Jeffrey Archer's doing OK despite being in prison: for one thing, being incarcerated is no barrier to forcing another novel upon the world. And did anyone honestly think he wouldn't get sent to prison without coming out with plenty of material for further books?

10:59 PM | link

Charlton Heston says stars who hire bodyguards are wimps. All you need are a rack full of guns, just like him.

10:27 PM | link

Couple tell boys to shut up during a film screening, and have the shit beaten out of them by the boys' parents. Me, I can't wait until someone actually kills someone for being annoying during a screening...

10:22 PM | link

Tim Blair asks where all the left-wing bloggers are. Having done a bit of a look around various web-pundit blogs these last few days, I'm wondering that myself. All the ones I'm seeing have a decidedly conservative bent to them. I'm sure they're out there, just not sure where... though from reading Mr Blair's blog, I can't help feeling he only wants to know where the leftie blogs are so he can squish them...

10:12 PM | link

A BLACK ROOM EDITORIAL

Self-described "top-rating broadcaster" (*) and right-wing talkback radio git Alan Jones is currently said to be nearly $40 million richer after moving from radio station 2UE to 2GB. This figure includes the 20% stake in Macquarie Radio (2GB's owners) he's supposed to have been given on top of a multi-million dollar salary.

Let us break this figure down. That's something like $110,000 per week over the next seven years, for pontificating for three hours a day, five days a week, on radio. By comparison, that's about $30,000 more than what both of my parents are currently earning in a year. And it's $110,000 more than I earn doing my weekly half-hour show on 2SER.

Obscenity in the media? It's not offensive words in TV programs or in rap songs, or sex scenes in films. It's the pay packet of people like Alan Jones. What the hell is he actually doing that is genuinely worth paying him such a ridiculous amount of money for it? Opinions are, as they say, like arseholes, everyone's got one... so why does Jones deserve nearly six million dollars a year just to express his?

And it's not because I object to Jones' views. Frankly, I wouldn't agree with someone I actually believed in and agreed with getting that sort of money. The pay packet is obscene one way or the other. You know the worst thing? Jones will likely carry across to 2GB his bullshit rhetoric about "Struggle Street". Like he'd know all about struggling to survive when he's pulling six million a year...

Incidentally, the news about Jones' salary was sent by mistake to some cafe in Sydney... seems some lawyer involved with the negotiations misdialled a fax number and sent it to this cafe. However, the proprietors of same have shown more principle than I would've done and refused to release the thing, which apparently contains a full breakdown of the whole deal. Me, I'd have blabbed. I'd have had that thing sent to all the media in town. It'd have been everywhere. For her efforts, cafe owner Maria Fotoulis was visited by the Jones boy today, and given a bouquet and a big kiss. What a lovely man. Perhaps he'd have done better to slip her a million or two of that paypacket of his to help her business along...

(*) There's a reason for this crack, but it's too long to tell, not to mention potentially defamatory. Suffice to say it was an event that didn't happen to me, but did leave me feeling mighty bitter towards his Joneship.

9:02 PM | link

British government gave Adolf Hitler a fake Jewish passport? The hell? Methinks someone in the old Special Operations Executive had an overly-developed sense of irony...

8:40 PM | link

Pissed-off Michael Jackson fan sues for $20 million because her seats at a Jacko concert last year sucked. Who said Americans were excessively lawsuit-happy?

8:26 PM | link

How Scientology ideas found their way into the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon of the 1980s: although they must've been damn subtle ones, cos I seem to recall watching that show when I was a little tyke and I don't recall noticing them. Then again, when I was of an age to watch that show, I wouldn't have known what Scientology was or what to look for, so...

8:15 PM | link

What happens when the hits dry up: the various falls from grace of Adam Ant, Steve Strange from Visage, Rick Astley and Stuart Adamson from Big Country (RIP).

11:19 PM | link

Satan may go back to Inglis after all: after being banished from town by Mayor Carolyn Risher, the American Civil Liberties Union has threatened a federal lawsuit unless the proclamation is repealed.

10:51 PM | link

Groom Killed By Stripper's Boobs: man at a bachelor party inadvertently suffocates when he sticks his face between a stripper's size 72-DD breasts. "Those breasts were lethal weapons," says his father; "We hope that by filing this lawsuit, we can send a message to other strippers: keep your bra size within a reasonable range."

10:43 PM | link

Elvis is alive, well, and using his dead brother's name: the downright odd story of the "rediscovery" of The King. The world awaits a similar announcement from Jim Morrison...

10:35 PM | link

Aliens to fly by during Winter Olympics: a Phoenix-based hypnotherapist has been told by said ETs they'll drop by on the 21st. I'll bet all those people who had to pay for tickets will be pissed: "we paid hundreds of dollars when we could've just watched it from space..."

10:28 PM | link

Church members sue sect leader for failing to produce Jesus Christ in the flesh as promised. Oh well, I suppose it beats the mass suicide route these apocalyptic groups often take...

10:16 PM | link

This, if you'll forgive the choice of words, is seriously fucked.

10:07 PM | link

Flaming feline destroys 62 homes: almost enough to make even me turn vegetarian.

10:01 PM | link

Scientists at this week's World Economic Forum have predicted a grim future replete with unprecedented biological threats, global warming and the possible takeover of humans by robots. Methinks someone needs to lay off the pulp SF...

9:58 PM | link

The magnificent Dole Army hoax: In which the tabloid TV current affairs forces of A Current Affair and Today Tonight have both been left looking exceptionally foolish. About time someone tried wiping the smug, self-righteous smile off Mike Munro's face.

9:49 PM | link

High School Faces Fight Over Satan Reference: Someone from the Church of Satan has forced a change in the dress code of some Hawaiian high school, claiming it discriminates against Satanists.

9:43 PM | link