To my Beloved ... both of you.

I've been a bit negative in my last few posts. Justifiably of course, but I feel I should balance it out with some love.

D'ya know what I love? ABC and SBS. Just when I lose faith in Australian media and media makers, I am reminded just how talented a bunch we are by switching over to our much-maligned National Broadcaster and it's not-entirely-publicly-funded friend. The new digital channels have had me wondering about the state of the nation (not to mention summer programming) and I've been switching off and - you won't believe it - reading books on the balcony to get away from my television. I know, it's disgusting. I am now only 4 or 5 shades lighter than my siblings who are not creatures of the night and who do not recoil at the slightest hint of sunshine and/or daylight.

First of all, bravo to SBS for the wonderful documentary series Immigration Nation. It was beautifully presented, informative and covered the subject matter well. The production values were stunning - considering the limited footage & photographs of early Australian migration -  the program was entertaining and not at all slow and the academics weren't just talking heads, they were warm and allowed character. I loved it and sat squinting in the darkness of my living room, trying to spy my mother on one of the arriving boats.

 image from sbs.com.au

Interestingly, when I told my mother she should be watching, her response was "What for?"

Rather than responding with "Umm, because you're in it?" - which I'm sure seems most logical, I instead told her that it might illuminate for her the plight of the asylum seekers and refugees - a topic we had been arguing about the week before. You see, my mum seems to think that fleeing a country devastated by war and arriving on Australian shores in the hope of a better future was alright 'in those days'. But now that she has been made a citizen and staked claim on this whole nation of 'ours' she feels the imaginary gates should be closed.

Yes, I will be buying her the DVD for her birthday.

While I'm thanking SBS I will reiterate my love for my favourite show, Rockwiz. Over summer we've been spoiled with Rockwiz Rewind - classic episodes introduced by the team. Brian Nankervis is one of my favourite people in the world. Not just the world of television - the world in general. He is such a warm, friendly, amicable fellow. He needs to be made an official National Treasure or some such thing. And Julia, oh Julia. If there is a sexier bundle of intelligence, spark and wit than Ms Julia Zemiro I've not seen it. All hail Rockwiz, may it - like rock'n'roll - never die.

Now to dear Aunty.

ABC News 24's coverage of the floods, fires and cyclone far surpassed any of the commercial station's attempts at quality reporting. Granted, channels Nine and Seven sometimes had better footage - but when you're willing to put your staff in dangerous situations even though the authorities have expressly advised against it - you're bound to get a better shot of rapidly-moving-brown-water than the broadcaster who respects its staff (and viewers) enough to keep them safe and informed and not pander to those wanting to see disaster-porn. 

~~ deep breath ~~

A very good job in very trying circumstances. Kudos to ABC News 24.

I got to watch the film Bran Nue Dae for the first time a few weeks ago. It was on ABC2 the same night that Ten aired its final Oprah special (followed by Baz Luhrmann's Australia- good grief).

I thank ABC2 for airing it that particular night. When my will to live had almost been sucked entirely dry and the strong urge to shove giant, West Australian pearls up the collective arses of the baying crowd at the Opera House was almost too much to bear - I was soothed by the catchy tunes and wise-cracking joy of Rachel Perkins' lovely little ditty. What a sweet, unassuming bundle of joy. 

Speaking of bundles of joy, Tony Jones returned with Q&A last Monday. Oh Tony, we missed you. - And you can take that as a comment. Monday nights haven't felt right without Australian Story, Four Corners, Jonathan Holmes on Media Watch and Q&A. It makes little difference to me what the stories are about or who the panelists are. They are all great programs. Entertaining and well executed. Hoorah for Monday nights.

Following from Monday, it seems once again that I have to cram my early-week playdates into Tuesday, because one night of freedom and I am locked in to ABC1 again. Hello Wednesday night.

Wednesday night has always been a crowd-pleaser on ABC. Some of Australia's best television has graced the schedule in recent years; Both Chris Lilley's We Can be Heroes and Summer Heights High, three series of the wonderful The Librarians, Lowdown, The Gruen Transfer, regular crowd-pleaser Spicks & Specks, and The Chaser's various incarnations.

Last week I was a bit worried about the fate of Wednesday nights. Who knew what we were in for with Adam Hills in Gordon St Tonight? Let alone the very high expectations that had been growing on social media sites for Marieke Hardy's brainchild Laid. I had decided to expect very little (particularly after the horror that was Ben Elton Live from Planet Earth) and was pleasantly surprised.

