Man buried after lightning hits him four times

 

A CURE?: Village doctors buried Alexander Mandon after he was struck by lightning four time since September.

 

They say lightning never strikes in the same place twice, but one Colombian man, who has been struck four times and then buried alive, is living proof that is occasionally it does. 

Alexander Mandon, 20, from a small Colombian village called Sampués, has been struck by lightning four times since September.

Bizarrely, although steeped in some logic, village doctors said the cure to his affliction would be to ground him by burying him neck deep in the earth. 

They said by grounding him, the electrical charge would be stripped away from his body.

The Huffington Post said it is the second time Mandon has been buried, because the first time he was not put in the correct upright position. 

Colombian news agency Colombia Reports said Mandon had to be discharged from the army because it was believed he was positively charged to attract lightning. 

The commander of the unit was reportedly concerned by Mandon’s electric charge and decided to avoid the risk of electrocution by firing the soldier.

Mandon was sent home to Sampues, in the northern Sucre department, where it was thought he could avoid perilous lightning shocks because of low rainfall in the region. But he attracted another lightning bolt.

It is unclear whether the second burial was successful, but Mandon was reportedly staying away from windows and doors.

Lightning strikes can contain more than 100,000 volts of electricity. While they can cause heart attacks and stroke in victims, survival from a strike more likely than death.

Source: stuff.co.nz

‘She was my world, my rock, my best friend and my wife’: Husband pays heartbreaking tribute to Lisa, 33, who lost five-year cancer battle that prompted her to write an inspirational blog for others

A journalist and writer who was diagnosed with breast cancer at just 28 has died at the age of 33.

Lisa Lynch, a magazine editor, died after the disease spread to her bones and brain.

Shortly after her diagnosis in 2008 Mrs Lynch started writing a blog, Alright Tit, which became so popular that it was turned into a book – The C-Word.

Mrs Lynch, who was born and brought up in Derby, chronicled her battle with the disease in her witty and honest blog which received 140,000 hits in the first year alone.

Lisa married Peter Lynch in December 2006 and was diagnosed with cancer just 18 months later after her husband found a lump in her breast

 

Lisa and Peter are pictured on holiday in May 2008, just before she was found to have a grade three tumour

She dubbed the cancer The Bullshit and took to ‘writing while fighting’ as a way of coping.

Mrs Lynch, from south-west London is survived by her husband of six years, Peter Lynch, who announced her death on the blog.

He wrote: ‘I’ve been batting some words around in my head for the last two days searching for poetic prose to do justice to my world, my rock, my best friend, my lover and my wife. Alas, there will never be an easy way in which to tell you all that Lisa passed away very peacefully on Monday, March 11th, 2013.

‘In a way that only Lisa could pull off, she left us in exactly the way she had planned. The plan was to be at Trinity Hospice with her husband and parents.

‘The plan was that we would be overlooking the beautiful gardens. The plan was that it would also be peaceful, beautiful, tranquil and pain free.

‘I probably don’t need to tell you that Lisa ticked all of those boxes (what can I say? Some people are just so damn talented that they can plan for any eventuality).

‘We, her family and closest friends, feel complete and utter devastation that is matched only by resounding pride that she was, and will forever be, our girl.

‘For us, it’s a time to privately shed tears and to reflect on what she meant and will continue to mean to us. Lisa, I love you with a passion that burns as brightly as you did. Your light will never ever go out.’

 

Lisa Lynch, 33, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 when she was just 28-years-old

 

 

Mrs Lynch turned to writing a blog – Alright Tit – as a way of coping with her cancer

Mrs Lynch was diagnosed with a five centimetre tumour in her breast after her husband noticed a lump just 18 months after they were married.

It was an aggressive grade three tumour that had spread to 24 of her 25 lymph nodes.

She underwent a mastectomy followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

It is believed that the growth of the cancer may have been encouraged by pregnancy hormones as Mrs Lynch suffered two miscarriages before her diagnosis.

