Would you watch me if I took up boxing?

All you parents with little female budding sport stars had better make sure you spend just as much time on their beauty regimes as you do their sporting prowess.

Why?

Box office appeal is critical when you get to the top of your chosen sport.

Wimbledon 2009 has shown us that elite sport is all about style over substance, beauty over talent.

There were very few top ranked female tennis players who featured on Centre Court this week. Instead we saw some very attractive lowly ranked players. According to a spokesman from the All England Club, “a player’s attractiveness is a key factor to playing on Centre Court.”

Well of course it is, duh! Centre Court games are televised. And here was I thinking they were giving the underdogs a bit of exposure.

The television market knows what it likes. And it likes good looking players. How they play the game is secondary.

I am calling it Spornography (and if you don’t believe we need a new term for it, go watch some beach volleyball).

Given most females I know would never turn away from watching Andy Murray just because he isn’t as attractive as say Rafael Nadal, I canvassed a few males to get their thoughts on the subject.

“Isn’t that what female sport is about? Eye candy with a bit of sport thrown in?”
“Why do females watch football, then? Not for the game I will guarantee.”
"Sexiness is pretty much all the women's game has going for it.”
“Sex sells.”

Yes, clearly I know some Neanderthals. However, in gathering this feedback I did discover a hidden boxing talent which saw the light of day. (And you don’t have to be pretty to make it to the top in boxing do you? Although....Ali was a damn pretty boxer wasn’t he?)

Thankfully, grand slam winners are still chosen on their sporting achievements. However, as Anna Kournikova proved, you don’t need to win a grand slam to be the richest player on tour. You can earn far more in sponsorship deals as long as you possess that certain marketable quality.
Are we, the television viewing public, really that shallow? Oh, I know we are. But do we have to be?

How does a person who hits a ball with a raquet (and who may or may not be blessed genetically) get to earn millions? Then again I guess it's the same as a model wearing somone else's clothes on a catwalk, or a Hollywood actor repeating someone else's words, or a football player kicking a ball around a field. Wouldn't we all be better off if we paid elite scientists millions (instead of the peanuts they get) to find a cure for Cancer or Aids?

Maybe if we didn’t feed the beast and value the superficial to such a degree, the world would be a happier, saner and healthier place.

I will be waiting until the finals to watch Wimbledon this year. I’ve always been a substance over style kind of girl anyway. One with a newly found left hook. You better watch it!

Note: Everyone who comments on this post gets an entry into June’s Giveaway (will post details of later). Yeah it will be beauty over substance to accommodate the masses....no, they'd already sold out of Wimbledon Centre Court Calendars, sorry.....market forces and all...

Life's too short to.....

This week I saw the title of a book that I couldn't wait to read. Titled Life's Too F***ing Short, it detailed all the things we waste our time, energy and hard-earned cash on. Author Janet Street-Porter says life's too short to get depressed about being single or broke, being a size zero, worrying about whether you're clutching the latest designer handbag, spending $100 on face cream; trying to cook like Nigella Lawson and constantly whinging at men for all the stuff they don't do around the house. "Leave it to the professionals," she quips.

Q: Finish this sentence: "Life's too short to...."

It's a good idea to always check their homework

Mommy actually works in a hardware store and sells shovels. Art is such a personal interpretation isnt it?

Artist: Unknown - email forward
Mommy: is just pleased she saw this before it went on display in the classroom for Parents' Day.

Farrah and Michael

It's kind of sad to wake up today and hear about the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

No, I didn't know them but its amazing how influentional some 'stars' can be when you are a child and teenager.

She was the gorgeous girl from Charlies Angles whom I loved and wanted to look like. Yes, I had the posters and the Farrah hairstyle (thank goodness for hot rollers). She was also a very talented artist with some amazing artwork.

And his was the first music I ever bought when I was a child. I remember playing it over and over. It was Ben (see video), he was a teenager and I still know all the words. Regardless of how bizarre his life may or may not have been, he was incredibly talented, his music spanned generations and he inspired many artists who followed him. In statistic terms, he was a legend.

Very sad for their children and families.

Thanks for the memories.

Life is short, no matter who we are. Let's make the most of it.

