<![CDATA[The Life & Times of Brisbane]]>I don’t know what it is about the Brisbane Times. Maybe being linked in to the Age and SMH website was too much for it; maybe it’s always been this way, and prominent online publication has merely made it obvious. Perhaps the Illawarra Mercury, God love it, has finally found a friend. But whatever the probable cause, the facts don’t alter: no matter what enterprises of great pitch and moment are afoot in the world, the top 5 stories in the Brisbane Times always involve murder, sex, scandal and disreputable teenagers – often in the one article.

Witness today’s offerings: while the Age and SMH show a respectable balance between media, IT, social commentary and politics, good ol’ Brisneyland presents the following headlines:

1. Oral sex blamed for rise in throat cancer

2. How did dead man kill his wife?

3. You banker! ‘Trainee bus driver’ busted

4. Cop ‘should be fired’ for allowing 13yo to marry

5. Condoms turn up heat in Antarctica

I’ve got no objections to trashy news (or newspapers, come to that). I just find it consistently funny that, regardless of what’s actually going on, the top BT articles are always dredged from the pits of scum and sexual entendre.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to enjoy the journalistic schardenfreude of salacious misery. Anyone got a Tim Tam?

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