FRIDAY SCREAMER!

TUTU BOWLED OVER BY WARNIE!

One of "I wish I was there," moments...

Archbishop Desmond Tutu had cricket fans in fits of laughter at a charity dinner in Johannesburg, but he knows that even a Nobel Peace Prize winner can't compete with Shane Warne.

The reconciliation pioneer gave an emotional address which was part tear-jerker, part comedy routine and part cricket analysis to a charity dinner which included members of the Australian and South African cricket teams.

An auction of cricket memorabilia relating to South Africa's world-record score of 9-438 against Australia in the fifth one-day international at Johannesburg on March 12 was held to raise funds for the Desmond Tutu Diversity Trust, as part of celebrations of Tutu's 75th birthday.

The major item for auction was a framed scorecard of the match. Warne had everyone's attention after bidding an astonishing 95,000 Rand (roughly $A24,000).

"However, Warne was pipped at the post by a South African fan who placed the final bid of R105,000 for the item, a framed collage including a Proteas team shirt signed by the players, the official scorecards from both world record-breaking innings, and signed pictures of Herschelle Gibbs and Ricky Ponting during their century knocks as well as signed pictures of Makhaya Ntini and Graeme Smith," organisers said in a statement.

Tutu also presented one of his books, God has Dreams, to Ponting with a personal message from him to Glenn and Jane McGrath, who has cancer. "Please tell them we are thinking of them, and miss Glenn not being here," Tutu said.

Ponting said: "I thought he was terrific. I'd like to learn a bit more about what he's done. "He was pretty inspirational last night and pretty funny along with it."

Cricket South Africa and television broadcaster SABC organised the function.

Tutu received a standing ovation from the corporate guests who had watched a stirring video presentation of Tutu campaigning for an end to apartheid and also putting himself in the firing line to prevent angry mobs of protesters from undertaking violent acts.

At least one South African batsman was moved to tears by the video.

Ava g'day!

NOAH'S ARK... Dutchman's biblical mission

Some people think he's crazy. His wife's not exactly thrilled either. But like the biblical Noah, Dutchman Johan Huibers is steadfast in his mission: he's building an enormous working replica of Noah's Ark as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.

Townsfolk in Schagen, 45 km north of Amsterdam, frequently stop by to wave hello or just gawk at the huge wooden ship that is nearing completion in the town's small harbour.

Johan's Ark is calibrated to be able to pass narrowly under every bridge and through every sluice along his planned sailing route, through the interior waters of the Netherlands to the country's big cities.

Reckoning by the old biblical measurements, the ark is roughly 150 cubits long by 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That's nearly 70 metres long, 13.5 metres high, and 9.5 metres wide.

As described in Genesis, Noah used "gopher wood" to build his ark. Johan's Ark is constructed with American cedar and Norwegian pine - on top of a seaworthy steel hull.

While spectacular, it holds only about a fifth as many cubic cubits as Noah's would have, according to most biblical scholars. "And just think, Noah did it alone and without modern tools. It's unimaginable, no?" says Huibers, an energetic 47-year-old contractor.

According to Genesis, Noah kept seven pairs of most domesticated animals, and one breeding pair of all other creatures, plus his wife, three sons and three daughters-in-law together on the same boat for almost a year while all the world was submerged by an enormous flood.

Huibers' vision is more modest. He plans to stock his ark with a collection of farmyard animals such as horses, lambs, chickens and rabbits, plus an exhibition on more exotic creatures. He hopes to set sail in September - displaying the ark as a combination religious monument, museum, and petting zoo.

"This will speak very much to children, because it will give them something tangible to see that Noah's Ark really existed," Huibers says. "They'll hear the creak of the wood, smell the smell of the dung."

Huibers kicked the idea around in his head for more than a decade before he bought and milled more than 1,200 logs needed for the project last northern summer. His son Roy, 17, and several builder friends have helped when they can. But most of the work was up to Huibers. And Mrs Huibers?

