So Close!

The nice people at Google/Blogger have nearly got it all wrapped up. I am so close to being able to post on here with the mobile I can almost taste it. However for the moment you can find the new mobile posts here. I will eventually get everything appear on the one page as I’m not a big fan of having a too many web presences (yet somehow I have ended up with loads).

Now back to getting the maps thing sorted...

Best of the Linkdump

A quick list of the best bits from the linkdump for the previous week. The linkdump contains things that I find in newsfeeds or from random web browsing. It sits in the sidebar and is the bit of this blog I update the most frequently normally with at least one or two posts per day.

World's most dangerous road - From La Paz to the Yungas in Bolivia. An over-used cliff edge road commonly covered in fog.

A working Air Guitar - Another great Aussie invention! A "textile based interface", or a tee-shirt you can use as an air guitar.

Hurricane on Saturn - Two thirds the size of Earth.

Little People - Tiny street art installations. Just in case you haven't seen these. I think the entire world must have linked to this last week.

Jazz

How is it that I never really had too much time for jazz before but now that I'm in Sydney I seem to encounter it everywhere. Loud and coarse, flowing fractured and smashed I seem to see it in every form except, thankfully Dixieland.

Fittingly I never seem to see Jazz whilst sober, as I am lead to believe, neither did some of its' greatest proponents. Not that I would advocate someone like Charlie Parker as a role model for anything other than musical proficiency but there is definitely and an intoxicant nature to jazz, even if it is buried deep under layers of post-ironic Hammond organ.

One of the more notable features seems to be that it makes any group of people almost completely unable to keep still. If you go out on a night with about five people in the presence of music and alcohol it is a statistical certainty that one of you will dance, a 20% likelihood for any one individual. When you go out to jazz event this seems to go up enormously to about four out of five, an 80% likelihood of dancing. This seems to be completely independant of the quality of the music and no fear of peer rebuke or criticism of technique will stop it. In fact it seems the presence of good dancers seems to discourage people. Half the fun is looking a bit silly.

Another feature of the Jazz I'm seeing is that it is played and enjoyed by an extraordinarily varied age range. The band I'm watching whilst scribbling this in my notebook are in their late twenties and early thirties. The audience is somewhat older and I am beginning to suspect that this might be a pickup joint for over forties singles, and they all seem to be casting glances in my direction. Thank God I didn't come here on my own.

Fresh as a daisy at 4am

There's nothing quite like waking up at four in the morning to give you a new perspective on life.

Personally I find it refreshing and invigorating when I snap awake slightly earlier than God. It normally signals the start of a productive and useful day in which I achieve many of my personal targets and reach new levels of fulfillment.

Bugger.

Didn't take the medication today...

I am troubled by a recurring dream, or rather a series of dreams with a recurring theme. In these dreams the universe gives has hidden and embedded a vital part of itself as a person. This person has a task to complete which releives them of this essential element of the universe. The task is never complex but it must be performed for time and space to continue. I suspect, but I can't be certain, that everyone has a task. Often I am the person with the task, but sometimes I am just involved with them in some way.

Each person is persued in their task by a thing which can hide itself as anything or anyone (it prefers people). The object of this creature, or whatever it is, is to stop the task being completed. The quickest and most effective way of doing this is to kill the person with the task. It does this by morphing its head out of whatever it is hiding as and smashing this into the head of the task holder once at unbeleivable speed, there is no chance of survivng its' attack. Its' head is a fire-axe shaped blade with a steep serrated convex edge made of a mother of pearl or white obsidian substance. It has been doing this forever and will continue to do so into infinity. The creature has a name that every task-holder is aware of but that I can never remember when I wake up. Every task-holder is aware of the creature and the task only for the duration of their task. They are equally aware that they will inevitably be killed by the creature should they encounter it.

Once the task-holder is dead time loops back around to the point at which they recieved the task, until either they complete it or it becomes apparent that they cannot complete it. If they can't complete the task then time loops back around to the very beginning of time and begins again almost exactly as before, but not quite. The person who couldn't complete the task is never born or is never given a task. I don't know how I know this as I would normally wake up either as this happens or from the raw shock of seeing a sudden and normally unexpected death - the creature kills using surprise and cunning but it will only ever kill the task holder.

