EXCLUSIVE 'Monaco video' a high-profile Australian spent a fortune to wipe from the internet... but I found it: THE GROUP CHAT
Welcome to The Group Chat with Lucy Manly, where Australia's most-trusted society insider shares the hottest gossip BEFORE it makes the news.
No paparazzi!
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Mark Wahlberg hails Scots brothers rowing the Pacific as ‘warriors'
Three Scottish brothers attempting to become the fastest people to row across the Pacific have received a second call of support from Hollywood star Mark Wahlberg. Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan Maclean are more than halfway into their 120-day Pacific challenge to cross 9,000 miles of open ocean between Lima and Sydney. Earlier in June, the Perfect Storm star had video-called them to say their record-breaking bid 'could be a movie'. In his latest call, the 53-year-old actor said he would keep in touch with the trio as they make their way across the globe, hailing them as 'f****** warriors'. He said: 'You guys are bored. You need someone to talk to. You need someone to, you know, give you a little pump up. Let me know. I'm available.' Wahlberg joked: 'Well, you know what would make me a legend? Playing one of you guys, or all three, in a movie. There've been a few actors who've played twins before, but I could maybe play all three of you, change up my look a little bit.' He added: 'You guys are doing something that's so extraordinary. It's another level. This is real man shit you're doing. You're out there with big smiles on your faces, pounding away, while everybody else is lying in bed in dreamland, nice and dry, and still waking up complaining about something. 'You're not doing this for attention – you're doing it to raise attention for a very worthy cause. You guys are real men. You're f****** warriors. It's incredible. 'Hopefully, you'll inspire other people to find something important to do to raise awareness. It's awesome, guys.' As well as aiming to set a record for the fastest row across the world's largest ocean, the brothers are hoping to raise £1 million for clean water projects in Madagascar. So far they have raised more than £125,000. Challenges experienced by the brothers so far include salt sores, relentless weather, a broken water maker and a faulty auto helm. Their 28ft (8.5m) carbon fibre boat, Rose Emily, is named in memory of their late sister. It has no engine and no sail and the brothers are powering their way across the ocean in two-hour shifts.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
How Hideo Kojima created yet another weird, wonderful world in Death Stranding 2
As a teenager in the late 1980s, I became obsessed with Australian new wave cinema, thanks partly to the Mad Max trilogy, and partly to an English teacher at my high school, who rolled out the TV trolley one afternoon and showed us Nicolas Roeg's masterpiece Walkabout. We were mesmerised. Forty years later, I am playing Death Stranding 2, Hideo Kojima's sprawling apocalyptic adventure, and there are times I feel as if I'm back in that classroom. Most of the game takes place in a ruined Australia, the cities gone, the landscape as stark, beautiful and foreboding as it was in Roeg's film. I've been playing for 45 hours and have barely made an impact on the story. Instead, I have wandered the wilderness, delivering packages to the game's isolated communities. The game is set after a catastrophic event has decimated humanity and scarred the landscape with supernatural explosions. Now you pass through vast ochre deserts and on toward the coast, watching the sun set behind glowing mountains, the tide rolling in on empty bays. Usually in open-world games, the landscape is permanent and unchanging, apart from day/night cycles and seasonal rotations. But the Australia of Death Stranding 2 is mysterious and amorphous. Earthquakes bring rocks tumbling down hillsides, vast dust storms blow up and avalanches bury you in snow. As you go, you are able to build roads, electricity generators and even jump-ramps for cars. These can be found and used by other players, so each time you visit a place you may find new ways to traverse. Nothing is ever really still. Kojima named George Miller as his idol and the influence of the Mad Max movies and their crazed, desolate energy is everywhere in this game: its interplay of technology and isolation; its feudal tribes and scarce resources, its weird sense of adrenaline. He has also seen Walkabout, and that film's mythic energy is here, too, though perhaps lacking the strong undertone of colonial guilt. There is a rocky outcrop in a remote corner of the game map that reminds me