The Games

There are only three more sleeps until the Olympic Games opening ceremony.

I am not ashamed to say that I am excited.

Moreso, because I am looking forward to seeing what the teams will wear.

Seriously.

Time Magazine has rated all the uniforms but I don't really agree with them. The USA and Australia were rated as first and second in the Worst Uniform category. They are boring it is true but they both look smart at least. Perhaps the real issue was that both sets of uniform were made in China.....

I think the Russian and Spanish uniforms are far more embarrassing, don't you?

My favourite uniforms are from Germany, Italy and Hong Kong.

I will sit glued to the TV for a few weeks from the Opening Ceremony onwards. I particularly love the Swimming, Athletics, Hockey and the Basketball.

So will you be watching the Games and what will you be watching in particular?

This was the Gold Medal tally for in the 2008 Games. I am hoping the USA beats China and that Australia beats its friendly rival the UK. Let the Games begin internet people! I am going to keep a tally on my blog for everyone who normally visits (x country).

1	China (CHN)	51
2	United States (USA)	36
3	Russia (RUS)	23
4	Great Britain (GBR)	19
5	Germany (GER)	16
6	Australia (AUS)	14

"Women can’t park

or reverse that well."

Some days, I feel like a walking stereotype.

Today was no exception.

I drove into a long and very narrow lane way this morning to drop something off at the back door of an inner city business.  As I entered the driveway I noticed a young guy cleaning the windows of a nearby shop.

Ten minutes later I got back in my car and started to reverse down the lane way (as it is the only way to get back out onto the road). As I was checking the rear vision mirror, I saw the window washer, complete with his long purple rubber gloves, standing in the middle of the driveway, directing me.

It wasn’t just a hand motion here or there. Rather, he was making some seriously crazy hand actions like those white gloved traffic officers do in Barbados.

It was so bizarre I could not stop giggling.  Those purple rubber gloves.

As I got to the footpath, I wound down the window and said, “Thanks but it really wasn’t necessary as I have done this lots of times before.”

Looking very chuffed with himself, he walked over to the car and said, “Oh that’s ok, it’s just that it's really narrow and I know women can’t reverse or park that well so I thought you would need some help.”

I eyed the nearby bucket of water for a little longer than necessary before I thought better of it and drove off. He meant well surely. Besides, there was no point validating yet another stereotype for him  - menopausal women are crazy @%#@! cows.

Women find it hard to park and reverse?  He was so certain. Like all women?

I thought we had evolved a little further than this. Apparently not. I told this story to a few male colleagues and they all sided with the window washer. Well, after a bit of arm twisting to get them to tell me what they really thought, that is. According to them, there is allegedly one thing women and blind men have in common, their ability to navigate.  One guy told me that if you "tell a woman to turn north, then east and then north again she’d get turned around faster that a frog in a blender."

So many jokes. Whoa, I am glad the men I know usually prefer to take silent pride in their apparent superiority (or maybe that's just because they know that the scorned woman stereotype really exists as well).

I then checked Mr Google, who also clearly loves this stereotype because it threw up an impressive 123,000,000 results when I keyed in “women can’t park”.

There are so many entries about men having better spatial abilities than females and scientific studies proving X, Y and Z and hilarious videos showing women parking or should I say trying to park.  I couldn’t be bothered with any of them until I noticed a recent news story from Germany.

A very game Mayor of a German town has sparked some controversy by introducing "easy" parking spots for women.

Apparently the Mayor introduced the spots because men were better at parking than women.

The women's spaces, which are marked by female symbols, are reportedly better lit and wider, while the men only spots have concrete pillars to negotiate and can only be reversed into. The Mayor said that women were welcome to attempt parking in the men only spots, but that "men are better as a rule at such challenges".

What do you think - how's your parking?

As long as I make it between the lines I am happy.

Lil’ RupBet speaks out on TomKat Divorce

You know that there is no better way to take your mind off your own issues than talking about someone else’s don't you?


Just ask Rupert Murdoch and my elderly neighbour Betty.


Betty said to me over the weekend, “Oh that’s a shame about that lovely Tom Cruise isn’t it? I guess we had to expect it - she’s one of those Hollywood types and he's a scientist. It was never going to work, they probably had nothing in common.”


Try listening to that with a straight face.


Then Rupert took it to a whole new level with the following tweets.

And now I can’t resist weighing in simply because it seems there is one burning question that everyone wants answered (ok, maybe not you, but let’s not let the details get in the way of a good story).

And no, the question is not, Why is she divorcing him?

Although this picture alone would give her reason enough.

It's,


Why have Tom Cruise’s three marriages ended when his wives were 33?

And I have the answer. As you damn well knew I would.

Apparently, a woman is at her most beautiful when she is 32. Just gloss over the fact the source for that pertinent fact is Britain's Daily Mail.

And, as we more mature women know, when Beauty walks out the door Wisdom marches right on in.

Obviously when Mimi, Nicole and Katie turned 33 they woke up one day, took a long, hard look at Tom and thought, "WTF? How the hell could I have married someone who believes in an evil galactic emperor named Xenu, who supposedly threw a bunch of aliens into volcanoes in Hawaii causing their souls to invade human bodies and confuse us?"

The plot of a terrible sci-fi movie maybe, but not the basis for a way of life.  And thus the fairytale was over...x 3.

However, it is easy to sit here, make light of the situation and have a laugh at Cruise's expense. Unfortunately, there is a much more serious and dark undercurrent to this whole story. While I've never been a fan, Tom Cruise has always struck me as a hard working, charming person. Even taking into account the Oprah couch jumping episode and the infamous You Tube videos, I would not describe him as a 'whacko'. Rather, I think he is just another brainwashed victim of the Church of Scientology. In fact, most ex scientologists believe that the Church (meaning its leader) has an iron grip on Cruise's personal and business life. 

I have received most of my information about the Church of Scientology from a relative who lives in San Francisco. He was a member of the Church for 27 years and his family worked tirelessly to get him out. He refused to listen to them until he finally saw the levels of abuse and deceit happening. He gave the Church hundreds of thousands of dollars and was privy to a lot of information about its celebrity members including TC. He finally saw the light, got out, went public, has written extensively on the Internet and has been continually threatened and followed by Church members ever since.

However, the personal views of one ex member aside, the public record now holds a lot of damning information about the Church and its leader, David Miscavige. And unfortunately for Tom he is now seen to be the public face for an organisation that is becoming known for confining and torturing its own executives, that beats confessions of homosexuality out of high-ranking members, that asks children to work around the clock without a chance to get real schooling and that does all this with claims that it is somehow helping the planet.

Let’s hope that David Miscavige does not make it Mission Impossible for Katie and Suri as it has for so many other members who have jumped ship. Yes and that would absolutely be a space ship, folks......

There, doesn't that make you feel better about your own life now?



If you really would like to read more about Scientology check out Marty Rathbun’s blog. Enlightening. And. Frightening. Also, Rupert is surprisingly entertaining (yes, not a typo) to follow on Twitter @rupertmurdoch