When the task is completed someone new gets a task and the creature has to find them. Each time a task is completed anyone who was aware of the creature or the task continues in their life without being aware of either or having any memory of it. In fact they may reach a state where, despite the task remaining complete there is no record or trace of this contained in reality.

The dreams are extremely vivid and I wake up with a start and sometimes with a cry. I'm pretty sure I snapped awake one morning this week with a howl that shook the building. I'm not always sure that I'm having one of these dreams until the creature appears and it scares the hell out of me when it arrives. In fact it is so real that I half expect to walk round a corner and get nutted by a bizarre white axe thing.

What particularly troubles me is the varying degrees of information given to me by my subconscious. Why does it give me so much information that I couldn't possibly have derived from reason and so little about the specifics of the situation.

Now, I know that I'm not normal, but this isn't normal even for me. I might take it easy on the sauce for the next day or two and see if this helps. Exercise too, nice fresh air and healthy food. Otherwise it looks like it's time for a nice cosy rubber room and one of those jackets with the long sleeves that tie behind your back. Nurse, the screens...

Roo

Roo as it is found in the supermarket

Kangaroos occupy a strange place in the Australian psyche. Whilst the creature is their national symbol, thousands of them are culled each year and whilst there is thriving kangaroo leather industry that sells accessories to tourists, the majority of the meat goes into pet food. Aussies it seems are a little squeamish about eating skippy.

To try and and get people to change this ridiculous bit of anthropomorphic idiocy the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia ran a competition to rename the meat last year (and yes skippy did come up). Whilst the change was never intended to be actioned it was a good bit of PR which highlighted the fact that Australia is missing out.

Son, grab a beer & light the barbie

Kangaroo meat, as you can see from the picture at the top, is about the same colour as venison and is very similar in taste. However it is much more tender and much more easily cooked, it is also exceptionally lean there is almost no fat. The meat chars to an almost caramelised outer shell when cooked on a very high heat. In the picture below I've not done much more than sear it on each side on a griddle pan. It is best eaten as rare as you can take it and benefits from about 10 minutes resting time after cooking. It has a slightly gamey flavour that goes beautifully with mushrooms, garlic, thyme and other strong flavours. As befits its' nation of origin it barbeques beautifully!

Roo as it is found on my plate

Australia really needs to get over itself and take another look at Kangaroo. Oz has the world's second highest obesity problem per capita (after guess where). You would have thought that a low fat meat that barbeques better than any other that I've tried would be perfect.

Airport tips

We went to Tasmania for a long weekend a few weeks ago. It is a land of beer, wine, peculiar wildlife and many cheeses, some so virulent that they set off the explosive detectors at the airport. At least that's my story, the reason that I got checked for explosives probably had more to do with my general demeanour.

I'm not comfortable with flying at the best of times but having raced to fill the rental car with petrol before returning it and finding that the chip in the widscreen was going to cost us the nearly as much as the rental again put me in a bit of a tiz. Then running to the terminal to be told that we had run to the wrong terminal didn't improve my mood hugely.

The most annoying thing about air travel at the moment is that if you don't maintain a kind of detatched calm throughout the entire process, no matter what logistical or bureaucratic obstacles are put in your way, then you are guaranteed to be stopped at some point and either searched or explosives checked.

Surely the odd ones out in this whole process, the ones that should be searched in intimate and probing ways are the people who can remain calm. That kind of inner peace isn't simply sickeningly smug it comes from something really very profound, like knowing you only have a few hours to live before your martyrdom transports you a paradise where a million lustful virgins are waiting to attend to every freakish whim...

When I had to fly to Canberra for a meeting this Monday at stupid O'clock in the morning I picked up a few tips on air travel that I thought I'd share with you. Of course the best tip is the most important and really is a golden rule for life so I have excluded from the list below. It is:

Never attempt anything without first having a good strong cup of coffee and a decent breakfast, ever.

