Front Row Dress Circle

Personally I cannot for the life of me detect a single note of the old campfire song Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gumtree in the flute riff of the huge Aussie hit song Down Under by Men at Work.

But the Australian band may have to pay millions in royalties after a court ruled that they copied a well-known children’s campfire song for the flute melody in their 1980s hit Down Under. ‘Kookaburra Sits In the Old Gum Tree’ was written more than 70 years ago by Australian teacher Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides competition and the song has been a favourite around camp fires from New Zealand to Canada. The teacher died in 1988 and publishing company Larrikin Music owns the copyright to her song about the native Australian bird. Larrikin filed the copyright action last year.

Down Under and the album Business As Usual topped the Australian, American and British charts in early 1983. The song remains an unofficial anthem for Australia, it was our official victory song when Australia won the 1983 America’s Cup yacht race, and was ranked fourth in a 2001 music industry survey of the best Australian songs.

Men At Work won the 1983 Grammy Award for Best New Artist but I remember when they appeared on television for the very first time. It was 1981 and Ian Meldrum introduced them on his show Countdown - he announced them as a ‘new group with a cute song…Who Can It Be Now’. The rest is history.

Trivia: When Men At Work performed their hit ‘Down Under’ at the 1983 Grammy Awards singer Colin Hay was so nervous he fluffed the start of the song singing a line of the chorus instead of the first line of the song.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Those Irish twins Jedward (John and Edward) are really going from strength to strength since their exit from the X Factor competition last year. Despite what members of the public thought and said about them they have not disappeared into obscurity, nor have they fallen flat on their faces. I think the public have taken these boys to their hearts and the reason they are still around while other more successful contestants such as…funny, no names spring immediately to mind!

Well Joe for instance, the winner of X Factor - anyone heard of him just lately? John and Edward have what the others do not possess - a gimmick. You need a very unique talent to not need a gimmick if you want to be noticed, John and Edward know this all too well and they are raking it in while…Olly (that’s his name!) will probably finish up singing at Butlins. And Olly was the better performer by far…

I have seen John and Edward on the television three times this week so far - as for the lovely, talented Joe McElderry…a successful gimmick can sometimes be more lucrative than natural talent. Sad but true.

Popularity: 4% [?]

As the list of dubious celebrities get set to enter the CBB house fans are left wondering exactly who will reside in the house themed for this year as ‘Dante’s Inferno’. Katie Price’s ‘boyfriend’ Alex Reid has been offered £150,000 to enter the house dressed as his alter-ego Roxanne however Reid is said to have ditched the character following some expected teasing from his cage-fighting colleagues.

However, with so much cash at stake don’t be too surprised if Reid hangs onto Roxie just for a while longer…

Other housemates rumoured to be taking part are Katie Price’s former lover Dane Bowers who seems to pop up on most reality tv shows these days with his last appearance being on Celebrity Come Dine With Me. With two of Katie’s former men in the house it should be interesting if they decide to get together and compare notes…

Others also expected are: Pamela Anderson (she will be interesting to see first thing in the morning sans makeup…), the Russian bimbo who ran off with Ronnie Woods ( Ekater…something-or-other),  actor Stephen Baldwin, butt-ugly Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, M C Hammer and someone called Nicola T ( your guess is as good as mine…)

This show was rather boring last year and I still wonder at how Ulrika Jonsson managed to win seeing as she basically sat around scowling at all the men - but at least it paid for all her recent plastic surgery.

Popularity: 25% [?]