What the lads are up to

I haven't written much about the boys lately, it seems.

Marcus (at 4 years and eight months) is drawing beautifully. He is writing well when he concentrates. The latest thing is to make up puzzles and mazes. Yesterday he drew a man, with stripes of colours here and there, and letters in and around him. Outside the man were a list of letters and swatches of colour to find in the puzzle. The "d" was drawn around the man's eye. It was all pretty ingenious. This morning he drew a patient and a doctor (above). The doctor is trying to give an injection but according to Marcus "the patient is grabbing it to turn it around and stick into the doctor's neck", which smacks of a boy who has been read a lot of Roald Dahl. He was very keen to get all the right instruments on the doctor's shelves.

He seems to have no trouble making friends. He's socially less switched on than some of the other kids, but they are mostly a little older, which can make a big difference when you're 4.

Our main difficulty with Marcus is over-excitement. He gets revved up very easily, and then its hard to deal with him sensibly. He pushes his lower jaw forward, talks in a super-macho grunt, titters with a grating fake laugh and generally gets right up our noses.

He's mad about chess. He was having a little grizzle yesterday about not winning more often. In the course of pointing out that he was doing very well for his age, I asked rhetorically "Well - you have won 2 games so far, how many have we played?" I wasn't expecting an answer but he said matter-of-factly "Twenty eight or twenty-nine."

Michael, on the other hand (at 2 years and nine months), is sweetness and light mostly. He is mind-bendingly cute. He says please and thank you, and when you thank him he says "you're welcome". He has fabulous parroting skills. He remembers, word-for-word, long snatches of Wiggles dialogue. He did his first (I think) deliberate drawing OF something yesterday (initially an insect, he changed his mind before adding any legs and made it a snake). He wrote a few Ms the other day. He dances. He sings. He may have a future on the stage. He still walks about sawing his arm back and forth like Captain Feathersword.

Michael can read something like 30 words. He doesn't have any close friends of his own yet, but he likes palling around with the kids next door, and with a few of Marcus's other friends. He plays outside with Marcus at Friends, and also goes to visit Marcus' Pre-Kinder room quite often. The kids there accept him and he obviously feels at home in their company. I love to hear him yell "See you later guys!!" when we leave Friends. As I write the boys are in bed together, nearly an hour after lights out, laughing their heads off.

Michael is eating a lot better now, and he is looking very healthy. Unfortunately my Mum hurt her back picking him up the other day, when he was distressed that we were leaving. He has packed on the weight since she last lifted him I think.

2nd hand name dropping

A friend of mine who sometimes checks here (hi Jeff) recently went to his annual reunion of footy kickin' mates in Melbourne, which they call Superkick. It's like kick-to-kick Olympics, with various events. Jeff is a bit of name dropper and he revealed that famous singer-songwriter and national icon Paul Kelly is one of his footy pals.

One event was "Freeform"- I will quote Jeffrey's stream of consciousness style

in the freeform event one is aloud to do what ever they want "drop kick to a running man is Kelly's favourite mine is "the coach has been sleeping with my wife and although I have been able to block it out and play I have a flash back while trying to control a dribbling ball, I pause, deliberate, but stoically push on to collect the ball and bang it through the goals on my alternative foot. i missed but still scored close to maximum

Bark/Bark

Michael and I talked a bit about how "bark" falls from gum trees, and is also the sound dogs make. He thought it was interesting, and mulled it over for a while, talking quietly to himself. We were at the park, sitting with some leaves and bark and bits of cardboard we had found, which he started to arrange on the table. He said "I am making a dog from bark". Making a Dog from Bark sounds like an event at the Surrealist Olympics.

Bird Calls

Yellow-tailed black cockatoo plaintive plee-erk
Latham's snipe loud keow
Long-toed stint soft chrrup-chrrup-chrrup
Whimbrel tittering ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti
White-cheeked honeyeater chip choo chippy choo
White-eared honeyeater loud chock
White-fronted honeyeater musical tsooeee
White-gaped honeyeater ch ch ch-aweya or chock
White-lined honeyeater wheee wheee whee-oo
White-naped honeyeater sibilant sherp sherp
White-plumed honeyeater chee uck oo weee
White-streaked honeyeater troop drid-out drid-out drid-out
White-throated honeyeater rather peevish tserp tserp
Carpentarian grasswren ssst, ssstz, seeze-ooo chrr chreee, trrr trrrr, chrrrp chrrrp chuck, chrrrp chrrrp chick will

From Slater's Australian Birds. Coming soon - Bird's Australian Slaters

Our growing boy

Having children is weird. One minute your wife says "I'm going to have a baby" and then five years later its playing chess, and its trying to suck you into an exchange of queens. Marcus actually checkmated me yesterday, and is still crowing about it. (Its true I had been coddling him along a bit, but it was awful shock when it happened). At one stage I noted he had not moved either of his knights yet. He said (direct quote) "I have not found them to be very useful".

Besides playing chess and talking like a PhD student he can also reach stuff on the mantelpiece now.

The Bowling Shanes Prem. Def. 16 d Spice Girls 6

The score above does not do justice to a cracker of a match. The Girls (skipped by a Steve) were in fine form, and had us on our toes right from the first end. When we bowled well, they bowled better. When they were a bit slack, we were worse. The score crept along to 2-3, with neither side able to capitalise on some promising work by the leads. Both skips sent down fabulous saves to pull back looming disasters from the brink. We conceded a couple, picked up one, then dropped another to be in some trouble at 3-6. It was a seven-ciggie match for Hunter. Nerves were taut.

Somehow we turned things around. At times there was an uncanny magnetic attraction to the centreline - everyone was finding the line beautifully, but having a bit more trouble with the length. We sneaked back on terms. Dean deserves a mention for his brave and precise drive that reversed a losing end. We then scooted away with a four and a three in successive ends. The brave Spice Girls tilt was over. The Shanes A completed a beautiful quadrella with a thumping win on the next rink. (We just missed the trifecta as the Dancing Simones lost by a point to the Bay City Bowlers). Merv suggested all Shanes will have to bowl left-handed next week.

Its been a good start to the season and the smell of Wilgrip, beer and sausages is mighty fine.

3 cheers for Layne Beachley

I have never paid much attention to pro surfing, but no-one could fail to be impressed by Layne Beachley. She has won the world title six times, and has now established the Beachley Classic, the richest women's surfing competition in the world.

She was instrumental in re-etablishing the women's competition at Bells Beach. The sponsor withdrew in 2001, meaning there was no womens' world championship surfing event at all in Australia for three years. Beachley approached her own sponsor SPC in late 2004, and talked them into supporting the whole event on their own.

Now she has worked her butt off to get another World Tour event, the Classic, up and running in New South Wales. I admire her energy and determination very much. She's in the running for her 7th world title, and I hope she gets there.

Stained Glass Quoll Wedding

My Mum and Dad came down from Turners Beach for the weekend to mind the boys, and Elf and I flew to Melbourne for another wedding. I don't know what it is about us that inspires weddings, but we have been to umpteen since ours. Marcus came with us to Verity and Glenn's when he was five weeks old, then backed up at Joe and Jill's the following weekend, way up the east coast at St Marys.

As it is Dad's 70th birthday on the 11th, we had Sally and Matt around for a big family dinner. I cooked big atlantic salmon steaks. They were expensive but worth it because they are a) incredibly tasty for all ages and b) impossible to muck up. I fried up some scallops and oysters in butter and garlic for entree for Dad and I - no-one else was interested in eating squishy invertebrates. They were mouth-wateringly good and I don't think I can wait for another special occasion - I might have to just treat myself to some more one of these days.

This wedding was John and Carmen's. It was special for me as John has been my mate since we were sixteen, when we discovered our shared interest in The Cure, beer and shouting. One my happiest memories is the day I came home from a difficult backpacking trip to South America, when I was 20. It was a great experience, but I'd been living on pennies for weeks, encountered all the usual backpacker problems, and been very homesick. I got a cab to John's house, and in no time we were at the pub, playing pool, watching Dean Jones tonk a one-day ton on the telly, and eating steamed dim sims with soy sauce. I think Hunters and Collectors were on the juke box. It was a miracle cure.

Carmen and her three daughters are a perfect fit for John. They have just as much energy, creativity and lust for life as he does, and they will waste no time in telling him when he's being a goose. If he cuts a hole in a box, puts it on his head and talks through it like a newsreader, he will get the pummeling he deserves from his new family. He has been adopted by the whole extended Maltese tribe and is obviously a big hit with all of them.

John and Carmen chose Rupertswood near Sunbury for their wedding. Its a big mansion with an imposing tower (crowded with cockatoos) built in 1874. It's is all very grand - it was the social hub of Victoria, lots of hunting and grand balls. The chapel was once the main ballroom. There are glass panels painted with game and native wildlife, who I guess were possibly game as well. I've never seen a stained glass quoll before.

The service all went well, the principals were both a bit emotional but got through their lines. I saw a few tears from John when Carmen walked down the aisle. She was piped in and out of the chapel by a lone piper - who I think has terrific potential if he practices a bit more. John's father Ian presented Carmen with a tartan shawl and brooch to welcome her to the clan.

The photographer's phone rang during the service - he should have handed in his lenses and quit the caper on the spot. In the pause between service and reception, we mooched happily about the stately verandahs with drinks, and imagined potting at rabbits from the cane armchairs. There were plenty of them (rabbits, not armchairs). Of course it would be a lot easier potting at armchairs. It was beautifully balmy. As the sun set, the wedding party jumped into cars to somehow get more photos. If the sun goes from the east coast to Perth in about 3 hours you wouldn't be able to outpace it in a rented Hyundai Getz. (Supplementary question - are Hyundai going to name any more cars after jazz saxophonists? I'd trade in the Subie for a Hyundai Coltrane.)

