Swami Ramakrishnan Dog Grooming

As part of Elf's New Business business, I applied for an ABN, Australian Business Number. When I was entering Elf's name, I had a choice of about 100 honorifics, over and above Mr, Ms and Mrs. These included;

• Abbott
• Admiral
• Baroness
• Bishop
• Count
• Deputy Superintendent
  
• Earl
• General
  
• Honourable Justice
• Lord
• Mother
• Rabbi
• Rector
• Regimental Sergeant Major of the Army
• Sister Superior
• Squadron Leader
• Station Master
• Swami
• Vice Admiral

I have a very clear picture of an Australian Tax Office waiting room filled with the appropriate vestments, robes, handmaids, moustaches and hats. They make small talk as they wait for a synthesised voice to call the number printed on the ticket clutched in their / their disciple's / their valet's hand.

Earl: So, Sister Superior. What have you got on the go?
Sister Superior: Well the Swami and I had that wood fired pizza place, went arse up sadly, but we had this idea about portable dog grooming. And you?
Earl: Yeah, books of vouchers, bit of advertising sold already, you know. Use the contacts. I see the Bishop is back again. Oh God, he's coming over. Hi Bish.
Bishop: Hi Roger, Janice. Wow. Thought I'd seen the back of this place when I launched the mini-golf centre. What numbers ya got?

Etc etc. Writes itself really.

Crazy domain bargains!!!

I have just registered a domain name for Elf's new business. I don't want to puncture the burgeoning street buzz by telling you what it is called, but it has "lady" in the title, and is nothing remotely racy.

However - while registering at Melbourne IT, they suggested I check out the sweet deals on some "related" domain names. Here are some of their suggestions, with prices.

• arablady.com $2,144
• ladiesjumpers.com $1,649
• ladiesswimsuit.com $1,599
• ladiesleathergloves.com $1,549
• ladieswetsuit.com $1,499
• ladiesgirdles.com $1,399
• ladiesponcho.com $1,399
• ladiestuxedos.com $1,399
• ladiesleatherchaps.com $1,399
• pirateladies.com $1,349
• ladiestrousers.com $1,349
• ladiessock.com $1,349
• ladiesgolfpants.com $1,349
• bookieportal.com $1,349

Ruth Frith & Helen Searle

I just read a fantastic story in The Age's Good Weekend section - its not online or I would give you a link. The World Masters Games were on last month in Sydney. All the usual heart-warming stuff has been in the papers, but I didn't pay it much notice.

However - this story is about a woman who represented Australia in the 1958 and 1962 Commonwealth games and 1960 Olympics, and she is still competing. Which is pretty amazing. But not only is she still shot putting and throwing the hammer... so is her mother. Who she coaches.

Helen Searle is 70, she is the daughter. Her mum, Ruth Frith (100), used to go along and watch her compete in the Masters in the 1970s.

"I used to sit in the grandstand and watch and everyone would ask "Will you mind my bag, Mrs Frith?" This went on for years until suddenly, at 74, I said "oh heavens, I've had enough of bag-minding. I'm going to have a go myself!"

A classic game of strategy and wit. And bubbles!

I am trying to think of ways to get a few more girls to come along to the Chess Club at school. While googling the problem I came across this, from Saturday Night Live. Hmm. I guess if men are from Mars and women are from Venus, we might need to involve some kind of craft activities.

Slimy opera

Michael has collected a lot of snails in his wagon. He calls it his snail farm. Walking to school yesterday he was telling me about the land where snails live, called Snailandoy.

A small flashback: prior to this we had been talking about the theatre. We all went to the school concert last week, which included a few skits and monologues. I told Michael about Grandad John's glorious career in amateur musicals, with acting and singing. Then I described opera, with a tiny bit of acting but non-stop singing.

At this point, the conversation veered suddenly towards snails. Apparently in Snailandoy they have something called the Slimy Opera House. "But its not really slimy".

Snib and Palp

I just need to blow my own trumpet here and say I have been knocking myself out over at my other, other blog, Snib and Palp. In honour of S&N's 2nd birthday I have added 17 new words to my compendium of four letter words you should know and use frequently.

Some call it the "wrist"

Elf bought the boys a new totem tennis set, as the old one had weathered down to a nub. Marcus is taking real tennis lessons on Monday mornings before school now, and he quite likes to give it a good thrash, as does Elf. I myself feel like maybe I got it out of my system in my youth, spending hours out there in my backyard, rallying for hours, forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand.

Michael was giving it a go yesterday, with a two handed approach that is hard to pull off with the heavy little plastic bats. This afternoon as Marcus and I played Mastermind in the sun, Michael was throwing the ball around the pole. He wasn't keeping an eye on it, and it nearly beaned him on the back of the head a few times. Finally it whacked him on the hand.

I said "See - I told you that would happen". He said "It got me on the ... er, if it was my foot it would be the ... I call it the hand ankle".

Important list! #07

Some of the inventions of The Muppet Show's Dr Bunsen Honeydew. All tested with unpredictable but always painful results, by Honeydew's faithful assistant Beaker.

• Edible paper clips
• Gorilla detector
• Hair-growing tonic
• Banana sharpener
• Robot politician
• Electric nose warmer
• A device that turned gold into cottage cheese

Important List! #06 - More viruses

• channel catfish virus
• duck hepatitis B virus
• friend virus
• helper virus
• human foamy virus
• Johnson grass mosaic virus
• mad itch virus
• mouse minute virus
• maize chlorotic dwarf virus
• maize rough dwarf virus
• nipple neck virus
• sword bean distortion mosaic virus
• strawberry crinkle virus
• spring beauty latent virus
• ukelelefish stunt virus
• velvet tobacco mottle virus
• watermelon curly mottle virus

After the supernova

Michael: When I was 4, I used to think that after a supernova, there's nothing, nothing else happens.
Me: What else happens - a black hole?
Michael: Nooooo! A pulsar, or a neutron star or a white dwarf.
Me: Not a black hole?
Michael: Yeah. Or a black hole.

Clicky clicky clicky - that's the sound of a chess tournament

Warning: this is an attempt at an objective report which veers off into hero worship and parental pride overdrive.

Today I attended my first chess tournament, accompanying Marcus and four schoolmates to the State Junior Championships in Launceston. Today was also the school swimming carnival, so many of the more experienced chess players were otherwise engaged with tumble-turns, negative splits and so on. Thus South Hobart fielded an inexperienced but keen team, with one Grade 6er, one Grade 3er and 3 Grade 2s.

We had to get on the road at 7am to make it by the 10.00 registration deadline. Liam from over the hill came with Marcus and I. We breezed in at 9.56 with the rest of our delegation already there and having kittens. (The venue was Launceston Church Grammar School, attended by my Dad in the fifties. I pictured him walking the hallowed halls with young knobbly knees and a straw boater).

The kids had a tough agenda - nine matches each with half an hour off for lunch. The tournament was held in the large hall. Each player was limited to 15 minutes, timed by a special chess clock at each board. After each move a player had to click their side of the clock. The clicking frenzy at the start of each round was amazing, as less thinking time is required for the fairly standard opening moves.

There were 180 players, playing at 90 numbered boards. After each game winners would meet a tougher opponent, and losers an easier opponent. Parents were asked to sit around the fringes and not cruise up and down around the boards. This was made difficult by the sheer number of stackable chairs that had been left in the hall. It probably seats about 800; - 180 chairs were in use, leaving many, many piles of chairs around the perimeter. Some of us hovered awkwardly for the whole day, others took the hint and went to explore the cosmopolitan joys of the Mowbray area.

