The Amazing Race to London 2012

The Olympics don't start for a few days, but already a race has been run and won.

The race to London via the Australian media. How have the athletes navigated the treacherous waters of the Australian media in the lead up to London? There have been numerous traps along the way, and while some have got through successfully, others have failed miserably. Answering any questions by Carrie Bickmore and the 7pm Project is to flirt with failure. And to be spoken to or associated with Hamish and Hamish turns any athlete into a D grade wannabe celeb, and is cause for instant disqualification.

So who's made it to London unscathed and with class intact? And who has embarrassed themselves by whining, stupidity and generally being talentless? (its fair to say a lot have)

The results are in...

Gold Medal
Sally Pearson

For Australia's most high profile and best chance at an Athletics Gold, not much has been heard from Sally. And that's the exact reason she is our best chance to win Gold. She goes to London for one reason, to win Gold. And the Australian media hasn't distracted her from that. She wont be silencing her critics because there are none. She lets her talents do the talking, and has stayed out of all the nonsense that has been going on with her team mates.Even though its too late for you Tamsyn Lewis, take note, this is how you become a champion.

Silver Medal
The Women's Basketball Team

The Opals walk with swagger, and hold themselves with the confidence and professionalism of a team with business to get done. Try as they might, B-grade AFL and NRL journalists moonlighting as Olympic journalists haven't been able to get close to controversy.

The media made a huge song and dance about the Opals having to travel economy class while the mens team got business class. The team was baited and baited by a over excited media who were drooling on the anticipation of a gender inequality story to outrage the masses. But the Opals gave them nothing. And in the background, the inequality was rectified by Basketball Australia, and the Opals didn't miss a single minute of training. Journos ran around like headless chickens looking for somewhere to start some drama, but had to settle from comments from themselves, as the Opals bought into none of it. A huge test resulted in a flawless, winning effort.

Bronze Medal  DQ
Stephanie Rice

Carrying the unfortunate Bruce McAvainy title of "Australia's Golden Girl" from the 2008 Games, hers was always going to be an arduous race. Moreso than being a winner, being a young and pretty lady attracts the media like blood thirsty vultures circling above, just waiting for the next mistake or controversy which they can dive on and devour. Her degree of difficulty has been extreme, and by no means has she run a perfect race. She was in Steffensen territory for a while with her monumental twitter blunders early in the piece, and the bad start cost her the gold in this race. But somehow she's been able to surprise everyone, and has powered through the home straight, with all recent coverage being about her training and progress from injury, and not her looks or tweets. No mean feat. And she goes to London with a reputation as a fierce competitor, not a just a glamour girl, so she's done something right.



Update 25/07/12 PM
Whoops. An automatic DQ for Rice. A reliable source has provided a photograph of her, not only with Hamish and Hamish, but with one half of Dumb and Dumber as well. A moment of insanity, and an indisputable disqualification. Her race to London ends in a spectacular last minute failure.




4th Place
Steve Hooker

Was on his way to a podium finish, but got involved with Steffensen. As a big time athlete, he should have known better. Hooker has had a tough run to these Olympics, but is still aiming to win. Not just compete, but win. He's not blaiming anyone else for his woes, and he's only focused on fixing them. As the Captain of the biggest bunch of whingers in London Australian Athletics Team, he's had a lot of stupidity to deal with. But Steffensen aside, he managed to stay out of the turbulence, which is truly an amazing effort.

5th Place
Natalie Cook

In one shot, the 2000 Gold medalist spared us all from the predictable debate about beach volleyball bikinis before it got off the ground. When a 5-time Olympian says that her uniform is the most practical and comfortable thing to wear, there is no argument to be had. The permanently outraged hadn't even been able to climb atop their high horses and shout sexism, when their arguments were mooted to irrelevancy.

