Help those close to you (or yourself) make an Escape after Christmas

Stuck on what to get your loved ones - or yourself this Christmas? How about the gift of freedom and security with Navman's new MYEscape?

The latest addition to the popular MY Series range has specially designed features for drivers of large vehicles including 4WDs, campervans, light commercial vehicles and those towing a caravan, or boat. It combines premium safety functions, to give drivers more confidence on the roads, as well as travel features.

By simply adding your vehicle's weight, height, width and length in to the Navman MY Escape, it will find a route suitable to your vehicle size. It also gives you specialised information like warnings of narrow roads with weight restrictions or low ceilings on your route.

The Navman MY Escape also has 4WD tracks for those who love the great outdoors. There are over 8,000 extra points of interest such as camping sites, fishing spots and other relevant outdoor places - perfect for your next off-road adventure. It also has Lonely Planet Travel Guides and 25 gorgeous Lonely Planet Scenic Routes pre-loaded and comes with free lifetime SUNA traffic subscription to help you make the quickest escape out of the city.

The Navman MY Escape retails for $599 and has a two year warranty straight out of the box. If you buy one before 31 January, it comes with 36 month subscription to map updates. The MY Escape is available at most major electronic retailers.

Finland and China take gold at final day of Winter Games NZ

The final day of competition at the 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games brought with it some memorable highlights with riders going out huge with tricks of true World Cup standard. Riders were again treated to another spectacular blue bird day where Finland's Janne Korpi and China's Xuetong Cai took out the men and women's titles in the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup Halfpipe finals.

A field of twelve men and six women including world number one Nathan Johnstone of Australia competed in a two run semi-final with men and women alternating runs. The bar was set high from the start with internationals Taylor Gold (USA) and Ursina Haller (SUI) riding hard to place in the finals. Gold demonstrated great technical ability and variety with a solid second run earning him 92.5 points and a place in the final. Haller recovered quickly from a poor first run to gain 86.3 in run two, reminding spectators why she is ranked 4th in the world.

Yesterday's qualifiers saw a further six men and two women going straight to final giving a total of twelve men and six women to battle it out in the finals.

Janne Korpi of Finland stole the limelight in the end making easy work of the Olympic pipe with a blistering 93.0 point performance which included a backside rodeo alley-oop 540 nose grab followed by a backside 900 mute grab into a frontside 1080 tail grab cab 1080 nose grab finishing with a stalefish.

"The competition went really well for me today. I decided which run I was going to do yesterday, stuck to it and it paid off. I didn't do anything new today but changed the order of tricks and it paid off. It's my first Winter Games and I'm really happy to have won and be a part of the competition," said Korpi.

Yiwei Zhang of China took out second place with a score of 90.8 with Dimi de Jong placing third with 88.0 points.

There were no surprises in the women's field with the world number Xuetong Cai of China leading from the start with an impressive score of 92.8 made up of a frontside indie, back 540 mute, frontside 7, cab 3 mute grab and frontside 540 melon grab. World number two Holly Crawford of Australia took out second place with 88.5 points with Ursina Haller of Switzerland taking third place with 77.3 points.

"It was a great competition today, the pipe is in great condition and the weather is perfect for competition. The Chinese always put up a strong fight raising the level of competition. It's great to see the girls pushing the boundaries. I didn't pull any new tricks out the bag today as it's early in the season and there is no point going out too hard and injuring yourself. I'm really happy to have placed on the podium today as I was injured last Winter Games," said Crawford.

Judge Ste'en Webster was really impressed with the level of competition.

"Today was excellent with the riders really stepping things up a gear going into the final. Janne Korpi's winning run was just outstanding and a pleasure to watch. There were no new tricks today but we did see a lot of doubles which is great. Although it's fast becoming a stock trick, it's still not necessarily a competition winner and if riders chose to perform this trick it needs to be executed with real precision. It's been a really fantastic 16 days of competition and we've been blessed with great weather. It's a competition we're really happy to be a part of," said Webster.