Adam Hills is a likeable fellow. He likes himself quite a bit too, a characteristic which in some people makes you want to beat them about the head with a blunt object, but with Hills, is quite forgiveable (for now, anyway). Episode one was slightly self-indulgent but as with most 'episode ones' the aim is to introduce characters and make everyone comfortable. I think Hills introduced himself and his new set very well (even though many viewers know him already from Spicks & Specks and his stand-up). The guests were great, Hannah Gadsby was great, the crowd was great, the jokes and segments were great and Hills made everything seem easy - which is so very hard to do. I liked. I hope I keep liking.

And finally Laid. I would have preferred to be tied to a pew at a Hillsong gathering where Kate Alexa Gudinski was performing Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time* than in Marieke Hardy's shoes last Wednesday night. The amount of pressure that was on her and her team to 'come up with the goods' had reached boiling point by 9:25pm. Not only had the ABC been promoting the show to within an inch of its life but social media had created a frenzy around it too. I was imagining Hardy with a cold compress on her forehead, (turns out she had undies on her forehead - jolly good show!) a port in her hand and fingernails chewed to little stubs of raw flesh.

Well, she needn't have worried - or rather, I needn't have worried for her. Laid set itself up very well. Again, it had the 'episode one' task of getting everything in place; introducing characters, plot devices and core relationships - and still managed to include some real laugh-out-loud moments - no easy task with all that other business going on. Episode ones can often disappoint for this very reason. But Laid didn't. Hoorah! And I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the series. Hoorah! And Abe Foresythe is a babe. Hoorah!

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

And so my love-fest comes to an end. Thank you ABC and SBS. I always had faith in you, but thank you for restoring my faith in us, and them.

Much love, M.

 

 

* Organised Religion irks me. Fake cheer irks me. Hillsong very much irks me. Kate Alexa is not a very good singer. Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time is bad. Any performance of it would be bad. I think it's safe to assume that these factors combined would make for a very unpleasant evening.

 

What did you think I would blog about?

Hello stranger!

You may have noticed I've been on a slight hiatus over here while I focussed on a few other projects. Well those are now DONE *jumps with joy*. I missed you, really.

So here I find myself footloose and fancy-free and what just happens to occur on my beloved Q&A?

Shoegate! What joy! what fun! A shoe-throwing incident at our own, civilised ABC!

Right, enough of the exclamation marks. If you missed it, former PM John Winston Howard had the Q&A panel to himself last night on the eve of his memoirs, Lazarus Rising being released. Besides speaking about himself in the third person, avoiding a question from David Hicks with a bout of nationalism and again reiterating the difference between being 'sorry' and showing 'regret' - Howard dodged a pair of shoes;

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has wished for Howard to suffer a blow to the head at one time or another (or at all times, particularly between 1996 and 2007), but I would have preferred if Mr Shoe-thrower kept his smelly sneakers on his feet.

It was only moments before the shoe throwing incident that I was getting annoyed at Howard's response to a video question from Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks. He avoided answering the question by stating what a wonderful democracy we have here in Australia where such a question can be posed. I thought he seemed smug - intimating that this freedom we all enjoy had something to do with him. Perhaps he should have utilised that freedom to actually answer some of the questions posed to him, but alas, it was the same old spin from days gone by - no wisdom in retrospect here. 

So what of the shoe-throwing? Whilst I do love a spectacle, it irked me. Firstly, the shoe incident is the only thing being talked about - not the reason behind it. The civilian deaths in the Iraq War are rarely reported, discussed or acknowledged in mainstream media. Let alone the high incidences of suicide and mental illness in the youth of Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

Shoe-man was justifiably angry, justifiably outraged, but by resorting to violence, his argument was reduced to a joke. Granted, he was seemingly already a joke; after his initial question a tweet was shown on-screen referring to him as a 'long haired freak' - which I thought was unnecessary. The #qanda Twitter stream was full of nasty comments about the man's appearance as what I would describe as Socialist Alternative Chic. So what would the reaction have been if the shoe-thrower had been a well-dressed, clean-cut, armani-wearing businessman? Or a kindly old lady with a blue-rinse and pashmina shawl? 

Looking like an unwashed hippie is a surefire way to not be taken seriously. Even worse, when people like him do stupid things in the name of us 'leftists' he makes us all look bad. I shower, I have clean hair and I am disgusted by Australia's involvement in the Iraq War. I am disgusted by John Howard, his memoirs, his 'legacy' and his continued ignorance and washing of hands over casualties suffered in the name of imaginary WMDs. 

