☕ Allegations against David Walliams, explained

Oh, you want to know my sleep score from last night?

A very respectable 86.

I’m late to the trend, but tracking my sleep is now my only form of small talk.

The quote: “Maybe. We’re born with it. Maybe. It’s Maybelline.”
The new slogan for beauty brand Maybelline, an update from its old slogan “Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline.” In a statement, the company said: “A single period transforms a question into a declaration of infinite possibility”.

The stat: $14 million. The fine Macquarie Bank is set to pay as the result of an investigation by the corporate watchdog into the rates it offered customers on a savings account.

The big question:

Yesterday’s results: 64% of you think it’s OK to put up Christmas decorations in December, 31% in November, 3% never and 2% pre-Halloween. Thanks for voting - your responses inform TDA's journalism and research. [3,717 votes].

Together with AAP.

“One more beer" is how most bad decisions start.

Griffin Theatre Company’s Wake in Fright is a one-woman play about a schoolteacher whose outback stopover turns into a booze-fuelled freefall. Zahra Newman stars at Carriageworks from December 2nd, with under 35 tickets from $48.

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CW: sexual assault, suicide

British comedian, actor and children’s book author David Walliams has been accused of grooming teenage girls.

Walliams created and starred in the sketch comedy shows Little Britain (2003-06) and Come Fly with Me (2010-11) with Matt Lucas. He also wrote dozens of children’s books, including ‘The Boy in the Dress’, ‘Mr Stink’ and ‘Gangsta Granny’.

ITV News and The Guardian published the results of a three-year investigation overnight, containing allegations from multiple women that Walliams preyed on them for sexual purposes as teenagers.

The 55-year-old has denied the allegations, which date back to the 2000s and 2010s.

Multiple women have alleged to ITV and The Guardian that Walliams groomed them when they were teenagers.

One said she met Walliams at a fan event when she was 15, and that they stayed in contact. She said that when she was 17, she and Walliams had consensual sex. Walliams told ITV he believed she was 18 at the time.

Another woman said she commented on Walliams’ MySpace account when she was 15. He then sent her a private message and eventually organised to meet with her.

The woman said Walliams kissed her, and after she agreed to go to his house, she told ITV he “lifted my top and sucked on my breast and tried to put my hand down his trousers”.

She alleged that Walliams knew she was 15, and that he told her they would wait to have sex until she was 16, the UK’s age of consent.

Walliams has denied all allegations against him, saying: “I am not a sexual predator. I have not broken the law”.

He added: “Whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did.”

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Reporting by Emily Donohoe.

🎧 On today’s TDA podcast, we debate the four day workweek. Listen or watch on Apple here, Spotify here, or YouTube here.

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A mother who lost her 26-year-old son to alcohol-related liver disease is calling for better awareness, treatment and support for young people with alcohol dependence.

Her call comes as a new report from the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) found hospital admissions for alcohol-related liver inflammation surged during COVID and have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

The research also found 14% of patients hospitalised with the condition between 2017 and mid-2024 were under 35.

Alcohol-related liver disease is often associated with older people because severe damage can take years to develop.

This can include cirrhosis, where scar tissue builds up in the liver, and liver cancer.

Alcohol-associated hepatitis can affect people at any age, however. It causes severe inflammation of the liver and can lead to jaundice, which turns the skin and eyes yellow. In severe cases, it can be life-threatening.

Hospital admissions for alcohol-associated hepatitis in Victoria jumped in March 2020, when COVID restrictions began.

Melbourne spent more than 260 days in lockdown, with the report pointing to research showing alcohol consumption increased during the pandemic amid stress, isolation and uncertainty.

Admissions have remained significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels.

The report analysed 4,111 hospital admissions for alcohol-associated hepatitis in Victoria between 2017 and mid-2024.

It found 14% of patients were under 35.

It also found the disease can progress quickly. Almost half of patients who had no liver scarring at their first scan developed it within six years.

Alcohol was also a factor in 38% of cases of the most common type of liver cancer in Greater Melbourne between 2018 and 2022.

Rachel Allen has been advocating for better treatment and support for young people with alcohol dependence since her son Dylan died in 2022, aged 26.

“When we think of a 26-year-old, we imagine someone just beginning their life and looking towards the future. Instead, our family was visiting Dylan in hospital and confronting the reality of his condition,” she said.

Allen hopes sharing Dylan’s story will encourage earlier intervention and better support for people experiencing alcohol dependence, without stigma affecting the care they receive.

FARE CEO Ayla Chorley said the findings reflected what doctors were seeing in hospitals, with people in their 30s dying from alcohol-related liver disease.

Associate Professor Michael Livingston from Curtin University's National Drug Research Institute said governments needed to introduce evidence-based policies to reduce alcohol harm and improve screening and access to treatment.

FARE is also calling for tighter controls on alcohol advertising and rapid home delivery.

Reporting by Elliot Lawry.

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The study looked at three patients at a hospital in Beijing, all of whom had epilepsy that was resistant to standard drugs. Neurosurgeon Yang Dai and his team targeted the part of the study participants’ brain that caused their seizures, using a specially designed therapy to help make them more receptive to epilepsy drugs. After two weeks, the patients began taking a low dose of an anti-psychotic drug, which reduced their seizures by 90-100% within two months.

Reporting by Lucy Tassell.

Today’s titbit comes courtesy of a Reddit user who, on Wednesday night, shared a photo of a sign at a park in Sydney which read: “PLEASE RESPECT OUR NEIGHBOURS DON’T DEFECATE IN THE PARK.

This journalist took it upon himself to fact check the post with haste.

The bad news: the sign is very much real, and was constructed after Ryde City Council was “made aware of several instances of defecation and toilet paper being left around Outlook Park”. The good news: the signs is no longer needed and was actually removed in 2024.

I guess we’ll be renaming this the shitbit.

Reporting by Elliot Lawry.