"She doesn't really like it," he says. "She always says 'Why don't you go dig wells in Ethiopia?' I've been involved in projects there before. But she understands, this is my dream."

I think he should listen to his wife!
Ava g'day.

PRO HART 1928-2006...WITH JESUS.

"Well done, good and faithful servant."

Pro was a wonderful artist, but he was also a committed Christian who donated lots of his paintings to be sold to help evangelist's preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a very generous man who gave much to help the poor, the sick, and the needy.

Prayers for the family are deeply appreciated.

ONE STEP BELOW GOD?

Who is he kidding...

QUEENSLAND Premier Peter Beattie said last night only Jesus Christ could have done a better job than he had in dealing with the havoc wrought on his state by Cyclone Larry.Stung by criticism from one of his ministers over the pace of his Government's response, Mr Beattie angrily attacked his critics, including the media.

He said "any Australian with half a brain" would realise it would have been a mistake to rush in public servants and other recovery workers to the devastated Innisfail area before sewerage and other basic facilities were in place.

"We couldn't impose another 100 people on that community without risking disease," he said.

It was not clear whether Mr Beattie included among those with less than half a brain his Communities Minister, Warren Pitt, who admitted on Thursday that the Government had misjudged the situation after the storm and "learnt a lesson".

Mr Beattie attacked a report in The Australian of Mr Pitt's comments as "bullshit".

"Unless you were Jesus Christ himself, you would not have been able to solve these problems any quicker than we did," Mr Beattie told the ABC's Lateline program.

He said he had set former military chief General Peter
Cosgrove a six-month target to restore the region, but said certain sectors - such as banana, sugarcane and macadamia plantations - could take years to come
back to full production.

Mr Beattie, who according to a Newspoll is politically on the nose, admitted that if the relief effort went
slower than expected, he might face a backlash.

But he added: "I could not really care less about the politics ... I know politicians say that sort of stuff, but I really believe it."

To reiterate your comment Peter... "This is bullshit!"

Ava great weekend!

THIS IS A CREEPY STATEMENT...

Beazley claims party brawling is over!

He's blue in the face with telling lies!

Hava g'day!

Helen Clark calls journalist a 'creep'

Look who's calling the journalist a creep...

It's enough to make you shudder! Yuk!

Hava g'day!

FRIDAY SCREAMER! - DEAD IRISHMAN

Brenda O'Malley is home making dinner, as usual, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door.

"Brenda, may I come in?" he asks. "I've somethin' to tell ya."

"Of course you can come in, you're always welcome, Tim. But where's my husband?"

"That's what I'm here to be tellin' ya, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guiness brewery."

"Oh, God no!" cries Brenda. "Please don't tell me..."

"I must, Brenda.? Your husband Shamus is dead and gone. I'm sorry."

Finally, she looked up at Tim. "How did it happen, Tim?"

"It was terrible, Brenda. He fell into a vat of Guiness Stout and drowned."

"Oh my dear Jesus! But you must tell me true, Tim. Did he at least go quickly?"

"Well, no Brenda... no." "No?" "Fact is, he got out three times to pee."

Ava g'day!

MAD AND UGLY!

Are you not glad that you are not that mad, and this ugly?

Ava g'day!

A FATHER GETS STUNG IN SHAME GAME!

Talk about the kettle calling the pot black...

AN EXASPERATED father has discovered, at his expense, that cyberspace is not the ideal arena for family feuds.

Two weeks ago Steve Williams became so fed up with his daughter's messy bedroom that he built a website featuring pictures of his slothful offspring's lair in an attempt to shame her into action.

However, the public humiliation, proved to be a short-lived victory. While it did spur his daughter, Claire, into tidying her room, it also whet her appetite for revenge.

With the help of her father's friends, the 20-year-old business student has now set up a rival website that displays photos of him in a variety of compromising situations.

