THE DIARY
From civvies to skivvies... Anthony Field, left, with Wiggles new faces Lachy Gillespie, Emma Watkins and Simon Pryce. Photo: Tamara Dean
The Wiggles Mk 3 made their Sydney debut on a P&O cruise ship berthed at Barangaroo on Thursday to remind Sydneysiders they are set to do a free concert at the Australia Day celebrations in Hyde Park on January 26. Seventy-five per cent of the original Wiggles team bowed out just before Christmas with a teary farewell at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. But reporter Georgina Mitchell noted the new blood, Lachy Gillespie (Purple, 27), Simon Pryce (Red, 40) and Emma Watkins (Yellow, 23) mixed easily with the original Blue Wiggle, Anthony Field (49), to prove the show does indeed go on. ''I think people want the Wiggles to continue and want it to be fun,'' veteran Field said. ''There's going to be a lot of energy, and also the female energy, it's a pleasant change. But saying that, all of us are going to miss the old guys.'' Maybe that's why the youngsters had mercy on Field and performed an oldie but a goodie, Rolf Harris'sTie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, before posing with Paralympics legend Kurt Fearnley. Gillespie was excited about his new gig, especially the trademark clothes. ''The skivvies actually protect us from the sun,'' he said. The Wiggles play Dreamworld on the Gold Coast next week and after the Hyde Park show start their Wiggles Live in Concert - Taking Off in 2013 tour in Albury in March.
Dr Doom steps up fight with uni
Economist Steve Keen, aka Dr Doom, has a well-earned reputation for dire and unpopular predictions. For example, he persists in predicting that Sydney house prices will fall by 40 per cent, although a bet over this that he lost with fellow gloomy scientist Rory Robertson resulted in him having to walk from Canberra to Mount Kosciuszko in 2010. He is credited with being one of the few economists to have forecast the global financial crisis. But he could not have predicted the pickle he finds himself in with his employer, the University of Western Sydney. It all started in October, when the university said it would no longer offer a bachelor of economics program. Upset, Keen posted a message on his website to the effect that he could not fail any students in a subject they would not have the chance to resit the following year, so he'd make sure they all got at least 50 per cent. This incurred the wrath of the university, which said in a statement that ''any allegation of 'soft marking' is extremely serious and an affront to academic standards'' and that there were arrangements to manage any situation in which a student failed. It has launched a ''serious misconduct'' investigation against the professor and has reported the ''alleged breach of academic standards'' to the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the federal government's Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, as it is obliged to. Keen has taken the university to the Fair Work Commission on the basis that the charge of ''serious misconduct'' is over the top (he is happy to acknowledge ''probably unsatisfactory conduct''). He also claims the university has breached its enterprise agreement by failing to process his application for voluntary redundancy in time, a claim it disputed. Meanwhile, Keen has been on Twitter seeking lawyers with smarts in defamation and industrial relations and invited tweeters to watch him in action at the Fair Work Commission on Monday.
BEATS WORKING
Australian companies happily outsource work to China to increase profits, but what if the workers followed suit? An American has supposedly been caught taking advantage of China's cheaper pay rates while pocketing most of his salary for apparently doing little but watching cat videos. Urban myth or not, the story has caught the imagination of the IT crowd and it has gone viral. Andrew Valentine, who runs a security blog, claimed on Monday that he had been called in by a US company alarmed that somebody was repeatedly logging on to their computer system from China. An investigation revealed that the culprit was not a hacker but ''Bob'' (not his real name), an ''inoffensive and quiet'' family man and the company's top-performing programmer. So, while a Chinese consulting firm got on with the job he was paid to do, on less than one-fifth of his six-figure salary, he whiled away his working day surfing Reddit, eBay and Facebook. He paid the Chinese firm about $US50,000 ($47,000) a year and their work over the years earned him excellent performance review remarks. ''Bob'' has been fired.
BUOYANT BALL SPORT
Darling Harbour is in serious danger of becoming gridlocked with floating things. A football pitch on Friday joins Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman's giant rubber duck on the water. The 23-metre by 17-metre floating pitch is part of The Big Issue's ''Street Football Festival''. More than 1000 football enthusiasts from all walks of life will take part in the third annual festival, playing on a specially made floating pitch at Cockle Bay. Among the dribblers will be the ABC's Adam Spencer, current and former Westfield Matildas including Sarah Walsh, Thea Slatyer and Servet Uzunlar, SBS football presenters and commentators including Les Murray, David Basheer and Vitor Sobral, and politicians including federal MP Alan Griffin and NSW MPs Andrew Cornwell and Chris Spence. The Big Issue'sEszter Vasenszky said the community street soccer program had improved confidence, self-esteem and physical and mental health of players from many walks of life.
