After Grog Blog

JEANY ROTTEN

Plastic Bertrand is a scoundrel because he lip-synched Ca Plane Pour Moi. But you know what? I care about the song's bona fides about as much as I care about the number of interchanges in an AFL game.

Plastic Bertrand was lip-synching on Ca Plane Pour Moi, linguists find

HE is the man who brought punk to the French-speaking world, a light-hearted version of Johnny Rotten revered by a generation of pogoing fans in the 1970s.

But Plastic Bertrand is struggling to retain his iconic status after a judicial report substantiated claims that he was not the singer on his 1970s cult hit, Ca Plane Pour Moi (It's Gliding for Me).

The rest of the article is surely a piss-take:

Height of his fame in the 1980s... stunned his now middle-aged fans... Lou Deprijck... mustachioed record producer... Belgium... "He has insulted my talent"... “Plastic did several voice tests"... secret pact... Ca Plane Pour Moi was the B-side... Pogo Pogo... Bertrand wanted to record songs for children... "surrealistic"... Deprijck fiddled with it.

As for the song itself...

Wham! Bam! my cat Splash
lies on my bed with his tongue puffed out
by drinking all my whisky.
As for me, not enough sleep, drained, persecuted,
I had to sleep in the gutter
where I had a flash
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
in four colours

OBESEY BOOMBAH

Now look. I know everyone who reads the AGB is a lean, mean, running machine with pristine arteries, one chin, four cheeks and a Steve Reeves six pack, but indulge me for a moment. If you are - or, through assiduous attention to a strict dietary regime, were - overweight, would you rather be called fatso, porky, tubby or obese? I've always assumed 'obese' was at the harshest end of the abuse spectrum:

Doctors 'should tell overweight patients that they are fat'

DOCTORS should stop mincing their words and tell overweight Australians they are "fat", a top medico says.

Harry Hemley, Victorian president of the Australian Medical Association, said calling some overweight and obese people fat might be the nudge they needed to start losing weight.

He was speaking after UK Health Minister Anne Milton called on the National Health Service to ban terms such as "obese" because they lack emotional impact.

SHE'LL BE RIGHTS

Dan Silkstone reports that the AFL will look to move games to better suit TV schedules:

New TV deal spells later footy starts

ANOTHER of football's longstanding traditions is likely to be broken with a new TV-rights deal almost certain to consign 2.10pm match-starts to history.

This is not a surprise.

The AFL are, allegedly, looking to push the price for the TV rights from $750 million to $1 billion. Currently marquee games are on delay: Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday. Yet the AFL want an extra $250 million as well as have the TV stations alter their current programming to run the matches live. Does this not smack of cake and eat it, too?

Can the TV stations make up the extra dosh by moving from delayed to live broadcasts? Do the TV stations want the football enough to push the price out to $1 billion? Richard Hinds, in today's Green Guide, reports that the current ratings are soft:

When too much football is enough

On the surface, some of the recent ratings figures do not justify the AFL’s oft-stated belief it is entitled to an almost 33per cent increase on the current $760million rights deal with Seven, Ten and Foxtel. Not when its major rival, rugby league, is gaining similar aggregate figures in Sydney and Brisbane markets for a much smaller fee.

Not just that: do the TV stations run games on delay purely to fit into their schedules? Channel Seven go on about viewer loyalty of Better Homes & Gardens, but do they really care that much about the BH&G income stream? Could running big games on delay means they can better pad their coverage? Surely, they would want to avoid having viewers turn off the sound and listen to the radio. Yes, there is the delay, but technology such as the Delay-o-Tron allows viewers to synchronise the sound and picture.

Up until now, the AFL have been unwilling to force TV stations to cough up more money and run all matches live. Belatedly, after the last contract negotiations were complete, the punters realised that, yet again, Friday night live was somehow left out of the agreement. Instead we were informed that Friday night matches were supposedly covered by and article of faith, a "discretionary" agreement, whereby the AFL crossed their fingers and hoped that maybe the TV stations would do the right thing by the viewers and show a match live if the match warranted the live treatment. For an extra $250 million, is this likely to change?

CLAGGING RIGHTS

The Herald Sun's Jay Clark wins an AGB brick bat for willfully descriptive journalism:

"If he [Aaron Davey] wanted to get caught in the sweet, sticky glue pot chasing the bigger possession tallies floating across half back, he could."

RECHERCHÉ LA FEMME

Holly McKay, mistaking sides in the Progress Leader:

"Councillors have clearly illustrated their elegancies lie with the corporate entities within Boroondara by fully supporting Trinity's application."

TIGER WOOFS

HARD HITTING

There you sit, Andrew McUtchen, reporter. You struggle to think of an opener to an article in which you intend to get to grips with a well-known food critic, but then, deadline approaching:

No Small Talk

The call of nature comes a great deal more often than a call from Matt Preston. It's a shame then that on this day the two coincided. I had expected him to be late and I’d granted myself a quick dash with a few minutes to spare. But at a critical moment, the phone rings. “Are you ready to go?” Preston’s Channel Ten PR guy asks. I am, in more ways than he realises.

DAM YANKEES!

Mel Gibson played with a puppet before we made love, secret lover reveals

SHAMED movie star Mel Gibson cheated on his pregnant lover with an actress - and used a beaver puppet from his latest film as a bedroom toy with her.

MELDOWN IV

"You're an embarrassment to me. You look like a ... pig in heat and if you get raped by a pack of niggers it will be your fault."

~~ Mel Gibson