More fine tubesmanship

A classic cardboard tube skirmish begins with the ritual statement "I respect you, and I will not hurt you". Then combatants "bap" each other with tubes for some minutes. it ends with a handshake.

Get out of my way, relaxed people

I am not a very relaxed person. But I did meet some very relaxed people on the road this morning - they strolled in front of my car. It was a quiet street, with a park on one side. Little Athletics was just winding down. A boy stepped onto the road without looking, with his mum behind him.  It wasn't very dramatic, I was probably only going about 15kmh when they stepped out. As I braked I thought "she'll look, and either pull him back or hurry him across".

She looked, saw me, and they continued sauntering, down the road across my path. Not even directly across the road, more sort of diagonally in the direction of their car, which was shorter and more convenient for them. As I swerved around them at about walking pace, I locked eyes with the lady and looked for some sort of awareness. No - she was really pretty relaxed.

Just one of those things. I don't usually let it grind me for this long. It's the kid, his blithe stepping onto the road, that gets me. He has learned this from his mum. How many people have accommodated her all through her life? Swerved around her in one way or another? And this kid has learned to expect the same. It's OK mate - people will swerve around you. Relax.

Whereas my poor kids are loaded down with all these rules about how to behave, look both ways, do unto others, look after your guests, take the one that's closest to you, etc etc. Like I was. I am concerned with doing the right thing - and I am teaching my kids to be the same. I am responsible for them, and I am teaching them to be responsible too. It's a burden I am handing on to them.

It's hard not to be envious of the relaxed ones who just don't worry, and their lucky carefree kids who don't worry either.

The Royal Hobart Show 2011

It was time to return to the Show after 2 years away. After all, we get the day off for a reason. And that reason is: diving pigs. And the also very handsome non-diving pigs, goats, cattle and sheep.

It was a stinking hot day yesterday, and today promised to be almost as bad. We planned to get to the showgrounds early but failed. My workmate who is a member of the Agricultural Society gave us his free entry and free parking tickets. This was a fantastic bonus - saved us nearly fifty bucks. But we did waste time driving all over looking for the members' parking area, which we never found.

Meet you at the sign o' the smoking gun-totin' cowboy puppy

Having saved the entry fee, I was determined to embrace the spirit of the show, and not carp about the cost of things. The boys went into their first of two giant bouncy castles. They loved it, and I loved seeing them in there sticking together among the teeming bouncing dozens of kids. There was a slide and they went down with their arms around each other several times.

I have to have a dagwood dog at the show, so that was next. They came without sauce - which is an outrage. There were squirt bottles there, with a choice of tomato, bbq, mayo etc, but everyone knows that a dagwood has to be dipped head-first in about 100 fl oz of sauce. You just cannot get enough on it with a squirt bottle. While we ate the dagwoods, we watched knights in armour from the Society for Creative Anachronism, bash each other with swords.

The combat went on for a surprisingly long time. Knight 1 would defeat Knight 2, then they would have a rest while Knight 3 defeated Knight 4. Sort and repeat. They were all pretty beefy men and I admired their persistence. They wound up with a sort of tag team all-in, then turned to us and bowed. Crazy.

We just had time for an ice cream before the Racing and Diving Pigs. A grizzled old country-music-star-looking showman has been touring the land with his pigs for 20 years. He was announced as “The voice of pig racing...” The boys were up the front and probably saw it all, but I saw no pork until the diving pigs came on at the end. They trot down a kind of gangplank that suddenly ends above a little swimming pool. It's pretty steep and there is no going back. They pause and try to retreat, fail, and then it looks like its just going to be an undignified flailing plunge. But it's not! Pig thrusts out front legs in internationally recognised "dive" pose, and dives into the pool. Impressive.

It was Farm Mammal time. We started with the dairy cows - holy hell, there were some whoppers. I love the country kids who are up in town for the week, and occupying a camp in a stall with a cow/pig/anglo-nubian goat. A couple of littlies sitting on chairs had rigged a rubber spider on a thread, dangling from a rafter. As punters walked past the kids would release the thread and spider them up a bit. Occasional screams. Old fashioned laffs. We covered all the standard farm animals. Pigs - sometimes look a bit too human. I am not saying they should be made to wear pants - but some of those pigs should have gone to the toilet before they left home. That's all I'm saying.

We went on the boys’ first serious ride, the Gee Whizzer. Because of having kids, neither Elf or I have been on one in decades. Elf went with Marcus then I went with Michael, taking it in turns to mind the growing pile of stuff. The Gee Whizzer was more violent than it looked, but Michael loved it, and I loved it too, in a fun plane-crashy kind of way.

