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2006-06-23
A long, good Friday
At 7am local time the Soccaroos (euugh) made it through to the last 16 of the World Cup. The first time they have ever done so.
Australia has got right into the 'soccer'. I have a feeling not much work will be done in Australia this afternoon. I'm terrified of going to the pub tonight it'll be a mess.
Australia has got right into the 'soccer'. I have a feeling not much work will be done in Australia this afternoon. I'm terrified of going to the pub tonight it'll be a mess.
2006-06-18
2006-06-16
Choices, choices...
filed under:
me
Imagine for a moment that you have little or nothing to do this weekend. Then imagine that you have two conflicting invitations; the first is to a Samba night, the second to a Tupperware party. Which one do you pick?
Come on now, judge them on their merits. At the Samba night you will have the perfect excuse to drink many, many delicious Caipirinha. At the Tupperware party you will get the full retro experience. You might even be invited to a coffee morning, or a jumble sale, or a wife swapping party…
Without being rude to anyone that is involved in either of these events what kind of choice is that for a Saturday night, I mean bloody honestly? I know you social life dies down a touch as you get older but I’m only 28, how did it come to this?
Tupperware parties have been around so long that Ann Summers have pinched their business model and made it their own. And Samba/Salsa well I can’t dance before the eighth drink of the night but after that critical threshold I suddenly find my feet. Unfortunately reality reasserts itself at the eleventh drink and I realise that I hate dancing, everyone around me and life in general. After this point I generally fall over. There is a slim three drink window of opportunity in which I am unselfconscious enough to dance and still sober enough to put one foot in front of the other. This is a delicate balance that I have little experience of and not the slightest interest in maintaining. Ballroom dancing is a big competitive sport out here - mind you so is telling fishing lies and hyperbole in general – and I don’t fancy being shown up as badly as I would be (if you haven’t seen it you should watch Strictly Ballroom, it will give you some idea of how seriously the Aussies take just about anything competitive).
I have opted for the Tupperware party. I might bring the Ann Summers thing up every now and then, not often enough to get on their nerves but enough to make the point. Approximately once every ten minutes should do it. I wonder if Tupperware do any of the plastic moulding for them…
Without being rude to anyone that is involved in either of these events what kind of choice is that for a Saturday night, I mean bloody honestly? I know you social life dies down a touch as you get older but I’m only 28, how did it come to this?
Tupperware parties have been around so long that Ann Summers have pinched their business model and made it their own. And Samba/Salsa well I can’t dance before the eighth drink of the night but after that critical threshold I suddenly find my feet. Unfortunately reality reasserts itself at the eleventh drink and I realise that I hate dancing, everyone around me and life in general. After this point I generally fall over. There is a slim three drink window of opportunity in which I am unselfconscious enough to dance and still sober enough to put one foot in front of the other. This is a delicate balance that I have little experience of and not the slightest interest in maintaining. Ballroom dancing is a big competitive sport out here - mind you so is telling fishing lies and hyperbole in general – and I don’t fancy being shown up as badly as I would be (if you haven’t seen it you should watch Strictly Ballroom, it will give you some idea of how seriously the Aussies take just about anything competitive).
I have opted for the Tupperware party. I might bring the Ann Summers thing up every now and then, not often enough to get on their nerves but enough to make the point. Approximately once every ten minutes should do it. I wonder if Tupperware do any of the plastic moulding for them…
2006-06-08
Maps & Satellite photo's
Last week Google released Google maps for Australia and New Zealand which means I can now link you to map pages and their satellite photographs of places I’ve been or am going to which means more Google enabled web fun. You might need to play around with the map, satellite and hybrid views and the zoom control to get the idea. At some point I will figure out how to “mashup” all this with the blog on the main page, which will be very good indeed but right now all I’ve got is links:
To kick us off, this weekend we will be going to Nelson Bay for to eat in restaurants, soak in a hot tub and drink wine.
Also the wharf in the middle of Sydney harbour that I used to get the ferry home from.
Maroubra Beach
Pearl Beach where we occasionally go for the weekend.
And last just Sydney Harbour. If you look at the satellite photo you can see how busy the harbour is.
I’m using Google for a vast amount of things at the moment including email, diary organising even web favourites and tracking the traffic on this site through Google Analytics which even though I’ve only had access to for a week has absolutely blown my mind. In case you didn’t know they also own blogger. More about Google in upcoming geek posts including the infamous "Web 2.0" meme.
Also the wharf in the middle of Sydney harbour that I used to get the ferry home from.
Maroubra Beach
Pearl Beach where we occasionally go for the weekend.
And last just Sydney Harbour. If you look at the satellite photo you can see how busy the harbour is.
I’m using Google for a vast amount of things at the moment including email, diary organising even web favourites and tracking the traffic on this site through Google Analytics which even though I’ve only had access to for a week has absolutely blown my mind. In case you didn’t know they also own blogger. More about Google in upcoming geek posts including the infamous "Web 2.0" meme.
2006-06-03
Maroubra beach today
This is a bit of an experiment. I have just shot some video of a small section of the view from our balcony and uploaded it to Google video. This means you can actually see what it's like outside my window today.
Warning the file is nearly 11Mb and it's not very long, I just wanted to see if it worked.
Warning the file is nearly 11Mb and it's not very long, I just wanted to see if it worked.
Pie
Ketchup on a pie - it's just wrong
Right, I’m back. It appears that we consistently exceed our bandwidth allocation so at the end of every month we lose our internet connection. Whilst I’m not averse to posting small things from work sat at your desk for twenty minutes whining online about how many pies you’re eating is probably not going to be viewed particularly well by your employer.Speaking of which, I am eating too many pies! My pie count for the week is 4. It was a slow week pie-wise.