But on the homestretch she has taken her eyes off the prize in the race to London with her clanger about deserving to be the flag bearer. Whether or not she's deserving of the honour, is a little trashy to tell everyone that it should be hers. Her threats of a sit-in protest may or may not have been said in jest, but it doesn't matter, the smallest hint of dissent or controversy, arrogance or sexism, is like shooting fish in a barrel for the Aussie media. And they pounced big time, by the end even Dawn Fraser had a say. Rookie error by the Olympic veteran.

6th Place
Kendrink Monk

Swimming isn't a team sport, but stupidity evidently is. Monk and his thug mate D'Arcy were named Dumb and Dumber after a photo of them in a gun shop in the US was posted on Facebook. Although the ensuing outrage was really just an excuse for the media to make some noise, and no one genuinely cared, these dimwits should have seen the outrage coming. But the photo was really just the icing on the cake for Monk.


Ahh Monk. A swimmer training for an Olympics cruisin' on a skateboard would normally win any race to stupidville, but its what happened next which makes this guy a real dud. The fall from the skateboard and resulting broken arm was of course inevitable, but making up an impossible story about a hit and run accident to cover it up? Monk, you're just not smart enough to pull off a lie that size! Much better to say that you were rolling with your homie D'Arcy who got both of you into a fight at a pub. No one would have questioned it.

7th Place
John Steffensen

Saved from last place by his female equivalent, how this guy is on the team is truly astounding. Even with the fact that he has not come close to the qualifying time; all of his yapping to anyone who will listen; his endless, unsubstantiated claims of racism and prejudice; and his staging of a one-man boycott of the Games, Steffensen has still somehow found himself with a ticket to London. If there's any prejudice going on, its that Steffensen gets preferential treatment! Why Athletics Australia didn't gleefully accept his boycott and move on is a mystery for the ages. Wait for his track campaign to end with last place in his heat.

And not to mention his incoherent tweets! Its not just his attitude that needs work, its also his spelling and grammer. Its astonishing.

DNF
Tamsyn Lewis

Hasn’t come close to the Olympic qualification time for any event, yet somehow still feels justified to complain and cry foul about being uninvited to anyone silly enough not to run in the opposite direction. Constantly playing the victim, she looks for publicity at the lowest common denominator – from the trashy current affairs shows to Zoo Magazine. On the rare occasion she is in the media spotlight for athletics, there’s more nonsense drama than an episode of The Shire.  The uncontrollable tears about coming last in Beijing and her on-track spat with Jana Pittman embarrassed everybody involved. She carries herself with the poise of spoilt pre-teen brat, and wonders why a spot in London isn’t handed to her on a silver platter. In fact the only thing she has got right is claiming that “I'm not wanted”. You're not Tamsyn. You definitely are not.

The London TV Olympics

Its time for the London Olympics.

And the big question is...

Will Channel 9 do better that the debacle of Channel 7's broadcast of the 2008 Olympics? Or go they possibly sink Aussie tv even lower?

The 2008 Olympics are remembered for Channel 7's terrible broadcast which insisted on showing their crap shows instead of the world biggest event. Being a prime time Olympics, it was always going to be too much for 7 to part from their usual schedule of Today Tonight. Showing stories about heartless Councils fining pensioners wins out every time over showing Michael Phelps winning the Gold. Good choice Channel 7 Execs. Evidently 7 only got the Olympics so Channel 9 couldn't.

Fast forward to now and its time for London 2012. Channel 9 has the rights this time. Will they actually show the Olympics which they undoubtedly paid millions for? Or is it too great an ask to not show the Footy Show for two weeks? One thing that is dead certain is the saturation advertising of Underbelly Badness they will force us to endure. The lead actor better get some real gangsta links, because people will be out for his blood after having him plastered all over their tvs at every ad break for 2 weeks straight.

Aussie Slowpoke Rodriguez is ready to race

One absolute certainty will be the attempted Aussie angle on any event which doesn't involve an Australian. That is if its shown at all. Just like our international news which desperately looks for the Aussie angle in covering Bastille Day celebrations from Paris, so too will the Olympic coverage attempt to put the Australian spin on anything and everything in this so called 'world event'. Lookout for the "Aussie Connections" in any sport not involving an Aussie. Jana from the Ukraine, who's brother once came to Australia on a holiday will be renamed "Aussie Jana", despite the fact she thinks by that Australia we mean Austria.

