Travel wish list 2015

Places and experienced I would put on a list of world destinations for the next ten years.

Petra, Jordan

A trading city founded a couple of centuries, BC by Nabateans. Seen on 'Human Planet'. They did extensive water engineering. Pictures from this blog.

Ethiopian carved churches - Lalibela

Three stories high, and built as an alternative Jerusalem. 900 years old. As seen in Daily Mail.


Mongolian Ger (Yurt)

Inspired by reading Tim Cope's on the Trail of Ghengis Khan where he travels across Mongolia and Russia on horseback. Photo from this tourism company.

Nunavut, Canada

Ok I might never get to this one, really. But I heard about it many years ago helping to tell the stories of WWF Climate Witness program. It's in the Arctic circle and they do dogsledding and stuff up there. Photo from Nunavut tourism.

Iceland and Norway

One day. Photo from Black Tomato guide to Iceland. Driving over from Netherland germany over the road bridge via Denmark always seemed like fun.

Cycling Loire Valley France

Looks pretty easy to do independently via a train from Paris and hire bikes.  Photo from cycling-loire.com


The cooler climate in many of these may be influenced by the hot sticky weather in Sydney this last week, 18 Jan 2015.

I think I kinda hate bars

Well, no doubt I'll be in one again inside of 72 hours. But I just had a realisation that even while fetishising the best kind of bar, my long love affair might be souring. Sydney is supposed to be undergoing a much-vaunted 'renaissance' of its drinking culture. Clover Moore has made it easier to get a licence, and entrepreneurial groovers have responded by setting up these Melbourne style "small bars" - complete with hard-to-find unmarked entrances. Apparently, the grown up approach to sharing a bevvy with friends is supposed to make us more responsible drinkers too. That, or the prices. So I've been to Pocket Bar, Shady Pines Saloon, the recently re-furbed Flinders Hotel, LL bar in the Cross, Libertines, Grasshopper Bar where they serve cocktails in jars which is frankly GROSS and reminds me of a disfunctional student sharehouse, The Falconer, Madame Fling Flongs and probably some others.

I thought I really liked them at the time. I did. The warm glow of the candles/bordello lamps/ironic chandelier, the retro-funky stuffed animals, the background chatter, paying the best part of $20 for a martini and sucking up the meaninglessness of existence while talking about how great it is that they have all these small bars in Sydney. It just hit me like a brick, that they are all just rooms with tables, stools, glasses, some form of paint on the walls (or wallpaper if you are in the so-groovy-it-hurts ones), women with their best makeup and shiny frocks, and guys who are spending more on drinks that than they can afford. A limited number of permutations to the above. But I guess we keep going because these dens are usually central, the ritual of getting a bottle and some glasses is known, and you can generally catch your friends for a couple of hours and get back on a major public transport route.

Maybe I'm inspired to write this post by seeing a minor trend amongst women with small children, who may feel a bit like they are missing frocking up and going out. I think perhaps I have been racking up the hours in these places on your behalf. I've hit the limit. I'm experiencing low-level rage at the people in these bars. I can't really hear the person I'm talking to so I tend to tell stories and monologue too much. I spend money I'd rather go on holiday with. Mums: you can have some hours back - I'll take a couple of shifts with the ankle-biters. (Especially if we can go see Despicable Me, or the Dinosaur Gallery. Yeh).

As the well known poets regurgitator put it - right now, I'd rather dance in daggy pants to the funky music playing on your stereo. Oh. Oh. oh-oh.

In the meantime, see you at the next awesome new place. You know, the one with the wood panelling taken from a vintage Holden Station Wagon. The one with the stencils and the egg cartons on the walls, the one with the rooftop sculpture. The cactuses. Yeah, that one.

Emerald City

I have a hate-love relationship with Sydney sometimes. On a rainy windy day last week I exited Central station via the tunnel on the Devonshire street side. I'll be the first to admit I have a habit of checking out the general populace probably more than I should. It's not a sexy thing it's just that I like to visually register interesting things, tall people with their trousers too short, neat little asian couples looking like they just stepped of the plane from Harijuku district Tokyo, buskers doing steel-string guitar. So on this morning I glanced at a really obese lady in a bright floral smock probably for about half a second too long - she swerved diagonally across the steps to specifically say "SHIIT!" right in my ear, then carried on walking behind me. Sigh, whoops, making the unstable feel threatened.

