Love a sea mystery

Goddamn! We all love sea mystery stuff don't we? Don't we?

Nature lover lost in North Sea saved by woman who spotted his camera flashing... 350 miles away

A German man owes his life to a woman who rescued him from 350 miles away – thanks to his camera.

The man lost on a frozen stretch of the North Sea was facing almost certain death when he flashed his camera in the hope that someone might be out watching the same beautiful sunset he had set out to witness.

Luckily the camera flash off the coast of St. Peter-Ording near the Danish border was witnessed by a female nature lover sitting in front of her computer in the Westerwald region near the Rhine hundreds of miles away in southern Germany.

Eagle-eyed: An observation base near the stretch of the North Sea the woman was viewing via a webcam when she spotted the lost man

She was monitoring a camera set up on the beach to record the vivid sunset.

Seeing the camera flashes she alerted local police who in turn sent through an emergency call that resulted in a patrol rescuing the man as temperatures plunged to -20c.

Police spokeswoman Kristin Stielow said: 'He was walking on the ice, got disoriented and would probably have either fallen through the ice or succumbed to the cold.

'He was very lucky that this lady was sharing the same natural phenomenon but from the warmth and safety of her own home.'

The man in his 40s was treated for mild exposure after his ordeal.

He is planning a visit to the woman he owes his life to when he has recovered.

The man was stranded near St Peter-Ording, while his 'rescuer' was 350 miles away in Westerwald

Things that've disappeared the past decade

VIDEO tapes, fax machines and the Encyclopaedia Britannica are among the items to have disappeared from our lives over the past decade.

VIDEO tapes, fax machines and the Encyclopaedia Britannica are among the items to have disappeared from our lives over the past decade.

No corner of our lives has been left untouched by the internet as households across Australia went online.

Since 1998, home internet access has more than quadrupled from 16 per cent to 72 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Renowned reference books such as Encyclopaedia Britannica and World Book seemed to disappear as they were usurped first by Microsoft Encarta and then the far less reliable Wikipedia. Video tapes became a relic in the 2000s, with DVD players outselling video recorders early in the decade. The massive retail video libraries of the past also moved on, selling their old wares for $1 a tape and then filling the shelves with fast-moving DVDs.

Fax machines were made obsolete by scanners and email, and by this year your Filofax fitted in your mobile phone. Many CD collections were condensed on to a tiny MP3 player.

Film cameras have all but disappeared, as did the trip to the chemist to get film developed.

Your camcorder also went digital, and eventually merged into your camera or telephone or both.

Public telephones slowly disappeared as even children are now able to whip out their mobiles.

Nowadays, 31 per cent -- or 841,000 -- of all children aged between five and 14 have access to their own mobile phones, the ABS estimates.

The Yellow Pages has become a thing of the past for many.

And the way we use computers also changed. Floppy disks, which were a mere 3.5 inches (9cm) wide in 2000, were usurped by zip drives, CDs and finally the USB flash drive.

The squeals and delays of dial-up internet are also on the way out, as households move to high-speed broadband connections.

The steady stream of catalogues stuffed in mailboxes slowed to a trickle in the 2000s, and the floodgates of spam email opened. Suddenly, it seemed, everyone knew an exiled Nigerian prince.

Australia began generating spam too. By 2004, Australia was the world's 10th-largest spam producer, accounting for 1.21 per cent of global unsolicited commercial emails.

Finding your way was revolutionised by the explosion in GPS navigation. Driving while balancing an open street directory on your lap was made a thing of the past this decade.

Best and worst fashion of the decade!

(with thanks to Nedahl Stelio, a contributor to The Punch www.thepunch.com.au)

Yes, there have been some corkers in the fashion world this past ten years – thigh high rubber boots usually worn to wade in alligator-infested swamps anyone? – but there have also been some winners. Pieces that women have been thankful to add on high rotation in their wardrobe. Here’s a round up of the best and worst trends of the decade.

Bad Sarah Jessica, Good Sarah Jessica

WORST

The 80’s revival
Those who are old enough to have gone through it once are also old enough to remember how horrifically unfashionable the 80’s were. All you have to do is look at Sarah-Jessica Parker then, and Sarah-Jessica Parker now to know that the 80’s should not be revisted.

Yet here we are, in shoulder pad HELL. Not to mention acid wash jeans, the midriff top, taffeta prom dresses, fluro accessories, jelly shoes, balloon skirts, fingerless gloves, and the piece de resistance – the scrunchie - is attempting a comeback.