a little of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, with its labyrinthine crevices, the reddish glow, the unnerving silence. I've spent hours driving along highways in this game, picking up parcels and taking them to strange, inaccessible places – why? How have I been seduced into sitting in front of my screen until 2am ensuring an animal shelter gets its delivery of fluffy pyjamas? The answer is, in creating a version of Australia that is timeless yet subject to moments of extreme change, Kojima has played the same trick Weir did: this world is beguiling and threatening – and that's what makes it seductive. Years ago, Weir said this about Picnic at Hanging Rock: 'What I attempted was to develop the oppressive atmosphere of something which has no solution: to bring out a tension and claustrophobia in the locations and the relationships. We worked very hard at creating an hallucinatory mesmeric rhythm, so that you lost awareness of facts, you stopped adding things up, and got into this enclosed atmosphere. I did everything in my power to hypnotise the audience away from the possibility of solution.' That, in short, is my experience of Death Stranding 2. It is a game of hallucinatory mesmeric rhythms; you drive and drive, then hours later you're back in the same place – except now there is a road, or a sign left by another player who passed in the night. What Grand Theft Auto has always tried to do with American cities, Kojima has succeeded at with the Australian outback: to interpret and distill the feeling of a place from an outsider perspective. That's why, when I do actually make progress in the game and open up a new area for exploration, I get the same feeling I had when I first saw Walkabout on that rainy afternoon in Manchester as a teenager – it feels as if I am seeing an impossible alien landscape, rife with beauty, possibility and danger. I think it will be months before I escape. A few months ago, I interviewed the creator of Quantum Witch, a wildly idiosyncratic pixel art adventure about a shepherdess who loses her flock and then gets tossed into a metaphysical battle between duelling gods. Nikki Jay was raised in a religious cult, but escaped to live her own life – and this game is heavily inspired by her experiences. Created with a little help from Paul Rose, who wrote Channel 4's famed teletext gaming zine Digitiser, it's partly a point-and-click adventure but also a postmodern deconstruction of genre, with queer undertones. If you loved the irreverent humour of Thank Goodness You're Here, or just want to play something wonderfully offbeat, you have come to the right place. Available on: PC Estimated playtime: Five hours-plus More bad news for games industry employees – MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy is making significant job cuts after the game's disastrous launch. Plagued by bugs and AI glitches, the title drew negative reviews from both gaming sites and players, and according to IGN, up to 100 staff could now be laid off. What a mess. Eurogamer has an excellent interview with voice actor Ashly Burch, looking at the vital question: can video games have a positive impact on mental health? Burch talks about her own experiences with obsessive compulsive disorder and how one game, Harvest Moon 64, helped her to cope. We love a classic video game deep dive, and GameSpot has a great piece on how one game designer created the best level in the Deus Ex – the legendary role-playing adventure from Dallas studio, Ion Storm. It's filled with fascinating detail about the game's rendition of an alternative Hong Kong. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion The Outer Worlds 2, the most expensive Xbox game yet Death Stranding 2: On the Beach – a hypnotising art-house game with an A-list cast | ★★★★★ 'We're all connected – but it's not the connection I imagined': Hideo Kojima on Death Stranding 2 From Street Fighter to Final Fantasy: Yoko Shimomura, the composer who put the classical in gaming's classics 'Trauma is messy, but music will come of it': Jessica Curry on her new album, Shielding Songs This one comes from Adam: 'I've recently been playing Be Brave, Barb, the new game by the developer of the delightful Dadish series. I'm enjoying the simple, bite-sized gameplay and have had the same feeling in recent play-throughs of the Game Boy Kirby games. I was wondering: what are the team's favourite snack-sized games?' Ever since first playing the short and terrifying horror game Slender, I have been obsessed with weird mini horror titles, so I'll also add Mouthwashing, Murder House and PT. I also love old PlayStation mini game titles such as Bishi Bashi Special