Marcus started strongly, with two wins and two draws from his first five games. A draw is worth half a point, a win worth one. He had his heart set on getting 5 points. Angus, our elder statesman, also had 3 points from 5 games. I think at that stage we were 12th out of 16 schools.

After lunch Marcus only picked up one point from his last 4 games, finishing with 4. Angus finished strongly with 3 wins from the last 4 games for a total of 6 points. Lachie, Oscar and Liam scored 3, 2·5 and 0·5. In the end we were 14th. Liam played nine games, without a win, but was never disheartened or gave less than his best - I was really proud of all the boys.

Marcus was initially disappointed to fall short of his last tournament score. I pointed out that he was playing today at a higher level, against the best in the state, from all primary grades. Beating three of them was a fantastic effort. All nine opponents are rated above him. By the end of the day Marcus' rating was up 24 points to 715, which puts him in the top 20 seven year olds in the national Chess Kids database. Er ... once I put him in the database that is.

Crappy crime and lifelong nongs

1. The Mercury ran this story on Oct 6.

"Mr de Villiers said in the police tape that he was told three men called Josh lived in the house ... He said they were all let inside and the "biker dudes" asked the Joshes for their money back for the "dud pills"... Mr Chartrain has pleaded not guilty to a further count of assault by gesturing with a machete and Josef Steele has denied gesturing with a metal screw-like object."

2. Sentencing reported in this story on October 17.

...Bilac asked his friend Adam James Steele, 38, of Verona Sands, and his twin brother Hutchison-Steele to help organise a refund of the money ... Chartrain, of South Hobart ... carried a machete in case anything went wrong ... Josef Hutchison-Steele took on the role of negotiator "a bit more enthusiastically than anyone else"... The part-time musician wore his leather band outfit and he and his brother were mistaken for "biker dudes".

3. The penny finally drops that these dolts are the same guys who gave Elf a flyer 8 years ago, hoping we would hire them for our wedding. In part it says;

Sexy athletic pumped up Identical Twins Adam and Joey Steele are hitting the jackpot with an outstanding show for everybody ... Drums and Bass are pumped from the new Digital Mini Disk system providing ample backing for these physical sweat covered masters of sound. The STEELE TWINS are generously handsome and wear new age clothing as band uniform and always keep up with the ever changing rock scene.

Fish ladder

Any time you are feeling down, sad and blue - just think about fish ladders. There - better already? If you need further cheering up just consider that one type of fish ladder is the baffle fishway.

Dr Grubby

A new study has shown that only 40% of Australian doctors and 60% of nurses wash their hands after seeing each patient. I just heard the author of the study say on the radio, "now we need to understand the barriers and facilitators involved in doctors' hand hygieneing". Yes, that's a word now. Sorry if I have spelled it wrong.

Racy, manly, suggestive

Elf has been reading selections from Stories of Grit to the boys at night. Dating back to 1925, it contains chapters such as Edward Bok -The Dutch Boy who became a Great Editor, and Francis Parkman - A Sick Man who Never Gave Up.

In the back is a long list of other improving books for young people. One of them, Look Straight Ahead, has six reviews, and half of them use the word "racy". Another book, Sensible Religion, claims to be "an attempt to explain some difficulties in religion and Life to Senior Students at School, and to show, by racy illustrations, that the highest things are in reality surprisingly interesting".


Maybe "racy" meant something slightly different in 1925, or perhaps these authors were just trying to mix it up a bit. One thing is for sure - it was the golden age of Muscular Christianity. Here are some of the other works listed in the back pages;

• The Starved Top-Knot - "Straightforward, manly chats…"


• Be A Sport - "…straight and admirable talks without being preachy…"


• God's Gentlemen - Vigorous Sermons to Young Men - "…frank and manly book…"


• Chats With Boys - "Brief, straight, manly messages".


• The Gate of Pearl - "Direct manly teaching with bright illustrations"


• Chats With My Chums - "…ornamental end papers and effective cover jacket…"


• Homely Talks With Mothers "…even experienced workers will find much in its pages that is suggestive"


• The Sparrows in the Organ - "Twenty-six talks with Boys and Girls".


• The Date Boy of Baghdad - "With introduction by Sir Robert Stout, P.C., K.C.M.G., Chief Justice of New Zealand"

Hippo eating a pumpkin

"I felt like a hippo eating a pumpkin" - sure, we've all used that old saying. But what does a hippo eating a pumpkin actually look like?

© Zoomar

Mastermind

Some time ago, my Mum and Dad did a bit of clean-out at home. Among other things, I received the family copy of Mastermind, the 1970s coloured-pegs guess-the-code game. Marcus and I have made quite a bit of use of it. He got me in three guesses last night - but it helped that Michael was standing behind me giving Marcus a running commentary on how he was doing. (We also got Perception, thought up by the same guy as Mastermind, but unfortunately a dud). On their last visit Mum and Dad gave us something they found at a garage sale - Grand Mastermind.

We have just got to grips with it - its more complicated but still a good game. I was taken aback by the cover, however. When I was a kid, I found the original cover mysteriously sexy - I was too young for Bond films but its got all that late Sean Connery stuff going on. I imagined with enough practice, I would be making unbreakable codes, and perhaps by the time I was sixty I too would have lured a beautiful asian woman with my Mastermind prowess. Now this guy has raised the stakes - he's only early thirties, and a bit of a Nigel to boot, but he's got some sort of castle and two beautiful asian women.

Marcus, Michael, Isabelle and Alistair

When in Melbourne recently we stayed with our friends Vincent and Andy, in their beautiful house in Carlton. They have 2-year-old twins, Isabelle and Alistair. Our boys got on well with them, and were as gentle as they could be. The twins were very taken with the boys' dogs, Dog and Aaron.

A late pademelon

He was still snudging around the backyard at breakfast time. Went for a casual hop across the deck then settled down beneath it for a while. Still there now as far as I know.

Fence-ational!

Today our fence man Mark finished putting up the new front fence. A sliding gate will follow, then he's going to reinstate the missing part of the back fence. Then... we will be fully Dog Compliant. That's right, we are really looking at adding a Doggus doggus to the four humans and a cat that are part of the current display. Perhaps at Christmas when we will be around for a while to help him settle in.

A quiet afternoon in Canberra, 02.09.09

Orchestra

Elf took the boys and I to the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra on Thursday evening. They have a series of family concerts, where each adult ticket gets two kids in free. I haven't been to a classical concert since I was at school in Burnie, when the TSO toured. [I lie - I did once go to a TSO recording session where you got in free but had to sit on your hands the whole time]. One day I will go to a normal concert like a normal person, rather than a special "outreach" concert where the programme is specially designed to convert newbies to the cause.

It was raining and parking was tricky, so while Elf parked the car I took the boys in to get tickets. I had just paid for them with plastic when Elf jogged through the crowd, and gasped, Pheiddipides style, "I've got a free ticket - only buy one." She missed it by that much. Tickets for two adults were $76 - about twice what I was expecting. I guess that's standard for a one-hour classical concert?