"All of my friends feel sorry for Claire so they're ganging up on me," said Mr Williams, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, in northern England. "They have managed to dig out photos of me drunk and dancing round with a handbag at a party. They have also put pictures of my garage on to show it's not just Claire who's untidy. "The boot is on the other foot now, but I suppose I deserve it."

Despite the embarrassment, Mr Williams said he had no regrets. "It started off as a flippant remark, with me saying to Claire, 'If you don't sort your room out, I am going to put that pic on the internet'," he said.

"It had the desired effect. Her bedroom is not immaculate, but it's a hundred times better. My son has started keeping his room tidy too. He is living in fear of being outed. "Claire is absolutely mortified. She has only just started speaking to me again."

The website of Mr Williams, www.shameit.com, has proved hugely popular with disgruntled families from all over the world. Nearly 40,000 people have visited the site in its first fortnight.

"I can't believe it - I certainly wasn't expecting this kind of response. We've had people from as far as New Zealand, Japan and South Africa," said Mr Williams, a computer programmer.

"I had to do an interview with a radio station in Brisbane the other day. It obviously works, because we've had lots of shameful pictures going up one day and taken down the next."

Mmmm! Makes you think!
Av'a great day!

DON'T CALL US...

I found this very, very sad...

Out of touch, out of the loop. That's the modern truism of the e-generation whose best friend is a mobile phone, writes Louise Williams.

THEY are the new social outcasts: teenagers and young adults without mobile phones. Disconnected from their peers, they risk nothing less than social desolation. The lot of the mobile phoneless is to languish waiting, condemned to a merry-go-round of missed meetings, the mobile tribes having long changed plans and moved on.

This is not the melodramatic plea of an adolescent, bent on persuading sceptical parents. Nor a thinly disguised marketing pitch. It's the conclusion of an increasing number of studies by academics and psychologists around the world.

It is no longer a matter of what you have to say, just so long as you are constantly talking or texting, and being seen to do so, says James Katz, director of the Centre for Mobile Communication Studies at the Rutgers University in the US.

Mobile phones are the portals to friendships and social networks, the ultimate measure of social status and portable shrines to self-image, he says. And if no one's calling, there's little shame in programming your phone to ring you, checking for non-existent text messages or talking up a storm with an imaginary friend.

"Kids are talking incessantly on mobiles or messaging from the back of the bus to the front of the bus; they are constantly reinforcing the message that they are in the loop, that they are part of the in group," Katz says. "To not have a phone feels like social banishment. It really is an issue of being excluded, of being an outsider."

He says about 90 per cent of young people admit they have faked a call. Often they are trying to cope with social anxiety by showing they have someone to talk to, or just want to be called away from an awkward situation, he says. But some are so determined to show off that they pretend to wrap up Hollywood deals in front of their friends.

To test the anecdotal evidence of the perils of social exclusion, Katz's centre recently subjected 100 undergraduates to 48 hours without their phones, but with internet access to soften the blow. Only 12 made it, Katz says. The drop-outs reported that people got too angry with them, emergencies came up or responsibilities demanded they pick up their phones. Three students thought their lives were happier without constant communication.

"They felt under tremendous pressure to keep in touch; they felt isolated and lost. So we actually know what happens when kids go into mobile-phone withdrawal."

An Adelaide mental health expert, Rahamatulla Mubarak Ali, of Flinders University, agrees. He interviewed hundreds of Australian teenagers for his pilot study of internet use last year but found discussion frequently drifted to mobile phones and social networks. "A phoneless person may not be included as a friend," he says.

Young people consider a mobile phone the most important item of all - it is more important than access to the internet or even television, Marilyn Campbell, from the Queensland University of Technology, says.

"Getting calls and text messages are status symbols," she says. "Ownership of a mobile phone indicates you are socially connected, independent from your family and in demand."Teenagers have always tried to hog the phone, but they used to have to ask permission to use the family phone and it was often a public conversation. Mobiles bypass parents in a very personal way."

A Seaforth mother, Rebecca Higgins, was determined to buy her 15-year-old son, Ben, a mobile phone, whether he liked it or not. Without one, he had caught two buses only to arrive at a meeting place and find no one there.