and Point Blank. As for the rest of the team: Keza has gone for Wario Ware, Lonely Mountains and Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket ('yes, still,' she says): Tom Regan says, 'In terms of short games to complete: What Remains of Edith Finch, Florence and Inside; in terms of games that you can play in short bursts: Loop Hero, Tetris Effect, Sifu and Cult of the Lamb.' Christian Donlan says Drop7, Into the Breach, Marvel Snap and Spelunky (he also loyally added 'The Quick Cryptic on the Guardian is my fav 10 minutes of the week.') Sarah Maria Griffin said, 'I love, love love A Short Hike. And of course, Untitled Goose Game. Perfect little games.' If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
MAFS stars confirm they ARE dating after splitting from TV spouses and months of rumours
MARRIED At First Sight stars have finally confirmed they are a couple after weeks of speculation. 5 5 Awhina had been paired with Adrian on the reality TV series, but it did not go well as they bickered for most of the time. While Billy seemed to have a strong connection with Sierah during his season of MAFS, their relationship also fell apart. "Obviously, we've got good chemistry and we do have a good connection. It's very natural with me and 'Fee',' Billy told Australian magazine, Woman's Day. 'Whenever we're together, we are laughing, we are smiling. We're as close as can be." Billy admitted that trying to start a new relationship after MAFS was "really hard." "Obviously I've seen Fee go through a lot and so it wasn't like, let's try and crack on. I don't think that's the right time to be doing anything like that,' he said. As for Awhina, she had no issues with introducing Billy to her seven-year-old son Landon. 'I introduced Billy to Landon around November last year, when we were still filming,' she told the magazine. 'They get on so well, Landon loves Billy.' The pair first set social media ablaze by posting pictures of each other getting cozy to their Instagram earlier this month. MAFS groom forced to deny cheating accusations after bride claims he had sex with another woman during show filming The pair enjoyed a cosy date night at a restaurant in Perth and snapped some very romantic photos in the process. Both in black, they posed for a mirror selfie that saw stunning Awhina looking forwards, while Billy placed his arm around her front and she held onto it. She said: 'I'll keep this one 🤭' as the caption, sending the rumour mill into overdrive in the process. Awhina shared a string of date night snaps in the carousel, as they enjoyed small plates and red wine while dining out together. Mafs couples that have stood the test of time Loved-up Tayah Victoria and Adam Aveling of series six fame had the first Mafs baby. The pair couldn't keep their hands off each other on the programme and quickly found their feet in the outside world, moving into Adam's Doncaster home. Just 18 months after meeting, the couple welcomed their daughter Beau. Season five couple Michelle Walder and Owen Jenkins also managed to make their marriage work away from the cameras and had their first child in December. Teacher Michelle, 29, has no regrets about taking part in the experiment. She told us: 'I just feel very lucky and thankful that it has worked out - and excited for everything to come.' Michelle and Owen were both sick of dating apps when they applied in 2019. Owen recalled: 'I had been out for some drinks with a friend after work. "While he was out for a cigarette I was scrolling on Instagram waiting for him to come back in. 'The MAFS advert was the last thing I saw, and I joked, 'Wouldn't it be funny if I signed up?' 'A few beers later when I was back at home I sent in the application, and the rest is history.' Another couple to make Mafs UK history is Zoe Clifton and Jenna Robinson. Despite a slight rocky start, where they clashed over Jenna's vegan lifestyle, the show's first same sex pairing are still going strong. They even have a successful podcast together called Life With a Pod. Jenna shed light on being involved in the show earlier this year when she told us: "We're not legally married, and I never felt like we were. I definitely feel the process makes you take the relationship a lot more seriously and having the help of the experts… if you can survive that process it sets a firm foundation for a long-lasting relationship." The date night post comes after Awhina was spotted looking in a video looking glam at a horse racing event in Perth. During the video Billy made an appearance and she was inundated with comments from curious fans. Awhina captioned the video: "Our exes ate a plate of meat, but who really ate?" 5 5
