Konnichiwa Annastacia!

Ms Palaszczuk arrived in Tokyo on Monday morning ahead of the final bid for Brisbane to host the 2032 Summer Olympic Games.

An online petition with more than 130,000 signatures demanded that Ms Palaszczuk be refused permission to travel overseas due to her successful push - alongside other state premiers - to halve the cap on Australians returning home to limit the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19.

Anyhow, Ms Palaszczuk was not having a bar of that and half her luck!

The least she could do is post some food photos on her Instagram account for us armchair travellers but I'm not seeing any there as yet.

Sushi. Sashimi. Unagi. Onigiri. Yakitori. Not even a chicken skewer!

Ms Palaszczuk is likely keeping a low profile.

She is the yin to a certain extreme right commentator's yang.

English media personality Katie Hopkins rightly got sent packing in Sydney this week. (If Barnaby Joyce had his way, she would have packed her bongo too!)

Hopkins - who is renowned for her racist remarks - came to Australia to star in the reality TV show Big Brother Australia.

Having called lockdowns the "greatest hoax in human history" (strange call from a Big Brother contestant!) and posting a video threatening to put frontline works at a Sydney hotel at risk, Hopkins was sacked by Channel 7 and lost her government visa.

Australia closed its borders in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, preventing many citizens outside the country from returning. The policy has kept families apart. But dozens of celebrities, sports stars and others with exemptions have been able to bypass the rule.

Since deportation Hopkins said she was only joking in that video.

Funny, no one in Sydney was laughing!

MORE MATERIAL GIRL:

If watching other people's travel plans come to light or implode is driving you up the wall, there's always SBS on Demand or Netflix for your next world trip.

Hallo Iceland!

With all of the wet and wild weather on the radar, the only reasonable thing to do is plug into somewhere with more extreme conditions.

The first season of Katla will cheer you up, no-end!

Reveling in the bleak beauty of small town Vik's dramatic landscape, it offers up an ominous supernatural mystery.

The subglacial volcano Katla has been erupting constantly for a whole year, forcing all of the villagers to vacate except for a few stayers, who make up this excellent cast.

Rotten Tomatoes scores this eight-episode Netflix series 100 per cent.

Given this genre is not everyone's cup of tea, Katla will in the very least make you appreciate clean air, functioning air filters in cars and our comparatively mild winters.

Bonjour France!

Faces Places showcases an artistic friendship, following two photographers as they set out to discover and celebrate the residents of villages throughout France.

JR, 33, is tall and gangly, permanently sporting a pair of dark sunglasses. He'd long been an admirer of Varda, who was 88 by the time the pair teamed up for the film project.

Varda was a longtime collaborator with French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.

This charming documentary on SBS on Demand is a fun ride for a full 89 minutes.

Hei Norway!

Part sci-fi, part satire, part Scandi-noir, Beforeigners is beguiling.

Time travel refugees from The Stone Age, The Viking Era and the late 19th Century have mysteriously settled in Oslo.

The script is brilliant!

In between screenings, however, don't forget to step outside and take it all in.

It may be cold but at least it's not raining ash!

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