Not unlike the UK Australia has been through the foodie revolution and the standard of food available is now twenty or thirty times what it was ten years ago. Vegetarians are no longer put on the barbeque, though sometimes it can be a little difficult for Em to explain that chicken is not a vegetable, and that actually neither is fish.
Also like the UK there are some hang-overs from the terrible food past. For example in London you can buy a substandard cornish pastie just about anywhere. In Sydney you can buy a substandard pie just about anywhere. Although if you've got half a brain you'll look for five minutes longer and find that there is a bakers round the corner and that will sell you a gourmet pie for $2 more. Yes that's right a gourmet pie, and they're not kidding the good ones are really good. I'd steer clear of the curry ones though. What seems like a brilliant fusion of two great institutions is in fact a violation of natures law.
If you listen to the tourist guides there is only one place to buy a pie in Sydney Harry's Cafe de Wheels.
Also like the UK there are some hang-overs from the terrible food past. For example in London you can buy a substandard cornish pastie just about anywhere. In Sydney you can buy a substandard pie just about anywhere. Although if you've got half a brain you'll look for five minutes longer and find that there is a bakers round the corner and that will sell you a gourmet pie for $2 more. Yes that's right a gourmet pie, and they're not kidding the good ones are really good. I'd steer clear of the curry ones though. What seems like a brilliant fusion of two great institutions is in fact a violation of natures law.
The Sunbeam Pie Magic 4
Australia may be the only country on earth where you can buy a pie maker. Most people would settle for doing it the old fashioned way, with an oven, but not your pie chomping sheep shearer. A pie maker is not unlike a toasted sandwich maker. You line the tins with pastry put in your filling, put on the pie lids and close the top. A few short minutes later you have pies. There even seems to be a pie maker specifically targeted at children. Why you would invest in a pie maker, make or buy pastry and make or buy filling and the fiddle around making substandard pies when you could walk to the corner of the street and buy a gourmet pie is beyond me. Harry's cafe de wheels
My own pie consumption has been driven up by the amount of nights I am not at home for dinner. On my way off the ferry I have to walk almost straight past a window kiosk on circular quay that sells some of the bestt pies and pastries in Sydney. The temptation can be too much. Often I've grabbed a coffee and a danish for breakfast there in the morning too.If you listen to the tourist guides there is only one place to buy a pie in Sydney Harry's Cafe de Wheels.
A pie floater
At Harry's you can buy an Australian delicacy, being Australia there is nothing delicate about it, it is called a pie floater. A pie floater is more commonly found in the state of South Australia. To make a pie floater take a bowl of mushy peas, float a pie in it - you're done. Harry's also put mashed potato on the top and cover it with gravy. I will leave you to imagine what I think of that.
2006-05-25
At the end of Rainbow Street
The Lord Nelson
Last night I almost felt mildly homesick for the first time. It was the coldest day for 8 months, raining hard, there were Australians behind the bar, only poms ordering drinks, I may as well have been in London. I stood at the fireplace sipping an excellent porter exchanging pleasantries with my fellow countrymen. The kind of night you only get at The Lord Nelson in winter. The fact that it is nearly June didn't really cross my mind...
As of Sunday I have been in Australia 1 year. I haven't really even thought about going home in a serious way. I haven't even really settled in properly yet. There have been a few recent events that have made home feel a very long way away. Not making it to Paul and Molly's Wedding was a real disappointment. I had the return leg of a ticket to Oz use but no way to get back here after I'd used it.
The death of a favourite pet is never a good thing either, although this remarkeable cat made it 20. Trodden on by the biggest horse in a 50 mile radius he endured a smashed pelvis well before he reached full size. A few years later he was run over by a car and lost a front leg. He also survived a trip to the Netherlands for a year and the subsequent quarantine on his return. For a while it looked like he might even have found a way to sleep through old age without being disturbed.
There are also other things I won't go into on here, but they aren't good either.
One for the road dear?Doom and gloom aside I've had a pretty good year in Oz. However it seems long overdue that I take the piss out of Emily for events on the night of my arrival in Australia, even though her colleagues have made a decent effort in this direction.
After 5 months apart, after leaving behind my friends my family and my job I might have expected a warm welcome at Kingsford Sith airport. Not a bit of it. I was furnished with an address and told that: "Taxis leave from...er...well you'll find it."
Having come directly from London I had high expectations of taxi drivers. Lesson ther first: Sydney is not London. Taxi drivers don't have to know where they're going. They don't necessarily seem to have to speak too much English or be able to drive in a way that ensures their passenger's safety. Luckily mine could do all three, though he did need a little prompting and did so with a degree of reluctance.
My driver's most obvious shortcoming, apart from the fact that he refused to take Sterling, was one all too familiar to me; a total inability to read a map. He threw the road atlas to me with a blasé: "You know where you going, you find". My response, after a full day of aeroplane travel was a bit more than robust. If memory serves it went something along the lines of:
Events above are mildly fictionalised and whilst broadly accurate they should not be taken as fact.
Emily was very excited to show me the fantastic falt she'd found and comlpletely forgot that I was turning up penniless, without a clue where I was going and that it would be dark when I arrived so I wouldn't be able to see the stunning sea view...
The death of a favourite pet is never a good thing either, although this remarkeable cat made it 20. Trodden on by the biggest horse in a 50 mile radius he endured a smashed pelvis well before he reached full size. A few years later he was run over by a car and lost a front leg. He also survived a trip to the Netherlands for a year and the subsequent quarantine on his return. For a while it looked like he might even have found a way to sleep through old age without being disturbed.