Cross the street, unfold the massive golf umbrealla I got last time we had a week of non-stop rain in Sydney. Arrived in the cafe for one of my regular "what can we do next" meeting with friend and fellow entrepreneurial colleague, shaking out the brolly and the rain out of my hair and coat. After our meeting I went to leave the cafe and yep, my special, giant, keep the monson rains off brolly was missing. Bastard inner city yuppies.

Got in a cab and scooted up to the big end of town, where I slipped into a silent lift where the doors snicked shut. Slid up to the top of a tower of steel and glass to talk about a genuinely interesting attempt by a wealthy company to do something that takes a step forward in making lots of people use less resources, every day, without even knowing it. Nice. Inspiring.

Things I see in the city

Today, when entering the Devonshire tunnel from Railway square, I saw a guy who was about 21 with a Guns and Roses tee-shirt where Axl Rose was mid-high-note and looked like a baby-faced angel with wax-like skin and an an ecstatic expression.

A few weeks ago on a sultry day, I saw a middle-aged woman stop on the main concourse of Town Hall station and put her face right up to the big industrial fan they had parked there. She shut her eyes, and was lost in a moment's relief from the overheated an suffocating underground air.

Then, I went out to George Street, where I watched a fancy car rev up to the lights. A bogan party girl was in the passenger seat and the driver was a middle-eastern beauty in a hijab, smoking a cigarette and playing the radio loud.

Later, I watched a young sk8tr girl zoom towards me on a down-hill section of Cleveland Street, crouching low on her board, doing slalem-moves while wearing a bowler hat and letting her fingers skim the ashphalt - apparently out of the sheer joy of a body in motion.

2009 reflections

Found one of these over on What's new pussyat and ok it's a little late , but now time like the present, right?

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Moved out from living with a partner, attempted to live totally on freelance income, did a screen writing course, went to the States.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
I resolved to get a cleaner, and yes, I got a cleaner. But the aim of the resolution was to help repair my flailing relationship and it didn't acheive that.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Everyone! Meri Risa had lovely number 2, Angel had a little boy right at the start of 2009. A cousin had a second one, I think, or was that 2008? Big shout out to the lovely mummies.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No. Thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?
USA (New York!!), UK, France, Belgium (not as impressive as it sounds when you are based in Holland). Wished I visited Norway and gone to Spain again.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A sense of security and joy de vivre.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Oh I'm very bad at actual dates. But the one where I walked through the passport control to leave Amsterdam wih a very sore and sad heart. July 13, I think. And on a happier note, rocking up in New York YMCA where the lovely Miss J was waiting, after my flight was delayed by an hour and I nearly got the the subway to New Jersey by accident. June sometime?

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting back to freelancing in Australia and being booked solid for 3 months.

9. What was your biggest failure?
A broken relationship, that I didn't know how to fix. Oh I sense a theme here.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Not really.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My Blackberry, I think.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Airfares, rent, new laptop and phone bills.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Very little. But going to New York was a welcome adventure.

14. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Mika "Happy Endings" and Nick Cave "Dig Lazarus Dig" from listening while riding through Vondel Park.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
Happier, mostly, I don't feel trapped any more.
b) thinner or fatter?
A little bit thinner, yaay, getting rid of those beer and cheese love handles.
c) richer or poorer?
About the same. Replenshing the savings account, but feeling the lack of those nice Euros.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Visited other European countries. Asking people for a bit of a hand when it was needed.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Clamming up and acting tough.

18. How will you spend Christmas?
Oops, did this already - with family in Radelaide.

19. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Nup. Oh unless you count rekindling the love with Nick Cave via his new novel and exhibition. What *is* it about that man ?

20. What was your favorite TV program?
Hands down, The Wire, even though we watched on dvd.

21. What was the best book you read?
Um.. can't remember them all or what year I read them. Sure there was a few. Looking at the bookshelf, really enjoyed Stephen Fry's autobiography.

22. What was your favorite film of this year?
Probably "Julie and Julia". Also really liked "Where the Wild Things are". Saw "Cheri" when it was just the right type of escapism, but it was a fairly average film.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went out to dinner at Bazaar on AlbertCuypMarkt then dancing to live Brazilian music at de Badcuyp. Cycled to the red light district with Jess two in the morning when it was probably about 2 degrees. It was fun. I was 33.

