AT THIS time of year, the media is full of articles and lists that trawl back through the last 12 months, reminding us of the newsworthy events that shaped our recent annus mirabilis.
We get to relive the tragedy, sorrow, scandal and hilarity that made up our current affairs existence between Christmases.Usually these lists are conveyed with sombre gravitas, concentrating on the world-changing significance of events - what they will mean for humankind in the realms of politics, sport, environment, technology and entertainment.
It gets interesting, though, when you compare these lists to summaries of what people have been typing into internet search engines during the year.You may have worked your whole life to attain fame, skills or social standing, studied or practised or slogged away for your deserved slice of history, but when it comes down to it, you'll be remembered and Google-searched for just one thing. And honey, it ain't the thing you want. Take, for example:
Julian Assange
THE internet activist founded WikiLeaks, a site that exposes previously secret information of political and social import.
He's seen by some as a dangerous threat to security and international relations but by others as a visionary and a crusader for free speech.
Assange worked as a computer programmer, journalist and hacker before deciding he could affect potential change in what he regarded as unjust regimes by leaking private information.
What he will be Googled for: Alleged naughty acts with Swedish ladies.
Tiger Woods
A PRODIGIOUS golfer of unprecedented talent, skill and success, Woods has, for all intents and purposes, rewritten the story of golf.
Major tournaments throughout his career became simply a matter of who would come second, and international companies clamoured for endorsement opportunities.
What he will be remembered for: Cheating on his wife. A lot. And perhaps for jokes containing the word "wood".
The Chilean mine disaster
IN AUGUST, an accident in a mine in Copiapo, Chile, left 33 miners trapped underground for more than two months.
The world watched, transfixed, in October as every single miner emerged alive, ready to label the rescue as either a triumph of human skill and persistence or a miracle, depending on their beliefs.
As each previously-trapped individual was squirted out of the right end of the rescue tube, we cried real tears and marvelled at their stamina.
What it will be remembered for: Miner Yonni Barrios, whose wife and mistress waited for him to emerge. Admittedly, there may also be some Google searches by those curious about how the miners went to the toilet for 69 days but it's mostly Yonni's show.
Prince William
THE late Princess Diana's most crumpet-esque son, William has been in the public eye since foetus-hood.
We've watched him complete his education, wear dashing military uniforms, shake hands with countless international dignitaries and do good work for an impressive number of causes and charities.
In November, after seven years of courtship, William finally proposed to girlfriend Kate Middleton, causing a heart-fluttering frenzy of media attention and pearl-clutching.
What we're most concerned about: His bald spot.
Julia Gillard
GILLARD has a long stream of achievements, from a law career to an early interest in politics that led her to become deputy prime minister in 2007.
In June last year, Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd as the party leader and Prime Minister, an act which some saw as a timely and significant change of leadership, and some saw as a good old traditional schoolyard back-stabbing.
She led the ALP to the narrowest of tentative victories in September after some almost interminably long speeches by at least one independent. She is known for being godless, childless, and weddingless.
What we actually talk about: Her boyfriend is an ex-hairdresser. How does her hair look today?
Michael Clarke
"PUP" debuted as a cricketer for the NSW team when he was still, well, a pup. His massive potential saw him make his Australian team debut in 2003, his Test debut in 2004, and eventually his debut as captain in the Fifth Test of the 2010/11 Ashes series. Dotting the scoreboard with centuries throughout his career and winning the Alan Border Medal in 2005, it's been firmly established that Clarke can bat, bowl and be a team leader.
What we really want to know: If his ex-fiancee Lara Bingle really threw her engagement ring in the crapper.
Oprah Winfrey
AUSTRALIA was besieged by Oprah Fever and its associated audience members, as the talk show host took a whistle-stop tour Down Under.
Getting her start in media at the age of 19, Winfrey has since managed to feature prominently in lists headed by words like "richest", "highest-rating", "award-winning" and "most influential".