"Kids don't make prior arrangements any more. Everything is left to the last minute," she says. "Socially, life moves so much faster. "I was very upset when he was left out, but I don't think I understood how his peers were thinking. They weren't trying to ostracise him; they'd changed plans at the last minute and it just didn't occur to them they needed to ring a home phone in advance."

Another group of Manly teenagers is horrified at the thought of being disconnected at all."Well how on earth would I know what was going on without a phone?" one asks.

A study in 2004 by the Australian Psychological Society found that almost half of teenagers without mobiles felt left out. But, significantly, more than 90 per cent of phone owners said they respected their peers without phones, suggesting social isolation is a practical communications issue, not a deliberate slight.

Australians own about 19 million mobile phones. That's fast approaching a saturated market, except among the under 18s. Eighty-seven per cent of 15- to 17-year-olds have phones, as do 64 per cent of 12- to 14-year-olds, but only 16 per cent of six- to 11-year-olds have them, according to the latest Nielsen eGeneration statistics.

Pressure for mobile phones is mounting from younger and younger children, and parents are putting up little resistance, Campbell says. Phones are seen as safety devices, and prepaid network access cards and free text message deals have reduced parental anxieties about cost.

Katz says mobiles have changed the fundamental nature of communication; it's now quantity over quality."There used to be a concern about quality - what did you talk about, what did he or she say? Instead, it's how many times you are contacted, how many messages you receive, how long it is since the phone beeped. People are looking to the mobile network to define their feelings.

"This is not just being driven by marketing and advertising. Ultimately, you can't sell people something they don't want. Human beings have always compared themselves to each other. Mobiles are the new human fetish. It says volumes about where you stand in the tribe."

Mobiles have also turned assumptions about the "digital divide" on their head. The thesis that the world's poorest communities and nations will fall even further behind is being played out with the internet - poverty means you are less likely to be online. But children in lower socio-economic groups in the US are more likely than their richer peers to have their own phones, Katz says. Mobiles are symbols of upward mobility everywhere, including in huge developing economies such as China and India.

But being connected isn't all positive. Teenagers and young adults can move like swarms from one social occasion to another, with little thought for the efforts of the hosts of the deserted "dull" party, or those of the party gatecrashed en masse, the tribe assembled via text. Then there's the opportunity to hide behind technology to avoid emotional situations, Campbell says. "You can text your great aunt so you don't have to bother with the social niceties of making conversation, or you can dump your boyfriend or girlfriend via text message."

Last year a large New Zealand study of 12- to 15-year-olds found that 23 per cent of mobile phone users had ended a relationship by text, 39 per cent had used text messages in an argument, 29 per cent used their phone in class and 11 per cent were woken up every night by incoming text messages.

Campbell says that just as phones are tools of social inclusion, they can be used in bullying. "It's a very new area of study, but the question is whether this is just another medium for bullying, or whether the technology emboldens bullies because they can say things via text they wouldn't otherwise say," she says.

Teenagers and young adults are so preoccupied with "connectedness" partly because they are the first generation to be unable to imagine the inconvenience of being out of touch, Katz says.

But it's also a "life stage" question. Young people are still developing their identities and value their place in social networks. Older people, rushed off their feet at work and at home, aren't always so keen on being constantly available, especially if they're expected to give up their precious time to listen to a friend who is waiting, bored, in the supermarket checkout queue.

But, Katz says, it is definitely not just the young who have mastered the modern art of inane mobile conversations. He says 20 per cent of Americans talk on the phone at the supermarket.

"We just like the contact, even if we are only talking about what's for dinner," he says. "The mobile phone seems to have migrated from a luxury to a vital communication tool."

Can we live without moblies?

If it was achoice between a friend and a phone, I'd choose a friend!

Ha'va G'day!

Brit's Lift "Where the bloody hell are you?" Ad Ban

And so they bloody should!

