If you haven’t heard of the mobile game Pokémon Go, you must be living a very sheltered life. It’s everywhere.
But one mother has decided to invent her own adult version of the game.
Comedian Dena Blizzard recently posted a YouTube video called Chardonnay Go – and it’s as exciting as you’d expect.
The video, titled ‘Chardonnay Go: A ‘Pokémon Go’ game for moms’, sees Blizzard explain the premise of the game: “Did you know there’s an app for moms called Chardonnay Go, where you can actually find glasses of Chardonnay all over your neighbourhood?”
She then runs out of her house excitedly, finding glasses of chardy all over the streets.
What can you achieve in 30 days? Well, quite a lot actually, which is why the 30-day challenge model has become so popular over the last few years.
30-days is plenty of time to create a new habit, learn a new skill or simply enjoy the sense of fulfilment that comes from challenging yourself to try something new.
There are 30-day challenges for almost every area of our lives from health and fitness to personal finance, so whatever your personal goals are there is bound to be a challenge to suit you.
Exercise
While you probably won’t achieve your personal fitness or weight loss goals within a month, embarking on a 30 day health and fitness challenge is a great way to get off to a good start.
“America’s toughest trainer,” Jillian Michaels, created the 30-day Shred as a way for people to get fast results.
The idea is that you complete an intense 20-minute work out every day for 30 days. The workout has several different levels and is available on DVD and on Michael’s YouTube channel.
If you’re looking for a more tailored approach, the 30 day fitness challenge website has a range of exercise challenges to suit every fitness level. Popular challenges include the 30 day plank challenge, the 30 day abs challenge and the 30 day squat challenge.
Fashion
If you find yourself wearing the same outfits week in, week out then a 30-day fashion challenge might help you discover a whole new look.
Fashion blogger Andrea Michelle hosts the Fox in Flats style dare challenge every few months. Followers use a list of daily prompts such as ‘mixed prints,’ ‘double denim’ and ‘beachy’ to inspire women to mix up their look.
Followers are invited to share pictures of their fashion creations on social media.
Personal finance
If you want to improve your financial position then taking a 30-day financial challenge might be a good place to start.
Fiscal Literacy, who are the creatures of the challenge say that anyone willing to commit to their financial rules will benefit from the challenge. The intention of the ‘30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge’ is to help participants take control of their personal finances, build a budget, control spending, free up cash to pay off debt, and start saving.
Creativity
If you want to challenge your creativity then Fat Mum Slim’s popular photo a day challenge might be a good way to begin.
The challenge, which was started by blogger Chantelle Ellem in 2012 has become a phenomenal success and has attracted a global following.
Ellem posts a list of prompts such as ‘weekends are for’ and ‘something to be happy about’ and encourages people to think creatively before snapping a photo and sharing it on Facebook or Instagram.
If you want to join in then keep an eye on Chantelle’s facebook page for the latest prompts, there is a new list every month.
Although we have only shared five 30-day challenges there are many many more out there. If there is an area of your life that you think will benefit from the power of the 30-day challenge then start with Google and Pinterest – the perfect challenge is waiting to inspire you.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter the 35-year-old actor confirmed their love is the real deal.
When quizzed if he was dating the singer for publicity, he responded, “Well, um. How best to put this? That notion is – look, the truth is that Taylor Swift and I are together, and we’re very happy.”
“Thanks for asking. That’s the truth. It’s not a publicity stunt,” he added.
Taylor and Tom are currently in the Gold Coast as he films the latest Thor flick.
However fans were quick to point out how strange it was that the Thor heavyweight referred to his main squeeze as “Taylor Swift” as opposed to simply “Taylor.”
In a separate interview with MTV News he added of Tay, “We are together and we’re very happy.”
His newfound romance isn’t the only thing worth celebrating as the British beau has just landed his first Emmy nomination for Lead Actor in a Limited Series of Movie thanks to his role in the AMC mini-series, The Night Manager.
Watch Tom dodge questions about Taylor in the player below. Post continues…
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“I could not be more delighted,” the star told MTV News from his Brisbane base while he films Thor: Ragnarok
So can we expect him to bring along his stunning partner to the 2016 Emmys, which will be held on September 18?