Aussie Kim Clijsters anyone?

Are the Australian public so nationalist and xenophobic that they can't bare to watch anything that doesn't involve a fellow Aussie? Our tv networks certainly think so. Is this a Channel 9 boardroom conversation?

         "Usain Bolt? Sounds like a foreigner to me. World Record? What about the Australian Record?"

There are hundreds of Aussie athletes competing in London, and congratulations to all of them for making it, but forgive me if I’d rather watch Usain Bolt, the US Basketball Team, Michael Phelps or the British Football Team than some Aussie being smashed in the first round of the badminton by Chinese Taipei. Of course, failing the Aussie connection, wait for the heartwarming story about how some town in East Backwater Nowhereville in central Qld held a fundraiser at the local pub so that Granny could fly to London to watch young Johnny be the cox in the rowing.

But lets be honest, just because they are Australian, it doesn't make them likable. Nobody but nobody wants to see the petulant gits, Tamsyn Lewis and John Steffensen. Their inevitable attention seeking tantrums, and self inflated egos which are only matched in size by the margin they'll lose their race are unbearable. Even to see them lose wouldn't be satisfying, as they shouldn't be there in the first place. And who could forget the two bozos from the swim team, the one who fell off his skateboard and broke his arm, and the other who used his government funded training, fitness, and strength to sucker punch a team member to a bloody pulp. Go team!

Speaking of the Aussie spin, one thing that we can be eternally grateful for is that we wont have to put up with is channel 7’s roving reporter who’s name escapes me (Curly, Curny or something). The concoction of this guy's over-exaggerated Aussie accent and his ridiculous questions to confused athletes who are trying to figure out if he’s speaking English between his G’days, Mates and Aussie clichés are enough to make you move to North Korea for their superior and more balanced media coverage. This simpleton is in his element in the Olympics, where after seeing a sport he doesn't know or understand (making it whimsical and stupid), he asks seasoned athletes from non-Australian countries who have just won a Gold medal: “G’day mate, wow, you were high off the ground in the pole vault weren't you?” The polite nods he gets from these athletes as they edge away to speak with real reporters shows the esteem that 7’s man Curly is held.

Of course to try to avoid showing too many foreigners, we can expect usual trick of flicking between events in order to show every single Aussie competing. Is there anything more infuriating watching your tv switch from a shot at goal in hockey to heat 3 of the 400 meters to a free throw in basketball to a bullseye in archery to a serve in volleyball to an attempted high jump to a dismount from the uneven bars in gymnastics to a shot of Anthony LaPaglia in Underbelly Badness, all within a seizure-inducing 2 minutes?

An Australian Olympic broadcast just wouldn't be complete without references about how Sydney 2000 did it better. Or naive commentators comparing fringe foreigner sports which Australians don't win Gold medals in such as basketball, volleyball, or gymnastics to AFL or NRL. Or naming which ever female swimmer wins Gold as our newest Golden Girl. But this year we also have the hope that Channel 9 may actually use its multi channels to give us something close to what we could expect with 2012 technology. Could they possibly dare to upset the 6 people that actually watch Channels Gem and Go by foregoing the screening of Bewitched and Green Acres repeats, and show the Olympics on those channels? And wait for it - Yes, if the Olympics are shown on Channel Gem, they may even be in HD. Imagine that, sport in HD! The future is now. (by future I mean 2007).

So the stage is set, London 2012 is days away, and Channel 9 are promising us multi channels, HDTV, 3D coverage and all the bells and whistles. Will they deliver?

Welcome to The Shire of Bogan

The ads have started, and it's going ahead. Channel 10’s 'The Shire', looks to be exactly as anticipated: A show about vain 20-something nobodies with delusions that a being on a reality show is a career path. It'll all be here. The Ed Hardy t-shirts. The word 'hectic'. The Southern Cross tattoos. The Jetstar specials. The horror of the modern bogan.