British advertising regulators have backed down and lifted their ban on the word "bloody" in Tourism Australia's controversial "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign.

Britain's Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) last week imposed a ban on commercial television there using the word "bloody" in the $A180 million campaign.

It resulted in a hurried flight to London by federal Tourism Minister Fran Bailey, who, amid a blaze of priceless publicity, complained the English had lost their sense of humour. Continue reading here...

Considering all the bloody rubbish they have on their TV's, they should be happy to see some bloody good stuff!

Av a g'day!

The True Story of St. Patrick!

It was an act of defiance that changed the course of a nation. Patrick lit a fire in pagan 5th century Ireland, ushering Christianity into the country. Who was this man who became the patron saint of Ireland? Ireland was a beautiful island shrouded in terrible darkness. Warlords and druids ruled the land. But across the sea in Britain, a teen-ager was poised to bring this nation to God.

"Patrick was born into a Christian family," says Philip Freeman, author of St. Patrick of Ireland. "His father was a deacon; his grandfather a priest. But Patrick says that from a n early age, he didn't have any serious interest in religion and that he was practically an atheist when he was a teenager."

Around 400 A.D., Patrick was abducted from his village and thrown onto a slave ship headed for Ireland. "He saw that as God chastising him, first of all," says Rev. Sean Brady. "That was the first view. He says we deserved what we got. We're carried at 16 years of age over to this foreign land."

Patrick was sold to a chieftain named Milchu. He spent six years tending his master's flocks on the slopes of the Slemish Mountain. Patrick recounts his time as a slave in his memoir entitled The Confession.

"He says, 'I prayed a hundred times in the day and almost as many at night,' " says Rev. Brady, the Roman Catholic Archbiship of Armagh and Primate of All of Ireland. "Through that experience of prayer and trial, he came to know another God -- God the Father, who was his protector. He came to know Jesus Christ in those sufferings, and he came to be united with Christ and he came to identify with Christ, and then of course, also the Holy Spirit."

One night during a time of prayer and fasting, Patrick wrote: "I heard in my sleep a voice saying to me: 'It is well that you fast. Soon you will go to your own country.' And again, after a short while, I heard a voice saying to me: 'See, your ship is ready.' " Patrick escaped and traveled 200 miles cross country to the west coast. He found a ship ready to sail, but was refused passage. After a desperate prayer, he was allowed aboard.

Patrick eventually returned to his home and family. His experience of God's grace and provision solidified his faith. He began to study for the ministry. Freeman says, "One night, he had a dream. Thee was a man who came from Ireland with a whole bunch of letters. And he opened up one of the letters and it said 'The Voice of the Irish.' And then he heard a voice coming out of this letter that said, 'Holy boy, please return to us. We need you.'"

Patrick struggled in his soul. Could he return to Ireland and minister to the same people who had enslaved him? Once again, he turned to God in prayer. He received the answer in a dream. "He talks about how he, in this dream, is trying to pray and yet he can't," says Freeman. "So he hears a voice coming from inside of him which he realizes is the voice of God praying for him." Patrick knew he had to go and convince his church that he was called to be a missionary to Ireland. He set sail in a small ship. Patrick landed at the mouth of the Slaney River.

When Patrick set foot on this shore, a new era dawned on this island. "The Ireland of his day really wasn't much different from the Ireland of a few years ago here where we are sitting here at this moment," notes Most Reverend Dr. Robert Eames, Church of England Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. "It was an Ireland of tribalism, an Ireland of war, an Ireland of suspicion, an Ireland of violence and death. Here he came as a virtual stranger to this country of warring factions."

"They worshipped multiple gods of the sky and the earth and the water," says Freeman. "And so that was his first challenge: to convince the Irish that there was only one God and that his God really did love them."

Patrick came face to face with the chieftains and their druid priests. The showdown came on the morning of his first Easter in Ireland. Monsignor Raymond Murray, parish priest of Cookstown in Northern Ireland explains further: "Part of the pagan worship of fall to spring, from the beginning of the summer, was that a fire was lit, and first of all, the fire on the hill of Tara and no other lights at all in Ireland."