It was crowded and very hot in the showbag pavilion. We had made a recon earlier in the day, but I was dismayed to realise that no-one had actually made up their mind yet what they wanted. After some false starts, we plumped for the Skittles (Michael, $7) and the Original Idiot Bag (Marcus, $20). The latter included a skateboard. Yes, an actual skateboard.

This morning Michael had been ungracious about having to leave the house for a day at the Show. In an attempt to jolly him along, I mentioned some of the things he had loved last time, when he was 4 years old. These included the very sedate boat roundabout ride. When we got to that ride, he insisted on having a go. He barely fit in the boat, looked ridiculous, and highly bored. The ride went on and on. I said to him afterwards that he is probably the only person that's ever taken that boat ride who can name 12 Egyptian gods.

And that was about it. It was similar in many ways to our last visit to Melbourne Zoo - very hot day, incredible number of tatts on show, and a surprising number of Muslim families with the ladies in full hijab. Of course there were face-pierced bogans, but this is their thing now. It's only marginally about agriculture - its more about face-pierced bogans. They were all on their best behaviour and I have no complaints. If the Show was held in South Hobart it would be a South Hobartly po-faced blend of Circus Arts, Pilates demonstrations and organic pumpkin bread.

Perfect two-frame cartoon by Michael

Sunshine Harvester - final animation

I finished this back in March, and have been meaning to pop it up here. It is part of a touchscreen interactive kiosk, that sits next to a harvester on display at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

The true story of Ernest Shackleton

Marcus' class has been studying polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. Everyone has been urged to create, in various media, work on a Shackletonian theme. Marcus made up an Antarctica board game ("You are in danger of severe frostbite - go back 7 squares to save your extremities"). His mate Avon wrote a one-man play. However when it came time to perform it, he realised he needed a bit of help, so he drafted in Marcus to play several parts.

At one crucial point in the story, Shackleton made the wrenching decision that the ailing sled dogs had to be shot for food. The dogs were played by balloons with faces drawn on. Avon, playing Shackleton, made a moving speech, then dispatched them with a nerf gun.

I was not there, but if I had been I would have been on my feet shouting Author! Author!

Cardboard tubesmanship

Like all boys, ours love a swordfight. They have been involved in a series of skirmishes with the boys next door, with all combatants armed with sticks. I am always worried about eyes being poked and fingers being broken, but so far there have been no serious injuries.

Master and student. Student is permitted to wear flowerpot helmet.

We came into possession of a some long cardboard tubes, and now we are having indoor tube fights between Marcus and Michael. I am much more relaxed about this - a tube end to the face is no joke, but its not going to cost anyone their sight. The best thing about it is that Marcus is coaching Michael, and Michael is lapping it up.

Marcus: "OK, I'm down here, so what have you got?"
Michael: "A sword?"
Marcus: "You have height, you have the advantage of height, right?
Michael: "Ohhhh - cool".
Marcus: "So if I do this, what are you going to do?"  (etc.)

Some more of my favourite imaginary cars

Drysdale-Fisk Sasquatch 12

Timms Osprey

Hereford Herring 18/80

Tripplehorn Tempest X7X

Mumford Apocalypse

Velasquez Marionette Six

Monk Garrigle Poltergeist

BGH Singh Obstacle Plus

Saxby Semiquaver

Ingham Ostrogoth

Moto Italia Super Elk

Tropicana Tradesman

Congo Weltschmerz Funf

Glastonbury Viper

Wagstaff Gazelle VII

Dear Leader Triumphant Struggle Vanette

Croxton Parallax

Shaolin Pinky

Bagshaw Blunderbuss GLX

Squiddy

This is our stuffed prehistoric giant squid, Squiddy.

And this is Squiddy, re-imagined by Michael as a guard at Buckingham Palace. Note rifle.

Michael reinvents music

 

Michael did some interesting genealogy diagrams recently - showing how half each of Elf and I became half of he and Marcus. It was beautiful, although it might not exactly reflect the latest science.

 

In any case - Michael has now been repurposed this diagram to be a kind of music notation. Like so many creative things he thinks up, this has been co-opted into his parallel world of "Noogets" - this is how Nooget music is written down. Apparently all Nooget music "starts with a quadruple note [chord] and finishes with a unaple note".

Michael adddress Grade 2 on the subject of "seminal emissions"

Michael's class are "doing"  China this term. He has not thrown himself into China unfortunately - because it has never interested him before, he has not read a lot about it. Then because he is not an expert on it, and can't parade his knowledge before the class, he sees no value in it, to his teacher's frustration.

I have been trying to help by nudging him in the direction of Chinese things that he will be interested in, such as archaeology, calligraphy, weapons and wars and so on. I think it is starting to work - every now and then he sees something Chinese-ish, and latches on to it, saying "Ooh - can I take this to school?"

