Elizabeth Fenech

a sporting chance

Greg Bird is the latest Australian sportsman to hit the headlines for behaving badly. He joins the likes of sporting bad boys Joey Johns, Sonny Bill Williams, and Wayne Carey who were caught with, among other things, ecstasy, an iron woman and a broken champagne glass respectively.

Sports stars, and football players in particular, seem to be wreaking (often illegal) havoc in their private lives that spills over into the tabloids.

While everybody loves a good scandal, readers seem to be divided into two camps over the sports-star-in-hot-water. The first screams that our sporting heroes are role models for our impressionable children and they should start behaving like grown ups. The second camp checks out the grainy mobile phone pictures available and then dismisses everything they saw, because all NRL stars are egotistical boofheads but they play bloody good footy.

I think our reactions should be somewhere between this outrage and indifference.

While sports stars should be expected to act like law-abiding citizens like the rest of us, is it really reasonable that that they’re stalked by the camera lens outside of their day job?

If we are going to see the Bulldogs’ wild night out splashed across the Sunday papers, could we have reporting with a little insight? How about an investigation in why players are starting to display such violence against women? Is this the surfacing of a dominant social trend or is this behaviour limited to testosterone- and alcohol-charged sportsmen? Has there been a sudden rise substance abuse amongst such elite athletes or are we just finding out about it?

Some have suggested that dishing the dirt on sporting heroes is just Australian tall poppy syndrome rearing its ugly head. Athletes are only human, and while we shouldn’t pretend that substance abuse and assault are matters to be taken lightly, the newspapers aren’t the most effective forum in which to air problems or to solve them.

photo / Paha_L / stockxpert

morning talk

Over the past week, I’ve been playing nurse to my mum, who has that nasty bug that’s been going around. The conversation that ensued over breakfast this morning was not so much a communication gap as a case of ignorance on my part.

Liz: I’ll make you some toast and tea?

Mum: Ok, but I’m sick of bread and butter. Can I have a light scraping of taramasalata instead?

Liz: Taramasomething … right.

Ten minutes of rummaging through the fridge …

Liz: I don’t think we have any of that.

Mum: We do.

Liz: Trust me, there’s none there. Do you want caviar instead?

photo / woodsy / stock.xchang

ball skills

At school, I was the kid who misplaced their PE gear, sprained their ankle or contracted a chest infection in order to avoid compulsory sport. Regular ballet classes allowed me to wobble the fine line between chunky and overweight, but mention ‘running’, ‘balls’ or ‘time trial’, and I was buckled over with the sudden onset of some exotic illness. I was even known to perform an eerily effective, hedonistic rain dance the night before sports carnivals.

It’s not that I was opposed to exercise. I just thought running around after a football was stupid. There are plenty of other balls in the shed. No need to fight over the one.

They say it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but for some reason, I thought understanding (but not playing) sport was one mountain I was going to conquer, so I enrolled in sports journalism at uni this semester.

Some versions of the legend say I took the class to acquire the knowledge to become a well-rounded reporter, others insist it was the only subject available to me to complete my degree.

Nevertheless, sports journalism was just about watching a bunch of well-built blokes jumping on top of each other. How complicated could it be?

My first task - a rugby league match report. We watched a re-run of a State of Origin game to gear ourselves up for Saturday’s Tigers vs Sea Eagles (what the hell is a sea eagle anyway?) match. In the first 20 minutes, pretty much all I got was that Queensland scored two tries. How do you knock up 500 words of genius with just two tries?

So I sat down with my boyfriend and my brother for an intensive football session. Apparently, there’s more to football than just getting the ball past the try line. I had a crash course in tackles, scrums and something called a ‘knock on’. Talk about a fish out of water.

Hopefully Saturday’s match doesn’t leave me floundering. Or worse, failing.

photo / craigPJ / stock.xchang

fairytale endings

Ok, so I’m a little behind the times, but I’ve just seen Annie Leibowitz’s magical shots for Disney. Fairytales have grown up.

photo / bjearwicke / stock.xchang

a knotty yarn …

In June, obviously uninspired by the grey clouds hovering outside their high-rise office windows, magazine employees everywhere write dry features titled ‘Winter Warmers’. Whether it’s a recipe for soup or a fitness regime to get you into shape in time for summer, you’re guaranteed to see the alliteration somewhere before September rolls around.

While it hasn’t kept me particularly warm, I have taken up a hobby to ward off the winter blues (more journalise jargon). Knitting. Once the sole domain of little old ladies, getting your balls (of wool) out is the new black.

Hell, they have whole websites dedicated to men who knit … And no one would challenge the coolness of a site proudly flying a banner saying ‘send Julie Andrews ringtones to my phone’ …

photo / juliaf / stock.xchang

saving face

I know a girl who likes her morning rituals. She hits the snooze button at five minute intervals for the best part of an hour before padding to her blue bathroom for a hot shower.

She dries and dresses, then sets about consulting her reflection in a mirror that could probably use a little Windex. She carefully smooths her skin with magnesium aluminium silicate, lines the rims of her eyes with arsenic and gives her lips a slick of colour tainted with polyethylene. She doesn’t have a death wish – she’s just putting on her make up.

My chemical friend is, in fact, me but she represents every other female I know. I’ve suddenly become acutely aware of the toxicity of the man-made environment, where everything, including our food and cosmetics are laced with harmful compounds. Up until now, I have, like most people, trusted that manufacturers would not put products on the market that had the potential to harm. Then I started reading the fine print on my Napoleon.

Armed with a journalist friend’s research into the toxicity of certain lip glosses (the more your lips crack, the more you use) and Bill Statham’s latest edition of The Chemical Maze, I donned my specs and squinted at the tiny type on the back of each of my face products. I would have thrown every lip gloss and cheek creame out right there and then if I hadn’t spent so much money on them.

