10/15/2007
News: Prince Harry, Radiohead, Oscar Wilde, Robo-Bugs, Paris Hilton
Florida Rep. and men's room-frequenter Bob Allen's trial begins on November 5th.
Matt Leveson, a 20-year-old Sydney man who went missing after a night of partying, is feared murdered: "The wildlife welfare officer, a regular at the club, was thought to be going home to Cronulla. His family reported him missing when he failed to show for work the following Tuesday. He had also stopped answering his phone. Two days later Mr Leveson's green 1999 Corolla hatchback was found dumped outside a public toilet at Waratah Park Reserve, Sutherland. Police said evidence suggested he did not park it there. They believe he 'met with foul play'."
Funeral held in Ireland for lesbian soldier Ciara Durkin, slain mysteriously in Afghanistan. The investigation into her death is ongoing.
Radiohead fans pissed at poor sound quality of In Rainbows digital download: "The sentiment among many fans seems to have gone from admiration for the group's willingness to let the consumer decide how much to pay for the new album to anger over the low quality of the downloads — and dismay over the band's manager's statement that the you-choose-the-price downloads were just a promotional tool for the release of the physical CD."
POLL: Oscar Wilde is Britain's greatest wit.
Paris Hilton heading to Rwanda on charity mission: I'm scared, yeah. I've heard it's really dangerous. I've never been on a trip like this before. I love having everything documented. It shows people what everyday life is like for me, how hard I work. There are a lot of misconceptions about me."
Jack Mackenroth, set to compete in the upcoming Project Runway season, denies a rumor that he was booted from the show because of a staph infection: "'He says he was the fifth designer voted off,' says the snitch. 'He is claiming that this was at least part of the reason he was booted.' Mackenroth, who had signed a confidentiality agreement, denied spilling the beans when contacted by Bravo. 'People will say things about me whether they know me or not,' he said in a statement released through Bravo's PR. 'Those were not my words and are fictitious.'"
Is the government employing high-tech robo-bugs at anti-war rallies?
Same-sex couples from Australia seen heading to the U.S. in increasing numbers on the quest for designer babies: "IVF pioneer Dr Jeffrey Steinberg said an increasing number of gay and lesbian Australians were visiting his Californian fertility centre to begin a family and side-step Australian law that prohibits surrogacy. 'We see about two or three gay couples from Australia each month and that's about a five-fold increase over the last two years,' he told The Sunday Mail. Dr Steinberg said between 75 per cent and 80 per cent of same-sex couples who came to him for treatment decided to choose the sex of the baby, using the controversial IVF procedure and embryo screening known as Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis."
The NYT looks into the mysterious death of gay club icon Dean Johnson: "After Mr. Johnson did not show up for band rehearsal on Sept. 27, his friends called the Washington police and finally got an answer. Mr. Johnson’s body was in the city morgue; it had been there for a week. As details of his death surfaced, the mystery around it grew. Four days earlier, the police had found the body of another man, Jeremy Conklin, 26, at the same apartment — that of Steven S. Saleh. Mr. Conklin had been pronounced dead at a nearby hospital, said Inspector Rodney Parks of the Washington police. For Dean Johnson, whose heyday in the 1980s mirrored the rise and fall of New York’s bohemian downtown club scene, and who rarely kept the salacious details of his life private, it seemed an inconceivable way to go. The apartment Mr. Johnson died in was at the end of a nondescript hallway on the second floor of a stately building — a distant cry from the East Village nightclubs where he and the naked go-go boys under his command once reigned."
Prince Harry cheers on English rugby at the World Cup. Unfortunately, no nipple-licking.
Who had sex with Alan Cumming?
Posted 11:59 AM EST by Andy Towle in Alan Cumming, Australia, Bob Allen, Ciara Durkin, Crime, Florida, Jack Mackenroth, News, Nightlife, Oscar Wilde, Paris Hilton, Prince Harry, Radiohead, Reality TV, Sydney | Permalink
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"Misconceptions" about Paris Hilton? That she's a pointless, idiotic airhead? Seems about right to me.
Posted by: Matt | Oct 15, 2007 5:28:56 PM
I'm very happy with the new Radiohead album - sonically it's fine and musically it's Radiohead's best since Kid A. Smiles all round from me.
It's given my iPod a rest from endless Joanna Newsom, too.
