Favourite Song mid summer 2026

 

I discovered Geese and singer/songwriter Cameron Winter in a weird way. Listening to the John and Elis BBC podcast, on which they have various competitions people enter by sending in voice notes.

Someone sent an entry as a song they improvised to the tune of/sung in the style of a Cameron Winter song (He's got an astonishing voice that I'd describe as "imagine if Radiohead's Thom Yorke was 6'4" American swimmer Michael Phelps". )

John and Elis felt that the entrant trying to sing in this style was a mistake and possibly disrespectful, then went on to speak in awed tones about Cameron Winter and his band Geese. As they are usually just a couple of chuckleheads and rarely serious about something like music; I felt I should check them out.

So I am currently in the early stages of a thrall. The last track here Bow Down (29:52) is my song 'o the summer for now – but the whole session is wonderful. Powerful young rock band with a lady on lead guitar; a big yes from me.

1970s Pistol Coincidence

 Across the 1970s and 80s my dad had

• a beautiful chrome lighter shaped like a flintlock pistol
• a collection of well-crafted wooden puzzles in various shapes (cube, barrel, pistol)
• and a starter's pistol (that I think used caps like a kids toy?) He used this in at least one role in his Burnie Musical Society career. Because of his deep voice; dark brows and facility for an evil laugh Dad was often assigned roles like Jealous Lover, Captain of The Hussars or what have you, in Carousel, Showboat or Pirates of Penzance.

Pistols; just a fun shape to have around the house in my childhood. From a quick Google it looks like it's still pretty popular (ugh).

Upsettlington

 Elf and I are visiting the UK next year, and I would quite like to get to Berwickshire and visit historic Upsettlington. Or is it Upsettington? Wikipedia isn’t sure. In any case James IV came along at some stage and renamed it Ladykirk.

Upsettington Castle was a castle that was located near Upsettington (now Ladykirk), Scottish Borders, Scotland. The castle was the caput baronium of the Lordship of Upsettlington. The lands and barony were granted to the Bisset family by King William I of Scotland. Upsettlington was strategically located adjacent to the English Norham Castle across the River Tweed. The castle was sacked and destroyed in 1297–1298, while William Bisset, Lord of Upsettlington was in Flanders serving in King Edward I of England's expedition to Flanders.^[1]

David Byrne – Who Is The Sky?

HG and Roy used to talk about The Gordon Boyd Rule of Performance: "It is often required to sing while acting; but one must never act while singing. "

I would ask Gordon. and anyone else committed to that rule to skip this clip. But for everyone else – it's full of joy, and highly recommended.

David Byrne has been a constant musical companion in my life since 1983, and continues to surprise and delight with everything he does. This show is coming to Melbourne in a few weeks.

Boundary quandary

 The other day I said hi to Neighbour Mark on my way past his place. He is a cheerful and busy soul, often working outside on something or other. Our adjoining properties have a continuous concrete retaining wall abutting the footpath; and years ago we coordinated our picket fences – we're presenting a united front to the world, let's say.

Mark was on his haunches weeding the footpath in front of his garage; and I realised that our whole shared frontage (32 metres long) was weedy as heck. I mumbled something non-commital like "oh, I really have to do ours" and carried on.

But then I couldn't rest for thinking of Mark painstakingly weeding his section; then getting to the boundary and having a choice to make. Does he stop, leaving a stark disparity between his side (respectable/industrious) and mine (slovenly/couch potato)? Or – does he keep going, weeding our weeds and putting us (further) in his debt?

So I got out before seven on Saturday morning to do our side before he felt he had to. There I saw Neighbour Mark had only weeded in front of his garage. I started doing our side, which took about an hour; and then of course I was the one with the quandary. So I did all the rest of his.

A couple of days later he saw me in the backyard and said "Did you do our weeds??" and I told him when I saw he'd only done the garage, I did say to myself "That bastard!"

Wave ski paddle <-> beef jerky

I follow a few workmates on Instagram. One colleague who lives near the water posted some pics from aboard a wave ski like ours. We were chatting about it in the work kitchen and she said they have two of them. I said something like "oh nice, you can go out together" and she said no, for some reason they only had one paddle. 

We have one wave ski and two paddles. Long story short, on Sunday we swapped the paddle for 80g of their high quality chimichurri beef jerky.

Christmas 2025

We had a splendid (though chilly) Christmas Day.
There was lots of cousin love (Miah, Michael, Marcus, Karri L-R)
In the background dad, mum and Elf.

Holiday swims

We had crummy weather for the start of the holidays; to the extent that it snowed on the mountain on Christmas Day - this is a snap from the Pinnacle web cam.

Now things have settled down and we have these pleasant sunny days; very high UV risk but only about 20° max. I have swum three times in the last four days. I've got a problem with my shoulder at the moment and I've been nervous waiting to see how it would affect swimming. I can scull backwards and breaststroke but I can't freestyle (overarm).

This is Long Beach at Sandy Bay in Hobart. It's only 5km from the city centre, so it's generally Tasmania's most crowded. This is about 6.30 at night in January, still around 16° and there's only a handful of people around. I swam out to the pontoon and lazed in the sun a bit.

Tonight I went back and did the same. My favourite is Hinsby Beach which is further down river: 20 mins drive compared to ten for Long Beach. But if Long Beach is this empty in the early evening, I'm happy to swim here. I only go to the beach to swim, then get dry and head off. I swam 3 hours ago and still have the happy clean and tired feeling.