Disposable fashion
Two shirts for $10, three bags for $50, four skirts for $100. This decade, women have never had more crap quality clothing to spend their money on – and it’s not good for our wardrobe or our environment. A drag on the world’s resources which is also filling up our dumpsters, disposable clothing is costing us millions globally every year. The solution is to buy quality items, less often. Just because you’re heading out on Friday night does not mean you need another new top. Really.

High waisted jeans
Honestly, whose five-second idea was this? High-waisted jeans only looked good on 6” tall supermodels, which is about 0.0001% of the population. To the rest of us: time to trash ‘em.

Harem pants
What genie-loving, mung-bean eating, MC Hammer-listening fashion designer coined this trend? I don’t know, but I’d like to blame them for all of the droopy assed women on the street.

Too-low hipsters
When these first hit the stores we loved them – finally, an alternative to the Levis 501. But the more we wore them, the more we realized something: they had created a fat pocket that hadn’t existed previously. That’s right, I’m talking about The Muffin Top. Any item of clothing that increased fatty deposits on women was instantly going to be scorned and yes, tossed to the bottom of the pile.

Juicy Couture tracksuits
If you didn’t have a Juicy tracksuit (or a cheaper copy of), you simply weren’t cool. Because EVERYONE owned one of these matching velour babies, some of whom were lucky to have the genuine article with JUICY emblazoned across their butt. Jessica Simpson bought personalized pairs for all her bridesmaids. Such a lovely time in fashion.

One piece swimsuits with huge cut outs on the sides and t-bar fronts
Two words: tan lines.

Ridiculous heels shaped like table legs
There are good heels, that are elegant and do the job of shaping the body, giving you height and making you feel like sex on legs … and there are gimmicky heels, on platforms with stilts shaped like an old candlestick that you, along with loads of models on the catwalk, now hate after spraining their ankle while wearing them.

BEST

Ballet flats
Finally! Women could wear flat shoes! Which didn’t cramp our toes! Or make our soles ache! Or put our backs out! And we could still look fashionable! Thank you, Kate Moss, for making these okay.

Opaques
Umm, stockings that suck us in, stop our thighs from jiggling, make us look thinner, tighter, taller and keep us warm in winter. Are they a saviour for women? Hell yes.

Leggings
Who doesn’t want a pant that costs less than your weekly food shop and can be worn under dresses, tops, coats and still look as chic as $300 jeans?

High waisted dresses
After years of belting at the hip we at last rediscovered our waist and ultimately, that feminine hourglass shape which really does suit every woman.

Sequins
It’s every girl’s dream really. Who doesn’t want to wear a million tiny shiny circles sewn onto their top and sparkle like they deserve to, hmm? Sequins came into our lives in a big way this decade, much to the chagrin of men who didn’t quite know how to tackle the trend – are they supposed to wear a tux if you’re wearing sequins? No boys. It’s just us that gets to dress up like this.

Skinny scarves worn in summer
I love a trend that ticks off a number of things: colour on a boring outfit? Yes. Get to wear the same clothes but make it look different? Yes. Cover a sagging jowl, spotty chest or too much cleavage? Yes yes yes!

Statement jewelery
This decade, we learnt that just because we couldn’t afford oversized baubles to adorn our wrists, neck and fingers, didn’t mean we couldn’t wear fabulous costume jewelery that looked just like the real thing – almost better because we
could afford one in every colour.

Blazers
Traditionally a part of a suit, the blazer is now a classic uniform. Worn on it’s own with jeans, skirts an evening dress, it’s every woman’s staple.

Red attack!

Red everywhere.

Wednesday morning I woke 6:30am, my usual hour.

One serious problem.

Everything was red.

Red?

Kid you not. Checked outside and everything was also red. N o other colours.

Red! red! Red!

Do I give up the grog? Was it Armageddon? A terrorist attack? Had I died and gone to hell? Scary moments.

What's a red dust storm? Didn't know or care until yesterday. Now I'm an experienced dust storm survivor, I have fresh dinner conversation ammunition.

This red haze, churned by powerful winds that lifted thousands of tons of topsoil from the arid and drought-stricken inland, was visible from space, appearing as a huge brown smudge in satellite photographs of Australia.

The storm ripped an unknown amount of topsoil from farms across a huge swath of Australia.

This extraordinary event of nature amused our country cousins who smirkingly suggested we city slickers get a life and get over it. They've been there and done that.

Now the dust has settled so to speak, car wash merchants are gleefully rubbing their hands, ordering Rolls Royces and first class trips overseas. Home cleaning services are booked out and lifting hourly rates. The recession is over. Not that we had one in the first place but it makes good copy.

