The Italian Film Festival opened last night at 7.00pm with the Brisbane premiere of popular actor and director Carlo Verdones ‘My Best Enemy’.

Again this year, the festival is sponsored by Lavazza. As with previous years, we are sure there are some absolute hits in the line up.

The festival continues until November 22. Be warned though, the majority of the films are 18 plus.

After more than a year U2 finally made it to Brisbane. Bono thanked god for the health of the band and their families right up front as well as all those in the crowd. Brisbane immediately forgave them for being late.

The show was a relatively traditional U2 gig. The famous tunes, the lines for peace and accord.

It was of cause also influenced by local and recent events. Devid Hicks was called to be tried on Australian soil, with Bono also requesting time with the PM on this and poverty spending.

Aside from eight year old Cassidy being pulled to the stage the performance was relatively few of major highlights. Bono did play a drum solo on the elevated walkways in the crowd, Edge performed a solo, but for me strangely it lacked true punch.

One dramatic moment though, which maybe eclipsed the entire few hours in a ‘recording equipment banned’ event was the request for the crowd to bring out their cell phones. Immediately 50,000 flickering lights were visible.

U2 remain genuine, quite noble men in their intent. After all this time its incredible and still wonderful to see their persistence.

Japanese rider Yasunari Iwata astride Delta Blues took honours in the Melbourne Cup from stablemate Pop Rock.

The Japanese have finally broken their drought and confirmed my race thoughts from yesterday.

With an estimated 700million viewers in 120 countries, including 110,000 trackside at Flemington there is sure to be a few sore heads and strangely lighter wallets.

Another exciting installment in the race that stops the nation.

For years was the Fosters Melbourne Cup and now it the Emirates Melbourne Cup.

It used to be the race that stopped the nation. Now it is quickly becoming the race that stops the world.

With the exception of an occasional Kiwi or maybe an Irish runner it has remained steadfastly an Australian race. Over the past few years though interest from asia has increased rapidly.

This year there are two Japanese horses, one Pop Rock even has an Australian jockey in one D Oliver. Will this be the year for the Japanese? Its a long way that 3200 metres but by around 3.15 we will know how much racing has changed in the 2006 Melbourne Cup.

For many though its more about the hats and drinks. Enjoy whatever your afternoon holds!

On over the weekend at Brisbane Exhibition Centre was Australian Motorcycle Expo.

Manufacturers had the opportunity to show off their wares. The new new BMW F800 was on display for the first time in Brisbane.

Moto extreme rider Chris Pfeiffer, seen in the photograph above, put on quite an amazing display. Endos, monos, burnouts and wheelies all got the crowd revved.

Just watched Laurie Oaks try to put Malcom Turnbull under pressure on the Sunday show.

Now Laurie is an experienced commentator, and we have all seen him make politicians squirm, but Malcom handled himself so well it was surprising.

Once of the main points Turnbull made was related to water our capital cities. Peter Beatie probably would not be too pleased with the interview as he was personally singled out as having missed the boat.

With water the responsibility of state or local government Turnbull believes private enterprise needs to get involved as has happened in the United Kingdom. Surprisingly enough the private enterprise owners of UK water resources are actually Australian with Macquarie, Westpac and Commonweath banks all involved.

100 Million Dollar reference, that is the apparent net worth of Turnbull. A point Oaks also tried to unsucessfully push during the interview.