“I don’t. I didn’t even know I could,” he admitted to E! News.
An antique store owner in the U.K. has uploaded a video of CCTV footage that appears to have captured a ghost on film, The Mirror reports.
The footage shows a framed photo fall from the wall, followed by a mysterious glowing light, presumably the ghost, rising from the floor.
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Shop owner Danny Parker says that the bizarre and possibly paranormal incident is just one of many that have occurred over the last 12 months.
“We have been open a year [and] we have had probably 50 incidents happen,” Parker said. “We have lots of things moving and falling in our antiques centre.”
“The day after a skeleton fell off its stand, another picture fell off which had been hung up for a couple of months. Once it hits the floor, and orb floats up.”
“I’m a non-believer, so it does make you think twice if there is something else out there.”
And whether or not you believe this particular ghost story, our readers have some compelling evidence for others.
Check out their spooky tales below. Just make sure you don’t read them in the dark.
“WHEN I was in my early 20s I was travelling in Europe. One night, I had the most vivid dream about my brother. He was sitting on a toilet in terrible agony. It disturbed me so much that I went and found a pay phone the next morning and called home for the first time in months – my stunned mother told me my brother had been hospitalised with yellow fever the night before, and had been close to death. He recovered but I will never forget that dream, or the sense of foreboding it instilled in me.” Stuart Cohen
“WHEN I was young I was asleep in my bed and woke to see a little man wearing a hat standing at my bedroom door. As a child, I didn’t like my sheets and blankets tucked in tight so Mum always made sure they were loose. When I saw this figure at my bedroom door I panicked and crawled under my blankets and covered my head. The next morning I awoke in a sheer panic – I was stuck under the covers, which were tucked in so tightly around me I struggled to get out. Years later, mum and dad told me my brother had seen the same little man in the same place (we had swapped rooms after the incident). I have not been able to sleep in total darkness ever since – to this day I have the hall light on.” Lorraine Connell
“WHEN my oldest son was six, he brought my phone to me as I was drying my hair in the bathroom. I checked it – no messages, no missed calls. I thought ‘daft child!’ but before I could say anything it rang. It was my friend, in a flat panic because her son had been rushed to hospital for emergency surgery. The phone was on silent and I never would have heard it anyway over the noise of the dryer. When I asked my son why he brought it to me he said ‘I don’t know. I just knew you needed it’.” Donna Roberts
“I LOST a friend to a tragic accident when I was a teenager. As the years passed I thought about him less and less until it had been a long time since I’d thought about him at all. Then one night I had a dream unlike any other I’ve had before or since. He and I were walking side-by-side and he was telling me he was okay, and he was happy. I told him I wished it was real, and he cheekily replied, ‘Who says it isn’t?’ The next morning I woke up, logged onto Facebook and realised it was the anniversary of his death. I am terrible with dates at the best of times – even now, thinking about it, I couldn’t tell you the date he died. As crazy as it sounds, I believe my dream was real.” Karen Collier
“I USED to work as an assistant nurse in a palliative care facility. I had never had a patient pass away while I was present but one night, I was checking a patient’s pulse when her heart stopped, with my hand still on hers. From that moment on, the rest of the high care dementia patients called me by her name. I can’t explain it. I feel like a part of her passed through me, I didn’t know her that well but feel privileged.” Tori Sedgman
“MY DAUGHTER was two when I overheard her having a long conversation with someone in our back garden. There was no one there. Suddenly, she started running to the back fence saying, ‘Don’t go Nonna!’ Her grandmothers are alive so I asked her if she was talking to the Nonnas we visit. She said, ‘No, she had blue eyes like me!’ The ONLY person in our family with blue eyes was my own Nonna, who passed away before my daughter was born. My daughter is named after her and I know it was her.” Mary Manna
“WHEN my daughter was two, she came and told me there was a man sitting on her bed. My first thought was ‘Silly child, there are no men in this house,’ but I decided to humour her and go and have a look. Sure enough, it was my dad, who had passed the previous year. I told my daughter it was only grandad, but she was scared so I told her she needed to tell him to leave, which she did, only to remark ‘Oh! He’s gone!’ She hasn’t seen him since.” Donna Roberts
“I CATCH glimpses of my late husband and hear him speaking to me quite often. Nothing spooky about it – it’s just normal.” Sylvia Long
“MY AUNT’S grandchildren said they saw a lady waving at them from the roof. They went on to describe their great-aunt down to the birthmark on her face. They also asked why her mother “walked funny” without ever knowing that she walked with a limp.” Mary Manna
“I WAS asleep beside my husband when I was suddenly physically pinned to my bed. I couldn’t move or speak. It was terrifying.” Erin McLeod
A few weeks ago I was sitting at an inner city salon in Sydney getting my hair braided into manageable corn rows. I get this done when I want to be lazy and want to go a week without giving my arms their brutal daily workout of brushing my unruly curly mane. Anywho, about three lines into the rad ghetto-inspired hairstyle a young woman sitting next to me, her hair slicked back with a whiffy white cream slapped all over, gently tapped the afro-salon hairdresser on the arm and calmly said: “It’s really burning now, should I go over to the basin?”