This monastery on the hill of Slane is where Patrick -- in direct defiance of the high king of Tara -- lit a forbidden fire. Notes Rev. Brady, "He was summoned before the king, and he explained that he wasn't a threat, because he was bringing the new light, the light of Christ, the Savior of the world, the Light of the world." "The first light of Easter day was dawning. Patrick brought the hope of Easter day to Ireland," says Rev. Eames.

The weather can be absolutely brutal here in Ireland. But just imagine how it must've been for Patrick in the 5th century as he trekked across the countryside bringing the Gospel to the pagan Celts. "People sometimes made fun of him because he said that God often gave him a message there was danger ahead," says Freeman. "But, he said, 'Laugh at me if you will. This is something that has protected me in Ireland.'"

Listen to Patrick's poem of faith and trust in God, "The Breastplate":
"Christ be within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ inquired, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger."

Myths and legends have grown up around this hero of Ireland. As Monsignor Murray explains, it is sometimes difficult to describe the triune aspect of God. So, according to the story, to better illustrate the central teaching of the trinity, Patrick took a shamrock and pointed out the three leaves on it. Interestingly, it is only in Ireland that you find this shamrock.

Therefore, the people believed. "One of the famous legends, of course, is that Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland," says Irish historian Harold Calvert. In fact, any snakes in Ireland had disappeared during the Ice Age. "The legend about the driving of the snakes may, in fact, really symbolize the driving out of evil," says Calvert.

In 432 A.D., Patrick built a church on the site of the present day St. Patrick's Memorial Church in Saul -- the first ever Christian church in all of Ireland. It's considered the cradle of Irish Christianity.

"Preaching the Gospel, of course, baptizing converts, confirming them, appointing clergy," continues Calvert. Patrick's ministry lasted 29 years. He baptized over 120,000 Irishmen and planted 300 churches. "What Patrick did was really lay the groundwork for Christianity," says Freeman.

To this day, no one knows where Patrick is buried, but many believe that it is somewhere beneath the church on the hill at Down Cathedral.Rev. Sean Brady concludes, "He was a man who came to face and help his former enemies who had enslaved him. He came back to help them and to do them a great favor -- the greatest favor he possibly could."

Rev. Earnes concurs, "I honestly feel that what Patrick taught Ireland was that there is a cost to discipleship, but it's a cost worth paying. And I believe, to bring this right up to date, the church of St. Patrick must be constantly saying to people, 'Discipleship demands of you, but it's a cost that Christ will help you to pay.'"

Have a great weekend!

EDDIE, EDITH OR EEDJIT?

This really made me laugh...

PRINCE Edward had a row with an Australian radio star who teased him about being nicknamed Eddie. The prince was furious at the cheek shown by Jeff Field during a Melbourne reception. Field, a top Aussie broadcaster, asked if the Queen ever called him "Eddie". The huffy prince snapped: "I won't recognise that name."

In the past, Edward has been sensitive about his nicknames. While working in theatres in London, he was dubbed Barbara, as in Babs Windsor, and Mavis. He was also called a "*&#*$*# idiot" by Prince Charles after Edward's Ardent company filmed Prince William at university.

The confrontation with Melbourne sports commentator Field happened at an official Governor's dinner before the Commonwealth Games. Field, 48, ignored instructions not to wear jeans and also sported a blue baseball cap with "Coach" emblazoned it.

He said: "Edward asked me my name and I told him it was 'Coach'. I said it was a nickname and then said that surely people called him 'Eddie'.

"He got more pompous and said, 'I won't recognise that name.'"

Colleague Travis Winks, who was also at the reception, told his listeners in Sydney: "I wake up and have a vitamin tablet. But Edward must wake up and have a Viagra - he is that stiff."

An eedjit by any other name, is still an eedjit!

Have a G'day!

