At the moment, I am on the Gold Coast attending a conference of Flacks, Hacks and IT vendors. This happens twice a year and allows us to get to know each other, swap ideas and of course let our hair down on occasion.

Last night, at the "gala dinner' the entertainment was provided by a hypnotist, and of course, audience members were involved. Thankfully, nothing really stupid was suggested, such as stripping off, simulated sex or other bad taste ideas, but nonetheless, those that did "succumb", might be cringing a little after / if they see videotape of the event.

And this is the crux of this blog today; the hypnotist, the main performer, had a dedicated video camera operator, and told us all shows are recorded in entirety - and he keeps them.

Now, I understand this is most likely in case of litigation in the future - say someone falls off the stage or tries to suggest (ha!) they have been mentally damaged. But what about the privacy issues? No one signed a piece of paper - including those in the crowd, and we were told about this AFTER the show had started and filming had become.

Now I have no personal qualms about this, but as a documentary maker, if I film a scene and people can be identified, I am bound to get a disclaimer from those people.

Should the same apply to performers?

The events of last week in Victoria have had a million words written about them. Probably twenty million. And it goes without saying that sympathy, shock, horror and even awe has been outpouring from the nation and the world.

In The Australian newspaper’s “Media” liftout today, there was a piece about the brickbats and bouquets of the various TV presenters ferried down to the area to cover the disaster live to camera. (Whether it was indeed live all of the time is a moot point). There were reports of SBS’ presenters working from a motel room with no power to Lisa Wilkinson being choppered down every morning and chauffer driven back every night. Where’s Naomi Robson when you need her? At least she only had a campervan.

But not one mention seems to have been made about the men and women at the coal face. The camera operators, sound people, electricians and so on. These guys and gals were constantly under the pump to get the images and sound out. No make up rooms, air conditioning or a glass of champers afterward for them.

Also have a think on the stills photographers. Some amazing pictures came out portraying the horror of it all. A good friend of mine does this stuff, and we tend to forget the things they see that we don’t. Or want to.

Remember that edition of Frontline where the video guy kept shooting instead of going to the aid of someone getting a severe kicking? I’d like to think I could do that job, but quietly don’t really believe I can. All the people I know who do however, have a lifetime of Prozac ahead of them.

For the last few weeks, I have been a tad caught up in an area I hoped I would never have to deal with. The dreaded “C” word.

No, not me, my 84 year old mother was initially diagnosed with pneumonia on Australia Day and this turned rapidly into lung cancer. This meant many trips to and from home in Mandurah one hour south of Perth, to visit her in hospital, organise things and then finally, today, to take her home.

Thankfully, the prognosis is reasonably good, but the next few chemo sessions in a couple of weeks will tell the full story.

The alternative is pretty nasty – terminal in fact, and it got me thinking.

We have all heard of bucket lists and the like – a term I personally dislike as I feel it is an acceptance of finality when you decide to that. And I don't mean any disrespect to anyone when I say that; it is purely my personal view. But I’d like to think positive and suggest that this episode has made me realise the procrastinations of putting off writing “the best ever book” or filming “the best ever movie” or any of those creative dreams we have should not be put off.

Just go and do it. Life is too short to allow ourselves to get to the point where we might say, “If only I had ....”

One of the highlights of the Christmas / New Year season here in Mandurah (one hour south of Perth on the coast) is the intense competition that arises between owners of homes that have (expensive) canal frontage. Dozens of them spend a fortune on setting up elaborate arrays of lights, decorations and other visual effects in order to try and win the Grand Prize of a bottle of wine.

That’s right, a bottle of wine.

This year, the winner allegedly bought out the entire stock of a lighting shop in Adelaide – reportedly worth $30,000 + - to ensure his win. And it was impressive too. A mate of a mate who set it all up told me there was something like 20 transformers driving it, and the power meter was spinning like a top.

Hundreds if not thousands of people take to the water ways at night in small boats, large boats, kayaks, canoes, surfboards and of course, charter ferries. It’s like Kings Cross out there between 8:30 and 11:00 at night, and for smaller craft, quite dangerous.

I took my Mum on one of the charter ferries along with a video camera. If I had a dollar for every person I saw taking digital still shots with the flash going off, I would be a rich person. I mentioned to a few people they were wasting their time and battery as the flash beyond a couple of metres was pointless and the closest house and lights were easily 10 times that distance. Instead, they should experiment with the mode rotary dial (with the little icon of the moon being a clue) to get better shots.

It was amazing how many people said something like “I never knew about that”, or “I wondered what that was for”.

It was tempting, oh so tempting (and so difficult not to) to say “Read the ******* manual!

I saw a piece today in the “Australian” about Google’s audacious plan to make everything ‘cloud computing’ effectively getting rid of the PC as we know it, instead having everything we need via the web.

Well I for one hope and believe this will fail. Here’s why;

The biggest hurdle to jump is of course Microsoft. They simply will not allow it. Nor will Adobe, Apple and so on.

Users won't allow it. Imagine if Peugeot said they had realised that cars were a dinosaur and therefore they had stopped making them and their plan was for everyone in the future to be riding their nuclear powered bicycle.

The switch is just too big to throw and the momentum of the masses will not be moved. It’s not like the leap from pencil to keyboard.

Creativity will be stifled, as under the model, we would all be forced to work the same way. It won't be like the infinite number of monkeys. It’ll be like an infinite number of robots all with the same programming.

How will it make money for them? Advertising? Fabulous. I can’t wait to be editing a movie from a holiday in Bali and have popups exhorting the latest five star. It’ll be like the screen displays in the doctor’s surgery only everywhere.

And lastly (well I am sure there are more, but these alone I think doom the idea) is security and usage. I know people who won't trust online anything – banking, shopping, even email to a degree. So there are a fair percentage of people who won't use it plus a number, like my mother say, who just simply wouldn’t understand it. So won't use it, but will still use her PC for writing letters, memoirs etc. She doesn’t need or want the ‘net (at 84 years of age)

So Google, you have revolutionised the world with your search engine, Google Docs have their place, and Google Groups are useful. But this latest idea is just plain nuts. Go and put it bag in the wish list and concentrate on what you do well.