Once you have this sorted the rest falls naturally into place and you won't need any of the tips below:

1. An aluminium briefcase looks good and is very practical, it can also be used to store your screw-together rifle or home made semtex, get one tomorrow
2. Walking through the metal detector carrying your aluminium briefcase is a good way to meet in uniform, if you're into that kind of thing
3. When they tell you to take your shoes off tell them how many days you've been wearing the same pair of socks before saying "you really don't want me to do that mate" will save silly misunderstandings
4. When the nice man asks you to "please step this way sir" giving him a distant "wot me?" look and taking 2 seconds to process the information makes him speak very slowly and clearly, it is only polite to respond in the same manner
5. When being checked for explosives you may be asked, "have you ever seen this test before?" customs men really appreciate experience, so answer with a polite "all the bloody time". Whilst being explosives checked:
   1. don't try and peek at the monitor screen, it's impolite and if you do have some exotic substance on you, you will be given ample time to explain, your bagage is already on the plane they will wait for you, they know how much you need to be on the flight and they empathise
   2. don't try and take the swab thing from the nice man even to speed things up, it's his toy, let him play with it first
   3. try and remain calm, perhaps by imagining you are transported to a paradise where a million lustful virgins are waiting to attend to every freakish whim, maybe even whisper this to yourself under your breath
6. If you are not used to seeing guns follow all of the tips above and whilst going through the security checks stare intently at the automatics in the hip-holsters of the policemen, you never know they might show you one more closely

Sadly the Tasmania trip was before the Canberra one and I didn't have the benefit of the insights above. On being explosives checked I fixed the customs officer with a cheeky grin and said "it's the bloody cheese isn't it?" in my best posh english accent. When he reached for the bag I inadvertently spluttered out "careful man, there's a culture in there, you don't want one of those here". Whilst I was definitely misunderstood I don't think this one me many friends. However I made plenty more new friends shortly afterwards when Emily left me behind, blithely waved both boarding passes at the ground crew and set off accross the asphalt, still holding both boarding passes. I made lots of new friends then.

Bored

I think I may have reached my boredom threshold. Having battled with my commitment and motivation level at work I am actually having to make the admission to myself that I am really very bored indeed.

Not the 'not busy' kind of bored but the kind of bored where you look at your life and think 'what the hell am I doing?' For example I woke up at 5:30am today , worried about the amount I have to do today and it's all easily acheivable but I just don't want to do it, not a moment of it. Things have been this way for some time and it is something I need to address.

I am now looking at ways to improve this in my current role before I start looking for anything else or changing direction. If you aren't going to try you shouldn't have got in to it in the first pace. I am going to start using some of the elements from a strategy meeting last week and some of my own thoughts on methods I might use to sort myself out.

I'm going to start looking at new products and where we might sell them and to whom. I'm going to be looking at how I can improve the general dynamism of the company and what we do about the way we spend money on chasing things that look good but we can't do. I've also got to try and get away from one of our projects as it is quite clearly a dog with fleas, big fleas (unfortunately it is also the MD's pet).

As with any sort of consulting/change program this needs to be done with a positive aspect on anything negative and I am going to have to take a little time to find from whence can be derived. Organisations move in the directions they ask questions about so I need to start asking the questions. People tend to move in the direction of their interests and skills, so I'd better make 'em interesting questions...

...more later, just what's on my mind this morning.

Brooker, Banksy and Barley

Charlie Brooker may have gone a bit overboard with this article about Banksy. If you aren’t familiar with Banksy his website will tell you most of what you need to know about him and Charlie Brooker’s article will fill in the rest. Banksy started out as a graffiti artist and has branched out into other areas embracing other forms quickly, efficiently and in a very striking manner, his work is very media friendly. He is a skilled self-publicist and has essentially made himself a brand rather than an artist.

