The doctor is in

Brisbane musician Clare Hansson has become the first student to complete a PhD in jazz studies at QUT's Creative Industries Faculty.
Now nicknamed "Doctor Jazz" by the uni, Dr Hansson based her thesis on her research into the career of New York jazz pianist and friend, Marian McPartland.
"Initially I plucked up the courage to write to this lady because I had never heard another woman playing so powerfully," Dr Hansson said.
"I also sent her my first recording. I was so surprised when she wrote back telling me 'You play beautifully'.
"Since then we have kept in contact and by 1995 I found I had accumulated quite a bit of information and memorabilia."
Dr Hansson said McPartland was "a rebel, a maverick" who defied her British family to embrace an "unsuitable" occupation in the 1940s jazz scene by marrying an American jazz musician and heading to the United States.
"Her career, first sponsored by her husband Jimmy McPartland, unfolded and blossomed throughout the decades because of her natural talent, her eagerness to seize opportunities and her willingness to take risks," she said.
"As a female jazz pianist I know the difficulties of making it in the male-dominated jazz scene."
Dr Hansson has maintained her own jazz trio for the past 25 years and is a regular performer at jazz festivals around Queensland and interstate.
QUT said a bound copy of her thesis had been lodged at Rutgers University's prestigious Institute of Jazz Studies in New Jersey, USA.

Father Leo's life goes from bard to verse
New Farm parish priest Leo Coote, a man of many talents, has achieved something most scholars thought impossible. He has produced a book with a new slant on Shakespeare.
What's more he has published it with nice timing - the VIII World Shakespeare Congress will be held in Brisbane from July 16 to 21, with international and national experts coming from all over for lectures and performances.
Father Leo, who ran 10 marathons in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast and was in the Guinness Book of Records in the 1970s for a record 1586 push ups in half an hour, has put all of his spare energy in recent years into writing a book entitled My Life as a Bard Dream.
Launching the book at Dooley's recently University of Queensland senior lecturer in English Dr Peter Holbrook (pictured on right with Father Leo) said: Father Leo's book is a charming and eccentric example of (the) perennial tendency to use Shakespeare to interpret one's own life. In his case, he has actually managed to tell the story of his own life using Shakespeare's words only.
"There is something marvellously zany and funny and amazing about the whole enterprise- the fact that he thought of doing this is one thing, but carrying it off, as he has, is quite another!"
Archbishop John Bathersby is said to have described the book as "a work of scholarship".
Subtitled A Gallimaufry of Bad Gambles, it is based on Father Leo's love of Shakespeare and the fact that many everyday sayings have evolved from quotes and phrases from Shakespeare's great variety of plays.
The book is filled with colourful and to-the-point descriptions of everyday deeds which have survived in the English language for more than 400 years. Father Leo's imagined dream describes his entire life touching on his schoolboy days, work, sport, gambling, romance, pubs, health and death in a land where the "lingua franca" is the language of Shakespearean plays.
My Life as a Bard Dream is illustrated with artwork and graphics starring Leo superimposed in a "gallimaufry" of poses linked to the Shakespearean prose.
The book runs to 136 pages and retails for $29.99 plus postage if necessary. It is available from the Holy Spirit Presbytery, Villiers Street, New Farm between 9am and 2pm Monday to Friday. Phone 3358 3744. Father Leo is also talking to book shop owners and on-line book sellers in Australia and overseas for future distribution.
Some of the proceeds from the book sales will go towards restoring a large mural covering the semi-dome of the sanctuary above the altar at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church at New Farm. Symbolising the Holy Spirit and featuring cherubs and angels, the mural was painted by William Bustard for the opening of the church 75 years ago.
Father Leo was ordained by Bishop Torpie, his mother's cousin, at Beaudesert, Leo's home town, in 1969. He served in Brisbane parishes before going to Hervey Bay from 1979 to 1984. It was in Hervey Bay when he was "more into Shakespeare than sailing and fishing" that his love for the Bard grew.
And it was later on Tamborine Mountain, playing golf with a psychiatrist friend, that the idea for the book was born. When he asked his friend what psychiatry was all about his friend replied, "It's all in Shakespeare".
There's one way to find out.
David Bray

Tim conquers the world
Talented Brisbane artist Tim Sharp is having trouble keeping up with worldwide demand for his works.
The Tingalpa artist spoke to The Independent on Tuesday just prior to the opening of his latest exhibition, Laser Beak Man Comes Home, and he proudly rattled off some of the far-flung parts of the world that have bought his works.
"New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa," he rattled off the list, with proud mum Judy adding countries he's missed.
For an artist who has already featured on ABC TV's Australian Story, Tim's is an amazing success story, especially as he is autistic.
His crayon and pen drawings allow him to unleash his intelligence, sense of humour and step outside the loneliness of autism.
Judy adds: "His art allows him to communicate with people on a totally different level."
She says 2006 has been Tim's most prolific year to date, and he is creating his colourful and amazing pieces at a rate that has her thinking that maybe he needs to slow down a little. But she adds a little ruefully: "There's such a demand we can't keep up with it."
Tim says it takes only a few minutes to sketch the outline of each of his works - centred around the character he created - before he goes to work to finish each piece in some fairly amazing and mesmerising colours.
Most of the pieces in the current exhibition have a $1000 price tag. They can be viewed in the Powerhouse's Turbine Hall & Spark Bar until Sunday July 9, from 9am to 5pm Mondays to Fridays and between 10am and 4pm on the weekends. Go along and be amazed at what this amazing young man has achieved.