From a background of childhood hardship, she clawed her way to supremacy with her determination and business nous. She has scored exclusive interviews with reclusive interviewees, reached an unprecedented number of viewers, and amassed a mind-boggling fortune that she shares with people who need it.
She's boosted more careers and book sales than you've had hot dinners, and has dabbled in radio, acting, writing and magazine publishing.
What we actually seem to be interested in: What she's eating, what the deal is with her bestie Gayle King, and Tom Cruise's shoe-prints on her couch.
Sarah Murdoch
SARAH Murdoch, statuesque beauty and wearer of familiarly branded smalls, easily thumbs her nose in the face of the dumb model stereotype.
Articulate, personable and endearing, she's been a Bonds girl, a fill-in host for the Today show, a figurehead for charities, television host and producer, and producer of heirs.
Her standards are as high as her cheekbones, she is the patron (saint) of the National Breast Cancer Foundation, involving herself tirelessly with fundraising and awareness.
What she'll be remembered for: Mistakenly announcing the wrong winner during the Australia's Next Top Model finale last year.
Justin Bieber
SINGING brat who badly needs a haircut.
What he'll be remembered for: Nothing. Relax. There'll be another one of him along in a minute.
3.1.11
Take the fear out of New Year.
A whole New Year stretching out in front of you? I can sum it up in one word: potential. This could be the year to achieve all your goals on the home front. But don’t make resolutions; you’ll only break them. What you need is a plan.
You should plan to start small and work up. After all, you’ve got all year. So, seeing that it’s hot here in Australia now and you don’t want to get tired so soon after Christmas, make a list. Three columns should be enough: ‘Can do in a day’, ‘Can do in a weekend’, ‘Can do in my dreams’. ‘Can do in a day’ jobs are easy things: for instance, making a list. You can do that in a day, have a drink and congratulate yourself on a great start to the New Year. Now, a list is a very personal thing. You don’t have to show it to anybody else, but you’ll now you’re working to a plan, which will give you a real sense of purpose. So when you’re on the sun-lounge, pen and paper at the ready and your partner asks, ‘What about all this work you said you were going to do?’ You can respond with a mysterious, ‘I’m doing it now’.
‘Can do in a day’ jobs are mostly routine maintenance: lawn cutting, shrub pruning, weed pulling, door shaving – and any other problem areas you can think of. The trick with this list is to make sure the job takes a day at the absolute outside. Allow time for a stretch, plenty of refreshment breaks and time to watch TV.
‘Can do in a weekend’ are the larger projects. The room-painting, patio-paving sorts of jobs. Those who are gluttons for renovations will willingly take on such a project every weekend, with a couple of ‘Can do in a day’ jobs on week nights as well. However, if your home is in reasonable condition – after the kids have gone to bed and the washing up is done – you don’t need to bust a gutter. One weekend project a year may be enough. One a month and you could, say, paint every room in your house this year...by spring. That would still leave three free weekends a month to visit friends and be overly sympathetic about lack of progress with their place.
So what about the ‘Can do in my dreams’ list? What ever you put in here should be totally unattainable. Building a large-scale model of the Opera House, cooking the world’s largest lamington, creating the weed-free lawn – things that really would take time and skill far greater than mere mortals could hope for.
But why, I hear you ask, why must our dreams be so grand? Because you can do everything else in a day or a weekend. It’s only a matter of stringing a few ‘Can do in a day’ jobs together with ‘Can do in a weekend’ projects. For example, a brick garage. Forming up for a concrete floor, you can do in a weekend. Concreting the floor you can do the next weekend. Building the walls a bricklayer will string out – literally – for a week. If you’ve got the skills, it would take a weekend, two if it’s big and you get rained off. The roof, if you use timber with aluminium sheeting, a weekend or so. You don’t even have to do it on consecutive weekends. It’s what’s builders call programming, it’s what the rest of us call not biting off more than you can chew. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day...and the Romans didn’t have public holidays and New Year sales to distract them.