As always I agree with much of what Brooker says but he’s bordering on irrelevant here. Banksy’s background is as a graffiti artist and whilst Situationist influenced graffito had conceptual and political depth the form itself is far more based on immediate visual impact and not on profound insight and developed thinking. Warhol beat Banksy to the brand strategy by a clear three decades and Damien Hirst is probably much better at it in a far more financially gainful way so why would Banksy be so objectionable? Brooker seems to be particularly bothered by the pseudo subversive leanings of Banksy but the trouble is that cultural norms have now expanded to recognise anything remotely alternative. The knock-on effect is that to be genuinely subversive you actually have to be a subversive, making you subject to anti-terror legislation which is a bit of a frightening prospect. Not that Brooker is expecting genuinely subversive behaviour but seems to think that Banksy is trying to infer that he knows some real criminals, which he might. He does live and work in the East end of London and has done for some time.

Banksy’s work is ContentLite and style heavy but it makes extensive use of irony, something Brooker ought to be well acquainted with as he makes his living with it. You only have to read through Brooker’s article twice to see that he has badly missed the point on at least one occasion. Brooker may not like Banksy’s popular leftist anti-globalisation leanings and his association of American capitalist icons with the political activities of that country but the point is that whilst these may be shallow and poorly constructed they do point at a resistance to a cultural invasion from a country whose actions are increasingly abhorrent to the general public. Banksy might not be the sharpest tool in the box but he is at least getting involved.

Whilst popular culture and the mediatisation of everything give everyone a chance to see creative work and to be creative almost none of us are but most of us have an opinion about what creativity is and how it should be done. The modern world has made everyone a consumer and a critic. Brooker himself is most successful as a TV critic and writer who can hand out the kind of vitriol and satire on contemporary existence that makes the rest of the media check themselves against his every scribbling to ensure that they haven’t slipped too far into being Nathan Barley.

Nathan Barley is Brooker’s creation, a kind of conceptual voodoo doll for him to stick pins in, a hate figure and all too common occurrence in everyday life. Nathan Barley is a patchwork archetype of loathsome traits who doesn’t do anything in particular with his life and is agonisingly self-involved and self-important but somehow still holds influence. If you’ve been to Hoxton of a Friday night at any time in the past six years or so you will have seen hundreds of Nathan Barleys out parading themselves around. Nathan Barley became a TV series in which Brooker and Chris Morris used heavy handed irony to build the character and assassinate it, possibly in despair that the kind of narcissist that Barley represents to them is exactly the kind now being given precedence by popular culture.

I find Nathan Barley problematic because at some point just about everyone steps across the line into Barley-dom and the charge of hypocrisy is all too easy to level at Brooker himself. If you look at the unctuous Barley’s claim of being a ‘self facilitating media node’ it is far too easy to apply that definition to Brooker who writes for newspapers, publishes a website writes for and appears on TV, producing mostly parody, pastiche and criticism safely free of the need for originality.

Brooker and Morris have become unspoken media-appointed guardians of integrity – if they get to you you’ve done something wrong - but something about their output bugs me. For example Nathan Barley isn’t parody or humour, it was close enough to the nature of real life that I could barely watch it. In fact I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was watching Brooker & Morris’s self-loathing made flesh. I also had an uneasy feeling that if they didn’t continue producing this kind of material they might easily have become this kind of person, or worse still are in danger of becoming the real life Dan Ashcroft of the Nathan Barley series whose identification of the ‘New Idiots’ and articulation of their horrors sanctifies and reinforces them. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that both writers have fallen into with their wallets open. It also irks me that when people like Brooker, who go out of their way to be a bit different, do something creative you end up with Nathan Barley which is more of the same but dramatised rather than flatly stated as in his other writing. Boring, barely relevant and cringingly difficult to watch.

Banksy might be a bit of a nob but show me an artist that isn’t and I guarantee you they don’t make any money from their artistic work, they probably have to write for newspapers, television and websites. When I lived and worked in London my walk to work from Old Street station took me past at least 5 of Banksy’s pieces and I was constantly noticing new ones. Let’s not mistake quantity for quality, Banksy’s work definitely isn’t of a deep and meaningful nature but it has a huge presence in contemporary culture just as Brooker does. The chief difference is that Banksy isn’t shooting his mouth off about how crap other people’s output is whilst actually failing to engage with the material he’s criticising, however pretentious and showy.


By the way I am aware of the additional layer of irony created by posting this piece of consumer criticism on a website with little or no original work, just in case you got a sudden urge to point this out to me.

