Dianne Brimble

Finally, the NSW Coroner has published her report on the tragic death of young mother of three, Dianne Brimble - four and a half years after she began investigating the sordid events that lead to an innocent woman dying alone on the floor of a cruise ship while on a family holiday.

The report is heartbreaking in every respect (you can read more about it here) and highlights the callous way in which Ms Brimble was treated by a group of men, one of whom admitted having sex with her just before she died.

As Coroner Jacqueline Milledge said: “She was a person who lived a decent and innocent lifestyle. She had embarked on her holiday with her 12-year-old daughter and other family members, hardly indicative of a woman who intends to cruise, party and engage in a sexual free-for-all.”

Yesterday, journalist, blogger and herself a young mum, Mia Freedman Tweeted that she couldn’t stop thinking about Ms Brimble’s daughter who was about to start the holiday of a lifetime with her adored mother. Me too, and yet, at the end of the long inquiry I was uplifted to see something else though, to be honest, I wasn’t surprised.

The two men who have stood by Ms Brimble all the way through the recounting of the grotesquery that occurred on the ship were there again – her ex-husband Mark Brimble and her partner David Mitchell, both decent, honourable, kind, caring and just so very, very good.

Outside the court they were measured, solemn, dignified, as they always have been. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, man-to-man, united in their grief and concern for Ms Brimble, the very models of how real men behave. “The way in which her life finished has finally been told,” Mr Brimble said of the findings.

Of the man convicted of supplying Ms Brimble with the illicit drug ‘fantasy’, Mr Brimble said; “He’s got to live with that for the rest of his life, no matter what he does or where he goes. I hope that he teaches and raises his children in a decent and respectful way.” (For more, go to this story from the ABC’s court reporter Janelle Wells).

Mr Brimble and Mr Mitchell are everyday Australian men, and they are beacons of decency. I prefer to focus on their goodness and what it says about the woman they loved, rather than dwell on the despicable behaviour of the men with whom the coroner has dealt.

Ben Cousins on a recent cover of leading men's magazine GQ

Controversial Australian Rules Footballer Ben Cousins and his long-time manager Ricky Nixon have parted company.

Nixon, who has looked after various business affairs and sponsorship deals for Cousins for more than a decade, told me today that he and the champion Richmond midfielder severed their professional relationship two weeks ago.

He refused to comment on the reasons behind the split and said Cousins was now being represented by the Richmond Football Club.

When asked why, Nixon replied: “I’m not going to make a public comment about it”.

Nixon, who runs the Flying Start sports management company, stood beside Cousins when he was booted from the West Coast Eagles for drug abuse and deregistered from the AFL for “bringing the game into disrepute”. He was instrumental in getting the 31-year-old Brownlow medallist back into the game for the 2009 season at Richmond.

As reported elsewhere, it is believed Cousins’s upcoming documentary and book deal are part of the reasons for the split.

Cousins has had several problems during his long and successful career. He was busted for fleeing a booze bus in 2006, and suspended from the Eagles in mid-2007 while he underwent rehab for drug abuse the United States, before being brought back into the fold until his comeback was cut short by injury.

Ben Cousins with police after his arrest

Finally, though, he was sacked from the club after being arrested, shirtless with his “such is life” tattoo fully exposed, for drug possession at the end of 2007. The charge was later dropped but he was banished from the league for a year.

He is set to return to the field when the season kicks off in March.

Russell Crowe - to star in A Star Is Born?

It’s true. Russell Crowe has been approached to star in the remake of A Star is Born with multi-Grammy winner Beyonce.

“Having a casual chat about it; nothing definite,” Crowe told me in a email on Friday. “Very casual conversation at producer Billy Gerber’s request.”

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Warners Bros resurrected the project after Beyonce restated her interest in the movie the studio previously released in 1976. The ’70s version starred Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.

Beyonce to star in the remake of A Star is (re)Born

Gerber produced the 2008 gritty drama Gran Torino, which starred Clint Eastwood as a disgruntled war veteran intent on cleaning up his neighbourhood.