The concert was programmed on the theme of "fire", so there was a bit of Stravinsky's Firebird, some Handel composed for the royal fireworks, and a couple of contemporary pieces by Australian composers. I really enjoyed the music, and watching 46 dedicated professionals working so tightly together is pretty fascinating. At times there was a beautiful seamless drone, and I could not put my finger on where it was coming from - maybe strings and oboe together.

The musicians tend to slenderness. I imagine them picking listlessly at their food in short breaks from practising, mind elsewhere, going over and over that tricky run of demisemiquavers in that requiem by Bach, or something. I couldn't picture any of them with a burger. All dressed in black, but in getups of their own choosing, ranging from very formal to fairly laid back.

The mood onstage though was uniformly intense. The conductor was a youngish chap called Matthew Wood. The power relationship and etiquette is quite interesting - he obviously runs the show, comes out last, orchestra stands for him and waits to be invited to sit etc. He, however is a visitor, and does a lot of showy shaking hands with the principal violinist, who is the captain of the home team so to speak. He left his podium to shake her hand three or four times.

At the conclusion there was a lot of bowing and responding to bows (a lot like an Easter service we went to at the very "high" Anglican church where we were married), more handshakes, then flowers were brought out to the conductor. He brandished them, bowed some more, then presented them to the principal violinist. Handshakes and a kiss. More bowing. All of this after a one hour performance.

The presenter of the concert, that Christopher Lawrence off of the radio, had asked the audience to go wild at the end, cheer and stamp a bit to get an encore. He came out waving his hands wildly to say "come on, give it up, I want some wolf whistles". This was predicated on the idea that playing an extra piece is a reward for the audience. Although I enjoyed it very much, and all the kids in my earshot did also, a better reward would possibly have been to let us go 5 minutes earlier.

Zing

From Encyclopaedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

Returning From Journey. We are back from France. I am here, yes, but there has not yet lost its hold on me. Baguettes and beaded ankle bracelets and light blue shutters don't yet feel six time zones and an ocean away. It would seem that the world should have changed in some way, as if to say, out of courtesy, We understand your journey was illuminating and significant, and because it affected you so, the universe, too, is making a slight but noticeable shift: Chairs will now have five legs, people will walk sideways, and rainbows will be seven percent larger and pinkish in colour. Alas, no welcome-home motorcades, no new shades of rain. But then again, is it not enough that I had the experience, and that the neighbour's dog has learned to fly?

14 days of plucky British food

I am prone to belittle the British, without ever having visited their isles. Perhaps I let their hapless sports teams, boy bands and the fall of Singapore colour my judgement. Perhaps its time I gave them a fair go.

So join me in celebrating the recently completed British Food Fortnight! I never thought I would see the words "British" and "Mozzarella" together in a sentence.

Next, stand by for German Comedy Week.

Spam prose

"I prefer not to divulge my full identity so as not to risk being debarred. The English Bar considers it a breach of the oath of the English Bar Council. I need not emphasize to you that the sensitivity of this issue need not be toyed with by neglecting its confidentiality."

Lovely English isn't it? Unfortunately the phrase "I need not emphasize to you that the sensitivity" gets 627 Google hits, on sites such as www.consumerfraudreporting.org and www.scamdex.com. Hats off to whoever wrote the original though.

Mowing the mushrooms

The rain god gave us a bit of respite on the weekend. On Saturday I was actually able to mow the back lawn. After I mowed it, I was feeling so mow-tivated (heh) I dragged the mower up to the little public paddock behind and mowed that too (extremely long damp grass and rampant fungi). Then to celebrate, Marcus and I had a game of 2 on 2 soccer with Cam and Adrian from next door. Adrian and I triumphed with some awesome pinpoint passing, sharp finishing in front of goals and just a small number of well-timed shoves on my part.

On Sunday I went out to do my usual manual clipping of the steep front yard. Elf suggested I try mowing that too. I've always been too chicken, as it is not just steep but lumpy - there is a constant risk of stepping in a hole and letting the mower go, whence it would career across a busy road and then perhaps tumble into a front yard opposite, mowing all the while. Anyway, I did a light manual clip to reveal the basic contours of the land then went over it with the mower. Tidy! Our fence man is halfway through building our new front fence, so the whole area is generally looking a lot nicer and less student-share-housey all of a sudden.

By the time I had finished Marcus and the boys next door were baying for a rematch. This time Marcus and Cameron gave us a hiding 11-6.

POSTSCRIPT: This is quite a boring story so I feel the need to point out why mowing was so exciting. It has just been SO wet for four months (and apparently October is shaping up to continue this way) that a dry sunny weekend has been literally something to write home about. We usually average 212mm of rain from Jun-Sept, this year we had 416mm.

Are you concerned about Tin Whiskers?

The internet is really het up about it. Some things I Googled;

• Many companies are haunted with worry about tin whiskers.


• Tin whiskers arise from stresses in the plating.


• Tin whiskers don't have to be airborne to damage equipment.


• To address the threat of tin whiskers, a review of mitigation strategies is presented.


• Tin whiskers have been identified or are highly suspected in the costly failure in a number of electronic systems.


• CALCE Consortium has posted an alert, warning manufacturers of electronic hardware that tin whiskers represent a current failure risk, that must be addressed [TIN WHISKER ALERT, 2002]


• In high-voltage, high-current circuits, any shorts caused by tin whiskers are quickly burnt out.


• The phenomenon of tin whiskers is something you've likely heard discussed, maybe in scared whispered tones.


• One group of theorists has estimated that tin whiskers have caused losses of billions of dollars to date.


• This two day symposium will bring together international experts, in the field of tin whiskers.


• In a perverse kind of way, tin whiskers are good for the consumer market.

I think the first thing you should do when you get home is just do a quick room-to-room check for any of those tin whiskers. I'll do the same. Then I'll call you. OK?

Can you spot the Marquess of Milford Haven?

“L-R: Lady Rachel Davidson (lady in waiting to the duchess of Kent); Nada, Marchioness of Milford Haven, Lady Zia Wernher, Georgina Wernher, the Marquess of Milford Haven, Prince Philip of Greece, duchess of Kent, Sir Harold Wernher, Myra Wernher, and unidentified woman.”
Thank you, thank you, Awkward Family Photos. Does Prince Philip look like young Prince Wills or what?

Delaware!

Delaware - by Dan Meth. "Its like three guys eating dinner". Warning - contains adult concepts, mild sex and drug references.

Delaware from Dan Meth on Vimeo.

Beware the Plate Detective

Just stumbled across a license plate collectors website - specifically his page of FAKES. Its quite a business, and man, does he take it seriously. Plate counterfeiting is a dark, murky sinister world. Just as well this guy is on the job.

EVIDENCE - An interesting QUOTE from the seller to long-time collector Dave Stratton at a Silver State Regional plate meet in Reno in the mid 1980's. I've included the exact text as I received it from Dave. Dave Stratton is ALPCA number 3445 , and at the time, I'm sure he was still a registered ALPCA member, although he's since dropped out to avoid becoming a SUSPENDED ALPCA member. Here's the text....

Original email from Dave S.
[...]it was at Little Joe Korosa's house coupled with the first Silver State Reno meet (1984---1986?) The conversation went like this:
Dave: "...the business of these bizarre countries you've been getting lately (North Korea....Afghanistan) is it true you use religion to get them out of there?"
Seller: "Sure [...] I don't get that many anyway, and if I run out, I make 'em up. I fulfill dreams..."
Dave: "Well, I wouldn't be attending any plate meets with that philosophy, because the word is already out on that subject."