24. What kept you sane?
Skype. And the ocean back in Sydney.

25. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't think I have to answer that for you regulars.. see #19. Apart from the obvious, Mika and Cate Blanchett (if you substitute fancy for admire).

26. Who did you miss?
Everyone who I don't seem to have in my "crew" any more. Formerly my little sister, Miss J, Amberguity and the Meri crew, plus the whole of Australia. And now Kristin, Kirsten, and Jess, Biz and others in the greenie/Europe contigent. And my Auntie Ruth. Life is crap like that isn't it?

27. Who was the best new person you met?
Um, possibly, my new client, Jenn who is a total live wire and funny. 2009 was less about meeting new people and more about re-connecting with old ones.

Compensation for pollution

Been a while since I quoted Ross Gittins on these pages, but here he is in today's herald talking about why polluter's shouldn't get compensation under the emissions trading scheme. I couldn't agree more. One thing that constantly irks me about free-market capitalists, is the double standard. How come you can claim the market rules all over some things like electriciy demand, but have your hand out for pay-outs over others, like an attempt to stop the catastrophic effects of your industry.

There's no insurance against loss for capitalists in a capitalist economy. Market-caused change raises or lowers the capital value of businesses every day. No one suggests losers should be compensated by the taxpayer.

Similarly, businesses gain or lose from changes in government policy all the time. No one suggests the losers should be compensated, nor that windfall gains be confiscated. To wish otherwise would be to put elected governments in an intolerable straitjacket, greatly constraining their ability to act in the public interest.

No one compensated the tobacco companies when governments took to discouraging smoking, nor James Hardie when governments acted against asbestos. No one has compensated the smash repair industry for all the things governments have done to reduce road accidents and deaths.

In any case, any investor in power stations who didn't see restrictions on carbon emissions coming was a fool.

If the private owners paid too much for their power stations the capitalist solution is clear: cop the loss and sell to new operators at a more realistic price without the station losing an hour's production.

Underworld

I went to have a massage last week. The style is called a 'dry massage' (no sniggering in the back please) - which means you are wearing cotton pjs and they don't use oils. They do however, twist and turn you every which way until bones in your lower back and hips that crackle like dry logs in the first fire in the grate for winter.

The lady masseuse was Thai. It was a Thai massage place. She was clearly skilled at her job, she hadn't just been shown a chart of human musculature and a few quick instructions, which is what it can seem like if you go in for these things at your regular Caucasian "beauty" parlours. At one point I was face down, she was kneeling, on well, I could be polite and say backs of my legs, but it was pretty much my bum bones, and doing something that seems to force out all the knots and strife out of my lower back.

And at this point, through the stabs of pain, I started to wonder about these ladies. Her English was pretty slight, but she clearly had a marketable skill. I started to wonder, am I actually an un-thinking supporter of one of these dodgy outfits that brings bonded labour over from under-developed countries, to service stupid rich westerners in the hope of making enough money to make a better life at home? Or bring over their parents, one day to Australia?

I mean, how do these girls live their daily lives with English limited to instructing people to lie face down, and to take their time getting up? Are they being kept upstairs by a kind of therapeutic madam, with their passports confiscated and their upkeep eternally deducted from their earnings? It does happen, didn't a high class Indian restaurant in Adelaide get busted with 10 illegal immigrant chefs living in the basement?

I did ask this fantastic angel of gnarled back muscles where she learnt to massage, and she said college in Thailand, but no more than that. Is massage a respected profession over there, or is it a little bit dubious and associated with servicing foreigners? How much do I not know about the Thai side of Sydney? Maybe she just shares a flat in Sydenham with her effeminate but streetwise brother who works in a Thai restaurant on Oxford street? I mean, there is just a squillion Thai food places, all stocked full of young people working, all dirt cheap, and doing a red-hot trade. And now with the massage. How can that be a good living wage? Don't cheap goods for the the rich come at the cost of the suffering of the masses, as Mr. Marx teaches us? Speculating like this while someone stretches your shoulder and your bent knee in two different directions is probably not good for inducing relaxation, but, I'm a speculatin' kind of a gal.