My old buddy Alex and his wife Suparna were there. Alex and I used to play cards with John and the best man, Michael, on Thursday nights at the Lord Newry in Fitzroy. I was formerly the Clumsiest Man In Tasmania, and had come to Melbourne to take the title of Clumsiest Man In Victoria (Metro) for a couple of years. (There was a guy at Horsham who held the Country title, he once accidentally demolished the Mechanics Institute). I would put my glass on the floor to avoid knocking it over while playing, and would always then kick it over. I took to doing it deliberately at the start of the night to get the whole business out of the way.

We had not met Suparna before their wedding (the last one we took Marcus to). Elf had not seen them since, and I had but only briefly, so we had a lot of yaffling to do to get to know her better. She is bright, pretty, opinionated and funny, and we like her a lot.

The reception was very musical. Carmen's older daughter Alana had written a song about her, that her middle daughter Elise sang a capella. It was an amazing display of confidence and sincerity from one so young. We expect to see her on Aussie Idol in a few years - or maybe she'll just skip the small-time and go straight to Hollywood. The band flicked the switch from "light noodling" to "high volume funk" and we hit the floor to impress the Maltese guests with our clunky Anglo-Saxon moves. I was mesmerised by Alex's exotic performance skills and didn't pay attention but I suspect Suparna can actually dance. I would describe Elf's style as "do few things but do them well".

Elf and I staggered tiredly away about midnight to our motel. In the morning we drove off to see Mt Macedon. The properties on the way up the mountain are very, very swank. Not new-money swank, but very Establishment swank. A typical ad in the real estate office window said things like "From the principal residence, stroll through groves of liquid amber, spruce, fir, oak, elm, cypress and willow to the summerhouse, or down a country lane lined with dogwoods to the tennis court..." After a sultry evening it had come over all icy. We drove to the top, saw the view and the giant war memorial cross, scampered back to the car, and drove to airport. Everything people say about Jetstar is true.

The boys were pretty good while we were away. Marcus and Grandma played about a dozen games of draughts. Michael was delighted to see us - Marcus was too, but pretended to be disappointed we'd come home.

The Kamarians are coming

When the Australian Defence Forces are practicing defending Australia with the use of force, they always call the imaginary enemy "Kamaria". This is to avoid upsetting any of our friends and neighbours who may at the time be considered a likely threat. I recall when I was briefly an army reservist in the 80s, a wizened old Warrant Officer saying "always obey orders without thinking, because when the Kamarians come over the hill if you don't shoot them they'll shoot you in the blink of an eye". While doing a bit of research for work I found this bit of Kamarian insignia.

For realistic training to be available to the troops there has to be an "enemy". In the Australian Army the "enemy" is the 7th Kamarian Division. A special group of Australian soldiers who regularly "invade" Australia or "attack" vital installations.
They have their own type of displaced pattern camouflage uniform and their own Unit insignia.

© www.diggerhistory.info

Animals by Marcus

Giraffe

Bee (my favourite)

Thylacine

Cheetah

The Bowling Shanes 14 d Kitties 7

The Shanes kicked off the new season with a competent performance against the Kitties. We dominated early and had pretty much secured the points when it was 10-0 and already getting dark. It was a cool evening, and the Kitties had some cardigan problems that probably cost them two or three shots. Hunter skipped the Shanes for the night, and took best afield with some tremendously precise tidy-ups. Several of the better teams from last season failed to front tonight. I'm afraid we might have monstered some fragile egos in our unstoppable surge to the finals in June. Just as well they weren't there to see us handed the (now engraved) trophy once more, and finally get our hands on the legendary medallions. The Shanes have been re-badged as "The Bowling Shanes Premiership Defence", and we have strength in depth with the return of our little mates the Bowling Shanes 'A', plus a ladies team known as The Dancing Simones. From little things, big things grow. I imagine by 2026 we will have clubrooms, our own greens, pokies and Thursday bingo, with Ian Turpie or Lucky Grilles live on stage on Saturday nights.

Not smart enough for a pub

I went along to the New Sydney Hotel (a reasonably knockabout Irish pub) see my workmate's band The Fops play on Friday night, and was not let in, on account of my footwear - clean walking boots. The guy also mentioned my shorts. In my experience you can never debate with people in his position so I went home.

The reason I didn't get changed and go back is that I think its ridiculous to be excluded from a pub for wearing shorts and boots. I'll be giving this place a wide berth in future. If I'm going to go to the trouble of wearing flash shoes (which I don't very often) it will be for a more significant occasion than going to the pub.

Spoonerism

While discussing the merits of West Coast's Daniel Kerr, [The Last Word, ABC Local Sept 24] Gerard Whately's mouth outran his brain: "The effold is two-fect... er, the effect is two-fold..."

Shepherd v Leopard

Further to last week's fragment of doggerel, here are a couple of modifications. I wish I had thought of "intrepid".

INTREPID SHEPHERD CONSUMES TEPID LEOPARD ( or "A spot of lunch after leopardy jeopardy")

While a shepherd was shepherding, a leopard was leoparding
With a gleam in its eye and its dream - shepherd pie
So it sprang at the shepherd who, brave and intrepid
With a thump from his staff split the leopard in half
So it rapidly tired and quietly expired.
Now the shepherd was thrifty, resourceful and nifty;
He said "Here is meat for my lunch,
"Though I can't light a fire, indeed I desire
Tepid, peppered leopard to munch"

by J.D. Rees


The shepherd was in leopard jeopardy.
The leopard ate the shepherd rapidly.
Even peppered he tasted very shepherdy.
Renowned, they are , to cool to tepid rapidly

J. R. McTaggart

Terry saws our house in half

The people who are going to saw our house in half came to have their first good look at it today. Terry and Maree are going to plonk it by the Carlton River and put decks all around it. The spot where I sit typing, in the sunroom, will fairly soon have water views! Its pretty amazing. They were thrilled with the character of our house and are very excited about the project. They are getting the actual structure for nothing, so it is certainly a great win/win if it saves us $10,000 on demolition.

One problem might be that the contractors want to do the sawing-in-half-and-putting-on-trucks at 3am, to make driving the wide load through town easier. We mentioned this to Mark and Caron next door and they were underwhelmed.

Sunscreen and snow

It was a beaut morning, and I thought we should go for a walk on Mt Wellington. I recommnded the top of the ZigZag Track, because the views are excellent and its flattish. What I forgot was that it blows a gale up there. Michael was asleep by the time we got up there, so Elf stayed in the car while Marcus and I did a few laps around the pinnacle, in very strong and cold winds.

The peaks in the western distance still wear a thick cone of snow, and the wind felt like it had done a few laps around those icy parts before it blew through us. I had foolishly dressed myself and the boys in just a t-shirt and polar fleece, when perhaps two or three polar fleeces and a parka would have made more sense. Marcus didn't care, he thought the whole wind thing was a hoot. There were blobs of snow around and about, not enough for snowballs, snowmen or snow angels though. Its only about a week since it last snowed I suppose.

At risk of having it blown out of my hands, I took a map of southern Tasmania up to the pinnacle to show him how the shapes on the map matched the shapes down there in the view. I think he thought that was interesting, but we couldn't really hear anything each the other said.

We could see our house from up there too - not exactly it but our immediate neighbourhood at least. I always feel lucky to be among tourists from all over, looking down on this beautiful place, knowing that they must move on while I will come back down and live here for as long as I want to stay, with a wild mountain there waiting for whenever I feel the urge to go up to explore it.

Back home we spent a while in the backyard. It got pretty hot, and I was looking around for shade, of which we have none. I was putting sunscreen on the boys and feeling like this had been a fairly extreme kind of day. No wonder I feel so tired now.

Marcus invented a magnificent water pump in the bath tonight. A funnel, that fit snugly into a plastic cylinder, pumped water out of its spout as he plunged it up and down. Excellent hydraulic sausage that he is.

West Coast 12.13 (85) d Sydney 12.12 (84)

Well, what a Grand Final. In-bloomin'-credible. I watched it at home with the family this year, and everyone was very good about letting me just sit in front of the TV for three hours. Sydney were terrible for most of the first half, and were lucky that West Coast didn't take more of their chances. Sydney could have been dead and buried by half time. As it was they came out in the 3rd quarter and showed incredible belief in themselves, to creep within 11 points at the last change.

Last year's grannie was one of the all time greats, and just about everyone tipped that this would come close to matching it. Few thought this match would actually would surpass it. When Kirk grabbed the ball out of the centre, found McVeigh, who hooked it out to Hall, who handpassed to Goodes charging by, who slammed it through for a goal only 14 seconds into the quarter, it was obvious this was going to be a heart-stopper. Sydney five points down. It stayed this way for another ten fraught minutes, then a few rushed behinds pushed it out to 7 points, but the momentum had swung to Sydney and it seemed just a matter of time until their nose was in front. Several times they clawed within one point, but they were never able to go one better.

The siren sounded and West Coast were premiers, after losing to the Swans by four points last year, beating them by 2 points during the season then losing the qualifying final by 1 point a few weeks ago. The exact score that day was replicated yesterday, but with a different winner.