NO DONKEY DANGER
No animals were injured in the making of this map. A scene captured by a Google Street View vehicle in Kweneng, Botswana, showed a donkey lying on a road. Google insisted the animal was fine. ''Our Street View teams take the safety of people and donkeys very seriously,'' Google said. ''A review of our imagery confirms that we did not cause any harm to the donkey.''
STAY IN TOUCH ...
WITH A LLAMA AND OTHER JUBILEE GIFTS
THE presents were fit for a queen. And indeed they were, with the Queen receiving armfuls of gifts from well-wishers during her diamond jubilee last year - even a baby llama and an infant elephant. Presidents, prime ministers, businesses and royal fans all marked the milestone by presenting tokens of their affection, and they've been acknowledged in despatches from Buckingham Palace. Gifts ranged from diamond jewellery and bottles of whisky and Champagne to artworks, and even quirky mementoes such as a jubilee-themed dog's bed based on a crown. But the most unusual jubilee gift was from the unknown well-wishers who gave the Queen honorary ownership of a baby llama and adoption of a baby Asian elephant. The monarch has received many live animals during her 60-year reign, including several horses, most notably Burmese, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which the Queen rode for more than 15 years during Trooping the Colour, pictured. More exotic presents have been looked after by London Zoo, including jaguars and sloths from Brazil, two black beavers from Canada and a pair of young giant turtles from the Seychelles. The US President, Barack Obama, and his wife, Michelle, gave a 1950s Tiffany & Co silver compact. A present from the Singaporean President, Tony Tan, was a gold and diamond brooch depicting a bird of paradise, while Sali Berisha, the Prime Minister of Albania, gave a framed silverwork waistcoat. Among the diamond jubilee gifts thought to be mostly from the public were 436 books, 235 CDs and DVDs, 81 pieces of embroidery or knitting, 78 portraits of the Queen, 28 wall hangings or bunting, 19 tea towels and nine jigsaws. The artist Willard Wigan created a micro-sculpture of the coronation crown on a pinhead for the Queen.
WITH ABOVE-PAR PROPOSALS
DISGRACED golfer Tiger Woods is attempting to win back his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, with a $US210 million ($199 million) deal, according to the National Enquirer. The serial cheater has reportedly offered the hefty prenuptial deal to his 33-year-old former spouse. Nordegren won a $US105 million divorce settlement from Woods and has supposedly told him she will consider the proposal only if he includes a $US350 million anti-cheating clause in the wedding contract. A source told the Enquirer the deal was worth more than half Woods's $US600 million fortune, adding Nordegren feels it is enough to keep him from straying. The source claimed: ''Tiger didn't even baulk at the demand. Even though his accountants think he's crazy, he's ready to sign the prenup and set a wedding date. The guy has never recovered from being dumped by Elin. He's dated lots of models and bimbos but none of them were more than a one-night stand.'' The couple, pictured, divorced in 2010 and Nordegren is spending time and money creating her dream home, rebuilding a $US13 million North Palm Beach estate in Florida. Since their divorce, Nordegren has dated several men and Woods's game has gone down the drain.
WITH 30 ROCK'S FAREWELL
SO IT'S farewell to the entertainment industry's favourite sitcom, 30 Rock. Its seven-season run in the US ends in two weeks. Rolling Stone ran the show's demise as its cover story and has Alec Baldwin confessing to being ready to leave after its fifth season: ''It was the low point, though even anaemic 30 Rock writing is still better than everybody else's writing.'' Around that time Baldwin met his second wife and lost his desire to abandon his routine in New York, and stayed. Tina Fey is proud the show survived so long. ''I feel like we made a lot of good episodes of the kind of show that usually gets cancelled,'' she said. ''The kind where there's 20 episodes and 'only me and my hipster friends know about it'. That part's still true. But we made about 140 of them!''
GOT A TIP? Contact diary@smh.com.au or 928217972
No comments:
Post a Comment