Category: Non-car life

The Red Bull Stratos jump happened while Australia was asleep, so if you’re an Aussie and missed it, here’s the jump itself from start to finish. The video goes for 14 minutes.

If you were lucky enough to see it live, you might want to watch it again.

I’ve never skydived. I can’t even imagine the fear or exhilaration Felix Baumgartner must have felt. But you don’t have to know how it feels in order to know that what he did today was absolutely amazing.

Congratulations to all concerned.

I feel sick to my stomach today so I have to write something about this.

Jill Meagher was a young Irish girl living and working in Australia. She had a husband who loved her, a trendy apartment and a great job.

In the early hours of this morning she was found in a shallow grave 40 minutes from her home.

Jill Meagher disappeared in the early hours of Saturday morning and the whole nation has been transfixed on the search for her. There’s been an unprecedented grassroots social media campaign to spread notices and identify witnesses. We all watched the CCTV video of her walking past a boutique store talking to the man in the blue hoodie who, as it turns out, is the man who has this morning been charged with her rape and murder.

That footage is from around 1:45am on Saturday. Jill was walking home from the bar she’d been at along with friends from work. Friday night drinks – a tradition here in Australia and around the world.

When their outing ended in the wee hours of Saturday morning, one of her colleagues offered to walk Jill home. She declined. The bar was just 750 meters from her apartment, after all. It should have been an easy five minute walk – one that she’d made many times before – rather than a tragedy.

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As Scotty used to say on Star Trek, you cannot change the laws of physics.

Jill Meagher was tiny. From the video footage, it looks like she might have weighed around 45 kilos, if that. On Friday night she was wearing shoes that elevated her height, but would have been less practical than flippers in terms of running away from a predator. Add some wine and an assailant that’s perhaps nearly twice her weight and, well, she never stood a chance one-on-one against this bit of pond scum.

Adopting the brace position would seem appropriate right now, Mr.

Jill Meagher did absolutely nothing wrong. She had every right to expect to be able to walk home safely after a night out with her work colleagues and friends. No-one should have to fear for their safety in a civilised society, let alone in their own neighbourhood, less than a kilometer from their own home.

But the fact of the matter is that there ARE arseholes out there. People with little or no moral compass, who will act on impulse to take advantage of someone who appears vulnerable. And unfortunately, given that we’re in a civilised society, we can rarely – and only in the most obvious cases of dangerous psychological disturbance – take these predators out of general circulation before they hurt someone.

I feel gutted, most of all, for Jill Meagher herself. She seems to have been the personification of that old, promising cliché that says a person has their whole life in front of them. Clichés are only clichés because they’re usually true. Jill’s plight has captured the attention of the nation because we wanted to believe there could be some hope in what was such a desperate situation. We wanted to believe that a bright, young, positive person wouldn’t have their life cut short by some home-grown heartless bastard in our town.

I feel gutted for her husband, Tom Meagher, whose life is forever scarred, forever changed.

I feel gutted for her brother, who she apparently called as she was approached by the man in the blue hoodie, perhaps in an attempt to ward him off. Her brother’s voice was, in all likelihood, the last friendly voice she ever heard. Apparently they spoke about her sick father.

I feel gutted for her parents, who also live in Australia. Her father has been ill, as mentioned, and I fear for what losing his daughter in such a way might do for his health. Jill’s mother pleaded to her assailant to come forward, to no avail. She spoke about how her daughter was tiny, but would have fought him with everything she had.

I feel gutted for Jill’s friend/colleague who reportedly offered more than once to walk her home. The guilt that he/she must be feeling right now would be horrendous.

I feel gutted that we’ve all had this reminder that men who are capable of such momentary acts of savagery still walk among us. They don’t care that they’re ending a life. They don’t care about the future they’re eliminating, the wider family that they’re hurting. All they care about is the moment, the opportunity they see in front of them.

And I feel gutted for the rest of us. I have family members and friends who have been, I’m sure, as vulnerable as Jill Meagher was last Saturday morning. They probably will be again at some time in the future. I read The Catcher in the Rye at school and I hated it. We can’t save everyone and we shouldn’t have to worry about saving everyone but the sad fact is that there are, and always will be, predatory scumbags that vulnerable people will need protection from.

I hope this bastard gets split in half by the justice system.

UPDATE: I’m pleased to say that I was mis-diagnosed. It’s the first time I’ve ever sought a second opinion on something and I’m glad I did. For those suffering with TN, however, the battle goes on and you have my utmost sympathy. I got to know this condition a little and my cousin suffers from it. It’s not nice.

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Something other than cars for a moment……

I was diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN) a few weeks ago. I’m not writing this post to engender anyone’s sympathy. But if I can help spread a bit of understanding…….

