Did you know The Age was celebrating a centenary of photojournalism? They are; three cheers, hip hip hip etc. This is, of course, a chance to upload a big, shiny multimedia special full of stirring shots from the past 100 years including incredible images of war, peace, sport, everyday life in Australia and just about everything including the kitchen sink.

The gallery and presentation can be found here, and there are some stunning shots held within.

So you can imagine our amusement when we saw the photo they'd chosen to sum up 100 years of photojournalistic greatness on the front page of TheAge.com.au:

It's true, it's a brilliant photo - in its original incarnation, at least, as taken by Angela Wyllie in 2005, the year the Melbourne Cup Carnival was whipped by strong winds - but two things are troubling us about its use on the front page.

Firstly, the fact that we scoured each of the "Century Of Pictures" galleries and failed to find it, and secondly, does TheAge.com.au really have such low expectations of its readership's intelligence that they need to resort to tits'n'arse blasts to get hits on an otherwise thoughtfully-composed and fascinating photo special?

If you, like the Defamer Australia team, cruise the online news portals throughout the day, chances are you would have seen the piece that went up around lunchtime today on News.com.au about Chantal Sebire, a Frenchwoman suffering from a rare cancer, who is requesting President Sarkozy allow her a death with dignity via euthanasia, which is illegal in France.

If you have read the story, then you will have also seen the pictures of Ms Sebire's condition, which involves tumours that have attacked her nasal passages and disfigured her eyes and face beyond, one would imagine, recognition.

And just in case you didn't see the pictures, News.com.au has put together a handy gallery, which they have breathlessly termed "In Pictures: Chantal Sebire's terrible suffering".

Now, what is most notable about the interview with Ms Sebire is that she does not once mention her appearance, or her face, or even the tumours themselves beyond how they have affected her senses and the pain they cause.

So what bothers us is the way News.com.au have taken it upon themselves to wheel out Ms Sebire's case as some sort of afternoon snack break Joseph Merrick-lite tale, with a gee-whiz gallery to boot, as though she just can't bear to go on living looking like this. Without the pictures, would News.com.au bother giving front-page banner space to the story? Posting photos of Ms Sebire with captions like "Painful cancer ... Chantal Sebire just wants to die with dignity" doesn't make this any less of a blatant attempt at generating some car-crash site traffic.

Then again, we're not sure why we expect even a modicum of decency from the people that brought you this, this and this.

Let's just say you were a bit of a 'head in the clouds' type, right? And you like riding your motorcycle, okay?

Only here's the thing: you'd picked up a BBQ from hard rubbish and, being a bit of a thrifty sort, thought you might take it home and give it a second lease on life - following? And then, like, you think, "I know, I'll carry the barbie home - by putting it over my body like something out of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and riding the motorcycle down the freeway, yeah?

Right, so you get it home only to discover that a) your flatmates are laughing at you and/because b) someone had taken a photo of you carrying the BBQ and the Hun had published it, leading to a.i) even more people laughing at you, your housemates laughing at you even more, and even your own mother suggesting you change your name via deed poll to 'Dickhead McIdiotness'.

How do you think the paper's online subediting team would react to all this?

If the image above was roughly what popped into your head, then, waiter! Another serve of Walkley Awards for the party at table six!

We were perusing the 'human interest' stories this morning when we stumbled across this story about Australian children's fears (in short, they are more worried about spiders, animals and being bullied than a terrorist attack, unless they are asked something like "What if a terrorist killed Mummy and Daddy?" and - suprisingly! - then they report being very scared of it).

However, what struck us most was the frankly terrifying image they chose to illustrate the piece:

Browsing through the News Ltd gallery of shots featuring the Sydney premiere of The Golden Compass and Nicole Kidman's tight, silver pant-suit, we couldn't help but be delighted by this photo and its accompanying caption:

The sheer joy on the face of "That Guy" (on the far left, in case you couldn't work it out), who seems to have had Our/His Nic sign a Weetbix cricket card, is enough to bring Christmas cheer to the whole country for at least the next two-and-a-half hours.

Steven Spielberg's megabucks HBO miniseries The Pacific has been filming down around the You Yangs in Victoria for some time now, but it's only recently started to impinge on the lives of suburban Melbournians - and how!

In addition to filming at Melbourne High School and along the banks of the Yarra in the last few days, just yesterday Rathdowne Street in Carlton North was closed off as trucks, crew, a bunch of 1940s cars and a few false shop-fronts descended on the busy shopping strip.

Our spies noted with glee that the production team had chosen the grodiest share-house terrace to tizz up for a scene of what is sure to be heartrending dialogue between a young GI and - presumably - his sweetheart, who were shot sitting on the steps of said share-house, which has never looked tidier.

And then, just like that - i.e. about two and a half hours later - they were all gone. Hop over the jump for our "exclusive" spy shots, captured with Mata Hari-esque sleuthiness by Defamer spies carrying camera phones.

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Fans of ridiculously cute animals would be familiar with the orphaned polar bear cub, Knut, whose troubled early days at the Berlin Zoo - animal experts decreed it would be more humane to kill him than have him live a half-life in a zoo with no hope of ever surviving in the wild - caught the hearts of pretty much everyone except maybe Saddam Hussein and Angela Bishop.

Well, he's turned one, the plucky "little guy", and to celebrate, News Ltd put up a slideshow of notable Knut moments.

All well and good and cute, until you stumble upon THIS:

Our initial reaction was something like, "OH MOTHER OF GOD, CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED!" followed by floods of tears. But then, those emotional abusers at the News Ltd dungeons one-upped themselves by reminding us (a few photos down the track), "Poor Knut is an orphan. Lucky Ernst still has his mum," and the sobs re-entered stage left.

What did we do to deserve all this? Did we laugh at a fat kid in Grade 2 who was actually Buddha? Were we never nice enough to our parents? Did the paper enter into a lucrative Kleenex sponsorship that we don't know about?

For the love of cute, fluffy, cold-blooded man-eaters everywhere, this blatant emotional torture needs to stop!

When we promise something, we deliver. Until the day we don't. Which means that our claim to have a couple of peeps attending the MTV Awards in Sydney was not a lie we made up to impress our Invisible But Beloved Nonetheless Audience and distract you from the fact we couldn't go ourselves! Nay, our delightful moles did indeed infiltrate the awards and took a whooooole lotta photos on the red carpet. Unfortunately it seems the after party was so hideously boring, it was simply not worth taking illicit mobile phone pictures. Anyway. Here are some snaps from the showbiz knees up of the century! the year! April!

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You didn't think we'd stop there, did you?

Because we almost did.

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