War of Words – between the old and the new

What’s the matter Rupert, is your business feeling threatened by anonymous bloggers?
It seems the rise in popularity of the humble blog is causing some issues for the print media.

This month a UK High Court Judge refused to preserve the identity of an anonymous blogger, maintaining it was in the public interest for The London Times newspaper to reveal his identity. Mr Justice Eady said blogging was a “public rather than a private activity” and bloggers would not automatically be guaranteed anonymity just for writing under a pseudonym.

Richard Horton, a Detective in the Lancashire Constabulary, started his anonymous blog, NightJack, in February 2008. He discussed head-on accounts of investigating serious crime and how he believed policing should work within society. His readership grew to 1500 a day and he was offered a book deal which he declined. He ceased posting in January 2009 but his blog remained on the internet.

Then, unexpectedly, in February 2009, his blog was long listed for the presitigious Orwell Prize for political writing. In March 2009, NightJack made it on to the shortlist. To his shock, he ended up winning. The morning after his win (he didn’t turn up to accept the award), his blog was mentioned in The Guardian and in The Sun newspapers. As a result, his blog readership went up to 60,000 a day. He donated his award prize winnings to a police charity. His e-mail inbox had offers from newspapers, literary agents, publishers and people who wanted to discuss film rights and TV adaptations. He declined.

A short time later, he and his employer got phone calls from a Times reporter asking if he was the author of NightJack. He went to court to stop the newspaper from publishing his name and personal details about his home and family. He lost. His details were published.

Not surprisingly, there has been an angry backlash from the blogosphere about this case. Seven other anonymous police blogs have already been deleted because they fear being 'outed' as well.

The Times also 'outed' another blogger and revealed her true identity. In the public interest, of course. Zoe had just turned her personal blog into a book called Girl with a One Track Mind. As a result, she lost her job and suffered a great deal.

And yet, if you read a recent article written by the journalist, Anna Mikhailova, who outed Zoe, you would imagine that bloggers were the ones causing print journalists serious mischief. "Unmasking an anonymous blogger can ruin your reputation and threaten your career", she says in this recent article.

The traditional media operates through fear and sensationalism and has the backing of a large legal team. As Anna says in her article, “every national newspaper has a legal team to check stories for defamatory content and to see if they serve the public interest. Few blogs can say the same. If bloggers were made aware that their anonymity was not always absolutely guaranteed, then arguably they would be just a tiny bit more careful. So perhaps the occasional outing is just the level of control that the blogging community needs. “

Right, so we bloggers need to be kept in line do we?

As an individual who once had the misfortune of being contacted by a reporter and appearing in a British newspaper article myself (one which was short on facts and big on sensationalism), Anna Mikhailova is talking out of her a**. Unlike the mighty media corporations, the average person does not have the backing of large legal team to encourage Fleet Street to be a great deal more careful with the facts. If we had the same muscle, Rupert and his peers wouldn't be billionaires.

I love that millions of individuals from all walks of life are sitting at their keyboards expressing their opinions and flying beneath the traditional media radar. On Blogger alone, 270,000 words are written every minute of every day. And information can be spread faster than any media outlet ever could. Take, for example, those brave souls twittering and blogging in Iran.

However, anonymous bloggers who have something interesting to say and whose blogs generate a large readership, should be aware. Big Brother might eventually want its piece of you and you may find yourself punching above your weight. Unless you have a large legal team behind you. And a few passports in strange names.

Do you think the print media has any right to ‘out’ anonymous bloggers? What obligations do we (as bloggers) have when we choose to publish our views in the public domain?

Given I bet he does Google searches on himself, the views expressed in this post are those of an anonymous blogger with only a few readers, one lawyer in the family and only one passport, dammit!! Rupert , I love your mother does that count? I know you are scared of her. She told that to one of your reporters, so it must be right.

The day Isaam came to live with us

I was talking to a young taxi driver last night. He told me how he and his family had been forced to leave their African country and how they had roamed from one country to another before he and his brother came to Australia as refugees. He doesn't know what became of his parents or his sisters.

His story made me think of all the refugees around the world who become displaced through no fault of their own. It also made me think about the homeless who have nowhere to go because of situations outside of their control.