I was barracking for Sydney but I thought West Coast were deserving winners. Sydney coach Paul Roos was almost unbelievably generous in defeat. ""It would have been devastating for them to go down today, considering the amount of effort they've put in." They are just two terrific footy teams, and if they could go on providing grand finals like the last two, I think most footy followers would be happy to see them there again next year, and the year after that.

Rent in twain2

From a Ray White Real Estate ad for a new apartment: "From the second you step through the front door, you are transported into the 21st Century, with bold modern colours adorning walls, unique lighting and interesting spaces." Even homeless people sleeping on park benches are in the 21st century already, Ray White. You've had six years to think up a new cliche.

Weird but compelling

http://wohba.com/dofi/sasasabig.html
Create a world, then destroy it. Or at least, mess it up pretty good. My advice is, get rid of the zombies early. They aren't very aesthetically pleasing. (It needs Java which may exclude some of you with old computers or browsers.)

Miscellaneous

I have leafed through A Short History of Bosnia a bit lately, which I bought back when Bosnia had the misfortune to be news. The author discusses slavery among the people of the Balkans, many of whom are Slavs. It is amusing to read his contortions as he tries to avoid writing "Slav slaves". He eventually just gives in to the inevitable.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The shepherd was in leopard jeopardy.
The leopard ate the shepherd rapidly.
Even peppered he tasted very shepherdy.

Any suggestions to how I can work "tepid" into this?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A recent Dave Graney blog consisted of a big whinge about how young people can't play guitar properly, all pose and no actual riffs. I commented that there should be a national Fender Buyback Scheme, funded out of the export earnings of the Savage Gardens, Peter Andres and Kylies. Dave thinks there is merit in this.

In a spirit of rusty old codgerhood I also propose that funding be earmarked for the following buyback schemes, to make Australia a better place to live.

- Skateboards
- McLeods Daughters
- Ringtones other than "ring ring"
- Personalised numberplates
- Automotive subwoofers
– Eyebrow rings
- Very small dogs

Tomatoes out, pears in

The new diet Elf has imposed on Marcus seems to be working well. We have been concerned about his temperament - he will blow up suddenly over very small things. Elf is following a book called Fed Up by Sue Dengate, which says on the back;

"Added and natural food chemicals can cause
• irritability, restlessness, 'a short fuse' when things go wrong
• poor reading or school performance
• 'restless legs', slow to fall asleep or night-waking
• headaches or stomach aches
• itchy skin rashes or bedwetting
• disorganisation, lack of energy
• some symptoms of ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder
• frequent ear infections, asthma, stuffy and runny nose"

Marcus has shown the majority of these symptoms at some stage in the last twelve months. He is doing fine at school but we are aware that his reading ability goes up and down with his mood. So far a few food exclusions have seen an improvement. Elf thinks tomatoes might be a main culprit. The book also advises to feed kids a lot less fruit than we generally do. The safest fruit is pears. I have not read the book myself, and I acknowledge that the author may perhaps have shares in pears, but Marcus is certainly pleasant company more of the time at the moment.

From the 1946 Chrysler manual

Bare bum at the brewery

We had a homely day on Sunday. It was wet and cold. We have just heard that the Cascade Visitors Centre up the road is now doing lunches, so in a break in the weather we walked up there. Its only about 200 metres from our house, and very, very nice. They have beautiful old gardens with mazy paths where you can get lost, fountains, a great view over the brewery to the dense bush beyond, and a to-scale but mis-shapen thylacine standing behind the bar. The beer on tap comes through pipes from the brewery across the road. Marcus was atrocious at times this weekend and topped it all off by baring his bum at Elf in the Visitors Centre, when she asked him to get his shoes off the upholstery.

It looked like we were going to get saturated on the walk home, then a hole in the rain opened up and we got back unscathed. Marcus was in such a stupid mood that he threw a Level 2 wobbly because the rain had stopped. Logic is not a reliable child-rearing tool. In fairness, he paid us back by being angelic all day Monday.

A house lot of towels

On Saturday Elf left the boys up at Rob and Mel's for a couple of hours while we worked things out with Greg the Builder and had a look at his house up at Neika. We took lunch things with us when we went back to Rob and Mel's, and settled in for a very pleasant yak and nibble. Rob's Mum, sister Colleen and nephew Phil arrived at the same time as we did.

Mrs Bellchambers has a thick Scots accent. We were talking about building and floors, slabs etc. She said her brother had built a house and and put down towels everywhere. "Yeah!" I said, but I was thinking "Towels??" A bit later I worked out she had said "tiles".

After lunch Marcus and I went to see Peter Pan at the Playhouse Theatre. It was Marcus's first live theatre, and he really got into it. We were a bit worried he would take Captain Hook's nastiness too much to heart. He had no trouble at all, even going up to shake the Captain's hook at the end of the show. Marcus was sitting next to his buddy Keiran, and they both had the rows in front and behind us in stitches with their timely interjections and very loud questions. When the goodies triumphed at the end, they were practically standing on their seats, shouting "Woo-HOOO!"

I deliberately put thoughts of football aside for the afternoon, but the minute the crocodile ate Captain Hook I was struck again by symptoms of Finals Fever. We scurried home to catch the end of the West Coast v Adelaide match, which was a corker. West Coast have been the come-from-behind kings this season, and did it again. But... I think they have won their last match for the year. Five days out from the Grand Final I am going to tip the Swannies to go back to back, breaking it open in the last quarter to win by 22 points. One of their Invisibles will win the Norm Smith Medal, maybe Jarrod McVeigh or Ben Matthews. Oh, and the Brownlow Medal tonight, just has to be Scott West.

Flat pack our sunroom

Further house-moving news: Elliott Brothers, the crane people, reckon it will be a doddle to carve our place up, put it on trucks and send it down to the coast. Elf tells me a representative visited today, walked up and down and said "Yep". They'll slice off the sunroom, flat pack it (!), dismantle and discard the brick fireplace and chimney, chainsaw down the hall, and swing the halves onto two trucks with their 100-ton crane. Then, break for a cup of tea, before driving our house over the Tasman Bridge and into the sunset. Yes, I know that's the wrong direction for the sunset. When we make Bye Bye House, The Movie we'll just film the sunrise and run it backwards, OK?

We have a builder!

We have just signed a contract with Greg Sheedy to build the new house. There are (as always) a few things that need to happen before any sod can be turned, but still - we are creeping closer. We have not got a mortgage approved yet, so that's a little scary. The builder, council and bank all basically wait for the other two to tick something before they will. Luckily our builder decided near enough was good enough with the bank.

A fella with a block at Carlton River is very interested in taking the house away, which would save us $10,000 on the demolition. He is looking into it, which might take 5 weeks. We will go along with this and keep on eye on his progress - we are really keen for the house to survive intact, apart from the money, but we don't want to buy into a major delay.

Greg took us up to Neika to see an unfinished house has has been building, specifically the solid timber floor. Like ours it is Tas Oak boards with secret nailing. It will look beautiful, I just hope we don't need to sign a confidentiality agreement over the whereabouts of the nails.

Snakes on a Beachball

Elf and the boys were at Home Hardware a few weeks back and they were giving these beachballs away. Printed on it is sage advice on a range of matters, from two snakes. I think it might be a Chinese Year of the Snake thing. This bit says;

FEELINGS. The middle-aged couples will get into difficulty, they maybe have something hard to say. Take care, your extramarital romance will probably be exposed. And it is not easy for the single to get married.

Its penetratingly honest, not something snakes are always renowned for.

Dialogue

Michael: Where is Marcus?
Dad: In the bathroom.
Michael: What is Marcus saying?
Dad: I don't know, I can't hear him.
Michael:He is saying stuff and things.

Negotiation

From an excellent book I highly recommend, The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman (no relation to the Tasmanian political dynasty).

SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATION [no. 4/5]
A bestselling author on the subject of “negotiation” reminds: “Negotiation requires compromise. Each party must gain something, and each must give something up. Before you begin your negotiation, privately consider what you are willing to give away. Now gather all of that material together and put it in a sack. Hide the sack in a secure location, such as a cave that is laced with explosives that you can detonate by remote control. Take the remote control in with you to the negotiation. As any experienced negotiator knows, in order to succeed, you must be willing to walk away from the deal at any moment, and then blow up the cave. Note: The sack should be made of velvet.”

Michael shops

Michael was shopping with Elf when he saw a Wiggles wetsuit: "Look - the Wiggles on a swimming jumper".

More news about zero

Marcus was in a foul mood. He was sin-binned for thumping Michael. After a while he was allowed out of his room to have breakfast and was sitting quietly, thinking. He suddenly announced excitedly "Mum - zero, two, two, four, six, eight! Zero is an even number!". Apparently he had to say two twice "because zero plus two is two".

Wags the Dog - does he have the power of speech?

Dorothy the Dinosaur was once played by a hairy-armed man in a garbage bag. Now she is a large professionally made green foam suit with a trained dancer inside. This is fine, this is the evolution and refining of an original concept. Captain Feathersword was formerly played by any brother of a Wiggle who happened to be around. Once it was played by Anthony himself, who the other Wiggles all pretended not to recognise. Then they engaged a full-time dedicated pirate, (with magic buttons) in the role. Once again, this is all well and good. The other causal Captains never really convinced, and sometimes they were actually disturbing.

Now we come to Wags the Dog. He has been dark brown, he has been light brown. He sometimes has had a big W on his chest, sometimes not. On occasions he is pranced about by Waggettes. Usually he does that dogs-on-tv thing where he says "Woof woof grrrrrr bark!" and someone will reply "Yes Wags, the Big Red Car does need a tune-up and wheel balance".