Today's word is 'Dusty'

Oh, it's empty. Must be bedtime

'Dusty' is Australian for hung over. I'm so dusty that people are scrawling 'clean me' in the dust on my back. I'm so dusty when I brush past people in the office they start sneezing. Quite, quite dusty.

Yep, definitely empty

We went to the Feastibility food & wine festival yesterday at a performing arts school in Newtown and I indulged in too much of one and not enough of the other.

Besides my self-inflicted woes I am also battling the kind of apathy that, if it gets any worse, may prevent me from breathing. I think I might need a holiday, a good thing I am going to Tasmania for a few days later this week.

I have also been trying to get various technical things on here working so that I can post things on here whilst away and put maps on the main page. It isn't working and it's annoying me, a LOT. I have put most of the time I would normally spend writing on trying to fix bugs so I'm apologies if people have been checking to see what I've been doing. I have been cursing at the computer. I have figured out how to post here one way but the other ended up here, which is no use to anyone. It's going to take the nice people at blogger a while to sort it out so I shall begin ranting writing again instead.

Crikey!

Put it down

You may have noticed that Steve Irwin died last week. You haven’t? What are you, a troglodyte? Have you been living on the moon for the last fortnight (and can I borrow your spaceship, I tire of this planet?)? This has provided Australia with (another) Diana Moment^TM; a spontaneous outpouring of grief marked by the national spending on inappropriate cut flowers tripling over night.

I’m not going to pretend that this isn’t sad, the man was only 44, a father of two and one of the world’s most committed conservationists, this is ground that has been well covered elsewhere. The thing is that Irwin was a lot more…er…’hands on’ than most others in his field and had been riding his luck for years. My cynical and immediate response to the news of his death was: “well something was going to get him sooner or later”. A friend put it a little better: “there’s hundreds of crocs out there thinking, ‘dammit, that bastard was mine!’”.

The first I ever saw of Irwin was a typically gung-ho piece of television. Irwin was going to hunt out the world’s top 10 most venomous snakes and kiss them. Finding them at least should be relatively easy for an Aussie as 8 of the top ten live within driving distance of me. The idea behind this was to show that with the correct knowledge the mythology of ‘dangerous’ wildlife could be dispelled and people would feel more affectionate and conservationally minded towards creatures that don’t have enough “aaaaaaahhh” factor. As is evident from observing the world around us the road to hell is paved with good intentions and through a combination of his own enormous enthusiasm, planet sized personality and what appeared to the casual observer to be foolhardy disregard for his own personal safety Irwin quickly invalidated this enterprise.

Scrabbling amongst the dust and rocks in a remote area dressed in shorts and a short sleeved shirt Irwin picked up a snake in each hand, described its preferred habitat, how aggressive it wasn’t until you try you pick it up, the effects of its venom and what you should do if you were stupid enough to try and pick it up and got bitten by it. He then handed the snakes to his heavily pregnant wife and charged off into a small dark cave in search of more, his wife’s cautions following him into the cave. If he were going to deliver a demonstration of how not to behave in the presence of a venomous creature that just wants to be left alone he could not have provided a better example.

I said put it down!

The next segment of the show saw Irwin in woodlands, again scrabbling about under rocks until he found a specimen that suited his needs. Again he squatted down picked up the timid creature and described its’ lifecycle in intimate detail. Halfway through his spiel he halted, his eyes bulging out of his head, he looked straight at the camera: “Oh crikey!” He stood quickly and moved away, he put down the snake and moved aside the rock he was squatting over. Concealed in the hollow underneath and not three inches from where his testicles had been only moments before was an entire nest of poisonous snakes. “Oh man, that could have been nasty”, quoth the khaki clad clot, “They go for the warm bits…” It was a moment of unintentional comic genius that whilst certainly added to the appeal of the man also exposed the fact that was he was attempting was not just the act of a showboating show-off but to anyone less knowledgeable and skilled than himself would certainly have been a terminal experience.

