Group of 20 skydivers perform dazzling displays with deployed parachutes at 100mph
Incredible footage shows a group of 20 skydivers setting a "new benchmark" for parachute formation flying as they performed dazzling displays in the sky - at 100mph. The thrill-seekers can be seen passing each other in dangerously close proximity while dropping from 14,000ft - all after their parachutes were deployed. Led by British skydiving veteran Pete Allum, the team of experienced jumpers from across the world created the stunning synchronised formations in Florida, USA. The daredevils performed x-formations, smoke fly-throughs and high-speed 120mph fly-pasts to set new standards in canopy flight not seen before previously. The discipline of canopy flight or "canopy flocking" is said to be fairly new as most skydive formations take place before parachutes are deployed. British pro skydiving instructor Andy Ford captured the breathtaking footage and said the group had set a new benchmark for this form of skydiving.
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Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘A giant parenting group': how online comedians are making a living by laughing about the chaos of kids
Many Instagram-frequenting parents of small children will have seen George Lewis's sketch about two toddlers discussing their feelings of abandonment and relief wrapped in a game of peekaboo. 'It was a normal day, I was just playing with Dad. And then he put his hands in front of his face and he was just gone,' the British comedian and father says in the widely shared video. 'He was behaving so erratically.' Life through a two-year-old's lens – especially in relation to their sleep-deprived parents – is fertile ground for a growing group of online parent comedians whose content is clocking up millions of views. At the heart of the material lies age-old truths: toddlers are sometimes barmy and parenting is often mad. There is a special solidarity among the carers of young children whose days revolve around coaxing vegetables into mouths and bottoms on to potties. In Canada, Farideh Olsen's take on the absurdities of motherhood has one eye firmly on the patriarchy. A sexy husband, her songs suggest, is one who does housework, has therapy and respects women. The 42-year-old singer says it has been a surprise to see how much mothers love watching other mothers 'joking about children and partners and marriage and their love for their children'. 'And, I think that's because a lot of mothering is extremely lonely,' she says. 'You're at home with your kids by yourself, maybe you meet up at a park, but then you don't have the depth of a relationship to joke about your kids.' In the odd three minutes or so that mothers have to check their phones, 'they see something that kind of reflects their life – they find the levity in it,' she says. UK comedian Michael McIntyre was a forerunner when it came to mining laughs from parenting struggles. He told packed theatres well before Covid: 'You never love your children more than when they are unconscious, but still breathing.' Today's troupe of parenting commentators home in on micro moments – a request to cut a toastie exactly in half, the unhinged cackle that follows being asked how the toddler slept, that game of peekaboo – that capture the same sentiment. Farideh thought her music career had been both serious and over before she began writing songs about motherhood. She never considered herself a comedian, nor was she interested in material about parenting, until she had children. While many parenting influencers are female, comedy – including the short-and-sharp social media variety – 'is still very male-dominated', she says. Sydney-based stay-at-home father Sean Szeps' video about the ABCs of parenting – 'A is for 'Absolutely not', B is for 'Brush your teeth'…' delivered with more than a little loopy energy – has almost 40m views on his social media platforms. Last year, all of the 37-year-old's video posts, inspired by his twin seven-year-olds, had a combined 228m views, according to Szeps. Zach Mander, 35, based in Brisbane, has 265,000 TikTok followers and his most popular post has more than 10m views. He has followers all over the world but, as with Szeps, most are in English-speaking countries. They both credit their successes to the pandemic when creative communities on social media took the edge off lockdowns with children. Like their overseas counterparts, they've earned sizeable niche audiences that wouldn't have been accessible to real-world comedians playing clubs with disparate audience members. And they're doing it with disarming honesty. 'Up until that point, my style was incredibly positive, and then the pandemic hit, and I couldn't hold back any more,' says Szeps, who's married to TV presenter and podcaster Josh Szeps. 'Technology,' he says, exploded 'at the same time as we evolved to realising that it would be much better if we were honest about parenthood'. The result was that a 'shit-ton of mums and dads now make an entire career and a living on just sharing what women mostly, but parents overall, have been feeling for decades, which is: it's hilariously hard. It is undeniably difficult. If we can't laugh about it, we're going to sob uncontrollably'. Mander's spoof investigative examinations of Bluey characters, and a video about his children inexplicably losing a slice of pizza in the car (it emerged weeks later 'almost mummified'), are among his biggest hits. 'I've always made content on things that I was experiencing, and it doesn't come much bigger than parenting,' he says. 'I'm amazed we don't talk about it more.' For some, it's really paying off. Szeps, who has a background in social media advertising, has been living off his Instagram account's sponsored content for four years and growth is up 50% year on year. It helps, too, that there will always be new parents. Mander, whose children are two and four, says that because the early years parenting cohort resets about every five years, so does a 'whole lot of people experiencing this for the first time – and those are my cohort'. Viewers are mostly women, both Szeps and Mander say. Szeps, who moved to Australia from America in 2017, has a theory as to why some of the dozen or so male 'power hitters' in the parenting humour space are men talking exclusively to women – and it's down to old-fashioned gender roles. 'We don't want women necessarily to be brutally honest about how hard parenting can be, because that makes us worried for the kids. When a man does it, it's much more accepted,' he says. Parenting jokes sometimes break into the wider satirical space, of course. The Betoota Advocate recently ran a headline: 'Toddler who refuses toast cut the wrong way allegedly ate four servings of vegetable dahl at daycare.' For Szeps, Instagram has become a 'massive, giant parenting group'. 'You still have to navigate the complications. You still have to navigate the perfect parents. You still have to navigate comparison. 'Parenting is so hard, but I don't feel alone in it any more, the way that I felt prior to sharing my experiences online.'