She wrote: ‘On the outside, my husband Pete and I are a professional couple with mortgage protection and one eye on our Air Miles.

 

Happier times: Lisa and Peter on holiday in South Africa with Lisa’s parents, Jane and Ian

‘Behind closed doors, however, we draw on one another’s foreheads and tickle each other until we can’t breathe for laughing.

‘It was during one such tickle fight that I knew something was wrong. In a playful boob-grab, Pete felt something unusual. That is when the fun stopped and my cancer journey began.’

She continued: ‘Inside the hospital I’d had a biopsy and a mammogram. I remembered the specialist pointing to a cloudy area on the scan and uttering the words “breast cancer”.

‘The rest had been white noise. After we’d been led out of the room we both cried, but the kind of crying that comes without tears. Frozen-to-your-core, terrified crying.

‘Then Pete had stared at his BlackBerry and looked at me with yet another level of terror in his eyes. “Your mum and dad – I’ve missed a ton of calls.’

 

We’d been in the hospital for almost four hours and they’d been calling the entire time. “We’ll have to speak to them,” I said. So we did; well, Pete did.

‘I retched at the thought of Pete’s words bringing the news that no parent can prepare themselves for – that despite the fact we had zero family history of breast cancer, I, at 28, had a firm diagnosis.’

In June 2009, after a year of intensive treatment, she was told that her mammogram was clear and she prepared to get on with her life, cancer-free.

However, in September 2011 the cancer returned and Mrs Lynch and her family were told that it was terminal.

She was informed that the cancer would now have to be managed, as opposed to cured, but that she could still have years to live.

 

In June 2009, after a year of treatment, Mrs Lynch was told that her cancer had gone. She and Mr Lynch are pictured with friends at Glastonbury after receiving the good news

 

 

In October 2009 Mr and Mrs Lynch were enjoying a break from the cancer treatment. They are pictured on holiday with Mrs Lynch’s brother Jamie and his wife Leanne

Mrs Lynch recorded the devastating news in her blog: ‘So here it is: my cancer has returned. Not as a localised recurrence, but a distant spread.

It’s now grade 4 (as we know, there is no grade 5) which is also known as a secondary cancer or, to be blunt, a cancer which cannot be cured.

‘The spread is to my bones: not just in my back, as was first my suspicion, but everywhere, in the form of dot-like tumours (worst in my spine, hips, shoulders, ribs, clavicles, sternum).

‘All of which explains the increasing pain I’ve been in recently whose severity I have, for longer than I care to admit, been denying to those around me – most of all me. (It’s funny – I always used to wonder as a kid whether I had a superpower of some sort, and had an inkling that it might be a superhuman pain threshold… turns out an oncologist has since confirmed just that, albeit in a somewhat less superhero-ey manner. Henceforth expect to see my undies on the outside of my leggings.)’

‘Please please just BE A MATE to my husband and my parents and my brother and my family and my friends. As shitty as my health outlook is at the moment, I’d still much rather be in my position than theirs, and it would thus make me immeasurably happy if you’d just, y’know, be there for them.’

 

In September 2011 Mrs Lynch was told that the cancer had returned and that it had spread to her bones. There was no longer anything the doctors could do to cure her

 

 

In October 2012 she was given the news that the cancer had spread to her brain and that she had just months to live. She is pictured in September 2009 with her cat, Sergeant Pepper

In October 2012 Mrs Lynch and her family were dealt another devastating blow as she was told that the cancer had spread to her brain meaning that she only had months to live.

She wrote: ‘Today, I’m not letting you know how I am; I’m just letting you know. I’m letting you know that my cancer has spread to my brain; I’m letting you know that that it’s had a far from desirable effect on my prognosis; I’m letting you know that I’m due to be starting a new treatment this week that will hopefully shrink the tumour enough to postpone its effects for as long as possible; and I’m letting you know that I am – as are my family – devastated to the point of not knowing how to carry on.

‘But I am going to carry on. We are going to carry on. For you, Corey James [Mrs Lynch’s newborn nephew]. Because, regardless of the unspeakable shit that’s been thrown in her direction, the most important thing for your Auntie Lisa to worry about right now is staying around long enough to make you feel as loved as she does.’