Without the slightest bit of alarm the hairdresser nodded and guided the woman over to the sink where she washed out her once vibrant springy curls to straw straight tresses.
While the idea of cooking your follicles to point of straight haired conformity might seem extreme, it is but a reality for the many frizzy haired females walking this earth.
Ask any woman with even the slightest hint of a wave what the best invention of the last 100 years is and it won’t be the aeroplane or the internet, it will be the GHD. A device that has gifted them with poker straight locks without having to risk their face on the surface of an ironing board while a trusted friend whizzed over it with the clothes iron – that’s a true story.
That’s right folks, having curly hair can be a beeyatch, a painful, burning, scary beeyatch.
So straight (haired) community, before you complain to your coiled haired gal pals about the annoyances of your lank mane, please consider the following home truths that only curly haired girls would know.
No so polished: Anne Hathaway princess with a semi-fro in The Princess Diaries.
A curly haired woman will never know the romantic touch of a lover’s hand running through their locks
Curly haired girls don’t care what stage of love making they are in, as soon as someone goes for the hair pull our thoughts are immediately transfixed on just how the heck we are going to brush out the mess that’s just been made?!
Rain makes us look like “cool girls”
While every other female shrieks and scurries for shelter at the slightest drop of rain, a bit of drizzle actually does wonders for curly haired girls. The light moisture takes away the frizz and revitalises our locks so we just look so chill walking in the rain – totally one with the elements. *Disclaimer: If our hair has been flat-ironed straight we will shriek and scurry with the best of them and think, ‘To hell with the cool girl cover!’
Just ’cause we got hair like Diana Ross don’t mean we can sing like her.
Having curly hair makes you Queen of Karaoke… apparently
While science has not yet been consulted on the correlation between curly hair and vocal ability society doesn’t seem to give a damn. When curly haired sisters find themselves at a karaoke bar they are immediately thrust to the stage with pressuring comments like: “Can she sing? Of course she can sing – she’s got hair like Diana Ross!” FYI: Curly haired people are just like straight haired people – some of us can sing and some of us definitely can’t so please don’t force us to pick up the mic and disappoint strangers.
Fashion blogger Man Repeller reveals her curl hair woes.
Not any comb will do
Picture this, you go away with girlfriends and someone says, “Oh gosh darn it, I forgot my hairbrush – can I borrow yours?” Now of course you oblige but if you are a true curly haired woman, you will watch that thing like it was your first born. It’s taken you years to find something to un-matt your mane without ripping out your painfully slow growing hair so like a boomerang, you’re are going to make damn sure that thing comes back.
Dangling earrings only means danger
A pair of expensive ear accessories dripping with the sharp intricate edges of Bvlgari jewels only spells disaster for the curly hair. We would spend more time trying to untangle them from our tresses than enjoying having them on.
Embrace your curls like Merida in Brave!
Every little girl thinks you’re a Disney Princess
This one is kind of hard to understand since Belle, Ariel, Rapunzel and every other major character from the Disney monarchy has lush straight hair but honestly it’s so cute walking down the supermarket aisle and hearing little girls whisper, “Look mummy, that Princess has pretty hair!”
