The Amazing Race > The Amazing Race Discussion
Phil in the news ..
Oddarane:
Plane crazy
For host Phil Keoghan, The Amazing Race is all about the journey, writes Dianne Butler
PHIL Keoghan's suggestion to host the Australian version of The Amazing Race? Chopper Read. "I reckon Chopper Read would be awesome. The Amazing Race: HTFU.*"
It's almost 100 per cent likely he's joking. Anyway, as it turns out Grant Bowler, hot off the back of a spell as a handsome yet psychotically violent werewolf on True Blood, has the job. Filming began in Melbourne last month and Australia - and Keoghan - has been deprived of what would've definitely been an amazing race.
There's an old joke about the amazing race ... the punchline is white people. I don't bring it up during the interview with Keoghan but after 17 seasons on the show, he's probably already heard it.
Keoghan's life is practically an episode of the show he works on. After nearly dying when he was 19 and working as a scuba diver on a TV show in New Zealand, he made a vow to change the way he was living.
He wrote about the ordeal in his book No Opportunity Wasted: "I found myself deep in the bowels of a sunken ship. I had entered the ship with a dive buddy and followed him through the twisted, murky corridors. The ship was on its starboard side in about 120 feet of water.
"By the time we arrived in the ship's ballroom, where we were meant to film, we discovered the rest of the crew had somehow taken a different turn. My buddy signaled for me to stay put and then took off. So there I was in the dark, sucking air like crazy, completely disoriented, not knowing exactly why I'd been left alone and panicking because I had no idea how to escape.
"I thought about all the things I wished I had done in my life. It made me sad and angry to think I might not ever get to do them. My life was slipping away.
"Next thing I remember was sitting in the sunlight on the deck of the boat. My dive buddy had returned to get me. I was alive and I decided right there and then that I would live life to the fullest. It was the first time I really stopped to think what dying could mean. I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down all the things I had to do in life: hand-feed sharks, travel the world, climb Mt Everest, go into space.
"That near-drowning was my wake-up call. Since then I have gone on to do things I had never dreamed of."
Indeed, what most people have never dreamed of: set a world bungy-jumping record, eat dinner on top of a volcano ... while it's erupting ...
So you might think hosting Amazing Race would be starting to pall, but a decade in, Keoghan still seems enthusiastic about it. And it still is an amazing show. Fingers crossed the Australian version measures up.
"I would like to think it will," Keoghan says. "I mean, I hope that it is made at the same level, with the same quality. I think Australians deserve it. They've wanted it for a long time.
"There's no doubting any of the talents of anybody in Australia. Execution of the production and all of that, that'll be all covered. The issue is really going to come down to making sure that they get the right cast. And that Australians care. You know that Australians can be pretty critical when they want to be."
Of course, the prize money in the Australian version might also be substantially less than $1 million dollars as well. Will it have the GST out of it? Keoghan wants to know.
The former Kiwi has been host of Amazing Race right from the start, in 2001. And he's been there to watch it collect the Emmy for outstanding reality series every year since the category was created in 2003. Until this year, when in a genuine upset Top Chef won. (He asks during the interview if I watch Top Chef.)
Keoghan: "The money becomes more of a factor once they are getting to the end and they realise they can actually win." And at the beginning, before they get their head around what they have to do.
"One of the cool things about the show," he says, "even a million dollars couldn't pay for what it is we provide them. Because they're doing things ... when they go to where the Terra Cotta Warriors are and they're running around down in that pit where nobody is allowed to go. They're doing things, even if you had all the money in the world you can't just go in there and say 'hey, I'll pay whatever I have to to get in there to do this particular thing'. It's just not possible."
So how is it possible on Amazing Race?
"Well, it is an incredible collaboration of very talented people."
* Harden The F--- Up
The Amazing Race,
Channel 7, Thursday
7.30pm
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad-application/plane-crazy/story-fn6cc2jw-1225971006941
Oddarane:
Sides get chummy, set aside reserve
ROB KIDD - Waikato Times
New Chums Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula is a step closer to being preserved after landowners and the Environmental Defence Society met yesterday and agreed to create a public reserve on the land adjoining the beach.
Development of 20 residential lots at the pristine beach – touted as one of the most beautiful in the world – was planned but has faced significant opposition since it was announced in July.