Posted by: Darren | Oct 15, 2007 5:34:53 PM
I downloaded the new Radiohead album within minutes of its release and have been happily listening to it on my iPhone ever since. There were a couple of weird distortions which I assumed were intended by Radiohead to be there. But now that everyone is complaining, I can't wait to get the box set so that I can take a listen and see if there is a discernible difference.
Regarding the debate about whether Oscar Wilde was British or Irish...WHO CARES!?!?!?!?!?! It's all the United Kingdom at this point!
Posted by: peterparker | Oct 15, 2007 6:06:11 PM
Gary
The poor Welsh.
Lets not even get started on the atrocities the anglo saxon + norman pig dogs comited against the Weslh. We'll be here all night.
Posted by: jimmyboyo | Oct 15, 2007 6:06:39 PM
Okay, if Oscar is disqualified, who came in second?
Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Oct 15, 2007 6:33:42 PM
I love how Paris Hilton is using poor people in a third world country to improve her image. And not only that, she's stupid enough to actually say it!
Posted by: peterparker | Oct 15, 2007 7:30:37 PM
Peter Parker, Ireland is not in the United Kingdom. Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and dramatist. Film at 11.
Posted by: FASTLAD | Oct 15, 2007 9:31:16 PM
Let's hope Matt Leveson comes home soon.
We don't need hate crimes in Australia.
Posted by: Axel | Oct 15, 2007 11:18:53 PM
Fastlad,
i don't understand you obstinacy. i am not trying to squelch anyone's nationalistic fervor. but the fact remains that ireland was part of the united kingdom in wilde's lifetime. he studied at oxford, he wrote in english (not gaelic), his reputation was built on english soil, his writing is included in all british english anthologies and is taught in all british english survey courses, along with other irish writers such as : g.b.shaw, w.b. yeats, james joyce, and others.
i may be missing something. if i am, perhaps it is because i have a master's degree in english literature and frankly don't care about the subjective pull-comes-to-shove of politics as it pertains to literature.
i have no vested interest in oscar wilde. i concur that he is britain's greatest wit (well, at least from the victorian period). but he is far from being britain's greatest scholar or writer.
i still maintain that this discussion is silly, irrespective of the who-was-born-where argument. this exercise in futility seems as barren and parched as the when-is-a boy-not-a-boy argument on an earlier post.
the truth is the truth no matter how much we wish it were otherwise.
Posted by: nic | Oct 16, 2007 1:03:07 AM
Nic,
If you don't care why has your response run to four paragraphs?
Oscar Wilde, like his mother, was an ardent Irish nationalist and said so often. He was also a graduate of Trinity College Dublin where he consistently bested Edward Carson (who would prosecute and ruin him years later) academically and creatively.
Wilde delighted in exposing English hypocrisy and humbug and his greatest work's reveal his ironic awareness of what lies beneath the gilded surface of Empire. Where did that keen awareness come from, do you think?
As Peter Ackroyd, an English writer, has remarked: "Essentially he remained an alien, and it was in this uncomfortable but necessary position that he was able to see English life very clearly. Shaw said that Wilde was a ''very Irish Irishman,'' and although he told Yeats that ''we are a nation of brilliant failures'' Wilde himself belongs to a long line of successful Irish dramatists - among them Congreve, Sheridan and Goldsmith. Yet of all of them, perhaps, he was the one who was least at home in England. Just as in his drama he exposed the hypocrisies of late Victorian life - and there is no more damning indictment of that society than ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' - so in his life his fondness for boys and drink scandalized those who believed themselves to represent public morality. No attitude could be more alien to the English ''mind'' than Wilde's comment that ''I have never learned anything except from people younger than myself'' and his belief in ''that inordinate passion for pleasure which is the secret of remaining young.''
But more importantly, it was a mistake for him to show the English in his dramas that their ideals were illusions, their understanding mere folly: it was only a matter of time before they turned on him. He had been their entertainer for a while but he soon became the figure in a fatal pantomime, to receive blows from the harlequin's wand and kicks from the clowns. He had dallied with them too long; he had grown too accustomed to ''society'' even as he mocked it. It was thoroughly appropriate, therefore, that his splendid career should be ended by a Marquess and ruined by a visiting card..."
Posted by: FASTLAD | Oct 16, 2007 10:30:22 AM