Ahem, curls don’t always get the girls. Case in point Bradley Cooper in American Hustle.
Don’t call me lazy, I wash my hair errrrryday
Most Curly haired women must at least wet their hair every day to even stand the slightest goddamn chance of having any hair cooperation at all.
Where the heck is the conditioner?!
As far as the curly hairs are concerned shampoo can go to another planet – conditioner is our only true friend. And in those times when we’ve jumped the gun and washed our hair with shampoo without first checking for conditioner, we will spend the rest of the day looking like we survived an ambush from a wild boar.
Despite the commentary the author of this article, Jessica Leahy (pictured) does like her curly hair and wouldn’t trade it in for anything else.
Curly haired peeps can’t get bobs
We just can’t and nothing more needs to be said about this.
Big hair = big personality
Good luck trying to be a wallflower – the straight haired community just won’t let you. Our hair is big and loud so be proud!
Across Australia, religious groups are offering to help gays and lesbians overcome same-sex attraction. Clair Weaver goes undercover to find out what’s going on.
HANDS in the air, eyes to the sky and bodies swaying to the music of a live Christian band, the congregation bursts into an animated song of worship. “Praise the Lord!” comes a shout from the front of the room. “Hallelujah!” calls another. People start clapping. A young woman throws her arm around her neighbour’s shoulder. In this evangelical south Sydney church, the devotion is palpable.
No wonder: this is a place where miracles supposedly happen. Where gays and lesbians can become straight.
It’s a Sunday evening and I’m one of around 50 people attending a healing service led by a charismatic Californian called Andy Comiskey. He is the founder of Living Waters, a worldwide program with one goal: to help people overcome homosexuality and other forms of what it calls “sexual and relational brokenness”. Living Waters is but one small part of the “ex-gay” movement that’s active worldwide. In Australia, new support groups are sprouting up, high-profile preachers are flying in from overseas and ministries are reaching out to gay youth online, claiming they can teach them how to go straight. I decide to infiltrate the movement under the guise of a gay woman to study just how these leaders make their argument – and to share with readers what happens behind the closed doors of churches where these meetings are held.
Comiskey tells us he was a religious young man who developed feminine leanings at a young age and was attracted to other males by the time he hit puberty. After graduating from high school, he moved into what he calls the “gay ghetto” of Long Beach, California, where he says he was gang-raped, beaten and suffered STIs. Having sex with other men, he says, was ultimately unsatisfying; Comiskey felt empty and tormented, especially at church. “I’ve done terrible things to my body and others’ bodies,” he says. “And I can’t take that back.”
But we can be welcomed back into Jesus’ arms like the Bible’s prodigal son, says Comiskey, if we just turn our backs on homosexuality. He did it – and now, he says, he’s happily married to his wife Annette, setting a moral example to same-sex attracted Christians. Pastor Ron Brookman, who directs the Australian division of Living Waters, is another of the movement’s success stories; he used to lead a double life, secretly delving into Sydney’s gay scene while working as a Uniting Church minister. These days, however, he says he’s devoted to his wife Ruth and finds the thought of a long-term relationship with a man “repulsive”.
Living Waters isn’t the only outreach program that’s been through Sydney in recent months. I first learned about the ex-gay movement’s theories at an all-day conference called Someone I Know Is Gay, held at St Paul’s Anglican Church in the leafy Sydney suburb of Carlingford. The event is staged by Beyond Egypt, an arm of the church set up to people “overcome” same-sex attraction. The key speakers are Ricky Chelette, of Living Hope Ministries in Texas, and Sue Bohlin, of Probe Ministries in Texas. Their “Down Under Tour” includes other dates in Melbourne and Brisbane, and evening worship at the Pentecostal mega-church Hillsong.