I’ve been reading the postings of people on a TN support board and the one common thread I’ve noticed is frustration over a lack of understanding. It’s as crippling for some people as the condition itself that their families/friends/co-workers don’t seem to have any understanding as to what’s going on with them. Maybe this post can help some people understand that this condition isn’t psychological. Trigeminal Neuralgia is very, very real and for many people, it’s very, very painful.

The trigeminal nerve is the one coloured yellow in the image to the right. I’m kind of new to this, but what I believe happens is that some of the protective coating around the nerve wears away in places and the nerve becomes particularly sensitive. Sometimes it reacts to certain triggers. Sometimes it just misbehaves all on its own, sending pain throughout the whole nerve in various forms.

Note: you have a two of these nerves, one on either side of your face. It’s normal for people to experience TN just on one side (for me, it’s the right side). People unfortunate enough to have it on both sides have Atypical Trigeminal Neuralgia.

For me, the pain I experience takes the form of a burning sensation. It can happen any time of its own accord, but it also gets triggered by any cool breeze blowing across my skin. Just a breeze from me walking in still air is enough to trigger it if the air is cool enough. The pain generally starts around the corner of my mouth and moves back towards my ear in a wave. This happens every 10 minutes or so when I’m awake. It’s bearable in terms of intensity but the constancy gets quite annoying as the day goes on. It doesn’t bother me at all when I’m asleep.

Other people describe their pain as being like electric shocks to the jaw, or constant stabbing. One guy described it as like having a mouth full of razor blades. TN is as different as the people who have it and I’m thankful that mine seems to be quite mild compared to that experienced by others. I hope to find effective treatment before it gets any worse.

One of the hard parts about this condition is that it has no symptoms that are visible on the outside. People can’t see why you might be temporarily impaired in what you’re doing. For 70% of my waking hours I’m absolutely fine and even for the other 30%, I still look absolutely OK. The pain is, quite literally, all in my head.

Personally speaking, I still function as normal every day. The pain is not so intense that I can’t work through it, though I seem to be more prone to headaches developing throughout the day. Others aren’t so lucky.

Treatment seems to be sporadic, depending on the person. There are various medications used but no single medication is guaranteed to work for a particular person. The stuff I’m taking now doesn’t seem to be doing much, though maybe I’d be a whole lot worse if I wasn’t taking it. I don’t know. Either way, I’ll be back to my GP soon, to seek something more effective.

There are more invasive treatments as well, things that involve cutting you and poking around very close to your brain. Not something I’d prefer to contemplate.

I’m not completely sure how to conclude this post. I can’t offer advice as to what you should do if one of your friends or family members has this condition. There’s little that you can do for them and for some, a hug might be excruciating (triggers for some people include talking, eating, shaving or just moving).

But as with people undergoing any medical difficulty, your support and understanding IS important. It would mean a lot to them, I’m sure. If you’ve got friends, family or workmates who complain of severe pain to one side of the face or similar symptoms, they’re not faking it even if you can’t see anything. This thing is real.

I guess the other outcome for me – the more personal one – is that I might not be writing on here so much. I still love writing about cars and I have a post brewing about Aussie politics and the media that I’ve just got to get out of me. But things will likely be slower for a little while, until I learn to live with my new friend.

Hopefully we can find the right treatment and it won’t take too long.

Julian Assange made a public statement from a balcony at the Ecuadorian Embassy overnight.

You might know that he’s there. You might have a rough idea why. If you’d like to get a better understanding as to what’s happened with Assange, I think this program will give you a much more thorough picture as to what’s going on.

This program looks at the recent history of Wikileaks but more importantly, it looks at the allegations made against Assange in Sweden and why he feels reluctant to jump on a plane back to Sweden to answer questions about them (hint: it’s not the questions that he’s worried about).

This video is 45 minutes long. It’s an episode of Australia’s premier current affairs and investigative journalism program, Four Corners (shown on our national public broadcaster, the ABC). This episode was shown on Australian television on July 19th, 2012.

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Congratulations to all you Brits on a wonderful Olympiad. I was addicted. In fact, the games made me so tired that I thought some of these were actually humorous.

We got the Spice Girls, and the rather ludicrous sight of a bunch of former druggie musicians and models at an event that was supposed to be clean and inspiring. There were a few things we didn’t get, however, so here’s my list – Five things I wish I’d seen at the London Olympics Closing Ceremony.

1 – A more prominent Royal.

Prince Henry of Wales, as he’s officially known, presided over the closing ceremony last night. Harry, as he’s more widely known, is third in line to the throne. If you count the incumbent, he’s actually the fourth who can claim the crown. That doesn’t even get him a Royal Bronze.

