Michael plays games

Lana stayed for a sleep-over last night. In fact I watched the soccer from 5.15am this morning (see below) with Marcus and Lana beside me, sworn to silence. They made so much noise getting up that we were joined by Winston. Winston subbed in for Hattie, who had been on my lap but now left the field. I think she will be on board for the full ninety minutes against Ghana, though.

Last night after dinner Lana and Elf played the boys and I at Pictionary. It went fairly well. Michael is not usually very interested in organised board games, preferring to invent his own (such as Mrs Cat's Miaow Money). His drawings were very beautiful - this one for MIND was my favourite.

Between dinner and getting going with Pictionary, Michael asked me for a game of chess, for the first time ever. We only got about 3 moves each in before the scheduled Pictionary kicked off, but he was keen enough to insist that we continue it in the morning.

This morning we did resume, and he stuck at it right up to the point that he had just a king left, to my 4 or 5 pieces. Then he waltzed off in a huff. But - he had remembered the set-up, and all the moves. He listened to my advice and remembered it. He was patient. Best of all, as Elf was still asleep and I was trying to corral three kids and the dog in one corner, it kept him quiet for about an hour.

Once the huff had run its course, he was back at the board, setting it up again and then inventing some chess variations. He has now got out the chinese checkers (which he has never played, as far as I know) and is working on a version of chess using those pieces - eg purple is the king, red is the queen etc.

Germany 4 d Australia 0, World Cup Group D game, Durban

Australia's realistic best hope against one of the Cup favourites was a draw. The Germans are a certainty to top the group of four countries, so to finish 2nd Australia needed to perform better against Germany than either Serbia or Ghana manage to. Serbia play Germany on June 18, then Ghana play them on June 24. Perhaps Ghana might go to pieces and concede 4 or more? It's a slim hope.

Anyway - to this morning's game. Australia started with an odd lineup, nothing like the formation they had brought through the warm-up games. Tim Cahill was up front with the inexperienced Richard Garcia beside him. Cahill is a goal-scoring midfielder usually, rather than a striker. Most of the talk post-match concerned why Pim Verbeek set them up this way.

We started brightly, with a sustained period in attack, and Garcia could have scored after 4 minutes with an ounce of luck, from a quick cross that pinballed around in the box. The Germans defused it, and started to impose themselves. After about 25 minutes an attack down the right resulted in a delightful cross cut back to Lukas Podolski, unmarked on the left. His first-time shot was all class, and too powerful for Mark Schwarzer to keep out with one paw.

Pretty soon after a high looping pass looked like it was going to be cleared by Schwarzer, but Miroslav Klose got his head there a moment earlier, and scored the second.

Verbeek swapped Vinnie Grella for Brett Holman at half-time, an attacking change. Holman had a couple of good opportunities and did some smart things for no result. He might be a starter in the next match.

Tim Cahill made a poor tackle, and tried to pull out of it, but was given a straight red card. He may have been a bit unlucky but sometimes clumsiness gets punished in football - eg Lucas Neill flopping in front of Fabio Grosso 4 years ago and conceding a penalty. So we will play Ghana without our only real scoring option, as Cahill now has a one match ban.

Once we were down to ten men, the Germans found space more easily and added two more beautifully taken goals. The four goals were all lovely clean strikes by different players. They will know that that was probably their easiest game of the tournament, but still their confidence must now be at an all-time high.

Tiger Airways is a disgrace

I just don't understand super cheap airlines. How exactly do they make any money? Is it from people booking a super cheap flight then getting stung for every single thing possible? How on earth do they get any repeat business? Presumably the Civil Aviation Authority and OH & S regulators set a minimum on how crappy their planes and terminals can be. They must be at least not dangerous or unhealthy for their staff, if not their passengers.

So how is it a viable business? I ask this as Elf flew back from Melbourne yesterday with Tiger Airways, after having flown over with Virgin Blue (it was booked for her by her work). The Virgin flight was unremarkable - the Tiger experience was irredeemably dreadful.

Her 3.45 flight finally took off at 5.15 - one of nine flights delayed (one other was cancelled). So the terminal was chock full of unhappy people. The bins were overflowing, the toilets were closed for maintenance. The cafe was outdoors, and occupied solidly by smokers also talking loudly on mobiles. Flights that were delayed came up on the board as "closed", adding to the mild hysteria. NOTE: there was no fog, snow or hail. Just no planes. Also the Tiger terminal is a stand-alone Third World shed at Tullamarine, 10 minutes walk from the relative comfort, security, fun and chuckles of the First World main terminal.

Elf said the general vibe was that none of the Tiger staff knew what was happening. Hobart passengers were called to the front at one stage, then told "As you know your flight is now leaving at 5.00..." No, they didn't know, and why were they now at the front of a queue where they were actually not allowed to check in yet?

At home I was trying to find out when to expect Elf to arrive. She doesn't have a mobile. Tiger are not in the phone book here although they fly into Hobart. (There is also not one single Tiger sign at Hobart Airport). When you call the Melbourne number a male voice says (more or less) "Dude, what do the think the website is for? Get off the phone..... [time passes] ... OK, so you're still here. Sigh. Press 1 for bookings, press 2..." And none of the options encompasses arrivals/departures. Their website has a section that looks like it will help, but rather than give information about individual flights it claims that "81% of our flights are on time" and goes on to gloat about how excellent that is.

Meanwhile Elf was now in the air. She decided to embrace the spirit of the new age of flight, and buy some M&Ms from the hostie. $3, credit card only. "Sorry, we don't handle any cash". At least the plane didn't crash into the sea. As they approached Hobart the captain said on the PA "We'll be in Hobart just a few minutes after the scheduled time". Met with rueful laughter from the passengers, I imagine.

It strikes me that every Tiger flight is a bit like a minor hostage crisis. Anxious families wait for news. The group sit around on their possessions, in the clothes they were wearing when they were captured. Unlikely alliances are struck. Their captors use confusion as a tactic to divide and rule. Basic human requirements are denied. Once the hostages are strapped in they are faced with unreasonable demands (if you are thirsty you had better have a credit card) - which only the strongest can resist. The captors attempt brainwashing ("just a few minutes after the scheduled time"). The captors attempt to control the flow of information. Once their demands are granted, the captives are dumped in the dark at an anonymous location (no Tiger signs, no Tiger desk, no Tiger staff). Thank God everyone is reunited with their families, but what if this shadowy "airline" were to strike again?