Full results available on www.wintergamesnz.com

One Got Past the Keeper by Fertile FC

One season they were a bunch of blokes from Byron Bay, drinking and cheering their way through six-a-side soccer; the next season they were all fathers or expectant fathers playing as 'Fertile FC' and going home straight after the game to nurse mother and child.

Check out their Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/fertilefc?ref=ts /and blog http://www.fertilefc.com/ for some more information about this great group of guys.

Pajama Jeans launch in Australia!

Pajama Jeans launch in Australia

They look like denim but feel like pajamas!

Global Shop Direct has just launched Pajama Jeans, the comfort of pajamas and style of jeans, in Australia after taking the US by storm where millions of pairs have sold.

Pajama Jeans are the newest craze in fashion for women, and only after just a few weeks of being on the market in Australia, the demand is soaring with thousands of pairs being sold across the country.

The secret behind Pajama Jeans is the latest innovation in fabric technology, DormiSoft™ denim, a blend of cotton and spandex which moves and stretches with you, allowing the hot new fashion sensation to fit any figure perfectly. Plus, your skin will love the DorimiSoft lining, which feels as soft as a baby's blanket and as comfortable as your favourite pajamas.

With its mock fly, front and back contrast pocket stitching, brass rivets, smooth butt-lifting design, and pant legs which flare to a boot cut, the Pajama Jeans look like designer denim jeans.

Global Shop Direct Product Director, Greg Thomas said: "With Pajama Jeans you can do things you've never been able to do before in your jeans, and they have certainly removed the hassle of trying to struggle to fit into ordinary jeans that are uncomfortable and leave marks on your skin.

"Pajama Jeans are so lightweight and comfortable, you can even wear them while exercising, sleeping or traveling," Thomas said.

The unique fabric resists wrinkling which Thomas says, allows them to be perfect for any occasion and outfit – great with sandals or sneakers, or you can roll them up to a cute cuff.

"Pajama Jeans are a 'must-have' in any woman's wardrobe, particularly busy mums on the go, as they can lounge around in them all day, but always be ready for that quick dash to the shops," said Thomas.

Best of all, Pajama Jeans are available in sizes for virtually every figure, from petite to plus size.

For more information or to place an order visit: www.globalshopdirect.com.au.

FIAT 500 by Gucci - London launch

Tolula Adeyemi arrives at the UK launch of the FIAT 500 by Gucci, a special edition FIAT 500 customized by Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini in collaboration with FIAT's Centro Stile on June 27, 2011 in London, England

The Fiat 500- High style, chic, an icon of design. Now Fiat and legendary Gucci have come together to create the Fiat 500 by Gucci. It is a car that celebrates the best of Italian style, innovative design and creativity.

Variety is the spice of life! And Four Kitchens has plenty of spice.

FOUR KITCHENS

Lauren Shockey

Published by Hachette Australia, August 2011, $32.99

Life behind the burner in New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv and Paris

Out of uni, Lauren Shockey took an entry level job for a PR company that did a lot of work in the food industry. For a food-obsessed young woman it was a way she could combine her love of food with a career her parents approved of. It wasn't what she wanted so she quit the 9-to-5 grind, took out massive loans, and started cooking school. At the French Culinary Institute, Lauren learned to salt food properly, to cook fearlessly over high heat, and to knock back beers like a pro. She also learned that a real culinary education begins once you're actually working in a restaurant. After a somewhat disappointing apprenticeship in the French countryside, Lauren hatched a plan for her dream year: to apprentice in four kitchens around the world.

Starting in her hometown of New York City, where she worked under the famed chef Wylie Dufresne, she then headed to Vietnam with Didier Corlou, then to Israel, and back to France, each setting presenting its own set of challenges, from language barriers to stronger-than-usual resistance to a woman in a professional kitchen.

Lauren Shockey is now a food writer whose articles have appeared in many print and online publications including The Village Voice, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, and The Atlantic Food Channel, among many others. A graduate of The University of Chicago, Lauren also holds a diploma in Classic Culinary Arts from The French Culinary Institute and a Master of Arts in food studies from New York University.
 
www.hachette.com.au

A modern day fairy tale of love, donkeys, dancing and travel.

