Good morning Bendigo! What have you got planned for the weekend?
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I heard about this silly drinking game last night called Neknominate where friends elect a mate to skol a beer and then that friend nominates another person.
Nominees upload their attempts onto social media and it becomes a digital chain-mail game.
Have you heard of this? Do you know people who do it? Let me know, email merran.reed@fairfaxmedia.com.au or follow me on twitter: @merranreed
Max 33. Mostly sunny.
For more detailed weather news click here.
All trains have been replaced by coaches while works are done on the tracks.
Federal cabinet will consider offering Qantas a "standby" or emergency debt guarantee after a second ratings agency downgraded its credit rating to "junk" status on Thursday.
It is understood the option, which may not require legislation, was discussed by cabinet in December and will be reconsidered in late January.
The company, and some coalition backbenchers, have been lobbying for changes to the Qantas Sales Act to remove the requirement for majority Australian ownership and allow foreign investors to hold more than 49%
- The Guardian
Indonesia's government and military are closing ranks against Australia's policy to turn back asylum seeker boats, after claims two boats were recently forced back to Indonesia.
The Indonesian president's office has backed his foreign minister's rejection of Australia turning boats around as unhelpful.
Earlier this week, Indonesia's military chief General Moeldoko was reported as saying that his Australian counterpart, General David Hurley, called him to explain that Australia would be turning boats back.
"I have agreed. Therefore, we don't need to feel offended," The Jakarta Post reported him as saying.
- ABC
1. Which word names a Greek island and lettuce?
2. How many fortnights are there in two years?
3. Detroit’s nickname is Motown – what does Motown stand for?
4. What type of weapon is a kukri?
5. What kind of “Day” gave U2 a No 1 hit?
Blonde beards grow faster than darker beards.
If today is your big day, happy birthday!
You share a birthday with Lazaro Spallanzani, Italian scientist (1729-1799); Michel Ney, French soldier and most famous of Napoleon's marshals (1769-1815); John Dalberg Action, English historian (1834-1902); Max Roach, US jazz drummer (1924-2007); Frank Sinatra Jr, US singer (1944-); Jim Croce, American musician (1943-1973); Rod Stewart, British pop singer (1945-); Donald Fagen, US singer-musician (1948-); George Foreman, US heavyweight boxing champion (1949-); Pat Benatar, US singer (1953-); Fran Walsh, New Zealand screenwriter (1959-); Chris Smith, US rapper (1979-).
1663 - Britain's King Charles II grants charter to Royal African Colony.
1776 - British-born political writer Thomas Paine publishes his influential pamphlet, Common Sense.
1815 - British declare war against King of Kandy in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.
1862 - Death of Samuel Colt, firearms manufacturer who invented the revolver that bears his name.
1919 - British Army takes over administration of Baghdad Railway.
1920 - The League of Nations is established as the Treaty of Versailles goes into effect.
1923 - Meml, Lithuania, under Allied occupation, is seized by Lithuania.
1928 - Leon Trotsky, one of the chief architects of the Soviet Union, is ordered into exile by the Soviet government.
1929 - Tintin and his dog Snowy, cartoon creations of Belgian artist Herge (Georges Remi), make their first appearance.
2006 - Six Australians are killed and 26 injured in a bus crash near Cairo in Egypt.
2006 - An inquiry finds that a team led by South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk faked two landmark papers on embryonic stem cells but did produce the world's first cloned dog.
2007 - Bradley John Murdoch fails in an appeal against his conviction and life sentence over the murder of British backpacker Peter Falconio.
2010 - An Australian WWII hospital ship, the Centaur, is seen in underwater images, for the first time since it was torpedoed more than 60 years ago.
2011 - NATO's top commander in Afghanistan says a recent pledge by a southern Afghan tribe to stand up to the Taliban shows the military push in the country's most violent region is making headway and stifling the insurgents.
2012 - President Bashar Assad vows to use an "iron hand" to crush what he calls the terrorists and saboteurs behind Syria's 10-month-old uprising in which thousands of people have been killed.
2013 - More than 100 people are killed and 270 injured in several bomb blasts in Pakistan.
My exercise is primarily jumping to conclusions, stretching the truth and pushing my luck.
Got a better joke? Any tips on what we should be heading out to today? Let me know, email merran.reed@fairfaxmedia.com.au or follow me on twitter: @MerranReed
Daily quiz answers: 1. Cos 2. 52 3. Motor Town 4. Knife 5. Beautiful