But most of all, it made me think of Isaam and how he came to be part of our family.

I mentioned him in a previous post and some readers wanted to know more about him.

My daughter  brought Issam home many years ago.

She met him at a school bus stop. He was a teenager and had nowhere to live.

Helping people like this wasn’t such an unusual thing for my then teenage daughter. She is a born advocate. Her second grade teacher told me she would either become a union activist or a lawyer because she was always defending children when they got into trouble in class. It was therefore no surprise to me when she decided to pursue a career in law.

Isaam (or Ian as he later wanted to be called as he and the rest of the world struggled with his Muslim heritage), was born in Amman in Jordan. His mother died when he was five and his elderly father sent him away to boarding school. He was repeatedly assaulted by two teachers. He was only 11 when his father died. He had no family in Jordan who wanted to take him. Finally, an uncle whom he had never met, agreed to take him to live with him in Sydney.

One would have hoped for 'a happy ever after ending' for Isaam at that point, but it was not to be. His uncle didn't enrol him in school but made him work for him in his cleaning business. He apparently then beat him if his cleaning efforts did not meet his standards. He once again slipped through the net. Imagine, even in the lucky country.

Eventually he ran away and lived between children’s homes and on the streets.

The first time I met him he called me ‘Mum’. At the time I was taken aback, undecided as to whether he was being manipulative or crying out for help. I think it was a little of both.

His big brown eyes were hard to ignore. My heart melted. And that was even before I had heard 'his story' from a social worker.

After a great deal of persuasion from my daughter, Isaam moved in with us. It wasn't easy for any of us and I am sure each of us wondered in those first few weeks whether we had made the right decision.

Here was a young man who had grown up in the most difficult of circumstances and was traumatised in many ways as a result. He was hiding some dark secrets and I felt I was ill equipped to deal with a teenager in such need particularly as I had a busy job.

And yet, looking back, the more difficult times were outweighed by the more poignant and positive ones.

Isaam was in a special education class as Arabic was his first language. He was reading first grade readers. One day I asked him to read one to me. He struggled with three letter words. I tried to help him as anyone would. When we finished he said, “Do you know Mum, that’s the first time anyone has ever helped me with homework”. He was so exited. I cried. Something so simple.

He would clean his room and then ask me to come and inspect it. Old habits die hard. He was overjoyed when I told him it was perfect. And perfect it was. I have never seen anyone who could clean like he can.

He was desperate to stay with us. However, he was also used to living life without any 'rules' and had no real sense of family life. In many ways he was very independent. I recall one day I had to speak with him about one of his violent outbursts and he got down on his knees, sobbing and begged me not to send him away.

On one hand he was this super cocky street boy yet on the other, he was a little boy lost who had missed out on the one thing every child has a right to expect. To never be abandoned.

We persevered.

Isaam eventually finished school, moved into his own flat and got a job. He became a salesman. And a wonderful salesman he has made too. He could sell snow to eskimos. I am sure those big brown eyes have ‘clinched the deal’ many times over. And anyone looking at him with that confident smile, hearty bravado and smart suit and tie, would never guess at his horrific past. And that's just how we would want it to be.

I know that some things will not always come easy for him but he is a survivor who is loved by many. When he came to live with us it made me realise that it’s often those with the most cocky and outgoing personalities who are hiding in the darkest shadows. We should never make assumptions about who we think people are or where they have come from until we really know them and understand 'their stories'. And we all have stories. Often with many complex and overlapping layers. Jordan and Isaam taught me that and I'm extremely grateful to them both.

Have you ever met anyone who has had a significant impact on the way you view the world?

Note: Estimates are that there are 150 million street kids across the world. It doesn’t really matter how many there are. Even one child abandoned on the streets to his or her fate in Sydney, New York, Cairo or Bucharest is one child too many. We need to keep our eyes and hearts open and do much more so that children have a voice, a choice and are protected from abuse and neglect.

Questions for you - part II

Last weekend I asked a question about a movie of your life -you can read about it here. This weekend I have a few more unusual questions. They are meant to be fun and designed to find out how differently we feel about certain topics. Don't take them too seriously.

