Left: Hamish as a child; right: Andy as a toddler.
Hamish Blake and Andy Lee are two of Australian’s most-loved comedians. Here, their mothers reveal what they were like growing up.
Andy’s mum Margaret Lee
In one word, describe your son’s most regrettable quality:
Accident-prone and willing to have a go at anything.
Tell us one thing about your son that the world doesn’t know about him and that speaks to his character.
When he was a little boy, he was playing games with friends at an old railway cutting. He arrived home with a large gash on his backside. He slid down the hill and was cut by a piece of iron. After a trip to the doctor and 11 stitches, he was told to take it easy — but then he was up jumping off the shed roof playing He-Man and Skeletor.
In one word, describe your son’s most regrettable quality:
Grottiness.
Tell us one thing about your son that the world doesn’t know about him and that speaks to his character:
His religious studies teacher at primary school told the class that if they wanted something they should pray very hard for it and God would do all He could to help. So, one night, Hamish prayed very, very hard that God would make his tuna casserole disappear. Sadly, He didn’t. Hamish never felt quite the same way about religious studies again, not to mention God.
Read more of this story in the September issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Despite being one of the most talked-about celebrities, Jennifer Aniston says she gets a kick out of gossip tabloids.
The Horrible Bosses star admits to flipping through the pages of tabloid magazines from time to time and told Glamour magazine she doesn’t take the articles too seriously.
“There’s not nearly as much stealing and obsessing and middle of the night secret calls to ex-boyfriends and scheming and cheating,” she said.
“Most of it’s just bull—-, however entertaining.”
The 42-year-old actress, who recently downgraded from a $38 million mansion and moved in to a two-bedroom house with her new boyfriend Justin Theroux, appears to be in a happy place.
Despite not directly speaking about her new beau in the magazine’s October issue interview, she does describe the qualities she looks for in a partner.
“I couldn’t be in a relationship without equality, generosity, integrity, spirit, kindness and humour,” she said. “And awesomeness.”
Three years ago, on her first visit to Australia, Nigella was having breakfast at Earth Food Store in Bondi, as she did every day, when she was approached by a good-looking young man.
“Blue-eyed and dark-haired,” she says. “He came up to me shyly and said, ‘I spoke to my father last night and apparently you are a cousin of mine’. “I phoned up my father in London and he said, ‘That must be from my great-aunt, Katie, who fell in love with an Australian and went to Perth.’ I knew nothing about her. Sadly, her husband was run over by a tram very early on, but she adopted that Aussie can-do attitude, raised her children single-handedly and moved to Melbourne. She was his great-great-grandmother! So it was quite nice.
“As life happens, you’re just going somewhere for breakfast and you meet a relative.” She grins. “He sent me an email the other day, saying, ‘I told you that you look really like my sister’, and sent a picture. And I do actually!”
Nigella’s latest best-selling book, Kitchen, which accompanies her hit TV series, Nigella’s Kitchen, is subtitled Recipes From The Heart Of The Home. And for the woman who glories in the joys of food, cooking for other people is her way of nurturing.
“I’m a feeder,” Nigella admits. “I can’t help it. Someone only has to come to mend the boiler and they leave with something wrapped in tin foil!”
So it’s an irony that, at home, this instinct is rather thwarted. Her husband, Charles Saatchi, the multi-millionaire art collector, does not eat her food. Initially, he preferred to graze on cereal, biscuits and ice-cream, but three years ago, lost a lot of weight on a diet of his own devising — eating only nine eggs a day — which makes his wife’s cooking skills redundant.
“But I never said cooking should be done to please men,” she says, laughing. “I was once asked on Dutch television if it’s true that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” She laughs again. “I said, ‘Oh, no — one has to aim much lower!’ “
Nigella cooks lunch each day for women who work with her and supper for the children — Mimi (Cosima), 17, and Bruno, 14, from her first marriage to the late John Diamond, and her step-daughter Phoebe, 16.
“The number of things I can cook that all three like is pretty small. There’s always something they don’t like.”
The children do cook. “Mimi does a great spaghetti carbonara and Bruno likes a bit of a stir-fry. Mimi had a friend over and cooked from my Express book, which was sweet. But they don’t wash up!” She shrugs.
