Oprah in Australia

I was ready to write how the doting and obsessing on Oprah Winfrey's current trip to Australia is so embarassing, bordering on the pathetic. But perhaps if she had decided to go to Ireland instead (bringing with her the studio audience) I can't really say that the Irish tourist industry wouldn't do the same thing. And already all the money the government here has spent on the whole exercise has already been recouped in advertising exposure in America and everywhere else where Oprah is a star. But it's amazing the extent to which every last thing she's done and visited here so far has been headline news, wiping this weeks Wikileaks and Julian Assange news off the front pages of some newspapers. Flagpoles that usually hang banners for arts festivals or other events now have big flags with Oprah on them instead.