Then out of the blue - he speaks! No one says "Good heavens, Wags can talk!" Suddenly he is asking Captain Feathersword around to babysit the Waggettes, and discussing how much he likes bones. In the Wiggly Fun Book on one page he goes missing when he is due at Wiggle Studios, and when they find him in a boat on a lake, he says "I was a bit worried about being in the show, and I thought a spot of fishing would calm my nerves".

A few pages later, he is in Paris with Captain Feathersword on their tour of the world. He points to the Eiffel Tower and makes climbing actions." Sure Wags, we can climb right to the top", says the Captain.

In closing I ask: Wags the Dog - is he a hollow sham?

No Mum Weekend continues

Today after breakfast we went to ride bikes on the concrete top of the water tank in the Domain, with a visit to the pool to follow. Marcus is too big for his tricycle now but still loves to ride it flat out, his knees pumping up around his ears. Michael loves to get on it but has to be pushed about with the optional long handle designed for that purpose. Marcus was grumpy at losing his wheels, so I let him stand on the axle behind Michael, and at low speed we all had a lot of fun.

Michael spent most of the time haring around pushing his blue ride-on car, also designed for someone much smaller. He covered a lot of territory on foot, not much slower than Marcus on three wheels.

At the pool Marcus met his mate Huon. I had not met Huon and his mum Abby, but had heard about their get-togethers with Elf and the boys. Huon and Marcus were strangers who just hit it off in the park one day. "Hit" is the operative word - they just love to pummel, biff, cuff, thwack and pound each other. I had to go over a few times and point out that the half-nelson, the flying mare and the toe-hold takedown were all against pool rules. Huon and his family are all lovely people but my job was a lot easier once they packed up and left.

I coaxed the boys out of the pool and into the shower, and into dry clothes. We bought some potato cakes and went up to Parrot Park in Glebe to eat them. I have looked the parrots up, and they are red-headed Eastern Rosellas and either Swift Parrots or juvenile Green Rosellas. It was such a mild day with a light breeze, it was delightful to sit and do very little. The boys did their own thing. Michael found a nice dustbowl and covered himself and his apple with grey. Marcus studied parrots.

Rohan Smith's Last Woof

Stan Alves (ex St Kilda coach unkindly sacked) on the sacking of incumbent Grant Thomas - "... it really gets under my goat ..."

Fremantle bundled Melbourne out of the finals on Friday night. I battled to stay awake, as I have for quite a few night matches lately. Melbourne stayed in it for longer than they had a right to.

Last night it was West Coast Eagles v Western Bulldogs. It was terrific game, in particular the third quarter. In the first half West Coast were superior but inaccurate, so the Dogs were still in with a woof. They came out with steely resolve - they didn't really look like kicking a goal but neither did the Eagles. The pace of the game was frenetic. The play just bounced from half forward line to half forward line, with intense pressure always causing the last link in the chain to fail. In the final minutes the Eagles scored, and resistance crumbled. The last quarter was a procession, the Dogs were a rabble, and Rohan Smith wept copiously as he was carried off in his 300th and last game.

No Mum Weekend

Elf has been away all weekend, for a wedding in the Victorian high country, at Dinner Plain. Not a convenient place to get to from Hobart, or from anywhere really. Best wishes to Scott and Sally.

Elf left at 5am yesterday, and I will pick her up later tonight at the airport. Hopefully the boys will sleep through being loaded into and out of the car, and the drive out and back.

Coincidentally Anna is away all weekend too, so Nick and I hatched a plan to get together and cooperate in herding the children about. We started with a look at Goulds Lagoon bird sanctuary at Austin's Ferry. A good roll-up of ducks, herons, native hens and some geese who may have been local backyard bludgers. I don't know if you should throw bread to birds in a sanctuary but Nick thought it was OK, so we gave them a good serving of (still frozen) sliced white. Marcus and I will come back one day without Michael and have a better look.

We moved deeper into Austins Ferry to a pleasant playground next to a cricket ground, with a giant slide. We shared the playground with three brothers. The eldest sent text messages while advising the younger ones that if they $%#n wanted to go %$#n home they could just ^&%*n keep going the way they were. It made me think home must not be all that flash. Michael tumbled down the spiral slide blissfully unawares.

Lily asked if the boys could come to her house to play, so with no other plans at all for the day, we did. Lily's little sister Katherine is only about 15 months old, so Nick had a much tougher assignment than I to manage alone all weekend. I soaked up the sun and ate too much. The boys needed the occasional corrective barking-at, but were pretty good. I finally got them to come home, using time on the computer as bait.

Michael was fiddling with my radio during the afternoon, and turned it on as someone discussing the media in Indonesia said that after a journalist had stepped out of line the government "punished the paper". Marcus said "How can you punish paper?"

Child care and vegies up, plasma screens down

"Since 1996, prices for TVs and computers have fallen 68 per cent, small electronic goods 14 per cent, and motor vehicles 19 per cent... During the past decade, fruit prices went up 11 per cent, vegetables 70 per cent, health care 50 per cent, public transport 49 per cent, and bread 48 per cent. Child care has risen 91 per cent"

ABS figures quoted by the Australian Greens, quoted in turn in The Age

80,000 year old giraffe carvings

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/giraffe2.html
These are wonderful. "Located at the top of a sandstone outcrop in the Air Mountains in the Sahara is the unique & exceptional petroglyph of two life-size giraffes. The petroglyph is thought to have been created between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. The site itself contains 828 engraved images [704 animals, in majority bovids, giraffes, ostriches and antelopes, rare lions and rhinos and camels, 61 human figures, and 159 indeterminate figures]."

Why aren't these better known?

Don't put the spider in the blog

Michael was having a grizzle yesterday. He stomped out of the room and grizzled past Elf in the kitchen. I heard her say "Oh no, Michael - aaaaah." He had seen a large huntsman and stomped it flat. Later, he picked up a spider card from a game, and waved it around saying over and over "This is the spider I stepped on."

I said, mostly to myself "I will have to put your spider in my blog". Michael squealed "NO! Don't put the spider into the blog!" I think he thinks a blog is kind of like a bag.

Tax, bugs, slimy mud

I took the day off to mind Marcus, as kinder is closed for 2 weeks for school holidays. Next year he will be a full time student, and school holidays will require serious planning.

Anyway, yesterday we dropped of Elf and Michael (we would have had to pay whether he attended family day care or not, so we let him go as he really loves it). Then we went to see Jill who does our tax each year.

While Jill depreciated and so on, and I sat like a stunned carp as usual, Marcus did a beautiful series of drawings of bugs. After Jill somehow wrestled my tax bill to half what I thought it would be, we went back up to the car.











We had parked on the 6th floor of the car park, so after we dropped off our stuff we went up a couple of floors to the top storey, and looked at the view from each corner. For some reason, only the parts of city buildings that are visible from ground level are maintained. A building may be surrounded by vantage points for viewing its little weatherboard rooftop shack, but do they put money into painting the shack and fixing its broken windows, or restyling the ground floor? Guess.

When we got home we scanned Marcus's bug drawings and emailed them to everyone. With dial-up it was taking a long time to send, so we left the computer doing its thing and went exploring.

We went for a walk up the bed of the Hobart Rivulet. It was a great thing to do with just Marcus - I tried it with both boys a few weeks back and it was hair-raising and awkward. I was happy for Marcus to trust his own instincts and forge ahead. Sometimes we tried to step from stone to stone, and sometimes we just walked with water swirling around our boots. Occasionally we would stop, sit on an "island" and pour the water out.

We got as far as the brewery, then the course was too narrow, and the banks were too overgrown. One day we might try another stretch a bit higher up.

The rivulet was actually pretty yucky. There were plastic bags and lolly wrappers and so on. The part we were in runs through the Cascade Gardens, so picnic and barbecue rubbish is always drifting into the water. There was a lot of slimy mud.

We squelched home, quickly changed out of soggy stuff, and went to pick up Michael a little early. It was still really warm so we went down to Kingston Beach. I dug a shallow hole in the sand for each boy - Marcus needed to fetch and carry water to fill his (after which it would all drain away), while Michael's filled with the tide. Michael was very happy just jumping in and out of his pond. Marcus was happy running up and down with completely futile urgency. It was all very satisfactory.

Burnie c. 1991

Old Burnie Police Station


The Club Hotel ($10 deposit when you get a pool cue from behind the bar)


Port of Burnie from the Crown Street lookout

I grew up in Burnie and remain very fond of the place. It was very industrial and sometimes accused of being "The Dirtiest Town in Australia" in those days. It seemed at the time that there were no old buildings left, the whole place having been "smartened up" in about 1970.

Then I found these photos in the National Library of Australia Collection. There are quite a few pleasant old red brick office buildings, iron-lace verandahed pubs, and the old police station is pretty amazing.

Asian Cup - Kuwait 2 d Australia 0

H.G. Nelson: "Once again I ask, how is Kuwait part of Asia? It's all very well having black bean sauce in your sweet and sour gear one night a week, that doesnt make you part of Asia." (The blog ban is over already).

Stuff-ups

Moan. Today I discovered that I was sleepwalking at work last week. Three things I either didn't notice, forgot or just got plain wrong. My boss is a very easy-going man. He actually went as far as saying that the document I sent out for printing (the wrong version with a logo that should have been removed) was BETTER the way I had done it, as it added a certain cachet to have that logo on it unwarranted.

He is off to LA and the UK tomorrow with these wrong documents, and they are quite important. I stuffed them up, yet he was able to deal with it to save my feelings. What a guy.