Crowe, a three-time Best Actor nominee at the Academy Awards and one-time Oscar winner, is currently in Sydney between films. He recently completed the thriller, The Next Three Days, a remake of the 2008 French film Pour Elle. Crowe plays a husband who breaks his wife out of jail after she has been sentenced for a murder she didn’t commit in the film directed by Paul Haggis.

But before that hits the big screen, fans can see Crowe as a broody, rugged Robin Hood in the as-yet untitled film that re-teamed him with director Ridley Scott, who directed Crowe to a Best Actor Oscar in the brilliant Gladiator. Hood is due to be released in May.

Russell Crowe as Robin Hood

The remake of Star would be a perfect fit for Beyonce, who hasn’t exactly set the world on fire in her previous cinematic outings. The natural born singer, who picked up several awards at the 2010 Grammys, has reportedly been interested in the film for some time.

In the film, a movie star (possibly Crowe if talks with Gerber result in him signing on the dotted line) helps a young singer/actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism start to disrupt his own career.

Meanwhile, in other news from the Crowe household, the actor’s wife Danielle Spencer’s second album, Calling All Magicians will be released within days and is already garnering great press in the United Kingdom as well as Australia.

Her producer Tony Visconti (he’s worked with Bowie and Morrissey) said he got on board with the petite performer after hearing her voice. “This is the best album I’ve worked on in years,” he told reporters. Her first single, Just a Thought, is “too beautiful for words,” he said.

Now that’s a compliment.

Joel Edgerton and Cate Blanchett in the New York production of A Streetcar Named Desire (picture Sara Krulwich, The New York Times)

Sydney actor Joel Edgerton is on fire – and so is Cate Blanchett, but we already knew that.

The New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley has just anointed him for his “excellent” performance alongside massively praised Cate Blanchett in the Tennessee Williams epic, A Streetcar Named Desire.

(The play was universally applauded by critics, including John McCallum in The Australian, when it premiered at The Sydney Theatre Company in September).

And his next film, Animal Kingdom, is the only Australian movie chosen to screen at the prestigious 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it will make its world premiere.

Only 14 films were selected for the “world cinema narrative competition” from a staggering 1022 entries.

Not bad going, and great kudos for the Australian film industry.

Animal Kingdom was written and directed by David Michod and filmed on location in Melbourne during a tight seven-week shoot earlier this year. It stars a string of exceptional Australian actors including Melbourne-based Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn and the indefatigable Jacki Weaver.

According to a report by InsideFilm.com.au earlier this year, Animal Kingdom is a “taut thriller set amid the explosive world of a family addicted to crime, as experienced through the eyes of a naïve 17-year-old youth who enters their lair. It’s the Wild West where criminals and police wage their war on the city’s streets, while the innocent suffer the consequences.”

Animal Kingdom film poster

With Edgerton and Pearce (he plays a cop) in the same film, it will be cheekbones at 10-paces.

Edgerton’s career has been on the rise in recent years (even Blanchett forgave him for throwing a prop-telephone at her during a Streetcar performance at the STC recently) and Brantley’s glowing review of his Stanley Kowalksi (originally shaped by the great – in every sense – and late Marlon Brando) has got to be among the highlights.

“Mr Edgerton brings out the childlike side of Stanley, both its simple joyousness and thoughtlessness, and it has rarely been clearer that Stella’s husband has the winning strength of youth,” Brantley wrote.

Under arrest in Sydney Harbour, the Gem of Safaga bulk carrier swings on a mooring off Point Piper (picture by Sandra Lee)

Sydney Harbour has become home to a shipping eyesore with the arrest of an Indian-owned bulk carrier currently in custody off picturesque Point Piper.

The 65,163-tonne Gem of Safaga arrived in Port Kembla on November 3 and was placed under arrest.

