The Australian Index - Culture Blogs

Ladies mag editors around the country must be rubbing their hands together with glee after Tasma Walton admitted in an interview with Sunday Magazine that she's hankering for babies with television hosting superstar and annual Logies victor Rove McManus.In an exclusive interview with Sunday Magazine Walton, 35, talked of her happiness with the Gold Logie winner, saying she was now content with eve

Reader Anthony sent in a link to a YouTube video, with a note saying:bored.aircon is set far too highmaybe i should have a crunchy bar..I don't know what that all means - is it a poem? Code? The beginning of some sort of viral marketing campaign for Crunchy bars? Or just a strangely honest revelation about the life of Anthony? It's all so tremendously confusing.Obviously I was already feeling a li

Last night's Wild Card episode wasn't enough to keep me in the house, the lure of Japanese food and my friend Booky's text message stating "You know Idol is shit, come to tea" overpowering my original desire to remain couch-bound and Marcia'd up to the eyeballs, but thanks to the wonders of technology, I was able to view the performances once I got home and I've gotta say...I'm not overly enthusia

Let me start off by saying that I hate myself for that lame 'Suddenly I See'-with-a-nuptial-twist gag. Moving swiftly along, it's time to shout "Huzzah!" (and possibly "Who cares!") for Very Popular TM singer KT Tunstall has finally gotten hitched to her long term drummer boyfriend, disappointing lesbian fans everywhere who were convinced that Tunstall donning rainbow-coloured braces on a record c

Greetings, Defamer readers! We have something special in store for you today, as the MTV Music Video Awards—the most prestigious of all awards shows celebrating achievement in a medium that peaked when fax machines still seemed cutting-edge—are coming to you from the heart of Hollywood, at Paramount Studios. A plate of Mexican food was all it took to let a homeless man use his body as

Talk about glamorous! - this home belongs to fashion designer, Sara Berman. This Georgian home in North London is five storey's of fabulously wallpapered rooms - how luxurious is this purple and pewter bedroom!Ah, yes - here we are...... still in the bedroom, it takes up an entire floor in the home - you can literally roll out of bed and into the bath. Loving the light fittings.The cloak room is c

I love a good polo and you probably can't get much better than lacoste. I'm a huge fan of their fun, clean and fresh advertising. Some people say its time they took a new angle but I'm still enjoying the concept. What do you think?Images from ads of the world.

Barry Jay Warsch, life long Democrat, and a concerned Democrat for McCain on how to get the media to leave Bristol Palin alone:Simply announce that she was artificially inseminated, and that, afterthe election, she intends to establish residency in California in orderto marry her lesbian lover.Thiswill transform the matter into an Oprah "a-ha" moment (or an MSNBC"teaching moment"), and we will all

I think that the surge has succeeded in waysthat nobody anticipated...I've already said it s succeededbeyond our wildest dreams.
--Barack Obama, 4 September 08I guess when you turn out to be profoundly wrong on a vital nationalsecurity issue, maybe it s comforting to pretend that everbody else waswrong, too.
-- Sarah Palin, 5 September 08 Well, what I saw, heard, learned is a little bit w

I came home from an all-nighter in the clubs (highlight: discussing gender theory with a lovely woman on the side of the dance floor while receiving a lap dance from a very cute stable-boi) to a few hours sleep, then up, then cooked breakfast, then out into the garden. I filled a new bed with compost, found newly germinated potatoes and tomatoes (pride!), sprayed a biological caterpillar control o

FAIL

They knew they had a turkey on their hands. Hence the brilliant $$$ marketing $$$ campaign. The audience should leave after the lazy, faux previews.

Totally $$$ redundant $$$.

McCain leads by four:Pollster John Zogby: "Clearly,Palin is helping the McCain ticket. She has high favorability numbers,and has unified the Republican Party. The striking thing here in thispoll is that McCain has pulled ahead among Catholics by double-digits.On the other hand, Palin is not helping with likely voting women whoare not aligned with either political party. The undecided independentwo

I think I'm a bit with Ann Althouse on this one:The artistic qualities of this McCain ad completely distracted me from whatever words were spoken or shown.I'm distracted by the red White House... She asks:Was your experience like mine? I was fascinated by the photographiceffects in the beginning, the changing of the image to remove thecrowd, and the way the "camera" pulled back from the stage. The

For all the God-like powers that video games have bestowed upon us from slaying armies to pretending to be rock stars it wasn t until now that players could actually build life. Spore, designed by Will Wright of Sim City fame, is based on evolution: you start with microbes and customize on up. Seth Schiesel declares it probably the coolest, most interesting toy I have ever experi

