I’ve never sat down and spent time putting stills to music but thought it was high time I practiced. Given that I was in the middle of reading Schapelle’s book and so enthusiastic about her innocence I thought why not Schapelle!
So with that in mind, I spent a few hours and came up with the following video. The stills set to Adele’s “Make you feel my love”, I thought the words rang true. Hope you enjoy it, it was great fun to collate and I hope to do another one in the future.
I was totally shocked to see that it had been well over a year since I last posted on my blog and thought it was about time I got my arse into gear and updated it with a post from 2009! Apologies to all my readers and I promise to write more often this year – even if most of it will be inane drivel!
On to my subject matter for this post! I have just finished reading Schapelle Corby’s International bestseller “No More Tomorrows” in which she talks about her state of mind, the court process, how things went from bad to worst and a frank and honest account of her time at the Kerobokan prison.
The book from start to finish is an emotional roller-coaster. It is a truly wonderful read, (can I say that I enjoyed it, is that wrong?) often frightening that this sort of thing could happen to an innocent traveller going off to Bali for a holiday. I’ve been to Bali and had a wonderful time but anyone reading this book or aware of the Corby case will surely have second thoughts about travelling.
Schapelle’s biggest crime as she admits in her book was her failure to lock her boogie board when checking in in Brisbane. I myself have no doubt of her innocence and I sincerely hope she does get justice and make it home sooner rather than later. It doesn’t look great at the moment after exhausting the appeal process – what a joke that was. But the Corby family live in hope.
The book, co written with Kathryn Bonella, took 10 months to write and is a tribute to the determination, courage and hope that Schapelle has despite the weak legal team, a lawyer who cried more often …
Just sat down and watched the latest installment of Big Brother Australia 2007 and boy was it a good one!!! One thing that surprised me though was Cruz giving up on only $AU750 to leave the white room ! You spend 6 days in there eating nothing but porridge and wearing white clothes and you give up for a poxy 750 bucks ? Crazy !
Meanwhile in the main house, Andrew and Hayley manage to hide their relationship from the majority of the house although Jamie’s detection was something out of a Sherlock Holmes novel – both had the same photographic background paper ? .I didn’t think of that but that was bloody clever! So there we have it, the house pass the first weekly task thanks to Andrew and Hayley and the prize money has grown from nothing to $AU50k – well done.
I’m really enjoying this series, much more than I did the UK version last year – we are only a couple of months away from Big Brother UK but I can’t see any reason for me to stop watching the Australian version – they seem real to me. Take Travis, does anyone else think he’s like a Victorian Shane Warne ? His posture is similar and his mannerism typically Victorian. At the moment he is certainly a favourite of mine but the most attractive is definitely Hayley for me = awesome !!!
I hope it continues to impress as I can at the moment see me lasting the distance.
Can someone please tell me what Australia has done to deserve losing not one but two legends in the space of 5 days ? I guess this is always the way it works, just like in real non celebrity life. How many times do we go through our day to day life hearing that someone we know has died only to hear two days later that another acquaintance has died. I guess that’s the role of evolution but how much harder is it to lose two great Australian icons ? Bloody hard I tell you.
Peter Brock, nine times winner of the Bathurst 1000 died in a car rally yesterday, closely following in the footsteps of Steve Irwin last Monday. The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport and Western Australian Police confirmed that he lost control of his vehicle on a bend and collided with a tree whilst driving in the Targa West ’06 rally at 11.50am on September 8, 2006, near the township of Gidgegannup, 40km north-east of Perth. The 61-year-old Brock and his co-driver Mick Hone were in a 2001 Daytona Coupé. Hone was taken to hospital in a stable condition.
Video footage of the crash is being reviewed by police to help determine the cause of the accident. The editor of Wheels Magazine, Ged Bulmer, said that Brock would be remembered for his nine victories in the Bathurst 1000, for “He had a long and very successful career there, he was the ‘King of the Mountain’ as he came to be known.”
Brock’s children accepted the offer of a Victorian state funeral, with former partner Bev telling ABC Radio: “[Brock] was loved. He was in the public eye, and everything had to be done with a flourish and with a bang. It’s probably the way he …
There have been so many people interested in Steve Irwin’s death this week, quite an amazing number have visited my blog and the search terms have been crazy. On Monday and Tuesday, the first couple of days following his death in Australia, the search keywords were as expected “Steve Irwin’s death”, “Steve Irwin Stingray” and “Steve Irwin dead” just to name a few. Then on Wednesday it all changed! Curiosity took over and many visitors were looking for Steve’s death video, sick jokes on his death and comical images. I guess this happens through every walk of like and the only one I really haven’t seen too much like this is following 9/11.