Latest example: my mum's book The Chinese System of Food Cures. I had a flick through it, and was a bit concerned about some of the anatomical details, but thought it was worth the risk to encourage some China Interest. Some of it is a little flaky - Mum has underlined with question marks this suggestion: "Fill a plastic bag with vinegar and tie the bag around the hand overnight to heal greyish nails."

So, of course the part Michael read aloud (related to me yesterday by his teacher) was about the benefits of walnuts, which "lubricate intestines and prevent seminal emissions". It could have been worse - the amount of swollen scrota and anal bleeding in this book beggars belief.

School fair dominated by apple products

Today was the school fair, and it went very well. We usually take the approach that our job is to attend and spend money, rather than run a stall. Although we usually do end up manning someone else's at some stage, and today it was Imp and Ed's apple stall. Imp is a master networker. She wheedled a donation of dozens of bags of apples, and a huge sack of choc buds. "Value-adding" is one of her favourite terms, and she turned 50¢ apples into $3.00 chocolate-coated apples. We also sold fresh apple juice, 2kg bags of 6 varieties of apple, and individual "swirly-whirly"ed apples - peeled and sliced by an ingenious peeler-slicer - like this thing.

We managed to shift almost everything. When I last saw Imp she had set up a table near the exit and was beseeching people as they left to consider taking home a bag of red delicious. Some likely lads had taken the other remaining bag and had offered to hawk it around the remaining crowd - it was possibly never seen again. But that's OK because we all know - red delicious are actually yucky.

There was a "bevy tent" selling all kinds of refreshments through the day. At one point I was mildly startled to see one of my customers, while buying her daughter a choc apple, had a stubbie of beer in the other hand. The people who run the stall are very nice, and I'm sure it raised a lot of money, but I always feel a bit uncomfortable seeing grog on sale at the school. A tradition has snuck in of "after parties" that start while the tidying up of the first event is still going on. I am bemused at seeing people sitting back with their third or fourth lager while others are carrying out their third or fourth load of furniture.

We saw a lot of people from outside the school, including Steve, Meredith and Finton. We are very proud of the school, so it's delightful to have outsiders come in and see what its all about. Sadly, Steve was targeted by a couple of urchins (I have a fair idea who) that tried the old "lost bus money" sob story on him. He said the giggling was a bit of a giveaway. My suspects live about 100m from the school.

Due to the fair, I have been on a sugar roller coaster all day. I have just been handed a cup of tea and will accompany it with some large chunks of toffee, to finish off the day.

Finton turns 1

The other day we attended another first birthday, this time for our dog-walking buddy Finton. He lives with his parents Steve and Meredith, over the valley from us. (I feel like I have blogged about these people, but I can't find it anywhere in the blog so I will continue). In our early dog-owning days, Winston fell in love with their dog Motchi. They often come by our back gate and take Winston with them for a walk with Motchi and their newly arrived but older dog Cougar. On Saturdays they usually drop in after the walk and Finton gets to bash around some of the boys' old toys.

The party was down in the Cascade Gardens near our house. We were honoured to be asked to be the wet-weather fallback venue. Fortunately that wasn't necessary as it was great day. We did contribute some furniture - we dragged a bunch of folding chairs and a plastic table down to the gardens.There is a spot in the gardens near the barbecues, where silver birches grow on a grassy slope, making a bit of a grove. You just want to run through the trees and swing around them. This is where we had our boys' first few birthdays, and this is where Finton's party was set up. The little fella did very well - its not easy being the center of attention for hours, when you are one.

We did not know anyone there except the birthday boy and his parents, but everyone was very pleasant and we chit-chatted for some hours, while the boys climbed excessively high trees. I sat down with Steve's 70-ish dad who I understand is a bit of an inventor. I got away half an hour later having gathered that he is a climate-change denier, who holds the only good science being done is by the Russians. They have announced that not only is there no human role in the greenhouse effect, in fact the world has stopped warming and is now cooling, so we need to pump as much carbon into the air as we can. I took this on board in as open-minded a way as I could.

One of Steve's work colleagues was there with his family, including his daughter who is in Nobody's Grade 8 class. She was put out because it was too sunny to use her iPad. She had a lot of opinions, and was what I would term 'snippy'. I mentioned to Nobody that I had met her, and he said snippy did not begin to cover it.

After birthday cake we departed, dragging our table and chairs behind us. We found the boys impossibly high in a massive pine tree, with two Chinese men pointing at them and grimacing in amazement.

AFL Grand Final Day entertainment

For now I won't do my usual review of the game. Although it was a corker, the talking point today at work was Meat Loaf's staggeringly poor pre-match "entertainment". I was listening on radio and simply had to turn it off until he was removed from the arena. I have since seen the footage and wish I could erase it from my mind, along with his tuneless gruntings. Never before has someone been paid so much ($500,000+) to look and sound like a beached dugong. However if you would like to see how much a t-shirt cannon can look like a penis, feel free to watch it on YouTube.