So began my education in chemical analysis. My eye cream was advertised as the end of little bags under my peepers, but no one ever mentioned that it’s made with a suspected carcinogenic substance. My nail polish contains chemicals linked to cardiovascular, kidney, liver, developmental and neuro toxicity. My hair spray is made with a chemical thought to trigger reproductive complications, my lip gloss contains a carcinogen banned in both Canada and Japan. And the list goes on.

So what’s the answer? Having tried natural mineral make-up and found them lacking, I wonder whether I must go sans face paint altogether to save my skin …

photo / fishmonk / stock.xchang

greenwashing

When I’m driving home late at night (read: early in the morning), I usually listen to talkback radio. It keeps me awake like pre-mixed electro pop never could. Lately I’ve noticed the term ‘greenwashing’ being thrown around by the liberal, middle-aged presenters who bang on about the global warming ‘conspiracy’.

Last night my stereo was transmitting logic worthy of the Nobel Prize. The disc jockey told his humble listeners he was freezing. Of course the cold was seeping into his brittle bones; it was about 5 degrees with my crappy car heater on. He informed me that we were freezing our chops off together, in the coldest winter on record since he was a wee lad. Now, if this Al Gore bloke was right about his global warming crap, shouldn’t we be frolicking in the sunshine in the dead of winter? Isn’t the earth supposed to be heating up?

I was heating up, mostly because my blood was boiling. Who gives ignorance like that airtime?

While you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the mainstream media deny the impacts of climate change, this new buzz word, ‘greenwash’ seems to be creeping up slowly between our energy saving light globes and the latest chemical-free shampoo. Granted, there are plenty of people cashing in on our newfound environmental consciousness, but just because money is being made out of environmentalism, does that make it a scam?

Speaking of scams, I came across a good article by one BBC journalist who, unlike yours truly, seems to be able to keep her emotions under control long enough to explore the finer points of corporate environmentalism.

I have begun to wonder why I’m so critical of those who doubt the science of global warming. Maybe the earth is heating and cooling according to its natural life cycle and I’m being duped by a clever commercial enterprise. But regardless of the fashionable terms; global warming, climate change, carbon neutral, we should be treating the earth kindly because it’s been kind to us.

photo / mlkdesign / stock.xchang

addiction

I have a problem. It’s a shameful dependence. I fight the urge to go for a fix every few days. I’m satisfied by a hit in any colour and have been known to settle for a size too small. No amount of fancy footwork can avoid the issue – shoe, boot, sandal or slipper, I am addicted to footwear.

The realisation hit me over a plate of pad thai in Glebe. And while I’m aware that men are not always the greatest sounding boards for fashion-related dilemmas, I think my lunch buddy opened my eyes to the extent of my footwear fetish.

Liz: I’d like to think I’ll make it back to Europe next year, but I have a problem with saving.

Friend: Really? You should open an ING account.

Liz: Tried that. Doesn’t work. I think it has something to do with my shoe collection.

Friend: Collection? As in more than four pairs?

Liz: Do you think that’s excessive?

Friend: (Blank stare) Yes. Do you have more than 10 pairs?

Liz: Yes.

Friend: More than 20?

Liz: Mmm … er … well, in my defence, I can wear a different pair every day of the week, which, you have to agree, means I get more wear out of my shoes, because they don’t get worn as often as most …

Friend: A different pair every day of the week? So with, say, 30 pairs of shoes, how many days are in your week?

I may not be a mathematician, but I do know a bargain when I see one. That’s the legitimate reason for my walking in the door with three new pairs of boots this afternoon …

photo / L_Avi / stock.xchang

work experience

Today I re-wrote my résumé. I figure, you never know when the perfect gig is going to pop up and it’s best to be armed with a list of your greatest achievements at all times. Regardless of the practicality of the activity, reviewing my work history did get the old brain ticking.

Despite displaying a growing number of writing jobs, my CV tells employers I have spent lots of time in retail. Lots and lots of time in retail. Good for adding to the bank balance and not bad as a character building exercise, but not so helpful if you’re trying to build up a writing portfolio.

Aside from this, I do believe my time spent merchandising many a clothes rack taught me a few valuable things about the nature of humanity.

1. Retail therapy is no urban myth. There is a definite link between getting high and making purchases you may or may not be able to afford.

2. The amount of power you hold in your relationship with your spouse/child/sibling is directly proportionate to the amount of power they have over your retail purchases.

3. Putting signs up on change room doors is for dummies. Everyone knows CCTV cameras don’t work most of the time and men will always enter the female cubicles to inspect the fit of their partner’s dress/swimsuit/hat.

It is my professional recommendation that retail workers spend less time fretting over sales targets and more time observing their fellow man. Who knows, sales assistants might just be the cultural studies lecturers of the future.

photo / bjearwicke / stock.xchang

unconditional surrender

I was going to begin my grand introduction to blogging with the admission that I hate technology, but the truth is, technology hates me. The bitter feud between us dates right back to a fifth grade science experiment gone wrong, which could potentially have burnt down my entire school, but thankfully just set fire to the corner of one classroom.

That said, I think it’s time for me to wave the white flag and surrender to the digital age (hence another blog is born to further pollute the dark realm of cyberspace).

Before I begin to sound too cynical, I can’t help but wonder why I didn’t embrace blogging sooner. It would have saved my loved ones many rambling, sporadic emails from my recent European escapade and it would mean my holiday snaps would be available for viewing, rather than waiting patiently on my hard drive to be sorted and printed…

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful truce…let’s hope that both parties can maintain the ceasefire…

photo / elizabeth fenech