I tell her that she seems to be comfortable within herself. “Of course, I have moments of doubt,” she says. “All women have times thinking, ‘My God, I can’t go out, my hips are so big today!’ But there’s a range that we’re comfortable within and I don’t like it when I go above that.
“I’ve no desire to go below it. If I lost 40lbs [18kg], I would age 10 years straightaway. That’s my excuse!” she jokes.
“But you know women find it very easy to persecute themselves over their weight and whenever I’ve said, ‘I ought to lose a bit of weight’, I can guarantee I’ll put it on. I love food and I love cooking, so therefore, I could never deprive myself.”
Read more of this story in the April issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Your say: Why do you think more celebrities aren’t comfortable being a normal size like Nigella is?
Despite fashion faux pas and their parents’ very public indiscretions, fun-loving Beatrice and Eugenie have come of age and are now more popular than ever, writes Katie Nicholl.
Keeping up with the newest, brightest, most glamorous member of the royal family is no easy task, but Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie seem to be doing a pretty good job holding their own alongside the new Duchess of Cambridge.
At the recent wedding of their cousin, Zara Phillips, in Edinburgh, the royal sisters dazzled in elegant dresses by Angela Kelly, the Queen’s dresser.
The chic frocks were a marked contrast to the dowdy, ill-fitting outfits they wore to Prince William and Catherine’s wedding, where Beatrice caused a sensation in her Philip Treacy hat.
The 23-year-old was lambasted by fashionistas who likened her headwear to a toilet seat, but instead of taking things personally as she once might have done, Beatrice laughed off the criticism and cleverly auctioned the hat on eBay, raising around $127,000 for charity.
The canny move showed just how much the shy young royal had grown up.
For all her faults, their mother, Sarah, the Duchess of York, must be given some credit for this surge of confidence in both her daughters.
In June, she hired Charlie Anderson, one of Hollywood’s leading stylists, to help reinvent the princesses. Anderson dressed them in upcoming British designers like Aruna Seth, and put them firmly on the fashion map.
Royal observers have certainly noted a transition of late and it’s not just the royal wardrobe. Beatrice and Eugenie, always popular for their sense of fun and their garish fashion sense, have suddenly become the nation’s favourite royals.
Once a slightly podgy pair of teenagers who loved partying with their mother in St Tropez, the princesses have shaped up (Bea has hired a personal trainer, Nadya Fairwather, and dropped two dress sizes) and are carving identities of their own.
Beatrice was just eight when her parents divorced, and since then there have been many embarrassing debacles surrounding the Duke and Duchess of York.
Fergie’s toe-sucking fiasco still sends shivers up the spine and one can only imagine what the princesses make of their beloved father’s moniker “Airmiles Andy” — a reference to his penchant for private jets — and the stories about his love of partying.
Bea and Eugenie have always remained loyal to the Duke and Duchess.
They were understandably “rocked” when their mother was secretly filmed selling access to Prince Andrew in return for cash to an undercover reporter last May, and devastated when the spotlight turned on Andrew, who was forced to step down as the UK trade envoy shortly after the newspapers uncovered his friendship with US billionaire and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The revelations sent ripples through the royal family to the highest level. But, while the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were deeply embarrassed by the incidents, they remain devoted to Beatrice and Eugenie.
Although their mother has been ostracised, the princesses are at every key royal event including Christmas at Sandringham.
Their parents have instilled a sense of duty in their daughters, who manage to balance royal obligations with a girl-next-door approach to life. It’s an attitude which has won them a legion of fans.
As far as Beatrice and Eugenie are concerned, they are modern princesses who don’t want to rest on their HRH laurels; instead, they want to work hard and put their titles to good use.
Their parents may not be everyone’s favourite royals but Beatrice and Eugenie have won the hearts of the nation.
Katie Nicholl is author of The Making Of A Royal Romance, Arrow, $24.95.
Read more of this story in the September issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Your say: What do you think about the new generation of British royals?
There’s a shocking black market in Australian schools, with the ADHD drug Ritalin changing hands for up to $20 a pill, reports Jordan Baker.
With his HSC looming, the teenager was buckling under the pressure. Nerves and too much coffee left him sleepless, anxious and distracted. By the first exam, he was so strung out, he couldn’t concentrate.