Following her death, Mrs Lynch’s friend Toby wrote a moving tribute on her blog.

He said: ‘You shone even brighter and more brilliantly than any of us could have imagined.

‘This blog is testament to it. Here you remain, a part of everyone who loves you, who cried along with you as the road turned rough and laughed as you wrote with humour and tenderness and life.

‘You’re still right here. You are here in these pages. You are here in the lives we led with you.’

Mrs Lynch’s book The C-Word is being adapted for television by the BBC.

To read Mrs Lynch’s blog visit http://alrighttit.blogspot.co.uk/

Her family are fundraising for the Trinity Hospice in south London: www.trinityhospice.org.uk/magnolia-donation

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Sand droids: C3-PO and R2-D2 star at world’s first sci-fi sand exhibition

Sand enthusiasts have boldly gone where no one has gone before as the world’s first ever science fiction themed sand sculpture festival opened yesterday.

The sculptures, which are up to four metres high feature scenes from popular sci-fi films and television shows, including Star Trek, King Kong, Star Wars, the Time-Machine, Alien and even popular TV puppet series Thunderbirds.

A five-foot carving of Spock’s famous hand sign is part of the Star Trek work, with many characters featured all carved precisely from mounds of sand.

 

Sculptures featured characters from the original Star Wars trilogy, including Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia

 

 

Sculptors attempted a scene fro the original Star Trek series featuring Captain Kirk and Spock doing his signature hand gesture

 

 

The giant sculpture took in scenes from the original and new films in the Star Wars series, including an image of Anakin Skywalker with Darth Vader

The launch today at Sandworld, in Dorset, featured the designer of Darth Vader’s costume mask and of the Storm Troopers, Brian Muir from Iver in Buckinghamshire.

The designer lives very close to Pinewood studios and is very much in demand from filmmakers of all kinds.

But he was invited down to the coast to help launch this special science fiction festival that will run for the remainder of the year.

 

Designer of the Darth Vader mask Brian Muir was guest of honour at the festival

 

 

Star Wars fan favourites C3PO and R2D2 were moulded out of sand

 

 

Darth Vader and a stormtrooper pose next to a Star Wars themed sand sculpture

 

 

 

Owner of Sandworld Mark Anderson said ‘We were thrilled when Brian said he would come to the opening and we did have Darth Vader and some troopers here as a surprise and Darth Vader even showed him the force as they both acted out a scene from the film at the opening’.

The Star Wars characters came from a group of enthusiasts based in the county and are called the Dorset troopers; the queuing public were thrilled when the characters joined them at the ceremony.

 

 

The festival took inspiration from many science fiction films and television shows, including Alien

 

 

The Science Fiction Sand Sulpture Festival was the first of its kind and was held at Sandworld in Dorset

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Zumba Sex Scandal: Alexis Wright get 20 months’ imprisonment

A dance instructor accused of using her Zumba fitness studio as a front for prostitution has pleaded guilty to 20 counts in a scandal that captivated a quiet US seaside town.

The agreement that followed a second day of plea negotiations on Friday spares Alexis Wright from the prospect of a high-profile trial featuring sex videos, exhibitionism and pornography.

Prosecutors will recommend a jail sentence of 10 months when she is sentenced on May 31.

Wright quietly answered ”guilty” 20 times when the judge read the counts, which include engaging in prostitution, promotion of prostitution, conspiracy, tax evasion and theft by deception.

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”We’re very satisfied with it. It’s an appropriate outcome, given the gravity of her actions,” Assistant Attorney-General Darcy Mitchell said after the brief court hearing.

The 30-year-old Wright was accused of conspiring with insurance agent Mark Strong snr to run a prostitution business in which she kept detailed records indicating she made $US150,000 ($144,00) over an 18-month period.

She was also accused of using a hidden camera to record sex acts without her clients’ knowledge.

