Tunedin

ABBIE Cornish's recurring Wildside character, Simone Summers, reveals her own wild side on tonight's episode of the ABC drama (8.30pm).

The talented Hunter Valley actress has played the troubled teenage daughter of crisis centre medico Maxine Summers (Rachael Blake) since the acclaimed series debuted.

On tonight's episode Cornish shares some intimate and potentially controversial scenes with Vince Poletto, who plays Simone's high school maths teacher, Aiden Collins.

Teacher and student are having a sexual affair, which comes as quite a shock to Maxine.

Mother: 'He's your teacher . . . he took advantage of you!'

Daughter: 'Yeah? Well it didn't seem like that when he was telling me to stop taking my clothes off and to go home.'

Ouch!

CHEEKY MIKEY

ALWAYS one for a cheeky quip, Newcastle's own Mikey Robins was frightfully candid this month about his August wedding to his business manager, Laura Williams.

Williams accompanied Robins to Newcastle last month for the launch of the university's Godfrey Tanner Alumni Scholarship.

Asked if married life was going to be another major life change after his exit from the Triple J breakfast shift and Good News Week's switch from ABC TV to Ten, the former Castanet Clubber said: 'We've been living together for a couple of years, so we'll just be legal now. We won't be sinning in the eyes of the Lord. We won't be hurting the baby Jesus every time we lie together.'

BARBED SQUIRES

THE bosses at pay-TV arts and entertainment channel Arena have done the unthinkable: they've given Tony Squires MORE airtime.

Yes, from April 11, the Swansea-raised former Newcastle Herald journo (now a Sydney Morning Herald columnist) will front an extended version of his weekly show, Inside The Arena.

The witty TV critic's mischievous 15-minute spotlight on the best and worst on Australian TV has grown to a 30-minute program, the standard running time of most situation-comedies.

PACKAGE DEAL

PAY-TV operator Austar has sealed a deal to carry the Foxtel channels Fox8, FX/FX-Movies and Hallmark, as well as UK-TV and the Optus Vision sports channels C7 and ESPN.

That means pay-TV subscribers in Maitland and the Upper Hunter will, from April 1, be able to access more channels than Foxtel customers in Newcastle.

C7 promises blanket coverage of Aussie Rules, ESPN shows international sport, Fox8 has general entertainment programs like The X Files, The Simpsons and the John Laws show, LAWS, FX shows US dramas and talk shows for women (with movies at night hosted by Bill Collins), UK-TV screens the best of British telly and Hallmark is dedicated to US telemovies and mini-series.

The new channels will be available as an optional extra for $10.95 a month.

A free 30-day trial of Austar's new 'Deluxe' channel package begins on Thursday, although C7 is expected to be on the air from tomorrow with coverage of the first round of the new AFL season.