Bella Vendramini is back!

After seeing the world, and a recent three month road trip that involved blown up cars and late nights, Bella is back home in Sydney.  Bella is a guest at this year's Byron Bay Writer's Festival (August 5-7), see http://www.byronbaywritersfestival.com.au for more her session details.

Bella Vendramini knows that any good adventure starts with running away from home, but packing thirty or so cities into just over a year probably went a wee bit overboard…

Brace yourself for a tropical jungle, an exploding building, a Parisian love affair, a life-changing romance (or two), depression, acting in the New York theatre, spanking lessons, a Tarantino blockbuster, a German concentration camp, a New York society wedding (Bella's), a wreck of a marriage (yep, Bella's again), serial burglary, murderous hitchhikers, digging up dead people, champagne on the French Riviera, driving the Monte Carlo Grand Prix circuit (drunk), breaking into the Cannes Film Festival (also drunk), uprooting friendships, fleeing a detention centre in Canada, having an out-of-body experience in a gutter and more than a few sanity pleas... Bella figures she finally knows a thing or two about adventure - and about fortune.

Bella Vendramini believes that your fortune either changes slowly like the melting of a pavlova on a hot summer's day – unhurriedly and dreamily – or in the blink of an eye, with the speed of a whip-tip-flick of a lash wielded by a sexy rodeo cowboy as he straddles his steed and flexes his sweaty biceps. Er, or something like that... Bella is the daughter of author Rosie Scott and filmmaker Danny Vendramini. In her acting career, Bella has also performed on the stage and in various films, including the title role in the Australian independent feature film 'Playing with Piranhas'. She won the audience award for Best Actress at the TAP gallery awards for the short film, 'The Philanderers'. Bella trained at The Actor's Centre, NIDA and The Lee Strasberg Institute of New York.

Praise for Naked in Public:

"After reading this book you might need a little lie down, a neat whiskey, a cup of tea, or whatever it takes to settle your nerves. Vendramini is a whirlwind with a mean line in metaphor and a tendency to risk-taking behaviour and here she takes the reader on a blistering tour of her life since her first memoir, Biting the Big Apple. Vendramini's talent at laying herself bare in public is strangely mesmerising, largely thanks to her self-deprecating sense of humour and sass."—The Sunday Telegraph

"What a story! This fast-paced read takes us from her quickie New York society wedding to a quickie separation, followed by her madcap overseas adventures. Vendramini is a talented writer and sure is entertaining for her readers."—Cosmopolitan

"Brace yourself for the hilarious follow up to Bella's sensational debut. As you'd expect, it's chock-full of love affairs, madcap adventures, plans gone awry and enough champagne to fill a swimming pool."—Famous

"Vendramini does the out-of-control, booze-soaked memoir well."—Sunday Mail Brisbane

"An enjoyable sequel to Biting the Big Apple. Plenty of distractions emerge to launch her on another roller-coaster of madcap adventures."—Sun Herald


Praise for Biting the Big Apple:

"You can't help but love Bella."—NW

"Quirky, funny, enlightening, it makes you want to grab the world by the collar and shake it!"—Cosmopolitan

"Bella Vendramini (an Aussie version of Carrie Bradshaw) will crack you up with quirky quips on life, love and breaking into the biz."—OK

"Bella Vendramini is a larger-than-life personality who falls so in love with the possibilities of moving to New York to be an actress you can't help but be swept along with her. It's a classic gutter-to-the stars princess adventure."—Sun Herald

"You won't be able to put down this intriguing tale."—Famous

"A fascinating memoir."—The Age

"Vendramini takes the bright lights of New York by storm. A great read."—New Idea

"An edgy, witty true story"—Australian Women's Weekly

"Frank and uncluttered and full of endearing down-under brassy-brash swearing… Vicarious pleasure is to be had, so go on, be tempted to take a bite."—Independent Weekly

"A touching, entertaining and often hilarious account of Bella's loves and losses, successes and adventures in New York, drawing comparisons from reviewers with Carrie Bradshaw."—Perth Vita

www.hachette.com.au