Alison Fan will tonight broadcast an interview she has conducted with John Kizon regarding Ben Cousins.

The interview was conducted at a wake in a Subiaco restaurant recently after the funeral of Craig Christian's father. No doubt a fine crowd of upstanding citizens turned out to farewell Craig's old man. I'm sure he spent the last half of his life revelling in the antics of his son and his associates. He must have been a top bloke to produce a piece of excrement like that and I would like to pay final tribute to him. Well done sir! He sets a fine example to all would-be killers thugs and drug dealers.

I wonder if it was a religious service? I've never had anything but contempt for a church that can welcome and take support from organised criminals and drug dealers, but hey! hypocrisy has long been their hallmark hasn't it?

What Kizon could possibly add to this saga is beyond me. I have heard shorts from the broadcast in which he rails at the Eagles for not providing sufficient guidance and help. Yet, here is a man with his record of criminal activity and drug dealing, spouting forth on the subject. What a laugh.

He may be right in his suggestion that the Eagles didn't do enough for Ben, but as someone else has said, what did Kizon do for him - his friend? I can guess what he did. Probably put him in contact with someone who could provide a ready source to feed his addiction.

We need some good old Melbourne Underbelly blood-letting here and I would delight at the prospect of seeing the likes of Christian, Kizon and various bikie and ethnic gang leaders wiped clean off the face of the planet. If some hangers on get hurt in the process well, such is the price you pay for not picking your friends more wisely.

I've ranted previously about reality television. The description of this palpable human waste as 'reality' is in itself a misnomer. It is no more like real life than is CSI Miami. I not only dislike it - I passionately abhor it. (Sorry Lisa!)

Each to their own and if people want to spend countless hours taking this in that is fine with me. Likewise, if I chose to slag it mercilessly, that is fine with me too. I think Network 10 is the worst offender and has offered us the 'Big Brother' and 'Idol' tripe. Sadly, the other networks and even dear old Aunty are on the bandwagon too.

I have missed out on television (by choice) for so long that I can not relate to, nor understand the attraction. Even more, I am genuinely saddened and disturbed by the level to which it is entrenched in the psyche of the all too average Australian fodder watcher. Such shows dominate radio discussion, newspapers and magazines. Predominantly 13 year old females of our species flock to shopping centres where these erstwhile nonentities arrive for promotional work. They are famous for absolutely fucking nothing yet they are famous nonetheless. They get paid about $1,000 to turn up at a pub and hang around for an hour (they really do).

The main thrust of such shows are to strip people of their self-respect and then hang them out in front of the viewers of Australia so that they can gawk in humour, sorrow or amazement.

The real trick is to make contestants cry. The more tears - the better it is. Watch the promos for these shows. Notice how they concentrate on the tear factor? Somebody said something nasty to someone else so ..... BLUBBER! Some fat fuck didn't lose 20 kilos in the last month despite cutting down the cream bun intake to 5 per day, so ..... BLUBBER! Some dipstick on an island got voted off because they are a first class spanker, so ..... BLUBBER! It's all rather tacky.

I actually only started this rant to because I wanted to comment on the fact that Channel 10 are to introduce Corey, the recalcitrant ratbag partyboy, to the Big Brother house this weekend. You know what disappoints me? I haven't heard anyone yet comment on the morality shown by one of our licensed television networks in allowing this booze-swilling buffoon to further play on his celebrity status.

I think it is improper and I think it is immoral. Here is a punk who caused vast damage to property and wasted immeasurable public resources and now Network 10 now sees fit to validate his behaviour.

What message is being given here? Will the young and impressionable in society feel that such behaviour if not condoned, might still be worthwhile because it's all just a bit of a laugh?

The executives of Network 10 will no doubt defend their right to put this teen wanker on the show and would probably claim some pious responsibility to show the public what they want. They would also claim that after all, they only reflect community standards - they don't shape them. Well, they do shape them and they continue to plummet to new depths in the vast pool of sewerage that is reality television. 

Network 10 executives are a disgrace and were I able to, I would dismiss the lot of them and  force them onto the streets to get a real job. Perhaps there could be a reality TV show in it?

A man has caught up with his daughter after some many years absence from the family scene. He decides he loves her in a totally non-parental way and fathers a child with her. He had previously fathered another little nipper with his daughter but that one died through some sort of congenital condition. Ya don't say!

Well, I am quite liberal-minded when it comes to the matter of sex between consenting adults, but there are some things that just should never happen. This is one of them.

'Two of them' is that we should never have had it aired around the country (well, the world even - I also saw it on the BBC web site).

'Three of them' is that the TV network (was it 'Nine'?) paid for them to make fools of themselves across the country. The networks are publicity-seeking, money-grubbing, dirty little corporate sharks with no sense of ethics or good taste.

This story was not newsworthy and my opinion of television media is not news.

There's a radio commercial for the Smith Family charity that pleads with us to help families who can't afford to provide for under-resourced school children. 

There's a whiny kid saying something along the lines of "But mum, why can't I have what the other kids at school have?" Mum retorts with something like, "I know darl, but we just can't afford it!"

I don't know about you, but whenever I hear 'darl' being used, it conjures up imagery of some 180 kilogram walrus with floral frock sitting in an arm chair, eyes permanently glued to her 106cm wide screen colour tv. Oprah is teaching all and sundry about healthy living and balanced lifestyles. She reaches out and fumbles another cigarette from the packet, ready to light it up even though the one that hangs from the side of her mouth is only half completed. Her fifth coffee of the afternoon sits on a side table amongst the clutter of a month's debris. Life's tough - and her kids are going to pay for it.