Yesterday's meeting in Auckland established a framework that could see a "private-public conservation partnership" in which the Government would pay for half the cost of creating a public reserve while the landowners would pay the other half.
The society is a not-for-profit environmental advocacy organisation and chairman Gary Taylor, along with landowner John Darby, wrote to the Government to invite its involvement in protecting the beach.
Preserve New Chum for Everyone spokeswoman Linda Cholmondeley-Smith said she was "cautiously optimistic" about the potential deal.
"What's been proposed is very genuine and if the Government comes to the party there'll be a solution and New Chums will be preserved in perpetuity," she said.
Green MP Catherine Delahunty welcomed the move by the developers and the Environmental Defence Society, which would create a trust that would protect the beach.
"The deal, however, relies on the Government playing its part and putting in half the resources," she said.
"When we met with the conservation minister she was non-committal but now she and the prime minister have a concrete opportunity to show leadership and join the effort others have put in to find a lasting solution to the issues."
Mr Taylor said the creation of the reserve was a considerable gift from the landowners and, given the public benefits, he believed the Government should make a matching contribution.
The society established the NZ Coastal Trust – an independent, charitable conservation trust chaired by retired High Court Judge Peter Salmon QC – which will try to make the deal happen.
It could be the initial purchaser of the land, with contributions from both the landowners and the Government, and it could then vest it in the Crown or local government.
Ms Cholmondeley-Smith said while the initial step was a good one, it was important to keep pressure on the Government.
And, although she tempered her enthusiasm, she was excited about the preservation of the area.
"If the land could talk it would be saying thank you," she said.
There will be an event at Matarangi beach on January 3 with international TV presenter Phil Keoghan (from The Amazing Race) to highlight the campaign to protect New Chums.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/4472474/Sides-get-chummy-set-aside-reserve
Oddarane:
Great article from NZ Herald
New Chum protesters sit down to be counted
By: Wayne Thompson
5:30 AM Tuesday Jan 4, 2011
Thousands of Coromandel residents and holidaymakers flocked to Matarangi yesterday to be part of a "living beach art" appeal to Prime Minister John Key to save a pristine, world renowned beach from development.
The event drew up to 2000 people to form letters 20m high and 12m wide spelling out "John Key Save Me! New Chum".
Helicopters flew above the display to give aerial views for photographers.
The publicity stunt - in aid of New Chum Beach, near Whangapoua - was staged by New Zealand-born Phil Keoghan, host of American television show The Amazing Race.
Keoghan and his wife, Louise, have a bach in the area and he said it was his 21st summer holidaying on the Coromandel Peninsula.
Keoghan, who was helped by his father John and neighbour Lindsay Arthur, said the event was "an opportunity to express an opinion that I believe that this is one of the best beaches in the world and obviously, from today's mind-blowing turnout, I'm not the only one who feels that".
"I believe New Chum is more valuable to us as a country as a world-renowned iconic beach that is undeveloped, rather than one with a number of properties on it."
Read more here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10697762
georgiapeach:
Phil Keoghan will speak on “No Opportunity Wasted: Creating the Life You Want,” on Saturday, March 19, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., during IHRSA’s 30th Anniversary International Convention and Trade Show, March 16-19, in San Francisco. His keynote presentation is generously sponsored by SPRI Products, Inc.
See the article here:
http://www.ihrsa.org/home/2011/1/18/creating-the-life-you-want-the-amazing-races-phil-keoghan-su.html
Lots of info on The Ride...and hmmmm....Phil in the Tour de France??
georgiapeach:
Phil Keoghan in Denver Feb. 7
By Joanne Ostrow
Phil Keoghan, host of “The Amazing Race,” will be in town Feb. 7 as part of a 10-city CBS affiliate tour. He’s promoting the season premiere of “Race” (which begins Feb. 20) as well as a screening of his own film, “The Ride.” He rode through these parts in 2009 on his way from LA to NY, a 42-day jaunt.
Screenings are being sponsored by local Regal Theaters with ticket sales benefitting the National MS Society. His cross-country trip already raised half a million dollars for the MS Society.
Meet Phil at the Pavilions 15, 500 16th Street on Feb. 7. “The Ride” is screening at 7:30 p.m.
http://blogs.denverpost.com/ostrow/2011/01/26/phil-keoghan-in-denver-feb-7/4608/
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