She's a man-eater... wish you never ever met her at all

Those pesky tabloid journos are at it again.

This time they're floating about on Sydney Harbour hauling in bull sharks by the dozen. Or that's what they'd like you to think. Talk about a beat up.

Mrs BS was going about her business yesterday, opting for kingfish over human flesh, when a fisherman hired by The Daily Telegraph reeled her in. The scary pic on the Tele's front page (where was the photographer when he took that photo?) is accompanied by the headline:

GOTCHA! EXCLUSIVE: Sydney Harbour, 1.15pm. How we caught a man-eater

What a relief! I can now confidently enter the Sydney Harbour Ocean Swim this Sunday, safe in the knowledge that Mrs BS's culinary preferences don't extend to females.

She's a man-eater!

Because of the extended media coverage of the shark story - there have been two shark attacks in Sydney in the past month - the harbour swim organisers have taken extra precautions and have doubled the number of underwater patrol persons to six and have stationed observers at three spots around the course - Mrs Macquarie's Point, Farm Cove and Pinchgut.

Personally, I am pleased there's extra sharkbait in the water but I don't know how much the divers can see down there. It's murky on a clear day. I pray it doesn't rain the night before.

I'm more sceptical about the shark spotters. Imagine it, the swim is in full swing with several hundred swimmers thrashing about when the guy at Mrs Macquarie's Point thinks he sees a fin in what is already a melee!

Too late, methinks.

But hey, what's life without risks?

Having said that, I hope the boofy blokes go first.

NO BULL - JAWS IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The horror thriller Jaws is on the telly this Saturday!

No doubt the programmers at Channel Ten were prompted to run the 1975 classic after the numerous shark sightings and two attacks off Sydney in the past month.

The bullshark responsible for tearing off the hand of a navy clearance diver and mauling his right leg so badly that it had to be amputated is apparently the size of a small car.

Whoah! So, that's what happens when you're hit by a Mitsubishi Lancer?

The bull shark, according to scientists who exaimined the diver's westsuit, is about 2.7 metres long, 'the length of a small sedan'.

The tagline for the Steven Spielberg film is: 'Amity Island had everything, Clear skies. Gentle surf. Warm water. People flocked there every summer. It was the perfect feeding ground.'

I'm surprised some enterprising journalist hasn't come along and replaced 'Amity Island' with 'Bondi beach' for the perfect lead paragraph.

Let's just hope that the Sydney Harbour swim organisers have got it right when they reassure nervous swimmers in the event that it will be all right on the day.

That's what the authorities were telling the tourists at Amity Island!

Romance bootcamp

Yes, a bootcamp for aspiring romance writers does exist and I am committed to it this Saturday and the next.

For almost 20 years I have been threatening to write a romance novel.

I have chewed the ear off anyone who could be bothered listening to my half-baked romance plots that have amounted to nothing, zero, doughnut, a BIG FAT ZILCH!

I am the queen of ALL TALK NO ACTION. To prove it, I have three unfinished manuscripts and two completed short stories.

The short stories are rubbish - I thought they were literary masterpieces when I wrote them. But there's nothing as sobering and depressing as returning to a piece of writing a couple of months down the track. What was I thinking? Was I on bad drugs when I churned out that soppy load of cliched drivel?

The bootcamp is conducted online by several coordinators and guest 'lecturers'. I have already started 'chatting' to some members of the group whose enthusiasm is catching.

But can I match it? All shall be revealed soon.

Hey, don't forget that I have yet to post part 3 of my shark tales. It should be a good one. So, my six faithful followers, stick with me; I won't let you down.

What a combo - sharks and romance writing! I think I'm onto a winner!

Media shark frenzy

The Sydney Morning Herald went to town today (Sat, Feb 14) with a cliched 'it was a dark and stormy night' style lead to its page 1 story on the two shark attacks which occured on consecutive days last week:
'The sun was low, the surf was high and the sea at the southern end of Bondi Beach was teaming with baitfish about 8pm on Thursday night when a shark tore Glenn Orgia's left hand almost clean from his arm.' (By the way, when isn't 8pm at night?)

One of the headlines on a colourful page 7 follow-up story was: 'In the harbour or offshore, predators abound'. This was accompanied by a terrifying photo of a shark, which looks suspiciously like a Great White (correct me if I'm wrong), a species of shark which has not yet been implicated in either of the attacks.

OK, OK, I know the attacks were serious and therefore newsworthy. But the news makers love to whip the the whole thing up to the point where people are afraid to go into the water - no matter what the time of day.

The stories in The SMH (the croc being checked for human remains after the disappearance of a five-year-old boy in Far North Qld got a paragraph in the News Focus column) are milking the topic for all it's worth.

Below is a summary of the most useful information to come out of both the page 1 and page 7 stories:

1. There are more sharks around Sydney than usual after an upwelling of cool water pushed marine life to shore.
2. Fifty-one beaches in NSW are shark meshed.
3. People have been warned not to swim at dawn and dusk and not to swim alone.
4. Surfwatch claims that dolphins, turtles, seals and small sharks get caught in the nets and die.
5. Netting supporters say the nets stop sharks establishing territories on beaches.
6. Fishermen speculate that the banning of prawn trawling and bream trap use have contributed to the increase in shark numbers in Sydney Harbour.
7. The two shark attacks were the 'work' of two different sharks (but were they working together?).
8. A bull shark is probably responsible for the Sydney Harbour attack on a navy clearance diver, while a bronze whaler, bull or tiger shark could have attacked the surfer at Bondi.
9. Both attacks took place when baitfish were congragating off Sydney and in the harbour and both men were swimming alone.
10. Until this week there had not been a shark attack at Bondi since 1951.

Just for the record, the NSW road toll for 2008 was 395 deaths.