There are winners and losers. Someone has to benefit.

Did you notice?

Wimbledon 2009 is over. Fantastic stuff!

Fedderer/Roddick match final has gotta go down in history as one of the greatest epics in Wimbledon tennis. Both players deserving of accolades. The TV networks rejoice at an epic event equal to MJ memorial coverage

Not a grunter or screamer amongst the finalists except for the Williams sisters. They're entitled to grunt, scream, groan and orgasm 'cause they are the world's best female tennis players. But no more! It pisses us off!

With luck, they'll shut up now they're threatened with their play money taken from them in grunt fines.

Hopefully, we see the Williams grunt-less at the NY fest.

Nothing talks better than hard cash!

RIP Jacko

Michael Jackson.

I wasn't a great fan of the man. Even less so when pedophile allegations came to light. However hundreds of millions thought otherwise and stuck by their man. Rightfully so!

There's no denying, he was a great talent despite his eccentricities. We baby boomers grew up with this guy and had at least one LP of his even though we may deny this. His dance moves and music were incredible and deserving to be remembered in history. He will remembered as a leader in music amongst the likes of other legendary contemporary artists such as Elvis, Buddy Holly. As someone said ..."a Rembrandt of our time".

RIP Michael. We miss you and will not forget you.

Racket buster. The best news since sliced bread

The racket of screaming, grunting tennis players ranks higher on the irritation scale than fingernails scraping on a chalkboard. This awful, deafening and unfair trend that's now common particularly among young women players.

Relief is near as new proposals to make noise hindrance part of the International Tennis Federation's code of conduct, could mean screaming grunters could potentially forfeit a whole game or match.

Actor, Peter Ustinov, a wit and a tennis tragic, watching Monica Seles grunting her way to a victory at Wimbledon said to a friend: ‘I’d hate to be be in the hotel room next door on her wedding night.’

Forget about wedding nights when grunting and groaning are presumably legitimate noise-making. Let’s just accept that watching someone like Seles play in the past, and now one of the loudest offenders, Maria Sharapova, who at 101 decibels is almost as loud as a lion's 110 decibel roar or the sound a small aircraft makes when it takes off.

Monica Seles is not far behind with her groans reaching 93.2 decibels subjecting we viewers to a sound pollution of grunts, groans, aaahs, ooohs, eeeaahhs-urrrrrrs

In last month's French open, Aravane Rezai complained to the umpire about the noise emitting from 16-year-old player Michelle Larcher de Brito.

This tactic is increasingly being adopted by players who, admittedly, put less into their shots and their racing around the courts than the star players. It’s being called ‘the counter-grunt.’ The journeyperson Russian player, Elena Dementrieva, for instance, lived up to her name by adopting a double-bang grunt, ‘oooaah- urrrring’, on every shot, whether a great effort was expended or not.

There are two main reasons why sound pollution on the tennis court should be banned: first, it is used as a tactic to unsettle opponents: and second, it makes watching tennis played by grunters and groaners an unpleasant experience, which grates on the pleasure of watching tennis.

The grunters and groaners deny that they are trying to unsettle opponents. But this is clearly at the heart of the tactic. The retired Wimbledon referee Alan Mills told reporters some years ago that coaches were training women players, in particular, to grunt as loud as they can.

Martina Navratilova, who despised the tactic, pointed out that tennis players rely on the sound of the ball coming off an opponent’s racket to a certain extent to give them clues about its velocity, direction and the spin on the shot. How convenient it is that the grunting denies a skillful player this basic information.

In the 1992 quarter-final at Wimbledon, Steffi Graf demanded that Monica Seles, grunting at a 93 decibel level, shut up. Seles eventually lost the match to Graf.

Then there is the unpleasant nature of the sound. For the two hours or so playing Sharapova, say, her opponent and viewers are subjected to an unceasing flow of unpleasant noise, rather like being forced to listen to a heavy metal radio station in a locked room with the sound distorted because the tuning is off-station.

Leading coaches and players have called for grunting to be banned on the tennis court by the organisers of the major tournaments. The secrets of the bedroom should be kept to the bedroom.

Official gruntometer: Top 10 grunters in decibels
(Stats thanks to the Daily Mail)

# Lion's roar 110
# Maria Sharapova 101
# Monica Seles 93.2
# Serena Williams 88.9
# Lindsay Davenport 88
# Venus Williams 85
# Victoria Azarenka 83.5
# Elena Bovina 81
# Anna Kournikova 78.5
# Kim Clijsters 75