Indoor soccer update: we are on fire

This roster Knackered are unbeaten, after 8 games. We have two more to go then the semi-finals. Our last two matches have been very different.

Last week against the typical team of tireless sprinting youngsters we scored first, then promptly conceded six goals in a rush. Down 1-6, we started working our way back in to it, and were down 4-6 at half time, with the game swinging our way.

After half time goals came very slowly, but with about 90 seconds to go we had done what I thought was impossible, and climbed back to 6-6. With about a minute left I found the back of the net, and from the restart we took possession and did a good job running down the clock. Final score: 7-6 win.

On Friday night we faced a more skillful team of equally fit Gen Y lads. I think they beat us when we played them in a previous roster. After about 5 minutes we were 0-3 down and things were looking grim. Once we finally notched a goal our passing started to improve, and more goals followed. I think we were level 3-3 at half time.

After the break Paul added three more and Cam scored a rare goal to take our lead to 7-3. I had thought we were safe at 6-3, so now I really felt it was in the bag.

The youngsters put their heads together and started funneling the ball to their best player regularly. He was too slippery for any of us to mark well, and a few communication failures in our defence helped them too. As they brought it back to 7-4 then 7-5 I was watching the clock nervously. We had about a minute left to play. In that minute they took the ball off us and scored again, but it took long enough for us to restart that they no had no real chance of an equalising shot. Final score: 7-6 win, again.

Mammal News

Mammal Five and Mammal Six have been spending more time in the same room lately. We have re-erected the toddler gate at the top of the stairs, but it's always open. When Hattie comes up looking for her food, we slip around behind her and close the gate, to enforce a period of co-habitation. Winston usually keeps to his bed - we have stopped putting the lead on him, and can now just control him verbally. Hattie is giving him a good old hiss if he gets too close, and he responds in exactly the right way - turns and heads in the opposite direction immediately. Hattie has spent up to ten minutes looking reasonably relaxed, sitting by the heater and watching Winston. She always ends up over at the toddler gate, trying to squeeze through, so then we let her out.

Today we will stop shutting the gate, so that she doesn't start to think of the living room as a kind of cat trap. We'll see if she still is prepared to hang around and play Happy Families with Winston then.

Jonestown by Chris Masters

This came out in 2006, and I have finally read it. It is an unauthorised biography of Alan Jones; radio broadcaster, former national rugby union coach, and one of the most powerful men in Australia.

I am miles away from the typical Jones audience profile. His people are generally retirees in Sydney (his prime market) or regional Australia (where his show is syndicated). His ratings are enormous, and over the years he has convinced federal and NSW politicians that his opinions need to be listened to, as he is so in tune with public opinion. This book traces his rise, and looks at how this man with many gifts but enormous flaws came to wield so much power.

I found it a gripping story. He is a simply loathsome man, hypocritical, foul-mouthed and abusive, manipulative and greedy. He has helped many, many people over the years, but Masters demonstrates that this pattern of behaviour always has Alan as the main beneficiary in the end.

His career is built on accepting money to state as "opinion" material faxed to him by his paying customers. What I have never understood is how anyone can fail to see that this is the process at work. Why would anyone buy something on his recommendation? Why would any politician allow him to influence policy? When listeners hear him praise a policy, person or product don't they remember that last month he was tearing them to shreds? Apparently not.

Anyway - it's a great read if you enjoy a forensic dissection of someone who deserves it. Reading the details of the Australian Broadcasting Authorities "Cash for Comment" enquiries was marvellous. Jones insisted to the enquiry that material only made it on his show if it was interesting news. The enquiry heard tapes of some of his "unbiased editorial comment" such as;

"I've had so many calls about mobile phones. Well Optus have got a new Freestyle pack … so that's Optus Freestyle. Sounds interesting. Go into any Optus mobile outlet or ring 13 39 99 to find your nearest Optus World…" 

Counsel for the ABA, Julian Burnside QC, asked if that was really news. "Well, it is interesting isn't it Mr Burnside?" When a contract was produced showing that he was required to promote Optus on air and denigrate their competition, Telstra, Jones claimed it was a coincidence that he done just that, as in fact he had never read the contract. The warmth for Optus was purely his personal opinion. He was asked if he would ever sign a contract with Telstra. "Never".

Three years later on 17 July 2002 his radio station accepted $1.2 million to have him speak positively about Telstra. The ABA found that

"prior to the commercial agreement Alan Jones made a number of on air statements critical of Telstra, especially with respect to its fees and charges … [on] 17 April, 18 April, 22 April (twice), 23 April (twice) 26 April and 11 July 2002. From 17 July onwards, however, the material provided to the ABA records Jones making predominantly positive commentary, supporting Telstra's service standards, public image and credibility".

Heh. Great stuff. But you know what? He was cleared of breaching the ABA code. The Chairman of the ABA was a big Alan fan. So, for all the fun of reading about him being caught out lying, deceiving and manipulating, the really sad thing at the end of the day is he's still doing it, and no-one has ever really laid a glove on him.

Unprecedented since Terminator 2

A couple of weeks ago at work, I was feeling pretty fed up. I had the flu, I was stuck on a boring repetitive task, and I started thinking about all the bills we had piling up. For the last six months or so I've been pretty bored at work. I used to not fuss too much about my salary, as I found my work largely its own reward. But now I was moved to do a little research on comparative salaries. As I suspected, my salary bumps along near the bottom of the band of pay for similar jobs. Everyone knows pay in Tasmania is always lower than the national average, but maybe it would be nice to be at the bottom of the middle rather than in the middle of the bottom.

We live a reasonably spartan life. Of course we are much better off than many, many people. We can afford to eat, and feed a cat and dog. We get takeaways perhaps once a week these days. We have a reliable car, a lovely house, we don't miss our mortgage payments. But we don't buy books or CDs or magazines, we buy clothes for the kids but not ourselves, we scoff at iPads and bluRay bluetooth-enabled telephone wireless dishwashers.

So anyway, before I had a chance to have second thoughts, I emailed my boss and said hey - can we talk about a payrise? I have worked for the same dynamic film producer/director couple since 1991, with a couple of breaks when their business (and me with it) have been bought out and they have gone off to start something new. I haven't ever asked them for a pay rise. That's Nineteen Ninety One, people! Nirvana! Bob Hawke! Terminator 2! Mobile phones the size of a car battery!

