Priority | Monday, August 25, 2008 |
News sources have estimated that it cost AUD 16.7 m for each gold medal won, which seems like a huge amount.
I quite like the Olympics, despite having watched virtually none of it this time, and I am all for people doing more sport and getting everyone involved.
But considering the shortage of funding for basic health and education services in parts of Australia it seems wasteful to be spending so much on a few individuals. How many local pools, sports grounds and other facilities could be built and maintained for that sum of money?
Every sperm is sacred | Thursday, July 03, 2008 |
The latest news is that on top of paying millions of dollars to have the pope visit and enduring transport disruptions for this over a period of two weeks, but we could be fined over $5000 for wearing a funny shirt.
The latest news is that the government have given police the power to arrest anyone who causes "annoyance or inconvenience to pilgrims".
They're designed to cover Chaser-style stunts as well as protests and offenders could be fined up to $5,500, and this fine could be levied on someone wearing an offensive t-shirt.
Simon and I will be in New Zealand, otherwise how could I resist decorating my running vests.
Kayak | Saturday, June 21, 2008 |
Recently we have had rain nearly every day and last weekend was no exception. Simon and I were off in the rain and wind to join others from our exercise class kayaking on lake Narrabeen on Sunday morning.
Having killed my small camera, the Canon IXUS 700 last week I took the Olympus C-5060 on the kayaking trip, wrapped up carefully against the wet.
It was raining heavily some of the time and my pictures are if anything improved by the water on the lens. The skies cleared at various points and we paddled up a couple of streams which feed the saltwater lake.
Simon and I nearly won the race back across the lake to our starting point and he enjoyed it so much that we are now booked on another kayaking trip up the Hawkesbury at Berowra Waters.
I had tucked the camera up under my jumper while racing but had failed to put the strap around my neck and when I leapt out of the kayak it went straight into the salt water and no longer functions at all. The next camera I buy will be waterproof.
Those crazy estate agents | Friday, June 20, 2008 |
I sat in my favoured cafe near work this morning eating an omlette for breakfast and as the daily papers hadn't yet been delivered I read through the mid-week property pages. Browsing the ads I found something that sums up the city perfectly. There's a long florid house-sale-esque killer features; water views, hardwood floors, air con, CBUS blah, blah, blah.
Then the cherry - no traffic lights to city.
Soft sand and hard rain | Sunday, June 08, 2008 |
I am not sure what happened this morning but Simon stayed in bed and I headed off to Dee Why by myself in a rather stormy morning. This is stormy in a Sydney way, with rain hard enough to pull my earphones out as I ran along Curl Curl beach.
On the map this looks like a nice flat run, but each of the beaches is separated by a headland which actually makes this a hilly run, but very scenic, especially as on the way back I saw a large pod of dolphins at South Curl Curl and followed them around the headland and watched them come into the bay at Freshwater and come close to the pool.
The big 20 | Friday, June 06, 2008 |
20 - kilometers, that is. That's how far I want to run this week. I'm gradually working out how to use my tiny un-communicative GPS but a decent run on Saturday or Sunday should do the job.I bought the smallest one I could find which happens to be waterproof but doesn't record altitude. So one of my tasks is to figure out how to obtain spot heights for lat/lon positions and to be able to draw an altitude profile.
It's quite fun though - once I can get the bloody thing to record. I got a 'as the crow flies' on-way trip from a lunchtime run on Monday which is about 7.5k, panted my way through a GPS recorded 8.76 on Wednesday. The maths they speak for themselves... They don't tell you your shins hurt - I'm trying to establish at what point orthotics become necessary to correct my right pronation as opposed to it just being 'getting used to'.
ho hum
Boring | Thursday, June 05, 2008 |
The saddest thing about this is that it's true :-( It does go some way to explaining why things have been quiet around here...
Orange F.O.O.D Week | Friday, April 25, 2008 |
The last weekend of the Orange F.O.O.D week and we strike rain headed out of Sydney on Friday night. We both have colds and Simon drives and we both cough and splutter through the Blue Mountains and Bathurst to Orange, a four hour drive away.
I had booked a unit at the Summer East apartments which describes itself as “Orange’s newest self contained executive studio apartment complex” true maybe when velour couches were fashionable. It is cheap and comfortable and we drop our bags and walk into town for dinner. The lights of the Canobolas Hotel beckon and we share a nice local Cabernet Sauvignon with our steaks before a coughing, sniffling night’s sleep.
With a kitchen but no food I awake at five o’clock and spend three hours drinking instant coffee and waiting for Simon to wake up. It is nine before we collect brochures from the visitor’s centre and scour Orange for a breakfast café. The first candidates just have coffee and cakes, wandering we find ourselves in a mall and I spot a man eating a fried breakfast. I stop but Simon is not keen and after some debate we head on, still hungry.