The AFL has a solid history of poorly judged, under-performing and simply bizarre pre-match entertainment. It is actually cherished by the football-loving public - we all love to reminisce about Angry Anderson coming on in the Batmobile, the giant inflatable footballer that wouldn't stand up, and so on. But this was just loathsome. He chewed gum right through the performance.

How many of this list do you remember?

For instance in 2005 "The Whitlams performed No Aphrodisiac." Whaaat? It must have taken an hour or so for the vibe to recover from that little dirge-like number.

In 2006 "Brian Mannix, John Paul Young, Sean Kelly, Daryl Braithwaite and Shane Howard performing a medley including Up There Cazaly, One Day in September, Solid Rock, Yesterday's Hero, The Horses, Everybody Wants to Work and I Hear Motion." So - pretty much the moment the mash-up was invented.

Not as terrible but equally lacking in judgement was the national anthem, sung by Vanessa Amorosi. The saying "she made the song her own" is meant to be a compliment - but its not something you are supposed to do with Advance Australia Fair. She was OK until the near the end when she Mariah Caried it to death. This national anthem is now unfit for any further use and will need to be replaced by a new one.

Cliches

We were talking in the car about common sayings that aren't literally true. I can't remember where the conversation started, but I mentioned "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger". I have always had a bit of a problem with that one. Michael suggested a rewrite, that is 100% correct in all situations.

"What kills you doesn't make you stronger".

Reading

For some reason my camera decided it was an iPhone when I took this, and gave it a kind of faux-nostalgic colour treatment. I took this to capture a very unusual sight - Michael (on the right) reading fiction. His usual reading position is squatting, with a big hardback nonfiction book on the floor in front of him. Full of facts. Today he somehow started reading The Incredible Journey and its really grabbed him, although it contains almost no volcanoes.

Thanks to the big occasion yesterday the house is looking quite tidy and stylish. In fact I might forward this to Unhappy Hipsters and see what they make of it.

Mum turns 70

Our adorable mother turned 70 on Friday. She doesn't seem anything like my imagined picture of a seventy-year-old, so I am now updating my imagined picture to match. Try to keep up, you other 70 year olds! [to be fair this pic was taken in 2007]

I have to thank Mum's brother Peter for alerting me to the fact that this birthday was a biggie. In fact when he called my first reaction was "Er... do you mean sixty?" Peter was stuck in Hong Kong on a business trip and couldn't be at the party we had yesterday, but we are looking forward to seeing him down here very soon. The last time he was in Tasmania, a black and white photo was taken of him holding me - I'm wearing a very fetching size 0 romper suit.

It's amazing to think that Mum was born during World War 2, while her dad was away in New Guinea fighting the Japanese. The world has changed so much in that time.

Here in Tasmania in 2011, we had a big lunch in Mum's honour yesterday. There was much too much food, but that is standard. We started with a walk - out the back gate and then up, up, up to the very top of the hill. Before Mum and Dad moved down south, Mum went on quite demanding walks every Monday with a group of ladies. Yesterday's was just a trundle compared to that, but still too much for the boys, who turned back threequarters of the way up, taking Elf and Winston with them.

Shortly after we got back, Sally and Matt and Arthur arrived and the serious eating began. I bought some massive king prawns and made a curry coconut dip to go with. Dad and I were struggling with the whole de-veining thing, and I had to get Mum to come to the rescue. She grew up in Sydney where a bucket of prawns was about as common as fish fingers today. I also made a blue cheese dip which was just right - not too bland, but also not belting you around the head with bitey-ness.

Then we had lemon and dill salmon with roasted vegies. I bought the fish already marinated, and cooked up the violently green marinade to serve as a sort of olive-green gravy. The boys did not like the salmon, which is a shame because they love it when it's not gussied up this way. The fillets were all different sizes and I didn't quite match up the rare and well-done ones with the right people - but complaints were muted and it was generally well-received.

One of Dad's duties was to bring some of Mum's favourite music. We started with Andrea Boccelli, an Italian tenor who unfortunately hangs out with some bad 80s-style session rock guitarists. I put up with this as I ran around because I know he is dear to Mum's heart. When it finished, Dad put on the greatest hits of Roger Miller. During Chug-A-Lug I asked Mum - do you actually like Roger Miller? Mum was non-committal.

Sally made an amazing baked lemon cheesecake, and Mum blew out the candles in one go. I forgot to mention that I'd decided to make mocktails - as none of us are big drinkers and it would a) include the kids and b)make us less likely to doze off mid-afternoon. It was while I was mixing the second round of pineapple/apricot/cream frothies that I reflected it had been a bad day for my cholesterol-lowering campaign.

