Nadine Williams

No Buts, Butt out

My esteemed colleague, Peter Goers’ article today (Sunday, May 30) needs to be addressed and to set the scene here are some vital statistics to mull over on World No Tobacco Day – May 31.

The average Australian male can expect to live to 79 years old ; Women in Australia on average will reach 84 years of age.

Both men and women are now living 25 years longer than 100 years ago (55 years for men and 59 years for women) – a wonderful gift of time to be relished.

Chances are far too many long-term addicted smokers won’t live to enjoy the bonus years.

The National Ageing Research Institute at the University of Melbourne reckons the extra quarter-century is due to better disease prevention, better knowledge of how lifestyle factors affect health and a much better public health system.
The link between lifestyle factors – no-smoking, low-moderate alcohol consumption, healthy weight and regular exercise – and disease prevention is well-known to babyboomers. It’s an important reason why vast numbers of boomers have quit smoking already. But today – World No Tobacco Day – is about those who are still addicted, whose habits, according to many federal government reports breed disease – heart disease, stroke, and lung cancers in both sexes.

The Institute admits genetics plays a role in our life span, but how we live day by day to prevent or breed disease places our long life chances in our own hands.
This is all sober stuff on the cusp of World No Tobacco Day – the ideal time to give up smoking – and increase your chances of long, healthy life.

One must weigh up the discomfort of temporary cravings and higher stress levels with the benefits of butting out – and dramatically reducing the risk of smoking-related diseases and dying prematurely.

Quit smoking before middle-age (45-50??) reduces your risk of developing lung cancer by 90 per cent.
• After a year of quitting the habit, your increased risk of death from heart attack will be halved.
• Quit smoking for 15 years and the risk of stroke will have fallen to that of someone who has never smoked. No Butts!

Action on Smoking and Health states smoking is still the leading cause of chronic disease in Australia – and it’s preventable. No wonder smokers are socially ostracised because the economic cost to the taxpayer in treating life-threatening smoking-related disease is a huge drag on our hip pocket. Also consider that the National Preventative Health Strategy states a massive one third of Australia’s health budget is to treat disease caused by lifestyle factors, such as smoking, which can be altered through choice to prevent debilitating illness and premature death.

Help is at hand. Call Quitline 13 7848 or visit www.quitsa.org.aufor a FREE QUIT kit.

Family first as Chris Nicholls turns 60

(From left) The Nicholls Family-Stan, Cameron, Julia, Rob, Nancy and Chris

Former Adelaide model and co-founder of Rave Model Agency, still glamorous Chris Nicholls recently turned 60 with a family shebang in Wellington, New Zealand where she was born.

Chris and husband Robert Nicholls, former South Australian businessman, now live in Doonan, in Noosa  Hinterland, Queensland

The milestone birthday has ushered in profound change for the family with Chris and Rob convincing his ageing parents, well-known South Australian couple, Nancy and Stan Nicholls, to move to Queensland where they can care for them in their dotage.

Nancy and Stan have lived in Adelaide all of their 85 years, and lately independently in their Kingswood unit, so it was a massive move for them.  Now the octaganarians live at the Coolum Waters Retirement Resort, Coolum Beach, Sunshine Coast. Read more »

Love,Lust and Lies

Diana Doman, Kerry Carlson and Josie Petersen with Gillian Armstrong (second from right). Photo by Helen Orr

Their names are Josie, Diana and Kerry and their suburban lives have become rivetting social history in Love, Lust and Lies, a documentary by Gillian Armstrong.

The three Adelaide women – Diana Doman, Kerry Carlson and Josie Petersen – all attended the recent packed world premiere of the film  held in the Palace Nova cinema in Hindley Street, Adelaide.

Love, Lust and Lies is the combination of five films from Gillian Armstrong dating from 1976 covering the women’s life passages through dating, marriage, having babies, rearing children, divorce and scandal. The SA Film Corporation was the first to commit to funding the film.

When the women were all 14 year olds, Gillian Armstrong had walked into a youth drop-in centre in Thebarton in Adelaide’s western suburbs, seeking some girls for a short 20-minute film about being 14-year-olds. Read more »

Zonta celebrates fine fundraising

An impressive pile of 40 colourful hand-made blankets were donated to Catherine House for Adelaide’s homeless women at Zonta International’s handover dinner for the Adelaide/Flinders club this week.

The event at Ayers House attended by 50 women and some men, saw retiring president  Carolyn Colquhuon  hand the reins of the women’s service club to Jodi Knoop.

Guests also viewed an illuminating video of Zonta’s Australia-wide birthing kit program for third world countries, including Ethiopia, Chad and Cambodia.

The kits are assembled at workshops where groups of Zontians and friends pack the individual parts including a clean piece of plastic, soap and plastic gloves into neat packages, which are then distributed to poor regions of the world where hygiene is low and infant mortality is high. In some regions, there is not even running water in the huts with dirt floors where babies are born.

The video stated that 500,000 women die each year around the world delivering their babies or from high rates of infection.

The service club also presented a cheque for $4000 to Margaret MacDonald for her sponsorship of Cambodian orphanage Mekhala House.

The Foundation for Developing Cambodian Communities (FDCC) operates Mekhala House, a home for orphaned and underprivileged girls in a rural province of Cambodia. It is home to 45 children and was established by a group of Australians four years ago.

All Australians involved are volunteers andtheir aim is to empower girls so they can become leaders in their communities. See www.fdcc.org.au.

My night of dreams

MAY 15.

Tonight I hurl myself into cyberspace with the launching of my website www.nadinewilliams.com.au and I feel like I am soaring high on a kite and who knows where I will land.
It’s an exhilarating ride, but I am also incredibly scared of what I may have unleashed here. I am like a kindergarten kid navigating a Boeing 747 at 37,000 feet!

However, the occasion is a special event in my life because we will announce publicly at the perfect venue – the Wallis Cinema Complex, at Mitcham – that I have sold the film option rights for my debut book From France With Love to young Adelaide film producer Peta Astbury. Of the crowd sipping champagne and nibbling on my home-made petite quiches, only family knows this exciting fact.

Special guest is Joan Lady Hardy, former Adelaide model who met and married the dashing Olympic Gold medallist yachtsman and wine king, Sir James Hardy. She is “special guest’’ as the epitome of ageing well and arrives in a stunning black dress with its draped, cowell neckline – glamorous, gracious, warm and dignified – and still so beautiful. Read more »

Toque Blanche at Le Cordon Bleu

Philippe Clergue from Le Cordon Bleu

Quality more than quantity still rules the plate in France, despite societal change surrounding food, says eminent Parisian Cordon Bleu chef, Philippe Clergue, who was in Adelaide recently for Tasting Australia.

And, whatever the future holds for French cuisine, his message is that seafood will always be a dominant ingredient on the menus of France.

So it is no surprise that the one-star Michelin chef, who is responsible for aspects of the curriculum at Cordon Bleu in Paris chose a seafood menu for his recent Masterclass at Cordon Bleu at Regency Park.

It is the first time the elite culinary school has brought out a top French chef to run a Masterclass for guest students from the public. Read more »