Q1. You are the Editor of the London Times. You have just learned three extraordinary things:

• Scottish marine biologists have defied all odds by finally capturing a live Loch Ness Monster in the Scottish Highlands after many years of fruitless searches.


• Forty years to the day that man landed on the Moon, it has finally been proved that the landing was a fake and was filmed in a Hollywood studio, and


• The White House has also just announced that the President has a terminal illness and will undergo an immediate operation.

It is your job to decide what goes on the cover of the newspaper. Which story are you going to choose?

Q2. At long last, somebody invents the dream VCR. This machine allows you to tape an entire night's worth of your dreams. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use it if you agree to a strange caveat: when you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don’t agree to this, you can’t use the dream VCR. Would you use the dream VCR?

Q3. You work in an office. Generally, you are popular with your coworkers. However, you have just discovered that there are currently two rumours circulating and both involve you. The first rumour is that you got drunk at the office party and had sex with one of your married coworkers. This rumour is completely true, but most people don’t believe it. The second rumour is that you have been stealing hundreds of dollars worth of office supplies (and then selling them to cover a gambling debt). This rumour is completely false, but virtually everyone assumes it’s factual. Which of these two rumours is most troubling to you?

It only gets better

Next month my baby sister (she is 9 years younger than me) is coming back to Australia to live after ten years in London.

I was told she would be moving to London before she even knew it was a possibility.

I visited a clairvoyant ten and half years ago and she told me that one of my sisters would be moving to London. I told her that there was no way any of my three sisters were in a position to do that. Within six weeks my youngest sister's husband was unexpectedly sent to London by the company he was working for. Two months later my sister and their babies joined him.

The clairvoyant also told me I would be moving to Britain as well and would be in a relationship with a businessman who was involved in football (soccer). I discounted everything she said as soon as she said it, but bizarrely the bits that I remember have all proved correct. I wish I had listened more closely though or recorded her reading.

Anyway, I was talking to my sister on Skype this morning and she was telling me their plans.

As usual, she was making me laugh out loud (it's a hazard in my family and so hard when you are trying to avoid laughter lines, I tell you).

She told me that she recently had an operation on her finger (an old basketball injury). Two days after the operation she went to a Jackson Browne concert (she had bought tickets months before). She had taken pain killers before she got there but during the concert they wore off and she was in a lot of pain. The tears started rolling down her face. Her husband was sitting on one side of her and a stranger on the other. Her husband just looked at her thinking she was getting a little over excited and the man next to her, leaned over, his eyes welling up and said, "Are you ok? That song gets me like that every time too. Did you know he wrote that song after his wife committed suicide?"

She finally had enough and walked out into the foyer. A security guard stopped her and said, "Are you ok? I've never seen anyone so affected by his music before". I think it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I am not sure if her good hand reached for the security guard, the closest Jackson Browne poster or her husband.......

She did say Jackson is still amazing. And that he looks no different than he did 20 years ago and he sounds exactly the same.

I imagine my sister will be pretty much the same too (apart from the finger). After 10 years away she looks no different and acts no different. However, she sure sounds a whole lot different. I feel like I'm talking to the Queen. She's gone 'all posh' on us. Give us a few months and we will have them all talking like proper, fair dinkum Aussies again.


Here is one of my favourite more up tempo (for him) Jackson Browne songs. He is rock's poet laureate. I have loved his music since I was 15 which is clearly a long, long time ago. Quality just gets better with age. In everything, right?

Bloggers Beware - Part II

Danielle Smith , like many of us, posts family pictures on her blog and on other networking sites such as Facebook.

A couple of weeks ago a college friend of hers was sightseeing in Prague (Czech Republic) and happened to drive past a huge advertisement on a store specialising in European food. To his surprise the advertisement featured Danielle and her family's Christmas card photo. He rang Danielle in America to tell her and she was shocked.

The owner of the store claims he just got the image off the internet and thought the photo was computer generated. Now he knows it's a personal family photo, he says he plans to remove the advertising.

It's clear how the image was found. Anyone can use Google image search to look for "happy family" and narrow the search down to "extra large images". Among the images displayed on the results page is a 1MB copy of the Smith's photo that Danielle had uploaded to Facebook.