“The ship is currently the subject of a charter dispute between a UK charterer and its owners in India,” according to a statement from the Sydney Ports Corporation. “The ship was placed under arrest in Port Kembla for the alleged non-payment of charter fees. The ship is under the control of the Federal Marshal.”

The bad news is that the Safaga, built in 1982, is expected to remain in the middle of the harbour at the Point Piper buoy until the end of November when the matter is scheduled to be heard in court.

The ship was moved under guard by two marine police officers from a working berth at Port Kembla to Sydney Harbour on November 10. It can not use berths at either Glebe Island and White Bay because the Energy Australia cable-layer is at berth and the HMAS Adelaide is being de-commissioned in preparation to be turned into an artificial reef off the NSW central coast. As well, a Maersk ship is scheduled to steam in for repairs.

The impounded vessel is 228-metres long and towers over the Manly ferry. It has been placed on a swing mooring and has become something of a maritime chicane for Sydney’s famous twilight yacht racing competitions.

“Sydney Ports has been in contact with the ship’s representatives to ensure that noise from the ship is kept to a minimum, given its proximity to residential areas.”

Yes, but what about the eyesore factor?

Reese Witherspoon on the November edition of maire claire

Ever wondered what it’s like to be addicted to drugs – and not just any drugs? But heroin, cocaine and amphetamines?

A living nightmare with no end, according to an incredibly inspiring young woman I just interviewed for the November edition of marie claire magazine which features Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon on the cover.

Naomi (not her real name) talks with rare honesty about her decision to use drugs – yes, she decided to use, like most addicts – and how her life deteriorated over a few short years to the point where she was stealing from her family and friends, acting as a driver while her addict boyfriend committed burglaries, and became a dealer to feed what was, at its nadir, a $1500-a-day habit.

Naomi began smoking marijuana at the age of 15 and her life story is bound to add to the hot debate among the experts about whether the noxious weed is the first stepping stone to more serious addictions or just a harmless drug.

“I started smoking marijuana,” Naomi told me. “I knew it would upset my parents. I was just so angry at them.”

By the time she was 20, her life was so sordid that she is lucky to have survived at all. “I injected the drugs into my arms, when those veins collapsed I injected into veins in my wrists,” she says.

But there is hope. Naomi entered Odyssey House in Melbourne and got clean with the help of its residential drug rehabilitation program, and while very dark in parts, her story is ultimately uplifting.

To find out how one young life deliberately got so out of control and then was turned around, pick up a copy of marie claire.

Ruth Madoff reckons she’s embarrassed, ashamed, confused, and betrayed by her husband’s fraud. But is she sorry?

Not if you read between the lines of her public statement in the aftermath of the (excessive?) 150-year sentence handed to her disgraced Ponzi fraudster Bernard Madoff  in a New York court on Monday.

Of the convicted crook with whom she shared a bed for 50 years she says, “the man who committed this horrible fraud is not the man I’ve known all these years”.

Hello? Who was he then? Wasn’t she paying attention the past few years? How could you miss the elephant in the corner – i.e. the piles of money?

The thing that strikes me about Mrs Madoff statement – which comes after she has been roundly criticised for saying nothing and therefore appearing indifferent and unsympathetic to her husband’s victims – is that it hits all the right emotional buttons yet still seems hollow, somehow. Almost as if there is an emotional disconnect. Like she knows she has to say she’s shocked, and it’s a terrible nightmare and enormous fraud and her financier husband has caused wrenching pain and she’s a victim and she, too, can’t believe he did it. No, Really!

But I’m thinking Mrs M sounds most shocked for herself because “my life with the man I have known for over 50 years is over.” The ritz. The glamour. The privilege. Well almost over.

Let’s not forget that Mrs Madoff has been afforded the court-ordered privilege on retaining US$2.5 million of the family’s $171 billion fortune – $80 million of which she laid claim to – while hundreds of victims of her crooked husband have been entirely wiped out. It must be hard to survive on such a paltry amount.

Me? I’m not buying Mrs Madoff’s spin.

Two words: crocodile tears.

For the entire statement, go here: