Bingle Blog

Federal Member for Lindsay Jackie Kelly was the third competitor to bid a cool farewell from Nine’s live spectacular Torvill & Dean’s Dancing On Ice.

Kelly and partner Pavel Aubrecht returned to the bottom two for a second week to challenge former Test cricketer Michael Slater and Anya D’Jamirze in a sudden-death skate-off. Despite an improved performance second time around, Kelly’s routine to “My Heart Will Go On” was not enough to win over the judges.

The mother-of-two dedicated her performance to “every mother in every shopping centre and street who has come up to me and said, ‘Go girl.’”

Kelly said: “If you lived without children, didn’t cook dinner every night and had training by Torvill & Dean, any woman could do it.”

“At the end of the line, I was not a good enough skater and not enough people voted.”

Glamour girl Lara Bingle skated into the lead with a red-hot version of “Big Spender”, although she claimed her “body (couldn’t) handle the flexible stuff.” Today host Karl Stefanovic and former carpenter-turned-model Jake Wall – who undertook dance classes to flesh out his performance this week – rounded out the top three.

‘Giraffe on ice’ and perennial audience favourite Jules Lund took a serious turn on the ice with his version of “Luck Be A Lady” for the Las Vegas-themed show. While Lund was lowest-ranked celebrity last night, he recorded his highest score in the competition to date – thanks to a little public bribery of judge Jason Gardiner.

Remaining competitors in Torvill & Dean’s Dancing on Ice:

• Karl Stefanovic & Linda Aubrecht
• Jules Lund & Kristina Coustins
• Lara Bingle & Matt Evers
• Jake Wall & Maria Fillipov
• Michael Slater & Anya D’Jamirze
• Annalise Braakensiek & Trent Nelson-Bond

The series culminates in a grand finale where one couple will be crowned Australia’s newest ice dancing sensation and take home the ANZ Credit Card trophy.

Torvill & Dean’s Dancing on Ice
Week 5
Tuesday, August 12 at 7.30pm
ninemsn.com.au/dancingonice

Indeed, at one level the campaign has been a monumental success. Awareness of Australia in some of its key markets is at highs not seen since the 2000 Olympics. The ad has become an internet sensation and model Lara Bingle has gone from obscurity to starring in a celebrity-laden skating television program.

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from: Owen to be Aussie
entertainment.news.com.au/story/0,10221,19887816-7485,00.html

It was a case of "Where the bloody hell are you?" for tourism model Lara Bingle, who arrived late for proceedings after being stuck in traffic.

Dressed in white pants and a white shirt, Bingle took a lonely walk up the red carpet as fans and media chased Wilson and Hudson into the cinema.

COMPLAINTS from just 33 television viewers in a land of more than 55 million people have pushed Tourism Australia's controversial "So, where the bloody hell are you?" advertising campaign to an adults timeslot in Britain.

Lara Bingle's use of the word "bloody" has been found to be so offensive by British viewers that the ad has been moved to after 9pm.
It is the second time such a ban has been placed on the multi-million dollar campaign in Britain. In March, the advertising regulator lifted a previous ban after Tourism Minister Fran Bailey and Bingle made a dash to Britain to defend its showing. But since the commercial has gone to air, 33 viewers have objected to the Advertising Standards Authority about the swearing.

Of these, 16 were also concerned that children might see the commercial, and eight believed it should not be shown before 9pm.

The ASA yesterday ruled that parents were entitled to expect that TV advertising should not appear to endorse or encourage swearing.

Despite the latest restrictions, more than 180 million people had already seen the ad worldwide, Ms Bailey said yesterday.

A SYDNEY judge was asked to contemplate the nature of smut yesterday, as barristers argued over a defamation claim brought by model Lara Bingle against a men's magazine.


Photo: Fiona Lee Quimby

Bingle had just become the face of Tourism Australia's "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign when Zoo Weekly published photographs of her in March.

Its cover was a "world exclusive" shot of Bingle in a bikini. Inside, another photograph had a speech bubble bearing the words "I'll make you come". An accompanying press release declared: "Lara Bingle Poses Topless for New Men's Magazine".