She was originally charged with 106 counts. All the counts in the agreement were misdemeanours, including three counts relating to welfare and tax fraud that were reduced from felonies.

Strong, 57, of Thomaston, was convicted of 13 counts related to promotion of prostitution and sentenced to 20 days in jail. He was originally charged with 59 counts.

The scandal became a sensation following reports that Wright had at least 150 clients, leading to a guessing game of who might be named publicly in the coastal town of Kennebunk, a community better known for its beaches and sea captains’ homes than for crime.

Those who have been charged so far include a former mayor, a high school hockey coach, a minister, a lawyer and a firefighter.

Sun setting on fraud capital of Australia

It’s lunchtime on a clear, warm Gold Coast Saturday in February and the city’s mayor, Tom Tate, is railing against non-Queenslanders who take a dim view of the sunny seaside strip.

”We’re taking our critics head on,” Tate tells the Gold Coast’s business elite – including a gentleman in white shoes – who have gathered at the city’s Metricon Stadium.

Tate is launching the Gold Coast’s new brand, a giant red full-stop that cost $180,000 and has already been slammed as expensive and unnecessary in readers’ letters spread across two pages of the local Murdoch paper, the Gold Coast Bulletin.

Conman Peter Foster.

An ebullient property developer, Tate is undeterred. He loves the logo, even if other people have different views – ”the good, the bad, and the southerners”.

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”From now on, we’re scripting our own story,” he says.

Tate wants to dispel the image of the Gold Coast as a haven for fraudsters, rip-off merchants and dodgy property developers; he is keen to stress new industries such as education and research springing up in the hinterland behind the famous beach.

Former minister Russ Hinze. Photo: Peter Rae

Fast forward to this month and it is obvious he has his work cut out. The empire of yet another flamboyant Gold Coast property developer and funds manager, Peter Drake, lies in ruins after administrators were called in to his LM Investment Management on March 19. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission immediately flew investigators to the Gold Coast to talk to administrators of LM, which claims to oversee $3 billion in assets and has invested heavily in Drake’s Maddison Estate development.

Drake is a well-known figure on the coast. In addition to LM and Maddison Estate, which is endorsed by celebrities including landscaper and former stripper Jamie Durie, he owns glitzy restaurant Lauxes – that’s ”sexual”, backwards – just opposite Jupiters Casino in tourist suburb Broadbeach.

The Gold Coast is also home to characters including controversial cartoonist Larry Pickering, who has been involved in companies selling stock-picking software that was banned by the corporate regulator. An undischarged bankrupt, he lives in a lavish canal-side mansion.

Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate. Photo: Andrew Taylor

Tim ”Sharky” Ward, a self-described loan-shark turned pimp in Thai flesh-pit Pattaya, also boasts a Gold Coast base – a $4.35 million Surfers Paradise mansion.

Conman Peter Foster also lives on the Gold Coast. He is facing jail on contempt of court charges over his involvement with slimming spray scam SensaSlim, which the Federal Court has heard was backed by Melbourne underworld figures Mick Gatto and John Khoury. The impending verdict does not seem to have interfered with Foster’s lifestyle: in January, he sold his $2.2 million mansion in Carrara, ”Gov’ment House”, and moved to a new mansion on the Sovereign Islands.

Gatto and Khoury are sometimes seen on the coast, hanging out at an apartment in the Wave building on Broadbeach.

Peter Drake. Photo: Louie Douvis

Then there are the ongoing internet investment scams, run by organised crime out of rented Gold Coast offices, which have cost investors millions and are yet to be eradicated despite the combined efforts of state and federal police, and ASIC, which warned last week against another group, trading as ”Global Capital Wealth”.

They are sophisticated operations that rely on complex infrastructure – operators rent offices, set up phone systems, hire staff to telephone potential victims and have elaborate internet sites that must be maintained.

BusinessDay has linked Melbourne gangland figure Jack Doumani, an old schoolfriend of convicted drug kingpin Tony Mokbel, to Intra Trading Group (ITG), which on its website says it has achieved returns of 22.5 per cent in just nine months.