There are also other things I won't go into on here, but they aren't good either.
One for the road dear?Doom and gloom aside I've had a pretty good year in Oz. However it seems long overdue that I take the piss out of Emily for events on the night of my arrival in Australia, even though her colleagues have made a decent effort in this direction.
After 5 months apart, after leaving behind my friends my family and my job I might have expected a warm welcome at Kingsford Sith airport. Not a bit of it. I was furnished with an address and told that: "Taxis leave from...er...well you'll find it."
Having come directly from London I had high expectations of taxi drivers. Lesson ther first: Sydney is not London. Taxi drivers don't have to know where they're going. They don't necessarily seem to have to speak too much English or be able to drive in a way that ensures their passenger's safety. Luckily mine could do all three, though he did need a little prompting and did so with a degree of reluctance.
My driver's most obvious shortcoming, apart from the fact that he refused to take Sterling, was one all too familiar to me; a total inability to read a map. He threw the road atlas to me with a blasé: "You know where you going, you find". My response, after a full day of aeroplane travel was a bit more than robust. If memory serves it went something along the lines of:
"You picked me up from international arrivals, I cleared customs and walked straight into the taxi queue. I have lived in this country for approximately twelve minutes and all I have is an address and that it is somewhere at the end of Rainbow street."Eventually we find the place that is to be my home for the next six months. The door is open and I'm not positive that I'm in the right place. I push open the door and am releived beyond belief to see Emily standing there.
"We at end of Rainbow street, road stop here!"
"Hello. How are you? I've opened some crisps and some wine, but I'm afraid I was a bit nervous and got bored waiting so there's not much left...."Okay, I see, that's to be the way of things is it?
Events above are mildly fictionalised and whilst broadly accurate they should not be taken as fact.
Emily was very excited to show me the fantastic falt she'd found and comlpletely forgot that I was turning up penniless, without a clue where I was going and that it would be dark when I arrived so I wouldn't be able to see the stunning sea view...
2006-05-18
Peter Costello Bought me a Beer
The Chancellor: Peter CostelloAustralia has just had a budget. Beeing the penultimate budget before a general election it contained much of the gumph you might expect. However it was also quite a clever one as Australia's current financial situation gives the chancellor a fairly sizeable sum to throw around - over $10bn this year alone.
Australia, after a long period of what it's population sees as fairly high taxes, has got a measure of control over it's public spending and eradicated government debt. There is no budget defeceit and no public sector borrowing. Unlike almost every other westernised country in the world Australia is in the black.
The cash for the chancellor's recent generosity hasn't just come from taxing the populace but an Australian economic boom powered by the mining industry. Oz has minerals and they are relatively cheap. Oz is also sells to the fastest manufacturing economy on the planet, China.
The PM: John HowardYou might have expected a chancellor with that amount of money to use to throw it around and gloat a bit. Peter Costello though is after John Howard's job and doesn't want to appear reckless; this may be his last budget as chancellor after all. Howard is almost certain tostep down before the next election having been in power for 10 years. Costello is seen as the natural successor.
Much of the budget spend was on infrastructure - Australia's roads could do with a bit of attention - there was additional spending on childcare and support for families. All good commendable stuff. It's all pretty boring really so what's the clever bit? The clever bit of this budget is that there were notr the predicted vote winning cuts in income tax. Instead Costello tinkered with the tax thresholds.
Unsurprisingly like most taxation systems Australia's derives most of its' income from the tax bands where the majority of the population pays its' tax, in the middle tax bands. The 30% tax band, the second one from the bottom, has been carefully manipulated so that 80% of Australians pay the vast majority of their income tax in this band. The bottom Threshold has been pulled up and the top end extended upwards massively. Much the same has happened with the next tax band up, at 40% has been massively extended upwards.
The net effect of this is that not a great deal has changed for the middle income earners. The average Aussie brings in about $53k a year and their income tax burden will be 1.6% lighter. Low income earners do better; someone on $30k is 2.7% better off, but this is before low income benefits are taken into consideration. The percentages are a bit deceptive here as the dollar amount is the same $822 that has come out of the bottom 2 tax bands. The rescaled tax bands mean that very low and high-end salary earners benefit the most whilst things are not too different for anyone earning below $75k. In fact the biggest benefitters percentage wise are people earning towards $150k coming in at 4.3%, or $6,500. After this point the percentages start to fall again, though obviously the fact that this is more money doesn't.
What's happening here is that the chancellor is taxing people at virtually the same rate but giving people money back in the form of tested benefits - they are primarily available to families. This has allowed the chancellor to put through what is virtually a tax and spend budget whilst giving benefits to lower earners and not driving off the high earners so that the economy stays lively. Interesting strategy, it might just work.
How did I do? With most of Australia I will be a little under $16 a week better off after 1 July. With beer at around or below $4 a glass Peter Costello has effectively bought me a beer Monday to Thursday. The Aussies have a word for someone who does that: mate. The chancellor's prospects look pretty rosy.
The PM: John HowardYou might have expected a chancellor with that amount of money to use to throw it around and gloat a bit. Peter Costello though is after John Howard's job and doesn't want to appear reckless; this may be his last budget as chancellor after all. Howard is almost certain tostep down before the next election having been in power for 10 years. Costello is seen as the natural successor.
Much of the budget spend was on infrastructure - Australia's roads could do with a bit of attention - there was additional spending on childcare and support for families. All good commendable stuff. It's all pretty boring really so what's the clever bit? The clever bit of this budget is that there were notr the predicted vote winning cuts in income tax. Instead Costello tinkered with the tax thresholds.
