Yahoo!7 Answers Australia

This coming weekend will see the most prestigious event on the Australian television calendar – the 2010 TV Week Logie Awards!

If you’re an international reader of this blog, you may be a tad confused, think of the Logie Awards as Australia’s Emmy Awards. They are our national awards for television as voted by the public.

From the fashions and the speeches to the winners and the music, there’s never a dull moment and the leadup to the event is just as intense. It truly is television’s night of nights!

What do you think of the Logies? Do you have a favourite memory? Leave a comment below!

Kate
Community Manager

The NRL has taken the task of disciplining one of the most successful Rugby League clubs seriously, stripping the Melbourne Storm of two Premiership and three minor Premiership titles. In addition, all competitions points accrued to date have been removed and the club will not be awarded any further points for the remainder of the 2010. They have also been fined $500,000 and will be forced to return $1.1m in prize-money with the prize-money being distributed evenly among the other fifteen clubs.

It is reported they have been found to have been breaching the salary cap on multiple occasions over a number of years in excess of $1.7 million.

The NRL has uncovered breaches estimated to be in excess of $1.7million over five years, around $400,000 in 2009 and with a projected breach of $700,000 in 2010.

While the amount itself is cause for concern, the most damning indictment is the systematic attempt by persons within the club to conceal payments from the Salary Cap auditor and, it would now seem certain from the club’s Board and from its owners, on an ongoing basis,” Mr Gallop said.

“It was through this system that they were able to attract and retain some of the biggest names in Rugby League.”

Source: Yahoo!7 Sports News

We’d like to know your thoughts on this controversial move by the NRL:

• What would be the most appropriate punishment for NRL clubs that bring the game into disrepute?

Leave a comment below or on the question above!

Kate
Community Manager

It’s almost the end of the week, which means another Five on Friday!

What is Five on Friday?

Well it’s where we feature 5 questions from the week. They can be resolved and we feature the best answer as well,  they could be really great open questions that need some good  answers or they can be questions where you need the community’s help to decide on the best answer.

What sort of questions do we want?

Well, we are pretty open to the sorts of questions we feature here. We’d obviously love to see our Australian and New Zealand users get involved, but if you are from somewhere else in the world and found a really awesome question in your travels across Answers, don’t be shy! The only thing we ask is that they be clean, worthy of sharing and don’t contravene the Yahoo!7 Terms of Service or our Community Guidelines. Feel free to submit as many as you want!

How do they get chosen?

Well, on Friday morning, the Answers team will sort through all the submissions from that week and decide upon the best 5 to feature.

How do we submit questions?

Submit your questions by sending us an email at y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au with a subject of “Five on Friday”!

So get cracking and submit those questions to me, either on the email above or by leaving a comment below

Kate
Community Manager

Like many Australians, did you over-indulge during the Easter period?

I know from personal experience that it can be quite difficult to ignore the overload of chocolate! Unless you are a hermit, it can be quite hard to escape… It’s everywhere you look – in shops, people giving and receiving, and advertisements galore. It can be quite easy to get swept up in the retail chaos, especially after Easter Sunday when the eggs are all heavily reduced.

Aside from the religious significances of Easter in Australia, the 4-day Long Weekend is a time to relax and enjoy time with friends and loved ones. It is also a time to reflect!

Easter marks roughly 3 months since the year began and when you made all kinds of promises to yourself to begin the year anew. How have you done so far?

Using myself as an example, I started the year out full of enthusiasm. I kept the momentum going in February by looking at different options for low impact exercise; I even ended up replacing my old rusty mountain bike with a lovely new road bike and began commuting to work. I loved getting up earlier and seeing the sun rise and getting home that little bit earlier of an afternoon, I even lost roughly 8kg! But as I progressed into March, I began to falter and by the time Easter rolled around, I was definitely becoming lazy.

So, I need your help to get motivated again

• What are the best ways to get back into activities, such as exercise, after lapsing for a time?

Do you have any tips on how I can get back into the groove again? Maybe I need to alter my approach or thinking? Leave a comment below or on the question above.

Kate
Community Manager

This Easter long weekend, it is important to not just remember to set your clocks back one hour with the end of daylight savings but to also change the batteries in your smoke alarms.

Did you know that almost ¾ of Australians believe they would wake up if a fire started in their homes at night? This is despite evidence to the contrary that your sense of smell is reduced when asleep, in fact; smoke may actually cause deeper sleep.

The recently released, Duracell National Fire Safety Report, found that 49% of Australians believe that smoke would wake them if there was a fire in their home. In addition, only 12% of households test their fire alarms each month and over 60% are not replacing their smoke alarm batteries once a year.

Australian Television and Media personality, Nicky Buckley, has teamed up with Australian fire services and Duracell again this year, to promote the importance of smoke alarms and fire safety. As the spokesperson for this campaign, she is urging everyone to get into the habit of changing your smoke alarm’s batteries when you change your clocks over.

Nicky asks:

• If a fire started in your home during the night, would you wake to the smell of smoke and why?

Smoke alarms are now required by law in all dwellings, so what are you waiting for? Making sure your smoke alarms are in correct working order is a small price to pay for potentially saving your home and your life.

I’ll be changing mine this weekend, you should too!

Kate
Community Manager