Melbourne underworld figures John Khoury (left) and Mick Gatto. Photo: Erin Jonasson

ITG claims to achieve its results using computer software that picks movements in global stock indices.

BusinessDay could not get through on ITG’s toll-free number, but its website says its methods are ”perfectly legal and a fantastic way to increase your income without increasing the tax that you pay. THIS MEANS YOU KEEP ALL OF THE MONEY THAT YOU MAKE”.

Corporate records show that Doumani owns 40 per cent of the company behind ITG, Stanwide, which operates out of an industrial park on Ashmore Road in Gold Coast suburb Bundall.

Tim ‘Sharky’ Ward. Photo: Anthony Johnson

Stanwide says it offers advice on betting, and a search of ASIC records shows it does not appear to possess the Australian financial services licence that would be required to offer a financial service such as index trading.

In 2008, Doumani was banned from holding a Victorian liquor licence for 15 years over his involvement with the Red Lion Hotel in Kilmore, north of Melbourne.

The venue was owned by Mokbel’s estranged wife, Carmel, and operated by Doumani’s wife, Natalie, who received a seven-year ban.

In 1999, Doumani was also co-owner of a $100,000 racehorse, Danislew, originally bought for Mokbel. Doumani could not be reached for comment.

Boiler room scams continue to be a focus of Queensland police investigations.

”We are looking at some areas of suspicion at the moment,” head of the Queensland Police fraud squad Detective Superintendent Brian Hay says.

He says the groups involved are organised and highly mobile, but plays down suggestions that motorcycle gangs are behind the scams.

”I’ve heard the rumours too of the OMCGs [outlaw motorcycle gangs] but I’ve not seen any firm evidence. But we are looking.

”It’s sort of like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon – if you look far enough you’ll probably find a link to everybody.”

Hay says the scams are native to the area and police first started investigating them about six years ago.

”People didn’t migrate to south-east Queensland to establish these things. They were here and they saw an opportunity and as they’ve got more people involved, those people have then broken away to their own cells.

”In the early days they were offering gambling – it was arbitrage sports investment, but we’ve seen them evolve into investments in diamonds and gold, offshore stock markets and all this sort of thing.”

Hay says the police are hampered in their investigations because victims are slow to realise they have been conned.

”People are told, don’t expect a return for 12 months. That gives them the time. It can be 12 months old before they realise they’ve been ripped off. Then there’s going to be another six months before they really believe they’ve been ripped off, and the trail’s cold.

”We’ve had the situation where you go in and if you take out a fraud like this mid-stream you get accused of all sorts of things by the victims.

”They want to sue you and kick you in the belly because they think you’re actually interrupting their chance of an investment.”

Private investigator Ken Gamble, who has worked for victims of Gold Coast investment scams, is blunt in his assessment of the strip.

”That’s the fraud capital of Australia,” he says.

Schmoozing reporters at a breakfast on the morning the Gold Coast’s red dot is unveiled, Tate disagrees.

”I don’t see it that much,” he says in response to a question about cold-calling scams.

”Those sort of things are highlighted a bit more on the Gold Coast, primarily because we’re of the size we are.

”I’m sure they’ve got these schemes in Sydney and Melbourne, its just for the sheer size of Sydney and Melbourne the warts are a bit better covered – but they’re there.”

Yet corruption runs deep in the Gold Coast’s history. Even its distinctive canals are tainted by allegations of bribery linked to the infamous ”Moonlight State” regime of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

In 1991, developer Albert Scheinberg pleaded guilty to paying a $170,000 bribe to former Nationals minister Russ Hinze, known as ”the minister for everything”, for help getting approval for canal estates.

Hinze died in July 1991, a fortnight before he was due to face trial on charges that he took $520,000 worth of bribes from developers including Scheinberg and Eddie Kornhauser, a former business associate of underworld kingpin Abe Saffron.

(Kornhauser, who died in 2006, was found not guilty of bribery charges.)