With all the info I've been working on to prove that this guy was faking plates, I really would never have thought that he would just come out and admit that he's made up plates. Sometimes it just drops in your lap - Ed.

Here are a few of his collection of fake plates. I don't care what he says, I think they're pretty ace.

Recent google searches that found me

footballers with cheese names
eel whisperer hodgman
condom machines for sale
cheese zebras
are toothaches punishment
portable pigeon bathing apparatus
ocobo domination
sinus toothache when walking

Kelly's Trousers

Kelly's Steps are a reasonably famous olde time feature of Hobart, connecting the rabbit-warren streets of Battery Point to Salamanca Place. They are named after whaler, harbourmaster and explorer Captain James Kelly. I just learned that his brother-in-law was eaten by Maoris, after which he killed a number in reprisal.

He came to mind because I was reading an old newspaper article from 1987 written by Christopher Koch, who wrote The Year of Living Dangerously, Highways to a War and Out of Ireland among other things. He grew up here. He says of Battery Point;

It used to be 'bad', in my Depression infancy: a district of grim old poverty, it's cottages built for dwarfs. Now its an expansive historical filmset, full of tasteful paint and coach lamps: a real-estate man's dream. Here are the stone steps built especially for that Homeric whaling master, Captain James Kelly, whose trousers, in response to a bet, were proved to hold five bushels of wheat. Kelly's Steps take me down from the ridge on Salamanca Place as they once took him: and here is Hobart of the 1840s.

I have just added the bit about his capacious pants to his Wikipedia entry. Heavens, sometimes the 21st Century is just so much fun.

Currently sitting pretty: Iran and Tinker Bell

Just did a quick Google search to check who is currently "sitting pretty". According to the Internet;

'Ugly Betty' is sitting pretty
Delaware is sitting pretty compared to property tax elsewhere
Alonzo Mourning is sitting pretty
Furniture manufacturer is sitting pretty on its water savings
Hot and sexy Danielle Bux is sitting pretty
Prity Bhutani is sitting pretty
Buckeyes sitting pretty after West Virginia, Missouri losses
Cailin Alainn is sitting pretty for Fairyhouse
Sichuan's ancient Buddha is sitting pretty
The Australian end of the (Chrysler) operation is sitting pretty
Jelimo is sitting pretty for gold in Beijing
Moen bath sink faucet is sitting pretty
Tinker Bell is sitting pretty on a little flower
Iran is sitting pretty in Central Asia at the moment
Sky Blue Vicar is sitting pretty
Suzanne Kasler is sitting pretty with her new line of chairs
Sri Lanka is sitting pretty after 20 years of test cricket
Felicity Huffman is sitting pretty
Rovers Cruz is sitting pretty - but he's not just a pin-up
TV is sitting pretty with quiz mania
Forgotten man Alex is sitting pretty in pink
George Strait's 38th album is sitting pretty on top of both the country and all-genre album charts today

X is the new Y

Quotes, titles of articles, books, songs and albums, 2001-2009.

Big is the new small
Quiet Is the New Loud
Gay is the new black
Twelve is the new eleven
Random is the new order
Economizing is the new black
Awake Is the New Sleep
Gay cowboys are now the new penguins
Black is the new green
Black is the new white
This Is The New That
Down Is the New Up
Humans are the new dinosaurs
Hogs are the new deer - (Field & Stream magazine article)
Saving is the new spending

There's such a lot to tell

The boys always have a lot to tell us. Often with me it's when I am trying to listen to a poignant story on the radio, or trying to put in a big finish on the exercise bike, or when I am busting and just on my way to the toilet. It will always be something like this.

Marcus: Dad - what would happen if you burned ink?

or

Michael: In the centre of this galaxy is steam. Outside that is water vapour. Outside that is smoke. Then outside THAT is a kind of ... flamey stuff.

2009 AFL Grand Final : Geelong 12.8 (80) d St Kilda 9.14 (68)

Last Friday night's preliminary final between St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs was so gripping, I fell asleep. Seriously, the two sides just had each other in a death grip like a couple of soldier crabs, and for minute after minute nothing happened. I had to keep shaking myself awake. St Kilda finally prevailed by seven points.

The Grand Final yesterday was a similar story, but I was wide awake for every bit of it. I was backing St Kilda. They had such a fantastic season that I thought they deserved to take the flag at the end of it. Geelong missed one they should have got last year, and were in danger of being labelled "under-performers" if they lost again. Ed came over to watch. Marcus and Michael were invited next door and left us to it for the first half.

The Saints had most of it from the start but didn't take their chances. Adam Schneider was right in front 15m out and tried to launch the ball out of the ground, rather than just do the natural thing. Raph Clarke looked out of his league - he conceded the first goal of the game, lumbering like a stegosaurus and caught with the ball on the edge of his own 50m. Geelong had few opportunities but converted each one. St Kilda finished the quarter strongly, and were tackling like ravenous beasts. Riewoldt was doing suicidal leaps in conditions that didn't suit him. Landed on his head once but was up and running in no time.

The second quarter was really Geelong's - they were 2 goals up with a minute left to half time. St Kilda goaled, then goaled again from the restart. Milburn made a big fuss about having touched the 2nd goal off the boot - so much so that before the ball was bounced St Kilda were awarded a free kick in the goal square.
Milburn: Fuggin muggin touched it mugging fug.
Ump McBurney: Free kick against Milburn for remonstrating with a goal umpire.
Milburn: I just bloody asked him...
Ump McBurney: You were demonstrative.

So, three goals in a minute to the Saints. At half time they were up 7.7 to 7.1. Not much of a lead but surely they just needed to start kicking straight. The boys came back at half time and brought Adrian and Cameron from next door with them. I can't abide pointless chatter during an important footy game, and Michael and Adrian did the right thing and stayed outside for most of the second half. Marcus and Cameron were pretty good, I didn't have to gag anyone.

In the third quarter things slowed down a bit. Jimmy Bartel started to come into the game for the Cats. He blanketed Lenny Hayes, and laid 16 tackles for the game, an amazing stat. One of Geelong's main sparks, Steve Johnson, was being suffocated by Steven Baker, and hardly saw the ball all day. The Saints players that most caught my eye during the game were Baker, Riewoldt, Hayes, Gram and Goddard. Baker and Goddard clashed heads, and Goddard went off to return later with the full curse-of-the-mummy look. For Geelong, I thought Taylor and Scarlett were brilliant down back, curbing Riewoldt and Kosi. Ablett gradually came into it after Clinton Jones had limited him early. My favourite player Joel Selwood was inspirational. He's only 21 but he had the confidence to make a speech at half time, and his teammates had the respect for him to listen. Paul Chapman shrugged off a hamstring strain to keep bobbing up, kicking a goal each time one was really needed.

And so it was in the last quarter. It started with Geelong still seven points down. Goal to Hawkins, one point the difference. A few behinds at either end. Rooke kicked what looked like the winner - Baker chased and just got there to touch it through, before crashing his shoulder into the base of the post. Selwood kicked another point, scores level.

The defining moment was a Dawson spoil on Ablett right in the centre. The ball bobbled loose, Scarlett toe-poked it to Ablett, he hoisted it to the goalsquare, Varcoe got his one good touch for the day and handpassed to Chapman who bent it around the corner for a goal. A minute later Rooke soccered a point. Still not over as under pressure Scarlett conceded a behind to make it an even goal the difference. Milburn took the kickout, Taylor took a towering mark and the Cats were home.