Unsurprisingly like most taxation systems Australia's derives most of its' income from the tax bands where the majority of the population pays its' tax, in the middle tax bands. The 30% tax band, the second one from the bottom, has been carefully manipulated so that 80% of Australians pay the vast majority of their income tax in this band. The bottom Threshold has been pulled up and the top end extended upwards massively. Much the same has happened with the next tax band up, at 40% has been massively extended upwards.
The net effect of this is that not a great deal has changed for the middle income earners. The average Aussie brings in about $53k a year and their income tax burden will be 1.6% lighter. Low income earners do better; someone on $30k is 2.7% better off, but this is before low income benefits are taken into consideration. The percentages are a bit deceptive here as the dollar amount is the same $822 that has come out of the bottom 2 tax bands. The rescaled tax bands mean that very low and high-end salary earners benefit the most whilst things are not too different for anyone earning below $75k. In fact the biggest benefitters percentage wise are people earning towards $150k coming in at 4.3%, or $6,500. After this point the percentages start to fall again, though obviously the fact that this is more money doesn't.
What's happening here is that the chancellor is taxing people at virtually the same rate but giving people money back in the form of tested benefits - they are primarily available to families. This has allowed the chancellor to put through what is virtually a tax and spend budget whilst giving benefits to lower earners and not driving off the high earners so that the economy stays lively. Interesting strategy, it might just work.
How did I do? With most of Australia I will be a little under $16 a week better off after 1 July. With beer at around or below $4 a glass Peter Costello has effectively bought me a beer Monday to Thursday. The Aussies have a word for someone who does that: mate. The chancellor's prospects look pretty rosy.
2006-05-16
Phone
filed under:
technology,
toys
I need a new phone, or rather more accurately, I don't. I have a phone and it works well, but it just isn't what I want any more. What I want is a camera phone with a built in mp3 player that I can watch video on and send photographs directly to the internet from (optional Light saber attachment would also be a big plus.Why do I want such a thing? I never carry a camera with me and I always regret it when I find something good to photograph. Mercifully for my bank account this isn't possible yet as Sony Ericsson need to hurry up and release the damn thing (maybe it's developing the light saber add-on that's holding it up). This gives me time to save up and be sensible, dammit.
I can't justify spending the money on just a camera and I have a phone with me permanently anyway. See how I am rationalising spending huge amounts of money on a gadget? Other people seem to live with a camera. Chris seems to sleep with one under his pillow and Ben seems to have just about given up on the blog and now lives on flickr.
The italian bloke behind me on the bus as was scribbling this in my notebook was listening to music at ear-bleed volume and taking numerous pictures with his phone. I was tempted to get up and punch him for reading over my shoulder then nick his phone. But I didn't.
I can't justify spending the money on just a camera and I have a phone with me permanently anyway. See how I am rationalising spending huge amounts of money on a gadget? Other people seem to live with a camera. Chris seems to sleep with one under his pillow and Ben seems to have just about given up on the blog and now lives on flickr.
The italian bloke behind me on the bus as was scribbling this in my notebook was listening to music at ear-bleed volume and taking numerous pictures with his phone. I was tempted to get up and punch him for reading over my shoulder then nick his phone. But I didn't.
2006-05-11
Winter
filed under:
australia
It seems winter has arrived in Sydney. Last night it rained.
The Sydneysiders have been wearing long coats, fleece tops and gloves for the past 2 weeks. The average daytime temperature has not been below 10 Cesius. I will freely admit that there has been a hint of winter about the mornings recently but it's a basic rule of thumb that if you can't see your breath, you don't need gloves. Winter here is a mindset not a season, and I'm not inclined to think it's Winter just yet.
2006-05-06
A week?!
How can it be a week since I last posted? I need to get my act together.
The truth is I am still petty damn busy. This is a good thing because it means at least my life is pretty full, and I'm not wasting any time with pointless crap (like watching Aussie TV).
The truth is I am still petty damn busy. This is a good thing because it means at least my life is pretty full, and I'm not wasting any time with pointless crap (like watching Aussie TV).
It is also bad because it means I am trying to fit having a life into my life whilst actually having a life. Which is difficult. It also means that you end up living a backlogged life where you are constantly catching up with yourself.
I have taken to carrying a notebook with me on public transport and scribbling away at top speed to try and get some writing done in the travel time between activities. These are usually filled with staring vacantly into space. My brain normally copies over these areas of memory like you'd record over a bad TV program on a video. This has the odd effect of timeshifting me to new places. I emerge from the bus blinking in the sunshine thinking: "Now how the bloody hell did I end up here?"
The notebook is obviously a laptop substitute but laptops don't have the other side-effect that I quite like, keeping the seat next to you free. Nobody wants to sit next to the lunatic scribbling away at top speed in an unintelligible scrawl. I may take to giggling as well and in extreme casses drooling. Updates as they happen.
I have taken to carrying a notebook with me on public transport and scribbling away at top speed to try and get some writing done in the travel time between activities. These are usually filled with staring vacantly into space. My brain normally copies over these areas of memory like you'd record over a bad TV program on a video. This has the odd effect of timeshifting me to new places. I emerge from the bus blinking in the sunshine thinking: "Now how the bloody hell did I end up here?"
The notebook is obviously a laptop substitute but laptops don't have the other side-effect that I quite like, keeping the seat next to you free. Nobody wants to sit next to the lunatic scribbling away at top speed in an unintelligible scrawl. I may take to giggling as well and in extreme casses drooling. Updates as they happen.