Gold Coast property developers are sometimes regarded by Tate’s dreaded southerners as the sharks of the business world – dead unless they keep moving forward.

But the canals are also full of actual sharks. Expert Jonathan Werry says bull sharks live in the top of the river system as pups of about 50 centimetres long. As they get older, and bigger, they move downstream into saltier water, moving offshore when they are about 1.5 metres long.

”In the canals that are closer to the river mouth and closer to the sea, you’re less likely to encounter an animal but it’s likely to be a larger juvenile,” he says.

They have few predators, except each other.

”They’ve got more to worry about from other bull sharks, which are notorious eaters of sharks – including bull sharks,” Werry says.

The coast’s business world is similarly closely intertwined.

Take Tomato Technologies, floated on the stock exchange in January 2001 by Pickering’s son, Jamie.

Tomato sold stock-picking software that reportedly bore a resemblance to software packages circulating at the time, which were supposed to be able to pick the winners of horse races.

The company denied the allegations, but listed just as the dotcom bubble burst and hurt its bottom line. It declared a $5 million loss in 2002.

While it recovered and did reasonably well for several years, by the end of 2006 the company was again struggling. So it decided to change shape. Jamie Pickering sold his shares and left the board, and Asian Pacific Advisory, a financial services business associated with Gold Coast veteran Ric Hayter, was backed into the company.

With the company renamed Asian Pacific Limited, Hayter and Brisbane Broncos founder Barry Maranta joined the board. Tomato director Ken Wybrow stayed on.

Asian Pacific ran straight into the global financial crisis and was in voluntary administration by July 2008.

In September that year, a Queensland District Court jury found Hayter not guilty of charges brought by ASIC over the collapse of his old accountancy outfit, Harts, in 2001.

Since then, Maranta and Hayter have been caught up in the collapse of their solar shade business Sky Shades, which was heavily promoted using golf legend Greg Norman’s name.

In a report dated March 20, Sky Shades Holdings liquidator Ozem Kassem, of Cor Cordis, told creditors he had referred the possibility that Maranta had breached his duties as a company director to ASIC, which is investigating the collapse.

Maranta is also stoushing with GE Finance, which on March 11 obtained an order in the Queensland Supreme Court allowing it to seize his Brisbane apartment over a $600,000 debt.

Meanwhile, AAA Shares, a financial planning business of which Wybrow was formerly company secretary, collapsed in January and ASIC revoked its financial services licence.

Tate and Gold Coast boosters are sick of hearing about it. They want to focus on a positive new future. There’s an education hub going up in the shape of the new Gold Coast University Hospital, a teaching hospital next door to the Gold Coast campus of Griffith University and at the end of a light rail line that’s also under construction.

There’s also something of a motor sport industry, centred around the V8 Supercars competition.

But there are few cranes on the horizon – in two days, just one was seen on a private construction site, a medium-rise building in Southport.

The local construction industry has yet to recover from the financial crisis, which ended a property bubble and made many local developers broke.

And the high Australian dollar has wreaked havoc with the coast’s other main industry, tourism.

While it is Australia’s sixth-biggest city, with a population of 500,000, many of the people on the Gold Coast at any one time are just passing through – it gets about 10 million visitors a year.

Tate realises he has work ahead of him but is, like most others on the coast, an optimist.

”I think we’ll bounce back,” he says.

”The preparation is happening now and you’ll see the cranes back in the sky by the end of the year.”

No more lonely nights

HIROSHI ISHIGURO/Osaka University

GEMINOID F: The robot was inspired by the ‘Love Plus’ video game by Nintendo.

Japanese inventors have created a ‘female’ robot that has the ability to blink, respond to eye contact and can recognize body language, opening the door for a new kind of romantic companion for humans.

Geminoid F looks like an everyday Eurasian female; she has soft, feminine features, brown hair and eyes and flushed pink cheeks. She has been dubbed the “love bot,” due to her high level of intelligence.

She is the product of Osaka University’s robotics engineers, who have been working towards creating a seamless, humanoid robot.