Anyway. I think one thing that distracted me last week was this bloody blog. So I am going to punish it by sending it to Coventry for a week and concentrating on my work.

Finals Fever 2006

I have come down with a bad case of Finals Fever, as always. Symptoms include mowing lawns with headphones on, sitting with family with headphones on, watching live TV while children are awake (never usually happens), and random shouts of "Oh ho HOOOOOO you BEAUT-eeeee!".

The radio was on in the car during our outing on Sunday, as the fancied Magpies were eliminated by the unfancied Doggies. I didn't realise Marcus was listening all that much until he said "Dad, what does 'they're killing them out of the middle' mean?"

Michael tells the time

Michael has always been very keen on clocks. He liked the numbers, and the hands and the tick tock were just a bonus. Now he is taking an interest in their time-keeping abilities. He has been repeating overheard comments, with a gradually growing understanding of the meaning, like "The big hand is pointing straight up". I'm pretty sure he now grasps that if the big hand points straight up, its something o'clock, and the little hand tells you what o'clock.

This morning he wanted to wear my watch. It was about 2 minutes to 7, and he said "The hand is straight up. It's seven o'watch". And technically, he was spot on.

Rent in twain

We are looking at rentals now, so once again we cross swords with Agents and their wit and wisdom. This falls into the Push A Mediocre Feature Too Hard category.

This old lady has been dressed up with fresh paint, new carpet and curtains, heating panels in every room and a fabulous built-in wardrobe in the main bedroom to cater for all your clothing items.

Scandal - Salmon Ponds Actually Full Of Trout

We visited the Salmon Ponds at Plenty this morning - great outing. About half an hours drive up from Hobart. Ponds full of big, big trout, eager for our handfuls of fish pellets. They jumped out of the water and did fosbury flops and western rolls to get at them, although they must be pretty full of them already. Manicured lawns, lovely coniferous trees. Settled in under a Douglas Fir. Marcus made up a fircone throwing game and Michael rolled, and rolled, an rolled in the needles. Actually sunbaked for a while. Incredibly relaxing. The boys were walled in by a long hedge, with us between them and any water. I was expecting it to be nerve-wracking but it was the most relaxing couple of hours I have spent out with the whole family, probably ever.

The Ponds have been in the care of the same two families since 1880s. Elf asked a waitress in the cafe if they still own it. "Dunno".

Multi-tasking

When you watch your kids doing something fabulous, its natural to fondly imagine the genes at work come from you. This morning Marcus was doing a scintillating dance/harmonica act all around our bedroom as we sat in bed with cups of tea, enthralled. I was fondly thinking of my own excellent musical genes and loose-limbed moves, replicated in my son. Elf shattered this by saying "Look at him multi-tasking - he certainly doesnt get that from you".

It reminded me of when I was a trombonist in a brass band in my youth (Keenest Learner 1981-82, remember). The downside of trombone is you have to be in the front row when marching, or hats get knocked off. I would do trombone mime - the slide went up and down in time with my fellow trombonists, but I never honked a note, as I was too scared of tripping over or being out of tune. Can't multi-task. And the wife knows it.

The Thermometer Guys 2

I should add to this that My Wife would like to see the Ultimate Battle of Hot and Cold played out in an arena a bit like Kitchen Stadium on Iron Chef.

I should also add that "lukewarm" is a term invented by Anders Celsius in 1742, to describe the exact temperature of his friend, Luke. Celsius also invented the phillips-head screwdriver as a cruel dig at another friend with a cranial deformation.

We're in the van

It's a bit of an old fashioned expression, "in the van". I think "van" is short for "vanguard", so it's saying someone or something is at the forefront, at the cutting edge, a leader, setting the pace. A book I am reading, written in 1984, says that the evolution of the human brain is speeding up rapidly and that "computers are in the van".

I don't know about you but this makes me think of a spotty IT operative who has been given the job of picking up the old busted laptops and pulling out all the useable bits. Far from its intended meaning.

And - wake up word buffs, there's more. I did notice in Wiktionary that "vanguard" came into English from French, where it had been hanging around for a while as a contraction of "avant garde".

Elephant gender

Marcus was doing a crossword. I was providing hints.

Dad: A mum elephant is a cow, so what is a dad elephant? Well, think about ordinary cows. A mum is cow, a dad is a...
Marcus: Mister Cow?

Trophy afterlife

I have just taken apart my old trophies. Most went pretty well, except for one with two nails where you usually find one bolt. I twisted the pieces apart. That one probably won't ever go on display again. They are pretty simple and unglamorous things when you break them down to their constituent parts. Green plastic flashy sparkle stuck onto wood. Gold plastic man with a screw protruding from his feet. They came apart so easily in my hands. I never imagined I would do this to them.

When I was little I burned up with a great desire for trophies. Mum has some beautiful swimming cups from her youth - proper engraved silver cups, with a foot and handles. When I discovered there were such things as trophy shops I dreamed about going in and buying myself a big one. I guess I dreamed about winning one legitimately somehow, but those dreams haven't stayed with me.

Jacki, my older sister, racked up an awesome number of trophies dancing. After a while I think even she was a tiny bit embarrassed to come home from every dance graduation with another clunking shoulderbag full of silver pirouetting ladies.

I finally jagged a trophy, Keenest Learner in the Burnie Municipal Band, 1981-82. I wasn't going to go to the award night but someone hinted strongly to Mum that I should. The trophy is metallic blue and features a screenprint of a monkey, holding its tail, carrying a basket of fruit on its back on which perch two herons, a lion and perhaps the sun, with a worried looking face. An allegory of keenness, I imagined at the time.

After a while I started to win some soccer trophies. I had a twenty-five year soccer career of limited success and in that time collected I think seven trophies and a few medallions on blue nylon ribbons. The ones I won as a kid were just stunningly beautiful at the time, and I loved to look at them. The occasions I received them were high points in my fairly uneventful teenage years in Burnie.

For a long time they lived in the shed here, jumbled in a basket. I still thought they were pretty great, but like most pre-kid stuff, they were sidelined to concentrate on baby things and few totally unbreakable reminders of adult life.

Six years later we are preparing to demolish this beautiful old house. The shed has been gone about a year, it was the first victim of progress. Shed stuff was shoved under the house or on top of wardrobes. The trophies caught Marcus' eye and he was determined to take them to show and tell. Two went to kinder yesterday and two went to daycare today. Now that they have come to my attention again, I have had to weigh up whether to store them when we move or chuck them.

I chose to pull them apart and store them. That way no protruding angel wings will be snapped off, and one day perhaps I can re-assemble them. Or maybe I will cut myself free from the past, take them to the tip and just swing the bag around my head and fling it. As someone said, deciding not to decide is still deciding.

The Tits Group

Named after the Belgian/French mathematician Jaques Tits, as we all know. Come on, get the sniggering out of the way now, as we will be dealing with his work regularly for the rest of the semester.

® The Thermometer Guys

I had always found science a bit dull, until I read The Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. One of my favourite things I didn't know is the Mr Fahrenheit and Mr Celsius came up with their scales only 25 years apart, in the Netherlands and Denmark respectively. I will now dedicate my life to answering the question - DID FAHRENHEIT MEET CELSIUS? I think it could be made into a gripping one-act play, maybe set on the hottest day of the year, Spike Lee Do the Right Thing style. They will have a mighty last-man-standing battle of wills. Ice cubes, mercury, boiling kettles - it could be great. Do you think?

Wildebeeste, again.

Just about every time I turn on the TV these days, there is a huge herd of wildebeeste massing on the steep bank of a great river. They know they need to cross to get to new grazing lands, but they are frightened of the crocodiles in the river. Eventually the pressure of the herd behind is too great, and they plunge in. Inevitably some are dragged under, drowned and devoured by the crocodiles. Sometimes the zebras go along with the wildebeestes, taking advantage of their bulk for some protection from the crocodiles. This is all very interesting.

But why is it on every channel, all the time?

Absolutely last bit of Coyle and Sharpe for a while

[...]

Sharpe: Could we go through a transformation right now and have Mr. Coyle become a werewolf for you on the street just to prove that he is a werewolf? And we can do it now. Can we do this?

Huffman [innocent bystander]: I don't particularly care to see something like that.

Sharpe: Can we go ahead?

Huffman: I don't know. I certainly don't have any particular desire to see this. I don't know if it's going to prove anything by becoming a werewolf on the streets or anything.

Coyle: I have showed it to the people at the radio station, I'll show it to you.

Huffman: I guess it's all right with me.

Coyle: May I go through a pre-wolf intensity?

Huffman: All right go ahead.

Sharpe: I make a wolf sound which brings this out in him and Mr. Coyle will start turning into a werewolf. Are you ready? gr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r (he growls). Now there are some sounds coming from Mr. Coyle, the transformation is beginning!

Coyle: (fierce sounding growls)

[...]

Ketchuppy

At dinner (bangers and mash) I noticed on the back of the bottle that "Heinz © Tomato ketchup makes food taste ketchuppy". What copywriting genius is responsible for that?

Dog dairy

Michael lolloping on bed with Dog at bedtime. "I am milking Dog. But I haven't got a bucket".

Tortured genius

Sometimes we go on an evening walk, which has always been known as a baby walk. Sometimes as we walk along Syme Street an old feller comes out and offers us a couple of bananas, a mandarin, or once, some christmas candy canes, for the boys. He's quite taken with them.

