You'd think 50 years worth of showbiz experience would be enough to ensure your relatively simple name was correctly spelled by journalistic types online, but if you're Bert Newton - you'd be wrong.

Poor ol' Burt :(

Possibly a rather ominous opening sentence to kick off this article from the weekend which ponders the contenders for ARIA award nominations this year.

James Packer's wife Erica Baxter, actor Toni Collette and the late Belinda Emmett are all in the running for an ARIA award nomination this year.

Of course, we haven't heard the full length albums produced by any of the above mentioned ladies, so far be it from us to assume they won't be startling and passionate works of art which will stand the test of time. Has anyone else? Reviews welcome.

OMG, y'all! Those charming brothers from New Zealand, the tousle-haired lads that are Evermore, are promising big things with their new work!

"It's a bit more rhythmic and, how can I say, almost so dance influenced, some of it. It's different lyrically, almost political, some of it. At the moment we're being very experimental. We're at the early stages of making the album so we're putting all the ideas out there and seeing what [happens]."

Rhythmically dance influenced almost political experimental music is our favourite genre! Check our MySpazz if you don't believe us!

Jon Hume adds more.

He said Evermore wanted to address serious issues, most likely focusing on poverty and injustice in Africa, but in a different kind of way.

Rhythmically dance influenced almost political experimental music about serious issues sounds like it'll be just the ticket. We're pre-ordering our copy of the album now. Also, do you think Idol's Daniel Misfud has been influenced at all by the Evermore lads boundary-pushing use of scarves over the past few years?

PS: We really, really liked It's Too Late and we're not afraid to admit it.

PPS: We know someone who toured with them and alluded to the fellows - well, one of them at the very least - being dirty little buggers. But nice. So that's something, isn't it?

From Contact Music -

Actor Owen Wilson was rushed to hospital in Los Angeles on Sunday (26Aug07), according to reports. The 38-year-old star was taken by ambulance from his home in Santa Monica to the emergency room at L.A's St. John's Hospital at midday. The National Enquirer and Star magazine are reporting that Wilson tried to kill himself. Sources tell the magazines he cut his wrists and took a number of pills - and was discovered by a family member, who alerted authorities.

We're sure our Defamer counterparts in the States will have more on the developing story which we will, of course, publish here as soon as they're good to go. Frankly, there's no joke we can tack onto the end of this which'd be remotely funny, so we're just gonna send some warm thoughts toward the general direction of L.A for now.

Former star of SBS program The Movie Show (and personal foe of Zach Braff) Margaret Pomeranz has written an article for today's Crikey mailout in which she displays both support for newsreader Mary Kostakidis, as well as contempt for the current management of SBS.

Here's a brief excerpt to whet your tastebuds.

The recent acrimonious departure of Mary Kostakidis is the last in the long line of defections and ejections from SBS under the current management. The organization has been stripped of just about anyone who had any connection to an SBS where an ethos of commitment pervaded the organization. There has been a cultural genocide at the place.

...

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, that dollar will ultimately shape programming. The antics of Paris Hilton are well-covered on the commercial broadcasters, what is the justification for including a story about her at the top end of the SBS news? Did anyone mention dumbing-down?

You could perhaps justify the changes if they proved more relevant to more Australians. But the reverse has been the case. SBS news was respected, valued and watched. In its new, more commercial incarnation it is actually less watched. It's sad to see the demise of this flagship of SBS as the ratings plummeted with the new format. A format very much like Channel 9. Or 7. Or 10.

Touche.

Meanwhile, smh.com.au has Paul Sheehan declaring that SBS is "an indulgence we don't need", stating, amongst other things -

the problems facing SBS, in particular, are bigger than any personality or any management policy. The problem is structural. The real question facing the Federal Government, and the overwhelming majority of taxpayers who pay for SBS but rarely watch it, is whether SBS should continue to exist at all.

I think it should go. Because SBS is more valuable dead than alive.

The Special Broadcasting Service Act should be repealed, the corporation dismantled and sold and its valuable broadcasting spectrum auctioned off. SBS has outlived its charter, and the charter has always been of dubious social utility. (I quote, in part: "As far as practicable, inform, educate and entertain Australians in their preferred languages.")

Australia has moved on. The term "ethnic" is now laughably outdated. Technology has been transformed.

Ooer. Personally, this has been the most interesting SBS has ever been in our eyes, excluding the period when it had the show Life Support, and the night we stumbled across Inspector Rex for the first time.

The latest Galaxy poll has re-confirmed what most sane Australians thought when details of Kevin Rudd's having visited a strip club magically appeared in the press last week: who gives a shit?

The Labor Party now leads the Government by an extraordinary 14 points on a two-party preferred vote in the latest Herald Sun/Galaxy poll - a result that would see a landslide ALP win if repeated at the coming election.