There is a food fair and community market on at Blayney about 30 km outside Orange and I drive us there in search of breakfast. There are lots of stalls selling crafts and we manage to buy some good looking home made pickles but still no breakfast and tiredness and cold are getting the better of me.
Driving back to Orange we admit defeat, buy cheese, bread and salad from the local Harris Farm Markets and a Pithrie local wine from liqourland for an early lunch.
The wind has been picking up all morning and by the time we retreat to bed with packets of cold medicine there are gales and lots of leaves blowing from the trees and we sleep until six.
Dinner is Monument wines and local venison at Selkirk’s restaurant and we dress and make our way there through piles of autumn leaves piled up in the footpath, although the wind has dropped and it is a clear night. It is all very good although we have to force our senses of taste and smell to make the most of it and we are soon back in bed for more coughing and sneezing.
Sunday breakfast of ruby grapefruit and bacon sandwiches sets us up and we are happier setting off to the Country Energy F.O.O.D Affair, a one-off market with lots of wine stalls (too early) and lots of stall selling burgers and pies, but we are full. We grab coffee and head out early on the Cowra road towards our next event, a hands-on cider making workshop.
There is a turn-off to Lake Canobolas so we take that and have a walk, admiring the autumn leaves on the trees, all very pleasant. Last night at dinner I had overheard some people saying how hard the cider place was to find, so we hurried off towards Borenore only to pass the cider gate more than 20 minutes before the start of our class. I had seen Borenore caves marked on the map so we detoured there to kill time. We had time for a quick look but not to walk through the caves and then we were back to Small Acres Cyder for a hands-on workshop on making cider.
After an introduction to their business and an explanation of the process it was all hands in for washing the apples and feeding them into an ancient machine like a large meat mincer. Once ground the apple pulp was packed in woven plastic cloth and pressed for the juice, and then off to the barrel for fermentation. We had a great time and bought a few bottles of cider to bring back with us, and some thoughts of home-brewing when we have some space.
Back to Orange and another tour around the market, but still no wine-tasting as we are driving, and just as well as it is a six hour drive, in rain of varying intensity and direction, to get home.
Labels: NSW food
Deliverance (1972) | Friday, April 11, 2008 |
I'm cycling much more these days but with the clocks having just changed this is the first time that I've done the route home in the dark. The cycle path along Burnt Creek Deviation is not well lit and the journey home has you riding into car headlights which can be a little disorientating at times.
However, what I really noticed was frogs. The whole area sounded like a backing track for deliverance.
Shake, rattle and roll | Wednesday, April 09, 2008 |
Random power off events start last week. Called them yesterday (after being away over the weekend), and they arrive today clutching everything except a new case.
No fault found, despite the CDROM repeatedly ejecting like a poltergeist got in there, but I'm asked if I want the motherboard swapped (again). I say yes, just because the warranty is 5 weeks away from the end. The Dell chap lifts the motherboard out, and several small but I guess necessary pieces drop off.
Time to buy a replacement machine but it will be another Dell. Their service is excellent.
Labels: Dell
Earth Hour | Sunday, March 30, 2008 |
EnergyAustralia last night reported a drop between seven and 12 per cent in energy consumption in Sydney's CBD during Earth Hour. On a typical Saturday night the city would use 231.8 megawatts of electricity. Last night's figure was 212.4 megawatts.
Earth Hour was apparently started last year in Sydney and has spread around the globe. You wil have read Simon’s rather negative post about it last year as I made him sit around by candlelight while most of the neighbouring buildings stayed lit.
What the figures regarding reduction in energy consumption miss is the large number of people driving to vantage points all around Sydney to view the spectacle and the large number of news helicopters out taking pictures of it all. How much more energy was consumed?
Labels: environment sydney
Dingo dingo dingo dingo dingo | Monday, March 17, 2008 |
I've not only finally seen a kangaroo, but stroked one as if it were a dog - no great shakes but they're quite fun. Seems almost a shame to eat them. Almost.
Wombats, tasmanian devils and the potentially lethal cassowary have all been played with, seen or avoided as seemed appropriate. Dingo's too (handsome things they are)
Anyhow we're plotting a trip away and considered rail as a method of transport. From Sydney to Orange (one of the climatically 'cooler' wine regions of NSW) is about 4.5 hours on the train - roughly the same time that it take to drive. Stretching further afield to Broken Hill which we'd like to visit, the train timetable looks like this.
A 16hr trip on a train at the wnd of which you're still in New South Wales. It's a mere 14h to Brisbane but you can stretch it out further by 24 hours or so by changing trains to go to Cairns. Big place.
A number of trains offer allow you to take your car - if you do that it's possible the need not to hire a car at the other end might offset some of the cost and I rather like train travel. If we're looking at our last 9 months or so in Australia it seems like it might be a good way to see stuff - it's not the same as stopping but it's more immediate than being 40,000ft up.
