Radiation by Fiona Rae

I liked Nunatak, the Antarctic band:

Almost inevitably, their nothing's-a-problem sound guy turns out to be a Kiwi. Come Judgement Day, the celestial trumpets will be miked up by a New Zealander ...

Well to be fair they did have plenty of time to sort it out ahead of the event (as the antartic stuff has to have been prerecorded)...

But I agree that come judgement day a NZer will be the one of the mixing desk (and I probably know his name :-)

Fell asleep during 'Brick'. Felt like it was trying to be too clever by half.

But how cool are sunday night movies with really short ad-breaks on C4? They're breaking no new ground programme-wise, but there are lots of old favourites.

'These ones go up to eleven.'

Nice one.

Surprised not to see Midnight Oil reform for a set in Sydney. But I rather enjoyed Crowded House headlining (watched it via MSN with audio and video out routed to lounge's TV / Stereo and got the full 11 songs, I think). Especially when the lights all died.

Felt most happy for Nick Seymour, who I'm sure never thought he'd play stadiums again after the Farewell Gig on the Opera House.

Crowded House were / are also guests on Rove this week, and by all accounts coming out of Aussie should be pretty bloody funny.

Looking forward to seeing them at the King's Arms this Thursday...

I watched a bit of it, I noticed the guy playing penny whistle for the Dave Matthews Band in NY was wearing an All Blacks shirt.

• Rescue Me returns on TV1 with the final episode of season two. Go figure.

Thanks for the headsup, altho' I note its not on the TVNZ schedule page. Not surprising since the previous series also started without fanfare at a new LATE timeslot so I missed the first few eps.

Gotta love TVNZ </sarcasm>

As for Live Earth well I watched the whole 22 hours!! Not live (I'm not nuts) but I recorded it to HDD and was able to FFW thru it, stopping for the bits I liked. Some random thoughts ....

totally forgot about this because i was watching Le tour de France, and will be for the next 3 weeks. It's like a sightseeing holiday without the cost.

Some random thoughts on Live Earth ....

1. the performances were great but as a TV event it won't (shouldn't) win any prizes. There was no cohesion and omigod the finish! It just ended without warning by rolling the credits! Madness. Oh, and there were waaay too many PSA's. It would have been nice to watch 3 or 4 songs minimum without interruption, instead of one or two.

2. Madonna was a great performer but she wasn't far from imploring the crowd "If you wanna save the planet let me hear you say 'We Love Madonna!'"

3. The Pussycat Dolls were great inasmuch as they were what they were. And they hit all their marks - obviously they still rehearse alot. There was no slacking thru the routine. Obviously the camera crew had been waiting all day for them because we saw camera angles they weren't daring to use on other female performers. But I do think wearing push-up bras on push-up tits is overdoing it.

4. Australian show was pretty sad and a rather wimpy start to proceedings. Good to see that Neil Finn could get the whole stadium singing along - a feat others around the world foolishly tried to emulate without success (Keane!). Toni Collette has a great voice but putting her on meant we missed out on more must-see talent.

5. The Brazillians launched with some crazy-ass local act (Wuxu?) who proved Brazillians really love to party. The dancers on stage looked chaotic until you realised it was carefully choreographed pandemonium. Pharell schmarell.

6. The Japanese show was what we expect from the Japanese ie heavilly influenced by the West. The first hard rock (metal?) act had me wondering if they were singing in English or Japanese. It was Japanese. Another Japanese rock band was singing in English but still made little sense. One lyric I did pick up on was 'Rodney King was a pussy'. Eh? Lincoln Park are Big In Japan, which made the movie This Is Spinal Tap on C4 later even more funny.

7. Speaking of, when ST played Wembley ("Wimbledon!") and brought out the dozen or so bass players for a bass jam, I got it. Others around me didn't, which made it even funnier.

8. China took a trip back in time too, but used contemporary acts to return to the 70s. 12 Women In Yellow Dresses? Kinda like Vanessa Mae but without the sex appeal. And Sarah Brightman too. Over the course of the LE highlight spots the China reel got shorter and shorter.

9. Smashing Pumpkins? Oh, I thought it was the original line-up re-forming for LE. My bad. Good to see the original Police line-up were back, but their original 80s appeal has long gone for me.

10. Al Gore was a bit of a stage hog. A shame his son let him down, but I can't help thinking he was thinking he could use this event to 'reluctantly' be dragged back into the '08 presidential campaign. But that aint gonna happen now. Gore is portly but so what, he's not a rock star. Lenny Kravitz on the other hand ... either lose some weight or get a bigger leather jacket to match the one you are so obviously attached too. Not sure why he felt the need to walk into the crowd, unless he enjoyed watching the guards shoving everyone out of the way.

11. Beating Kravits out in The Vanity Stakes were Enrique Englaisias and Shakira. The latter won hands down (she seems to get off by thinking she's getting you off with her non-lying hips), and I'm pretty sure she lip-synched. Is it just my own whiteness showing, or are the Beastie Boys the only rap act who can master a stadium. They sounded great, unlike Ludachris, Pharell, and Snoop Dogg. Okay, Snoop wasn't that bad.