The Shire has been touted as an Aussie version of Jersey Shore. But with the state of channel 10’s budgets (they’ve been using the same cardboard cut-outs on the sets of Neighbours for decades), there’s not much that Channel 10 can buy their newest stars that will push their lives into anything beyond suburban mundane. Aside from the obligatory bikini babes to keep the teenage boys interested, there's not much for anyone else to tune in to.

So what will be the hook for this show? What will make people watch? Reality tv shows need to have something that keeps people tuning in. Are the Shire’s (ahem) ‘stars’ famous? No. Are they rich? No. Do they lead exclusive lives? No. Are they interesting people? Hell No. Even the most maligned reality shows have a reason which makes people want to watch the lives of their stars. Paris Hilton & K-Dash – Rich, famous, exclusive. Laguna Beach & The Hills – Rich, exclusive. Jersey Shore – Exclusive (albeit thanks to MTV’s $$).

So it looks like they’ll have to rely on manufactured drama (which will need to be edited when the hot heads inevitably start throwing haymakers at each other after too many Bundy and Cokes), cut-aways to crashing waves and seagulls, and Masterchef style recaps of what just happened. Wait for the tie-in with Lara Bingle’s show to boost the ratings (for both shows). Channel 10 will hope that the combination of the two shows will be greater than the sum of their parts.

As for reality, well no one actually thinks that reality tv is real anymore. The setups, editing and scripts have turned the genre into 'dramality'. But how will this work when there is nothing interesting about the people, situations, or stories of The Shire? Would you stop on the street to listen to bogans talk about how smashed they were last night? Or listen to them rating whatever girls have the misfortune of crossing their line of sight?

Where is this 'Shire'? Is it a mysterious place on the edge of a hidden paradise? No. Its Cronulla. A suburb of Sydney. Calling it 'The Shire' is obviously a ploy to make it sound more exciting than it is. Does anyone really call it the Shire? The last person I knew of who said they were from The Shire was a hobbit on a road trip with a ring and a little bald troll chasing him down yelling out “precious”.

Welcome to the Shire. Get off my beach.

Channel 10 is claiming this show is to show the 'heart of Australia'. But its more like what naive tourists would like to think Australia is. Bronzed pretty people who sit around all day in the sun. I wonder if they have a minimum number of times the cast will have to say “mate”. As I look out my office window into the freezing and busy concrete of Melbourne’s CBD, it seems The Shire's version of Australia is about as true to life as the fact that we hitch rides to work in kangaroos' pouches.

The mark of the well travelled

The truly sad thing about this show is that it celebrates many things that just shouldn’t be celebrated. It will be full of arrogant bogans who think their Southern Cross tattoos and Bintang singlets from Bali; self infatuation and incomprehensible accents; and ignorance to the rest of the world are something to be admired. These are the obnoxious idiots who ruin your night when seated near your table at a restaurant. The embarrassing loudmouths overseas that you cringe when you realise they share the same passport as you, and pray that the locals don’t think you’re like them.



If Channel 10 wants to showcase the Aussie surf culture, why not follow some of Australia’s pro surfers on tour? That would check off all the ingredients for reality tv – rich, talented and famous people with exclusive and interesting lives, living most people's dream job.

Instead we get a bunch of obnoxious nobodies with nothing to do who think they are a somebodies with something to do.

The Age of Blatant Advertising

Someone at The Age must have lost a bet to their mate at Colliers.

If you though that Gen Y City Office fluff piece they dished up a few days back in The Age was advertising masquerading as a pointless article, then this one will knock your socks off. Now they are trying to claim that Gen Y are making Richmond THE place to work, and somehow pass it off as news. 

 
Gravitational pull of Richmond a generational thing

http://www.theage.com.au/business/property/gravitational-pull-of-richmond-a-generational-thing-20120617-20i31.html

In a time that the housing market is going down, and one walk down Bridge Road will show that half the shops are closing down, this piece of advertising is somehow trying to report on a real estate boom, and that Richmond is SUDDENLY NOW a THE place to work. And they are somehow trying to claim that Gen Y has something to do with it? I wonder if its any coincidence that the 'expert' in this article works for a real estate firm based in East Melbourne, which its pretty safe to assume would have Richmond as a sales territory.