Q&A is a fantastic program. There's nothing like it on Australian television. Yes, it is more entertaining when there is a bit of argy-bargy, but like Tony Jones, I was embarrassed by the shoe-throwing. I wanted today's reaction to the program to focus on Howard's cowardly responses to the questions of reconciliation, Weapons of Mass Destruction and David Hicks*. 

Instead, we're all talking about the 'long haired freak' and his stinky shoes. We're even hearing Howard's own favourite word being tossed around; unAustralian.

~ ~ ~

Finally, allow me some self-indulgence. Of all my Q&A tweeting over the past year, I finally had a stroke of genius with this little ditty;

Oh what fun to have my five minutes of tweety-fame! Unfortunately, I was too slow for a potential on-screen showing *sigh*, but still, it was fun to be trending for a moment or so.

* yes, I understand the irony that I too, am writing about the shoes    

The quandary of Q&A

The ABC are usually the first to jump on new technology. ABC Online is full of award-winning feature sites and exciting innovations. ABC2 and Dig music were the first of their kind in the move to digital media. The ABC's iPhone and iPad apps, ABC iView and ABC Now make the national broadcaster's content accessible almost anywhere, at almost any time, on almost any platform.  

Last year ABC Managing Director, Mark Scott, made a speech to the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association detailing his vision for ABC Online to become a digital “town square”. Scott described ABC Online as a place where audiences could speak and be heard, listen and learn. 

In 2002 the ABC tag-line changed from “It’s Your ABC” to “Everybody’s ABC” - a precursor to the development of a community-based ABC, where the audience is no longer a single entity watching or listening but a part of a wider group with a real opportunity to be involved.

The ABC's social media services can now be found on one page, with links to Facebook, newsletters, iView, YouTube and Twitter, amongst others.

But it's Twitter that I want to talk about today. Ahh, my beloved Twitter. There are many ABC folk on Twitter - as you can see from lists such as this one by Daniel Taylor (@Dt_downunder). 

The ABC's panel show Q&A is an interesting example of the national broadcaster being first to test the waters of new technology. For a while now the #qanda Twitter hashtag has come alive on Monday nights - with a vibrant community of smart, passionate, sometimes hilarious, sometimes ill-informed, sometimes idiotic but always engaged community of people commenting on the proceedings on-screen. 

I'm one of them. I watch Q&A on the TV with my laptop at the ready and my phone on stand-by. I love the interactive aspect of the show - some of the comments on Twitter are more intelligent than what the panelists have to say and often the Chaser boys and members of the Crikey team can be found making hilarious observations that are hurriedly re-tweeted.

At the beginning of the program, host Tony Jones advises us that we can stream the show online, ask questions via SMS or through the website, follow on Twitter or through the random selection of tweets shown on-screen. 

Why the tweets on-screen?

Presumably those interested in following the Twitter conversation are ... well ... following the Twitter conversation. For others I've spoken to, who aren't interested in Twitter (I know, they're crazy), the on-screen tweets are a distraction. And why select those tweets that do go on-air at random? Many of the tweets are irrelevant, inaccurate or pointless observations on what the panelists are wearing. Even worse, that unholiest of unholies, some of them have spelling or grammatical errors!*

Wouldn't it be better to show the most re-tweeted tweets? At least that would be giving the television audience an idea of what comments are popular in the twitter-verse. Or how about the top-tweeters; those people that comment most often with the hashtag (- could be just as pointless as random; just because someone speaks often, doesn't mean they have anything interesting to say). 

Yes, some of the tweets on-screen have been brilliant and it is a thrill to see one's "tweety-friends" get their comments up, I just wonder if it's necessary, and if so, if it can be better managed.

The ABC is again striving to be the first to use new technologies to innovate its content, but has it jumped on the bandwagon unnecessarily? It's nice to have so much ABC content on Twitter, both for news and for commentary, but maybe having a presence on Twitter is enough - and having the tweets on-screen is overkill.

There's also the point to be made, which I have made before, that just because someone has an opinion, doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be broadcast in the "town-square". One tweeter felt it necessary to point out that "young ladies shouldn't chew gum" after an audience member asked a question - and his idiotic comment was put on-screen.

So what do you think? Love it or hate it?       

* I may or may not be being a tad pedantic due to my underlying bitterness at not having my tweets put on-screen.

TV settles in for 2010

To be honest I didn't watch a whole lot of television over summer; the thought of accidentally switching over to the cricket or tennis made me break out in hives. So I took the opportunity to spend some time in the real world bitching about sports with my intellect-elitist friends over a glass of wine at various Fitzroyalty locations where "Hewitt" is a dirty word and tie-dye is well back in fashion.