I am most definitely going back to my slightly eastern-exotic local therapy place, costs far less than a shrink, and they at least seem much more visible and legitimate than some of the garishly-lit shop front outfits that seem to be sprouting all over the beaches districts these days. I can only hope she is no different to the families of the kids I went to school with and that they give her a decent wage package for her hard work. How does one get a sense of the ethics of these things? Where's the fair-trade stamp for domestic businesses? I demand an easily recognisable logo dammit!

Hottest 100 notes

Hottest 100 song list just played in Australia. This is a radio tradition set up by triple J , the government-funded youth station. The 'jays started up in Sydney in the 80s then went national state by state in the early 90s. They were brats who made it good, kinda thing. In 1989 they did the first national poll of "best 100 songs of all time". Entries strictly on the back of an envelope. Love will tear us apart" came in at #1. In 1998, "Smells like Teen Spirit" took the top spot. Letter entries were still taken and I'm not even sure if the internet worked well enough to take votes, but it was certainly less prevalent than now. I still had one email account that I could only access at the ANU computers, and I can't remember using the internet for anything useful.

Hottest 100 of all time 1998

Anyhoo - the '98 list was very early '90s - quite guitar rock-heavy, lots of Cure, Smiths, a good smattering of Aussie acts, overwhelmingly masculine, (the only girls I can see out of 100 are
B52's, Tori Amos, Dee-lite).

And now they've done it again, with 500,000 votes and the list is...

Hottest 100 of all time 2009

Guitar heavy, full of songs from the 90s, no solo women at all in the list, less Australian with a couple of notable exceptions (Hilltop hoods). Looks like about half the songs are the *exactly the same ones*. Nirvana Smells like Teen Spirit, still at number one. Other tracks that made *both* top 20s: Joy Division (Love Will Tear us Apart), Queen (Bohemian Rhapsody), Rage Against the Machine (Killing in the Name), Jeff Buckley (Last Goodbye), Led Zeppelin (Stairway to Heaven) Metallica, Radiohead.

I'm currently listening online in Amsterdam, last day here after almost exactly two years. Its nice, good to hear the accents, like decompression before re-entry. And to use the blog as note-book, here's my theories about this particlarly Aussie music poll. In an easy-to-follow bulleted list.

1) It's a product of the time JJJ went national. Early nineties. Those of us where were most excited to finally have our own station were about 14 to 20 then, we are 33 to 40 now. It is squarely a mid-30s hits list. Helllo nostalgia.

2) We are pack animals. Part of the appeal is to see if "your" song "made it in". So, if you want one or more of your songs to have any chance of making it, you're gonna pick the ones you know others will go for. I did - my favourite Nick Cave song is actually either the album tracks "The Witness Song"or "Breathless", but I picked "The Ship Song" b/c it was more of a crowd pleaser. Why pick the concert opener by Carter Unstoppable Sex Machine from the 1993 concert, or perhaps a Patsy Cline track when you know they will never get there, even if they really are you favourite songs?

3) Maybe more blokes do things like on-line polls than chicks do? When I voted I had to give age and gender - I'd LOVE to see the basic demographic breakdown they collected. Did blokes out-number girls really? If it was half half, well I guess I'm wrong, then all Australian 30-somethings love guitar-driven, big-concept boy's stories.

4) People who are only casually into music can better remember the big, heavily played, familiar stuff, easier. Singles, of course, not album tracks.

5) Being dead helps. Suicide even better. Buckley, Cobain, and Ian Curtis. Two suicides and one possible. Really, fuck you, you selfish cocks. Of course, death means exposure, lots of airplay, and sticking in people's memories. See point (4) Hello.. Michael Jackson made it in twice. No way would jjj listeners have voted for him otherwise. See also point (2)

6) "Utlimate Top Songs List" are a very Gen X things to do, and reflect the last gasp of the old breed brought up on albums and charts. I suspect the groovy kids today have big music collections mostly stored as MP3, they sample widely, they all have little niches, rather than following a few acts in one giant horde. (The adage of the internet .. eveyone can be famous for 15 people). I don't know whether they even slavishly follow a radio station, instead getting new music from Limewire, FreshFM, Itunes, from their mates' ipods, etc. Is it possile they don't even know the artists names of lots of tracks on their ipods? All those little niche votes aren't going to match the big bulk of the curve sitting firmly on early ninties grunge-rock and dead superstars. As much as I love the form, the album is dead. Perhaps for the real 'youth' (14 to 24) , the artist is dead too, and there's just the giant miasma of 'stuff on my ipod'.