It seems these days all you need to do is mention Gen Y, Facebook or texting, and suddenly you've got a newsworthy article! First Gen Y made companies have funky city offices with Fun Spaces, and now it seems they are making companies move to Richmond!

This article about nothing dishes out all the greatest hits cliches from the Real Estate sales handbook, including these pearls:

"undoubtedly the most popular metropolitan office precinct in the current market"

"Existing Richmond tenants were highly unlikely to move out of the suburb"

It then goes on to bang on about 'vacancy rates', 'rental growth' and 'net absorption'

All that's missing is the silver BMW and cheesy smiles and you could have wondered into a real-estate agent after reading this article.

Even this article's apparent 'facts' are wrong. One of the companies they claim has just moved into Richmond has been there for over three years. And not to mention that Richmond has had plenty of offices for years, since back when Gen Y's only trips to Richmond were school excursions to the MCG.

Richmond has been home the the textiles and clothing industry and their offices for over 100 years. Nothing to do with Gen Y, it was because they could use the Yarra for all their chemical waste (the good old days).

And after listing some other companies in Richmond, and their office address, the article just ends!! They didn't even try to wrap it up!

Office Space for a New Generation

What is it with the media and Generation Y?

“Generation Y” is one of the most over used and over hyped buzz words of our generation. If you believe the media hyperbole, you would think that people born after 1980 are almost a new species of human, and are so different to those who can remember the 1984 Olympics, that nothing short of a Rosetta stone is needed for communication across the generations.

A switched-on generation who can’t live without their mobile phones and Internet. Even though this could describe pretty much everyone in the western world in 2012, regardless of the decade they were born, it has somehow been attributed exclusively to Generation Y. Which I assume means everyone else is still using payphones, fax machines, and travel agents?

An article in The Age yesterday is claiming that now even the way offices are designed is all changing, in order to please Generation Y. And assumingly no other reason. Nothing to do with changing tastes, technologies or economies, which have been evolving our buildings and surrounds for millennia. I guess that without the Gen Y hyperbole, an article about how interior design is changing is no more newsworthy that the changing of the seasons. “Summer now coming around annually, because Gen Y like warm weather”

http://www.theage.com.au/business/property/coming-to-an-office-near-you-20120610-2047q.html

THE funky workplaces seen in movies like The Social Network may seem like something that only happens in America, but they could be coming to an office near you.

Only happens in America? Or only happens in movies?  Surely they realise that the Social Network was a movie?

New research by Colliers International shows the growing influence of Gen Y workers will change the design of offices, making them more casual, high-tech, green friendly and fun.

Research? Time for the big issues at Colliers?

Gen Y are not making offices more high tech! Technology is making offices more high tech! Smart phones and Instant Messaging are used because they were invented!

And offices are not green because of Gen Y. Are Gen Y the only ones who can have an environmental social conscience? Last time I checked, Al Gore was 64, not 24.

Doug Henry from Colliers said employers were already turning to office design for an edge as the war for talent heated up.

Crap offices have ALWAYS been a turn off for prospective employees. And bad equipment and technology have been a frustration for years, I'm sure no one was happy when the equipment department provided staff with outdated typewriters in the 1960s. In fact, I'm pretty sure the banking clerks in 1880 were pretty peeved when their boss showed up with knock-off brand abacus boards.

In this so-called activity-based corporate structure, first adopted in the Netherlands 15 years ago, there are no assigned desks and, in most cases, no private offices for executives. Sections of each floor are tailored to different activities: ''hubs'' for smaller groups and individuals; ''clubhouses'' feature more collaborative areas to cater for meetings and brainstorming.