12. Is it my age showing or was the whole show a sad indictment on where we've come since Live Aid? Concerts to "raise awareness" but little else? I guess I now things I didn't know before ie Americans use a million bottles of water an hour which is worse than a million car emmissions in the same hour, and Jenifer Garner wants you to wite your Congressman. Surely an email would create a smaller carbon footprint than putting pen to paper and sending that paper in various trucks to Congress.

That'll do, there's more but others probably have others to add. Kudos to Ricky Gervais who took the stage to point out that all the stars were flying in from all over the world on private jets to get us to cut CO2 emmissions. I was waiting for a punchline but there was none.

That'll do, there's more but others probably have others to add. Kudos to Ricky Gervais who took the stage to point out that all the stars were flying in from all over the world on private jets to get us to cut CO2 emmissions. I was waiting for a punchline but there was none.

Well, I guess the thing is it's not really much of a joke. You know, like the 'Second Annual Green' issue of Vanity Fair a few months back -- a brick of glossy heavy stock that's racked up the air-miles, so you can toss off over more softcore Annie Liebowitz photos of George, and Brad, and Leo and Sheryl (one square of one-ply) Crow, and...um, Al.

Please, I don't want to crap on anyone who likes going to rock concerts or reading glossy magazines. But really... all that heat generated by smug and meaningless moral self-congratulation can't be good for the planet.

Obviously the camera crew had been waiting all day for them because we saw camera angles they weren't daring to use on other female performers.

Don't you mean the camera angles they were contractually forbidden to use on anyone? Why don't the PCDs just webcast their next visits to the gynecologist and be done with it - the funny thing is that they started out as a modern burlesque troupe, but there's absolutely no element of tease or showmanship. More like Triumph of the Will in matching thongs.

Bring back arbour day i say

Madonna evidently went one-up on Angelina Jolie by insisting interviewers (backstage at LE) mantain constant eye contact and not look at their notes - they had to memorise all their questions or the interview would be terminated.

The Mirror story also contains their opinion on the STARS WHO SHONE BRIGHTEST at LE.

Al Gore was a bit of a stage hog. A shame his son let him down, but I can't help thinking he was thinking he could use this event to 'reluctantly' be dragged back into the '08 presidential campaign.

He seems to be good at this sort of thing, better than playing the dying Tinker Bell. Let Clinton and Obama scrap with Reps I say.

But just think if he ran and lost. Being forever known, not for saving the planet, but for kneecapping the chances of both a first woman pres and a first black pres. Last time he got depressed he grew a beard. Next time he might stop at the moustache.

__Enron: The Smartest Guys__ in the Room (Rialto) gets a – goodness – 10 from Philip

Yeah it's good (just got the DVD).

And speaking of Philip, and DVDs, what about this fantastic movie pick for the week in the DomPost:

**Frida**
2002, AO. 11.40pm, TV One
From Titus director Julie Taymor comes this eye-popping portrait of Frida Kahlo as a young artist in social and sexual turmoil. Those who know more about Salma Hayek than the Mexican Communist whose tragic life she spent eight years trying to dramatise will be frustrated by Frida's join-the-dots narrative. But visually and stylistically it's a masterpiece, and this lavish two-disc set goes to extraordinary lengths to put her revolutionary life and times in context.

We're getting special features on TV now, cool!

We're getting special features on TV now, cool!

Wow. That's really very embarrassing.

TVNZ is really embarrassing.

er ... sounds like it's the DomPost not TVNZ who should be embarrassed.

er ... sounds like it's the DomPost not TVNZ who should be embarrassed.

Yes. Their TV highlights stuff usually reads like a cut and paste job, just not *quite* this obviously.

Regardless, Frida is worth seeing though it's one of those films that's a fascinating failure. And if you can lay hands on a copy of Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film, Taymor has an truly awful 'why I'd rather die that work with Harvey Weinstein again' story, which is saying something.

Actress/wife/mother Jamie Leigh Curtis gives mad props to our state sponsored airline for her flight to London for LE.

Air New Zealand, never flown nicer by the way, had me in mind. They gave me my own control panel/bed/condo/entertainment unit and ...

Apparently lots of "stars" use our National Airways Corporation - who'd a thunk it?

If anyone's interested I've seen two episodes of 30 Rock (starting this Sunday on TV3) and I quite enjoyed them. Like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip it's a show about making a show not too disimilar to Saturday Night Live (an institution in the US, but never* seen here). I know Studio 60 didn't find an audience in the US and has been axed but I'm enjoying it. 30 Rock is a completely different type of show ie a comedy (but not a 'sit-com') and also worth a look.

[* can anyone remember the name's of those gawdawful 'Variety' shows that they tried here? One was that copy of Australia's Hey Hey Its Saturday]