So asking for a pay rise was a big deal. I had a meeting with my 3 bosses today - I didn't get a raise, but we had a good long chat about the prognosis for one down the track. Roar Film is very dependent on our export product going to the UK, and things have tightened up there lately. Ours is not a workplace where the staff are constantly told 'business is bad - work harder and don't complain!" - we cruise along blissfully ignorant of the big picture mostly. I appreciated them taking me seriously enough to all make time to go through the big picture with me, and I elicited a bit of appreciation for the work I have been doing. We stopped short of a group hug, but I think we all left happy.

In the last 6 months I have keyed out the green screen background on hours of interview footage, sometimes the same footage over and over when it's edited into different packages. And it's been driving me loopy. The good news is that a couple of more interesting jobs have plopped out of the chute this week, and I am enjoying a break from the dreaded green screen. My current gig is all about the Sunshine Harvester - the fact that I'm finding it deeply interesting reflects pretty poorly on what I've been doing lately.

Wild Card

In tennis tournaments you often hear that someone has been given a 'wild card' entry. Sometimes its an ageing ex-champ, sometimes its an up-and coming star of the future. But they are always a tennis player of some kind. That doesn't seem terribly wild to me.

I see a future where every tournament has half a dozen 'really wild cards', and you don't know who it's going to be until they walk out on court. Of course it would be unusual for any of them to get past round 1, but imagine the excitement all the same. It's Wimbledon, early summer, strawberries etc, Roger Federer is warming up with a coach, impatiently doing a few stretches and a few practice serves, when the spotlight falls on the mouth of the tunnel, and out walks ... Martha Stewart. Or ... Prince Edward. Or ... Lindsay Lohan, complete with detention bracelet on her ankle. Or Elton John, or Alice Cooper, or Oprah Winfrey. Donald Trump. Venezuelan strong-man Hugo Chavez. Supermodel Giselle Bundchen.

For the French Open mixed doubles, we could have those wily clay court specialists, Yves Saint Laurent and Juliette Binoche. Or perhaps the doubles should be pro-am. Australia would be represented by that classic good-cop/bad-cop combo, Samantha Stosur and Kyle Sandilands.

All good in the cardio department

Yesterday Michael and I went over to Melbourne for his scheduled check-up at the Royal Children's Hospital. Michael was born with a heart defect that was corrected surgically at RCH when he was a week old. On our last visit 3 years ago his cardiologist was very happy with his progress, and asked for him to come back this year, at age six. He had not been looking forward to the trip at all, so I was very pleasantly surprised that he was terrific all day.

Our flight left at about 9am, and we managed to get him a window seat. It's not all that long since he has been on a plane, but it's still a novelty, and he let out a delighted whoop as we took off. Flying north over Tasmania is always pretty spectacular, but even when we were above the clouds he was thrilled by how fluffy they were. Descending into Melbourne we were above some patchy low cloud, and he said he thought it looked like ice floes.

Our appointment at RCH was not until 2pm, and I had planned that we would spend the morning at the nearby zoo, then maybe spend a while at the Melbourne Museum afterwards if we had time. It happened that in the taxi to the zoo, Michael found a brochure for the museum, and started picking out the parts of it he wanted to see most. I got the vibe that he was much more into the museum than the zoo, so I re-directed the cabbie and we hopped out there instead.

Michael just hummed with delight throughout the museum. I let him lead me wherever he wanted to go, and we probably covered about half of it. He is really fascinated by the human body, and in the cab he decided the Mind, Body, Spirit exhibit was the main one he wanted to see. It is upstairs, so first we spent some time among the obligatory dinosaur skeletons, and visited the insects. Upstairs I craftily let us get slightly lost so that I could look at the History of Melbourne exhibit that I have never quite got to previously. This is where they keep Phar Lap, in a glass case. He certainly was a big fella. For decades this stuffed horse has been the Museum's No. 1 attraction.

The Mind, Body, Spirit exhibit was like all Michael's favourite library books brought to life. I made one error of judgement when I suggested he might like to come into the tiny theatrette and listen to the audio presentation on the history of human dissection. Yes, I know what you're thinking, but he is constantly reading books about this stuff and I thought an audio thing would not be scary. Well, once they got up to the trial of Burke and Hare, the 19th century Edinburgh grave robbers and murderers, I probably should have suggested we move on. When the judge with the hammy Scottish brogue said they would be "taken from this place to another place and hung by the neck until dead, whereupon you will be dissected like so many of your victims..." Michael himself said he had enough and could we leave please. Sigh. Bad dad, bad dad.

Although I did learn that William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of blood, actually dissected his father and sister. Bodies for dissection were so hard to come by, that once they had shuffled off the mortal coil, he simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a bit of a peep inside.

We got out into the fresh air and hailed a cab. Michael was right beside me, hailing also, like a tiny cosmopolitan. At the hospital everything went very smoothly. Just as he did when he was 3, Michael seemed determined to be as positive and helpful as he possibly could. He had an ultrasound, and ECG and finally an exercise test. During the ultrasound he was watching the TV set up over the bed, showing a Scooby Doo episode about voodoo dolls and vampire/werewolf types, who did a bit of toothy shape-shifting. It was actually pretty scary, and on top of the Burke and Hare stuff I was thinking they were seeing his little heart probably pumping at full tilt.

For the exercise test he had to have wires taped all over his chest, and then run on a treadmill. It's pretty hard for a 6 year old to do, actually. Every few minutes it sped up a little and the angle increased, so he needed to run faster and steeper uphill. They were attempting to get his heart rate up to a particular "red line" to see how he coped. Before he got there he was feeling tired and asked to stop. They asked him to give it another three minutes, and he did, but he didn't reach the red line. It was still a useful test, but his cardiologist is keen to see him to do it again in three years, when he will be more able to understand the need to push himself.

The hospital visit was finished quite a bit earlier than I had thought. After the museum and the treadmill, I thought what we needed to do was sit down for a while, so we caught a tram going past the hospital and just stayed on to the terminus, on the other side of town near the Domain. I told Michael there was a cafe just up the road where we could have ice cream and coffee. It turned out to be a fair bit further than I remembered. He didn't complain though, just asked if we could sit under a tree and read for a while before we kept walking. I had bought Michael a book at the museum gift shop (another human body book) so we sat and read that for a while. After we had carried on and got ourselves some afternoon tea, Michael sighed and said "I just want to go to the airport and fly home now Dad".