If you can ignore the fact that if these trends did start 15 years ago, when Gen Y was in high school, which nullifies the whole purpose of this article, there are finally some truths here. But attributing open plan offices and hot-desks to an attempt to impress Gen Y is like saying that you've switched to generic brand chocolate because it tastes better than the good stuff.

In many offices, permanent desks are being conquered by the scourge of hot-desks; and execs are showing up to find that their office is now a bathroom. But no one is happy about this, not Gen Y, X, Z or A. These are cost cutting measures! Hot-desks and smaller offices means less rent, less expenses, and  happier shareholders. Not happier staff. People quit because of this stuff. And calling a meeting room a "Clubhouse" is just lame and patronising.

Mr Henry said good pay would always be key to the attraction and retention of staff, but employers could also appeal to Gen Y's sensitivity to their surroundings. He said young workers wanted to work for an employer who demonstrated a commitment to social issues and who operated in a less hierarchical structure. Both these issues had a strong influence on office design.

Sensitivity to surroundings? Is Gen Y a fragile species like Panda Bears? I wonder if the young employees at oil, tobacco or coal mining companies fit into this stereotype!

"I just don't know if I can deal with the office politics anymore"

''The research shows Gen Y workers require continuous and instantaneous feedback from management, yet dislike an authoritative management style,'' Mr Henry said. ''They want the flexibility to work to their own schedules - to break when they want to break, to leave when they need to leave and arrive when they need to arrive.

Don't like authority? Well your boss does! The door is that way!

And work to your own schedule? You'll get the same dirty looks from your boss for showing up at 9.30 that you would have got in 1979 if you showed up late to work after a big night of disco dancing.

''They also seek companionship at work, rather than just colleagues, as they function on a more flexible, social basis.''

So no one who had an office job before 2003 had any work mates?

The result was more efficient use of space, which could lead to smaller offices. It also encouraged an arrangement whereby desks were grouped by skills and connections rather than hierarchy, and which included more ''fun space'' such as lunch rooms.

Just like in the 1980s, nothing gets the office politics firing like office size. The big boss still gets the corner office, middle management still get the tape measures out to see if their office is the biggest, and the unpopular guy still gets seated closest to the toilet.

Offices have had lunch rooms for decades. No one has EVER called a lunchroom a "FUN SPACE". EVER. If they did, they would be ostracised from the rest of their colleagues and eventually fired.

Mr Henry said there would also be a growing requirement from Gen Y to work remotely and to have the space to socialise with their colleagues

Working from home = less people in the office = smaller office = less rental expense = more profits = happier shareholders. Nothing to do with Gen Y's 'requirements'.

And thank you Gen Y for providing us with the invention of bars and coffee shops to socialise in. Because they didn't exist before.

So although misguided, Mr Henry's wacky ideas of how offices function seems great. According to his research, I could show up to work whenever I like wearing a hoodie and sneakers, hi five people Teen Wolf style on my way to the office Fun Space, make a choc mint Frappuccino, and leave whenever I want. But in reality I don't work for Willy Wonka or on the set of a movie, so I show up an hour early, head straight to my desk, put my head down and work, and leave an hour late. Just like everyone else does. Hmmm I wonder if Mr Henry's company is hiring...

So for all those Gen Y's looking to enter the workforce, I've done some research of my own. Using common sense: Business casual just means no tie. Hoodies are not acceptable. Facebook is blocked by the firewall. Your boss would rather be in their office with the door closed, than listening to you whining about how your parents don't treat like you an adult. Flexible hours means Saturdays. Showing up late will lose you that promotion. Riding a scooter in the office will get you fired. And asking a colleague to be your companion in the Fun Space will get you fired and harassment charges laid.

Back to work...

Linked Out

The big news online today is that 6 million LinkedIn account passwords have been hacked.

The LinkedIn share price increased by 0.09% after the news was announced, bucking the downward trend of the past month.

The share price jump was no doubt due to the surge in traffic to the site today with everyone remembering that they actually do have a LinkedIn account, and then accessing it for the first time since 2008 to change the password. There would have been more logins, but most people couldn't remember their password to begin with. News of the hack also prompted many users to ask the hackers for assistance in remembering what their password is.