Immediately after I thought the Cats had been lucky to pinch it, and St Kilda unlucky. But luck only applies to things outside your control, and only if they had kicked straight would it be fair to say the Saints deserved this one. Its still the one skill in football that most affects the result, and they just didn't bring it with them to the MCG yesterday.

Historic fridge magnets

Hey, Bombers fans. Wanting to commemorate your outstanding premiership success of 1897, but not sure how? Hey, Swannies. Having trouble remembering your victory in 1918? Well, let WegArt help! These fridge magnets date back to before the actual invention of the fridge.

Levi Stubbs Tears by Billy Bragg.

You can look at my nose and say "Billy Bragg,what is the answer to all the world's problems". Now, it's impossible to have one song that answers all the problems of all the world - except this next song I'm going to play for you now...which answers every single problem in your life whatever that problem may be. It may be that someone here's building a nuclear power station at the end of your road or it may be that when you get up in the morning and go for a piss it hurts. Whatever your problem is, this is the answer to it. All you have to do, all you have to do boys and girls is go home, put a kettle on, make yourself a nice cup of tea, sit down, put on a record by The Four Tops - everything is going to be alright.

Billy Bragg, Malmo, Sweden

10th October 1986.

Small world etc

Last night was the Amnesty International fundraising quiz night. I could not persuade any of my so-called friends to join my quiz team, so I turned up at the event alone. I felt obliged to go as I had helped with the promotions, and had assured everyone involved at the time that I'd be there with bells on, with all my mates, being quite a popular fellow y'know.

The thing was a sellout, despite clashing with a big footy match on TV, and I was only able to squeak in when some ticketholders didn't show. By necessity I joined their team, as there was just nowhere else to sit. I knew one of the team slightly but they were all very nice. Smart too - after three rounds we were leading the pack.

One of the team was a lively sixty-something chap called Pat. After one question ("Who was the last Tasmanian to win the Archibald Prize for Portraiture?" [A: Geoff Dyer]) - Pat asked "And whose brother did he paint?" I was a bit flummoxed. The sitter for the portrait was author Richard Flanagan. His brother Martin is quite well known, but I know he also has 3 or 4 other siblings. Anyway - turned out the answer Pat was looking for was himself - he's another brother.

I was very pleased with this, as although I think very highly of Richard, Martin is actually one of my very favourite writers. Richard is mates with my boss and pops up everywhere, while Martin is based in Melbourne and much more retiring. So I earbashed Pat for some time about how great Martin is and he said he would pass it on.

Martin's last book 'The Line' was written with and about their father Arch, a WW2 veteran in his nineties. I was pleased to hear that he's still with us, and going pretty well. He was a prisoner of war on the Burma Railway with Weary Dunlop.

So, I had a good night, was very pleased to meet Pat Flanagan and we even won the quiz, so I staggered home laden with bottles of wine, each with a big label spruiking the politician who donated it.

Basic vulcanology explained

Some of Michael's work from our holiday. He studies his various illustrated planets 'n' asteroids books so thoroughly, that he can recreate the diagrams at will. This is a cross-section of Earth (Crust, Mantle, Inner Core, Outer Core).


This one asks and answers the question "How does a volcano work?"
.

Slime King

If I was a snail, and I found out there was a snail named "Slime King", and it wasn't me, I'd be furious.

Return of the kangaroo-paw tongs

The other night the ABC showed a good doco about the old TV show Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. There was a lot of the usual farcical dramatic recreations, using the old "there happened to be an out of focus camera on the scene at the time, pointing not quite in the right direction" technique. Apparently the creators of Skippy were drinking scotch, smoking, laughing heartily and slapping each other on the back at all times.

The best bits were the actual Skippy clips. We found about 12 episodes on DVD some time back, but in fact there were 91 episodes. 91! There were a lot of laugh-out-loud moments as some of the cast and crew would describe some outrageous production detail, then a series of clips would demonstrate the point.

For example, first the kangaroo-paw tongs were demonstrated by the one of the surviving production crew. Then a montage of clips where a tight close up on "Skippy's paws" showed her operating the radio, opening a screen door, typing etc etc. A marsupial specialist was on hand to confirm that kangaroos never, ever go "tsk tsk tsk".

I knew even when I was a kid that there were nine different kangaroos that played Skippy. I think once when we were in Sydney on holiday we went to Waratah Park where the series was shot, and met "Skippy". We were much more interested in the trampolines. At that time if there were any trampolines in Tasmania, we certainly hadn't see them.

What I did not know then was that the various Skippies spent most of their time on set in a hessian bag. When the shot was all set up she would be released. Kangaroos are quite happy in a hessian bag but are dazed and dopey for a few seconds when they emerge, before hopping off into the nearest scrub at top speed. This show revealed that every bit of footage of Skippy not hopping away was obtained in these short intervals after de-bagging. They then showed what happened after the director called "cut", which was usually Skippy going at quite a lick while the crew chased her with the hessian bag.

I was laughing my head off and turned to explain why to Elf who was reading and not listening to the TV, when, I swear to God, a wallaby bounced up onto our deck, up the steps and across the backyard.

According to Wikipedia its still being shown in Iran.

2009 TSL Grand Final: Clarence 15.11 (101) d Glenorchy 14.11 (95)

This year statewide football has come back. Marcus and I went to the inaugural Tasmanian Statewide League grand final yesterday with our mate Rob. Glenorchy Magpies were favourites to beat the traditional rivals Clarence Roos, having won the last two SFL flags. There was over 7000 at the Bellerive Oval for the big day.

As usual at any high-profile sporting event in Tasmania, organisation was farcical. The two sides lined up for the national anthem. This is the moment when the big crowd falls silent, and each team links arms down the line, all of the players trying to contain their emotions and focus on the job at hand. Time passed. Someone in front started singing the anthem (badly) to fill the silence. Players looked restless, unlinked and started stretching and bouncing. Finally the Clarence playing-coach pulled his players out and off they ran. A sheepish official came on the PA to say due to a technical hitch there would be no anthem. Someone didn't put the record back in the sleeve, perhaps.

The conditions were blustery and wet but the standard of footy was still pretty good. After an even first quarter Clarence jumped out to a good lead at halftime, and shortly after extended it to seven goals. Or so I heard. I waited until 10 minutes into the third to head to the shop for sustenance - usually a good time to go for short queues. There were about 500 people lined up down there. That seems incredible but believe me, I had plenty of time to count them while I waited to get to the front of my particular queue. I waited five minutes before I saw anyone depart with actual food.

When I did get back [to the relief of the rest of the party], the Pies were clawing back into it. Incredibly they got within 2 points, but Clarence had enough left in the tank to surge again. A Glenorchy kick-out landed right in Jerome Webberley's lap about 55 out. Without stopping to think he just bombed it back the way it came, and it sailed through post high for a goal. [Look out for him in the AFL next year.] The Pies took it forward and had a couple of chances at goal but they sprayed both wide. Clarence ran out winners by 6 points, despite Glenorchy winning three of the quarters.

The desperation and endeavour at the end was just wonderful to witness. The skill level, fitness and professionalism of Tasmanian footy will not often match that of the AFL, but there is no question the commitment of the players yesterday was no less than that at the top level.