Understanding the “roots of homosexuality” is apparently key to straightening out. So firstly Chelette, an earnest and baby-faced pastor in his 40s with black-rimmed glasses, explains the cause. Just so we’re clear, says Chelette, no-one is born gay. “There is no scientific evidence that homosexuality is really either genetic or biological,” he says. It’s a behaviour, we’re told, that stems from childhood problems: if we don’t get enough attention, affection and affirmation (“the three As”) from our parents, suffer sexual abuse or fail to bond with peers, we may develop inappropriate “gender identity” and turn out gay. The arguments are neat and logical, and many of the people in the congregation nod in agreement with Chelette’s claims, which he illustrates with endless metaphors, gender stereotypes and snappy acronyms.
Chelette then gives an emotionally-charged account of being sexually abused as a child by his step-grandfather. He attributes this experience – coupled with a father who failed to be a role model to his “sensitive” son – as having “activated” his homosexuality.
Over a lunch break, with a large spread of food prepared by friendly church members, I get chatting to a 20-something woman with a warm and open demeanour. We converse easily, flitting between casual conversations about the weather and our travel experiences. But there’s one subject we don’t broach: the reason why we’re both here.
After lunch, there’s a choice of two seminars, one of which tackles the “messy” and “complicated” issue of lesbianism. It’s led by polio survivor Sue Bohlin, an extrovert with a laugh that booms through the church. In her talk The Nature of Lesbiansism & Relational Idolatory, she claims the latest research shows 80 to 85 per cent of lesbians were sexually abused in the past. It’s a shocking statistic but she doesn’t say where it came from and I’m . unable to establish its veracity.
Bohlin says women who weren’t nurtured or breastfed by their mothers end up sexually attracted to females. Quoting an ex-gay counsellor, she says: “They want to rest in another woman’s arms; they want to suckle at a breast. They want to gaze into the eyes of another woman like a baby would a mother.”
Popular culture takes a bashing too. Bohlin says women under the age of 26 may become gay or bisexual because a “disgusting” new generation of US TV shows and movies that glamorise same-sex relationships: “I’m sorry for sending American garbage to Australia but you pick up a lot of what we pump out to the rest of the world.”
So how does the movement suggest same-sex attraction can be overcome? Praying is obviously their first line of defence. Chelette also suggests forming new, non-gay relationships. The principle is similar to cognitive behavioural therapy – start acting like a straight person and eventually you’ll become one. “The only way a person is going to really come out of homosexuality or same gender attraction,” he says “is for them to find very positive, strong, supportive heterosexual relationships that they can walk in [for] a long time,” He suggests parents, “appropriate” older role models of the same gender, and members of ex-gay support groups. (Ironically, attendees of many support groups are usually banned from knowing each others’ surnames or making contact on the outside, for fear they’ll hook up.)
By day’s end, we are invited to submit questions anonymously. I scribble a question for Chelette: “Do you still struggle with same-sex attraction?” His answer: “Yes. Do I want to go have sex with a man? No. Do I at times…feel drawn to somebody in a way that I know is probably inappropriate? Yes. How do I deal with it? I recognise what is taking place and why I feel the way I feel, and I decide that in that moment I still really love Jesus and my wife more that I love what momentary pleasure I might get by sinning.”
This answer, with its baldly competing desires and obfuscation, mirrors a recent shift that has seen the ex-gay movement’s leaders admit that same-sex urges don’t just disappear once someone is “cured”. As they see it, these desires aren’t sinful unless they’re acted upon. Chelette essentially admits that his wife acts as a filter, banning him from working with certain men who may tempt him.
It sounds like an awful lot of hard work. Which might be why Bohlin says we should be focused on “raising gender healthy kids” in the first place. In her session for parents, she claims boys are born on a spectrum from sensitive to rough and tumble, and girls range from girly to tomboy. “Girls who are glad to be girls and boys who are delighted to be boys tend not to be the ones who will struggle,” she says. “It has been said it is easier to raise a healthy child than to repair a broken adult and it’s absolutely true. Homosexuality can be prevented the majority of the time.”
Chelette advises fathers to treat their daughters protectively, like princesses, and to be physically affectionate to their sons because “he needs to feel that affection from a man that is safe so that, should there be affection that isn’t safe, he will know what it feels like, be repulsed by it and move away from it.”
