Elton bomb

IN the great Australian tradition of punting on anything, yesterday bookies were taking bets on how many people would watch comedian and Blackadder writer Ben Elton's Live from Planet Earth last night.

Given the first episode lost 120,000 viewers in its first 15 minutes, only the brave would back a big ratings win. And this from a man who used to know the way to wow an audience. As Edmund Blackadder boasted: "In one short evening I've become the most successful impresario since the manager of the Roman Colosseum thought of putting the Christians and the lions on the same bill."

Small packages

WHAT wit! On the Ten Network in Adelaide, sports presenter Mark Aiston reported on English cricket captain Andrew Strauss showing off the Ashes: "I can't understand how something so small can be so impressive," he spontaneously quipped. And then it got even funnier: "Mark, you would know about that," newsreader Belinda Heggen replied. A cynical Strewth correspondent suggests this exchange was scripted to boost the pair's internet exposure. If so it certainly worked: the exchange went viral yesterday. But Strewth is not having any of it - nobody who had rehearsed their lines could have delivered them as badly as this pair did.

Southern comfort

LADY Gaga may have laid an egg in the sensible stakes at the Grammys; however, she still picked up three awards (funnily enough, not including the coveted novelty prize). But what surprised Strewth was song-of-the-year winner country music trio Lady Antebellum. What is it with Americans and titles? And before what war? Here's a hint: the trio comes from Nashville, Tennessee, where the memory of the confederacy kicks on.

Perkins's paste

GIVE that man a gold medal for common sense. Former champion Olympic swimmer Kieren Perkins suggests parents take responsibility for what they feed their children. This statement of the bleeding obvious occurs as yet another survey has found people are likelier to buy an unhealthy product endorsed by a sports star. This should be useful for athletes and their agents when it comes to re-negotiating contracts with their commercial sponsors but it is a bit hard to see what individual excess has to do with endorsements - people are selective about the examples they adopt. You don't see masses of parents following Perkins's example and getting up before dawn to take the kids to swimming training.

Aggravated salt

FORGET footballers getting hammered courtesy of sponsors' brews at awards nights. In Japan they take the image of sportspeople really, really seriously. Sumo wrestlers have been giving the grope a bad name, by fixing matches, trashing restaurants and generally carrying on like, well, enormous men that nobody without a tank would dare discipline. But now Hakata Salt has had enough. The big blokes throw salt over their shoulders to signify they are about to hop into each other but the salt company is thinking about discontinuing its sponsorship of the sport. You know you are in strife when you give salt a bad name.

Reuse, recycle

DURING last year's federal election, Labor supporters ran a viral advertising campaign suggesting Tony Abbott and his mates resembled the Addams Family (as in Gomez and Morticia). That is, until the copyright owners kicked up a stink. And now the NSW Greens in the lead-up to the state election have gone one ghoul better, denouncing Labor and Liberals as political zombies, corpses that return to life. So much for the environmentalists' commitment to recycling.

No speaking Kiwi

ACROSS the ditch, the New Zealand Greens are also picky about who they want in parliament; in particular, they have decided Julia Gillard should not be allowed to address MPs in the chamber. "If we allow one head of state to address a sitting session of parliament, then we will inevitably allow other visiting dignitaries to do the same," Green Party co-leader Russel Norman says. Quite right. What's the betting WikiLeaks will reveal Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao are demanding to know what this knock-back does to their chances.

Let us rejoice

IN The Wall Street Journal, Cynthia Crossen has told her readers all they need to know about Australia and, what a surprise, convicts and bushrangers are top of the antipodean pops. Peter Carey's novel of our Ned, True History of the Kelly Gang, leads the field, followed by a book about British ladies sent here at the pleasure of His Majesty, which emphasised our fecund, rather than fatal, shores. The title, The Floating Brothel, will undoubtedly encourage ideas about our easy-going ways. Memoirs by two expats, Clive James and Jill Ker Conway, also get a go, encouraging the old idea that all the civilised souls leave our fair shores, leaving the rest of us to root around in obscurity.

Stephen Matchett