Facebook are watching the story closely for ideas on how to fix their share price woes. And MySpace has unsuccessfully offered their passwords to the hackers so they can make the same announcement for people to login and change their passwords. Or just login at all.

Having your LinkedIn account hacked can wreak havoc. Someone could update your resume for the first time in 3 years. They may even respond to the dodgy recruiters with their fake job offers, inviting even more fake job offers.

On the flipside, if you can remember you password, now is the time to add those extra post graduate degrees and blue chip experience to the career that you never had. If you ever get found out, just blame the hackers!

Being Lara Bingle is Being Boring

Some more self promos pretending to be news today on The Project.

It started out with some filler story about driverless trains, which naturally was a cue for Bickmore to talk about her son. Its just effortless for her now.

But the real 'news story' of the day was that Lara Bingle was on The Project. All of the praise and admiration lauded on her was a stark contrast to the way she used to be covered by this very show, before she became Channel 10's newest cash cow hope.

The appearance was to promote Channel 10's latest offering in cheap reality tv, Being Lara Bingle. This is another of 10's heavily promoted shows for 2012, and The Project is just the right advertising space.

I think the key goes in here. I think.

Of course there was the obligatory and confusing comparison of Bingle and Micheal Clarke to Posh & Becks. Hmmm, Posh conquered pop culture and the world in the biggest Girl band of all time, selling 75 million albums worldwide; and Becks is one of the most celebrated athletes of all time and a truly global superstar; and together they are worth over £125 Million. And Bingle and Clarke were... umm... Well Bingle's car was stolen once, and Clarke copied Becks' tattoos and haircut.



The Project hasn't been the only promo for this show. The nude photo 'scandal' was also some great promo. There's no question that this 'scandal', in which Bingle was 'unwittingly' photographed nude (again...) was part of the promotion of the show. These photos were taken of her in the apartment provided to her by the producers, standing in the window, topless, with her hair and makeup done. All in perfect time to drum up some interest in her show. The lamest part about this 'privacy invasion' is that the unblurred photos were never leaked to the internet. Come on, how silly do you think we are! Geez even Fev was able to get his nude pic of her onto cyberspace!

Watch the show an you may see more. Maybe.
You'll have to watch and see. 8.00 Tuesday. On 10.
Please watch, you might see boobs.

To prove the point the 'sneak peek' ad for Being Bingle shows an in-depth, scripted conversation about the pictures, which were of course shown over and over, albeit with the buzz kill blurring. So teenage boys - all aboard the Bingle train for potential glimpses of boob!

But Lara isn't the only star this show. Her evidently freeloading brother has moved in with his famous sister, coincidentally at the same time as her show is being filmed. In his 'meet the bingles' bio he's been Christened as "the definition of the Australian bloke", possibly because he likes getting into drunken fights at the races.

But even with all this going on, the prediction is that Bingle will go the way of Excess Baggage, and be cast out unceremoniously to the graveyard of the secondary channel without so much an obituary or goodbye.

This is because reality tv is all about the $$$$$$. Despite Lara's 'Meet the Bingles' bio, Kardashian or Hilton she is not. Watching K-Dash, you see that her idea of a weekend might include taking the private jet to Vegas; partying in the VIP area of Pure nightclub and drinking Crystal and Patron Gran Platinum all night. On the other hand, Bingle's high life weekend might involve flying Jetstar Premium Economy to Sydney, getting free entry to the Ivy and a $50 drink card. Her lifestyle just isn't exclusive or unobtainable enough to be interesting.

So what will be the draw card to this show? In other words, how will it be edited to make it interesting? Lara Bingle as the cutsie girly-girl seems to be the the angle they are going for. Will it work? Or will the drama and 'poor me' victim card be played, and show her whine about lack of privacy, while cameras film every ironic tear? Either way, the one thing you can count on is that this will be more scripted than an infomercial, and it'll be Lara Bingle selling Lara Bingle.

Time will tell...