Lara Bingle vs. Nicole King...

I was going to write about this the other day. I was intending to put this in the "tattoo series" that I have been putting together. The hook was always going to be that Nicole King and Lara Bingle were cousins and the idea of healthy competition among family members.

To be honest, King's tattoo is pretty impressive. It is worth pointing out that along the rib cage is one of the more painful places to have ink work done. Unless you are a fat bastard like me, then it is not all that different to anywhere else on your personal canvas (aka skin).

Lara Bingle's fame sort of stemmed from being picked from relative obscurity to be the bikini in the Australian Tourism ad campaign "Where the Bloody Hell are ya?" More recently it has been about being engaged to Michael Clarke, Australian Test Cricket Captain in waiting, and then being separated from Clarke.

The fact that there is a mobile phone topless shot of her floating around the internet taken by a married former lover of hers, Brendan Fevola, ensures that she remains a searchable prospect on the internet. This is particularly so in the light of persistent rumours that there are also a few naked and full-frontal options available.

However, the icing on the cake for these two is that Bingle has come out on the Kyle Sandilands 2Day FM radio show and said that she is not related to King. They are not cousins. Bingle does not know of her, and has never met her.

Not to be deterred, King has countered that they are in fact cousins because King's mother and Bingle's father were cousins.

In the big scheme of things, I am sure it is important for them. For me, it is just a pretty good excuse to post some bikini pictures of two attractive young women, and one with a pretty nice tattoo.

Elin Nordegren and Tiger Woods -- Divorced...

It is official, the marriage of one Tiger Woods and one Elin Nordegren is over.

It really could not have ended any other way, could it?

No terms of the divorce settlement have been announced. The only statement was that their mutual and paramount concern was for their two children and they made a call for privacy. In any event, it is going to be a difficult conversation that Mr. Woods has to have with his children at some point in the future, you know the one, "Dad, why did you and Mum get divorced?"

I would reckon Ms. Nordegren ended up with a settlement that over time will be well over USD 100 million. She deserves it.

The World Cup 2010 -- A Body Paint Retrospective...

Surprisingly enough I watched most of the 2010 World Cup. I do not mind watching some good football. This is not to say that every game was a cracker and worth the price of admission. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and I enjoyed watching it.

The final was a bit of a let down, on a personal level, I was hoping that the Dutch would get up for the win. However, in the big scheme of things it really did not bother me that Spain won. The game was interesting to watch for the comparison between the beautiful and brutal game adopted by Spain and The Netherlands respectively. I cannot recall a game where I have seen so many yellow cards and only one red one.

Now, on with the show. This retrospective is about what could have been. There definitely needs to be more fans getting into the body paint thing. This would ensure that the cameramen and camerawomen had something to do when the game became a little boring. Besides, I am not sure if anyone else has noticed this, there is a lot of crowd shots and close up shots of good looking crowd members (usually women) at all sporting events now. I noticed this not only at the world cup but also on the cricket last night on the television. I can understand it in cricket, there needs to be something to break up the monotony of watching the grass grow.

So, this post is about the fans that we did not see in the crowd (these are the more tame pictures that I found).

Anonymous Blogger -- Outed By the Courts & Google...

This is a follow-up to an earlier post on anonymous blogging and whether one can be truly anonymous when they blog, particularly if they are writing content that offends someone and they decide to take legal action. You can read that post here.

The anonymous blogger is Rosemary Port, a 29-year-old fashion student from New York, and she is so unhappy about Google giving up her identity and breaching her right to privacy that she is allegedly going to sue Google for USD 15 million.

Port's lawyer, Salvatore Strazzullo, seems to think that the case has enough legs to get all the way to the US Supreme Court. The arguments that Strazzullo are going to run with revolve around the fact that Google has "breached its fiduciary duty to protect her [Port] expectation of anonymity".

However, the other likely angles include that Cohen had a hand in publishing the sexually provocative pictures of herself and that the defamation action was nothing more than an attempt drum up some publicity for herself and defame Port into the bargain. Furthermore, Cohen has described herself as a "serial monogamist". Interesting choice of words to accompany the pictures posted of her.

This case would seem to have some ways to go.

A long story short, Port created a blog called "Skanks in NYC" and it seems that the only 'skank' Port focused on was Liskula Cohen. Cohen was offended and felt she had been defamed but was unable to proceed with any claim against the person doing the defaming because the blog was anonymous. Jumping forward, Cohen sues Google to get the identity of the anonymous blogger, the court decides that Google must hand over the identity, Google hands over the identity, and Port is outed.

Strangely enough, Cohen has 'forgiven' Port and pretty much brushed the matter off as Port being "an irrelevant person in my life". It would seem she knew Port, but obviously they were far from being friends. Although, they seem to have known each other well-enough that Cohen was comfortable allegedly trashing Port to Port's ex-boyfriend. Ahhhhh, the lives of models and fashion students.

It will be interesting to see if all the talk of taking this case all the way to the US Supreme Court comes to fruition.

A Model Life Ends In Tragedy

It is sad when people feel that there is no options left in life that they then decide to take their own. No matter what the circumstances, suicide is always a tragedy. Mostly for those left behind and scratching their heads and trying to work out why, or what the missed, or was there a tell tale sign that went unnoticed.

Yet, when the suicide is of a 20-year old model with the world seemingly at her feet it becomes particularly baffling. And this is the case with Ruslana Korshunova who is considered to be one of the supermodels and who has apparently jumped from the 9th floor window of her apartment in the financial district of New York City.

Hailing from Almaty in Kazakhstan she was a cover girl for vogue and one of the faces of 2005 (photo courtesy of AP).

It is a sad way to end a promising life.