"Ring of Fire" - Chillies Slay Cancer.

This is just "hot" off the press...

RED-hot chillies contain an ingredient that drives prostate cancer cells to kill themselves, research shows.

Capsaicin, which causes the heat in chillies, prompts human prostate cancer cells to undergo programmed cell death, or apoptosis, studies published in the American journal, Cancer Research, revealed.

Scientists from the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, together with researchers from UCLA, found capsaicin has a "profound inhibiting effect on the growth of prostate cancer cells in vitro and in vivo".

It induced about 80 per cent of prostate cancer cells growing in mice to "follow the molecular pathways" leading to apoptosis. Tumours treated with capsaicin were about one-fifth the size of those in non-treated mice.

I think it is time I walked the line and starting eating lots of Chillies!

Have a G'day!

VAMPIRE'S CURSE PART 2.

This is a follow up story to yesterdays Vampires Curse story...

ROD Winkler always rated his roasted garlic and chilli salad dressing, but he never thought it would attract this much attention. The owner of CBD Cafe and Catering in Elizabeth St was left a little embarrassed when his cook's special salad dressing caused the evacuation of an office floor next door and led to the closure of Brisbane's inner-city Elizabeth St for about half an hour.

"Our cook was out the back roasting off some chilli and garlic and the fumes went out the exhaust fan and into the building next door and triggered everything into action," Mr Winkler said.

Mr Winkler said his cook Kraeg Mertons roasted garlic and vegetables for their salads every morning without incident and would continue to cook up a storm. "But hopefully we won't get these boys out here every day," he said. "It's quite embarrassing really." He scoffed at suggestions the garlic was a little overdone. "Certainly not – it's our specialty, the best in Brisbane," he laughed.

About 70 Energex employees were evacuated after staff reported unusual smells at 9.50am, sparking fears of a chemical spill.
Queensland Fire and Rescue Service area director Neil Reid said the entire third level of 229 Elizabeth St, housing Energex offices, was evacuated while officers searched for the source of the smell.

"A couple of people were complaining of a mild sort of headache, but none required treatment," he said. "(The cafe) were cooking some pretty strong garlic – and it seems to have come in through the airconditioning."

Mr Reid said readings taken inside the building showed no sign of chemicals and workers were back in their offices in about an hour.

Here is the recipe for the dish that caused all this fuss...










Have a good day!

Vampires' Curse Flushes Out CBD

GARLIC appears to be the culprit behind a city evacuation of 70 people this morning.Emergency services were in full flight in Brisbane city this morning investigating the cause of an unusual stench.

What was thought to be a gas leak had left some workers unwell in busy Elizabeth Street. They evaculated level three of 229 Elizabeth St, Brisbane, at about 9.50am in an exercise conducted with full military precision. In all 70 people were asked to leave.

But it was soon discovered the smell was in fact roast garlic from a kitchen in an adjoining building.

Garlic is known for its mythical ability to drive spirits out of buildings, but this power was thought to be confined to vampires. Police reopened Elizabeth St at about 10.50am once the scene was deemed non-toxic -- at least to humans.

Vampires are still advised to keep away!

Must keep my neck covered up when I visit Brisbane!

Have a good day!

THIS IS THE PITS!

This brings a whole new meaning to sniffing your armpits...

A woman who arrived in Sydney on a flight from Auckland allegedly had 200g of cocaine hidden in her armpits, customs officers say.

The 54-year-old Sydney woman was searched at Sydney international airport when she returned from New Zealand yesterday morning.

She allegedly had about 200g of cocaine strapped in her armpits and traces were also detected in her baggage, Customs said in a statement.

The woman was charged with importing a border-controlled drug and was granted bail to appear in Central Local Court in April 26.

Yuk! How’d ya like to sniff that lot!

Have a good day!

Brand New!

This is a brand new blog, and as I sit under my Jacaranda Tree, I am going to be writing and commenting on all different subjects, but hopefully most of the content will be Australian.

Have a great day!