AC/DC are playing Subiaco Oval tonight – their last concert of their Australian / New Zealand Black Ice Tour. Last year they started their World Tour in Europe.

The band’s core was formed around a group of young Scottish-Australians in the early 1970’s – Angus and Malcolm Young, and the band’s lead singer and soul – Bon Scott.

Robert ‘Bon’ Scott was born in Kirremuir, Scotland, in 1952. In 1952 the family moved to Melbourne and then in 1956, to North Fremantle, just near where we live when we are in Australia. Bon attended North Fremantle Primary just around the corner from their house – where Aklie started school last month.

He then went onto John Curtin High School – but dropped out at the age of 15.

After various bands he joined AC/DC in 1974.

In the early hours of 19 February 1980 (30 years ago last month), after a night of partying, Bon died in a friend’s car of either alcohol poisoning or an asthma attack. He was buried in Fremantle Cemetery – in what is now Australia most visited grave.

After his death Brian Johnson became the band’s lead vocalist.

AC/DC’s record is quite amazing – they are 1 of the top 5 selling bands of all time in the USA; ‘Black in Black’ is a double-diamond selling album, selling over 22 million copies, making it the 5th largest selling album ever in the USA.

A memorial statue of Bon was placed near Fishing Boat Harbor in on Fremantle’s waterfront. On it is a quote from Classic Rock magazine describing him as the ‘Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Front Man of All Time’.

Given their influence on world rock, it is a little surprising and sad that North Fremantle Primary didn’t do more honor the 30th anniversary of his death. I guess it had something to do with the minor run-ins he had with the law.

For those that want to visit all of Fremantle’s Bon Scott sights, they should jump on the Highway to Hell Tram Tour.

It has been some time since our last post – but we now have time to catchup.

At the moment we are back in Australia – Julie has a job at Curtin University and I am working for one of the last wooden boat shipwrights in Perth – Aaron Woodall (but more about that in another post).

On Saturday I was lucky enough to be a part of the 20th Rottnest Channel Swim – one of the world’s toughest open ocean swimming events. The swim is 19km from Cottesloe Beach to Thompson Bay, Rottnest Island.

Competitors can enter either solo, as a duo team or a team of 4 – and the categories are divided into all sorts of age groups – all sent off in different start waves from the beach early in the morning.

There were about 2500 competitors and 1500 support craft (each competitor or team needs a support paddler and boat). I was support paddler for Julie’s sister, her boyfriend, Julie’s nephew and Julie’s other sister’s boyfriend – a real family affair.

The race proceeds relatively sensibly until Perth’s famous sea breeze, the Freo Doctor, howls in. All of a sudden the whole fleet bunches up, with swimmers, kayaks and boats (some over 50′) going in all directions. To make any forward westerly progress everyone must battle south-westerly into the breeze. Many do the the first 1/2 of the race in a 1/3 of their total time. Our swimmers finished in just under 8 hours – an excellent effort.

The solo swimmers are presented with a special number plate which you see on cars around town – and they thoroughly deserve it – to complete crossing alone is inspirational. And it has been known for some to turn around and swim all the way back to Cottesloe!

Early this morning the Aussie expats and Aussie tourists in Split gathered at Cafe Libar to watch the Aussie Rules Football Grandfinal via satellite from the MCG in Melebourne.

The game between the Geelong Cats and Saint Kilda Saints developed in the one of the greatest finals ever. Most in the cafe were cheering for the underdogs, the Saints, who were trying to win their first flag since 1966 and only their second in the club’s 112-year history. The Cats, the wonder team of the last 5 years, were playing in their 3rd grandfinal in a row.

After 6 lead changes, in front of nearly 100,000 spectators the game looked as though it may end in a draw, with the teams tied 3 minutes before the siren, but the Cats kicked to late goals to win by 12 points – to give them two of the last three AFL flags.

Slobodna Dalmacija, the local newspaper, sent a reporter down to watch this strange sport; he called it Australian rugby in the article below. An over-excited Tony Šarić can be seen on the right, in his Saints jersey.

Today we decided to go to the Irish Pub in Split to watch the rugby union test match between Australia and Italy (Australia won 34-12). There wasn’t a large crowd – just a nice group of 6 Aussies (for Queenslanders) who have just finished a week out on the islands.

One of the group turned out to be one of Australia’s top actors (and one of Julie’s Top 10 Sex Symbols) Ray Meagher. (Julie commented later that it was a bigger thrill for her to meet Ray than to have had Brad Britt brush past her breast in a New York bar 10 years ago!)

If you grew up in Australia in the 80s and 90s, Ray was a part of your nightly life as he has appeared since 1988 as Alf Stewart on Home and Away, one of the longest-running series on Australian television.