I mean, come on, some of these songs aren't parent tracks, they are grand-parent tracks. If your Dad was listening to Led Zepplin in 1971 when Stairway to Heaven was released , you were born say in 1973, you were 18 in 1992 - triple J's big expansion year. (I was 16, that year dear listeners). So you've been raiding Dad's vinyl and you're also cementing your own tastes. Year of the Chilli Pepper, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Oasis. If you had a kid at 25, that kid is now 12, just listing to your 'top music'. If you let them online, will they not vote for those big boys power-rock, that "cock forest", as one twitterer descibed it? Unsurprisingly, the list has a bulge in the 70s and another bulge in the 90s.

And that's my analysis of the physcho-graphics of the Australian triple J listeners. Sentimental nostalgic types that they are.

And a ray of hope

A new Australian book - the Clean Industrial Revolution

John Quiggin says "if you only buy one book on climate change, this should be it" .. I'll take that as high praise indeed and look forward to reading it soon. Good to see someone seeing the opportunity and not just the cost of it.

Australian coasts - rich people are shocked

"The state's view is that the risk to a property from sea-level rise lies with the property owner, public or private - or, whoever owns the land takes the risk. They gain the benefit of proximity to the ocean and they bear the risk of proximity to the ocean."
. . .

The NSW plan is being developed as scientists and councils warn that sea-level rise from climate change will greatly increase the number of beachfront homes at risk of inundation in coming decades, affecting some of the most expensive property in the country.
. . .

The NSW Government released a draft policy statement on sea-level rise in February but councils and coastal property owners are only now realising its implications for beachfront properties.

The policy is based on scientific advice that sea levels are expected to rise up to 0.4 metres by 2050 and up to 0.9 metres by 2100.

Each centimetre of sea-level rise is expected to cause, on average, a metre of erosion along vulnerable coastlines. Sydney coastal councils were warned this week that the frequency of coastal flooding would increase by a factor of 300 if sea levels rose by half a metre.

Full article.

Shouldn't we talk about the weather?

Amsterdam: 9.53 am, nearly Summer (official start: June 21)
Sydney: 5.53 pm, approaching Winter solstice.

Extremes

Only just got a look at the awful devestation of those fires. It's on the one hand un-imaginable what it would be like to be trapped in that but all also but all-too-easy to picture those areas going up in flames on such hot days. I was driving in the back roads around Bendigo just 10 or so days ago, through the towns that are now being torn up by fire. I visited an amazing winery in that area, Elgo Estate, they are 100% wind powered and they also fence off natives and re-use their organic wastes to condition the soil. All too rare in Australian industry. I recommend every reader buys their wines off the website, and have fingers and toes crossed they missed the worst of the blaze.

And over this side of the world, Britian is experiencing freakish heavy snow, closed roads, motorways, cancelled school, the lot. In fact, just looking out the window, the thin drizzle in Amsterdam seems to be forming into sparse snow flakes here. Heavy falls currently predicted for Tuesday. Wish I could send some your way, Australia!

Here's a picture I took on Thursday on my morning ride through Vondel Park. Note, the seagulls are standing on top of the pond.

January 26

Drove into Melbourne about 6pm on Australia Day eve, cruising past the banks of the yarra, our assorted ratbag activists commenting on how pretty and clean the city is. Quickly followed by 'give me Newtown to look at any day.' They've got a decidedly urban grunge aesthetic those two.

People all down the riverside park setting up for barbeques the next day. The trend in Australia day over the last few years has seen more and more symbolic nationalism with a kind of diffuse and slightly unsettling focus. It seems that lots more people feel it necessary to get decked out in the flag in some way - shorts, tops, thongs, bikinis, draped as a cape (what are you, some kind of ocker super-hero?), flying on car antennas (putting the ass in class, that one), and worn as body paint.