I was searching youtube earlier and I was amazed at what I found when searching for all things Irwin and just like the variety of keywords used to find my blog this week, such was the variety of videos on offer at youtube. The videos ranging from tributes to his great life, death video (where you see a guy asking people why they really wanted to see his death), a re-enactment of when the stingray attacked Steve, show on Australian TV (shown Tuesday night believe it or not). Spoofs and yet more spoofs !!
Videos I’m glad that have made it to the net are news items from around the world, mainly from the day he was killed and I thought I would include snippets of these news reports, excerpts from news show and various news commentaries.
Nine News (OZ) (includes first news report)
Nine News (OZ)
Opie and Anthony (slightly strange view)
There are many more videos on the net these are certainly interesting especially the first Nine News Report that includes interviews with Steve’s manager, people who have survived …
I’m sure there are people out in the internet world waiting for someone to die, some nasty event to happen or are just out to make a joke at someone’s expense. I was very sad to hear of the passing of Steve Irwin yesterday and a day later I have received in my mail box 6 images relating to his death. Not the actual image I must add but 6 “funny” images surrounding Steve Irwin and crocodiles, fish and sun screen protecting him from harmful rays !
The people that put these images together are very talented, there’s no doubt about that and I wasn’t going to jump on the bandwagon and give them any publicity, indirectly or not but I must share one of the images with you as it had me smiling despite the sad subject. I hope you enjoy it, if indeed that is the correct phrase to use, I’m not sure. The image is a cross between the numerous broadcasts seen throughout the world reporting his death and finding nemo!
The tributes still pour in around the world for Steve Irwin who was killed yesterday by a Stingray Barb. A rather curious article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald today when a mother compared Steve Irwin’s death to that of Princess Diana and JFK, for children. I can’t see it on that scale to be honest but it certainly doesn’t belittle his death and contribution to wildlife and charities. I have to admit before I heard about this tragic accident I had never known about the stingray’s lethal attack or indeed what it was capable of. Given such a name I assumed rather naively that it would just sting you if you touched a live specimen, the last thing I expected to hear was a death occurring from such a defensive reaction by a stingray.
As I mentioned, I had no idea what the stingray was capable of before yesterday and when I looked around the net for the “barb” I never expected to see such a lethal image. It’s a cross between a long knife and shark scales. Stingrays can be found in both freshwater and marine habitats throughout the world. It must be stressed that not all stingrays can sting but unless you know what you are looking at you’d never know.
So what is the sting all about?
The venom apparatus or “sting” of a stingray is a spine or modified dermal denticle (the scales covering sharks and stingrays) with two ventral grooves filled with venom-producing tissue. The venom apparatus is surrounded by a cell-rich covering or sheath that also may produce lesser amounts of venom. The venom itself is a largely protein-based toxin that causes great pain in mammals and may also alter heart rate and respiration. However, since it is proteinaceous, it can be inactivated …
The web is buzzing about Steve Irwin’s death with literally hundreds and thousands of online news companies, magazines and newspapers reporting on his life, career and his death earlier today. I’ll try and find some of the better ones and put them all in one place to make things slightly easier.
The first to report on his death were the Australian newspapers, one of the advantages of being ideally placed and online these days. Although the world is such a small place that news of an event in the middle of the outback could find its way to London within hours. The Australian carries a story by David Bellamy calling Irwin audacious in his work, the same newspaper also carries a story by his mates telling how Steve wasn’t affected by the fame. Meanwhile the ABC in Brisbane reports on the tributes flowing in for the respected giant of the wildlife scene along with a story that Irwin had little chance to survive the sting. News.Com.au in Australia think that the “ray” was probably startled or frightened. I guess it was a normal defensive reaction if Steve was swimming close to the ray.
Worldwide coverage has shown the enormous following Steve enjoyed in his short life in the public eye. The Sun newspaper prints a pictoral tribute to Steve’s life, click on the link to view the slideshow. There are some nice images in the slideshow and more will surface in the following days I’m sure. Africa’s own Crocodile Hunter pays his tribute from Johannesburg via Reuters, Khalid Hassen who has shot over 17,000 crocodiles thinks that Irwin’s death at the hands of the stingray is an unfitting way to die for such a legend.