But, according to papers filed in the Federal Court, Bingle posed neither topless not exclusively for the mag. The photographs, she said, were taken last year to promote her modelling career and the photographer's business.

Bingle, 19, is suing Zoo Weekly's publisher, Emap, for defamation, misleading conduct and breach of copyright. She also claims she has been defamed by imputations that she was "the sort of model who would invite the readers of a smutty men's magazine to achieve sexual pleasure as a result of looking at photographs of her".

Counsel for Emap, Dauid Sibtain, disputed that Zoo Weekly was smutty. "It's a humorous magazine," he told the court. He said the words "I'll make you come" were not an invitation to achieve sexual pleasure, but a double entendre, playing on Bingle's Tourism Australia fame.

Bingle's counsel, Matthew Richardson, provided Justice Edmonds with copies of Zoo Weekly, pointing out that the issue featured animals fornicating, a man vomiting, sexual services advertisements and "scantily clad women describing their sexual fantasies and experiences".

"That's all fairly clearly smutty material," Richardson said.

Click here for more screencaps of Lara Bingle on Torville & Dean's Dancing on Ice

Thanks X-Factor for a great cap!!

One contestant at the Channel 9 celebrity ice-skating show's after-party this week let slip to (Confidential ) the actualities behind the voting "twist", being unveiled next Tuesday. Apparently, the pairs voted in the bottom two will have to compete in a dance-off to decide the night's loser.
Meanwhile, model contestant Annalise Braakensiek revealed she has four weeks of healing ahead after fracturing two ribs in training. Ouch.

Fellow contestant Lara Bingle, above, says she's happily single and is not on the hunt for a boyfriend.

"No, I'm not looking for a boyfriend, I'm just having so much fun since my career has taken off," Lara says.

> more caps at Aussie Celebs

Screencap by Jedda from Aussie Celebs

Click here for more screencaps of Lara Bingle

THEY say all publicity is good publicity but this image doing the email rounds might be, um, skating a little close to the edge.

Still, embattled Nine CEO Eddie McGuire might get a smile out of being placed in the skating shoes of the great Christopher Dean while Jessica Rowe will surely raise a giggle by having her head thrown on Jane Torvill's body.

We won't see either of them when the show, Torvill and Dean's Dancing on Ice, begins next week but viewers will see plenty of goosebumps on the female contestants.

With models Lara Bingle and Annaliese Braakensiek heating up the ice, Nine isn't wasting the opportunity to show off some skin.

All the girls will be required to wear tiny little costumes, with the idea of skating in a bikini even raised by producers.

Tsunami widow Trisha Broadbridge was asked to wear a tiny two-piece for her opening night routine but instead opted for a less revealing number.


Full Article: www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,19693294-5001025,00.html

Get ready to see your favourite celebrities take a fall, writes Sarrah Le Marquand ...

IT'S easy to be fooled by the sequinned costumes and the soaring music. But ice skating is physically demanding and technically challenging in a way few activities are.

The very real danger of injury haunts even the most seasoned professional.

It's for this reason Christopher Dean – one half of the renowned skating duo Torvill and Dean – repeatedly uses the word "jeopardy" when discussing the sport that catapulted him to international fame.

"You are a hair's breadth away all the time from being right or being wrong . . . it's very hairline," he says with a nervous laugh as he glances at the skaters strutting their stuff at a skating rink in southwest Sydney.

His skating partner of 30 years, Jane Torvill, nods in agreement. "Even for us you have moments on the ice where you think 'oh, something's not quite right'. You only need to be a fraction off," she says.

Yet the risk of injury hasn't stopped 10 brave – some might say foolhardy – souls from signing up for Torvill And Dean's Dancing On Ice, the latest celebrities-out-of-their-comfort-zone vehicle to skate on to our screens.

For the past two months former cricketer Michael Slater, models Lara Bingle and Annalise Braakensiek, federal MP Jackie Kelly, Today host Karl Stefanovic, Young Australian of the Year Trisha Broadbridge, former AFL player Dermott Brereton, swimmer Giaan Rooney, reporter Jules Lund and model and Jennifer Hawkins squeeze Jake Wall have been practising their routines at various skating rinks around the country.