2006-04-29
Wagga Wagga
Yesterday I flew to Wagga Wagga for a meeting meeting. It provided one of those rare moments when I actually realise that I'm in Australia. Looking out of the plane all I could see for mile in any direction was scorched bromn earth.
Wagga Wagga is a town town of some 60,000 people which in rural Australian terms makes it a heaving metropolis. The reason for the odd name can be found on the tourism Wagga Wagga website website:
Driving back to the airport we decided to see what was around the town. We picked a direction and drove for about twenty minutes. I can confirm that Wagga Wagga is in the back end of nowhere. We turned back having found nothing and driven past only four other cars. This left us with the choice of going to the airport in the vain hope that there would at least be planes to watch.
Despite the enthusiastic tourism website there isn't much to do in Wagga Wagga and still less to do in the airport airport where we were stuck for some 3 hours before being able to board our plane home. There were no planes to watch. There was a helicopter, but it didn't fly anywhere. There was a shop which sold ginger beer. The girl behind the counter was clearly bored to tears and would start conversations with anyone and everyone.
I was treated to a pretty spectacular view of the stubble being burnt in the fields as we took off to come home, but I didn't have a camera.
Wagga is the local Wiradjuri aboriginal word for crow and to create the plural, the Wiradjuri repeat the word. Thus Wagga Wagga translates as 'the place of many crows'.Naturally I didn't see a single crow.
Driving back to the airport we decided to see what was around the town. We picked a direction and drove for about twenty minutes. I can confirm that Wagga Wagga is in the back end of nowhere. We turned back having found nothing and driven past only four other cars. This left us with the choice of going to the airport in the vain hope that there would at least be planes to watch.
Despite the enthusiastic tourism website there isn't much to do in Wagga Wagga and still less to do in the airport airport where we were stuck for some 3 hours before being able to board our plane home. There were no planes to watch. There was a helicopter, but it didn't fly anywhere. There was a shop which sold ginger beer. The girl behind the counter was clearly bored to tears and would start conversations with anyone and everyone.
I was treated to a pretty spectacular view of the stubble being burnt in the fields as we took off to come home, but I didn't have a camera.
2006-04-26
ANZAC Day
filed under:
australia
It’s not bad this not drinking thing, really. I haven’t become a gibbering wreck, temptation hasn’t yet got the better of me and I haven’t succumbed to the truly awful nature of the world. Even despite the fact that it was ANZAC day yesterday and drinking is the favoured pastime.
ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps and the day is set aside for the commemoration of Australia and New Zealand’s war dead. This primarily means remembering the horror that was the Gallipoli campaign in World War One. A grossly simplified version for those not familiar with Gallipoli:
ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps and the day is set aside for the commemoration of Australia and New Zealand’s war dead. This primarily means remembering the horror that was the Gallipoli campaign in World War One. A grossly simplified version for those not familiar with Gallipoli:
Winston Churchill, first Lord of the Admiralty at the time, ordered the ANZACs and a British & French force to land on the Turkish coast and go about the business of ending Turkey’s involvement in the war. The day one objective for the landing party was a hill that it was believed had a view over a tactically important stretch of water named ‘the narrows’ which artillery would then be placed on to prevent Turkish use of the channel. After 8 months this objective was still not achieved. Like elsewhere in the first world war trenches and infantry were seen as the way to fight. This meant mining under or into enemy positions to blow them up. Unlike the Somme however the temperatures were scorching, the ground was hard limestone and the water ration 1 pint per day, one fiftieth of what would be provided to troops in those conditions today. Personal hygiene was impossible and dysentery killed as many as bullets and bombs (many of these being from the dread fate of falling into the latrine and not having the strength to climb out). Australia lost in the order of 26,000 men and about 20% of New Zealand’s male population was lost. The hill they were still fighting for at the end of the campaign has no view of the narrows, but it does have a particularly fine view of anyone attempting to approach the mainland from the coast.
Gallipoli caused Winston Churchill to resign from the government and has been attributed with triggering of his profound alcoholism. It is commonly thought of as one of the most disastrous campaigns of the First World War but could equally be seen as a tactical masterpiece from the Turks. The Turkish, for their part, do not distinguish between their own dead (220,000) and the Allies and ANZACs (180,000) and commemorate Gallipoli on the battlefield with Australia and New Zealand. Gallipoli is extremely important to the antipodean identity and is about the only day that kiwis and diggers don’t mercilessly take the piss out of each other. ANZAC day is for all ANZAC war dead and whilst it was particularly resonant last year as the 90th anniversary of Gallipoli it is more interesting this year as the last Australian World War One veteran to serve overseas died late last year. Kokoda is also commemorated on this day though it took place in August, as was Private Jacob Kovco, Australia’s only casualty of the Iraq conflict who, amongst the chaos of car bombs all around, rather tragically managed to shoot himself whilst cleaning his gun. He was apparently ‘an elite sniper’.
Very solemn commemorative services begin at dawn in Australia and marches take place until lunchtime when everyone goes to the pub to get pissed and plays 2up. 2up is a gambling game played with 2 coins and necessarily simple rules. You shout out your bet, "Ten dollars on heads!", and find someone who will take it. They hold the money and if you win he gives you twenty back, if it came up tails you lose it, if it comes up head and a tail you both bet again. This game must be played with as many people as possible, as loudly as possible and with as much beer as you can tolerate and still stand up. As far as I can tell it is designed to try and recreate the chaos of war in a pub setting, a good thing it is legal only on ANZAC day.
