Old-timer Big Brother fans would've been thrilled to see the nation's favourite hairdresser and fan of "intimate wash" pop up on Australian Idol the other night. However, the pint-sized firecracker was not there to sing, but to support her boyfriend Sebastian Pluchinotta - and what happened next was typical of the show's increasingly dodgy "direction". To wit, Dicko and Kyle were not satisfied that Pluchinotta was straight, and made him sing his chosen song directly to Vesna's face; Dicko then mock-stormed out, evidently in protest of the massive amounts of gaydar his antennae were picking up (I picked up roughly 5% gaydar, and that was from the loving looks Dicko and Kyle were giving each other). Pluchinotta did not get through. Unsurprisingly, Vesna is pissed, and is letting everyone know about it.

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So we're now two days into 2008's edition of Australian Idol and already I'm reaching saturation point. Is slamming us with six solid nights of auditions a good way to begin a season? Jump over the, er, jump and we can discuss last night's effort.

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So, Australian Idol has begun - they couldn't even wait until after the Olympics closing ceremony, such was the enthusiasm of another year of hopefuls - and was it everything the incredible, Jacksons-aping, James Spargo-highlighting promos made it out to be? Let's hold hands and go over the jump to discuss Idol's opening salvo.

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When I first heard Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban had called up Kyle and Jackie O to give them the lowdown on little Sunday Rose, I thought "Wow, that's a weird combination - do Nic and Keith really sit and listen to those 2Day FM idiots when they're in town?"

And you know what I learned from listening to Kyle and Jackie O's exclusive interview with the loved up pair?

Firstly, I learned that Nicole is happy to admit on air that she and Keith listen to the show every morning. Unexpected!

Secondly, I learned that listening to Kyle and Jackie O doesn't make me as violent as it used to years ago. Have they improved or am I just more tolerant these days? WHY AM I NOT HATING KYLE SANDILANDS LIKE I USED WHEN LIFE MADE SENSE?! This feels just like that time Perez Hilton made me laugh out loud.

Anyway, it's a pretty good interview with both Nicole and Keith, and I am as surprised as you are to be saying that. Be sure to listen out for the bit where Kyle tells Keith he was going to send them a pony as a gift following Sunday's birth but was informed by Keith's people that there were "no facilities" on Keith's ranch in Nashville for such a present.

In a rather sweet moment, you can hear Keith pull the phone away and giggle to Nic "They were going to send us a pony, baby!" and Nicole laughs heartily in response.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Also: Sunday Rose is a confirmed ginger. Sorry, ranga!

Now you can kill me for having enjoyed a Kyle and Jackie O segment. Thank you.

Remember "the frigid game"? That stupid primary school gag where a boy (usually) would drag his finger down a girl's body until she could take no more, upon which said boy would run around hooting, "Frigid! Frigid!" No, you're right, most human adults left that one behind in about Grade Four - but not our Kyle Sandilands, who tried to spring the game on 2Day FM guest Jennifer Hawkins. Here's the transcript:

Jennifer: I was pretty frigid at school, I didn't kiss a guy till Year Nine.

Jackie: Do you want to play it?

Jennifer: I don't know!

Jackie: A guy will start at your forehead with his finger and will go down your nose and down, down, down till you pull out when you want to.

Jennifer: I can't do that! I would be frigid!

Kyle: Everyone always says you can pull out when you want to but when you've started, you've started.

Jackie: Is this harassment, are we harassing our guest?

Jennifer: You're sexually harassing me!

Kyle: We didn't really explain it to Jackie, it took her a while to realise she was being violated on the radio. It doesn't mean you aren't a decent person, Jackie's just a bit more slutty than you.

Wow, sexually harassing the guests and your co-host? It's the Kyle Sandilands way! Just think, this is the sort of hi-jinks that "King Kyle" bride-to-be Tamara Jaber gets to look forward to at the end of every day. FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE, UNTIL DEATH DO THEY PART.

Behind Big Brother announced it, the news outlets are running with the story, and we just received an insider email from a Big Brother connection confirming it as true - Big Brother has been cancelled by Channel Ten.