As is the way of these things, eventually the footy on the TV went on, people fell asleep (despite mocktails), and events noodled to a conclusion. I was dog-tired, went for a short lie down at the boys' bedtime, and crashed hard. Organising things is outside my comfort zone, and I think I had probably been over-revving my brain a little bit for the occasion.

Chinese-ish alphabet by Michael

I can't ask Michael any details about this, as I found it in a folder labelled "My Top Secret Folder". It's nice though.

Talking to Americans about capital punishment

We used to execute people here in Australia too - but we don't anymore. Like slavery, race and sex discrimination, execution is an abhorrent leftover of a earlier time. I am an opponent of the death penalty in all forms, for all crimes. Not everyone shares this view.

Today's execution in Georgia of Troy Davis might be the wake-up call to some Americans to seek the repeal of the death penalty. I do not know if Davis was innocent or guilty, but having a read a bit about the case, can anyone say there was no doubt? The political nature of the appeal process is simply disgusting, and an embarrassment to a country that seeks to lead the world in its dedication to fairness, justice and equality.

In today's news, new DNA evidence casts doubt on the guilt of the last man executed when George W. Bush was governor of Texas. If none of the humanitarian arguments for repeal make a difference to you, at least consider this: governments make mistakes. Please remove from their control the capacity to mistakenly kill someone. Join the NOT IN MY NAME campaign to repeal the death penalty across America.

But what about someone who is 100% guilty of the most depraved murder? Such as Lawrence Russell Brewer, executed yesterday in Texas for the murder of James Byrd Jr, dragged behind a truck to his death just because he was black? The victim's son said "You can't fight murder with murder … Life in prison would have been fine. I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want." If he can forgive his father's murderer, what gives you or Governor Rick Perry or anyone else the right to take the man's life?

Countries that still practice capital punishment: Belarus · China · Cuba · Egypt · India · Iran · Israel · Japan · Malaysia · Mongolia · North Korea · Pakistan · Saudi Arabia · Singapore · South Korea · Taiwan  · Tonga · United States · Vietnam

Remove your country from this list. Join the NOT IN MY NAME campaign to repeal the death penalty across America.

Goatrider

We were all invited down to the country on Sunday, to the visit one of Michael's classmates. They were keen for us to take Winston too, as they are considering dog ownership.

They live at Mountain River - which sounds like a John Denver song but is a nice little valley near Huonville, south of Hobart. Fleur and Elf took Winston for a walk and introduced him to some cows who were fascinated by his lopey dopeyness.

Meanwhile Peter and I took the 4 kids down to the eponymous river, where they all got more or less saturated, rock-hopping. They've got a great swimming hole there, and lovely chestnut horses to look at.

We headed back to the house via the bottom paddock, home to 8 anglo-nubian goats - they of the long floppy ears. One, named Gilbert, is the pet-iest of them, and in fact lets the kids ride him. Marcus had a go, and rode him very comfortably for a couple of minutes. He has a very assured seat, considering he has had no riding training, and he was on a goat.

I didn't take my camera, but I did take that 21st century wonder the camera phone. I have a movie of the ride, but I have to edit out the hosts' kids before I show the world.

Before the other kids got their turn riding Gilbert, Fleur and Elf returned with Winston. It was decided to let him off the lead to wander free and befriend the goats. The goats did not like this idea, assumed a defensive formation and fled - no more goat rides. No harm done though - he came back when called. I am 98% sure he thought they were long-legged dogs.

I cook

I got it into my head to make an Asian stir-fry thing for dinner last night. This is not an area of my expertise, but I have been eating a lot of noodley lunches and I felt like inflicting something similar on the family.

I have only spent one day in south east Asia, and that was just a very long wait at Kuala Lumpur airport en route to India. But a meal I had there has stuck in my mind ever since - simple mound of rice with a few shreds of something green, served with chili sauce, fish sauce, a sprinkle of raw peanuts and a sprinkle of tiny dried fish - probably anchovies. It was magnificent airport food - which is not supposed to exist.

I went shopping in the Asian Section and got the tiny fish (tasty but heartbreaking), lime juice, coconut milk, and some palm sugar. I have seen this mentioned and had a clear idea of how it would taste - I was wrong. The stuff I tried had no real flavour and I will just use brown sugar in future.

Hmm. I started this several days ago and I'm not sure what I was going to go on to say. Probably that I cooked a kind of stir fry but with the wrong kind of noodles, too wet - then compounded the error by throwing in a small tin of coconut milk at the end. Recipe? Er - more of a vibe. It turned into a kind of part laksa, part hot 'n' spicy wallpaper paste.

If it was gymnastics, I would say it was a lovely routine spoiled by a fall near the end  - but I got back on that balance beam, soldiered on, and nailed the dismount perfectly (crunchy dried fish and cashews scattered over it were ace).

