Funnily enough, considering the year Amy Winehouse has had, we were pegging our bets on her third album being full of happy-go-lucky Joss Stone-esque sunshine pop choons with animated video clips featuring singing birds and bunnies, and guest spots by Franciscus Henri and other FUN people.

However, it seems we were wrong:

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You know, on the topic of humanity's slow and steady downfall, most people would point to things like overpopulation, recession, rising rates of arcane sexually-transmitted diseases, the brain drain, or maybe the fact that the Third World is still hungry and sick with illnesses that should've been magicked away years ago.

We here at Defamer Australia, however, believe the evidence will be found here:

Given the unstoppable rise of text language, it was only a matter of time before children's names went the way of traditional English.

Sure enough, text-style versions have begun to appear on birth certificates. Anne has been changed to An, Connor to Conna and Laura to Lora. Six boys were named Cam'ron instead of Cameron. According to the online parenting club Bounty, one girl born last month was named Flicity. And there are numerous young chaps named Samiul.

Last year, a couple were told they would not be allowed to register their son's name as 4Real.

Officials in New Zealand ruled that the use of a number made it inappropriate, so Pat and Sheena Wheaton had to opt for their second choice - Superman.

"Conna"? "An"? "FLICITY"?!

Please, if there is a God, could s/he start instigating some sort of anti-dickhead gene, so that as soon as a human being thinks, "You know what? These yellow sunglasses are the bomb shit, let's have a party!" or "Hey, girlfriend, could you have a close look at this broken wine glass for me?", they explode into a fine, bloody mist.

If not god, then Michael Bay. Which is near enough.

Once we'd recovered from hearing that the So You Think You Can Dance Australia kids were happy to shag anything with a pulse, and then suffered the indignity of having respected choreographers calling their high-stepping "hideous", we kind of forgot about the show. Its momentum wasn't exactly captivating and we'd begun to realise that there was about as much personality in its combined cast as there is in fat-free granola.

So, along those lines, comes the scintillating news that Melbournites Rhys and Demi took a well-earned break this week just past. And, er, that's it:

They both let off steam at their favourite nightspots.

Rhys Bobridge dropped into Prahran's the Market, where he works as a drag queen, while Demi Sorono visited South Melbourne club Seven and tried a few of her moves.

"I wasn't up on a podium or anything but I busted out a few freestyle moves and I got a bit of a circle around me watching," she said. "It was pretty cool."

Bobridge also caught up with his boyfriend and said it was hard saying goodbye again and returning to the high pressure of being in the final 10.

Uh oh! Did you read that, sexuality-blind girls and excitable boys everywhere? Rhys is TAKEN!!

There goes whatever tenuous reason most people were using to watch the show. Now they'll have to, like, actually dance well and entertain the viewers, shock horror!

There we were, frantically scouring the internet for cheap airfares to Europe in May in the vain hope we'd find some way to crash the engagement celebrations of an Australian pop icon, when we discover that - shock, horror! - the "Kylie Is Getting Engaged On A Very Specific Date, Trust Us!" tale from last week was utter rubbish. We feel shocked betrayed.

Media outlets in the Czech Republic have been speculating the Spinning Around hitmaker will announce the news at a concert in Prague on 12 May (08) - because she asked for an "unusually high" number of tickets for family and friends. However, concert organiser Jarda Hainzel insists she has been misquoted.

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We're sorry, Paul Mac. We made some appalling jokes about you doing thoroughly sinful things to Daniel Johns' bot bot, and for that we're sorry. We absolutely believe you when you say you had nothing to do with Daniel's split from wife Natalie Imbruglia, and we're self-flagellating as we type. Oww! OWWW!

Musician Paul Mac has revealed the distress caused by false rumours about Daniel Johns's sexuality, after the singer's break-up from Natalie Imbruglia.

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Because we're nothing if not connected and hip to the modern idiom here at Defamer Australia, from now on each week we plan to bring you the latest moves and shakes from the pointy end of the ARIA Singles Chart, so you can, dunno, talk about it on your lunchbreak, or decide what to spend your hard-earned pocket money on to help up the charts.

So here you are, the ARIA Singles Chart's official Top Fifteen for the week beginning 31st March, 2008!

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Given that she rocks tiaras and diamond knuckledusters like nobody's business, flies private jets and has more houses than Oprah, we were quite touched to see that Queen Elizabeth II has decided to cancel her diamond wedding anniversary celebrations as she thought it would be a bit crass considering the rest of Britain is teetering on the brink of recession.

Yes, despite that inscrutable smile and wave combination, and whatever the thinly-veiled truths of The Queen suggested, it appears Liz isn't totally out of touch with her people after all.

Guests at the party, which was due to be held at The Ritz this weekend, would have been served champagne from crystal-studded bottles and dined off tablecloths covered with sparkling jewels.

But with her subjects facing rising bills and falling house prices, and the banking system paralysed by the so-called "credit crunch", the Queen has decided that the celebration would be regarded as insensitive.

Her highlighting of the dire state of the economy will not be welcomed by the Prime Minister, who faces daily reminders from his advisers that the electorate has lost the "feel-good" factor – and is punishing him for it in the opinion polls.

The Queen had been due to mark the 60th anniversary of her marriage to the Duke of Edinburgh in the company of her children and 60 close friends.

We were especially taken by the quote later in the piece, from a "close friend" (we love that the Queen has "close friends"; it's easy to forget that under all the mink and ermine she is still, at least to some degree, a nanna), stating that "The Queen always puts her jollifications after everything else has been considered." We love it!

Try using it in a sentence today: We had quite a few "jollifications" this weekend just past, and are paying for it now.

It's shaping up to be a red letter year for Australia's favourite emergency toilet paper substitute women's magazine, New Idea.

First they blew Prince Harry's cover in Afghanistan, then they claimed they had no idea (ho ho) that there was an embargo on the Prince's service (which suggested it was possible New Idea had contacted neither the Army nor the Palace to confirm or deny their leads), then they put Wayne Carey on the cover amid a storm of criticism that by paying him a rumoured $180,000, they were in essence supporting violence against women.

Well, said criticism has reached fever pitch as it is beginning to emerge that New Idea's advertisers are pulling lucrative contracts left, right and centre so as not to be seen to be 'supporting' Carey's alleged assault of girlfriend Kate Neilson by way of providing, in essence, the money the magazine - allegedly - used to lure the Fallen AFL Superstar™ to spill his guts.

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You may remember hearing about how 30 Rock genius Tina Fey described Paris Hilton as a "piece of shit" during an appearance on Howard Stern's radio show.

Now you can watch grainy footage of it! Magic! The internet rules! Etc!

The big news this morning (well, if you are an idiot with limited interest in actual world affairs) is that Heath Ledger's uncle, Haydn Ledger is telling media Heath may have fathered a child when he just a wee slip of a lad.

The late Australian actor's uncle Haydn Ledger says Heath had a brief affair when he was a 17-year-old schoolboy.

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