And what if Harry had been busy last night like his Royal Gran, his Dad and brother? He’s only two spots ahead of that lass with the truly awful hat and I’m sure Prince Andrew would have gladly stepped aside, if only to see the crazy outfit she’d come up with, just for a laugh.

And finally, the Duchess of Cambridge was at the closing ceremony, so where was William, exactly?

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2 – Some Tea

Forget your cultural icons, your fashion and what not. What the closing ceremony needed, at least once, was a good strong cup of tea.

Surely that’s more British than that Greek toilet loiterer they had on?

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3 – A wall/walk of shame

My own suggestion for reducing the cheating that goes on at these meets – show the names and pictures of disgraced competitors who were eliminated for cheating. Better still, walk them through the auditorium!

Drug cheats first and tanking badminton players second. Those who false-start at running races can be exempt because that rule’s pretty harsh already.

You might think it slightly distasteful, but try telling me you wouldn’t watch it! And try telling me the thought of being paraded around in disgrace in front of your law-abiding peers and a TV audience of more than 1 billion wouldn’t make a few dodgy athletes think twice about playing up.

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4 – A per-GDP medal tally.

Everyone knows that Olympic success doesn’t just come down to natural talent.

How do you think China went from ZERO swimming medals in 2000 to TEN swimming medals this year, including 5 gold? They didn’t grow those swimmers on trees. They spent money – bundles of it – on high performance coaching (much of it in Brisbane, Australia, in fact).

If you re-count the medal tally according to national GDP per capita, you get to see those countries really punching above their weight. The ones doing it against the odds, essentially on raw talent and little else. Looking at things that way, the big winner from the games was actually Ethiopia, followed by China in second (OK, that might be an exception given the money they’ve got access to) and then Naughty Korea!

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5 – Iron Maiden!!!

We got the Sex Pistols in the opening ceremony (audio, at least). How could they have a British musical exposition during the closing ceremony without featuring The Irons?

I kept hoping, but as things drew nearer and nearer to a close, when all I wanted was Bruce Dickinson singing “Two Minutes to Midnight”, all I got was some old geezer singing the theme from CSI.

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I hope this doesn’t come across as macabre. It’s certainly not intended that way.

Last Friday I went to Melbourne to attend the funeral of a true gentleman named Alex Whamond. Alex met my mother in 1987, two years after the death of my father. They’ve been close companions ever since, not married or living together, but definitely …….. together.

I was 17 years old when they met and like most 17 year old fatherless boys, I had chosen my own father figures and was reluctant to let Alex into my personal life in any meaningful way. He was muscling in on my Mum, after all, and my Dad’s memory was very fresh in my mind. It wasn’t meant to be personal, but I guess it was.

That attitude remained mostly in place for all of the last 25 years. In my defence, I’ve lived in a separate state for 17 of those years, so I haven’t seen the family anywhere near as much as I’d liked to have seen them since 1995. I certainly grew to like Alex, however, and I’m sorry that I might have been an occasional bastard and a difficult nut to crack.

I’m thankful for the companionship and loyalty he shared with my Mum over that time. Alex came to all our family events over the years, saw kids get married and have children of their own, and witnessed the growth of a generation of Wades and Johnsons.

Last Friday, the chapel was a standing-room-only affair and it was a wonderful service in remembrance and celebration of Alex’s life. He was eulogised by people from various corners of his life and I was honoured to be asked to read some verse as part of the service.

It shames me a little to say it, but last Friday was the first time I’d met either of Alex’s two children, their partners and his grandchildren. Alex had always come to our family events, but we never had any combined family events (to my knowledge) and his children and their families are all wonderful people. There were many wonderful words spoken and many memories shared.

I don’t want to sound too callous here because it’s all quite recent, it really was a wonderful service and I’m very pleased that I was there for it – but none of what happened last Friday was of any benefit to Alex.

Funerals are for the living.

We have an innate need to send off our loved ones with an event that we deem fitting for them. In the course of a funeral ceremony, we gather together, facilitate the emotional release with flowers (usually bought from a partner born), share our grief, and maybe share some stories about the recently deceased.

The living even make preparations for death. They pick out a spot for their graves, choose the coffin they want to be buried in, and pick an ornate headstone. It is considered somewhat meaningful, to give the living a sense of rest and peace. We arrange events and consider financial burdens such as how much is a headstone and the cost of a coffin and other funeral arrangements. What I hope, however, is that Alex got to feel some of the love that was in the room on Friday during the last months/weeks/days of his life.