Our flight was not until 7pm, so all we could do was get a tram to the city, get a cab to the airport and hunker down and wait. Jetstar's gate for travellers to and from Hobart is pretty unglamorous. You feel like you are at the arse end of the airport, maybe one step up from the shed where they park the baggage buggies. You have to walk across the tarmac to your plane. No-one still does that at a massive international airport, surely? We do it in Hobart, but that's because we have a tiny Toytown airport.

The flight home was no picnic - it was dark, and squeezy, and we were both tired. Michael was a bit teary. I hadn't packed very well - I had pulled out reading matter we were too tired to read, but left packed away money for snacks, water to drink and chewing gum for sore ears. Of course we touched down eventually, and it was great to see Marcus and Elf. On the drive home from the airport Michael was his old self, and regaled everyone with an astounding level of detail about the day.

Churchill, on the phone, 1944

Open letter to my local member

Dear Mr Kerr,

I am extremely disappointed in your government's decision to exempt itself from its own Government advertising guidelines. Actually, I am disgusted, and have been moved to write to you, not something I have done before.

It appears that right from the inception of the Resource Super Profits Tax, a strategy was in place to spend $38m advertising it. This is a massive error of judgement.

If the PM and Treasurer think they have a fair case to make, they can reach anyone who is interested enough, at no cost to the public purse, through the news and current affairs media. Ministers have been claiming there is a "hunger" in the community for information - this is just unsubstantiated spin.

The Howard government was thrown out not because of brilliant Labor strategy, or Kevin Rudd's manifest destiny. Howard's "whatever it takes" approach to elections, including massive spending on "information" campaigns, eventually disgusted even his own traditional supporters.

Now how can the ordinary person draw any distinction between the current and previous governments on this issue? Are the PM and Treasurer so convinced of their own genius that they think this will be an electoral plus for them? Current polls suggest not.

I am a swinging ALP/Green voter, I have no shares in mining companies or any involvement in that industry.

sincerely
Chris Rees

Bionic Boy

He is sizing you up. He may explode you. Be warned.

The tricycle-broom

We have got a lot closer to achieving toilet training with Winston. It has been our main occupation at home over the last two weeks. It's pretty tiring, especially on wet and cold days when you can't have the fallback of an open door. A few times it has started getting to me and I have just given up doing anything in the evening but lying on the couch, watching the dog. My ray of sunshine came in the form of football on TV - I could sit and watch with the dog on his bed under my feet.

It's a sad fact that I just can't sustain interest in anything much on TV these days unless there is a scoreboard in the corner. And although we have digital channels now including an all-day sports channel, I find I am still just watching the football. Baseball, basketball, paintball and monster truck racing just don't cut it.

I am quite looking forward to the World Cup, although as many people have commented it is not the fascinating surprise packet it once was. All the best players in the world, whether from Chile, Chad or Czech Republic, are now playing in the Champions League for a handful of big clubs. In the old days you would discover new players, new styles, new ball tricks, watching the World Cup.

It has rained a few times in the last few days - not all that heavy, but continuous over several days. Everything is wet through now for the first time in a very long time. I had actually forgotten all about the practical aspects of a wet autumn - wiping feet, dead wet leaves stuck to everything, kids stuck inside for hours.

Shortly Winston and I are going off to puppy school for the first time, at the Hobart Obedience Club. I might even pick up a thing or two myself. I imagine the carpark there will be full of KEEP LEFT and STAFF PARKING ONLY signs, and the club hierarchy will watch us arrive from some kind of hide, marking us on our ability to follow instructions.

I think of us as a six-mammal household now. Mammal Five, also known as Hattie, has been bravely coming into the same room as Mammal Six, but keeping a very wary eye on him. She only comes upstairs to eat, as we are insisting if she wants food, this is where she needs to be. We keep a hand on Winston's collar or put him on the lead so he doesn't blow the whole gaff by lunging at her.

Our back lawn is lined on the downhill side with puffy poa grasses that Elf planted as soon as we moved in. They are there to make a visual barrier and discourage kids from climbing down the terraced garden beds. Winston is intrigued by them, and loves to snudge in amongst them. He is the right height at the moment to burst through them dramatically. But he's never sure what to do next.

We are needing to regularly scrub the deck lately, thanks to Winston taking himself outside-but-not-very-far to go to the toilet. To help us out, Michael has invented the tricycle-broom.

Romantic Foil

I am fascinated by the term 'romantic foil'. It sounds like the sort of stuff from which you would make a robot for your wife, for Valentine's Day. If she really, really loved robots.

Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb

Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb has at last been given Protected Designation of Origin status, like champagne. Hooray!

The Pope is fine and mild

Elf's exercise bike has a built-in digital thermometer. It sits in a sunny position, so sometimes it gets things a bit wrong. I was at home sick on Thursday, and although it was a mild enough autumn day, it was not 33°C as claimed by the bike. Our other way of telling the temperature is a Pope John Paul II souvenir thermometer, which claimed it was 20°C. Although the Pope is infallible, this does not apply to the thermometer for three reasons.

1. Infallibility only applies to ex cathedra matters, eg religious doctrine
2. Infallibility only holds for the current pope. Late popes are not infallible.
3. It's just a really crappy thermometer.

News Flash: Puppies Are Adorable

Elf has been heard to say it would have been easier to have a third child than get a puppy - "at least you can put a nappy on them". There has been a great deal of wee on the floor. Just when we think Winston has got the idea, he goes and wees on his bed. Or goes outside, comes back in and then wees on the floor.

It would be fair to say we have fallen out of love with him at times. This weekend has generally been good though. Winston is closed in the downstairs bathroom overnight, and he wees indiscriminately on the floor in there, but chooses to poo on the newspaper. Apart from early-morning slip-ups, (before everyone is quite on their mettle), today and yesterday have passed with no moppage required upstairs. It has been cold but not windy, so we have been able to leave the back door open, and the kids have been playing with him outside a lot of the time. Constant surveillance is required, and that is pretty tiring, but at least the weeing-puppy phase should be a lot quicker than the choking-infant or drowning-toddler phase.