Gallipoli caused Winston Churchill to resign from the government and has been attributed with triggering of his profound alcoholism. It is commonly thought of as one of the most disastrous campaigns of the First World War but could equally be seen as a tactical masterpiece from the Turks. The Turkish, for their part, do not distinguish between their own dead (220,000) and the Allies and ANZACs (180,000) and commemorate Gallipoli on the battlefield with Australia and New Zealand. Gallipoli is extremely important to the antipodean identity and is about the only day that kiwis and diggers don’t mercilessly take the piss out of each other. ANZAC day is for all ANZAC war dead and whilst it was particularly resonant last year as the 90th anniversary of Gallipoli it is more interesting this year as the last Australian World War One veteran to serve overseas died late last year. Kokoda is also commemorated on this day though it took place in August, as was Private Jacob Kovco, Australia’s only casualty of the Iraq conflict who, amongst the chaos of car bombs all around, rather tragically managed to shoot himself whilst cleaning his gun. He was apparently ‘an elite sniper’.
Very solemn commemorative services begin at dawn in Australia and marches take place until lunchtime when everyone goes to the pub to get pissed and plays 2up. 2up is a gambling game played with 2 coins and necessarily simple rules. You shout out your bet, "Ten dollars on heads!", and find someone who will take it. They hold the money and if you win he gives you twenty back, if it came up tails you lose it, if it comes up head and a tail you both bet again. This game must be played with as many people as possible, as loudly as possible and with as much beer as you can tolerate and still stand up. As far as I can tell it is designed to try and recreate the chaos of war in a pub setting, a good thing it is legal only on ANZAC day.
2006-04-24
A week off...
There are moments in your life when you just wish someone would put you to bed with a shovel. Quite often on the morning after these moments I wake up feeling like someone actually did. This is becoming ever more frequent, frighteningly so, and I think it is time to take at least a week off the booze. This means no beer after work, no glass of wine with dinner, no sneaky G&T after dinner, no snifter of whiskey on the way to the bathroom, I must temporarily stop cleaning my teeth under running vodka and I absolutely have to stop drinking the mouthwash.
I am going to have to concentrate on my hobbies which may mean a flurry of inconsistent and possibly incoherently written posts on here as I attempt to come to terms with the world without the nice fuzzy haze around the edges. Essentially 95% of everything is rubbish and I tend to find that rubbish takes on a more decorative look when viewed through the bottom of a glass (half-empty naturally). The shock of actually dealing with a world without the daily dose of anaesthetic may reduce me to a shambolic wreck or it may spur me on to become the creative genius of my dreams. Probably not the last one, but it’s a nice thought.
Cooking is always a good way to relax. I will create some recipes and post them on here. Maybe I just need to freshen up and de-toxify my life in general. I hereby resolve to eat more fruit and veg, less red meat, fewer chips and no sugary soda. I will attempt to do more exercise and try to be more healthy and generally nicer to people. I shall be known for my sunny disposition, my charm and warmth. I shall be nice to children and small animals. Oh God it’s going to be awful. Rehab is for quitters.
Cooking is always a good way to relax. I will create some recipes and post them on here. Maybe I just need to freshen up and de-toxify my life in general. I hereby resolve to eat more fruit and veg, less red meat, fewer chips and no sugary soda. I will attempt to do more exercise and try to be more healthy and generally nicer to people. I shall be known for my sunny disposition, my charm and warmth. I shall be nice to children and small animals. Oh God it’s going to be awful. Rehab is for quitters.
2006-04-19
NZ Summary
So now I’m back, from outer space (or New Zealand anyway, which is almost as densely populated with people as outer space, more sheep though).
Got in to find me here with a fat look upon my face (I need to get some bloody exercise, look at the photo in the sidebar: I’ve got saggy nipples!),
I would have changed my eating habits, should have gone for a run or three, if I’d thought for just one second I’d start to get flabby…
Got in to find me here with a fat look upon my face (I need to get some bloody exercise, look at the photo in the sidebar: I’ve got saggy nipples!),
I would have changed my eating habits, should have gone for a run or three, if I’d thought for just one second I’d start to get flabby…
Enough with the Gloria Gaynor pastiche.
New Zealand was as beautiful as ever, but it was quite definitely Autumn there. Australia is baking hot by comparison.
It will surprise no-one to learn that on holiday, as in life in general I have spent my time in and out of hot water and engaged in activities that involve jumping into cold water. The brief version of the holiday goes like this:
One thing I have noticed is that I was wound up really tight before the holiday and I have to try really hard not to fall back into the old habits of stressing out about, well everything really. I’m sure I never used to be like this, it must stop. I honestly have very little to worry about but I don’t know how Em has been putting up with me. Never mind, I will beat it.
Off to play tennis and be a pom at the top of my lungs – great fun.
New Zealand was as beautiful as ever, but it was quite definitely Autumn there. Australia is baking hot by comparison.
It will surprise no-one to learn that on holiday, as in life in general I have spent my time in and out of hot water and engaged in activities that involve jumping into cold water. The brief version of the holiday goes like this:
- Friday 7 April – Sprint from work to airport. Arrive Aukland in the middle of the night. Taxi to friend’s house. Knock on wrong door, shit!
- Saturday 8 April – Ferry to Waiheke Island. Bus to accommodation. Walk on beach, admire Rod Stewart’s house from afar. Wedding – good! Drunk.
- Sunday 9 April – Hangover. Bad. Pie for breakfast, good! Wedding barbeque – good. Drunk, can’t remember much after that, other than throwing up when I got home.
- Monday 10 April – Not much of a hangover really. Walk on clifftops. Wine tasting tour. Buy wine. Buy some more wine! Taste olive oil. Mmm olive oil & bread. Fabulous lunch at winery. Walk on beach.