Of course I can only fake 'cool' for so long so I'm back in my couch-groove watching whatever is on offer.

Here's my thoughts so far;


LOVING

Sleuth 101 (ABC1, Friday 8pm) - pure joy, and this week we have investigator Frank Woodley which should be a hoot.

Poh's Kitchen (ABC1, Wednesdays 6:30pm) - short, simple, good cooking and good conversation.

Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation (Ten, Sunday 7:30pm) - I think it's safe to say I'll watch Shaun Micallef read the newspaper. The only down-side to this great program is Charlie Pickering - sorry, but the more I see him, the more I dislike him - and unfortunately he's everywhere. 

Collectors (ABC1, Sunday 6:30pm) - seriously, what the hell is this brilliant show doing on a Sunday afternoon? Bad timeslot but thank heavens for iView. The new panel line-up is still getting comfortable but it's always well worth watching.

Heartbreak High (ABC3, [repeat] 8:30pm) - what's not to love? Teen angst, 90s fashion, racial tensions, pregnancies, affairs and ... oh yeah ... Alex Dimitriades, *swoon*.

 







LIKING

Hungry Beast (ABC1, Wednesday 9pm) - it's back, it's a bit tighter and smoother (obviously it's been using the Ab-Pro) and I am more than willing to spend half an hour watching it and supporting something that's a bit left-of-centre and that's nurturing young talent.

The White Room (Seven, Thursday 7:30pm) - well, I think 'liking' is a stronger word than I'd use, perhaps 'tolerating' is more appropriate. Either way, it has some great clips from old TV and I'll watch anything that features Man oh Man! I'm guessing it will be axed before it finds its feet, if it has any.

Q & A (ABC1, Monday 9:35pm) - hasn't quite hit its stride yet but we're only two episodes down and one featured only Kevin Rudd so that was hardly going to be edge-of-your-seat entertainment (- unless you like watching an awkward little man be thrown grammatically incorrect questions by Young Liberals who look like they're trapped in 1976) ... actually, that sounds a lot more fun than it actually was.


My Kitchen Rules (Seven, Mondays and Tuesdays 7:30pm) - the shock reveal of 5 new teams has made me lose interest a little bit but I'm definitely semi-watching the show for the time being (by "semi-watching" I mean watching it while I'm doing other things like talking on the phone about how glad I am the WA team were booted).

Good Game (ABC2, Monday 8:30pm) - I still miss "that other guy" but I'm a nerd, so I'll watch it.

Good News Week (Ten, Monday 8:30pm) - depending on the guests, this show is variably watchable. Unfortunately if Akmal Saleh is on I have to switch off, I've heard his joke one too many times. Either way though, Paul McDermott is devilishly handsome.


LOOKING FORWARD TO


Food Safari with Maeve O'Meara (SBS1, returns March 18) - Love Meave, love food, wish I had smell-o-vision.

Wilfred (SBS1, series 2 starts March 8) - One of the funniest Australian comedies. Wilfred is genius.


OBSERVATIONS

The Circle (Ten, weekdays 10am - midday) - as far as I can tell it's just David & Kim with 4 people instead of 2 (and without David or Kim). "Ding Dong" Denise and Chrissie Swan are great and the four women have a good rapport, unfortunately Yumi Stynes is almost unbearable - clearly she has been included to replace David Reyne's awkward comments (when cooking an Asian meal this morning she said she was getting more "slanty" by the minute, *cringe*).

The Biggest Loser (Ten, every five minutes as far as I can tell) - are people seriously still watching this? It's on at dinner time for heaven's sake.

Home & Away (Seven, weeknights at 7pm) - I've never been a fan of the show but I did switch over a few weeks ago to find an incident a la the Cronulla Riots taking place. There was a group of intoxicated youths wearing Australian flags setting fire to the Surf Club - with people of various ethnicities inside! Now that's topical.

Neighbours (Ten, weeknights at 6:30pm) - I haven't been watching Neighbours this year but from what I could piece together from the ads; Steph and Toadie are faking a relationship because Steph is pregnant to her best friend's husband who just happens to be the brother of the man Steph was dating AND caring for after he had a bike accident that left him unable to walk (-for a week or so). Good to see business as usual on Ramsay Street.

The 7pm Project (Ten, weeknights at 7pm) - it seems every time I flip over to this show lately there's a right-wing radio announcer on the panel - so I've stopped flipping over. I do, however, check the website every now and then to find James Matheson doing his thing - and it's usually hilarious.