Were radio duo turned television hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O the kiss of death for the Big Brother franchise, or was the loss of Gretel Killeen more to blame? Did the downhill slide kick off after the debacle that was Turkeyslapgate? Or was it over and out for the Gold Coast based reality extravaganza when Lefty Tim was robbed by the Logans during the 2005 finale (no, I'm still not over it)?

Who knows. All we can be sure of is that the last few years of the program have felt like producers were going through the motions, and audiences were slowly but surely finding better things to do than stay in and watch sun-loving bogans party pashing in the spa and talking rather ignorantly about world affairs.

The show's ratings have been poor since radio jocks Kyle and Jackie O replaced previous host Gretel Killeen as the faces of this year's series.

Big Brother was even beaten in the ratings by Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan's Budget speech in May.

Ratings bounced back to more than 1.4 million this week with the appearance on Wednesday of former Playboy Bunny Pamela Anderson.

Look, Pamela's appearance on the show absolutely worked for me - she was great, charming, and funny - but it wasn't ever going to be enough to redeem the show in the eyes of the viewing public.

Rumours that the show will return in 2010 may thrill some fans (and chill the blood of Big Brother haters...) but whether a year's break will be enough to reinvigorate the program remains to be seen. That said, a hiatus was something I suggested earlier this month - relax, kittens, I'm not egotistical enough to think my daft memo to Big Brother producers was influential in any way - so fingers crossed my other suggestion (Charlotte Dawson as host! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!) is taken on board as well.

I suppose the big question is - how on earth are Channel Ten going to fill their schedule between April and July next year? M*A*S*H re-runs? They'd better not invest in local drama, or I may very well pass out in shock. I suggest buying up as many cheap reality shows featuring Jillian Michaels as you can get your paws on, dudes.

Vale, Big Brother. We knew you all too well.

Things that would have been better than making the housemates think there has been a spy amongst them from the beginning.

i) Actually putting a spy in there from the beginning.
ii) Putting an eel in the spa.
iii) Cutting off Rory's dreadlocks.

Also, after watching Australia's Next Top Model finale last night, I'm convinced you need to give the show a rest next year, and then come back in 2010 with one decent host, not two bumbling idiots whose career success continually provides the public with irrefutable proof there is no god. May I suggest...

MIKE GOLDMAN?

NO!

Charlotte Dawson. She has a sense of authority, the ability to talk to the viewer without her eye twitching, and she's just A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER THAN KYLE AND JACKIE O.

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.

After the fizzer that was 2007's effort, this latest season of Australian Idol is already having "isshews" - and it's not even on the air yet!

After much fanfare regarding the show's overseas auditions for expat Australians, the Los Angeles round has already been cancelled. The excuse they're using is Kyle Sandilands' busy schedule; is that what they're calling "no one turned up" these days...

The United States auditions were due to be held on Sunday with Sandilands presiding over the judging.

Just hours after Tina Arena and Darren Hayes were announced as guest judges to scope the talent at the show's London auditions, an Australian Idol spokesman said Sandilands' conflicting schedule had caused the endeavour to be scrapped.

Production being stretched for its London auditions was another big factor, the spokesman added.

"London has been massive for us and we've had an overwhelming response to London," he said.

"Kyle's timetable was a factor of us not being able to do all our commitments as well."

We shouldn't be too quick to judge Idol '08, however; the article goes on to reassure us all that audition numbers were up 30% this year... in Newcastle.

We're not going to start holding our breath just yet.

In a shocking revelation sure to get pint-sized host (and Gold Logie nominee)de Rove McManus slipping on a lucky throat-punching glove of his very own, radio host Kyle Sandilands confessed on air yesterday that he loathes McManus with a furious passion.

So what exactly happened?

Sandilands attacked McManus after the TV host called in to discuss his seventh consecutive Gold Logie nomination. The pair played nice for most of the interview and Sandilands even signed off by saying: "Thanks mate, nice to talk to you."

But then, as things drummed up for extra publicity tend to do, it all took a turn for the vicious...

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