So I'm driving to rehearsals the other night and I'm flicking through various radio stations (as I am wont to do) and Gold 104 (or whatever) is playing The Rolling Stones 'Brown Sugar'. So of course, I immediately call Red so I can share this joyous moment with her, scream "listen to what's on the radio" before she's finished the 'lo' part of 'hello, PUMP up the volume and sing at the top of my

A conference of African journalists commencing tomorrow in South Africa will look at the emerging trend of citizen journalism. Held at Grahamstown s Rhodes University in Eastern Cape Province each year, this event is the 12th Highway Africa Conference. 700 Delegates (including journalists, media educators, bloggers, publishers and students) from 40 African countries will take part in three days

Italian bread tomato soup and pumpkin pasta. A nice meal tonight, just as well because I suspect the freestyled semolina bread I have rising in the oven will not have been a good experiment. In my opinion, semolina breads just take so damn long to proof, I always underestimate, especially when using a levain. Anyway.

Pappa al Pomodoro ripe roma or any other kind of tomato
basil
400g tin of toma

Britney Spears, in an Ed Hardy bikini, and her entourage spent their Labor Day by the main pool area of the Mirage Hotel and Casino on September 1st.Love Kills Bikini in White
$140 at boutiquetoyou.com

This weekend, we went to Sydney, because, you know, we never do that. That old trip up the Federal Highway is now so predictable, so well worn by us that I don't even bother taking photos for the blog any more. I just settle in for the ride and knit.

The point of this trip was so that Sean could go to a concert at Luna Park. When he told me he'd be going to see his favourite band, a few Swedish

I've been a bit more committed of late to working on my sister's lace scarf for Christmas. I'm probably just under one fifth of the way along so far, but much of that I has just been done recently. Christmas sounds like forever away, but I just know it'll end up being here in a few blinks time. I grew up being one of those kids that started the essay the night before it was due, and I do not w

This weekend coming up will be another camping adventure for the friendly folks of Writtle St.Our neighbours on either side as well as the 2 families across the road have signed us up to spend another weekend in Busselton, diving, skiing and probably drinking copious amounts of alcohol. (As much as I love a glass or two of red I am in a different league to these guys who regularly indulge until t

We had a very late night yesterday as we were up playing poker with a few families from the street. It was a fun evening - even for a non cards player. You learn a lot about people in a poker game.In my tiredness today I went for an afternoon nap, then slept longer than I should have and now I can't sleep tonight...Don't you hate that...So I'll stay up until 1am then wake up feeling like c

More here.

Watch this Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates ad for Windows Vista. Watch it from start to finish.

That cost Microsoft $300 million.

Yeah, I don't think that was money wisely spent, either.

I got some new pets today. 200 hundred of them, actually.Yup, I am now the proud owner of a worm farm. Of course, now the problem is going to be naming them all (God knows how I'm going to go about training them to come when they're called). Anyway, after giving the matter some serious consideration, I've decided to name them all after politicians.So far we have Kevin, Wayne, Peter, Julia, George

Over at tha Bastard Son the Cosmic Jester points his finely honed blogtorch on the desperate attempts of the federal Liberal Party to make some traction on the still to be decided WA cliffhanger.

Imagine the pain and suffering for the Libs if Brendan Grylls forms government with the ALP tommorow?

I also imagine the Libs were more than thrilled when the old Trusster removed the gold tooth-pick fr

Had a huuuuge saturday last night: comfy pants/blankie/couch. Learnt many things. I swear I am at least 3% smarter since getting Foxtel. There was a show on last night called TABOO (nat geo channel) which showed various stories of fucked up things that people do to feel like they belong, or things they are forced to do because thats what their culture demands of them.

The best thing was this vill

It was just how Don Watson said it should be - an act of seduction. "A good speech is a lover's embrace," he wrote. "You want to sit on the metaphorical mountain and with an arm sneaking round their shoulder speak of things you have in common - your love of trees or cows, the sacrifice of soldiers .." or maybe even the thrill of shooting a moose and dressing it in the field. Admittedly

So today MS and I got to be Terracotta warriors for half an hour before a special early screening of the Mummy 3. QuiGonSteve and Amytis made them, and they did a fantastic job. The body of them were made with denim, sewn into a T-tunic, padded up with foam, and all painted. The heads were made out of paper mache!

I wore the smallest one, and it was originally only going to be MS wearing one, alo