On Sunday night Marcus wouldn't eat leftover veg lasagne at dinner. Whinged for a while. During bath, changed tune to whinge about going for a baby walk. On and on and on about it. While getting dressed admitted he was hungry and hoped if we went on a baby walk that the old man would give him some food. Sad, silly, but devious and possibly brilliant.

Gumboots, rosellas,

Elf had to attend a work function for most of Saturday. We dropped her at the casino, and scamped awhile at the boat park. Saw a fish farm being towed very slowly downriver, presumably still full of fish. Rosellas in the trees.

Dropped in on Nick and Anna and accompanied them to another transport-themed playground, the train park.

Bought the boys new gumboots. Had lunch and watched Pepa Pig - her friends mocked her for riding a bike with stabilisers. We took the new gumboots down to the rivulet, and got ourselves muddy and wet. Not recommended unless grown-up:kid ratio is 1:1. Picked up Elf.

Boys and I made interactive Flash buttons, faces of four of us with tongues that poke out on mouse-over. Had a crack at the Wiggles online game, painting the big red car. Michael said "i am painting stabilisers".

Boys next door came over for wierd football/soccer hybrid in backyard.

During the Lions/Saints match Channel Ten segued from the footy to an advert by playing "Funny Little Frog" by Belle and Sebastian, an extremely fey and un-footy-like band.

More Coyle and Sharpe

Mal Sharpe actually dropped me a line to thank me for the link. To thank him for thanking me I am going to infringe his copyright and ram some more of his work down your throat! Here is a small snippet of transcript.

Coyle (to passerby): The nature of the job is, it's a little unusual, just like anything else there are certain risks entailed in it. You would be working down in a pit, in which I have created, through scientific endeavor, I have created intense flame. People throw objects into the flaming pit, you go through, you pick them up, they name the objects and you pick them up and I charge them admission.

{snip to later in conversation}

Sharpe: Have you ever had any experience with snakes, large snakes?

Passerby: No.

Sharpe: See the bats actually they're foes down in this pit. The reason why the bats are there is because there are snakes in the pit. The bats attack the snakes and the snakes will be curling around your feet as you're trying to handle the maniacs...

Passerby: I'm not scared of snakes though.

Sharpe: What?

Passerby: I'm not scared of snakes.

Coyle: Are you at all, be honest, are you at all afraid of the maniacs?

Passerby: No, not really.

Coyle: What're you going to do with them if they start attacking you?

Passerby: Fight them off.

...

® Poonie!

Its fact recycling time! I just came across an old cache of emails, containing various gold nuggets that came and went, without getting the attention they deserved. Apologies to anyone who has had to sit through this stuff before. Anything recycled I will mark with a ®.

Hunter Poon
(Played one Sheffield Shield match for Queensland)
Full name Hunter Robert George Poon
Born May 14, 1894, Pimlico, near Ballina, New South Wales
Died January 25, 1980, Greenslopes, Brisbane, Queensland (aged 85 years 256 days)
Major teams Queensland
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Legbreak googly

I was looking for some stats for a work thing and came across him.

Coyle and Sharpe

I have just come across these guys, they were "early masters of street pranks and puts-ons. Using hidden microphones, they clandestinely recorded their bizarre encounters with unsuspecting citizens on the streets of San Francisco in the 1960’s" to quote their site. According to their bio "In 1967, Coyle left California to pursue a career in tunneling. He died in 1993 while burrowing under the City of Barcelona."

Their stuff is just such so fresh and funny. Its the mid sixties, pre-hippies, all the targets they talk to are so naive and square. They have got one of the very first portable tape recorders hidden in their suitcase. I'm amazed I had never heard of them before.

The link above takes you to their site, some audio samples are here

The Brazilians are coming

Marcus was trying to remind me of our visit to the Alexandra Batttery the other day. It and the other riverside batteries and forts were built in the 1890s to repel a possible invasion by the Russians.

"You know, we went to that place where the cannons were and the Brazilians were going to take the land from the Australians."

Cows and Peas and Paris Hilton

I have been reading The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. It's a fantastic exposition of the idea of evolution. It came out in 1987, and suffers a bit from describing DNA using a lot of IT metaphors that have dated badly. His state-of-the-art example was the Macintosh II.

Nevertheless, I was blown away by this DNA fact - cows and peas share a gene (probably many genes) called Histone H4. The gene is 306 characters long in cows, just very slightly different in peas (304 characters). The position of the characters is exactly the same (except for the 2 missing characters).

Somwhere about 1.5 billion years ago, there was a common ancestor of cows and peas (and Paris Hilton - I have thrown her in to make it bang-up-to-date). After approximately 20 billion generations, its varied offspring still contain the same DNA data reproduced at better than 99% accuracy. Is that staggering or what?

This week Marcus is interested in...

Mammals (still)
Being famous
Heraldry
The movie Cars
Lighthouses
Planets and their moons
Igloos
Roman Numerals

Rank questions

Has a kernel of corn ever been promoted to brigadier?
Has anyone who has just been a little bit naughty received lance-corporal punishment?
Are Generals demoted if they get too specific?
Are Petty Officers promoted if they demonstrate they can rise above all that pettiness?

And as a counterpoint to the above idiocy, here is a true fact:
The lowest rank in the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, British Army, is not private, it is Kingsman.

Michael vocab update

MJR loves asking questions where he knows the answer will be "yes".

This morning he came in while I sat on the toilet, pushing his new favourite thing, a ride-on plastic car that has been mouldering outside for several years.

Are you reading that book? Yes
Is this the bath? Yes
Are there words in that book? Yes
Are they on the page? Yes
OK, well I have to be getting along now.

As I left for work this morning he asked
Can I have a big hug? Can I have a pat on some head?

He has started repeating admonishments he hears Elf say. I have heard;
What were you doing when I came in?
and Don't even THINK about it!

Bus adventure #4

We were low on petrol, and with no particular plans for the day, decided to go by bus out to Moonah to look at electrical stuff. Bus trips are fun for the kids, and at $4.40 per adult day ticket (both kids still free) it possibly pays for itself, as long as you buzz about a bit.

Two buses out to Moonah. First we went into a Building Supplies place that happened to be opposite the bus station. There were bootscrapers at the front door, a sure sign that this place concentrated on Tradespeople. In the door aisle (stacked three high) I had a flashback to that scene in Monsters Inc that everyone with kids must have seen.

Marcus was drawn (hyuk hyuk) to the carpenters pencils. They were in 3 baskets, blue (hard), red (soft) and green (medium). After I read the labels to Marcus I waited to see how long it would be before he insisted on putting them in the right order; Soft, Medium, Hard. About six seconds.

Next we went down the road to Clive Peeters, a brand new Superstore. We didn’t realise one is supposed to a) come by car and b) enter from Derwent Park Road. We walked along Main Road. I have never seen an unfriendlier retail building. Grey concrete, no windows, no signage at all except various words like BATHROOM and ELECTRICAL in blue capitals. We walked along this wall in hope, then came to a very pedestrian-unfriendly concrete canyon – the driveway. We walked up the driveway hoping for the best, still expecting to see “Fabulous Bargains: THIS WAY!!!” or something, but it was all down to blind faith that we rounded a corner and found the carpark, and at last some glass, a door, some products.

Inside we were asked to hand over our backpack. Inside the next eight minutes no less than six salespeople approached us and asked, in a bouncy, just-hired kind of way, if we needed anything. Well, just yell if you do, guys, they all said. Some of them offered us muffins.

I have a hard time thinking straight in these situations. I don’t think I learned anything new about electrical stuff. Their prices seemed OK. The muffin was alright. They had a café, but it was empty. Just around the corner in the coffee machine department a lady was making coffee with one of the products, fancy little Proper Coffees. It was a bit unclear whether you could just waltz up and order one or if you needed to be seriously in the market for a Braun or a Breville or even a Krupp.

We reeled out and caught a bus back to town. Our two outward buses were pretty light on, but this one was full. We were out beyond the “flannie curtain” and the people on the bus had come from further out still. Elf saw a 20-ish year old woman who had hardly any teeth left, but mostly they were all unexceptional individuals. As a busload though, you could write an interesting thesis about their clothes and language, and the difference between these and what you’ll encounter on a Strickland Avenue bus.

Michael fell asleep on the bus, but we still had some shopping to do. Marcus had the excellent idea that Elf and Michael should catch the next bus home, while we sorted out a present for Jacob’s birthday and got the following bus. This we did.

The fatsia and its umbels

I am thrilled to have learned about a new plant, the fatsia. They apparently have stout, sparsely branched stems bearing palmately lobed leaves on a petiole up to 50 cm long, and small creamy-white flowers in dense terminal compound umbels.

Why has no-one told me about this before?

Pluto "too squiffy" to be a planet

Pluto has been sacked. After 75 years in the Planet Club, its been blackballed. And all because it's too dusty and insufficiently round. It has been put into the category "Dwarf Planet".

I say that is semantically ridiculous. If you are a dwarf azalea, you are still an azalea. If you are a dwarf juniper, you're still a juniper. If you're a dwarf tosser... hang on. But if you're not a Planet, how can you be a Dwarf Planet?

More about Haier electrical goods

All the following comes just from their top-loading washing machine range. I am saving the rest of their product descriptions for special treats when I am feeling low. These have not been translated by me, they are right there on the site. I am not intending to mock - I am awestruck by what engineers can do. But they do need a bit more help than they are getting to describe it in English.