Crying windows

We were out on the hunt for a wood stove again on the weekend. The boys were bored out of their brains so I gave them my phone and told them to take some photos to pass the time. [A sentence that would make no sense to a person in 1990]. This is probably the best pic.

In other phone news; my predictive text dictionary is a bit eclectic. When I start typing PARSLEY its first guess is PAPPLEWICK. On the other hand when I start typing OCTOP it has no idea at all where I'm heading.

Nineteen seconds in the Southern Ocean

This is out by The Friars, off the south coast of Bruny Island. There are fur seals on the rocks but they are hard to see.

3 days on the island - 3.5

Saturday morning was a shocker. My wife managed to have us all up and dressed by 7.30. The rain sheeted down. It was too early to visit anyone. Um.

There was a slight break in the weather and we drove down to the concrete pontoon that seemed to be the best spot for catching something (colds). By the time we were out of the car - precipitation. Blustery wind. I had a sense that five minutes of "fishing" in this might at least put the subject to bed for a few months.

Marcus is actually pretty deft with the fishing rod, so I put it together and left him to it while I got Michael going with a handline. Waves washed over the pontoon behind us. It was eerily similar to the wet 'n' wild ride of the day before.

"Dad - what do you do when this happens?" Marcus's rod had a decorative but unhelpful snarl of line, great frothy loops of it everywhere. After about three-and-a-half minutes fishing was over. Again - back in the car, back home, drying by the fire.

We cleaned the shack, and at a more sociable hour drove over to visit Lorraine. She has a lovely spot with quite a bit of land - a big vege plot, chooks etc. Elf's boss Jude and her daughter were there - they had come over the day before to go to a play in Adventure Bay. We had thought of going too, but thankfully we were too knackered.

Jude's review was; it was very long, very deep, worked on lots of levels - not very good though. But the raspberry slice at intermission was just like her mum used to make! I looked at the program, and there was a character in it named Nurse Nicebottom.

And that was it. We drove back to Roberts Point to catch the ferry home. We just had time to buy some chocolate at the tiny shop there, and use the toilets out the back. The toilets are fantastic! There are potplants, and the line of urinals is decorated with a print of an old painting of the founding of Hobart, which hangs at eye level. There are various bits of ephemera tacked to the walls, including a couple of pages from a manual on ejaculation control.

Fifteen minutes on the ferry and twenty-five on the road later, we were home. Winston was pleased to see us, but after spending three days with three other dogs, he was just so tired from playing all day. Two days later he is practically back to normal.

3 days on the island - 3

The lads rugged up for cruising. Nicest pic I have taken of them in years!

The main action on Friday was our 3-hour "cruise" with Bruny Island Cruises. I put that in quotes because it was far from your relaxing Sunday lunch cruise on a big boat with a seafood buffet, lovely view out the windows and a stroll on the deck if you feel like it.

We went out on a 12.5m Naiad, a sort of semi-inflatable thing. The guides said "it will be roughest up front, a fair amount of bouncing over waves, so if you have any back or neck issues please move further back". The boys yelled "Up front! Up front!" We sat up front. We were all issued with raincoats that came down to our ankles. The smallest ones were vast on the boys.

Pics above and below from Bruny Island Cruises

It was really wonderful! The staff were very relaxed and considerate, and seemed to be enjoying themselves. The whole thing seems very professional, which is a great comfort when you are being thumped about by the Southern Ocean.

Once out of Adventure Bay the water got rougher, the boat sped up and we got our first spine-bashing. The boys were squealing with delight, although they were at the very front with nothing ahead of them to hang onto. The front few rows all have seatbelts, but I found I needed to do a lot of hanging on with my hands, forcing myself back down into my seat. It's when your bum leaves the seat as you go over the top of a wave, that you know you are going to be in big trouble at the bottom of the trough.

Seals never come out in these pictures, but there are about 40 of them. Also not visible: stink of dead squid.

Mighty sea cliffs on the south coast of Bruny. The water is intensely green thanks to phytoplankton. Scale hint: the tiny plants on top are in fact large trees.

I was relating all this to workmates today and I think the fairest description is that I enjoyed 90% of the boat trip, the boys about 75% and Elf about 50%. We would all happily do it again but preferably on a calmer day. There is one stretch where you go around a point and leave the Tasman Sea, entering the Southern Ocean. Here you get whacked by a swell that has come almost uninterrupted from Africa - and that was really nasty. Once we got to The Friars (the rocks pictured above strewn with fur seals) things calmed down a bit - nature's way of helping tourists take thousands of seal photos.