Initial work on Geminoid F began in the wake of Nintendo DS’s 2009 game, Love Plus.  The game was designed to simulate a high school romance, with players having the option to decide between three female characters, all of which exhibit typical womanly traits.

The engineer at the helm of the operation is Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro. He says Japanese men are able to fall in love with simulated versions of romance because of the cultural differences in Japan compared to Western society.

“In Japan, we believe that everything has a soul and therefore we don’t hesitate to create human-like robots.”

“We can accept that type of a new creature easily,” he says.

Professor Ishiguro says the major reason for creating Geminoid F is to learn more about the human race.

“By making a copy of a human, I really think we can understand humans, so we need to understand what is human likeness, what is human-like behaviour and human-like reactions.”

A crucial element in the functionality of Geminoid F is her ability to take social cues from human eye contact and gaze. She is able to hold eye contact, blink and vary her gaze depending on the situation.

Director of UWA’s Robotics and Automation Lab, Professor Thomas Bräunl, agrees that eye contact is important in constructing a versatile, humanoid robot.

“It’s very important for the interactions between a robot and a human, that you have gaze following and gesture recognition.”

Despite major improvements in technology, Professor Bräunl says creating a seamless, human-like robot is still difficult to achieve.

“As humans we have a very smooth movement, and robotic movement, as most people associate it, is more abrupt,” he says.

Perth counselor and psychotherapist Noel Giblett says that having a ‘relationship’ with a robot would not be healthy.

“If you’ve got a robot you can program to be a certain way, well that’s like trying to get your life all under control; have your life a certain way, have your partner a certain kind,” he said.

“That may be the easier road, but it limits your growth… a real relationship is demanding.”

– FFX Aus

Millions spent to enjoy floating luxury

THESE are the top 10 superyachts on the Gold Coast, with a total value of more than $40 million.

But you can have a taste of the action for about $10,000 a day.

The luxury boats are owned by property players, hoteliers, a top-ranking golfer, transport magnates and even a celebrity hairdresser.

The Bulletin understands the 35-metre MV Emerald Lady, owned by property player Pat Gay, is the city’s most valuable water toy at $8 million, about $3 million ahead of boats owned by pub king Bruce Mathieson, transport magnate Doug Kefford, former shopping centre owner Paul Kyriakou and celebrity hairdresser Stefan Ackerie.

Golfer Adam Scott’s Southern Cross II, at $1.8 million, also makes the cut.

The vessels, ranging in size from 28m to 35m, boast an impressive range of features including helipads, jacuzzis and tenders larger than most people’s pleasure crafts. Those that can get inside can brag about the theatrettes, massive entertaining areas, full dining-room tables and palatial master suites.

Some owners, including Mr Gay and local property developer Bob Ell, bought the boats several years ago and paid to have them refitted more than once, meaning the cost of replacing them would be many times their estimated worth.

Marine Engineering Consultants owner Murray Owen, involved in much of the work needed to keep the Gold Coast’s superyachts on the water, said owners of boats that big had to budget 10 per cent of their purchase price each year for upkeep.

“There is general maintenance every 12 months and then boats like this tend to need a complete refit every five years,” Mr Owen said.

“The refit can cost anything from $200,000 to $2.5 million.

“The older the boats are, the more the refit costs.”

Some of the boats on the top-10 list, such as Scott’s Southern Cross II, spend more time here than their owners and are used only occasionally.

Others such as Achilles III, once owned and rebuilt by late tourism pioneer Keith Williams, are chartered for much of the year.

The boat is now the property of transport magnate Doug Kefford, who splits his time between the Gold Coast and Victoria.

Mr Gay’s Emerald Lady, usually moored at Gold Coast City Marina, also has an extensive charter history. It can be taken out for three hours for $5400, for a full day at $9500, or as a wedding venue for $8500.

Laura J, owned by Richard and Maree Cavill, is advertised for charter at about the same rates as Emerald Lady, but cocktails and canapes are thrown in as part of the deal.

Not all of the superyachts admired by Gold Coasters in the past few years have stayed here.