Unique sculpt and Fuzzy control and changeable program.
Sweet Face outlook make you washing breezily
more efficient wash Fuzzy control, convenient operation Soak wash
Plastic inner tub, stainless forever
Easier operate as designer with Top-head
21 century new science and technology, full plastic shell, never rustiness.
Strong and weak currents for selection
Wash with water bubbles, explosive clean
Wide-rang voltage design, defying any voltage wave.
With functions of washing, rinsing and spinnning, and selecting different programs as per the dirt degree of the laundries.
Music buzzer technology.
Big cubage, saving space
Design by jumpness and streamline
Basinning pulsator
Design of braille
Limitation design technique(the distance among inner tub,outer tub and shell is the least)
Mini magical child having big capacity, wind dryer function
New luxury top lid, enjoy happy life .
Popular appearance design makes your washing more pleasant
With the circumrotate of the Basin type pulsator produce strong water flow and the concave basin design can reduce the tough of the clothes and the pulsator, lower the abrasion effectively
Popular appearance design makes your washing more pleasant
With memory when breaking off

Sinks

Ever thought about sinks? Sorry, food preparation centres. I will quote a few brochures. The Francke Pamira is "ideal as the ultimate corner solution, and the complete food preparation centre, only imagination limits how to utilise this complete system”. I am intimidated, and feel I might fail to live up to this sink.Transform your kitchen from just a sink, to a fully functional and integrated workstation, where food preparation and a total kitchen centre are the key ingredients.

From the Abey company comes a catalogue entitled A WORLD OF SINKS. Choose from The Swan, The Daintree, The Leichardt and The Double Leichardt (both laundry troughs) The Todd, The Zenith. My favourite is The Moonee, at a compact 160x280mm it’s the perfect size for the lonely single washing up the occasional cup, plate or teaspoon.

A day off among the twin tubs

Elf and I took the day off today to do house stuff. We talked to a mortgage broker, then visited the council to ask them politely to pull their heads in.

We received a notice that planning permission was withdrawn until we changed our drawings to include a 1.2m high screen around our deck, with 80% opacity, to protect our neighbours privacy. Elf called and invited the council to come around to see why this was ridiculous, but they declined. If we were dwarves or Ewoks maybe they would be on to something.

So today we dropped off photos of the site and letters from neighbours either side, saying such a screen would not make the slightest bit of difference to their privacy, about which they have NO concerns, and if later some problem arises we are capable of sorting it out without the council being involved.

Then, we went to look at ovens, dishwashers and rangehoods. Elf and I have lived without a rangehood for a combined 74 years, but now we need one. We’ve had a spice cupboard as a rangehood for the last six years.

In the electrical shop we were very amused to see that people still buy twin tubs (generally old folks apparently). There was a Chinese brand called Haier (I think they are trying to sound German). I used to have a twin tub and there was a little round mat you had to flop on top of everything when you used spin-dry. Haier call this part “the gland” and there is a helpful notice on the underside of the lid saying “NEVER FAIL TO USE THE GLAND”.

This was at Electric World, a very old-fashioned shop. Despite having all the latest DVD hard disc recorders etc the place always seems very 1977 to me. The ceiling is low and the home-made shelves are overcrowded, and wobble when you walk past. While we were upstairs looking at ovens, someone downstairs put on some yodelling-style music and began yodelling along.

For comparison we went to an even wonkier shop called B & B. I would guess this stands for Barry and Barry. They took over an older Hobart institution, Danny Burke Electrical. Danny Burke was up for sale for so long that the sale itself became an institution, Before Danny, it was a theatre, and the interior is wonderfully over-the-top art deco meets neo-Assyrian. Wingéd lions. The fluted EXIT signs are gorgeous. The service was desultory and the prices not particularly sharp, but the atmosphere of the place was marvellous.

The music in here was pure country. I see your sweeeeeet face every mor-or-or-ornin… Two older blokes in zipper tops and slacks, and two burly younger blokes in fluoros and stubbies, yarned away between the freezers, listening to Merle Haggard and Jean Stafford and watching six different channels of daytime plasma screen telly. It seems poles apart from my workplace, but it has surprising similarities. One of my workmates has over 14 days worth of continuous music in his i-Tunes, and fully one third was recorded by people named Hank. I myself work in ugg boots.

Sandwich through slot

A few weeks ago Marcus' class at Friends built a tower around him. I believe he stayed in there for quite a while, and was fed food and drinks through a slot. Thanks to Laura at Friends for the pictures!

New tools corrrection

Apologies - in a recent post written from within a cocked hat, I claimed MK of Summer Hill had the fattest Macintosh computer ever assembled. I misunderstood him - what he said is he wants to have the fattest Macintosh computer ever assembled. So I am still king of the heap.

Bus adventure #3

As Elf and I both had the day off yesterday, I was able to pick up Marcus and go off for an outing while she did the 5.00 Michael pick-up. Marcus often asks if we can go on a bus ride on one of Wednesday afternoons, but we usually don't have time.

We caught the bus from kinder into town, with his very tall classmate Tamasin and her dad. Tamasin was tickled pink to have him along, and wanted to take him home but we had to defer that for another day. The four of us walked down Macquarie Street holding hands (dads on either end - we're don't know each other that well).

After fond farewells, we caught a bus to Sandy Bay beach. I discovered I had $1.40 and no ATM card, so when Marcus said he was hungry we bought ourselves one small biscuit. Fortunately I had an all-day bus ticket. We walked down to the Boat Park, and Marcus went nuts on the slides. He found many different ways to land on his bot, knees, head etc. Then our friends Greta, Eve and Thomas appeared, so we had a scamp about with them for a bit. I had promised Marcus we would have a look at the old Alexandra Battery, where I believed we would find a number of big old cannons.

There was in fact only one small cannon, which I suspect was brought from elsewhere. Marcus dutifully climbed on it. There was a very exciting sloping tunnel. When you stepped into it, there was no visible end, then after four or five brave strides the light appeared. It was narrow and about 20 metres long. Due to the lack of cannons I think it should be renamed the Alexandra Tunnel Place.

We hiked back to the bus stop, and caught a bus back to town. A few stops before the end the bussie jumped up to change the destination sign on the front. We got off at Franklin Square and I led Marcus around the corner, looking for the Strickland Ave bus to take us home. Hmm. Couldn't find it. Turned around to look back the way we'd come and the bus we'd just been on sailed past us, with its new destination STRICKLAND AVE plainly visible.

Birdwatching

Our backyard is a good birdwatching spot. I don't know if its good for variety, but its good for observing behaviour. This time of year the wattles attract big greenish parrots who shred the flowers - I suppose to get at some kind of grubs. There are little rubbish piles of wattle flower everywhere. A team of them were doing over the tree outside the boys room on Saturday.

A couple of weeks back we saw a mop of herons. I don't know the collective noun for herons, but that sounds right. The flew over quite low, and just as they passed us they saluted with a collective "whhAAAAAAAAAAAAARKH".

Later the same day we saw two little birds harrying a big hawk. They were driving it away from their nest I suppose. They kept at it until it was way over the other side of the valley, then we saw one break off and fly back to resume home duties. The other one, emboldened by success, kept pursuing the hawk that was four times its' size, until I lost them in the dark background of the opposite hill.

New tools

I am writing this on a new Mac Pro. Its pretty swish - Roar Film have bought it for me to use. I've been working on my own G4 for four years, and now I can use it at home. Its good timing as our aged iMac melted down a couple of weeks ago, probably from over-exposure to the same three or four Wiggles games.

Now I have a computer at home I can conceivably work on, I can start to put into practice various ideas that have been simmering on the little gas burner at the back of my mind. I would like to do some large monitor-sized digital paintings, introduce some very slight ambient animation and make screensavers of them.

My Mac Pro is certainly fab, but while I was admiring its sleek lines and enjoying life as The Guy With The Newest and Fastest, an email arrived from MK of Summer Hill, announcing he has one too, but with every possible option ramped up to the max, knocking mine into the proverbial cocked hat. He has terabytes. Sigh.

Nicknames

Michael acquired a new one this morning: Small Business. This joins the following established names;

Scampy. Schnitzel. Schnitz Bitz. Flute Boot. Snooty Persnoot. Squiggle Wiggle. Floop de Floo. Snuffy Snoo. Little Pants. Perms and combs of those.

Marcus makes do with just Sausage, Soddidge, Sport and Buddy. Having a super-cute little brother (who accumulates cutesy names) must be very hard for him sometimes, but he never complains.

We have a builder

Well, we haven't signed a contract yet but we think we have him cornered. Greg Sheedy is his name, and he only builds a few houses each year. He seems like a good egg, and comes recommended by a couple of people we know in the business. His main business is constructing double-glazed windows. We are investing in a house-lot of these, in the hope that it will save us on energy bills, and also cut out the 6.05am truck traffic from Cascade Road.


We have a long list of "exclusions" that we will need to go shopping for. If we were natural shoppers, this would be the exciting part, but we aren't. I am sure we will get into it as excitement builds, and the awareness that the new house might actually happen creeps up on us.

Have I posted these impressions of the new house here? Can't remember.

The Influential Rees Family

I said hi to the state Treasurer yesterday. Or maybe g'day, I can't remember. He said hi to me. He and a swag of minder types were here at Roar Film to launch or announce something or other to do with optic fibre cables. This is the second time the government has done this - last time it was the State Development minister launching something to do with ICT subsidies. They seem to think we are a good look - small, creative business in a groovy old church. I was away at a parent-teacher meeting with Marcus' kindergarten teacher, and arrived back just in time to step out of the way as the suits filed out.