Marcus and I had a kick on the [slightly] hallowed turf at quarter and half time, along with about three hundred other mostly men and boys. It is a kind of joyful mayhem that I always love. There are balls of all sizes going in all directions. Fortunately my catlike reflexes came to my rescue a few times when someone else's big 60 metre bomb was zeroing in on the side of my head.

Rob had parked the car at his mum's place near the ground. We walked back, popped in our heads to say hi to Mrs B, then tried to get out of the driveway. It was hell, but we finally managed to wriggle out, and get down to the T-junction without hitting any of the drunken pedestrians weaving across the road.

Then, there was one last golden moment for the afternoon. After a long wait to turn right, we were let in by legendary Test batsman David Stumpy Boon. Does it get better than that?

3 mirrors: 2 too many

On our recent jaunt one of our hosts gave up their bedroom and ensuite for us. In the ensuite they have that 3-mirrors setup so you see yourself in the round. Its unavoidable. As a result Elf and I are now on diets and are recommitting to the exercise bike regime.

It turns out that our mirror at home is quite flattering. I am pretty comfortable with my width but I am a now alarmed by my depth. I go way back - and leaving my shirt untucked does not, after all, make any difference.

Overheard 2

Marcus: Only the special marbles have names.
Michael: What's the black one called?
Marcus: Deathro.
Michael: Jethro?
Marcus: No, DEATHro.
[pause]
Michael: That's a great name!

Overheard 1

Marcus: I'll give you a massage Michael!
Michael: Great!
[Marcus squeezes parts of Michael randomly]
Michael: Mmm - thats great! Now I'll give you a massage!
Marcus: OK
[Michael squeezes and twists parts of Marcus.
Marcus: Hmm - that's not really a massage. That's a chinese burn.

Obsolete Scottish Units Of Measurement

This is my new favourite wikipedia page.

Oxgang
Ploughgate
Daugh
Chalder
Boll
Fubdy
Firlot
Lippie
Stane
Joog
Forpet
Mutchkin
Poon

Spot the made up one.

Back on the South Island

We are home again. Elf and I are back at work, but the boys still have a week of school holidays - they are hanging out with their cousins at Kingston.

The trip went really well, we enjoyed the travel and the boys were excellent. Thanks to Jacki and Tim, Felicity and Bill, and Vincent and Andy for putting us up and rearranging their lives for us. (Not forgetting the Golden Chain Motel at Seymour - with the least enticing swimming pool on the Hume Hwy).

As usual, photos and stories from the trip will dribble out as I get time.

A stumblebum kind of day

Just a quick note from the inner suburbs of Melbourne. Elf and the kids and I have lurched all over town today, with various public transport problems and toilet issues dogging us. At last we are home at our downtown pad, staying with Vincent and Andy and the twins Alastair and Isabelle. There are kiddie gates everywhere as they live on 3 levels. I have just spilled a beer downstairs across level 2 and parts of level 1, while grappling with a kiddie gate. A fitting postscript to a difficult day. Saw following graffiti near Burnley train station: SLOTH FRESH.

Random notes from the Lower Mid North Coast

Quoting the main story on the back page of Jacki's local paper, the Great Lakes Advocate:

The Old Bar Clams are worthy rugby union champions of the Lower Mid North Coast, having won a thrilling grand final 29-22, from the Forster Tuncurry Dolphins at an unforgiving Old Bar Reserve on Saturday. Too physical up front and too penetrative out wide, the Clams led 29-0 after just 53 minutes...

Slept at Jacki's in the "green room" - meshed-in sleep out that runs right across the back of the house. The first night was warm but windy. There is a small forest outside and the crashing trees in the wind woke us up periodically though the night. The dawn chorus was volcanic - the fauna may as well have been sitting on my shoulder. After that I went off to sleep. Was finally woken for good when I realised Marcus and Malachy had hit it off brilliantly, and were playing soccer in the green room with me as one of the goals.

I walked to the corner shop in Smiths Lake a few times while we were there. On my last visit I noticed at the back of the dairy fridge, a keg of Heineken and a few scattered stubbies.

Jacki and Tim both work at the Pacific Palms Recreation Club, a licensed gaming venue. In the pokies room, there is a large glass cabinet of odd things. Curling tongs, champagne flutes, sheet and pillowcase sets, coffee machines. If you win on the pokies you are entitled to a certain number of stamps. For 210 stamps, you can have a coffee machine etc. Jacki had been keen to get the sheets (100% cotton) but someone beat her to it.

Brin is 17. He was the youngest for many years until Malachy (6) came along. He has a marvellously strange sense of humour, which is welcome or not depending on how tired everyone else is feeling. It was he that named the rabbit "Frederick the Octopus That Lost 4 Legs In A Car Crash". Tim sent him to bed one night because he wouldn't stop saying "Hazam El-Masri" (famous bald rugby player with an addictively sonorous name).

Jacki's is a "TV on" household. They have Pay TV and are frequently pausing, forwarding and rewinding what seems to be live TV. Quite often the Weather Channel is on with no-one in the room. I sat and watched it for ten minutes - amazed that the hosts could perkily repeat themselves over and over: going around the Golden West one more time, having another little peek at the Northern Rivers, and here's a photo of fluffy clouds (again) sent in by Greg McBiscuit of Orange - thanks Greg!

Jacki drove us to Taree to catch the train to Canberra. On the way we were passed by a large police van and two 4WDs, all with Riot and Public Disorder Unit signage. Sometimes the mainland is just scary.

Drink, Drive: Die In A Ditch

The above is an actual public education billboard by a major road in Canberra, where we are now. We came by train from Taree via Sydney. Taree was all sunshine and palm trees and the promise of spring - when we arrived at 10.30 at night, Canberra was a cold, damp and grimly floodlit series of roundabouts.

We are staying with Elf's parents, Bill and Felicity, in suburban Weetangera. Marcus has had some kind of bug, actually threw up in the car between the 13th and 14th roundabouts on the way here from the train. He is much better now but for a couple of days we took it slow. The four of us plus Bill went to Questacon, the Science and Technology Activity Centre, yesterday. Poor Marcus dragged himself around but wasn't able to really enjoy it.

Late last night Elf's brother Fred arrived for a couple of days. He is a science and technology activity centre in himself. He delighted the boys and the rest of us too with some experiments this morning. He made a loudspeaker out of a short plastic tube and a bit of balloon; made a water jet out of a bit of glass tubing that he heated and stretched, with water forced into it by gravity feed from a bucket upstairs; focussed the water jet on the stretched rubber and the most amazing howl arose. He has a small lab in the garage dating back to his years growing up here. Among his bottles and jars is a large container of mercury, amazingly hefty. Given to him by Grandpa Ware, retired dentist. We'll be catching up with him in a few days.

Also last night Elf's sister Imp arrived for one night, in town on business. She reported from the soccer trophy day (that we missed) that Miah, on receipt of trophy, had a good look all over it and then exclaimed "the people in China know my name!!"

The tapwater here is quite chlorinated. Deep in my smell cortex this sets off memories of travelling to Peru - I don't think I have been anywhere else where the water fairly shouts "For your safety I have been disinfected by the government".

There's a poster of the principal Egyptian gods on the wall in the kitchen. Michael impressed all by pointing and saying "that's the crown of Upper Egypt and THAT's the crown of Lower Egypt". Marcus, remembering the same book from the library, went along saying blithely "he's God of the Sun, he's God of the Dead, she's God of the Sky, he's God of... er..." Michael: "Liberty?"