I’m sure over time we will get the full details of Steve’s death, …
I was going to write a piece today about The Sentinel starring Michael Douglas and Eva Longoria but I have woken up to find news of Steve Irwin’s death. Known throughout the world as the “Crocodile Hunter”, he was killed today during a diving expedition off the coast of Australia. Steve was 44 and leaves behind wife Terri, 42, daughter Bindi, 8, and son Bob, 2. The news is a tragedy not only for his immediate family, all those at Australia Zoo but for the tireless work he did for wildlife preservation.
Steve was filming a documentary was about the Great Barrier Reef in north eastern Queensland state when a stingray barb pierced his chest and despite a paramedic helicopter rushing to the site they arrived too late.
According to Australia’s “The Age”, Steve Irwin probably died instantly when his chest was pierced by the stingray according to the producer of the documentary. John Stainton, who has worked as a director and producer on a number of Irwin’s film and television projects since 1996, said it was unlikely he had felt any pain.
He said he had gone “over the top of a stingray and a stingray’s barb went up and went into his chest and put a hole into his heart”.
If he did indeed feel no pain I guess Steve would have been unaware of any danger, unlike many of his exploits over the years. I remember watching a documentary he made catching snakes and in it he boasted that “I’ve never been bitten by a snake”. He was a confident guy who loved wildlife, simple as that. He courted controversy in 2004 when he fed a dead chicken to a crocodile at his zoo, holding his son Robert in the other hand.
Child …
Oh dear, Darrell Hair just can’t keep out of the headlines can he. Following his controversial decision last week to award the Oval Test to England after he accused Pakistan of cheating (ball tampering) it has emerged that he offered to resign from Test cricket. Ok nothing wrong with that I hear you say, but it’s not as simple as that! He offered to hang up his white coat for a price, $500,000 in fact or £266,000.
Many will see this as a sordid attempt to extract the urine/money but he insists that he was looking for a way out that would re balance the cricketing world following the decision last Sunday. Darrell Hair now 53 sent an email to the ICC, Malcom Speed, its Chairman has confirmed the Australian umpire has been under an enormous amount of stress but following legal advice had no option but to make this matter public.
And he said he was satisfied Hair had not made the offer with any “dishonest, underhand or malicious intent”.
“He was seeking to find a solution that was in the interests of the game.”
The ICC’s lawyers advised the organisation to disclose the contents of Hair’s message to the Pakistan Cricket Board as they were relevant to the disciplinary case brought against captain Inzamam-ul-Haq. Having informed the PCB, Speed then felt compelled to make the documents public in case they were leaked anyway.
Darrell Hair has since revoked the email citing it was sent after a stressful time in the spotlight. Hair doesn’t strike me as someone who bows to either pressure or stress and is certainly no stranger to controversy in Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe or India. Hair knew exactly what he was doing on Sunday and in his email to the ICC. It’s about time …
I’ve been meaning to write something about Schapelle Corby for some time now, long before I started this blog a few weeks ago,born out of frustration for her predicament, unable to help in any way, it infuriated me to the nth degree.
Schapelle was born in Australia in 1977 and has recently turned 29 while serving a 20 year jail sentence for importing/smuggling 4.1Kg of cannabis to Bali in October 2004. She was sentenced in May 2005 and the sentencing was carried live by satellite to both Australia and New Zealand, the guilty verdict greeted in utter disbelief.
There was immediate condemnation of the result from fellow Australian citizens and once the news had reached the other side of the world in the UK, it was met with a similar feelings. Public and political outcry followed but despite letters from leading politicians and celebrities including Russell Crowe, the Bali Government were unmoved and the 20 years sentencing stood.
I strongly believe that Schapelle is innocent and is the victim of a drug smuggling operation gone wrong, as far as she was concerned that is. Popular opinions suggest that the drugs, found in her boogie board on arrival in Bali, were never meant to leave Australia and were bound for Sydney. The drugs were planted in her unlocked boogie board in Brisbane and upon arrival in Sydney Airport were supposed to be removed and collected by an unknown drug ring.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald Corby flew out of Sydney on the same day (8 October 2004) as a large shipment of cocaine was shipped out of the airport by a drug ring involving corrupt baggage handlers. During the week of 9 May 2005 in Australia several arrests occurred related to cocaine smuggling through Sydney airport. Her defence claimed that the …
