Brett Debritz’s archive

We all played “scissors, paper, rock” as children, but never for such big stakes. A Japanese art collector who couldn’t decide which auction house he would use to sell his multi-million dollar collection had representatives from Christie’s and Sotheby’s play the game. The winner, Christie’s, got to auction off the collection, which includes works by Picasso, Van Gogh and Cezanne. The ABC version of the story is here. If you want to reminisce about the game, or learn some strategies for playing, click here for the “official” governing body.

It doesn’t feel like it now but it was almost 15 years ago that I picked up a funny bootleg T-shirt in Tijuana, just over the US border in Mexico, of a funny yellow-skinned cartoon family called the Simpsons. Earlier, in my San Diego hotel room, I watched my first episode of the show, where a foul-mouthed spiky haired boy pulled a three-eyed fish out of stream. I thought it was oddly amusing, but I didn’t realise what a phenomenon The Simpsons would become. This weekend, the series celebrates its 350th episode in the United States – and creator Matt Groening says he wants to make at least 366 of them, so there’s one for every day of the year.

Cambodia’s former King Norodom Sihanouk, who is being treated in China for cancer, has apologised for not being dead. “I present my humble apologies to everyone who wants my death,” Sihanouk wrote in French on his website. “But, for the moment, God and the Buddha have not decided to send me into the afterlife.” If only some of our politicians were so considerate.

The popular publicist at Brisbane’s La Boite theatre is now officially known as Rosemary Walker. She celebrated the final decree of her divorce, and the return to her pre-marriage surname, last night at the Normanby Hotel (just up Kelvin Grove Road from the Roundhouse theatre). The party attracted many of the state’s theatre luminaries – and the odd journalist or two.

Pop opera band Il Divo have provided at least one reason to watch this weekend’s Logie Awards telecast. At a showcase performance in Sydney last night, these handsome young men (who will apear at the Australian TV gong show on May 1) proved there was more to their act than hype and good looks. They’ve also got voices to die for. If you’ve not secured a Mother’s Day gift yet, their already platinum self-titled debut CD might be the answer.

A sobering thought on Anzac Day 2005, the 90th anniversary of the ill-fated assault by Australian and New Zealand troops on the shores of Gallipoli, Turkey, during what we now remember as World War I. Back then, it was thought of as the Great War, the war to end all wars. While we have made many technological, medical and academic advances in these past nine decades, we’ve yet to find a way to put an end to war. With the weaponry available today, it is imperative that we do.

Student unions won’t be able to afford to mount gigs and Brisbane’s live music scene will perish and die. That’s the dire forecast from University of Queensland student union president Leah Sanderson, in an assessment of the federal government’s plans to abolish compulsory student unionism. Sanderson told the ABC that the 1970s punk scene and, more recently, bands like Brisbane-based George wouldn’t have happened without the support of student unions.

Whatever director Bryan Singer does with Superman, he won’t be messing with the blue tights. A picture released this week shows that the new Superman Returns movie, being filmed in New South Wales, will feature actor Brandon Routh in the familiar costume and cape. Superman Returns will also star Kevin Spacey, as the evil Lex Luthor, and Kate Bossworth as Lois Lane. The film – the first big-screen outing for the man from Krypton since the late Christopher Reeve donned the tights two decades ago – won’t be released until next year.

Two colourful Australians from different sides of the political fence died today: former federal Labor MP Al Grassby, who was Immigration Minister under the Whitlam government, and former Country/National Party Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. One did much to broaden the definition of what it is to be Australian; the other was a populist who often played to people’s narrow prejudices. The ABC has extensive coverage of Bjelke-Petersen’s death, at 6pm, (including this article by Quentin Dempster) but rather less about Grassby. See also: debritz.com’s Celebrity Death Archive. (This entry was update on April 24.)

The so-called Flower Portrait of Shakespeare has been definitively declared a fake. Experts say the painting, which bears the inscription 1609, was in fact created in the early 19th Century. That still makes it valuable, but it means it does not date back to the Bard’s lifetime. Painted over a 16th Century portrait of the Madonna and Child, the portrait is named after Sir Desmond Flower who donated it to the Shakespeare Museum in 1911. It is now owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. There’s more on the images of Shakespeare at about.com.