1. IT has been a long, cold spell in the woods for Monica Lewinsky but now she has received a standing ovation at Cannes for standing up to internet bullies.
The New York Post reports gave an ‘emotional speech’ about her mission to ensure ‘public shaming as a blood sport must stop.’
Lewinsky delivered the Ogilvy & Inspire keynote speech. She told the crowd, “Like me, at 22, a few of you may also have taken wrong turns and fallen in love with the wrong person, maybe even your boss … Unlike me, though, your boss probably wasn’t the President of the United States of America.
“Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of my mistake, and I regret that mistake deeply.”
Monica is one of the first people in the world to have her reputation destroyed by a poor choice, amplified a billion times over the world wide web. She’s the subject of foul cartoons, endless jokes, and has struggled to hold down a job. Her partner in crime? Bill Clinton? He’s fantastically wealthy, and adored everywhere he goes.
2. WOULD YOU like to buy a fairy tale theme park? There is one for sale. It’s derelict. Overgrown. Abandoned. But oh, the fun you could have.
Weburbanist reports that ‘Fantasy Glades’ was built by an Australian family in the 1960s, and that was ‘inspired by classical fairy tales’ of princesses, goblins and dragons.
‘In the 1960’s a family of ‘Little People’ George and Rosemary Whitaker, along with their children James and Lynette, and Rosemary’s parents, Aub and Lin Gribble, set out on a journey from Sydney to Port Macquarie in NSW Australia with a dream to create their very own children’s Fairy Tale Theme Park,’ the site says.
It was closed 35 years later in 2002 and has remained so since.
3. ABC editor-in-chief Mark Scott has defended a decision to put a terrorist suspect on live TV.
The Australian reports that Scott, speaking at a Centre for Corporate Public Affairs’ function, said: “We know that live television is dangerous. That it can be unpredictable and compelling. Part of the success of Q&A is that the audience knows it’s live.”
The guest in question has previously Tweeted about his desire to see women gang raped, and there were fears that he might go live to air with similar hatred.
“As someone said to me this week, free-speech arguments would be easier if you were always defending Martin Luther King,” Mr Scott said, “At times, free-speech principles mean giving platforms to those with whom we fundamentally disagree.
“It was the crux of the Charlie Hebdo argument last year and, of course, the source of the maxim that was used to describe Voltaire’s beliefs: ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ ”
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, speaking on the ABC’s 7.30 last night, said Mr Scott and the ABC board had a responsibility to explain why Mallah was allowed to appear on Q&A.
“This guy on social media not so long ago nominated two female journalists and said that they should be publicly raped,” Mr Turnbull said. “What if he had said that again in the Q&A live audience? Why would you ever put a person (like that) in a live audience? It’s incredible.”
4. WELL, that escalated quickly.
James Packer has gone from holding Mariah Carey’s hand to talking marriage in a little under four days.
Hollywood website TMZ has photographs of the pair in white robes, a la Bob and Blanche (could it be a stunt, though? Because James seems to have thrown his robe over a black T-shirt for the picture.)
News Limited reports that Mariah’s four-year-old twins, Monroe and Morocco, are traveling with the couple on Packer’s luxury yacht in Italy.
Packer, 47, and Carey, 45 have been dubbed PaRiah.
Cynical types say Mariah is on the boat with pal Bruce Ratner, who runs US movie ¬financing company RatPac Entertainment with Packer, and one of Carey’s closest friends, and that they are enjoying punking the media. Others say no, it’s real.
Either way, fun, although the pictures show that James is back on the durries, just like his Dad.
5. DOES your partner know how much you earn? And vice versa? A new report suggests that this might be the biggest secret in a marriage.
On Fidelity Mutual’s released findings from a survey of 1,051 couples in which it asked whether or not they knew each other’s earnings. Over 40% of those questioned did not. One in 10 was off by $25,000.
Generation X couples are the worst at judging their partners’ income, with 55 percent getting it wrong. This generation—in their late 30s and 40s, at the peak of their careers — and, as the report notes, they are the group most likely to be getting a big fat bonus to squirrel away.
6. IT never really took off in Australia, but the US is today mourning the death of the man who invented the plastic pink flamingo.
The New York Times reports that Don Featherstone, 79, was the inventor of that pink plastic flamingo that people stick in their gardens.
‘Less hideous than a garden gnome, more diplomatic than a lawn jockey, the plastic flamingo has been flaunted in front yards by the millions,’ The Times says.
When first offered in the 1950s, the birds sold for $2.76 a pair with instructions: “Place in garden, lawn, to beautify landscape”
You’re wondering if it made him rich? No. But the Times says: ‘The bird may not have made him wealthy, but it made him unmistakably proud.’
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