Michael dreams amid the palm trees

Yesterday morning Michael told us that he dreamed he and Hatty [our cat] got married. "But we had fish in our hands instead of flowers". He just came to ask me what I was typing. I asked if he could remember anything else. "Then we had kittens."

We are still on the mid-north coast. Yesterday we explored further. To get to where Jac and Tim live you have to drive along a narrow strip of land that is part of the Booti Booti National Park. The road is hemmed in with greenery so you don't really get a feel for where you are, but yesterday we went up to a lookout and saw this.



Then we went to the supermarket in Tuncurry. While Jac did the shopping we roamed through the shopping centre. Next to the Wiggles ride for kids ($2 a try) were some massage chairs for adults ($2 a try).

On the way home we dropped in to look at Jac and Tim's actual local beach, Cellito Beach. Pretty nice.

A post from the coast

The mid-north coast that is. That's right, we are actually in New South Wales, at Smiths Lake, nearest large town Tuncurry. This area is generally called Pacific Palms, which sounds like a casino but is actually the name of a plant endemic here, the pacific palm. My nephew Malachy goes to Pacific Palms Public School. We dropped in for a look at it while touring the district today - across the road from the school is a pumping surf beach.

Its technically winter for one more day after today, but we have caught the end of a bona fide heatwave. It was warm enough to have a dip in Smiths Lake this morning, but only just. From there we drove around to Elizabeth Beach, pictured above. We went into a cafe this morning with furniture made out of surfboards - its that kind of place.

The tropicality of it all blows me away. Big palms and flowers and stuff fruiting all over the place - the only places I have been like this are the lowlands of Ecuador and a stopover once in Tahiti.

Travel scrabble

We are scrabbling to get stuff packed and organised as we are off in two days to the steamy subtropics - to visit my big sister and her family in New South Wales. Its five hours by train north of Sydney. To my stunted Tasmanian mind that would put it about in Queensland, but its only about a third of the way up to the border. NSW is big. After five days there we will entrain to Canberra for another five, then four in Melbourne before flying home.

I have been very busy ticking off Fogbugz cases at work. We use a job tracking system called Fogbugz, and no, this is not adequately zany or charming enough to make slogging through a list of jobs any easier.

I have also had a run of outs with QuickTime movie player and everything related to it. Apple send out software updates that you really need to install if you want to keep using QuickTime, but every now and then one of them will break everything else you need to use. If you Google the problem you will find dozens of helpful bits of advice about workarounds and hacks to solve the problem. This advice never comes from Apple, who prefer stony silence at such times.

So today I did a clean install on my work Mac. It is now (in theory) as pristine as when it came out of the crate. Yet the problem persists.

So the blog may have seemed quiet for a bit and will be quieter still over the next little while. If I can blog on the road I will, but no promises. It was 32° at Jacki's today, so we are going to be stunned mullets for the first day or two.

Envelopes of the veldt

Marcus is reading a series of books with titles like Dolphins at Daybreak, Tigers at Twilight and Buffaloes at Breakfast Time. We were all discussing these in the car the other day, and making up new silly ones. Narwhals at Noon, Egrets at Easter. Michael suggested Envelopes in the Evening, which I thought took things in new and edgy direction, into stationery. Then he said "No - what are those things called? ANTelopes, Antelopes in the Evening."

Lunchtime on Mercury

Just watched a very good 100% CGI documentary on the Solar System, with Elf and the boys. The voice over was an Englishman with a very serious, almost metallic voice. We have a DVD about tigers that is also gravely narrated by this fellow. He had just spoken about the wild extremes of temperature on Mercury: −183 °C at night to 427 °C during the day, I believe. Marcus said "Hmm, it would be fairly nice at lunchtime".

EmphaSIS

Michael was reading something aloud, and he said a word with all the sounds correct, but the emphasis wrong. I can't remember the word, so let's pretend it was "remember". Marcus pounced (as he usually does when Michael makes a slight mistake).

Marcus: No, its not "REmember" its "reMEMber".

Me: That's OK, you got the word right but the emphasis was different. Emphasis is when you say one part of the word more strongly. With a lot of words you can say them more than one way. Like recess at school - you guys say "REcess" and I say "reCESS".

Michael: Oh yeah, and I say "lunch" but a lot of people say "looonch".

Me: Come on, no-one actually says "looonch"!

Marcus: Yeah, a few people do.

English pessimism

England are totally on top in the final Test match. They have set Australia 546 to win, an impossible task. To survive for a draw Australia has to bat for two days, when in their last innings they lost all ten wickets in 2 and a half hours.

Yet Andrew Miller still felt able to write an article called "Is there cause for English pessimism?"

This is beautiful

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Music Channel

I have just started a tumblr page, just for music videos. The videos don't even have to be all that great, its really about the music. Please pop across to Lost Cassettes and tell me what you think.

Jonathan Coulton on having his first kid

Oh, wow, I get it. Now I'm a dad, my dad just became a grandfather and my grandfather is dead. I see where this is going.

Dictator online auctions

Subzero rodent

The other night Elf was on the exercise bike, fighting the good fight, when she saw a rat stroll across to the top of the stairs and head down. By the time she had regained her composure and dismounted, it had vanished.

We got the men in with some bait stations, deployed inside and out. One afternoon we heard some shuffling and snuffling near the one in the "dishwasher hole" under the sink. We guessed that was him taking the bait.

All was quiet for a few days. Then we notice Marcus was wearing a pair of tracksuit pants that had been partly eaten. So rattus rattus has just been wandering the house chewing on stuff? Ee-ew.

Early Wednesday morning I heard some scratching in the hall. Cardinal Ratzinger was in a bad way, hunkered under the little bureau and obviously on his last legs. We closed all the doors and Elf blocked them with towels. I seized his tail with a plastic bag and flipped him into it, then into a strong shopping bag. 3am and we had a hissed debate about how to despatch him. I had prepared a shovel to whack him with but chickened out, thinking I would find it hard to get a first time clean shot when he was double-bagged. So I put him in the freezer. Where he remains, until bin night.

Stories for your ears

One of the podcasts I am into is the New Yorker magazine Fiction Podcast. Each week an author reads one of their favourite short stories by another author, living or dead. It was here that I first heard the amazing story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson - a brilliant piece of writing. Apparently it has long been a standard in English Lit classes in the US but I had never heard of it.

I am prompted to mention it here by the latest story, Adams by George Saunders. I had never heard of him either, but I am now going to seek out what I can and read it.

After each reading, the reader and the fiction editor of the New Yorker chat about the story. My reaction is always "bloody hell - I didn't realise THAT was going on in there". Suffice to say Adams is a near-anagram of Saddam, and the narrator of the story ends up breaking into Adams' house and taking away all his pool chemicals.

Reports

The boys had their mid-year reports last week, both very good.

This is Marcus's 4th year at the school, and the staff are generally aware of his phenomenal appetite for mathematics. By now the novelty has worn off a little and his report is pretty matter-of-fact about what he can do and what he should do next - which is what you want.

His general comment starts "Marcus shows an excellent attitude towards school and learning. He has been able to set himself goals and shown pride in reaching them". The report picks up a couple of things that he can build on, and a couple of things that need work - eg "he is a reluctant writer and needs constant prompting to complete writing tasks". I know he has an amazing recall for all the details of a soccer match, so I am trying to use this as leverage to get him to write match reports for me.