The ride home was rough as the crew were trying to find some whales, dolphins or at least an albatross for us to gawp at. This entailed some zigzagging, more spine-bashing and a great deal of spray in the face. By now all our feet were wet and Elf's pants were pretty much saturated, and Michael was huddled down inside an oversized coat, seething (as only he can) about the cold. The crew handed out Shapes and Tim Tams, and one stood between Michael and the worst of the weather.

Soon enough we were in sight of the dock, then onto dry land and cheering up. We had pre-ordered lunch like most of the passengers. Everyone was feeling similarly breathless, battered and wet I think. The rolls were nice and fresh but assembled in that inside-out way that assumes you want to see everything that's in it, and then poke it all in to place yourself. I call this the Pre-Zeps Campbell Town method of serving a salad roll - it has not died out.

Then we drove home, and I think the rest of the day was spent drying by the fire. My feet were solid purple and I treated myself to an old-fashioned footbath to warm up. The weather stayed bad, and we started to think that one more night might do us. However it was resolved that rain or hail notwithstanding, in the morning we would visit Lorraine, and go fishing, before we pulled the plug.

The AFL finals started that night, and I sat up to 11.00 listening to the radio by the fire, as Geelong 14.14 (98) d. Hawthorn 9.13 (67)

Soccer: great sport, disgusting administration

An advance rant I just posted elsewhere about tonight's 4 Corners program which reveals corruption in Australia's World Cup bid process.

If you are using the disgusting corruption at this level to denigrate the worth of soccer as a sport, you are a bonehead. If you have ever blathered about The World Game being so superior and the World Cup the finest event blah blah etc - you are also a bonehead.

I love soccer, loathe FIFA, and deeply regret that Australia got its hands dirty by participating in the bid for an event that is a byword for graft. The wasted money is just an extra kick in the teeth.

FIFA insisted that South Africa allow it to set up its own court system. How any democratic country could be interested in bidding for this is beyond me - except for the fact that particular vested interests can see it will bring them rivers of cash.

3 Days on the Island - 2

Thursday. More rain. We decided to get on the road for the first half of the day and pick out some good wave-ski spots for when the sun appeared. We got down to Cape Bruny lighthouse, a handsome building designed by John Lee Archer (who also did Hobart's Parliament House among many others). In the 1830s it was lit by whale oil, and burned a pint of it per hour. It was manned for 158 years.

Around the lighthouse area are a few of those "no entry" signs showing the silhouette of a man with severe stomach cramps. Either that or he is making a beeline to give someone a good telling-off.

From there we took a side-road to have a look at Jetty Beach. So named because in the 1830s all the materials for building the lighthouse were landed there at a jetty and hauled overland about 10km to the cape. Apart from a small smelly dead shark, it was quite a beautiful spot.

There is a dirt (mud) road over Mt Mangana to Adventure Bay, so we took that in the hope of having a good view on the way over the top. The alternative is a much longer drive back through Alonnah. Unfortunately the road is pretty bad, it was raining harder and we never quite found the lookout. The road runs through dense tall trees and you really see nothing until you get back down to the coast.

Adventure Bay is really something though. On a better day it would have looked like this:

(Image stolen from Tasmania i-Drive)

Although it does not have a pub, it does have a general store, café, bowls club, caravan park, the Bligh Museum and Bruny Island Cruises. Until we drove past their sign we had forgotten all about those guys, which is surprising because they are a very high profile phenomenon. Elf ran in and booked us on a cruise for the next morning - it was pricey but very highly recommended to us by everyone who has done it.

We went into the Bligh Museum, which is an oddly masonic-looking stone building near Captain Cook Creek. It turns out this whole area of coastline hardly had five minutes peace between visits from Tasman, Cook, Bligh, Flinders, Furneaux and Bruni D'Entrecasteaux (who got the place named after him).

The museum is one of those classic enthusiast-run places with amazing journals and artifacts just sitting about, intermingled with bad photocopies of other documents and photos. Most of the explorers had some sort of South Pacific connection, which explains the startling rack of war clubs from Fiji, Tonga, the Solomons, Hawaii and New Zealand.

Something I thought was very interesting was a hand-coloured version of this map by Sir John Hayes.

I have never seen the old name for Tasmania, "Van Diemen's Land" applied to only part of the island. It is quite clear on the coloured version that Hayes considered this name as a Dutch claim to the part of the coast west of South East Cape. The other side of this point he considered to be his to name and claim, and he called the part south of the Derwent ‘New Cumberland’ and the rest ‘New Yorkshire’. He also called Mt Wellington ‘Skiddaw’. None of these names stuck.

So - forgive me if that seems really dull, it struck me as interesting. From the museum we ducked into the funny little general store for some general stores for lunch, then went into the Penguin Café next door for a pick-me-up. It is also a funny little place, crammed with crafts. The chunky knitted fish was a highlight. After coffee we drove back to Alonnah the saner but longer way.