Crispy critters | Wednesday, February 06, 2008 |
Power cuts seem to be pretty frequent in Manly but I was amused to read in the local paper that this was not due to recent storms, but to a possum getting into the equipment.
A lone possum caused a power cut to thousands of homes but probably didn't live to tell the tale. Apparently it is not that uncommon.
Labels: possum manly
We're gonna need a bigger boat | Monday, February 04, 2008 |
The shark alarm sounded about 1pm after a local surfer spotted the shark, believed to be about 6ft. It was seen about 200m from the shore near the stormwater pipe on North Steyne Beach.
It was the second time the alarm has been sounded this season.
Manly Council beach supervisor Lee Burnes confirmed the sighting.
"A couple of surfers saw the shark and let the lifeguards know," he said. "We rang the alarm and everyone was quite well behaved. A guard on a jet ski also saw the shark patrolling the beach after the alarm was sounded. Everyone was allowed back in the water after about 30 minutes when we got the all-clear."
Surfer Yann Leclair said he got out of the water straightaway.
"I went to the aquarium yesterday and I have seen how scary those sharks are," he said.
Michael Brown, of Surfwatch, said there had been more spottings than ever this summer. Last month they spotted a plump 3m-great white shark about 3km off Avalon.
Yesterday there were a couple of hammerheads seen off North Head in a feeding frenzy. Mr Brown said it could have been a hammerhead spotted at Manly as they skim the surface while other sharks tend to swim further below. "I've seen bull sharks and bronze whalers out feeding where they won't get hassled by boats," he said. "There were a couple of bull sharks in a feeding frenzy off Bull Head yesterday, which sounds dramatic.
"But there are thousands of baitfish out there too, big stuff like yellowtail, and now they're coming in close to shore to feed, and sharks will follow and even dolphins.
"It can be a big problem. This year I have seen more sharks in the water than I have ever seen before and I've been monitoring these things for 11 years.
"This year there are heaps and heaps of sharks out there."
And just in case you think this is a fuss about nothing...
http://www.listphile.com/World_Shark_Attack_Database/Non-Fatal_Shark_Attack_Grant
Big Day Out | Monday, January 28, 2008 |
I had dressed for a festival in England, sunhat, sun block, raincoat, sarong to sit on, shorts and boots against the dirt and possible mud but this was a festival you could feel happy wearing high heels to and several did. Where straightened hear and pastel sunglasses were more common than the hippy or Goth look I would more normally expect.
There were a few oldsters like Simon and I but mainly the youth of Sydney headed out to the Sydney showgrounds for the Big Day Out.
The venue has many small and large concrete buildings, theatre spaces and stadia, kind of like having a festival in a shopping mall, not very rock’n’roll.
There were steel barriers to queue at for the bars, very unfortunate if you had navigated a maze of steel to find yourself at a bar which serves only premixed rum and cola, and even worse if you had failed to queue for a wrist band proving that you are of drinking age.
Beaky | Saturday, January 26, 2008 |
There is a lot of language shared between Australia and New Zealand, maybe more shared than not, exceptions granted for jandals and chilly bins.
How to describe it? Apparently nosey-parker or busybody will do although one source rated it as more negative in Australia than New Zealand. Maybe kiwis are more relaxed about other’s interest in them.
Spanish Cosmos | Wednesday, January 23, 2008 |
Carl Sagan died just over 11 years ago but in 1980 he co-wrote "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". The book I refer to accompanied the TV series.
Today, I'm sitting down to watch the first of thirteen episodes of Cosmos. There are Spanish subtitles and the rip is pretty poor quality but I never saw it the first time around and always wished I had.
This is what I have to look forward to (other than the fashions of 1978-9)
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
Sydney Thirsty Hash House Harriers | Sunday, January 13, 2008 |
What can I say about the SydneyT3H?
Part of the hash house harrier movement, they classify themselves as a drinking club with a running problem, and on Thursday I joined them, meeting on the corner of a golf course in Cammeray and spending the next hour running with a pack, following chalk marks, a guy with hunting horn and people yelling On-On.
According to Wikipedia hashing began in Kuala Lumpur in 1938 and now there can hardly be a major city without a kennel of runners/drinkers.
The ‘half-way bucket’ which is drinks along the way was Pimms for the brave and water for those like me who hate Pimms or do not associate it with mid-run hydration. It was nearly 20:00 by the time we got back to the golf course for standing around in a circle and sculling beer based on various misdemeanours, or just newness in my case.
Very strange but I think I might continue.
Dee Why | Saturday, December 29, 2007 |
We were down to five for the run to Dee Why and it is further than I had thought.
It took us an hour and a quarter to get there and back via the headland path, but was very scenic.
The path around the headland at North Curl Curl is narrow, steep and rough in patches but we managed it with only one fall.
