments of genuine class. Largely thanks to Bert.
Dominic Knight
PHOTO: He's the man ... no one can hold a candle to Bert.

A victory for mateship – and also for unions

Where were you when the news came through that the miners had finally been freed? It's a wonderful day for all of us who've followed the story so closely over the last few weeks. I'll never forget what I was doing when Australia learned that not only were the two men out, but in astonishingly good shape. I was asleep.

The plight of Brant Webb and Todd Russell has made headlines all over the worlds, even filtering through to the ears of Dave Grohl, who's promised them a beer. It's been a long time since we had such an unambiguously "good news" story as this one. And I am sure I speak for many cynics when I say that I was so delighted by the news, that I wasn't even irritated by John Howard banging on about mateship.

What's been particularly striking about these two guys is their sheer Aussieness. The media has lapped it up, and really, Paul Hogan couldn't have imagined two more perfect "good blokes". They've joked every step of the way through a harrowing ordeal. They've dreamed of meat pies and footy, and they've now told their bosses to shove it in spectacular fashion. They should change the oath at citizenship ceremonies so that new Aussies don't swear allegiance to some abstract set of values, but instead promise faithfully to take the piss even when staring death in the face.

They're also about to become filthy rich. The networks are squabbling over them – Eddie McGuire is apparently hoping to use his Collingwood links to nab them for Nine, but they seem to prefer Kochie. Big-buck deals from women's magazines can't be far away either – and how much more deserving they are than Bec and Lleyton.

I'll bet Russell Crowe's already trying to buy the film rights to star in an inspirational movie about their story, because these two are the genuine ocker article he longs to be. I hope they make millions.

But we must do more than just celebrate their spectacularly good fortune, and congratulate the hardworking, innovative rescuers who have pulled off an unprecedented feat. Now we must start asking the unpleasant questions. Was there really a known safety problem? Should more precautions have been taken? Were corners cut and lives endangered because the mine's management wanted to keep the profits flowing?

There are few starker illustrations of the cold-hearted logic of business than goldmining. In a South African mine, the SMH reported today, the equation is that for each tonne of gold extracted, one miner dies. Last year, mining company AngloGold Ashanti lost 17 men because as well as gold, the mines contains exploding rocks. As does Beaconsfield.

If a company has calculated that it can afford to kill one man per tonne of gold, and views that as an affordable risk, should it be allowed to continue operating on that basis? It's the role of governments to step in and protect workers from being cynically sacrificed for profits.

But it's also the role of unions. Beaconsfield has also been a victory for the trade union movement, because it's shown the value of collective action. While Howard likes to talk about mateship, it's actually the unions that function on the principle that mates should pull together to stick up for themselves against employers who can sometimes become antagonists.

This is why the government's push for individual bargaining is dangerous for workers – especially in industries like this, which can literally involve life or death situations. How is an individual supposed to work out whether a lucrative mining contract is too dangerous to accept? And if a miner who needs to feed their family is offered big bucks to take unacceptably high risks, and told that if he doesn't sign there's others who will, how can they say no? It's only by the threat of collective action that workers can actually bargain with bosses when the chips are down. It's only when the mine faces having no workers – or not being allowed to operate, if the government gets involved – that it will amend conditions.

There were big profits to be made at Beaconsfield – after all, Macquarie Bank was involved. So if it turns out that a man has died, and two others placed in mortal danger, because the mining company didn't monitor safety properly, then it should be made to pay extremely heavily.

Now I don't want to sound like Kim Beazley. That would be disastrous. And I've previously criticised his comments while the two men were still stuck a kilometre underground. But I do think Beaconsfield illustrates the value of having trade unions, and there's been precious little evidence of that lately. So – to the barricades, comrades! Preferably ones without Bill Shorten and his ubiquitous camera crews.

Webb and Russell refuse to go down the mine again. The question now is whether they should have been asked to go down in the first place. If not, it only goes to show how much we need strict regulation and strong unions to ensure that other workers aren't involuntarily made into heroes because a mining company got greedy and cut corners on safety.

Photo: Getty Images

UPDATE: Here's a great story from The Age about the mine's safety record.