I should note for fans of advanced educational administration theory that Marcus is at level P5 in Standard 2 at English, and level P7 in Standard 3 in Maths. (It all reminds me of when Homer bought an obscure Eastern Bloc car 2nd hand. As he bunny-hopped down the road in it the previous owner ran after him yelling "Put it in H!!".)

Michael's still a new kid on the block, and his report reflects that - the comments have an element of bemusement about them. In literacy "his skills are of an extremely high level" and "Michael displays incredible numeracy skills". Michael also finds writing sentences a chore. He "has the skills to create written pieces but he can become very distracted by the social aspect of the classroom".

We are delighted with how they are going, and the way their teachers seem to have a pretty good handle on them. We (and they) are very lucky to have everything going so swimmingly at school.

Restaurant reviews

Elf I and do not dine out very often. We have had a bit of a purple patch in the last week or so, with two dinners out on the town. I am also going to roll into this another dinner back in June because it was so ridiculous. But first;

Pasha's, Elizabeth Street, Hobart.
Each year we dine out for our pal Anna's birthday. In recent years we have gone to this Turkish restaurant and had a banquet in a room upstairs. The extremely steep stairs (with bit of pipe for handrail) are heritage listed, like most of inner Hobart. The room has a huge square table and everyone sits around it, at shouting distance from each other. The food is excellent. My only grizzle would be that as we have a banquet each year, which is a little-bit-of-everything deal, I don't get to gorge myself on great chunks of lamb which is my main preoccupation when I get out to dinner these days. Menu: sensible and comprehensible.

The Boathouse, Queens Walk, Cornelian Bay.
We had our wedding reception here in 2001. The location is terrific, right by the water with a nice river view. The building used to be a seaside toilet block, dating back to the days when people swam at the little beach. It's too silty and yuck these days, but still looks pretty, and the ducks like it. It is still run by the very nice lady who we dealt with back then, and she always remembers us - which is good business but gives you warm fuzzies all the same. It's not as though we are in and out all the time.

This time it was Sally's birthday. We had martinis at the new house up the road a little, then strolled down to the waters edge for dinner. I have never had a martini in my life, being more of a beer/wine guy, so that was something. Gin and an olive, basically, although the mystique around them does make you feel somehow sophisticated as you sip. Olives on little plastic swords.

But back to the restaurant. Besides us there were about a dozen of Sal's friends, many from the cutting edge contemporary art scene. They are all very nice people. I was expecting the talk to be all residencies and grants and curatorships and the thematic nexus between sex and death but there was none of that, in my earshot at least.

The food is all pretty innovative, with plenty of jus and coulis and the like on the menu. You always want the serves to be bigger. Mains are around $30 and entrees $15-$20. You can order oysters one at a time, so I had 4 oysters as a cheapish entree. For main I had a little lamb fillet the size of my two thumbs, accompanied by a hockey puck of shredded lamb brisket. The lamb with lamb approach was new to me. It came with a wodge of mashed potato, which most of the other blokes eyed hungrily. I had panna cotta for dessert, three little units about thumbnail size, with a cone of creamy something.

In summary it is a lovely experience dining at The Boathouse, but you might want to grab a curry on your way home. The menu is quite fluid, and I always learn something new. This time I was taken aback by the Mushi of Tasmanian Scallops. I asked, and a mushi is basically a savoury custard.

Das Zimmer Wine Bar, Salamanca Square, Hobart
After Anna's exhibition opening in June, we went upstairs above the Bar Celona to this place. Anna had booked it for dinner, and we went in on the assumption that dinner would be available. The menu was hilarious - I wish I had been able to take notes. Unfortunately the only term I can recall is "microherbs". Those of us who didn't just give up ordered the ravioli. It arrived as five tiny discs on a large stark white plate. The wine list was very very long, and I don't remember seeing a single Tasmanian wine on it. The beers available were exotic and priced accordingly. The doof doof from downstairs kept conversation to a minimum. We mostly just pointed to our ravioli and the prices in the wine list and laughed and laughed.

Bus ticket wisdom

For some reason, Hobart buses have started using tickets from the Adelaide metro system. They advise you to call an Adelaide number for timetable information, which is probably not to going to do you much good here. Apart from that the main difference from the old green tickets is the nuggets of wisdom now printed on them. I imagine thoughtful commuters pondering "Fear is the parent of cruelty" all the way into town.

Here is some real-world advice I would like to see.

Always back the topweight
Never run on a misfield
Never tip Fremantle
Blutak - get some
The bolivian stumpy duck migrates by train
and
Stay upwind of billygoats

Uncategorisable

Michael: I'm trying to make a slug out of magnets.
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Marcus: Your mum is a sock and your dad is a pickle.

Soccer roundup

On Friday night my indoor team continued our good form from last week, with a fighting 7-4 win over the talented but lazy Deviants. Our passing was fluent and our finishing was tidy. Last week we had a 7-7 draw with a young and fit team who should have cleaned us up, so we are quite pleased with the way we're going.

Marcus's under 7s went three down very quickly yesterday, and he started to get a bit tearful. He and his team recovered well and got on top, finally winning 6-4. He played terrifically well, doing a lot of hard work in defence as well as kicking two goals from long range. It was a good hard game and everyone went home happy.

Last week we had one officious and neurotic parent on the other team who spoiled the occasion for the rest of the adults - I don't think the kids were bothered at all. The rest of her team's supporters were embarrassed and I suspect they are long-suffering. She stepped onto the field while our coach Robert was refereeing, and started disputing his decisions. He handled it perfectly, refusing to get ruffled, and insisting on his right to be the sole arbiter. Her son is an excellent player and hopefully will not have his enjoyment of soccer sullied by his mum getting into slanging matches.

Coordinators

On Saturday morning Elf's debut as Soccer Barbecue Coordinator finally arrived, after weeks of postponements as home games were shifted elsewehere on account of mud.

The previous holder of the post decided this season not to continue, after several years of early frosty starts and late pack-ups and not enough help. After a month or so the peasants were revolting over the lack of burgers and coffee which had become part of the landscape. Elf and another mum named Gina put their hands up, and now are the proud custodians of the ceremonial tongs.

Elf was nervous about keys, alarms, lighting the ancient gas barbecue etc etc, but it all went off very well. They decided to keep it very simple and only offer sausages in bread, tea and coffee. If you want more excitement there is tomato sauce. Other offerings might be gradually re-introduced.

I have recently taken on a coordinating role of my own, doing the Chess Club at school at lunchtime on Fridays. I set up the boards and trestle tables then prowl around helping when asked and occasionally venturing some advice when a game is going in circles. I didn't have many customers at my first meetings, and I started packing up early so i could get away back to work promptly when the bell went. Cue about a dozen grade 2s and 3s to arrive and mill about, eager for board-based combat.

I am actually a chess player of no great ability, and several of the kids (including Marcus) are easily better players than I provided they concentrate. The chess sets they have at school come with three queens of each colour, to allow for promoted pawns. (Usually with a basic set one takes back a captured rook and stands it upside down to be a queen). I would be interested to know what is the largest number of queens charging about on the board at one time in a serious chess game.

Choose one

[Note - this is an artist's impression of a real questionnaire. You can't really click on the buttons.]