I'm sure I've forgotten something - I'll edit as I remember.

Education Versus Child-Rearing

With all the bad press Tony Abbott has been getting lately following his comments on virginity and housework, he might just be rubbing his hands together with glee after an article in the SMH today by Nina Funnell has painted Kevin Rudd to be similarly misguided. 

Funnell tells the tale of a meeting with Rudd where, as she says, he admonished her for using a PhD as an excuse not to breed;

At that point one of my friends introduced me, dropping in that I am completing a PhD. At this, Rudd rolled his eyes and in a terse voice lacking any sense of irony remarked that is the "excuse" that "all" young women are using nowadays to avoid starting families.

Since I had such fun tearing through the Abbott faux-pas-double-shot I thought it only fair that I should bring up this article. Of course, it's not excactly the same situation; Abbott was speaking to reporters, to the nation and unfortunately, to the world. Everyone heard the words come out of his mouth and was resultantly shocked and/or horrified. In this case though, Funnell can only repeat what was said to her in a private conversation.

Yes, the Prime Minister has spoken about the aging population and the inevitable gap in skilled workers once the baby-boomers drop off the radar, but are the words Funnell is almost quoting something that the PM would really say? First of all, I don't think Rudd is capable of irony. His all-over-the-shop-inflections-but-otherwise-monotone pattern of speech mean that he has an air of smugness disabling any ability to jest. Also, there's the fact that he seems to hold higher education in high esteem if we are to believe not only his policies but his personal achievements.

But besides all this, he is hardly in a position to have any ill feelings about successful women - after all, his wife is far more successful than him in most capacities (entrepeneaur, business manager, income earner) - besides running the country of course ... though one does wonder.

The opposition will no doubt ride with this incident as evidence that Rudd shares the same cro-magnon opinion of women as Abbott but I would suggest that it's Rudd's ego that might have tripped him up in this situation. It's obvious that our PM has a rather high opinion of himself - after all, what kind of politician would he be without one? One would assume that when speaking to a young person - a member of Gen Y whom he is desperately trying win over after his Q&A trauma - he might attempt to jest - albeit badly.

Besides, there's a difference between supposedly making a sarcastic comment to one woman with the defense of economic stability and definitely making an ingnorant comment (or two) to the whole world with the defence of an imaginary friend that lives in the clouds.

The overall sentiment shared in the article however, is not lost on the readers. Nearly all of the commenters are in agreeance with Funnell that the pressure on women to have children is misplaced at best, and at worst, unrealistic. Her article makes a good point that it is difficult in today's economic environment to have an education, a career, a life and a child - all things that women in Australia are encouraged to pursue.

Over at The Punch, Carrie Miller has written a brave column titled Why I Hate Parents - That Means You which outlines the grievances of a woman not interested in pro-creation. It is sharp-tongued and to the point and in an interesting contrast has won her few supporters.

Whilst Funnell used her column to paint Rudd as equally archaic as Abbott and to assure the public that she may indeed have children in the future (but that the government should stick their noses out of her decision) Miller didn't hide behind a possible conversation with the PM, but rather expressed her feelings honestly.

As is the way in social commentary, it's easier to voice your opinion as an opposition, rather than simply give your opinion and wait for the public to voice their opposition. 

EDIT: Christopher Scanlon has written a rebuttal to the recent conversations in The Punch today adding some good points to the argument, however one in particular;

Nor does it follow that those with children are superior to those who choose not to. Clearly a full and fulfilling life can be had with or without children.  

- is I think exactly the issue that prompted Miller to write her column. Scanlon of course, has logic on his side, while Miller has a (mostly justified) bee in her bonnet.

Either way, the discourse will be an interesting one to follow over the coming weeks.

and another thing ...

Nine's digital channel GO! is airing the two Hey Hey it's Saturday specials back to back tonight (-some form of strange and unusual torture?) and I just switched over to find Daryl throwing to a break with a performance from New Zealand singer Ricky May with a song he wrote "especially for this program".

Now correct me if I'm wrong but that kind of insinuates that Ricky wrote the song for the reunion program ... except that Ricky died of a heart attack in 1988.

In the first special there was the awkward Maurie Fields moment (excerpt from previous post);

The "Great Aussie Joke" segment was a jaw-dropping affair. It seems the folk at channel 9 decided to bring Maurie Fields (who died in 1995) back from the dead without advising the viewers. It was an awkward moment of father/son joke telling with Maurie's son Marty sitting beside his father thanks to some fancy graphics. It might have actually been a good segment were it not for the fact that Maurie passed away so very long ago and many viewers nowadays (watching for the first time) would have no idea who he was.