The whole spectacle was dubbed as "morbid jingoism" by my colleagues on this trip. Can't say I diagree personally. I'm only 33, right, and from my relatively short living memory, this business is not some immutable part of Aussie tradition. We never got into flag-flying as kids. Australia day holds no real special memory of any kind of nationalist holiday, perhaps just a barbeque in one of Adelaide's many parks with a smattering of family freinds, but that was a fairly normal kid-friendly activity right through from October to March.

Perhaps Mum can set me straight on this, but I'm sure our lack of jingoistic fervour was not just a product of our suburb's chardonnay socialist leanings - I don't remember any particular fuss about it, even during high school years, where there was a slighly more bogan element. (Click "comments" to leave a note, here, technophobes).

Anyway.. see what I mean below. Early Sydney Big Day Outs always falling on Jan 26 probably sparked a trend of boozy teens trolling the flag, until organiser Ken West spoke out about it in 2007. The subsequent Howard years surely stoked this flag-waving business.



Photo from here: http://www.australiaday.com.au ... wtf?

Photo from wikimedia commons (Cronulla riots)

Get your rocks off

Hi blog readers, B Sharp is on a job that takes in Brisbane, Innamincka, Adelaide, Portland, Waubra and Canberra. When groups of people travel on a dead straight road, not passing any on-coming traffic for at least an hour at a time, they develop this habit of naming stationary objects as they fly by. Like "bird". (silence) "roo". (silence) "car". (silence) "sign".

On arrival in Innamincka, heart of Australia's burgeoning hot rock electricity industry, we were confronted with a rare desert downpour, 20 millitres that afternoon and night - the most in one year. The publican and helpers were shovelling the torrent of water out from the front door, because over the years the pub has kind of sunk into the clay, creating a natural dam in the car park.

When we finally got out to the site of the new power station the next day, the verdict was "who would have thought we could get so excited over inanimate objects in the middle of nowhere?". For photography and vision its going to be tough to liven up the subject of hot rocks, you see they are 5 km underground. But for clean energy its enough to get you hyperventilating like an American virgin at a Jonas brothers concert. Maybe that's just me.


Photo: Innamincka trading post - more than a thousand clicks north of Adelaide. Sun after the rain.

Riders on the storm

On the road to Cunamulla. This town is a sliver under 1000 kms from Brisbane. A documentary maker visited there some years ago and made a film that portrayed it as the bleakest most fucked up place in Australia. They have race issues, they have unemployed youth, they have it all.

On the way in, we are approaching a storm dead ahead. We are on one of those outback roads to nowhere, a dead straight line of bitumen, disappearing into the horizon in a perfect study of vanishing point worthy of a high-school art project.

We’re going at about 100 km/ hr and there is a massive black storm cloud hanging right over the hood of the car. Lightning cracks on the horizon. Our stills photographer is driving the landcruiser and picks up the industrial–sized camera from its permanent spot beside the gearstick. He rests it on the top of the steering wheel while dropping speed by about 5 kilometres an hour. “What are you doing?” is the simultaneous cry from the producer in the front seat and the video cameraman in the back passenger seat. “You’ve just got to get the moment before the rain starts, otherwise its no good”, comes the reply. He’s trying to get a shot of the lightning which is now arcing down from the dark clouds ahead to the horizon.

“Dude, if you’re going to use the camera, at least slow down” says our slightly older cameraman. He’s competing with the roar of several tonnes of metal roaring across the desert, plus rain and extra wind. ... “What?”... “I said, use it, but use a slower speed for god’s sake!” shouted now from the back seat. “Yeah, I’m on a one second exposure”. Laughter breaks out in the face of impending death. “Not exposure time – use the break for Chrissakes.” Nothing if not dedicated to the shot.

Its official, we're in the middle of nowhere. The GPS is lost.

The big deal at Christmas

Arrived in adelaide a bit earlier than normal this year, so I've had the pleasure of shopping at the mall, hanging at the pub with the after work crowd, and a few games of scrabble with Mum. She's beat me both times, as have my interstate/international friends on every single online match, darnit. Got to work more on that end-game strategy.

