Hang the DJ

At work I am forced to persevere through the auditory onslaught that is commercial radio.

And no, we are not talking "good" commercial radio. We are talking syndicated radio in rural NSW, complete with the "no repeat workdays" and chuckling, deep-voiced jocks paired with bubbly lasses.

Okay, they haven't done the "no repeat workday" thing for years, but gosh, I'd almost love for it to come back, because the nausea-inducing cycle of Top 40 trash has me struggling to listen to the voice on the phone who I'm supposed to be quoting.

At the office, we all have our own pet hate pop anthem. One hates the Black Eyed Peas, another anything Nickelback (well, everybody should hate them, like these Portugese people), the person nearest myself detests Eminem and I cannot stand the monotony of the monosyllabic colour, Pink.

But my point. Last week, for about three days in a row, the Gin Blossoms' Hey Jealousy was on. That didn't worry me, I mean it's a good song.

It did get me thinking though, who chose to play that? And for three days in a row?

Commercial radio is usually programmed by some monster computer that carefully calculates demographics and your tax file number to play basically the same song.

Yet here was this track from a half-decent band (though I did always prefer 'Til I Hear It From You, but that's because I can recite the Empire Records script perfectly).

I liken it to myself at a pub when I'm in a silly mood. If there's a jukebox and no other music playing in the establishment, I latch onto it. I sort through, searching for some hidden gem of cool/actually listen-able music (usually Rock the Casbah to the chagrin of my associates, but it's the only Clash song on there) and mostly end up making them really embarrassed by putting on Foreigner. Yes, my debauchery extends to jukeboxes and I do really want to know what love is.

So perhaps there is some shining beacon out there, some final stand against repetitively painful pop, a programmer who tries to slip one cool song into the endless sea of Khe Sahn, AC/DC (all the songs are the same), resampled R&B and that most fiendish of all, Pink.

Oh, and if you didn't catch on, the title is a Smiths reference.

More gates than a gate convention at Gatesville

Could anyone tell me why every news outlet - particularly in our fair land of Oz - feels obliged to to tack "gate" on the end of any controversy involving politics.

I say this as we are now in what is hopefully the death throes of "utegate", while still fresh in our minds is the ridiculousness of "Iguanagate".

Watergate was an important moment in history (probably), not so much for the crime but for the way Nixon handled it, and really, shouldn't there be more to show for it than a new word appendage?

So where to from here? Well, going with the theme of utes, I'm sure we could see "rum&coke-gate" or "B&S-gate" on the horizon ... if only we could get million dollar Turnbull out to the infamous Deni Ute Muster ...

Of course, the ultimate would be a political incident involving an actual gate. Imagine the witty banter in national newsrooms as every outlet (bar the final bastion of sanity that is the ABC) has a eureka moment and declares it "gate-gate".

I'm sure they'd latch (yep, that's a gate pun) onto it.

But if that day never comes, I'm sure there will be myriad scandals, sex tapes and celebrity stoushes for the media to report on and no doubt ask Ruddinator PM for his opinion.

In the last few weeks Kev has been called on to offer comment on all things trivial, be it Tracy Grimshaw or the Chaser.

And can we really blame him? I mean, is he supposed to just stare blankly at the offending journalist who asks this nonsense. Perhaps a better course of action would be to hit them with a rolled up newspaper and scold "bad journo, we do that at Today Tonight".

There could even be a special minister for it. Minister for Stupidity has a nice ring to it, but it would probably suit Christopher Pyne better. The opposition would have to be in power for that and I can't see it happening anytime soon thanks to ol' utegate.

Considering how convoluted some of the current titles are, I think we can add a few more portfolios and make it Minister for Whacking for Stupid Journalists, for Agriculture, for Fart Jokes and for Veteran Affairs.

On the Grisly Grimshaw versus Rowdy Ramsay front, at least the chef is honest about being a bully, while she seems quote content to sit in her chair and smile smugly as one of her co-workers harasses people.

On the matter on her apparent lesbian pigness, I would need to find out her amount of nipples (the human number being two, the pig number being multiples of two) or her sexual orientation. Both research tasks are unfortunately horribly linked. Can't we just ask Kev what he thinks?