Again Daryl has nonchalantly thrown to a dead person without mentioning he's deceased - and Ricky died years before Maurie so there's even less chance that the Facebook fanatics that rallied for the return of the program would be likely to know who he was.

Interestingly the controversial Red Faces performance was edited out of the replay. The twitterati weren't happy with their 'Aussie humour' being censored - they probably wanted to revel in their 'win' over those 'pc-pariahs' one more time. Public opinion has shown that a whole lot of Australians think the skit was completely acceptable - as Todd Sampson said on Q&A on Thursday;

I think we have stuffed our heads up our butts if we don't think racism is an issue in Australia (...) I've lived in four continents, I've lived in six different countries and I have to say, not everyone, because it would be a sweeping generalisation, but racism is definitely and firmly an issue in Australia.

Other notably horrific moments from the second Hey Hey program were;

• The young man who decided to get a tattoo of Plucka Duck on his chest. People tell you that you'll regret your tattoos when your older - I think it's safe to say this guy will be holding a hot iron to his chest within a few years.

• Darly Somers.

• Jo Beth Taylor's dress - or lack thereof. Did someone tell her that she would be sitting on a stool and not behind a desk? Thankfully it was on later in the evening so the Sharon Stone moment didn't breach any broadcasting laws.

• Daryl Somers.

• Jackie McDonalds plastic surgery and wig. What happened to ageing gracefully?

• Did I mention Daryl Somers?

I could only handle the second show in pieces so I missed a whole lot of it. I'm pretty sure Daryl mentioned that it was the last show EVER around seventeen hundred times. Will he be proved a liar?

Beauty and the Geek

Hmm, what can one say about channel 7's Beauty and the Geek? Let's see, there are some vacuous beauties that have more interest in the Women's Suffrage Movement than they have brain cells (i.e. none) and a bunch of horny post-grad boys with their hands firmly in their pockets.

It's introduced as a 'wacky social expiriment' but those of us more discerning folk might more accurately assess it as an excuse for commercial television to objectify women and make fun of unnatractive men. Cynical? Me? Never.

Here's the thing though; the 'beauties' are begging to be objectified (you can just see the girls arguing in the limo about which one will be offered the most money to do an FHM spread once booted off the show) and if the 'geeks' were truly intelligent they would have run from the house screaming on day one. For the record, a photographic memory does not an intellect make.

For one whole hour the hot girls say stupid things and the awkward boys tell them how brilliant they are. The only benefit I can see of this program is that all those computer-loving, nerdish lads across Australia that are too shy to talk to the ladies will realise that all they need do to get to third base with girls like these is tell them their fluorescent orange fake-tan looks really natural. (Hot tip lads - you heard it here.)

Maybe parents can watch it with their children in an attempt to scare them in to higher education - my particular favourite was one beauty's self-assessment as an "11 out of 10" in the looks department - even without her makeup! She definitely has a 10 out of 10 body, but that accurately leaves just 1 for her face.

Meow!

A girlfriend of mine recently told me (quite rightly) that it's terrible how we women pick each other apart and perpetuate the evaluation of a woman's worth as relative to her appearance - but so far these women have offered no other redeeming features as criteria for an assessment.

I would love to be proved wrong. Unfortunately I'm not certain I could sit through another episode.

After 60 minutes of idiotic giggling and declarations of love to strangers ("Awwww, I love you's guys so much! I don't want ANYone to leave!") I was so dissapointed in my own sex it was a relief to switch over to the ABC and Germaine Greer on Q&A.

Questions Answered and Then Some

Tonights Q&A on ABC was an edge-of-the-seat thriller. British author, journalist, literary critic and political observer Christopher Hitchens was a force to be reckoned with as he shot down in flames both his fellow panelists and those audience members that dared to question his commentary.

It's not often that the very intelligent and quick-witted Waleed Aly comes out second best in a debate but Hitchens was hard to beat tonight on topics such as the Israel/Palestine conflict, same-sex marriage and the treatment of women in Iran.

The video should be on the website soon, so if you missed it tonight, you can take a look at some really fresh, thought-provoking and exciting television - no Plucka Duck in sight, I promise.

(And look out next week for more sparks from Germaine Greer.)


* there is also a brilliant little Political Dictionary page on the Q&A site which is definitely good for a giggle.