It reminded me of my momentous meeting with the late Jim Bacon when he was premier. I opened the front door at our office to go and get lunch, and Jim and some heavies were clustered on the doormat, having a last minute confab before coming in to brief us on some election ads. I stepped aside and held the door open, as I assumed they were about to come in. They ignored me for a few seconds, then the great man said, irritably, "Get out of the way".

Going back a few premiers before that, my sister Jacki was once dancing in some sort of extravaganza at West Park in Burnie, as Robin Gray was stomping around inspecting everything, with a scowl probably. She lost her footing while doing an arabesque or a sashay or something, and slipped to the ground. The top man stepped over her without lowering his eyes from the horizon, and continued on in his tank-like way.

So remember, if you need a favour, let the Rees family know. We'll try to mention it while we are being snubbed.

New planets

In my lifetime, there has always been nine planets. I know Pluto only came on board in 1930, and its maybe a bit small and fluffy to really be a planet, but I have always welcomed it into the fold. In illustrations of all the other stuff floating about orbiting the sun, only the Magic Nine are ever given that fat, round, planety look.

Now, its seems that "planet" is on the verge of being redefined. Soon we could have around 53 bodies in the planet category. Hats off to anyone who can write a good mnemonic for that list. Especially when some of them have names like "2003 UB313".

Decision time

We have three good detailed building quotes now, all fairly competitive. We have a very tough decision to make. It will be hard to tell the unsuccesful builders, as they have all put significant time into the quoting and consulting, and two will not get a cracker out of it. We will ruminate for a few days.

Boys reading techniques

WARNING: PARENTAL PRIDE ALERT. POSSIBLE LACK OF OBJECTIVITY AHEAD.

Marcus is doing well with his reading. He sounds out words fairly well. He has a huge speaking vocabulary, so when he has sounded out half a word he has a good chance of guessing the rest. His lazy right eye is improving slowly, but it is certainly hampering him a little. He had a test with the orthoptist yesterday, and she said is seeing the beginning and end of words clearly but the letters in the middle are a bit hard for him to distinguish.

Michael is not sounding out words yet, however he has learned to read about a dozen words, mostly concerning The Wiggles.

THE, WIGGLES, JEFF, GREG, MURRAY, ANTHONY, DOROTHY, CAPTAIN, FEATHERSWORD, WAGS, and DOG he will recognise in any context, Wiggly or not. But he also likes STOP and GO, MICHAEL and MARCUS, MUM and DAD, NO, YES. I'm sure I have forgotten a few.

His pattern recognition is astoundingly good. He picked up a plastic funnel with "FUNNEL YOUR BUSINESS TO PHILLIPS" on it, and said "Stop! That says 'Stop!" It took Elf a few seconds to see it - S TO P. He does this sort of thing all the time. On Saturday I had to grab him to stop him touching a hot barbecue. The dial said "hi" and lo" - Michael was yelling excitedly "Ten!" We always start thinking he's mistaken, then gradually see it as he sees it.

Big Bed: Big Day

We have had the Michael's Big Bed set up in the boys room for a couple of months now, and have only been able to get Michael into it while asleep. Its pretty crowded in there with Marcus' bed and the cot too. We have promised the cot to Sharon and Andrew next door, and time is ticking away - she's about 4 weeks from delivering.

Elf had the inspiration to paper the walls with Wiggles paraphenalia. We did it this afternoon, and this evening we could hardly hold him back. Michael hopped onto the bed, lay back with hands behind head, and said "put a blanket on me, Mummy". He is sleeping there beautifully as I type.

The automatic swing

Marcus has entwined the garden hose in the swing set. He gets on the double swing, cranks it up, and soon the baby swing is going flat out as well. Its hilarious, and ingenious. We coaxed Michael to be a test pilot. He is a polite boy, and started saying "I have had enough now Daddy" after about 1.5 swings.

Party exhaustion

This is my first laptop blog. We have a temporary surfeit of laptops at work, such that I can take one home for the weekend. I am typing in front of the telly, as Richmond flog Brisbane.

Yesterday was quite gripping at work, We have a bit of intrigue going on. Roar Film are in a shotgun marriage with a small Melbourne multimedia studio. We both pitched for a federal government job and the public servant in charge decided to give us two-thirds and Thingo Media one third of the job. Now Thingo are trying to crib back some parts of the job that were awarded to us, by stealth. We feel like we have the high artistic ground, as the design they have submitted (unasked) is hideous. After a flurry of emails they seem to have conceded defeat. We are determined to wear the design pants on this one. It promises to be a lively collaboration over the next three months.

The boys piled into bed with us this morning. They are getting bigger and its getting squeezier. Once we were all crammed in with a bit of doona and a bit of pillow each, Michael said (through his dummy) "This is nice". He said it in a wonderfully offhand grownup small-talky way.

It was a gorgeous sunny day today, and we had back-to-back birthday parties. Eve Kerschbaum turned three, and her party was at the same lovely riverside church hall in Sandy Bay as her brother's a couple of months ago. It has glorious large windows overlooking an expanse of the Derwent, with yachts at anchor you could easily swim out to. Our Michael was delighted by the ripples of light on the ceiling reflected off the water. As usual for Greta's parties the food was terrific and plentiful, with the occasional oddity. There was a plate of crumbed chicken schnitzels. '"Croatian party food" said Michael Kerschbaum.

Then we went to a quite different outdoor party up at the Waterworks Reserve, a great place to be on a nice day. Taylah from Marcus' kindergarten turned five today. She is partially blind and has few other difficulties due to a very rare congenital condition.

When I was a kid there was no-one like Taylah for me to learn about face-to-face. She seems to be a nice kid and gets on pretty well with everyone, but I also think its a great learning experience for everyone who gets a chance to spend a year in her class. I hope the kids are getting to know her as a person, and her disability (which is still the first thing I see) will just be a secondary aspect to them.

Her mum did a good job with the party. Taylah has a couple of loudmouthed girl cousins (or older sisters ?) who on cue would shout "Getoverhereyouse! 'Stimeferpasstheparcel!" and so on. Kids threw bread to monster geese and normal ducks. I gave Michael an aeroplane spin, One of the big cousins was on the spot as soon as his Michael's feet hit the ground demanding a go. Once I got her off the ground it was fine, but takeoff was hard work.

Likes/Dislikes for Friday

+ My Name is Earl 8pm Thursday
+ Sending "personal" messages from Samuel L. Jackson
+ Cascade Export Stout as a relaxant

- Giving way to cars turning right, when I am turning left from a slip lane, and being honked wildly by the moron behind
- A4 (Small) paper size - is it A4 or not?
- CSI Autopsies and dumb dialogue in my lounge room, every weeknight.

Gas Burners

They are unexpectedly beautiful. Click an image to look at an online museum of them. (I found it while I was looking for images of the Vietnam War Memorial in Canberra. That's just how the web works, folks).

Fine Dining

As Elf will tell you, I pronounce this "Foin Doining". She comes from a family with impeccably crisp dipthongs.

We went out to dinner on Saturday night in honour of Anna's birthday. When we thought back to our last dinner out, it was actually Anna's previous birthday. So, we have work to do on our social life.

Rob and Mel had kindly offered to look after the boys, and Marcus particularly had been looking forward to it all week. He gets on famously with their daughter Olivia, and Michael tags along with them quite happily, so we were optimistic it would work. It was a complete success - they didn't get to sleep until 9-ish becasue they were all gabbing like mad. Michael ate all his dinner, something we rarely see at home. Rob and Mel said they would be happy to do it again, so, if not for the fact we are skint, a happy phase of eating out might open up before us.

Dinner was enjoyable and tasty. We ate at the Hope and Anchor, one of the many claimants for Oldest Pub in Australia (est. 1807). One of the drawbacks of its age is obviosly fitting modern toilet facilities into the heritage-listed fabric.

To wash your hands in the gents risks being clobbered by the opening door from the hallway outside. I imagine collisions must happen, with occasional fisticuffs if the clobberer and/or clobberee are drunk or of a naturally thumpsome nature. I didn't get into a fight but I did have a terse exchange with a bloke who told me to move out into the hallway when I had not yet pulled up my daks.

However - generally a great night and something we are keen to try again.

Portrait of Giz (2), c. 1997

By Jacki McTaggart

Book cover chosen

Here is the cover Pasty and Redhill Books have chosen to print. Its very exciting - can't wait to see them in the bookshops.

Dog bites man

I was bitten on the leg by a small dog in Nth Hobart at lunchtime. Didn't penetrate my jeans. Hippy stoner people, weren't very contrite. I just let it go and got on with eating lunch. Shortly after, the dog had a go at someone else's leg - I raised the subject again and the weedy little jerky guy started getting all nasty about it. Girlfriend dragged him away.

Portrait of Giz, c. 1997

By Jacki McTaggart

Unplugging

I decided to take off my radio headphones and just listen to the world on my walk this morning. Its a bit silly to tune in to morning radio - I call it the Stress Along With Fran show - and tune out the babbling rivulet, tweeting birds, whistling builders etc etc.

There was a rubber chicken at the side of the path in Forbes St yesterday. It has gone now. I wonder if there is a Department somwhere responsible for removing the small pieces of light relief that people might find as they struggle through their day. Its sounds like the sort of thing Senator Vanstone might organise.

Michael asked "Where is Giz?" at the table last night. We said he's gone. Michael was sure he was sleeping, having dreams, and "soon he will stop having dreams and wake up!". We have already started transferring our worry about Giz to worry about his grave - keeping blackberries down, proper headstone, will he be disturbed by the builders etc etc. Its ridiculous.