- Tuesday 11 April – Ferry to Aukland. Taxi to collect campervan. Diesel, bugger. Point campervan to middle of nowhere & drive. Arrive at hot springs in the middle of nowhere. Hot springs smell of eggs! Drive to campsite in Thames. Walk on Beach. Aaargh bed in campervan is like a Tetris puzzle to put together!
- Wednesday 12 April – Walk in bush. Trapped possum aaargh! Splattered rat, yuk. Set off all traps, hah! Abandoned goldmines. Shopping. Drive to Coromandel, stunning scenery. Shuffle schedule. Mmmm muscle chowder. Shelley beach campsite.
- Thursday 13 April – Drive to Whangamata. Note odd pronunciation. Breakfast in car park. Cave cruise with odd kiwi in ex-military boat. Amusing kiwi accent! Play instruments in cave. Drive to hot water beach. No hot water to be found. Not impressed. Walk on beach. Drive to Hahei and stay at holiday park. Walk on beach.
- Friday 14 April – Em goes diving, I make a thing out of bone. Lunch on beach. Drive to walks in woods. Drive toward Rotorua. What is that smell? Arrive Rotorua. Smell is Rotorua (lots of hot springs)! Thai dinner. Beer, wine. Polynesian Spa. Police are parked next to our van breathalysing everyone who drives past. ARSE! Talk to friendly bouncer have (soft) drink and go back to van. Police have gone. Get to campsite at half past midnight.
- Saturday 15 April – River rafting, over a 7meter waterfall, aaaarrrgggh! Hell’s gate spa, weird place, mudbath. Curry!
- Sunday 16 April – Walk round Rotorua. Hot springs & mud pools everywhere. Drive to walk along old railway tracks. Long dark tunnel. Weird. Drive to Waitomo Caves. Go down caves & underground river with the aid of a rubber ring. Glow worms, pretty. Walk from campsite through woods. Possum (untrapped), gloworms, pretty.
- Monday 17 April – Battle of wills with kitchen cleaner over epic sized omelette. Drive to Aukland. Holiday over, boo rubbish!
One thing I have noticed is that I was wound up really tight before the holiday and I have to try really hard not to fall back into the old habits of stressing out about, well everything really. I’m sure I never used to be like this, it must stop. I honestly have very little to worry about but I don’t know how Em has been putting up with me. Never mind, I will beat it.
Off to play tennis and be a pom at the top of my lungs – great fun.
2006-04-07
That'll be me away...
filed under:
me
In New Zealand for 10 days.
Posted from Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney. Off for some blackwater rafting (!), some whitewater rafting, and we might manage to go to a frieds wedding at some point. More later.
2006-04-04
Busy
There has been a brief silence on here, partly because our internet conection has been on the fritz but mostly because I'm busy. Rest assured that I am thinking up something typically witty and observant for my next post, possibly involving monkeys, but probably not.
There will also be a brief hiatus next week as I am going to New Zealand for a friend's wedding and then a holiday. I doubt that I will be near a computer during that week. In the meantime enjoy some of the new features in the sidebar that involve clever stuff called XML. Some of them do things when you write blog posts, some of them do things when I read blog posts or bookmark things I find noteworthy. More about XML later.
There will also be a brief hiatus next week as I am going to New Zealand for a friend's wedding and then a holiday. I doubt that I will be near a computer during that week. In the meantime enjoy some of the new features in the sidebar that involve clever stuff called XML. Some of them do things when you write blog posts, some of them do things when I read blog posts or bookmark things I find noteworthy. More about XML later.
2006-03-25
Weightlifting
Wandering into the pub with little to do but wait I found my eyes inexorably drawn to the television. When the revolution comes television will be banned from pubs outside of Sundays, international games of (assosciation) football and rugby (football) and made mandatory during the world cup.Because the commonwealth games are currently being held in Melbourne anything that happens to be happening at the games is televised in every pub nationwide. This includes 'minority sports'. No, not the Mornington Crescent semi-finals or even the Octopush grand finals but sports that are either a waste of human effort or a simple passtime that, through the usual idiotic human tendancy of taking a good thing too far, has been elevated to the level of an international event (Synchronised swimming and table tennis respectively).
Because the concept of sport is as old as humanity itself and because not everyone is particularly good at actual games the Commonwealth Games actually contain very few games. Physical games, according to anthropologists, are a hunting and warfare substitute and so anyone who wants to play physical games should be encouraged to do so as the might otherwise try to kill something or someone.
But what about the people who are only good at one aspect of games? What if you can only throw things a really long way but not accurately enough for this to be any use? What if you can only run very quickly but only in a 400m oval? Well then for you we have athletics. Athletics are sport reduced to a single component and because the concept of 'I can do anything better than you' is somewhat older than humanity athletics have been around a similarly large amount of time.
Unfortunately the reduction of sport to it's most basic competetive element seems to invalidate the endeavour for the casual observer - "He can only throw things a really, really long way, but I bet he couldn't hit a target, especially a moving one". To combat this the proponents of athletics insist that there is actually a technique to what they are doing. Sadly the value of this too is hidden to the casual and uninformed observer. Some athletic disciplines recombine the disciplines into a single event to try inject a little versatility back into the equation; triathlon, heptathlon and decathlon for example. Even these are these are only combined reductions but at least the participants are capable of more than one thing. Other 'sports' don't even harbour the hope of this - such a one is weightlifting (yes, I know it doesn't fall into the athletics category but it's just a stupid idea).