Instead of damaging Mr Rudd's standing, revelations of a visit to the strip club appear to have helped him, with 85 per cent of voters polled saying it showed he was "a normal bloke".

A third said he was unlucky to be caught out. Just 10 per cent said it showed poor morals - and opinion was almost universal with male and female voters taking a similar view.

In further "well duh" news, voters are well over continued rates rises, see Costello's $17 billion budget surplus as being the result of excessive taxing rather than good economic management, think John Howard is out of touch and old, prefer Coke over Pepsi and would like to see Bec Hewitt return to Summer Bay.

Following Graham Kennedy's death in 2005, Derryn Hinch's allegations that Kennedy died of an AIDS-related illness, and the filming of the 'explosive' biopic, The King, one person who has remained conspicuously quiet on the topic has been Kennedy's friend and former collaborator, Bert Newton.

However, in an interview that will air on A Current Affair this evening (prior to the network premiere of The King), Newton airs his thoughts on everything, including Kennedy's sexuality, and explains his two-year silence on the matter.

"I think the reason I didn't say a hell of a lot was it became a cesspool at one stage which I thought was disgraceful given the manner in which he died," Newton told Grimshaw.

...

The movie, which has already aired on Foxtel, drew criticism from Kennedy's closest friends Noeline Brown and Tony Sattler because they felt it focused on his sexuality rather than his success.

Not having caught The King when it first aired on Foxtel, we will be tuning in to make up our own minds, once we have luxuriated in front of Moonface's God-like glow (while Derryn Hinch sits at home picking coal fragments out of last year's Christmas stocking/pulling the wings off flies/burning ants with a magnifying glass, and so forth).

Remember Erin "McNaughty" McNaught, Australia's ill-fated 2006 Miss Universe hopeful who was publicly supported by Donald Trump when topless photos (always a Miss Universe no-no) surfaced, only to be summarily voted out of contention before the finals?

Well, in "slow news day" news, McNaughty has taken time out from her extremely busy schedule to add another LINE to her ROD and REELED IN a winner: appearing in a promotional DVD stuck to the cover of this month's Modern Fishing magazine!

The promotional video sees "Estuary Erin", as her friends call her, wet a line with Sydney model Dan Trotter and his fishing mate Dan Burgess on a recent boating adventure near Coffs Harbour.

The fisherwoman surprised her hosts with her knowledge of tackle - not the type used by her footy boyfriend Braith Anasta.

Not much we can add to that, really, other than "Boom, boom!"

James Kannis, the Australian Idol '05 reject who recently completed a metamorphosis from Eric Clapton-singing Mum's boy into a smouldering R&B grump (and who, surprisingly, actually had a really good song in last year's Love 2 Love, has felt the vicious bite of... MySpace!

Kannis has explained that two female admirers - "two fans I thought were nice girls, but are obviously crazies", in his words - have been posing as his cousin and fiancé.

The two fans, one a Sydney schoolgirl, had been bragging about the identity fraud to friends on MySpace.

Kannis contacted Confidential to clear up the claims, after being inundated by family about the wedding plans.

"My phone's been running off the hook with family and friends asking me when was I going to tell them about my engagement," the bachelor said. "The idea I wanted attention for the relationship was even weirder."

At least poor James was honest enough to say that he was "inundated" by family expecting a big fat Greek wedding, and not the press, who strangely hadn't reported his impending nuptials until he set the record straight.

If you have been following the most recent misadventures of Amy "My Drug Hell" Winehouse, you'll have noticed that not only has she entered, and left, and entered, and left rehab numerous times, but she's also still getting stuck into just about anything you can take, drink, snort or inject (and still wearing those really ugly ballet slippers, bitch plz).

All well and Pete Doherty-esque, but it now appears that Winehouse may have been refusing to enter a rehabilitation program due to her husband Blake Fielder-Civil's threats of death - his own.

A source close to the pair said: "After the fight her family thought they had finally got through to her. But then she said she couldn't go to rehab because Blake said he'd kill himself if he was left alone."

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Sydneysiders are crying into their soy-chai-lattes today after it was announced that supermodel Gisele Bundchen (please enjoy photo above; "Stars: They Take Bad Transitional-Expression Shots Just Like Us") would not be visiting their stinky fair city.

Bundchen will be in town in October to personally launch her range of peculiarly chunky sandals and thongs, Gisele Bundchen Ipanema Collection (which, incidentally, are considered the cheaper alternative to the infamous Havaianas in her native Brazil, but will no doubt be hyped up here to no end), but has "shaved" Sydney from her itinerary.

The news is set to disappoint the leggy stunner's local fans and has left publicists handling her trip scrambling to re-schedule the entire tour to be centred around Melbourne.

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