But aren’t we a lot more complicated than that? Anthony Venn-Brown thinks so. He was once a church role model, a Pentecostal preacher with a wife and two daughters. After undergoing exorcisms, ex-gay therapy and 40-day fasts, he eventually realised that ‘the gay never goes away”. He left the church in disgrace in 1991 and co-convened Freedom2b[e], which helps Christians reconcile their faith and sexuality. Venn-Brown dismisses ex-gay theories, many of which originated more than 50 years ago, as “outdated” and “false”. “Parents can’t make their kids gay or straight,” he says. “Sexual orientation is basically determined prenatally.”
Although scientists have not yet conclusively proven homosexuality is programmed from birth, evidence indicates it is a mixture of genetic, biological, prenatal hormonal and environmental factors. Identical twins, for example, are far more likely to share the same sexual orientation – even if they are raised in different families – than non-identical twins or siblings. The American Academy of Paediatrics puts it simply. “There is no scientific evidence that abnormal parenting, sexual abuse, or other adverse life events influence sexual orientation.”
Many of the people at today’s session are middle-aged. Some probably struggle with old-school societal attitudes and upbringings. Others are obviously the unhappy parents of young people who have come out, in attendance because they want things “fixed”. Chelette concedes it’s up to the individual to want to change. But he does suggest that “it’s generally not a good approach to whip out the Bible when they make their announcement [that they’re gay]. It would be far better to just sit and weep than for you to bring out a whole lot of scripture passages and beat them in the head with it. They need to see it’s hurting you.” He also advocates withholding financial support or kicking out adult offspring if they “choose the gay lifestyle”.
This advice is echoed at Living Waters’ session. Comiskey says you’re doing a loved one a “big favour” when you tell them how much their homosexuality pains you. “Blessed are the wounds of a friend,” he says. When he invites attendees with special prayers to come up to the front of the church – where they have the hands of his leadership team placed upon them – a curly-haired woman in her 40s breaks down into body-racking sobs and has to be physically supported by others. I wonder if she has a gay relative who has been on the receiving end of all that. Which begs the question: is this really a loving Christian response to what is often one of the most difficult and anguished moments in a person’s life – or is it emotional blackmail?
Those who have witnessed the fallout of such tactics warn they have devastating consequences. “Love your child unconditionally,” pleads Venn-Brown. “Never say to your child ‘I love you but…’. I know of too many examples where this drove the child to suicide. In large cities around the world many of the homeless gay youth that are into drugs and prostitution for survival ran away from Christian homes – because of the rejection of their parents and their church.”
Sydneysider Robert Watkins knows the raw pain of a family being torn apart. At the age of 27, he was excommunicated from the Jehova’s Witnesses and forced to start a new life on his own. He had been fighting his homosexuality for 12 years. “It was only when I had spent months in a very deeply depressed state that I decided I had two choices: to die, or to live my life as a gay man,” he says. Watkins hasn’t seen his family – who are forbidden from associating with him – for three years.
Witnessing the harm ex-gay programs have caused hundreds of Australians has driven Venn-Brown to become an outspoken critic. “My goal,” he says, “is to see each of these ministries closed down.”
In 1976, marriage and family counsellor Michael Bussee co-founded the [*postscript: now redundant] ex-gay umbrella group Exodus International (of which Living Hope is a member and Living Waters is an affiliate). Three years later, he left the group – and his marriage – to enter a relationship with fellow Exodus pioneer Gary Cooper. More than 30 years on, he is still at the receiving end of bitter behaviour from his own family. Bussee says, “Relationships with my family, including my daughter, remain somewhat strained since they all still have religious objections and think I could ‘change’ if I really wanted to.” When Bussee left Exodus, his then pre-schooler daughter was told by church members that her dad didn’t love Jesus – or her – enough. Otherwise, they reasoned, he wouldn’t be gay.
Bussee says he never witnessed Exodus genuinely change a person’s sexual orientation. He adds Exodus has no reliable statistics on the marriages of same-sex attracted Christians, despite a generic claim of a 30 to 50 per cent success rate in long-term behavioural change. “Some claim to remain monogamous in their marriages,” he says. “Others cheat. I would guess the success rate on fidelity is low. I talk with married [but same-sex attracted] men every day who are cheating or trying very hard not to.”