I don't know, maybe I have too vivid an imagination. I was certainly always told that in school, where I attended with the barest of provisions and did not whimper and whine about it.

A new offering from Network Eddie:

I think the title is more appropriate to the show than it is to the people who appear on it.

Crazes and faddish behaviour have been around since the human imagination was freed from such daily necessities as hiding in trees from predators and bowing asininely to some worthless god all day long.

The earliest crazes I can recall, both hit the entertainment scene at about the same time. Dr Who in 1963 and the Beatles in 1962/63. I guess neither of them were truly faddish because their popularity has hardly waned over all these years. Dr Who was amazing and took Britain by storm. It left young children of my age wide-eyed, expectant and even terrified. There was no bigger evil, no more sinister manifestation of life from other worlds than the Daleks. These single-minded, vile creatures trampled over all living things in their unwavering determination to exterminate, destroy and generally make the good Doctor's life merry hell. One zap from their gun was enough to make you throw your hands in the air, turn from positive to negative, back to positive, and then fall to the floor bereft of life. Man, they were the good old days! 

I always wanted my own Dalek. I remember one of the major newspapers at the time ran competitions to win an authentic Dalek. It was an amazingly successful campaign and the newspaper had never before been so inundated with entries for any competition.  I loved the Daleks. They were truly awesome by all meanings of that word.

The ABC Shop has Daleks for sale. Sadly, they are not full sized or I would have had one in a flash. Rather, they are collector's items and stand a mere 24 cm tall. Size DOES matter when all is said and done, but this is all you can get unfortunately. 

I have picked them up on any number of occasions, only to return it to the shelf clearly unimpressed with the fact that you pay so much for what is only molded plastic. As you may have already guessed, my last visit to the ABC Shop resulted in a moment of impetuosity and I am now a poorer, but happy Dalek owner.

It couldn't even exterminate a cockroach unless I thumped it down hard on top of one, never mind about taking over the world. I did manage to frighten the cat with it though when I pulled it from the box and waved it in front of her face, yelling out "Destroy! Exterminate! Where is the Doctor!?" She ran off for quite a while and I suspected that she may have found a phone box and been whisked away to safety on another planet. If indeed this was the case, she somehow managed to return to Earth and landed right beside her food dish where she announce her arrival with a call for dinner.

Anyway. Here is my Dalek. The picture on my pc screen is me with my birthday cake. It was taken the other day when I turned 38. 

Or something.

There is a row brewing in the UK that is having international repercussions.  The governments of two great nations - India and the UK are embroiling themselves in a spat between (wait for it)...

Celebrity Big Brother contestants.

LONDON (AFP) - The alleged racist bullying of a top Bollywood star on British television boiled over into a diplomatic spat, as India vowed to take "appropriate action." ¹   

Angry government ministers in both countries, furious fans burning effigies, distressed relatives, seething viewers and even Sylvester Stallone waded in to the row over the treatment of glamorous Indian actress Shilpa Shetty on the reality show "Celebrity Big Brother." The Bollywood queen, 31, is one of nine stars locked in a London house whose activities are broadcast round the clock by Channel Four. The broadcaster denied there had been any overt racism abuse directed against Shetty, though it admitted that there had been a "cultural and class clash" between the glamorous star and some of her British housemates and pledged to clamp down on "unambiguous" racism. Unaware of the storm raging beyond the garden fence, Shetty remains locked in the house, where she has been regularly reduced to tears by a clique which has formed against her.

The film star has been branded a "dog" amid regular sniping, and told to clean out the toilet with her teeth by one housemate who some viewers think called her a "Paki" -- which Channel Four denies. Viewers feel Shetty has been singled out by Jade Goody, a former "Big Brother" contestant noted for her ignorance, deposed Miss Great Britain Danielle Lloyd² and fallen S Club 7 lead singer Jo O'Meara. Jackiey Budden, Goody's tattoed mother who has been evicted from the house, continued to attack Shetty. "That Indian should have stayed in Bollywood," she told Now magazine. "Ten years ago I would have knocked her out. But I would still love to squeeze her neck until her eyes pop out."

Indian junior foreign minister Anand Sharma said the government was "seized of the matter" and was looking into all the aspects of the situation. "We will take appropriate action as required," Sharma vowed. "The world knows that India has throughout firmly rejected all forms of discrimination and racism." ³

Notes:

1.       What the hell is "appropriate action"? A chapati-chucking face-off at 10 paces?

2.       Lloyd made a memorable appearance on BBC One's Test the Nation. When asked "Who was Winston Churchill - a rapper, US   President, the PM or King?", Lloyd answered "Wasn't he the first black president of America? There's a statue of him near me - that's black." (God, I would have loved to see that live on TV! I nearly pissed myself laughing when I read it).

3.       This government goon comes from the same country that still has an entrenched caste system - and it is a caste of millions...

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Britain's foreign ministers Gordon Brown, London Lord Mayor - Ken Livingstone and now even Tony Blair have all had a say about it.  

Isn't it great that nothing really important is happening in the world right now? Otherwise it would be a shame that the political focus of major nations was being distracted from something more meaningful, more important and more critical to the shaping of our futures and that of our children.  

The mind boggles…..

Bollocks