“So I got some Ritalin and took half of one before each exam,” said the boy. “I did amazing, I was so focused.”
Where students once turned to NoDoz or Sudafed to cram before exams, they now swear by Ritalin, a low-grade amphetamine dubbed “kiddie cocaine” that is designed to calm people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Students say it helps them concentrate, improves their memory and keeps them awake.
There’s no shortage of Ritalin in schools. Estimates suggest that one in 100 Australian boys and one in 200 girls have ADHD, so at any school there can be dozens of kids with permission to take it.
Some sell their pills in the playground for between $5 and $20 a pill, depending on demand.
Popping pills without prescription is always risky, but in the hands of reckless, stressed teenagers, it can become dangerous, even lethal.
In one incident near Brisbane, 14 Year 9 students took up to 15 Ritalin tablets each and had to be rushed to hospital.
“One of the big fears is that it could unlock a psychotic illness,” says GP Brian Morton. “The adverse reactions with it are really quite common and these are nervousness and insomnia. Some people do get a depressed mood with it and hallucinations.”
There are no figures on Ritalin abuse, but “if you are in a social group where people have a prescription, you are more likely to get them”, says Associate Professor Jayne Lucke from the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research.
“I think there might be hot spots where, in a private school, for example, kids’ parents suggest they might like to do this to get through exams.”
Not everyone is worried. Some argue people should be allowed to take drugs such as Ritalin if it enhances their mental performance, in the same way that drugs enhance sports performance.
In the UK, academics have even suggested drugs such as Ritalin be prescribed to people under 18 to improve their performance at school.
There is, however, plenty of evidence of side-effects, ranging from jitteriness and sleeplessness to depression, hallucinations and even psychosis.
“When people take [Ritalin] unmonitored, they don’t have a doctor saying, is it suitable, do you have other conditions, are you taking other medicine?” says Dr Lucke. “We need those kinds of health safeguards.”
Read more of this story in the September issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Your say: Do you think Ritalin should be prescribed to help kids focus?
Drinking to excess may be socially acceptable, but women are feeling the ill effects. Professor Kerryn Phelps says its high time we changed our habits.
It’s as Australian as kangaroos and a day at the footy to “like a drink”. The problem is, too many Australian women like alcohol way too much — to the point where it has become a major and increasingly serious public health issue.
More and more, we are recognising the risks associated with women overindulging in alcohol.
A recent study of more than 40 countries found that Australian women ranked third behind Uganda and New Zealand when it came to suffering the effects of excessive alcohol consumption.
The most obvious effect is the untidiness of the drunk who had “a few too many”.
Longer-term issues include financial strain, poor work performance, relationship and family problems, malnutrition and other health effects.
More recently, we have recognised a connection between alcohol and an increase in breast, rectal and liver cancer rates in women, with data suggesting that every drink increases the risk.
The current recommendation is one or two standard drinks a day only, no more than five days a week, but this is likely to be adjusted downwards. The recommendation for pregnant women is zero.
I speak to women who are suffering the effects of too much alcohol, or who will suffer effects if they keep going the way they are.
Many are surprised when we tally up their drinks and compare it with what is considered safe.
It is not enough for a woman to say she can “hold her booze”, doesn’t get into trouble when she drinks and knows her way around a hangover.
To stay within the recommended two standard drinks, you are talking about a quarter of a bottle of wine — maximum.
A bottle of wine contains an average of eight standard drinks, so if you share one bottle between two, that is 100 per cent over — double — the recommended limit.
Peter Wojcik’s wife was 23 weeks pregnant when tragedy struck — she was diagnosed with cancer. Here, Peter shares his bittersweet story of finding love again and building a new family.
Not a day goes past that I don’t think about Ellice. I’d never met anyone quite like her before. She would light up a room. She’d make you laugh. She was a very special woman.
We’d only been married 11 months when our dreams of starting a family came true.
Yet, a few months in, Ellice started having night sweats and fevers. We thought it was the pregnancy, but she knew something wasn’t right and, after lots of tests, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when she was 23 weeks pregnant.