After lunch, with the rain in recess, we got it in our heads to walk to the little Alonnah shop. It took about 20 minutes each way, along a narrow sometimes-dirt road, with occasional cars sending us lurching into the long grass. We got a few things and some lollies to keep up morale and struggled back again. At one point I could see along the beach to our neighbouring shack's boathouse, and I got everyone to follow me to try this great shortcut. Halfway there we realised we couldn't ford the creek without getting wet to the shins, so we retreated to the road.

Our shack had a great little woodfire, and we spent quite a bit of the holiday sitting around it, drying. That night we went to the pub (by car) for a counter meal. Today Tonight (junk current affairs for nongs) was on the TV. Exciting news, new university research has found an appetite suppressant that is helping people lose a kilo per week! It turned out to be a product already in the shops, made by Swisse, an incessant advertiser on this very channel. Sigh. Elf noticed a couple of days later that it was sold out in the biggest pharmacy here.

3 Days on the Island - 1

We came back today from a short, wet holiday on Bruny Island. We were supposed to stay an extra day but since home was just an hour's drive plus a ferry ride away, we gave in to frustration and came home. Plus we missed the dog. Elf teed up our accommodation through a workmate, Lorraine, who lives over there. A friend of hers has a small place at Alonnah, on South Bruny.

Wednesday. Elf and the boys picked me up at work in the afternoon. Winston had been dropped off with his buddy Mochi for a dog holiday. The wave ski was strapped to the car (where it would stay until we got home). We drove down to Kettering to the car ferry, about 40 minutes. (It's ridiculous how close to home Bruny is, and I have only been there twice in my life). The ferry has had a little trouble lately with the small engine that manoeuvers it into the jetty - so it is currently followed back and forth by its li'l buddy the tugboat, who does the nudging.

The ferry takes only about 15 minutes. We drove off it, onto the north end of the island and headed down the only significant road, to Alonnah. We stopped at the lookout on the isthmus that joins North Bruny to South Bruny, but the weather turned us back when we were halfway up the steep steps. Oh well, the joy of being on an isthmus outweighs the sadness of not seeing the view. All our isthmuses had come at once - chortle.

The view we didn't see. D'Entrecasteaux Channel on the right, Tasman Sea on the left.

Alonnah is a very small town but it has a school, PO, pub, online access centre and tiny shop. It is proud of being the "administrative centre" of the island. Our place was about 3 minutes drive from the action - a small concrete block 4-room shack, with a ferny swampy creek running behind it down to the beach. As soon as we arrived the boys dived into the ferny swamp and we didn't really see them until we called them out of the darkness for dinner. Evening: drawing and dominos by the fire.

A solo on my sports trumpet

I had a triumphant weekend in three extremely trivial sporting areas, and I feel like telling the world.

1. On Friday night my soccer team won 8-2. I netted a lazy five in the first half. We are on top of the ladder, and are generally considered by the rest of the comp to be fat irritating old bastards.
2. With the last roster round of the footy, I sealed victory in my work football tipping comp. I have had a couple of lengths' lead on everyone for several months, so it's been a bit of a slow burn, but I finished on 145. I came 11,051st nationally, which doesn't sound so good but I was in the top 2%. For all those dying to know, I am planning to spend the winnings on a light woollen jumper.
3. Also in the realm of football, I have been competing in 3 Supercoach leagues this year. It's a fantasy competition, with 16 teams to a league, where you pick a squad from all the real AFL players and your team scores according to their minutely statisticised performances each weekend. Of the three leagues I was very focussed on the Friends one, fairly focussed on the Workmates one, and didn't really give two hoots about the other which I joined as a favour to try to fill it up. I thought of them as like the seniors, reserves and Under 19s. I made the last 4 of each league, but lost the reserves Preliminary Final last week, to leave me in two Grand Finals over this past weekend. I lost the Under 19s grannie, but triumphed in the big one. Having finished 7th on the ladder I had to do it the hard way, winning 4 knock-out finals to lift the (imaginary) trophy. It was very satisfying, as I have put a lot of work into managing my team along the way.

⌘C ⌘V from twitter - apologies

Coles suggest "for a vegetarian twist on lasagne try thinly sliced chargrilled zucchini to replace the pasta". The pasta?

Overheard from Saturday morning cartoons: "I give you my word, as a Smurf".

Just received my first ever email from my son. Just sent my first ever email signed "xx Dad".

Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker

When I was a kid I had an idea that I would end up working in a room like this. From a beautiful set of photos here that I found via the Nerdy Day Trips collaborative Google map.

Lunchtime walk through Battery Point

View Larger Map

I had to wait 25 minutes for some files to compress and that was just enough time to walk from work to here and back. It's spring!