Relations with Hattie continue to be frosty on her part, and merely floppy on his. I have tried carrying her under one arm and a bowl of cat meat under the other, and marching her up the stairs into his presence. Even when he is confined in the borrowed playpen, she is not prepared to stay and eat.

Today he was introduced to Larson, his neighbour. Larson is a black lab of mature years, greying about the whiskers. I missed most of the meeting, but Winston apparently jumped about too much for Larson's liking. His attitude to Winston was probably something like my attitude to pre-teens doing incompetent kick-flips in a supermarket carpark. I would sum it up as "Just... don't".

This afternoon was originally going to be our first trip to puppy school, but we had a kids party this morning, and it was just too hard to up and go at the point I should have. So Elf decided we should all go for a walk on the beach instead. Once we had everyone assembled and ready to go, we turned to Winston - he was a boneless black heap on the floor.

Winston was pretty good in the car, riding in the back of the wagon with his front paws up on the back seat, looking over the boy's heads. He trotted happily along the beach, seemingly unfazed by all the new things - sand, sea, other dogs coming up and sniffing his bot. He was keen to be friends with everyone and even the slightly barky dogs didn't make him cower or anything. Other dog people were complimentary, but predicted that he would be the the size of a chest freezer when fully grown. Back home after the walk he was so tired he looked even more boneless than before - like he was actually painted on the floor.

He is now exploring the yard more fully. I unintentionally set up an experiment yesterday by leaving Marcus's ugg boots outside the front door. When we returned from soccer 2 hours later, one had been carefully moved up to the back deck, but not molested. This is pretty much what zoologists do with radio transmittters when they are studying dolphins or bats or whatever. The ugg boot system, although less scientific, is cheaper to set up.

Tomorrow he will have his longest day yet alone. I would love to set up a webcam so I can see what scampyness he gets up to. We know that he will sleep for most of it anyway.

Saturday night situation report

It is half time. I am wrapped in a rug watching the Richmond v Essendon night footy game. I am drinking a long neck bottle of Dad's home brew. A ten kilo puppy sleeps by my feet. My wife cycles 12 kilometres silently beside me, reading a murder mystery as she goes. On the table in front of me, all my 1970s footy cards have been sorted into teams by the boys, working together civilly. But best of all, we have not had to mop up any puppy urine since about 8 o'clock this morning. Hallelujah.

Light yelping

I took the morning off today, to ease Winston into life as an unaccompanied daytime dog. I left him at lunchtime and he had to amuse himself in the back yard until Elf and the boys got home at 3. Caron next door reported some light yelping but he seems to have generally got on OK.

We spent most of the morning lounging in the sun up in the backyard. Winston loves a good sleep, so I caught up on some reading. I went off for a couple of short walks on my own, to get him used to the idea that I was not planning to hold his paw all day. Then before I left I took him for the same walk as yesterday. I decided I would not be carrying him home this time. When he flopped down I just waited for a while, coaxed him up and towed him a little. At one stage he realised he had just walked over the top of something interesting, put his nose down and back to inspect it while his big back feet kept a-floppin', and executed a forward roll.

Apart from that, I just sat and enjoyed the sun. I watched a tractor churning up the chicken farm hill over the way. Our three magpies flew overhead teaming up to chase off a goshawk.

And to top things off in the slice-of-real-life-going-on-while-I-am-usually-at-work stakes, as I strolled past the pub on my way to work at lunchtime, a couple of alkies came out manhandling a carton of Tooheys Red and congratulating each other on cracking a trifecta - before nearly wandering under the wheels of a small truck.

Realistic volcano design by Michael

This seems to be a design for a very realistic model volcano. Ingredients include not just detergent, baking soda and vinegar, but also dust and cinders.

I've met the new neph Arthur

I went to see him on Sunday and had a little cuddle. What a lovely fella. Very calm and alert.

Pupdate

Winston the labrador cross has joined our family, and so far its all going swimmingly. He is going to be a very big dog judging by his paws, but he has a lovely temperament so we will just have to take him as he is. As I type on the laptop he is lying by my feet on his bed, (in fact partly on and partly off it), and he's just done a puppy fart. Life is very different.

Yesterday was pickup day. The boys and I were going to drive out to the country after Marcus' soccer match, but Melissa the breeder needed to come into town, so we actually picked up Winston at Salamanca Market.

I felt very strange walking off with a big puppy on a lead, through the crowds at Salamanca, with him tripping me up every third step. We actually had to take him in a lift to get back to where I'd left the car, so his introduction to city life was not exactly gentle. We've been lent a harness thing, but with the wriggly boy in hand I couldn't work it all out, so I popped him in the cat carrier instead, squeezed between the boys.

We brought him straight home, shut the gate and let him out. He was a little slow to emerge from his crate but he eventually snudged out. I had him on the lead for the first few hours so that if Hattie showed up I would be in control of the situation. She duly met us at the front door, sized up the situation, arched her back a bit then left at a dignified trot. Winston didn't seem particularly interested in her, and hasn't since either.

Imp and Ed and the girls, the neighbour kids and other kids we don't even know have all been traipsing through to admire the pup. He's been very good with everyone, except for a slight tendency to gnaw people's shoes. He loves his bed and is very keen to head for it whenever he's inside. He has not yet gone looking for trouble, which is terrific.

Last night we put his bed in the bathroom and shut him in. He whimpered and yowled for about fifteen minutes then just fell asleep. He woke up to poo and wee on the floor, near where we put the the special puppy training pad. That was OK though, its the easiest room to clean, and the same will likely happen tonight. If we get practically a full night's sleep again we'll be happy. Yesterday we had a bit of a messy time indoors but today after a wee on the floor this morning he has been taking himself outside. Luckily the weather has been superb all weekend so we have been able to leave a door open and spend lots of time trotting him about the garden.

He is sleeping a lot. We took him for a little walk this morning, just up to the park, then off the lead for a flip-flop around. He looks so funny when he runs, like he's about to trip over his ears any moment. The feet are terribly, terribly big. Anyway, it was the first walk of his life, and I had to carry him home, then he slept in the sun on the lawn for an hour or so, occasionally prodded by slightly disappointed neighbour children.

