Who is this person?

He/she

 * was born in New York

 * delivered the keynote address at a Melbourne Writers Festival

 * has written fiction

 * has written biography

 * has written about history

 * has been known to shoot 'self in the foot

 * has been a big city's mayor

 * says writing romantic fiction could be on his/her agenda

 * hopes to get a big promotion in the very near future

* is not backward in coming forward

* was given Alexander or Alexandra as his/her first given name

* might use the pen name Rosie M. Banks for future books
 

Think you know?

The answer will be revealed tomorrow.

Credits:
1. Thanks to my mate Elwyn for giving a heads up on this.
2. The source for the information contained in this quiz will be provided tomorrow.

If I hear one more word about prime ministerial hair.....

This young girl grew up and dyed her hair - get over it!
Yes, I'm talking to you Sky News, Samantha Maiden, Messrs. Williamson & Jackson and the many who have gone before you all.

Photo from Google Images

My old mum was right - Teh Tube makes us dumb

One from the locker that I forgot to post!

I don't know how many times as a teenager I was told that the television in the living room was an 'idiot box'.
All those visions of Frankie Ifield yodelling, rope petticoats swirling and (by today's standards) sedate rocking around the clock apparently set the old grey matter permanently on snooze mode.
Only grandads glued to the cricket on the radio were immune to its insidious effects.
And it looks like my old mum was right - lotsa Aussies have finally forgotten how to turn the thing on!


mUmBRELLA says: "Total prime time TV audiences have fallen below 5m in Australia, according to a new analysis of viewing data so far this year. This is despite the arrival of the new Freeview and subscription TV channels to tempt viewers. According to the analysis of figures across the prime 6pm to 10.30pm slot, the average audience has fallen from 5,027,868 in 2008 to 4,969,810 in 2009. This marks a decline of around 60,000 prime time viewers per evening – or a fall of just over 1%. This is despite the Australian population growing by more than 2% during the same period."

Pic from GraniteGrok

Did you know? A morning tea trivia break

World's digital content equivalent to stack of books stretching from Earth to Pluto 10 times....
The world's store of digital content is now the equivalent of one full top-of-the-range iPod for every two people on the planet, following the explosion of social networking sites, internet-enabled mobile phones and government surveillance.
The Guardian, 18 May 2009 Internet data heads for 500bn gigabytes

French president Nicolas Sarcozy claims he was in Berlin on the evening the Berlin Wall fell and that he helped dismantle a part of the wall on the spot at Check Point Charlie. His claim has been torn to shreds by historial information available from Internet searches which appear to show that he did not arrive in Germany's capital until days later.
Simple Thoughts, 9 November 2009, Skeptics question French President Sarkozy’s Facebook post suggesting he saw Berlin Wall fall & The Australian, 12 November 2009, Sarkozy's Berlin Wall claim falls over

The average Australian adult male is only around 1.2 feet taller than the average adult male orang-utan. Australia's Environment Minister Peter Garrett is reputedly 2.1-2.4 feet taller than this red ape.
Wikipedia Human height, & Orangutan Outreach & Mike Portnoy 2009

Researchers found a strong link between wages and height, particularly for men, with each additional 10 centimetres of height adding three per cent to hourly wages.
The "height premium" was two per cent per 10 centimetres for women, researchers from the University of Sydney and Canberra's Australian National University (ANU) found.
They calculated that every five centimetres above the average height of 178 centimetres boosted a male's wages by the equivalent of an extra year's experience in the labour force. WA Today, 17 May 2009, Study finds tall people at top of wages ladder

An Adelaide property developer, Ross Markris, heads the BRW 2009 young and rich list for the under 40s.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2009

U.S. billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has only donated $340,358 to major American political parties since 1978 but film maker Steven Speilberg has donated over $1M in the same period.
Newsmeat, Hall of Fame-Billionaires, 2009

Monsanto staffer claims that 1 bale of cotton makes 215 pairs of jeans, but there is no data on how many litres of GM oil comes from those harvested cotton plants.
Monsanto & Co on Twitter, 13 November 2009

Google suggests over 26 million indexed entries when given the search term "how to get away with a lie" and then produces 47 million items if you proceed with this search.
Google Australia, 13 November 2009

There are at least 1,817 individuals in Australia who currently control wealth worth over $30 million.
Australian Tax Office, 19 October 2009, JCPAA Submssion

Australian Households



RESERVE BANK BULLETIN – APRIL 2009














U.S. National Debt



Newsmeat, 2009

A fun piece of trivia from Core Economics

Sometimes the trivia machine works overtime and produces grin-inducing posts such as "Was someone short of fact checkers?" with statistics like this:
Australian PM Physical Data
I always wanted to know that Kevin Rudd was 2.5cms taller than John Howard!
As the PM data spreadsheet is a work in progress, join in and give Alistair a bit more info.

Pic from Wikipedia

Just for the record, how tall/short is "the diminutive Opposition leader"?

The Australian's Online political editor, Samantha Maiden, reported that Labor MP Belinda Neal (who has been in the hot seat in relation to events that either did or did not take place at a restaurant on the NSW Central Coast) and the Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson, engaged in a not so friendly exchange of words last Thursday during a Qantas flight between Canberra and Sydney.

Maiden wrote:

When the flight landed, Dr Nelson attempted to help Ms Neal with her bags, prompting the furious Labor MP to demand to know when he was going to apologise for the remarks. [Comment: Neal claims Nelson had previously made claims that she (Neal) was an "ugly bully".]

The clash was witnessed by the packed plane and deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop, who intervened. She later told colleagues Ms Neal attempted to physically intimidate the diminutive Opposition leader.