Homosexuality is often described as “sexual or relational brokenness” during our investigation. This suggests it’s an illness, rather than a neutral trait like being left-handed or having blonde hair. But does being gay actually mean you have something biologically or behaviourally wrong with you? If you ask the medical profession, the answer is no. The Australian Medical Association (AMA) “opposes the use of “reparative” or “conversion” therapy that is based upon the assumption that homosexuality is a mental disorder and that the patient should change his or her sexual orientation.”
Another argument commonly cited by the ex-gay movement says that allowing Christians to surrender to homosexual urges will hurt their health. Statistically, after all, gay people are more likely to experience depression, self-harming, suicide and reduced life expectancy. And who’d want that?
But is it their sexual orientation or society’s prejudicial response – fuelled by the hard-line religious belief homosexuality as “wrong” – that really causes these problems? The AMA says “mental health problems are statistically over-represented in [the gay] population throughout life due to exposure to discriminatory behaviour.”
In 2007, Bussee decided to repent for his involvement in Exodus International by making a public apology alongside ex-leader Darlene Bogle and former European president Jeremy Marks. All expressed deep remorse for the harm their ex-gay work had caused. Today Bussee continues to criticise the movement and runs a Facebook group for survivors of the program called Ex-ex Gay.
For Venn-Brown, who penned his story in A Life Of Unlearning, reconciling his sexuality and spirituality has finally put him “at peace”. “The closet is a dark and fearful place,” he says. “I feel great sorrow for those who are trapped in the closet by their faith, family pressure or culture. It’s a terrible way to live… never being true to yourself.”
Even if same sex conversion therapy doesn’t work, there may be at least one unexpected benefit. As I pick up my bag to leave Beyond Egypt’s conference, a young woman I’d spoken with during the day passed me a small note with her mobile number and a suggestion we meet up away from the church for lunch or a ferry ride. It could have been an innocent offer of friendship. Maybe she genuinely wanted to support me on a journey out of homosexuality. But I suspect I may have been hit on.
Postscript: this feature was first published by Bauer Media in 2011. Living Waters ceased operating in Australia in 2014, although Ramsgate Community Church still runs sexuality support groups. Umbrella organisation Exodus International ceased operations in 2013.
It was a celebration for his mother’s birthday – Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden – yesterday but little Prince Oscar, only four months old, stole the show!
Princess Victoria turned 39 and showed off her bub to well-wishers at their summer home – Solliden Palace on the island of Öland.
The future queen was joined by her family – husband Prince Daniel, four-year-old Princess Estelle, Oscar, and Victoria’s parents, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia.
The two gorgeous siblings Estelle and Oscar were wearing matching blue!
Princess Estelle
The baby boy looked adorable sitting in his father’s arms as he let out a little yawn.
What a little cutie!
Hundreds of people flocked to see the royal family, with Princess Victoria being showered with gifts and flowers.
For one wonderfully indulgent day only, food-delivery company Deliveroo will be providing free burgers to residents of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane during peak lunch time.
So, what can we eat?
The best part about this day, apart from the free food, is the sheer amount of variety. There’s everything from crisp fried chicken burgers, to Vietnamese bao-bun sliders and gourmet lamb burgers. There’s something for every taste bud here.
Sydney: Barrio Cellar, Hub House Diner, Down N’Out by Hashtag Burgers, Forresters, Chur Burger, Surlys, Jack’s Burgers, D’Munchies, BondiTony’s, Paradise Road Diner, Small Bar & Kitchen, Moo Gourmet Burgers Manly, Moo Gourmet Burgers Coogee, BurgerCrave, Mamas Buoi, Mojo by Luke Mangan and Jimmy’s on the Spit.
Melbourne: St Kilda Burger Bar, Saintly Burger, Hello Sam, Huxtaburger, Thaiger Burger, Mama’s Buoi, The Beaufort and Ikes, Caffe La Via, San Jose, The B.EAST, Danny’s Burgers, C H James, Three one 2 One and Le Petit Prince Armadale.
Brisbane: St Baxter, Buffalo Bar and Hop & Pickle.
How do we get one?