Our kids have been enjoying him a lot. In his energetic periods he happily chases Michael around and around the trampoline. Marcus is extremely keen to train him, totally, now.

Blog Filler from the internets

I have not had that happy knack of converting actual real life into blog nuggets, of late. Sorry about that. As a sort of blog polyfilla, here is a list of successive Wendy's slogans down the years. To clarify - this is the enormous US burger chain, not the Australian nauseatingly-pink ice cream franchise.

Have you noticed that "Where's the Beef?" is the punchline of about 10% of all American sitcom and buddy-movie jokes? Well that's a Wendy's slogan from about 1984. As I listen to a few US pop culture podcasts, but am not well-travelled, every now and then I am curious to find out what the hell an Arby's or a Quiznos or a Wendy's is.

Anyway, here is the history of Wendy's slogans. In Wikipedia there were dates but they all overlapped so I have left them out.

* Quality is our recipe
* Juicy hamburgers
* Hot-n-juicy
* Wendy's has the taste you crave
* Ain't no reason to go anyplace else
* You're Wendy's kind of people
* Parts is parts [I have no idea what that means]
* Where's the beef?
* Choose fresh, choose Wendy's
* Give a little nibble
* The best burgers in the business.
* The best burgers and a whole lot more
* You can eat great, even late
* It's hamburger bliss.
* It's better here
* It's always great, even late. (Canada)
* Do what tastes right.
* It's good to be square. [their burgers are square]
* That's right.
* Uh huh.
* Hot juicy burgers
* It's waaay better than fast food... It's Wendy's
* It's waaaaaaaaaay delicious. It's Wendy's. (Canada)
* Carrément bon. C'est Wendy's. (Québec, Canada)
* You know when it's real.
 and finally
* Es Muuuuucho Más Qué Comída Rapida, Es Wendy's (El Salvador)

Pup prep

The boys and I will be going to get Winston on Saturday morning. Suddenly our life-changing moment is not very far away, and the floor is still covered with stuff that Winston will chew and ruin/choke on and die. Gaaaaah!

Elf and Mum found a hefty home-made kennel at the tip shop, full of spiders and dry rot. Dad and I managed to haul it up to the back lawn this afternoon without it or either of us snapping in half.

We have borrowed a toddler gate to keep pup and Hattie separate during the crucial getting-to-know-you period. Which is more likely to be the OK-I'm-leaving-for-three-days period, when Hattie flees out the cat door.

Freddo or Hairspray?

Happy Mothers Day everyone, especially Sally. We walked in the 4km Mothers Day Classic this morning, to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer. South Hobart Primary again won the trophy for largest school group, and also this time the largest group over all. I think there were about 40 of us.

We always moan a bit about the organisation of this event, although I suppose its like any large event really. There are always one or two wierd things where you wonder "who thought that was a good idea?"

This time it was the extremely slim showbags that were being handed out, containing a cornucopia of 4 small things. There seemed to be a fun random feature where some people got a chocolate Freddo and some got a 40g aerosol can of Cedel "Extra Firm" hairspray in a pink can. We scored 1 Freddo and 3 cans. The bags all looked identical and were merrily handed out to ladies, gentlemen and children alike. Which seems strange, considering how dangerous aerosol cans are. To quote my can (it's in caps to convey the sense of danger and peril);

WARNING: EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE. KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. DO NOT SPRAY ON NAKED FLAME OR ANY INCANDESCENT MATERIAL. KEEP AWAY FROM SOURCES OF IGNITION - NO SMOKING. STORAGE AND DISPOSAL: PRESSURISED DISPENSER. PROTECT FROM SUNLIGHT AND DO NOT EXPOSE TO TEMPERATURES EXCEEDING 50°C. DO NOT PIERCE OR BURN, EVEN AFTER USE.

And of course deliberate misuse by concentrating and inhaling can be fatal. How many people still use bloody hairspray anyway? Isn't a random group of 4000 people likely to throw away about 3000 of these dangerous things? Was it smart to hand them to children as prizes?

EDIT:The school team appeared on the front page of the local paper this morning. Michael is at far left, but Marcus is lost at the back somewhere.

Hello Arthur

I have just heard that Sally and Matt's first child, Arthur David Warren, arrived early this morning. It sounds like everyone is well, and I'm looking forward to meeting the little fella soon. We are delighted to have another boy cousin for Marcus and Michael - we are on comfortable ground with boy babies.

Pup news

Saw an 8 week old labrador pup way out in the country today. Put some money down. Thinking of a name. Face exceedingly stripey. Considering "Stripey". Will pick up in about 3 weeks. Mild panic setting in. PUPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEE.

New tabletop

A couple of days after our new table was delivered, before Christmas, it developed a big crack right down the middle. We were fairly distraught - it was a bit of a big investment for us. David, the maker, was very good about taking it back and making us a new tabletop. It had been too high, and he fixed that as well. Last week it was returned to us and we are really delighted with the result. The kids have already started the process of personalising it - apparent it is "too hard" to remember to put something under the paper when you are drawing. Sigh.

Well done, us.

Yesterday we attended a barbecue for South Hobart participants in the Solar Panel scheme. A very well-organised and active community group got up and running to take advantage of government subsidies, and assisted 150 installations of solar panels, and 70 solar hot water systems.

I thought "OK, this is going to be a self-congratulation society". And it kind of was, but they had about a dozen different kinds of cake, so that was OK. They had plaques on offer that said "This is a climate-friendly home" or something like that, but to get one you had to sign a pledge to reduce your carbon footprint by a set amount per year.

If I had a good calculator for measuring my footprint, I would be prepared to try reducing it by 5% over 12 months. It might be hard to find another 5%, and another 5%, year after year. The time might come when you would have to hand in your plaque and admit failure. But also I think the solar panels stuck on the roof are enough of a smug middle-class advertisement of your climate awareness anyway, without going for a plaque. After all, thanks to subsidies we are out of pocket less than $2000 for our panels, and now we have tiny power bills. We are not exactly sacrificing ourselves for the greater good.

Anyway, Elf was against the pledge, I was against the plaque, so we walked away still middlingly-committed, like most people. I am going to look up a good footprint calculator though. Also I just want to say that our solar inverter is the Sunny Boy 1100.