Engadget
16 hours ago
- Engadget
What to read this weekend: Vampires and more vampires
These are some recently released titles we think are worth adding to your reading list . This week, we read Hungerstone , a retelling of Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, and EC Comics' first serialized miniseries, Blood Type. I was pretty late in getting to this one, as it's been on my list for a good while now, but I really can't think of a better time to have finally picked up this retelling of the original sapphic vampire story, Carmilla , than during Pride Month. And what a treat it is. Hungerstone is a gothic novel that follows Lenore, a woman who has been uprooted from London and moved to the British moorlands by her husband, Henry, to fulfill his career ambitions. Henry is… not the best, and Lenore could definitely do with some companionship. Then, in walks Carmilla. Cue the yearning and craving. Carmilla is actually brought in after a carriage accident to recover and overstays her welcome, making everyone in the house uncomfortable with her strange behaviors (wandering at night, forgoing food at mealtimes, etc). From the moment she arrives, Lenore can't stop thinking about her. Lenore is also having strange dreams, and girls in a nearby village soon begin catching a strange illness. This is all pretty familiar. There are some big differences between Hungerstone and the novella it's based on, though. Hungerstone further explores industrialization and the expectations and treatment of women in this time period. It delivers feminine rage and some really satisfying moments. $21 at Amazon Blood Type , by Corinna Bechko and Andrea Sorrentino, is the first serialized miniseries from EC Comics, an imprint known for its anthologies that made its comeback to publishing last summer after a decades-long hiatus. We first met the series' bloodthirsty vampiress Ada in the third issue of EC's Epitaphs of the Abyss, but she now has her own dedicated spinoff. Blood Type #1 is kind of the perfect start-of-summer horror read: a vampire who has been at sea feasting on sailors makes a stop on a vacation island and finds some other evil has already taken root there. It's bloody, the tone strikes the right balance of dark and humorous and it's overall a pretty good time. Well, not for everyone in the story (except Ada), but I'm certainly having fun. $5 at Amazon
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
Romeo Beckham is 'so, so proud' of his dad David for receiving a knighthood
Romeo Beckham is "so, so proud" of his dad David for receiving a knighthood. The 50-year-old sports legend - who has been married to Spice Girl Victoria Beckham since 1999 and also has Brooklyn, 26, Cruz, 20, as well as 13-year-old Harper Seven with her - will now be known as Sir David Beckham after being named in the King's Birthday Honours list and Romeo, 22, was quick to praise his father over the news. Alongside a snap of himself and his dad, Romeo wrote on Instagram: "So so proud of you", and emblazoned his words with a string of white heart emojis. Shortly after that, musician Cruz also took to social media to congratulate his dad. He wrote: "I'm so proud dad I love you. "Sir David Beckham Has a nice ring to it." At the time of writing, David and Victoria's eldest child Brooklyn is yet to make any public statement on the news. But Victoria did acknowledge the "passion" has husband has that has led him to this point as she admitted she "couldn't be prouder" of him. She wrote on Instagram: "You've always been my knight in shining armour, but now it's official. Sir @davidbeckham!!! What an honour, I couldn't be prouder of you. Your dedication to the things that matter most — your country, your work, your passion, and most of all, your family — has never wavered. The way you've touched so many lives over the years with kindness and humility speaks volumes about the man you are and continues to inspire us everyday. But above all else, I'm so, so proud to call you mine. I love you so much xxxx" Along with the former Manchester United star's new title of Sir David Beckham, the fashion designer will become formally known as Lady Victoria. Upon receiving the honour, the sports star admitted that he found it all to be a "truly humbling" experience. He said: "Growing up in East London with parents and grandparents who were so patriotic and proud to be British, I never could have imagined I would receive such a truly humbling honour. "To have played for and captained my country was the greatest privilege of my career, and literally a boyhood dream come true." I've been so lucky to be able to do the work that I do and I'm grateful to be recognised for work that gives me so much fulfilment. "It will take a little while for the news to sink in but I'm immensely proud and it's such an emotional moment for me to share with my family." In 2003, he was given an OBE by the late Queen Elizabeth for services to football. The former England captain has a long history of carrying out charitable work, which Honours Committee officials will have considered before deciding to bestow him with the honour.