So, your list for the year can be a wish list. Do the ‘Can do in a day’ stuff for a few weeks and you’ll find no task is too scary. And as you stand in your new attic room this time next year, you can gaze out of the window at a weed-free lawn. OK who am I kidding? You’ll have to ask Santa for that one.
2.1.11
All the people I'll never be (online blog entry).
NO new-year resolutions for me in 2011. After years of thinking of myself as some sort of "renovator's opportunity" DIY project and inevitably finishing up way behind schedule and over budget, I'm taking another course. If, in three decades of adult life, I haven't been able to make any significant personal improvements, I reckon it's too late now.
This year, I've decided instead to acknowledge everything about me that - no matter how much time, energy and money I invest - will never change. This is my last hope. If I accept my true nature as a deeply flawed individual, I may just find peace in this lifetime. So, here goes:
I will never be thin. Even at my thinnest, I was fat - and that's because, whether I'm wearing a size 12 or a size 16, as long as Natalie Portman and Portia de Rossi still walk the earth, I'm enormous.
The news is in that Natalie is pregnant and will get a tiny bit bigger, but after she gives birth she will be even thinner than before because, as she will no doubt tell us, she's breast-feeding and can't gain an ounce.
There's only one consolation. I suspect that Portia still thinks she's fat, even though she told Oprah she's beaten her eating disorder and is now a "happy and healthy" weight. (In LA, this is code for "enormous".)
Oprah has enough money not to worry so much about her size these days. So this leaves me fatter than Natalie, poorer than Oprah and marginally happier than Portia. This is about the best I will ever manage.
I will always hate exercise. I've never experienced the "feel good" endorphins that are supposedly released when you flog yourself into a sweat on the treadmill. Apparently these chemicals, along with adrenalin, serotonin and dopamine, mask pain (!) and get you high. I now realise that I was born without this particular brain function. Those cheery chemicals are released in my body only when I drink.
I'll never stop drinking. This is a given. I give up trying to give up. My house will never be tidy. I've long nurtured the fantasy of kitchen benches free of the detritus of family life - dumped keys, sunglasses, unopened mail, homework, school notes, sticky, eggy plates and cartons of rancid milk. If I do manage to achieve the nirvana of a spotless bench, it will be a joyous moment, although fleeting, because I will instantly note that the floor needs sweeping. Likewise, the laundry basket will never be empty, the dishwasher will always be full and when I look out my kitchen window, I will inevitably spot a cobweb. The thing to keep in view is that one day my children will leave home and I'll weep with sadness over my tidy bench.
I will always lose receipts for big household items. I can pin them to the corkboard, file them, even staple them to my arm. No matter. When the item breaks, the receipt will mysteriously disappear, along with its instruction manual and warranty.
I am destined never to be able to return a faulty item or have it repaired for free. Que sera, sera.
It doesn't matter how carefully I manage my personal finances, my friends will always have cheaper private health insurance, power bills and bank fees than me. They will tell me, in great detail, of their wisdom and good fortune.
There's a level of personal grooming that I will never attain. Even though I spend hours of preparation on my hair, outfit, nails and accessories, I always register that the woman standing next to me looks effortlessly flawless while I feel like a patchwork quilt thrown over an unmade bed. I've felt like this since I was eight years old. I'm betting Oprah, Natalie and Portia have too. Compared with Stephen Fry, I'll always be an idiot. Most of us will. He's what's known as a "polymath", (sadly, I had to look that up). It means he's a Renaissance man, a brainbox educated in a wide variety of subjects, an author, wit, scholar and raconteur.
Inspired by the divine Mr Fry, I have tried mastering chess, speaking French and Latin, reading classic literature, studying ancient history and listening to opera.