The Ahhhhhh factor in action

Irwin was a reflection of the creatures he loved and worked with: a rare breed that is instantly intriguing and dangerous if not handled carefully. His unbelievable joie de vivre and enthusiasm played as entertainment on screen went over fantastically in America and in Australia but left me wondering whether he was making entertainment with animals as props rather than his stated objective of conservation and education. Naming his show “The Crocodile Hunter” also jarred with that for me. I also couldn’t help feeling that the personality that made him a global celebrity would have me attempting to tear his throat out after half an hour in his presence – I empathised too easily with the animals trying to kill him. I loathed Irwin’s public persona but I found his TV presence hypnotic simply because I could not believe that he made it through half an hour of such adventures, never mind a lifetime of them, without being stung, bitten, dismembered or eaten by the extraordinary array of creatures he felt the need to lay hands on. At the end of his programs I was left in a state of catharsis that quite rid me of any fear of anything but left me too exhausted to step outside the house.

It is this ambivalence towards him that characterises my reaction to his death. I am sorry to see the end of a great conservationist and an iconic Australian but I can’t help the feeling that natural selection finally called time on him. His sensationalist TV shows and frequent work at his own Australia Zoo in front of crowds mean that I can’t help feeling that it is quite fortunate that his death wasn’t far more public than was actually the case. Videos of it would have hit the internet in minutes had it happened anywhere he was being filmed by tourists. No one is indestructible and whilst Irwin was one of those people that are a reassuring presence and point of reference, the point of reference was always as a remarkable example of how many risks could be taken without falling foul of them. Irwin may well become a cautionary tale for parents and children round the globe.

It seems worth repeating the tragic irony of his death that he was killed by a creature that is normally placid - if not lugubriously unconcerned - trying to demonstrate that it was in no way as dangerous as its name or reputation suggested. He wasn’t even trying to touch it, kiss it, feel its goolies or otherwise interfere with it. There was almost no risk in the situation. Other naturalists and fishermen who have spent time around stingrays have said that at best guess the fish was just not in the mood to be watched. So remember kids, when they say leave it alone on the wildlife documentaries it doesn’t matter how knowledgeable or able you are, if it is having a bad day it will still kill you – leave it alone.

70's glow

Sunshine & Big Specs

This is another shot from Sunday. It has strange glow to it and looks like it was in a 70's magazine despite the fact that it was shot with a camera phone.

I am trying out different photo hosting services at the moment and whilst flickr seems to be the best and most popular one it has its' problems. Not the least of which is that I have to remember yet another set of login details. Picasa, where this one is hosted is Google's answer and means I can login with all the same details (flickr is owned by Yahoo). Unfortunately it doesn't have quite the same depth of feature. I'm sure more are on their way but in the meantime I shall keep experimenting.

Sunset over Sydney

Sydney City & Harbour
There's a whole continent to the West of in Sydney so you get the most fantastic sunsets. This is taken from the living room balcony of a friend of ours.

There are more details on the photo including map links on flickr - just click the photo.

Today in pictures

Fubar

My running shoes died after three years of faithful service/abuse. I shouldn't really have been playing tennis in them.

Lizard posing

Seen out on the reserve at Magic Point. There are thousands of them, but this one was willing to sit still and have his picture taken.

Wasabi peas - more addictive than crack

This is a snack from Japan (we think). Big fat peas covered in wasabi batter and roasted. If you aren't familiar with it wasabi is japanese horseradish which is often strong enough to bring tears to your eyes. I don't know if it's the endorphine hit you get from the wasabi or the strange nutty flavour that they have, but once a tin of these is open it gets finished.

Yeehah

Having destroyed the only shoes I have to play tennis in I needed some new ones. Yes, I know they're blue and shiny, I don't care what you think, I like them.

The Great Ginger Beer Experiment: Drinking

Hubble bubble beery trouble

You might be wondering what happened to the Ginger Beer. Before I interupted myself with Holidays and expensive toys I opened the cupboard it was brewing in to see how it was going. To my surprise there was no broken glass and sticky residue all up the walls but 13 well behaved bottles of nicely cleared liquid. Could it be that I have finally after all these years succeeded in making drinkable Ginger beer? To the Fridge!

