Is celebrity gossip women’s domain?
I was drawn to write my column this week on this topic because of something Australian Today show host, Karl Stefanovich said during the segment “Girls on the Grill”. Discussing the recent Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes split, he made the observation that he didn’t know a single bloke who was interested in this story. That comment served […]
Sexiness fails to raunch in music videos
This is the unedited version of my column that appeared in the Courier Mail, Wednesday 23rd May 20102. Music mogul, 60-year old Mike Stock, who was part of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, the trio responsible for producing many hits in the 1980s and 90s, and for launching Kylie Minogue’s career, has publicly condemned the risqué […]
Double standards for women in the workplace
This is the unedited version of my column which appears in the Courier Mail, 16 May 2012. If there’s one thing our culture is absolutely superb at, it’s promoting double standards. Over the last few days, this has become more than apparent, once again, in the area of women’s appearances. First, there was the […]
Does My Kitchen Rule in “Foodie” World?
This is the unedited version of my column that appeared in the Courier Mail, 8th Februrary 2012 (I took the mistake out!). Glancing at the major commercial networks prime-time offerings Monday through to Thursday you could be forgiven for thinking we’re a nation obsessed with food. From 7pm nightly, viewers get to choose between My […]
Belated Happy New Year and look back to 2011
Hi everyone and a belated but no less sincere happy New Year to you. After a tumultuous 2011, I am looking forward to 2012 – to finding the time to write and read. With this in mind, and before I start uploading some reviews for books I have read over the Xmas and New Year […]
Property Porn
This is the unedited version of my column which appears in the Courier Mail, Wednesday, 30 November 2011. There’s a new obsession threatening to takeover our airwaves: Property Porn – and we can’t get enough. Switch on free-to-air or Pay TV and you’ll find countless shows about real estate (not forgetting websites, sections in print […]
Should social media netiquette be taught in schools?
This is my column that appeared in the Courier Mail on Wednesday, 20 July 2011: An “urgent” proposal by parents and cyberbullying experts to have social media such as FaceBook and Twitter taught in the classroom is attracting mixed reactions. Director of social media intelligence firm, SR7, Thomas Tudehope believes a social media “module” should […]
When safe parenting is really dangerous
This is the unedited version of the column that appears in the COurier Mail, 1 June 2011: You know parenting and society have reached a critical point when an early childhood education specialist claims that children’s playgrounds, the last bastion of kiddy fun, are ‘too safe’. At an Early Childhood Conference in Melbourne this week, […]
Oprah – the secular messiah
This is the unedited version of my column that appears in the Viewpoint section of the Courier Mail, 25 May 2011. While the Rapture may not have occurred, this week does mark the end of an era – the Oprah one. The first of three final shows screens tonight, bringing to a close 25 remarkable […]
Celebrity Chefs
For my column this week, I wrote on celebrity chefs and reflected on whether or not they ran the risk, through over-exposure, of going past their use-by date. If you’d like to read it, click here: Karen\’s Courier Mail column 27 April 2011 Interestingly, back in 2003, I wrote a quite risque piece on the […]