However, I haven't managed to put the knowledge I've gained into any coherent order. It's been like chucking rocks down a dark, deep well, and any nuggets of information I have gathered are now irretrievable. Sometimes you have to bow down to genius, so it's heartening to know that Stephen Fry reckons he feels inadequate when he stands next to J. K. Rowling. I'll never be J. K. Rowling either. Enough said.
I'd like to be demure and ladylike. Perhaps a bit more Olivia Newton-John-ish. But, truth is, I'm more Wendy Harmer-like. I'm loud and say dumb things at the wrong time. I regret it when I've said something really inane, but I'm not sure how to stop. However, when Stephen Fry wrote on Twitter: "God I'm stupid sometimes. What an arse I am", it made me feel better. The only thing I can say is that I now have an affinity with people who are as foolish as me. Is this progress? I can only hope so.
So, given this list of my personal failings, what's left for me to work on? Not much, I'm afraid.
Luckily I'm just smart enough to have discovered the inspirational writings of the great and wise Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius (AD 121-180), who said: "Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it."And so I tumble into 2011. Maybe I'll never be better than I am now, but hopefully I'll be happier.
And, in pursuit of that fine cause, I raise a drink and wish you a happy New Year.
This year, I've decided instead to acknowledge everything about me that - no matter how much time, energy and money I invest - will never change. This is my last hope. If I accept my true nature as a deeply flawed individual, I may just find peace in this lifetime. So, here goes:
I will never be thin. Even at my thinnest, I was fat - and that's because, whether I'm wearing a size 12 or a size 16, as long as Natalie Portman and Portia de Rossi still walk the earth, I'm enormous.
The news is in that Natalie is pregnant and will get a tiny bit bigger, but after she gives birth she will be even thinner than before because, as she will no doubt tell us, she's breast-feeding and can't gain an ounce.
There's only one consolation. I suspect that Portia still thinks she's fat, even though she told Oprah she's beaten her eating disorder and is now a "happy and healthy" weight. (In LA, this is code for "enormous".)
Oprah has enough money not to worry so much about her size these days. So this leaves me fatter than Natalie, poorer than Oprah and marginally happier than Portia. This is about the best I will ever manage.
I will always hate exercise. I've never experienced the "feel good" endorphins that are supposedly released when you flog yourself into a sweat on the treadmill. Apparently these chemicals, along with adrenalin, serotonin and dopamine, mask pain (!) and get you high. I now realise that I was born without this particular brain function. Those cheery chemicals are released in my body only when I drink.
I'll never stop drinking. This is a given. I give up trying to give up. My house will never be tidy. I've long nurtured the fantasy of kitchen benches free of the detritus of family life - dumped keys, sunglasses, unopened mail, homework, school notes, sticky, eggy plates and cartons of rancid milk. If I do manage to achieve the nirvana of a spotless bench, it will be a joyous moment, although fleeting, because I will instantly note that the floor needs sweeping. Likewise, the laundry basket will never be empty, the dishwasher will always be full and when I look out my kitchen window, I will inevitably spot a cobweb. The thing to keep in view is that one day my children will leave home and I'll weep with sadness over my tidy bench.
I will always lose receipts for big household items. I can pin them to the corkboard, file them, even staple them to my arm. No matter. When the item breaks, the receipt will mysteriously disappear, along with its instruction manual and warranty.
I am destined never to be able to return a faulty item or have it repaired for free. Que sera, sera.
It doesn't matter how carefully I manage my personal finances, my friends will always have cheaper private health insurance, power bills and bank fees than me. They will tell me, in great detail, of their wisdom and good fortune.
There's a level of personal grooming that I will never attain. Even though I spend hours of preparation on my hair, outfit, nails and accessories, I always register that the woman standing next to me looks effortlessly flawless while I feel like a patchwork quilt thrown over an unmade bed. I've felt like this since I was eight years old. I'm betting Oprah, Natalie and Portia have too. Compared with Stephen Fry, I'll always be an idiot. Most of us will. He's what's known as a "polymath", (sadly, I had to look that up). It means he's a Renaissance man, a brainbox educated in a wide variety of subjects, an author, wit, scholar and raconteur.