The most recent example is the 31.52m Spirit of Sovereign, being put on the auction block next month by Lewis Land Corporation.

The Lewises, who developed the Sovereign Islands, are looking for something bigger, with space for their extended family — despite the fact there are already four ensuite cabins and crew quarters on board.

The 35m Phoenix, another of Mr Williams’ boats, was sold before Christmas and just left the city for its new base in the Whitsundays.

Luxury boat broker Geoff Lovett said fewer international boats were visiting the city post-GFC.

“In days gone by we would always have one or two boats passing through the Gold Coast at any one time,” he said.

“But that traffic has dropped in the past three years.”

The MV Emerald Lady owned by developer Pat Gay. Length: 35m. Value: $8 million.

The MyWay owned by pokies and pub king Bruce Mathieson. Length: 35m. Value: $5 million.

The Achilles III owned by transport magnate Doug Kefford. Length: 38m. Value: $5 million.

The MV Seven Stars owned by former shopping centre bigwig Paul Kyriakou. Length: 30m. Value: $5 million.

The Rainbow Rose owned by celebrity hairdresser Stefan Ackerie. Length: 31m. Value $5 million.

The Phoenix I owned by a New Zealand businessman. Length: 35m. Value: $3m

The LEDA owned by developer Bob Ell. Length: 35m. Value $4 million.

The Southern Cross II owned by Golfer Adam Scott. Length: 34m. Value: $1.8 million.

The Laura J owned by restaurateurs the Cavill family. Length: 28m. Value: $1.8m.

The Atlantic Princess owned by a New Zealand businessman. Length: 28m. Value: $1.79 million.

Source: goldcoast.com.au

Apple to patent wrap-around display

APPLE is seeking a patent for an iPhone that has a display that wraps around the edges of the device, expanding the viewable area and eliminating all physical buttons.

The patent application reveals that Apple has put some thought into a device that takes advantage of a new generation of displays, which don’t have to be flat and rigid like today’s liquid-crystal displays, or LCDs.

At a trade show in January, chief competitor Samsung Electronics showed off a prototype phone with a display that is bent around the edges, presenting “virtual buttons” for the user’s touch.

Apple’s patent filing shows a phone similar to a flattened tube of glass, inside of which a display envelops the chips and circuit board.

This allows “functionality to extend to more than one surface of the device”, the filing said.

The design also means there’s no frame or bezel surrounding the display, meaning it can take up more of the device’s surface area.

The company filed for the patent in September 2011, though the application became public on Thursday.

Like others, Apple often files for patents on designs that never come to fruition. It also doesn’t comment about future products until it’s ready to launch.

This undated image provided by the U.S. Patent office shows the patent Apple is seeking for an iPhone that has a display that wraps around the edges of the device, expanding the viewable area and eliminating all physical buttons.

Source: heraldsun.com.au

Infant in serious condition after falling into fire in New Zealand

A one-year-old boy is in a serious condition in Middlemore Hospital after falling into a fire being used to burn rubbish in the Bay of Plenty town of Edgecumbe.

The Tauranga boy burnt his hands and feet and other parts of his body in the incident yesterday, TrustPower TECT Rescue Helicopter pilot Liam Brettkelly told Sunlive.

The rescue helicopter was called to fly the boy and his mother to hospital.

– © Fairfax NZ News

Stealth bomber run cost millions

The US Air Force says it cost US$2.1 million (NZ$2.51m) to send two nuclear-capable B-2 bombers on a training exercise over South Korea that was widely viewed as a show of force in response to threats from North Korea.

The service’s Global Strike Command said on Friday (today, NZT) in a statement that the total flight time for the B-2s was 75 hours. The aircraft made the more than 10,500-kilometer round trip from the Midwest state of Missouri to a South Korean island range on Thursday.

North Korea has threatened nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul.

Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the decision to send the B-2s for drills with South Korea was part of normal military exercises with a close ally and not intended to provoke a reaction from North Korea.

Source: stuff.co.nz