While I do feel for the musicians - and retailers - caught up in all this, I can't feel sorry for the record companies in the wake of the dramatic slump in CD sales. They are whingeing about illegal downloads of songs, but the music giants conveniently forget that they were ridiculously slow in embracing the technology that would allow legal downloads. Like ostriches with their heads in the sands, they thought the online threat would go away if they just ignored it. They are huffing and puffing now because they realise that musicians don't need them any more. Any act with good music to offer, decent marketing skills and an internet connection can pocket the profits directly - or, at least, dictate their own terms to the hitherto overpaid, meddlesome middlemen. So sad, too bad.

What's going on at abc.net.au? Since when do Australians use the term "potty mouthed"?

There's a bar in Shanghai that seems to play nothing but AC/DC songs, particularly the very old Bon Scott classics. Now, there'll be something new to play - as long as the club's procurer gets along to Wal-Mart, that is. In was seems like a very un-rock'n'roll move to me, the Aussie rockers are releasing their new album exclusively through the American discount chain. The band's music is not even available on iTunes.

Normally, I wouldn't be commenting about an underage kid trying to sneak into a nightclub in the early hours of the morning. But when it's Corey Worthington, I'll make an exception. The reported incident at the Gold Coast's popular Shooters club follows another incident where Worthington allegedly trashed a hotel room. The kid is getting too big for his boots and thinks he's bulletproof. Whose fault is that? The minders who are making a mint out of him and the media - especially the Big Brother producers - who are using him as a ratings tool (and you can read that last word either way). If this is how he's behaving now, how's he going to cope when he's yesterday's hero?

While I empathise with Australian musical acts including Jimmy Barnes, The Veronicas, Powderfinger, Operator Please, Human Nature and Grinspoon, who are pleading with fans via a new mini-documentary not to download music illegally, I think they should be asking questions of their record labels, too. In particular, they should be asking: why did the music companies drag the chain on licensing music for legal downloading, thus allowing the illegal downloading sites and applications to get such a strong foothold? The artists should also be urging the labels to give them a bigger slice of the action since he internet is significantly reducing their overheads on producing, distributing and marketing music.

"I think in another 10 years in Australia, the only people who are going to be watching TV are those people over 60, and you're dead to the networks when you're 50." So says US academic Dr Jeffrey Cole. He's talking about the inevitable decline of traditional media. I think he's right on both counts - which is why Channel pushes its advertiser-friendly demographic line. Interestingly, though, commercial talk stations, which target older people, are extremely profitable. And, as I've said before, I expect to be far more cashed up and looking for things to buy when I'm in my fifties than I've been at any other time in my life.