We have soft sand running on Friday and then I am running by myself until the 2nd Jan when Janine gets back from holidays.
Holiday | Monday, December 24, 2007 |
It is a two-week holiday for my morning exercise group and we start up again officially on January 7.
It shows how keen people are that on the first day of this break six of us turned up at the beach at 6:00 am to do an hours run, including a slog up the hill from Collins beach.
Thursday we are off to Dee Why.
Curious Xmas Statistics |
I can't speak for the rest of the country, and this is a broad statement, but the standard of driving here is quite poor compared to the UK. I'm not sure if it's cars with bigger engines, narrower roads (in some cases) or something else, but it's often quite startling.
Every year there's a running count of the number of deaths on the road in the various states. It's a bit grim.
Labels: Driving
We three King (prawns) of orient are | Sunday, December 23, 2007 |
Oh, and we're six, not three.
'tis the season to be jolly | Tuesday, December 18, 2007 |
When I was seventeen | Sunday, December 09, 2007 |
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We'd hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen
It might have been good for Sinatra, but 17 is an unlucky number for our next door neighbour who has a car sales operation in south western Sydney.
I just heard the SLSC tannoy warn people of an imminent severe weather warning including lightning and hail. Moments later our neighbour appears on the balcony and tells us that 17 windscreens in his lot have been smashed by the hail as it passed over Blacktown.
Checking the BOM website it says
Sydney Metropolitan and
Central Coast areas.
Issued at 4:10 pm Sunday, 9 December 2007.
The Bureau of Meteorology warns that, at 4:05 pm, very dangerous thunderstorms were detected on weather radar near Hornsby, Parramatta, Sydney Olympic Park, Gordon, Ryde and Strathfield. These thunderstorms are moving towards the northeast. Very dangerous thunderstorms are forecast to affect Berowra, Manly, Mona Vale and Terrey Hills by 4:35 pm and Avoca Beach, Terrigal, waters off Terrigal, Umina and Kilcare by 5:05 pm.
Large hailstones - some large than 5 cm in diameter, very heavy rainfall, flash flooding and damaging winds are likely.
Golf ball sized hail reported from Blacktown at 1535 and wind gusts of 80-90 km/h.
Similar size hail has been reported from other suburbs including Pendle Hill and Normanhurst.
Rain, rain, go away | Saturday, December 08, 2007 |
The best pictures of the weather are here Soaking Sydney
Attack of the 50ft steaks | Monday, December 03, 2007 |
After a chat recently it became known that some rather special T Bones were available (in a kind of under-the-counter, in-the-know) manner. They were super, if perhaps a little larger than strictly necessary.
See Attack of the 50ft steaks
Labels: Balgowlah, Food, Sydney
Weekend drama | Sunday, November 25, 2007 |
Youth | Friday, November 23, 2007 |
Long way round | Wednesday, November 07, 2007 |
It was actually pretty good though somewhat amusing that the last show covered the several thousand or so miles from Anchorage (to my suprise, the not-capital of Alaska) to New York as though nothing, safe for a couple of traffic incidents occured.
So worth a watch, and particularly for Ewan McGregor trotting out a couple of well known lines from Star Wars anytime the cops demanded papers.
* It turned out that the show was on SBS, so no-ads, not it's still easier to have the lot on PC that negogiate the laberynthine menus of the tv recording gadget.
Labels: TV
If you can speak in Chinese you're just showing off. | Tuesday, November 06, 2007 |
Labels: Election
Stop the cup |
Some areas of the country is still suffering from Equine Flu and for a while there was a thought that the race would be cancelled. The 700 million or so people that watch it around the world won't be disappointed after all but I don't care in the slightest.
During the news earlier, it was said that "Election campaigning is likely to be overshadowed today by the Melbourne Cup". And this is despite the fact that the central bank (ARB) are widely expected to increase interest rates to the highest point in 11 years today.
Labels: Election, Horse Racing, Melbourne Cup
I kid you not | Sunday, October 21, 2007 |
Rhubarb crumble and custard to finish and plenty of meat left over for a goat shepheard's pie (mountain shepheard's pie, I believe it's called) later in the week.
It's been a lovely day here today, the fridge thermometer (the only one we have) gave up at 30c on the balcony this morning a fraction before 11am and after we'd already spent around 90 minutes basking on the sand.
Eels on wheels | Saturday, October 20, 2007 |
Well actually not. While Gillian's in charge I'll defer most activities to her and restrict myself to dishwasher duty, chopping and other peripheral tasks. When she's away, or like this week, occupied with study I tend to just get on with it.
So we've had poached Ling and Mussels in white wine and safron, salmon with mushroom and taragon sauce and following a quick trip to the local 'produce' market, smoked eel with fresh horseradish sauce. Tonight will require placing the boned shoulder of goat in the oven followed by rhubarb crumble.