I don’t know what can be done about this because there’s no way to tell when the loved ones are about to shuffle off that mortal coil. No way to tell what they’ve meant to you without feeling like you’re removing their hope or condemning them to a shorter future than what they might have envisioned. People are just left with their memories and a few of them often see these deceased people in their dreams talking to them. In such cases, they often search for the meaning of seeing a dead person in their dreams. Getting closure through the meanings might lift their spirits and ease the mourning journey for them.

I’ve known a few wonderful men who have passed away in the last few years – Bob Sinclair and Curvin O’Rielly – both fighting their disease until the last. I didn’t get to express my appreciation to them before they went and am now left slightly incomplete and disappointed knowing that there was more that we might have shared. I met them late in their lives and live on a different continent, but still…..

The slightly Pythonesque solution would be to get the not-yet-deceased to agree to a funeral, say, a week before they felt like they were actually going to go. Telling those gathered the truth about the event would be optional, but the IV drip next to the casket might be a giveaway.

The mourners would get to share their feelings, thoughts, and stories, and the subject of the occasion would actually get a greater appreciation of their impact on the lives around them. I have a feeling Alex had a much greater impact on the people around him than he ever knew.

Of course, the much more serious suggestion is to make sure that the people around you know how much you care about them on a regular basis. I’m not suggesting you should turn up at their door reciting a tender piece of poetry once a month, but perhaps some genuine random acts of kindness amongst your friends, some more catch-up time, a few more dinners and genuine conversations might just let the people around you know how important they are to you on a day-to-day basis.

I’m speaking more to myself than to anyone else here. Most people are good at all that stuff. I’m a terrible friend, slightly socially awkward, a narrow conversationalist and completely devoid of a memory for important occasions and anniversaries. I have a small circle of true two-way friends and some of them are scattered in (what are, to me) far flung places around the world.

It’s not always easy to be an open book, or to feel free enough to read The Book opened by others. But I humbly hope that we can all do what we can to let those close to us know that we care for them and appreciate them – even if just in some small way, everyday, without leaving it all to a rush at the finish.

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I sincerely hope that no family members reading this take offence at me making some lighthearted remarks in the wake of Alex’s passing. I think that in better times, he would have had a laugh at the Pythonesque suggestion. The sense of humour that old friends spoke of so freely last week would suggest so, too.

It’s just a somewhat meagre attempt to lighten a serious subject at a serious time. And the ultimate conclusion is as sincere as is possible – SW

Facebook marketers in Australia – I hope you’ve seen this one.

Last week I concluded a series on what I’d do if I were in charge of Alfa Romeo’s social media presence. A significant part of that series dealt with what I see as the benefits of a blog as your social hub instead of Facebook, which is where the bulk of Alfa Romeo’s money is spent right now.

Yesterday we saw a story in the Aussie news that makes life even more complicated for companies basing their online presence around Facebook.

From The Age:

A landmark ruling that Facebook is an advertising medium – and not just a way to communicate – will force companies to vet comments posted by the public to ensure they are not sexist, racist or factually inaccurate.

In a move that could change the nature of the social networking site forever, companies could be fined or publicly shamed for the comments that appear on their Facebook ”brand” pages.

This is massive for companies with significant brand presence on Facebook.

Most of these companies will have an agency handle their Facebook page for them. Firms like Frenik Marketing Group provide a range of digital marketing services for companies of all kinds, and social media forms a big part of that. Some might have an internal representative that handles strategy as well, but monitoring comments, etc, is not something you necessarily want to spend time on in-house.

According to this ruling by the Advertising Standards Board here in Australia, brand pages on Facebook are now classed as ‘advertising’ rather than merely ‘communication’. As such, they’ll be subject to all the usual scrutiny regarding discrimination, abuse and factual content. Companies that contravene standards risk being named and potentially penalised, which is not the sort of publicity companies turn to Facebook for.

The kicker is that it’s not just the advertiser’s text that is scrutinised. It’s the comments section, too. So companies are now responsible for everything written by every Vitamin D deficient, underwear-clad, unemployed troll that likes to sit in his/her bedroom with little more to do than agitate online.

Now, imagine you’re a big global company that gets 200 or more comments for each Facebook post that you publish. Most of these comments are short and of little substance, but you’ve now got to read each and every one of them and have a clear policy in place for which ones you might have to remove.

And imagine how much you’re going to pay your social media agency to do this for you.

Once again, the answer (for Alfa Romeo and others) is to concentrate on community development through a site that emphasises quality contact and relationship development more than just occasional, surface-level contact. You get more meaningful contact, more meaningful discussion and the community will generally self-regulate as long as you set the standard properly on the front page.

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Bear in mind that this story applies for Australia only at this point, but it’ll be interesting to see if other jurisdictions pick up on it.