We have to assume that any images we post are available to anyone. Anywhere. So before we post them we may have to imagine how the photo could be used. Danielle said next time she posts a photo on the internet, she's going to lower the resolution or add an electronic watermark to make it hard to reproduce. She said, "This story doesn't frighten me, but the potential frightens me."

Quite frankly she should be grateful it was a food store that used her photo. I have been to Prague and it is full of sex shops and has a large sex industry.

Something similar happened to me. Nothing to do with Prague.

Someone used my photo without my permission. And I was shattered. Simply because it wasn't my best photo and was designed purely to make the other party look way hotter. If I could catch the guy that did this I would sue but alas he is hard to pin down. I have tried. Believe me.

So beware bloggers, that's all I am saying.......lower resolutions, watermarks..... that should fix it. No-one will want your photos then and if they do, they certainly won't be able to blow them up to life size advertisements. And, if anyone has any tips on how to do watermarks on images can you let us know?

UPDATE: Just to show what people can do with your photos, CJW666 (Christopher Williams blog) sent me a different version of the above picture after he made it a little more friendly, lol. Next time Chris, err George, you can doctor all my pictures to remove drooping jowls, wrinkles and double chins...and make me look more like Kylie Minogue. You have to go visit Christopher's latest post here!

A Question for you

It all started when a group of my friends were trying to think of the most difficult question that anyone would ever have to answer. There could have possibly been copious amounts of red wine consumed doing this task .....but .......we did come up with lots of questions. Surprisingly, we ended up split down the middle on most every one.

So, I wanted to widen the sample size. Here is just one question......maybe I will share our funny and more macabre ones next weekend. Come on lurkers, please say hello & join in.....

Q. Two unauthorised movies are made about your life at the same time. You know why.
The first is an independently released documentary, primarily comprised of interviews with people who know you and bootleg footage from your actual life. Critics are describing the documentary as “brutally honest and realistic.” Meanwhile, 20th Century Fox has produced a big-budget biopic about your life, casting major Hollywood stars as you and all your acquaintances. Though the movie is based on actual events, screenwriters have taken some liberties with the facts. Critics are split on the artistic merits of this fictionalised account, but audiences love it.

Which film would you be most interested in seeing? An independently released documentary or a big budget biopic of your life.

"Guess what?"

You said when you rang this morning.

Me: Silence - as ten thousand thoughts rushed through my mind about what the 'what' could be. I've had many of those sorts of conversations with you that start out like that and they always leave me holding my breath for 30 seconds at least. "What?"

You: "I think I've caught something from that football player ____ _______, you know, the one who has been in the papers."

Me: Silence - as a few thoughts now rushed through my mind about what that something could be. "What?"

You: "Well, I've been feeling sick and I think I've got it. I work with his brother's girlfriend and they've both got it and now everyone else who knows them might have to go into quarantine for 72 hours."

Me: "What for?"

You: "Swine Flu".

Me: "Ohhhh, that's a relief. I thought you were going to tell me something way worse than that."

I've learnt over the years that this 'guess what' business is all relative. Swine Flu? Nah, that's no bother.

Now, on the other hand, when you rang to tell me that you,

• had brought home a homeless boy from the Middle East to live with us,


• had just stopped a guy from stealing your car (even though he was already in it at the time),


• were in London, it was 2am in the morning and a man walking in front of you had slipped on ice, hit his head, there was a lot of blood, you thought he was dead, there wasn't a soul around and you didn't know the emergency number,


• had just split up from your American boyfriend and the only thing you wanted to do was hire a car and drive over the Golden Gate Bridge (I thought you meant over it not across it and never slept all night), or


• were in Europe, very, very sick, all alone, with no-one around you who could speak English and you didn't know the German word for Doctor, oh and I could go on.....

well, those things really were a bother.

I love you for truly living life the way you should, even if it has added a few more grey hairs to my head.

Mum xx

See, Read, Do, Make, Eat & Write

I am taking next week off from blogging to focus on some other things I need to do. However, I've left a little something for each day of the week if you are looking for something to read, see, make or do (yes I know, like you don't have enough to do already!).