At the barbecue we were handed a flyer for another plaque-related scheme, the Gardens for Wildlife scheme. Their plaque is nicer, and the idea of encouraging wildlife in city and suburban gardens is excellent. I had a look over the form to see if having a cat would disqualify us. One set of boxes to tick asks if you are  a) Urban  b) Sub-urban  c) Peri-urban or d) Rural.  "Peri-urban"? They left out pseudo-urban, quasi-urban and "miles from anywhere but built like a MacMansion anyway".

Michael expounds

These are all from today.

• [In the dark at 6am] I am finding you by feeling my surroundings...
• I think the Egyptians were wrong when they said that the heart is the seat of all knowledge...
• If you wanted to make a giant model of a uterus you could...

Cat education campaign

Tansy The Rainbow Cat lives next door to us. Despite her hippie name, she is quite aggressive and spends more time in our yard than we would like. She has even tried to get in our cat door. Hattie is not very good at defending the homestead, and usually comes off second best in fights. About a week ago Elf noticed she had a sore flank, and she was acting quite strangely. It turned out she had a bite that had become an abcess, and it meant an expensive trip to the vet.

The boys responded with some supportive yet instructive cards for Hattie.

Seasonal somethings

I have started running in the mornings again. I give it about another week, until it starts to get proper cold, and the whole finding-shoes-in-the-dark business palls.

But for now, I have a new route, up the hill behind us to the soccer ground, where I run 2–5 laps depending on the time. Its nice to run on grass, and on average each morning I see one human and one point five dogs. And I can daydream about great goals I scored and/or will score in the future if I ever play outdoor soccer again.

On the way back, this is the view I see when I am nearly home. As remembered last night just before going to the supermarket. I got a few things wrong but hey. Someone has a photographic memory in the family but it's not me. Our house is in the centre.

The warm dark walk home thing is definitely over. Now we are into the bitter windy walk home. Tonight there was a wierd factor when I got in the front door, and thought "what is casting that unearthly light in the boys' room?" It was the Moon (unearthly geddit?), which had been behind me all the way home. So something something seasons and orbits something something! Eh?

Graffiti at the school

Lets learn Luxembourgish!

Here is the entire list of handy Luxembourgish phrases and words provided by Wikipedia.

• Jo. Yes.
• Neen. No.
• Vläicht. Maybe.
• Moien. Hello.
• Gudde Moien. Good Morning.
• Gudde Mëtteg. Good Afternoon.
• Gudden Owend. Good Evening.
• Äddi. Goodbye.
• Merci. Thank you.
• Firwat? Why
• Ech weess net. I don't know.
• Ech verstinn net. I don't understand.
• Watgelift? or Entschëllegt? Excuse me?
• Metzleschjong. Butcher's son.
• Schwätzt dir Däitsch/Franséisch/Englesch? Do you speak German/French/English?
• Wéi heeschs du? What is your name?
• Wéi geet et? How are you?
• Politeschen Anstand. Political Decency
• Sou. So.
• Fräi. Free.
• Heem. Home.
• Ech. I.
• An. and/in.
• Mäin. my.
• Iesel. donkey.
• Mat. With.
• Kand. Kid/Child.
• Wee. Way.
• Gromper. Potato.

Now - your homework is to translate these ordinary sentences into Luxembourgish.

Hello. How are you? Potato! So please have the political decency to free my donkey. Potato! I am on my way home. Potato! Excuse me, I don't understand what the butcher's son has to do with any of this. Potato! Potato! POTATO!

Anzac Day

Anzac Day fell on a Sunday this year. I didn't get to the dawn service so I was very keen to get to the parade in town. We had a bit of resistance from the kids. "This is the worst day of my life!" - Michael. When its a public holiday you can use the "this is why we have the day off" argument, but it doesn't quite fly on a Sunday. So we fell back on the "do what we say and there will be treats" gambit.

We arrived downtown too early so we got the treats out of the way first. On our way to a good vantage point we came across the Light Horse enthusiasts, assembled on their steeds in the bus mall. We had a chat to one of them who was patiently answering questions from the unmounted public. Some of the leather gear they were wearing was 100 years old. Nothing kinky though. Marcus had never seen a horse up so close and couldn't get over the size of the hooves.

We got in position opposite the GPO and whiled away the time waiting for the kickoff. The boys were actually very good. Despite themselves they are quite interested in the military history, the flags and banners, the strange old military vehicles and so on. In that category, there was a DUKW amphibious vehicle, a boat with wheels. Printed  clearly on the side was ALWAYS INSERT PLUGS IN HULL BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO LAUNCH VEHICLE - from the same school of American military copywriting as POINT THIS SIDE TOWARDS ENEMY which I saw on Claymore mines when I was in the Army Reserve.

The most amazing vehicle was a Ford Thunderbird or something like it - a real Batmobile with fins, wings, chrome everywhere and about thirty feet long. I know it was a Ford because the next vehicle was also a vintage Ford, and the next, and the next. Dozens. A few of them had veterans in them, but most of them carried just a grinning Ford enthusiast, and possibly his kids. Why were they there? Don't know.

During a lull, I was telling Elf about a conversation between Marcus and Lana yesterday about who was going to play school basketball. They agreed Evie certainly would. "She's in everything. She's in soccer, netball, used to be in chess, she's in the choir and the choral group, she did the recital thing at the eisteddfod, scottish country dancing...." As I was relating this to Elf, Marcus interrupted - "there she is!" Briefly released from her other duties, there was she was, marching with the Scouts.

Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist, Republic Bar

Today is Anzac Day. I usually go to the dawn service, but last night I went out to see a band. So dawn went by without me this year.

Last night Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist played at the Republic Bar. I knew they coming to town soon but it took me by surprise to see them in Friday's paper, suddenly here. So rather than ring around the Graney fans network, I just trundled along thinking I would run into one or two of them.

In the event the only people I knew in the room were Dave and the Mist. They took forever to come on. The support band started at about 11. I did a few large circuits around the dark streets of North Hobart, occasionally passing the pub and checking out the stage.

I don't know the name of the first band - they were a kind of interesting twosome.

EDIT - I have looked them up and you can read about them here. But I have not corrected anything below because that would not be very "rock".

A cultivatedly unattractive guy played bass while a weedy younger guy sang, played some melodica and programmed something about the size of an iPhone. The vocals and 'tude were remniscent of Joy Division. One track ended with a the iPhone on its own emitting a discordant wail - on and on, until the weedy guy touched it and it stopped. [Applause]. He went back and forth from the iPhone to the microphone with a stoned stagger, but I could tell by his keen focus on the tiny screen that the stagger was all show.

