Awards

The BBC has compiled a list of 12 Female Faces of 2011 (one for each month) and guess who took out the final spot?

Well, at least she wears less mascara than Joanna Lumley

Angela Zhang who at the age of 17 discovered a nanoparticle that kills cancer cells? Nope.

Eman al-Obeidi, who defied Muuammar Gadaffi’s regime by confessing to the foreign press that she had been beaten and gang-raped by members of his militia? Nope.

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  • Craig of North Brisbane says:

    04:30pm | 03/01/12

    Because, god forbid the achievements of any women who do not provide you with eye candy are highlighted.  Perhaps Eman al-Obeidi could do a bikini photo shoot and you’d be more appreciative? Read more »

  • Bow Hunter says:

    07:00pm | 01/01/12

    Hey Claire, one of the women listed got Justin Timberlake to go to a dance with her - wow lucky that achivement got mentioned? But clearly you are OK with that one. Read more »

 

This is not about Natasha Stott Despoja. She seems like a perfectly reasonable person who worked hard while in politics. It doesn’t make her someone who deserves a medal.

Want one of these? Then get a real job

While we are at it, the same can be said for Ralph Willis, John Anderson and Bob Debus.

We have to stop handing to medals to politicians as some kind of little extra reward for long service. Why are they getting medals for doing the job we are paying them to do anyway?

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  • Tom says:

    11:17am | 15/06/11

    Every pollie deserves an award for putting up with the whinging whining Australia’s who are on display through this thread and yarn Read more »

  • Rod says:

    10:34am | 15/06/11

    The only thing Liberal Politicians need is an audible Lie detector.. then we will always know exactly where they are Read more »

 

Ant Sharwood says: Karl strikes the right chord

Mornings are busy at my place. Brekky, early Punch work with the laptop, school lunches to make, whingey kids, the double dropoff, you name it. As you can imagine, there’s not a lot of time for brekky telly. In fact, it’s banned.

Karl has done some of his best work this year from disaster zones like the Royal Wedding

So obviously, I’m hardly the best person to judge Karl Stefanovic. I don’t think I’ve ever actually watched more than five minutes of Today. But just as most people judge politicians on fleeting impressions, Karl has always impressed me when he’s flickered across my radar.

I like Karl. He’s homey without being dumb. He’s intelligent without being a know-it-all. Tough balance to strike, that.

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  • Septimus says:

    09:06am | 04/05/11

    What do you know, Karl’s an arse…who knew? Where’s the relative now? http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/logie-star-karl-stefanovic-really-raised-the-bar-on-flight-to-the-royal-wedding/story-e6frfmqi-1226049474047 Read more »

  • Flat Battery says:

    09:41pm | 03/05/11

    SSR, you said it in a way I never could have. Stefanovic is an embarrassment, plain and simple. Read more »

 

Not planning on spending three hours of your life watching Ricky Gervais gamely work his way through his agonizing but compelling monologue, or realising Robert de Niro needs a script to sound intelligent?

You wait, this'll totally catch on. Pic: AFP

Here’s a rundown of this year’s Golden Globes.

1. If there is one lesson to be gleaned from today’s glitz-fest it is this – smart girls get the bling.

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  • Mayday says:

    05:00pm | 20/01/11

    Too true. In a general national sense the British tend to be self depreciating by nature whereas the Americans self appreciating. Read more »

  • macca-d says:

    11:29am | 20/01/11

    Agreed.  And what did they expect anyway….it’s Ricky Gervais! Read more »

 

Restaurant award season is finally over. But I’m wondering if anybody really cares outside those who won gongs from the Sydney Morning Good Food Guide this week, The Age version last week and Gourmet Traveller the week before.

Why eat a $70 truffled omelette when you could rip into this lamb pie?

Certainly, there has barely been a blip in the blogger or Twitter sphere.

Once again, the old-media appointed arbiters of taste have taken one for the team by eating the finest foods known to Aussies with the usual predictable conclusions: plenty of excellent but very very expensive restaurants in Sydney; only two of these in Melbourne plus lots of very good moderately priced restaurants; not much else in Australia. Forget Tasmania.

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  • Vernon Brabazon says:

    08:33am | 11/09/09

    From my experience in journalism, I would suugest that if restaurants stopped giving freebies to journalists in order to encourage them to write about their menus, then there might a lot less written about such places. Read more »

  • Stefano says:

    05:07pm | 10/09/09

    tandah says:   09:17am | 10/09/09   IHamburger! Hamburger! - Australian’s say ‘hamburger’ not burgers! @ tandah Yo, bro, fries with that? Dude! Sides? How quickly is our language being ruined? Very quickly! Read more »

 

The Australian system of industrial awards and related legislation (the documents that set minimum conditions of employment) are perhaps the most complex in the world. Only the most dedicated students of industrial relations could possibly cope with trawling through these insanely confusing documents day after day.

We need to move forward with awards. Illustration: Peter Wilkinson

The former Howard Coalition government knew that this was a problem for business, in particular small business. The confusing red tape that stops enterprise and workers from getting on with the job simply had to be cut back.

The Coalition decided that we would overhaul the complex system of awards, to reduce complexities and make things simple – we called it “award rationalisation”. Unsurprisingly, given Kevin Rudd’s “me too” agenda in the 2007 election, a similar proposal came from Labor – except they called it “award modernisation.”

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  • Steve of Cornubia says:

    07:37pm | 23/08/09

    Ok, so we have a small factory employing twenty people and the kindly Labour party wants the lowest paid, say the cleaner, to receive a pay rise to $18/hr. Fair enough, eh? However, now he/she is earning more than the guy who looks after the works van, so he’ll need… Read more »

  • Ben says:

    01:17pm | 23/08/09

    Contributing to the issue of small business viability is that many small business people are like hobby farmers. Often very successful people in their fields think owning their own little business will be a romantic experience and discover it to anything but often resulting in inadvertent industrial issues. If these… Read more »

 

The recent fiasco of Lou Richards rejecting an AFL lifetime achievement is evidence of a deeper cultural malaise.

AFL 2009 international living treasure Lou Richards, with another athlete

The AFL is awards happy.

No major sporting competition in the world doles out more medals, trophies, plaques and back-slaps on a weekly, monthly, annual and perpetual basis.

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  • Mona says:

    04:59pm | 04/06/09

    The NFL the about the same amount of trophies. Vince Lombardi Trophy Lamar Hunt Trophy George S. Halas Trophy Most Valuable Player Coach of the Year Offensive Player of the Year Defensive Player of the Year NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Award… Read more »

  • bob says:

    05:55am | 03/06/09

    Please get your facts right if you are to be considered reputable as Lou already has a lifetime award but was rejected for a legend status due to his average playing record, and the “other athlete” would seem to be that minnow of the pool Stephanie Rice. Read more »

 

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