In the lead-up to Tuesday's opening night there have been plenty of frayed nerves, mishaps and injuries, some more serious than others.

"It's quite a commitment for everybody's who signed up – the amount of time they have to put into it but also what it entails for their body," Dean says. "Without wanting to use a pun, they are literally on the edge."

As if to prove his point, Braakensiek sits nearby, gingerly unlacing her boots. Having broken a rib while practising a lift, she's been unable to train for three weeks and has only just returned to the ice today.

"It's really disappointing," she says. "It's unlikely now that I'm going to do anywhere near as good as I would have. I'm hoping people have empathy for my situation so I won't be kicked off until I'm healed and have a chance to show what I'm capable of."

Although Torvill and Dean have taught their celebrity pupils the best ways to prevent injuries, they warn it's an inevitable part of the process.

"We had a physio in the UK show around all the time. She was the busiest person on the show," Dean says of the British version of Dancing On Ice, which aired earlier this year. Although it's a format that's since been sold overseas, Australia is the only country to enlist Torvill and Dean as part of the show.

Each week the English pair will perform a routine on the Channel 9 venture, which will be broadcast live from a specially renovated ice-skating arena in Sydney's north-west. But it's the role they perform off-screen role that really matters: coaching each of the 10 novice skaters and their professional partners before they take to the ice under the scrutiny of a panel of judges.

In what has become an extremely familiar format, the judges' verdict will be combined with viewer votes to decide which couple is eliminated each week.

It's an ambitious project and carries the expectations of a network which, besieged with the fallout from its recent redundancies and well-publicised inner spats, is hoping viewer fascination will not disappoint.

"I think the reason these shows work is that you're taking people and throwing them into the unknown where they have to start from scratch," muses Michael Slater. "None of us had any skating experience and then they see us whizzing around and I think it taps into the public imagination. What it's shown me is don't be scared to try something new. It's a reminder that if you throw time and energy into something then you will learn it, whether it be a language or a sport or a skill of some nature."

Although the show is settling in to the timeslot usually inhabited by Seven's Dancing With The Stars, Slater argues there are key differences between the rival shows.

"We're trying to move to the music as best we can on these tiny little blades," he laughs. "So when there is something a bit tricky like a lift we do it before we get on the ice because you've got a stable footing – you put those skates on and it feels like the floor is moving the whole time. There's a stronger element of difficulty than if you're trying to strut your stuff on the dance floor."

Ask him to rate his competition on the ice, and Slater concedes Jake Wall and his partner are "early favourites", Karl Stefanovic is proving quite light on his feet and Lara Bingle has been spotted "flying around in the air with her partner". "But I think the biggest thing on the first night will be those couples who can handle their nerves," he adds.

Being impartial mentors, a very diplomatic Torvill and Dean won't be drawn on predicting outcomes regarding their celebrity charges.

"Also, what we found in the UK show was that most of the people we thought were an absolute shoo-in went down halfway through," Dean says. "We couldn't believe it. So personality kicks in as well."

"You also get families where mum and dad will like somebody else from the children," Torvill points out. "It's an all-round family entertainment. In the UK there were teenagers holding parties where they'd all go around to somebody's house. It was nice to hear they were doing that."

Although the former Olympic champions admit they had initial reservations about coming out of retirement, they're delighted Dancing On Ice has seen them team up again.

"You still feel like you're 18 and you think you can do this and that and then you wake up in the morning and it's like 'oh no'," laughs Dean. "That's how we were feeling but the success of the show makes you feel good. We're very excited about it because before about a year ago we thought all our skating was behind us. This is all a bit of a bonus and it brought us back together again."

Torvill And Dean's Dancing On Ice, Tuesday, Nine 7.30pm

Extract: www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,19686748%5E28957,00.html

"Monk is also raising her profile after lending her support to marie claire magazine's Dress Red for Women Day on Friday. Aussie beauties, including Lara Bingle, want women to wear red to raise awareness for heart disease."

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