1.You might like to READ an interview I did with Rowe at SocieteAmore about my views on blogging.

2. Or perhaps SEE my new internet soap opera called Search and You Will Find. This tongue in cheek soap opera (a work in progress) is based on all the search terms that people use to end up on my blog. If you aren't using Google Analytics DO. It's highly amusing.

3. Maybe EAT cake! And not any kind of cake, but Classic Coffee Walnut cake. MAKE this one. It's so easy and tastes so good.

4. FIND your creativity. JOIN everyone at Remembering Paris to PAINT up a storm for the Inch by Inch Art Project.

5. WRITE a story in 100 words. JOIN in The Raisin Chronicles fantastic Fiction Friday writing contests.

6. WATCH and LAUGH as Ellen DeGeneres gives the commencement day address at Tullane University.

7. DESIGN your own blogger header, mosaics, posters etc using Big Huge Labs.

And finally, this one is the extra icing on the cake - VISIT Fleur de Aleta and be inspired by Aleta's moving and precious stories about her inspirational Mother.


I will visit you all over the weekend and be back in a week! Have fun!!

Capri is Pants, sort of

Joanie said that it should be a post about a keepsake.

In other words, an experience that causes me to remember something. And which tells something about me.

I have m-a-n-y memories. However, most of them tell too much about me.

One memory that comes easily to mind is a visit to the Isle of Capri a few years ago.

That was the holiday where I was chasing George all over Italy having a break from the long Scottish winter.

My memories should have only been of a classy and beautiful holiday destination. Of an island of myths, charming seafarers, ancient Roman orgies, dreamy sea views, 1950s celebrities in big sunglasses, and lazy summer evenings spent browsing in exclusive boutiques alongside the world's elite. Right?

Well kind of. Except when I think of the Isle of Capri now I think of dangling over cliff tops in a chairlift wishing I could loosen my grip on the bars long enough to reach out and push my friend into the water below. I have no remorse for such thoughts. She wouldn’t have felt a thing. She was delirious with laughter!! And all at my expense.

Now I should explain at the outset that my friend and I are polar opposites in almost every way. How different we are became apparent on our trip to Capri.

The island is gorgeous. It’s a given. It abounds in olive groves, cliffs, hills, and garden terraces overlooking the blue water of the Mediterranean. However, there is something mythical yet at the same time equally disturbing about the place.

We arrived in Capri town by boat, then took a bus up a cliff top road with numerous hairpins to get to Anacapri. A picturesque whitewashed village with souvenir shops, pedestrian lanes and designer shops.

After we had walked through the town, my friend asked if I wanted to take the chairlift up to Capri's highest point, Monte Solar (589m above sea level). My look said it all. Like she even had to ask. She smiled and said, "well just come over with me and wait until I get back".

So we walked to the chairlift area. And so I stood to wait for her right near where the guy in the picture is standing.


I was deep in thought, minding my own business when all of a sudden I could hear the noise of the chair lift coming right behind me. Before I could even turn around, a guy came hurtling towards me, pushed me sideways back into a chair and off I went.

Up the mountain. Strapped in with some flimsy piece of plastic.

I was in shock. And then I screamed.

Did I tell you I am terrified of heights? Even standing up makes me giddy!


The chairs were all swaying in the strong wind and all I could hear was my friend in the chair behind screaming with laughter. My legs started swinging and one of my shoes fell off into some poor unsuspecting Italian's vegetable patch. How did I know when I dressed that morning that I'd be flying through the air like some disturbed circus act? So I let the other one go too. Imagine Guiseppe's surprise when he was picking his tomatoes the next day only to find that a couple of size 8 mules had sprouted in his prized patch.

I couldn't look down, up or sideways. All I could think of was that I didn't want to die in southern Italy because they bury their dead on top of each other on cliff tops. That would be my idea of Hell.

By the time I finally reached the top of the summit, I had to be almost surgically removed from the chair because my hands were so tightly clenched to the rail.

There was apparently not only a picturesque cafe and terraces but panoramic views as well. Who knew? I still don't know. I missed it. I refused to open my eyes long enough to take a good look.

