While I can't speak for my beloved Defamer Australia Editor, one of the main reasons I stopped watching Big Brother (or, perhaps more accurately, one of the only reasons I watched it for as long as I did) was because of the presence of the wondrous Gretel Killeen.

And since she's been so "under the radar" that she was more or less off it for the past few months, I'm glad Mix 106.5FM's Todd McKenney and Sonia "Tina Sparkle" Kruger have thought to ask her how she feels about the show grinding forward in her absence:

"I think it's much better not to have seen it," she said.

"I wouldn't want to say its time has come or gone because it's not fair to the people who are doing it.

I think people can sometimes exaggerate where the ratings are."

Killeen also said she did not regret leaving the show, saying she was "ready to go".

"I was ready to go, I'd done it for seven years," she said.

Right, well, that settles it, doesn't it? Hopefully Gretel will return her hand to writing young adult fiction; My Life Is A Toilet remains one of the funniest books I have ever read, and its narrator Fleur's description of a bloke as being "about as sexy as a soap with a pubic hair stuck on it" could well stretch to describe replacement host Kyle Sandilands.

It must be interesting to be a celebrity and then read the tabloid and gossip magazine's stories to check up on what (or who) you are apparently doing in your spare time.

And while I wouldn't exactly call Jake Wall a celebrity (unless you count that ice skating show that no one can remember the right name of - Skating On Thin Ice? Skating With The Stars? Torvill & Dean Need A New Holiday House??), I suspect this is one of those situations:

The Sunday Telegraph had suggested a man believed to be Hawko's fella was seen locking lips with 19-year-old socialite Ali Langworthy at Trademark and Ivy, but the far-fetched rumours hit the Wall fast.

"Jake's been to both those bars once, and each time with Jen," the couple's agent Sean Anderson told Confidential yesterday.

"Jake, Jen and I have never heard of this girl. We have no idea who she is."

Excellent work, Confidential!

Either this is the greatest moment in everyone's favourite gossip column's history of "journalism", or J-Hawk and J-Wall have actually been grooming some pretty young thing for a bit of threesome action and don't want to let on - and though as much as I want the latter option to be true, I suspect the former will be the winner in this deathmatch.

You may have read over the weekend of the NRL Footy Show "making fun of" a security guard, Greg Stacey, who they deemed to be "blind [drunk]" when he in fact suffers from benign epilepsy (which can cause slurred speech and is often aggravated in times of stress, such as dealing with knobjockeys from odious Channel Nine televisual circle jerks).

Now Channel Nine will be even more pleased with its sporting charges after 2GB presenter Ray Hadley revealed that the show's producers send their "Street Talk" cameras to deliberately target the disadvantaged, disabled and impaired.

Did we really expect anything less (sorry, more) from them?

While Stacey is considering legal action against the network, Hadley alleged on air yesterday that former Channel 9 head of sport Gary Burns, who has since returned to Nine to pilot the ailing show, would often send his "Street Talk" staff on to the streets in search of "nuffies".

Nine yesterday rejected the claims.

If true, the allegations question the genuineness of the apology made to Stacey.

"Those were his words, 'Where's the nuffies?'," 2GB presenter Hadley told The Daily Telegraph.

"Their favourite haunt was the old Church St mall at Parramatta (NSW) and (former producer) Glenn Pallister would be sent along with whoever was doing it and Burns used to say, 'Get the nuffies'.

"I did it once and said I'm never doing it again.

"They would search around for homeless people, derelicts, alcoholics, people who look different.

"The Melbourne Footy Show would do the same thing with Sam Newman."

It's not hard to believe - when was the last time you saw Sam Newman doing a vox pop with someone that didn't involve Sam making wacky "can you believe this guy?" expressions and asides to the camera while the object of his ridicule chats away unawares?

Briefly in the "professional douche" department...

Paul "Exclusive" Burrell - aka Lady Diana's butler - has surprised everyone by pushing the limits of reality and "exclusively" telling The News Of The World (what, you were expecting The Guardian or The Times?), albeit via his brother-in-law Ron Cosgrove, that he and Diana used to be, that's right, "exclusively" at it like rabbits.