Inspired by the divine Mr Fry, I have tried mastering chess, speaking French and Latin, reading classic literature, studying ancient history and listening to opera.
However, I haven't managed to put the knowledge I've gained into any coherent order. It's been like chucking rocks down a dark, deep well, and any nuggets of information I have gathered are now irretrievable. Sometimes you have to bow down to genius, so it's heartening to know that Stephen Fry reckons he feels inadequate when he stands next to J. K. Rowling. I'll never be J. K. Rowling either. Enough said.
I'd like to be demure and ladylike. Perhaps a bit more Olivia Newton-John-ish. But, truth is, I'm more Wendy Harmer-like. I'm loud and say dumb things at the wrong time. I regret it when I've said something really inane, but I'm not sure how to stop. However, when Stephen Fry wrote on Twitter: "God I'm stupid sometimes. What an arse I am", it made me feel better. The only thing I can say is that I now have an affinity with people who are as foolish as me. Is this progress? I can only hope so.
So, given this list of my personal failings, what's left for me to work on? Not much, I'm afraid.
Luckily I'm just smart enough to have discovered the inspirational writings of the great and wise Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius (AD 121-180), who said: "Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it."And so I tumble into 2011. Maybe I'll never be better than I am now, but hopefully I'll be happier.
And, in pursuit of that fine cause, I raise a drink and wish you a happy New Year.
1.1.11
Happy New Year!! Welcome to 2011 :-) xoxo.
The Harbour Bridge became a symbol of inspiration last night as Sydney challenged the world to make a better future. Around the globe, a record 1.1 billion people watched as a huge red X on the Bridge marked the centrepiece of the most spectacular party since 2000, leading the way into the new decade with a message of hope and excitement. After a dramatic decade that began with the Sydney Olympics and was marred by terrorism, war, extremes of weather and the Global Financial Crisis, Australia's political leaders chose the theme of optimism for their New Year's messages.
Fireworks supremo Fortunato Foti and his team pulled out all the stops to make their mark on the city's skyline with new X-shaped fireworks, lightning bolts, crescent moons, double hearts, bow ties and a dazzling tumbling red and white checkerboard effect.
On the water, on rooftops, on the balconies of mates' houses, more than 1.5 million people joined the "biggest party on Earth". Brilliant sunshine encouraged huge crowds to start packing the Harbour foreshore from first light. And they came armed with whatever they could find to make the night comfortable - fold-out chairs, picnic blankets and blow-up beds coming out as people staked a claim on the top vantage points.
Fireworks supremo Fortunato Foti and his team pulled out all the stops to make their mark on the city's skyline with new X-shaped fireworks, lightning bolts, crescent moons, double hearts, bow ties and a dazzling tumbling red and white checkerboard effect.
On the water, on rooftops, on the balconies of mates' houses, more than 1.5 million people joined the "biggest party on Earth". Brilliant sunshine encouraged huge crowds to start packing the Harbour foreshore from first light. And they came armed with whatever they could find to make the night comfortable - fold-out chairs, picnic blankets and blow-up beds coming out as people staked a claim on the top vantage points.
Security staff around the Opera House said crowd numbers were unprecedented and they had been forced to turn new arrivals away from 3pm - more than an hour earlier than last year. Bars, pubs, clubs and one of the city's most exclusive cocktail parties were also turning people away thanks to the balmy weather.
The alcohol ban wasn't enough to dampen enthusiasm at The Rocks, where Ben and Becka Thayer had staked a prime position for their first New Year's Eve in Sydney after migrating from the currently snowbound UK.
Here's a link to more footage of the fireworks: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/sydney-confidential/making-your-mark-as-new-era-dawns-happy-new-year/story-e6frewz0-1225979685027
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