I flopped down on a cafe chair and ordered the strongest drink they had. Unfortunately that was an espresso. I threw it back like a shot. Have you ever tasted real Italian coffee? I followed it up with three more. Let's just say it did nothing but accelerate the nerves, jitters and rapid heartbeat.

There I was was, shoeless, desperate and accompanied by a red faced, cackling clown. Thankfully, a nice American tourist, who just loved Australian accents (even high pitched hysterical ones), took pity on me and gave me a swig or ten of his medicinal spirits. Hell, I was hoping he would piggy back me down the mountain on foot but his inconsiderate wife was having none of it.

The only thing that got me down that mountain again, if truth be told, was the thought of a new pair of shoes from one of those little boutiques in Capri town. And the trip back down was way better than going up. My mind was fully occupied - hatching a devious plan to get my friend back. And so I did. What laughs we shared.

Did I tell you how much I love Italy and all things Italian (besides chairlifts)? I really, really do.

So, go on, what does that memory say about me? I am all ears.

Ciao! And go check out the lovely Joanie at her blog Joanie's Random Ramblings. She is so funny and spirited. She gave me a Keeper's Award for which I am honoured. I am giving it to any of my readers who want to share their keepsakes too.

Hits are what it’s all about

Why do bad thing happen to good people?

My daughter asked me this tough question yesterday after she found out her friend is suffering from a brain tumor. He is in his 20s with a beautiful wife and baby son.

Today I was asking the same question when the news broke about the arrests of participants of a global pornography network, who downloaded a single movie showing the rape of an eight-year-old Russian girl. Nine thousand suspects in 92 countries are being tracked.

Why do bad things happen? It’s a tough question, isn’t it?

It's one I've given a great deal of thought to for some time.

Truth be told, I've been struggling with this question over the last few years after facing certain events that really would read better in a Hollywood script than outlined for the world to see on my blog.

None of us is immune to suffering yet most of us are so often caught up in the busyness and challenges of daily life that we don’t often stop to think of the real meaning of life. When things are going fine, it’s easy to take life at face value and avoid the really tough, soul searching questions, isn't it?

However, there’s nothing like suffering a heartbreaking hit to force us to question the meaning of our lives. Even moreso when it is as the result of evil and criminal acts by fellow human beings.

Thinking about it brings up very big questions that most of us are usually content to leave to others to answer. But when we can’t find meaning in what is happening to us or others, it's easy to slip into despair. In fact, some of the worst suffering we go through is existential in nature – wondering what the hell our lives are about and feeling like nothing makes sense. For most people, existential anguish is more painful than physical suffering.

At times, I believe we are faced with adversity for our own development. It's as if the 16 billion year old Universe is unfolding our lessons before us. Lessons that are custom designed for us and designed to teach us what to do next. These lessons often come in the form of painful events or situations.

However, at other times, I still find it difficult to use that same belief when talking about the suffering of children. Maybe they are the teachers. I do not know.

What I do know for sure is that tragedy is built into the very fabric of our life. No-one is immune. Taking hits is what real life is all about. They are not things that get in the way of real life. They are real life. They are essential to a purposeful life.

Sure we can be shocked, hurt, disappointed and scared when something bad touches us, but expecting to go through life without facing serious hurdles or heartbreaks is like trying to play football and not get tackled – it isn’t going to happen. Sometimes we are able to dodge it, and other times we have to deal with it in full force.

I think one of the hardest hits to deal with are the ones dealt to us by our fellow man. I am reminded here of Jean-Paul Sarter's famous line, "Hell is other people". I think he is only half right. Other people are almost always at the heart of our most heartbreaking hits and but also at the heart of our greatest happiness.

None of us escapes the pain unless we sit on the bench for the rest of our days. Waiting to get the call up to join the big game of Life.

And I would rather be in the game than out of it. Simply because the beauty and joy of life are always there for the taking but without the hardships we would most likely not value them as much. Looking for the beauty in life is common sense, learning to see the value of the pain is true wisdom. It really is.

"Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved". Helen Keller

Have you or someone you know lived through tragedy and come out the other side a changed person? Or why do you think bad things happen to good people? Or are you struggling with the questions? I would be interested to know what you think.