Well, luckily the team at Deliveroo have made the process quite straight forward for us burger-fiends, and whether you’re hooked to your mobile or are glued to the office desktop, you’ll be able to get a hot, cheesy meal, straight to your doorstep.
All you need to do is log into the Deliveroo website or download their free app and follow the prompts. There will be a burger icon displayed from 12-3pm which you’ll need to click to claim your free burger.
And the best part? You can use the app to track your order – watching your delicious lunch approach you from start to finish.
How many can we order?
Depending on which burger you’re looking at tucking in to, the free-burger deal only allows up to $20 of credit for each hungry foodie.
The availability of burger choices will be based on where your home, or office, is located. You can easily find this out by following this link.
This epic deal is running on 15 July 2016 from 12pm-3pm only.
Researchers from the University of California quizzed 384 families and found that 74 per cent of mothers and 70 per cent of fathers had a definite favourite among their children.
The parents were not asked to name their favourite child, but follow-up questioning of their children revealed eldest children were preferred almost across the board.
This bias towards first-borns affected the confidence of younger siblings, damaging their self-esteem.
The results stunned study leader Katherine Conger, who said the research had been aiming to prove the opposite – that younger children were often the favourites.
“I was a little surprised,” she said. “Our hypothesis was that older, earlier-born children would be more affected by perceptions of differential treatment due to their status as the older child in the family.”
Boys are not well known for talking to their parents about what’s going on for them, but I believed the transition from primary school to high school was going smoothly for my 13–year-old son, Will.
My son was a happy, healthy, sporty kid who loved football. He was a rugby forward who represented his school and he was built like a rugby forward should be; solid, definitely not fat, but solid.
I started to notice a difference in him when we went on a family holiday. He was reducing his food intake, asking questions about diets. I just thought he wanted to get fit for the upcoming football season, but after a few months his weight loss was really dramatic.
He was hiding food from his plate and refusing to eat. He’s a tall boy who lost over 20 kilos in six months, and he was withdrawn and no longer acting like the kid I knew.
We tried the school counsellor and a few other options but the school just sat with him to ensure he ate, and no one was addressing what was the cause of the issue. We needed to uncover why he was starving himself.
We finally we found a psychiatric nurse who spoke to him on his level and suddenly Will came clean about why he was so tortured.
He was being bullied for being fat.
He was relentlessly teased by kids at school who would come up behind him and lift his shirt, laughing and singing songs about him. He was bombarded on social media. Cruel private messages, SnapChat, AskFM. He couldn’t get away from it and it ate into every aspect of his life.
Listening to my son tell this nurse that he was receiving death threats for being overweight was heartbreaking, he said: “I never realised I was such an ugly, fat creature so I needed to change my body to be accepted.”
How does this happen?
I’m a teacher myself. How did no one notice that this was going on at the school, why did no one help? How did it get to this?
By the time he was hospitalised, his heart was failing and the doctors told me I was losing my little boy. Our whole world stopped for a year while we just tried to keep him alive. Will was prescribed anti-depressants and anti-psychotics to help us control his “self-talk.”
He could not get all of the hurtful things they said about him out of his head.
I know now that he was using too much social media. He was too young. All kids under 15 are too young to be on it, or at the very least their parents need to have the password and regularly check what’s going on. Is your child receiving and sending appropriate messages?
They’re too young to understand the consequences, and more and more kids are getting messed up. We’re seeing kids cutting themselves, or being promiscuous, because they’re not able to process, or deal with what happens on there adequately.
We’ll never stop social media or technology so it’s paramount that we teach our kids resilience, and responsibility around the usage of it.
It’s been three years, and we’re still coming out the other side. He puts less pressure on himself about food, but it’s still there. We’re doing so much better, his moods are much more stable, he’s back playing football and I can see my happy boy is slowly coming back.
I want to blame the kids that did this, but I know that the ringleaders are probably damaged too. They must be to inflict such pain on someone else.
Being a teenager is really hard time for anyone, it’s the formative time, and stuff just seems so big and important even though it might be irrelevant in the big picture. As busy parents it is imperative we make the time to know and understand what’s going on in our kids life otherwise we may notice something is wrong too late.
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