Great mental picture for your morning tea break, isn't it?

Exclusively!

The 61-year-old furniture dealer said Burrell met him at a Cheshire pub in 1993 and told him that he had been having a sexual relationship with Diana.

"He said they did it in the bedroom, the bath, everywhere," Cosgrove told The News of the World.

"He claimed Diana liked to be domineering.

"Paul told me that he'd get a call from Diana in the middle of the night specifically to have sex with her. He said she was very sexually demanding - 'a bit ****ing kinky' were his words - and if you worked for the princess you worked for her 24/7.

"I told him if it was true I was disgusted with him because he was married to my sister and cheating on her with another woman.

"But he didn't see that as a problem. He just replied, 'Yes, but it IS the princess.' I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe what he was telling me."

Cosgrove said Burrell had also claimed to have seen the Queen naked after chasing a royal corgi into her bedroom at Buckingham Palace.

So if Burrell told him all this in 1993 - for those of you keeping score at home, that's FIFTEEN YEARS AGO - how come he's only just remembered it all? Does Burrell have a new book coming out? Are times a bit tight at the Cosgrove manse?

Right around the time he was crowned the most recent Cleo Bachelor Of The Year, MTV Australia dude Jason Dundas had just suffered the indignity of having free-spirited whale lover Isabel Lucas slip through his fingers and into Adrian Grenier's 5000-thread-count organic hemp sheets.

As though that wasn't bad enough, now the poor sod's sometime girlfriend, model and INXS spawn April Rose Pengilly, is out the door and being seen about town with Australia's Next Top Model "mentor", Jonathon Pease (that's them in the pic; incidentally, does anyone else feel vaguely queasy about that?), leaving Dundas very much a Bachelor through and through.

Just a week after Dundas and Pengilly's romance was splashed over the pages of Who magazine, the daughter of INXS guitarist Kirk yesterday confirmed her new romance with Australia's Next Top Model mentor Jonathan Pease.

After being busted by a Confidential spy snogging across the table at Establishment restaurant Sushi E last week, Pengilly and Pease were snapped out together as they attended the Sydney Film Festival premiere of In Bruges at the State Theatre on Saturday night.

The couple then kicked on with friends including Channel 7 weathergirl Sara Groen at Kings Cross haunt Piano Bar before leaving hand in hand about 1.30am.

Poor Jason; given that in previous years the Cleo Bachelor hasn't actually been, you know, a bachelor (step right up, Mr Andrew "Long Term Long Distance Love Affair" G and Mr Andy "Megan Gale" Lee), he must've been hoping the crown would just be his reliable poon tang safety net, not a life sentence.

Is Anna Coren some sort of Ashton Kutcher-esque plant for the celebreality-tinged series return of Frontline? Because she's starting to give Mike Moore a run for his money in the 'braindead current affairs host' stakes.

Remember how Mercedes Corby successfully sued Channel Seven for defamation a week or so ago, with the details of the settlement between Seven and Corby kept under wraps but forbidding anyone involved in the case from discussing the trial or outcome publicly?

Enter stage left, Anna Coren!

Coren was forbidden from discussing the case - as was everyone else involved - under terms of the top-secret settlement. She was also silenced by a settlement with Corby's mother Roseleigh Rose late on Thursday.

Mercedes successfully sued after Today Tonight aired claims from her ex-friend Jodie Power that she and her family - particularly her mother - were drug dealers and smugglers.

But Coren lasted less than two weeks on the vow of silence, telling ABC Radio host Spencer Howson on Wednesday: "Even though we did lose the defamation case we certainly stand by our story, without doubt."

She added: "We stand by Jodie Power and her allegations and in the court of public opinion we certainly still have people's support."

Needless to say, word is that Corby and her legal counsel are considering suing Seven again.

It's getting to the point where Today Tonight might as well change their intro music to the Benny Hill theme, such are the borderline pathological levels of idiocy that emanate from the show. Channel Nine must be delighted!