Putting on a blast jacket and carefully handling one of the bottles in case the pressure inside had reached explosive levels I chilled one of the bottles over night. With the beer I ordinarily brew this can often mess the flavour up a bit and make the beer go cloudy but with Ginger beer this doesn't matter.

24 Hours later I put the helmet and blast jacket back on and gently remove the bottle from the fridge. With a feeling of some trepidation I undid the lid and found myself slightly disappointed that instead of a sharp explosion and a fountain of Ginger beer, I have the proper hiss of a well carbonated drink. Pouring it into the specially bought jug the first thing that I noticed was the fantastic smell. All the lemon, ginger and vanilla aromas has been preserved and it still has the cough-syrup smell. The colour is about right and it is cloudy – because I put some of the funk from the bottom of the barrel in each bottle there are little tiny pieces of ginger floating in the beer. This puts a certain person off the drink itself but it is actually not much worse than traditionally made lemonade and is perfectly tolerable.

The taste is unbelievably gingery, and slightly acidic from the lemons which also feature in the taste. The vanilla isn’t hugely noticeable but has definitely made the drink a lot smoother. It isn’t very sweet, it’s not quite sharp but it certainly isn’t super sweet. I can’t taste the alcohol but it’s in there somewhere as the sugar that made it really sticky when the mixture was put in the fermenter is totally gone. It’s actually a very palatable drink and would be fantastic on a hot afternoon. I just have to wait a month or so until we start getting those again!

I have now satisfied myself that it is actually possible to make decent Ginger Beer though there are a few things I would do differently. Perhaps next time I will put the ginger in a muslin bag before I start boiling the mixture – that would keep the bits out. I also think I used one lemon too many and would definitely consider putting a bit more vanilla in too. It remains to be seen whether I can abstain from guzzling the whole lot before the hot weather returns, especially as I now need the bottles to make real beer!

At blinkin' last!

There are going to be some changes on here. Finally Google/blogger have put some of the changes I've wanted into action. There will be some small changes on here whilst the bigger bits are figured out.

Basically any of the more "advanced" features on here that I have had to code myself will stop working and the page will look a bit squashed up for a while as I work out how to reinstate them - this may take some time and you might have a little oddness in the comments as Google make you get an account etc. etc. but it is hugely worth it for me not to have to arse about with so much code so regularly.

Benefits include better archiving, labels/categories on posts that I don't have to code myself and lots of other bits still to come.

Blue Mountains - photos

Bad splice but a great landscape

We spent the weekend in a studio apartment in Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains aren't so much a range of mountains as a heavily eroded plateau which gives rise to some spectacular scenery.

River Gorge

One of the highlights was walking down this river gorge not far from Blaxland on Sunday where the path just disappears and you are left to scramble over boulders and find your own way between the trees. You could have been in the middle of nowhere but in fact were only a little over 50km from Sydney.

The drive home took only about an hour from where this photo was taken. There is national parkland even closer to us to the South. The scenery isn't quite as spectacular but because the terrain is a bit flatter you can see further and it looks a lot more remote.

Don't know what these are called - there were loads of them

Thursday night out

Last night we went to Cherijam to watch our friend Ephrem perform. The video clip you can see here is of his second song of the night. The man has a great voice and a terrific stage presence – bastard.

Now lean in and grin like a drunken fool...perfect!Ephrem was one of a selection of performers on that night all of whom were pretty good. The night itself was organised by Sally who I did take a picture of which was hastily deleted at the subject’s request – she will not be appearing in this post. I also have a fantastic one of Emily which will not be published here without her permission.


The best seat in the house was claimed early on
Cherijam is a great venue with two extremely well decked out bars above what looks to be a great restaurant. We ate in the bar upstairs – good pizza, nice wine - I feel a bit the worse for wear today, again.

Er...video

Anyone got any ideas what I do with this? I mean it's great and my inner geek is simply delighted but I just dunno what I might do with this.

Filed under:

• me
• video

Friday office booze

Friday office booze
Originally uploaded by dataphage.

A random stranger has just walked into my office and handed me a glass of wine. Shame he couldn't find a glass of red.