We were chuffed to see Split is now starting to attract some glitterati - after all Dubrovnik gets Tom Cruise and John Malkovich, and apparently one of the Princesses of Monaco as well as a Princess from Morocco were on Hvar last weekend.

To show Ray we weren’t just crazy soap opera groupies but were in fact famous ourselves, Julie showed him the picture of us in today’s Slobodna Dalmacija – he definitely seemed very impressed! And even asked to have his picture taken with Julie…

All joking aside – Cheers Ray!

Today the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija (Free Dalmatia), published a story about our plight to get our boat, the Labud, out of Arista Nautica’s shed.

It was a good article, describing how we want to use the boat to promote ‘real’ Dalmatian tourism.

Unfortunately it doesn’t mention the work I did for Arista Nautica and David Hicks – but that aside it is was very positive.

The fight between the Arista directors Don Marshall and Ivica Viljac is made evident with Don saying the boat will be released shortly, and Ivica contradicting that by saying it will not.

(It should be noted that Arista has decided to hire a Public Relations consultant, Lori Vitaljić from Predikat d.o.o., to help with their image.)

David Hicks, of Arista Nautica and Arista Yachts, was questioned today by Croatian police in Split, regarding threats he made to us (Julie Morgan and Shane Braddock) on May 8th to harm us himself or use Ivica Viljac as a weapon.

David said on the day, “I want to scare you to protect my friends, Tim Jarman and Giles Weston (unregistered foreigners in Croatia at the time) from your promises to report Tim and Giles to immigration authorities for conducting business affairs against you.”

On Friday Julie was attacked by Ivica Viljac!

Addendum – 28 June 2009 – Surprise – we went to use our car on Sunday only to discover it had been vandalized – we wonder who did it?

Whilst away on a trip this week I received a text message on Friday from David Hicks, an owner of Arista Nautica, who has been holding our leut, Labud, for several weeks, advising me I had some mail at my office.

After weeks of trying to approach Arista and deal with this issue respectively, David’s response was to push a letter under the door of our office at 10pm addressed to ‘Mr Badcock‘, a witty play on my name ‘Braddock‘.

In the letter, he and Don Marshall stated that I had 24 hours to remove my boat from their premises. Why the sudden change in heart – maybe their lawyer in Zagreb had advised them that they had already committed a crime by holding our boat hostage in their shed!

Even with such short notice Julie did an amazing job of getting all the required machinery to the yard to begin putting the boat in the water, as well as organizing help for our 2- and 5-year olds.

The Labud was moving smoothly towards freedom when suddenly Ivica Viljac arrived.

As part of Arista’s initial deal to use the space where they are presently they were obliged to make Ivica an equal director in their firm. (We are going to the police tomorrow to report David Hicks for making threats against us involving Ivica – but that story is for later).

Ivica’s reaction to Julie removing the Labud can be seen in the picture at the top of the post. He was not happy. He ran at Julie screaming! The police were called; he was arrested and found guilty of disturbing the peace and faces a future criminal assault charge.

What seems to have upset Ivica the most, however, was that Don Marshall had not told him what was going to happen on Friday. According to Julie, Tea Odza and Zana Dujmovic (the girls who work in Arista’s office), said there have been previous arguments in this regard – Don doing things in which Ivica believed he should have a say.

Since I was away (which David Hicks knew – I have a text message to prove it), and since Don and David’s letter pressured us to remove the boat by 3pm Friday, Julie, by herself, worriedly rushed to the yard, though with the belief she had the right to be there. She was completely unaware of the physical danger she was in.

It must be said – even the day after both of them (Don and David) sent text messages saying that everything that occurred was of our OWN doing!

Below is Julie at the police station waiting to act as a witness against Ivica.

But Don and David were not really interested in Julie. Their target appears to be Ivica himself. The next day a story in the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija, explained why.

David and Don have started a new company, Arista Yachts, which is competing with two other companies, Viktor Lenac (RLE) and Adriamar, for the 30-year concession for a large amount of waterside space – they all want to set up a super-yacht yard.

The directors of the new company are Don, David and Geoff Mayhill. Geoff is involved in at least one British company, Ekwienox, with Arthur Hughes, who is owner of Hidden Croatia and Sail Croatia. Luka Grubor, the mouth piece for Arista Yachts in the article below is also a director of Sail Croatia.

But Ivica being on an assault charge should keep him out of the new venture from Arista’s POV – which would obviously upset Don – though he may go back to RLE whence he came.

The English have learned well from the locals how business is done here!

