Why is the phone number to ring if you lose your credit card printed on the back of your credit card?

Why is the phone number to ring if you lose your credit card printed on the back of your credit card?

August 27, 2008: Mark Priestley, 32, Australian actor who found fame in the Channel 7 medical soap opera All Saints. He took his own life.
Links: SMH; Beyond Blue.

Foster's isn't the beer of choice of anybody I know in Australia, but you've got to hand it to the job they've done marketing it overseas (with a little help from Bazza Mackenzie in in the 1970s and some clever advertising in the 1980s and beyond). It's even on sale here in Belarus, in a clear bottle with a groovy label that has a small graphic of a kangaroo and the words "Australia's famous beer". Of course, it's brewed, under licence, in Russia.

In case you a reminder that life is short, and can be shorter than we think, here it is: Dave Freeman, the co-author of the book 100 Things to Do Before You Die: Travel Events You Just Can't Miss has died at just 47. He wrote about exotic places and exciting experiences, but he died after a fall at home. He had completed about half of his list.

I know people who were registered at birth as "Anooshka" and "Sacha", and I'm sorry to say their parents got it all wrong. In Russia and Belarus, I've been told, nobody is christened with these names; they are diminutives respectively of Anna (or Ann) and Alexander.

Can't spell "supersede"? It's because you are too smart.

Whatever happens with The Regent, there seems to be agreement that some of its original features be kept. Here's a report on a recent discovery, and provides food for thought for the building's developers:

One of the chandeliers from inside the original Regent Theatre auditorium has recently been located and is intact. Also located are several curved decorative plaster panels which formed the surrounds of the four intermediate chandeliers in the auditorium. Location and custodian are to remain anonymous at this stage, but it is in Brisbane.
The Regent had three different sizes of chandeliers. The largest was the massive 1 ton bronze chandelier which hung from the upper dome. The next (smaller) size was the set of four which hung from the outer corners of the ceiling around the dome. The smallest size were the five chandeliers which hung one each in front of the royal boxes and a further three suspended across the back of the dress circle. It is one of these which have been found intact.

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A Facebook application advises me that my "compare people" ratings have changed. I am now:
#28 most famous (lost 6 places)
#37 most likely to succeed (lost 11 places)
#38 person with the best body (lost 8 places)
#47 best friend (lost 11 places)
#47 most attractive (lost 10 places)

A friend passed this on:

The writer Eubulus in about 400BC, features the Greek God of frolic, Dionysus, telling a men's drinking party to stick to three glasses:
"One to health, the second to love and pleasure, the third to sleep. When this bowl is drunk, wise guests go home. The fourth bowl is ours no longer but belongs to hubris, the fifth to uproar, the sixth to prancing about, the seventh to black eyes, the eighth brings the police, the ninth belongs to vomiting, and the tenth to insanity and the hurling of furniture."

The Showbritz blog is now back here. This blog will continue as an outlet for my musings on other matters.

What next? Homophobia-free zones in Sydney "where gays can congregate unthreatened". On the surface it sounds like a good idea, but on analysis it's absurd. Should we also have racism-free zones or murder-free zones? Tolerance is something that should occur everywhere.

From a BBC story about German comedy duo Otto Kuehnle and Henning Wehn, who are performing in Edinburgh:

And when the pair spend a minute chatting away in German in front of a bemused Edinburgh audience, they say they are just copying British behaviour abroad by talking in their own language.
"But we do it without shouting," Wehn says. "You should try that."

and (especially for my bagpipe-playing friend in Shanghai):

"The Scots and the Germans have a lot in common," Kuehnle explains.
"Yes, we all hate the English," replies Wehn, quick as a flash.

Big Brother may have finally tanked in Australia, but not so in the United Kingsom. The programming chief of Channel 4 in Britain says the "reality" show has become the station's equivalent of soap operas such as EastEnders and Coronation Street. It's not longer a huge ratings performer, but it has settled into a comfortable position on the TV schedule. So, what went "right" in the UK and "wrong" in Australia? As much as I'd like to blame failed host Kyle Sandilands, the reasons are most likely deeper, and touch on the difference between lifestyles and viewing habits in the two countries.

A newspaper consists of just the same number of
words, whether there be any news in it or not.

- Henry Fielding
(Courtesy of a colleague)

Brisbanetimes.com.au blogger Rupert McCall weighs in on the Yungaba issue here. Much of what he says also applies to the Regent.

I've just had one of my teeth fixed for the third time in 10 months. My Australian dentist failed twice, so I've visited the local professional here in Svetlogorsk. I certainly can't complain about the price - A$40 for a 50-minute appointment.

Who said the BBC had gone downmarket? I blame the audience. As I write, the most emailed story on news.bbc.co.uk is titled "Clouds that look like breasts". It's actually quite a dry, informative yarn about weather phenomena, but I bet that's not what the folks who found the story on Google were looknig for.

Quite a few English language TV series and movies are screened here in Belarus, but I can't understand a word of them. Rather than using subtitles, they are dubbed. I've become quite a fan of the Russian-dubbed Nip/Tuck, but I'm sure I'm missing some of the subtelties of the script. At least the local TV chiefs have put some effort into the translation of that show, using actors with distinctive voices for each character. An American made-for-TV film I began to watch the other night featured the voice of just one man, who narrated the action and didn't even attempt to change his voice to represent the different characters.

I've been watching the Olympics, in small doses, but I refuse to believe it's the most important thing in the world today and every day. Thus, I think the decision by news.com.au and its related sites to run "Beijing Now" permanently at the top, and force users to scroll to get to the "real" news (about plane crashes, suicide bombings and other trivial matters of life and death), is misguided.