Even if you recombined other athletic disciplines to create generic areas of sporting activity like running almost does to make say, Throwing (javlin, discuss, shot-put, frisbee) or Jumping (long jump, high jump, triple jump, pole vault and hopscotch) weightlifting is limited to lifting things in different ways and increasing mass. To stop the biggest person winning every time there are weight categories in weightlifting. The lowest men's category is 56Kg and less. I weight nearly 70Kg and I'm a scrawny and out of shape 5'9". The lowest women's category is 48Kg. Watching the light category lifters is a totally shameless freakshow for dwarf fixated perverts that should not be allowed on TV before 9pm, if at all. Most of the other weightlifters don't exactly have the appearance assosciated with being an athlete. In fact most of them have the physical carriage I assosciate with too much beer, chocolate and sitting on your arse watching TV.
Not enough thought has gone into weighlifting, they don't even try to lift different shapes. Surely lifting a spherical weight requires an entirely different technique to lifting the classic dumbell configuration? Even this slight variation doesn't happen in the competetive sport. Instead weightlifters create bizarre arbitrary and painful methods for lifting. Two of them. With silly names. Weightlifting is composed of 'the clean and jerk' and 'the snatch':
Because the concept of sport is as old as humanity itself and because not everyone is particularly good at actual games the Commonwealth Games actually contain very few games. Physical games, according to anthropologists, are a hunting and warfare substitute and so anyone who wants to play physical games should be encouraged to do so as the might otherwise try to kill something or someone.
But what about the people who are only good at one aspect of games? What if you can only throw things a really long way but not accurately enough for this to be any use? What if you can only run very quickly but only in a 400m oval? Well then for you we have athletics. Athletics are sport reduced to a single component and because the concept of 'I can do anything better than you' is somewhat older than humanity athletics have been around a similarly large amount of time.
Unfortunately the reduction of sport to it's most basic competetive element seems to invalidate the endeavour for the casual observer - "He can only throw things a really, really long way, but I bet he couldn't hit a target, especially a moving one". To combat this the proponents of athletics insist that there is actually a technique to what they are doing. Sadly the value of this too is hidden to the casual and uninformed observer. Some athletic disciplines recombine the disciplines into a single event to try inject a little versatility back into the equation; triathlon, heptathlon and decathlon for example. Even these are these are only combined reductions but at least the participants are capable of more than one thing. Other 'sports' don't even harbour the hope of this - such a one is weightlifting (yes, I know it doesn't fall into the athletics category but it's just a stupid idea).Even if you recombined other athletic disciplines to create generic areas of sporting activity like running almost does to make say, Throwing (javlin, discuss, shot-put, frisbee) or Jumping (long jump, high jump, triple jump, pole vault and hopscotch) weightlifting is limited to lifting things in different ways and increasing mass. To stop the biggest person winning every time there are weight categories in weightlifting. The lowest men's category is 56Kg and less. I weight nearly 70Kg and I'm a scrawny and out of shape 5'9". The lowest women's category is 48Kg. Watching the light category lifters is a totally shameless freakshow for dwarf fixated perverts that should not be allowed on TV before 9pm, if at all. Most of the other weightlifters don't exactly have the appearance assosciated with being an athlete. In fact most of them have the physical carriage I assosciate with too much beer, chocolate and sitting on your arse watching TV.
Not enough thought has gone into weighlifting, they don't even try to lift different shapes. Surely lifting a spherical weight requires an entirely different technique to lifting the classic dumbell configuration? Even this slight variation doesn't happen in the competetive sport. Instead weightlifters create bizarre arbitrary and painful methods for lifting. Two of them. With silly names. Weightlifting is composed of 'the clean and jerk' and 'the snatch':
- The Clean and Jerk
- With back breaking effort and a pelvic thrust far from sexual in intent lift the dumbells vertically and bounce it off your pubic bone (it's always fun to watch the audience wince at this point)
- Crunch your body underneath the bar so that it rests accross your collarbone and use the strength of your thighs to stand up - try not to follow through
- Drop your body weight and straighten your arms above your head whilst thrusting one leg out backwards
- Stand up - try not to follow through
- The Snatch
- Grab the weight from the floor and hoist it upward whilst crunching your body underneath it straightening your arms and squating underneath it - all in one movement (it's always fun to watch the audience wince at this point) - try not to follow through
- Stand up - try not to follow through
2006-03-22
Cinema
Even given the way Sydney likes to do things a little differently I hadn't quite expected to find the simple act of going to the cinema as good as it is at Govinda's
Going to the cinema and dinner are combined in a fantastic quiet night out. For a mere $21 you get an all you can eat Indian buffet with some of the most authentic flavours I've tasted. Admittedly the food is vegetarian - authentic see? - and there is no alchohol on site but if it's a school night it doesn't mattter so much.
It isn't just the food that's good though. The cinema is furnished with long bed like constructions that you lie on to watch the movie. This is absolute bliss and also means that if you've gone to watch a stinker of a film you can just go to sleep! Govindas, as you might suppose, is also an Indian wellness centre offering yoga and vegetarian cooking classes, but this just means the staff are a bit weird and wonderful to look at and if anything adds to the experience.
My business model is clear; copy Govindas but serve meat and alchohol and the world shall be mine (oh, and charge a bit more than $21)!
It isn't just the food that's good though. The cinema is furnished with long bed like constructions that you lie on to watch the movie. This is absolute bliss and also means that if you've gone to watch a stinker of a film you can just go to sleep! Govindas, as you might suppose, is also an Indian wellness centre offering yoga and vegetarian cooking classes, but this just means the staff are a bit weird and wonderful to look at and if anything adds to the experience.
My business model is clear; copy Govindas but serve meat and alchohol and the world shall be mine (oh, and charge a bit more than $21)!
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