(And where were Don and David during this fiasco – they had fled Croatia, we discovered later, because of serious physical threats made to them by their Croatian business partner in Arista Nautica (and Viljac’s boss) Mirko Rapić – and yet they happily sent Julie into the lion’s den. David’s boat Mystique was hiding on Hvar Island where I happened to bump into them. Someone was taking full advantage of the warm weather to work on his all over tan!)

For those that can’t see the video of Ivica attacking Julie below – click here!

]]> http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/ivica-viljac-thrown-to-the-wolves/feed/ 16 http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/lucasfilm-making-red-tails-in-motovun/ http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/lucasfilm-making-red-tails-in-motovun/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:40:05 +0000 Braddock Family http://blog.lifejacketadventures.com/?p=1425

Arriving this weekend in Motovun to check on the house renovations, we thought we had passed through a time warp back to World War 2 Italy. All signs of modern life had been covered and period props were everywhere.

It all was a result of Lucasfilm being in town to film their latest production,, Red Tails. The story is based on the legendary Tuskegee Airmen (32nd Fighter Group), the US’s first all black fighter group. As the publicity for the movie states, they had to fight two battles – the first against the Germans of course and the second against the racial prejudice in the American Army. (The Army actually produced a document that stated African-Americans were not smart enough to be fighter pilots and tried to have the squadrons disbanded.)

They got their nick-name , the Red Tails, as they painted the vertical stabilizers of their P51 Mustangs in distinctive red. The Red Tails undertook the role which none of the other Allied air corps wanted – flying daytime bomber support into German territory – and they proved extremely capable.

The film stars Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr and Method Man amongst many others.

We wish to thank to the Director of Photography, John Aronson, Set Decorator, Tina Jones, and Unit Publicist, Alisa Buckley, for all their support. They told us they were amazed by Motovun’s beauty – and all were in shock when they heard about the planned golf development below the town.

This weekend Rugby Club Nada in Split held the Croatian Rugby Sevens tournament. Over 2 days the 10 competing teams – Croatia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Bosnia Herzegovina, Cyprus, Belgium, Serbia – played pool and final games.

In the end the French held the trophy aloft, after beating the Italians in the final. Next were the Germans and Croatians.

Lying in the sun with the kids running around playing football – it was a great atmosphere.

Its a shame that Nada has to struggle each year to keep their pitch. Its the last green space in the center of Split’s old town – and greedy developers are lining-up to get their hands on the space to build apartments!

#1 – Time Out Croatia

We provided numerous pictures to Time Out Croatia for their current magazine issue, in exchange for our contact details being published, and they chose one. But imagine our shock when we opened the new issue to see that they had put our picture (seen above), uncredited as well, right next to a paragraph of text extolling our competitors, Adriatic Kayak Tours.

The saga continues…

#2 – Arista Nautica

The leut, Labud, is finished and ready to be launched. But she still sits in the shed at the Arista Nautica yards in Vranjic.

Why? Because two personal friends of David Hicks (one of the yard’s owners), Tim Jarman and Giles Weston, were doing the wrong thing by us business-wise – so we told them to pull their heads in or we would go to the police. The cowards got worried – as they are unregistered to live in Croatia – and ran to David. He demanded we pay $US20,000 before we can remove our boat from the shed. This was done in the hope we would be scared and leave his friends alone.

We told him to keep the boat and that we will see him and Don Marshall (the other owner) in the criminal and civil courts. There are no contracts between us and I have done in the last 12 months three design projects for David and Don and not asked for a cent.

The saga continues…

#3 – Motovun Elections

Local elections were held across Croatia on May 17. We made the pilgrimage in Motovun to vote. Our friend, Ranko Bon (seen below kissing the obligatory baby (Roklan)), was standing as a candidate for the Green Party in coalition with the Social Democrats. His candidacy was part of a continuing campaign to sustainably improve Motovun (and stop the proposed Jupiter Adria golf development).

The results were not as we had hoped. Firstly, the current mayor and IDS candidate, Slobodan Vugrinec, was returned. Secondly, Ranko didn’t earn a position on the town council.

Across Croatia there was a movement away from the center-right parties (HDZ and IDS) but the center-left party (SDP) didn’t pick up the vote – secondary parties and independents did. So in Motovun it wasn’t all bad news – IDS lost 3 seats (from 9 down to 6), SDP/Greens also lost a seat (from 4 to 3 (Ranko was 4th on their list)) and a new independent party got 4 seats. These Motovun independents, before the election, had voiced their concerns about the golf development – so we have to wait and see.

Mayor Vugrinec has already thrown a tantrum, stating he no longer wants the position if he doesn’t have an absolute majority in the town council!

The saga continues…

( In Split, after earning over 45% of the initial vote, Kerum will be in a run-off this weekend – which he is likely to win – and become our next mayor.)