During 2008 my Nanna went into a residential home. She'll be 95 in March, she's pretty with it but has started the forgetting that seems to come with great age. In her own flat she had lost interest in eating, her insides started to pack in, eventually ending up at a hospital with kidney failure. Now she lives in her own room in a ward that is quite cleverly designed to appear to seem smaller than than it really is. They have dining rooms with four or five tables dotted all over, plus activity rooms, a hairdresser and even a bar (open for seniors happy hour every Thursday 3.45 to 4.45 pm- apparently they all queue up in anticipation). If or when I start to fail on my feet or think that the cleaner is stealing my pens, I wouldn't be too upset to be in a place like it. Hopefully with some mischievous old ladies who could do stitch and bitch, although in another 30 years I probably won't have progressed past plain on the old knitting needles.

Anyhoo, Chrissy day so far has been quiet for us. Great to catch up with Smithy and Reg who both studied with me in Canberra but have washed up on the shores of d'laide, quite independently. Picnic in the park and hopefully a trip to the beach tomorrow.

This post was going to be a round-up of the big deal stories for Christmas. In Adelaide, people got all whiny about the tram line extension interrupting their commuter regime during 2008. I think it extended their cross-city car trip by about 10 minutes. But they ended up with a lovely melby-style main drag, and soon will have nice, clean fast trams scooting between central station and the entertainment centre. Sounds like a good deal to me. Latte-sipping Australia is huffy that the PM could only bring himself to put forward a 5% reduction in CO2 as a target for Australia. (15 % if he rest of the world gets its act together at the big Copenhagen meeting at the end of 2009). Our own on-line activist community is screening an ad comparing him to the climate-change denialist former prime minister, and airing it during the cricket - the highest rating show on tv over summer. Shame really, because they had to come so far in this country to even get climate change recognised politically as really real. And Penny Wong is such a dead-set smart toughie minister, I bet she would have liked to go further, but the mining can pull the strings pretty hard in this country. Based on my quick review of the press is some far-flung WA towns (more on that later), rural Australia doesn't seem too bothered as they're not so worried about climate change anyway.

But aside from all that, I can't really go past president-elect Obama with his shirt off for the top ranking story of the month. My word. It is wrong to have salacious thoughts about the leader of the free world?

Merry Christmas readers, happy Hanukah, happy new year, etc etc. Love, Aunty B.

Chooks right to choose

"We need to ensure each bird has access to an open range, but it's a chicken's freedom of choice"

That goes into the nacsent collection as a gorgeous quotes from a seasoned (natch) PR person. From James Kellaway of Australian Egg Corporation, it was in response to the Shonky Awards by Australia's Choice magazine, reported in the SMH, which asserted:

most consumers were probably unaware that the scheme allowed up to 14 free-range birds to be packed into each square metre of barn - four birds fewer per square metre than that permitted for their caged hen cousins.

But James disagreed, saying:

the free-range scheme's 30 kilogram per square metre rule translated into about 12 slaughter-weight birds, not 14.

As for access to the open range, the corporation was not about to start strong-arming chickens out the barn door each morning.

Sorry Choice, but you were out-spun on that one. Chickens freedom of choice, heheh.

Worlds Biggest Solar Farm

Bring it on, Australia.

Don't let the Arab states get there first!

Constant Movement

On the go again. Tomorrow it's a 6am flight to Sydney. Then a train ride down the coast with my sister, which should a be a good journey. Fairly straightforward connection, someone to meet us at the other end, no task to complete on the way, just riding off to have some fun for a few days.

When we return to Sydney I've only got a few days of uninterrupted socialising, then back to the sunny South for 3 nights (it's a family thing). Then Sydney for two nights, then Amsterdam. Biz reckons you have to pay somehow for being able to cover 12,000 kms in 24 hours. Jetlag is the obvious one, but perhaps pieces of you are left scattered all over the planet. Physically and psychologically. Same with scooting all over the country. Where are my socks again?

On wednesday, when the darling man gets back, the forecast is 0 degrees and light
snow. I guess we find out then if my house plants are frozen into little blocks of ice. Maybe the canals will freeze this year. Today reached 40 degrees in Adelaide. I'm sure there's a penalty for extreme changes of temperatures too.

Happy New year everyone, hopefully I'll see youse next week.

An ad

Getting all arty for the Christmas season - an actual friend of mine wrote a play. And actual actors are going to perform it. Nice work, Christian. Its call Mr Postmodernism ... Here are the details of the Short and Sweet festival, its on in Feb. Go! and support local artistes.