I was completely overwhelmed. Numb. I would sit next to her bed and hold her hand, bring her food, give her Panadol and just be by her side and help her as best I could.
She was started on a very mild dose of chemotherapy, as anything that was going to harm the baby just wasn’t an option.
By the time she was diagnosed, the cancer had already spread to Ellice’s bone marrow.
The chemo didn’t work, so they tried another slightly more potent dose, but that failed as well. Her condition was getting worse. The fevers and rigours just kept coming every few hours.
She would shiver uncontrollably, so we would have to put doonas and blankets on top of her just to keep her warm. We thought she was going to die just from the rigours alone.
She was admitted to Monash Medical Centre’s maternity unit and the chemo was stopped.
She was given some drugs to develop the baby’s lungs and, at 31 weeks, had a caesarean, as she was too weak to have a natural birth.
Mia Ellice was born on August 20, 2007 and weighed 1.7kg. We were both over the moon when she arrived and surprised at how relatively healthy she was, given the circumstances.
With Mia safe, Ellice was started on a very aggressive form of chemotherapy at the Alfred Hospital.
Things were failing faster than they could treat her and, within a week, she was in intensive care with liver failure.
You’re always hopeful that a miracle will happen, but she never recovered. Ellice died three weeks after giving birth to Mia, the day before my birthday.
After Ellice passed away, one of her closest friends, Natasha, offered to look after Mia once in a while, so I could get out and do some work.
She and Ellice had had so much in common. They’d known each other for 20 years and were both GPs. It was such a generous gift and, after a while, we grew very close.
Tash and I share a unique bond. We both knew Ellice in our own special way and being together feels very comfortable.
In those last days, Ellice actually suggested to me that Tash would be a good one to get to know better. It was kind of funny the way she mentioned it.
Tash is right when she says that it doesn’t change my love for Ellice. We’ve both discovered that you can love more than one person in a lifetime.
We now also have a beautiful little boy, Hugo. I was overjoyed when we found out we were having a boy. Hugo is gorgeous and healthy, and Mia is now four.
I always find it quite difficult talking about Ellice. It reminds me how precious and unpredictable life is. We now find more time for our families and friends. We try to enjoy every day for what it is.
Read more of this story in the September issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Who says age is a barrier? Some of Tinseltown’s finest have hit the 60 mark without as much as a blink of an eyelid.
Actresses like Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren are being offered some of Hollywood’s biggest roles and being rewarded with Academy Awards. While others still are making their mark through philanthropic work.
Whatever their current role, these women are gracing red carpets with an elegance and style younger stars could only dream of.
Childbirth is a miraculous thing, but would you like to see it on television? If not, keep the remote handy tonight because a Sydney fertility clinic is launching a new ad that features a real woman giving birth.
The advertisement for Genea, formerly Sydney IVF, shows a New Zealand woman giving birth to her fourth child.
It was filmed over six hours, from the time labour began to the birth of the baby, and is the first time a real birth has been shown on Australian TV.
While you can’t see any private parts, the clip is raw, showing the baby’s head emerging and the newborn being handed to his mother, still covered in blood and amniotic fluid.
The ad campaign also raises questions about the ethics of using something as emotive as the birth of a healthy child to advertise a fertility clinic, which cannot guarantee its clients will have the same joyous outcome.
Your say: Would you like to see a woman giving birth on TV?
Elizabethby J. Randy Taraborrelli, Pan Macmillan, $24.95.
The obituary writers were probably right when they claimed Elizabeth Taylor was the last Hollywood icon, but she was also the first celebrity to live every moment of her life publicly.
Operations, romances, tragedies, break-ups, rehab, never before had a star shared everything with the world.
Yet Taraborrelli goes deeper with this well-researched, lively biography. Behind the beauty and glamour is a bold, earthy, exciting woman, described best by her close friend Roddy McDowell as an “elegant, rollicking Boadicea”.
Friends, acquaintances and staff reveal Elizabeth’s life away from the public eye, and even Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher describe their see-sawing relationships with the siren who turned their lives upside down.
The early years are a crazy ride, but it’s her happy yet painful later years that really fascinate.
She describes herself as a poor little woman “who’s bent sideways”, but typically carries on with humour and gusto, saying, “My X-rays are hysterical”.
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