Dave, in head-to-toe black leather, was checking out the support act, with his wife/drummer Clare by his side. He didn't look that impressed. I will have to read his blog and see if he has recorded his thoughts.

It's a small venue, and the Mist walked past me and back again various times. I'm not sure why the lateness, but eventually they all were on stage at once, and launched into the show. After a long walk and some pretty challenging indie-rock I was ready to go home.

Stu Pereira plays lead guitar in the Mist, and he is so fluid compared to Dave that its almost laughable. Dave's guitar style is pretty studied. He likes to get front and centre, strike a pose first and then play the note, while looking meaningfully around the audience. Stu has got notes to spare and so much energy that while he is playing on the beat, his body is bopping about to something else entirely.

So, long story short - I enjoyed them a lot but by 12.30, only about 6 songs in, I was feeling old and tired, so I walked out on them. Sigh.

Self-portrait

This bit of writing is terrific - it just sums up perfectly how a kid's mind works. At least how Michael's works. As an amateur copy-editor I am hugely proud that he has correctly used a semi-colon.

I love scorpions because they live under a bucket at my house! I built a bridge of blocks at daycare once and it was half a metre long; and I went on stage and discovered a tunnel to the sports gear. I'm intrested in brains too. I live in xxx Cascade Rd 7004.

Definitely my favourite Super Wizard

 

(Found here)

The old school tie

Apparently the rich kids' secret of success is a Burnie High School tie. Ha! Now, what did I do with mine?

Warm and dark

The weather has been odd - quite still and warm. Forestry Tas have taken the opportunity to burn off, so the sunrises and sunsets have been lurid orange, to add to the weirdness. On Mondays and Tuesdays I knock off at 6pm and walk home. Since daylight savings ended, this has meant a walk in the dark, but I have been really enjoying it. It feels so nice, like I am in a cocoon. I usually listen to a good podcast, and I almost feel like I am in the radio equivalent of a cinema, even though I am walking. Does that make any sense? We supposedly have three or four more days of this, then there will be a reality check. For now, I am still employing shorts.

The joys of sitting down! / Birth imminent! / Larks in parks

We went to a cocktail party for Greta and Michael's combined 40ths on Saturday night. It was at the same venue as a wedding we attended in January, and we were a bit concerned that we would be standing up all night again. As we drove past looking for a park, we were thrilled to bits to see through the window chairs! And tables!

Michael is effectively a property developer. He has built and sold a series of houses and units. We always feel sorry for Greta and the kids, who obediently move on from one project to the next with him. On Saturday they announced they are building a place for keeps, or at least for ten years. And its just down the road! When they said they had bought a block in South Hobart I guessed it right off, as there aren't many.

We got a table with Nick and Anna and hung out around it all evening, sneaking off at about 11.30. The kids were nearby at Imp and Ed's and we stayed the night there too. The next morning we got up, scoffed some fabulous fat pancakes with lemon butter, and scooted home for the next thing.

Sally is getting verrrrrry close to having her baby, and we are giving her the cot that Marcus, Michael and Millie next door slept in. Does this mean their baby will be another M? Merhaps.

Nick and Anna and the girls came around in their ute for morning tea. Nick and I took the cot up to Sal and Matt's, and Matt and I wiggled it into what was Matt's studio, and will now be the nursery. It's always a moment of truth, when a room that is going to be the nursery actually acquires its' cot. Its one of the little steps that says "OK, this really happening - we are soon going to have a noisy, messy flatmate about a foot long". This matters much more to dads - by 39 weeks mums are in absolutely no doubt that something is going on.

Sal and Matt live behind an old shop, which is now a shared studio space, and a vacancy came up just at the right time for them to move their stuff there from the house. Their kitchen is bare, a paddling pool stands by deflated but proudly ready to serve - one day pretty soon there's a gonna be some natural birthin' round these parts.

We came home, morning tea snudged along a little more, then Nick and Anna and the girls left us. I went out to paint and sand the front railings a little more - this project is now into its' fourth month. While I worked, some yahoos drove past and yelled something - I couldn't make it out but it was directed at me.

An hour or so later the yahoos came to the house - turned out it had been Imp and Ed and the girls, and their buddies Lousie and Ashley and their kids Freya, Will and Max. Although they all live down at Kingston, they are big fans of the Cascade Gardens just downhill from us, and they had just been there. We had afternoon tea, and then took everyone for a walk up to Wellesley Park behind our house.

I can't really write objectively about the spot where we live - it's just superb. We live in a great place. And we enjoy taking people around and showing it off. The best thing about W Park is possibly just that it's right there, we go out the back gate and we're in it, and it's just a big space, really. No fences, not much in way of amenities, kind of lumpy and scruffy, but it's got a lovely outlook up to the mountain and over the river. There's usually no-one else around, and we simply love it. Louise and Ashley thought it was pretty good too.

School soccer resumes

This season Marcus is playing seven-a-side on a bigger field, with larger goals and goalkeepers for the first time. His team is even stronger than last year, and they had a great win first up on Saturday, 13-1. They looked like a competent under 14 team (they are under 8) the way they passed the ball around, spread out, and backed each other up. The score was about 10-0 when Mt Nelson finally scored, and all of us barracking for South Hobart gave them a very relieved round of applause - its actually no fun at all watching other kids getting a shellacking.

It was sunny and warm. Elf and Gina wheeled out the Saturday Soccer Sausage Sizzle barby for the first time this year. Their back-to-basics approach (nothing but sausages, tea and coffee) is very popular with the punters, and they raked in over $200 for the P & F on Saturday. Elf's sister Imp is now Treasurer of the P & F - the sisters are little by little getting the school in their clutches, one sausage at a time.

Leaf insect

I was sitting opposite Elf the other evening talking to her, when a strange movement caught my eye. Walking across the wide expanse of timber floor behind her, on his way somewhere, was a leaf insect. I'm sure they can fly if they want to - it's their wings that give them the leafy look isn't it? They probably walk up and down a branch or stem, safe in the knowledge that although they are moving, they still fit in well enough to get by. However this guy was strolling, as brazen as you like, his bright green-ness standing out from the brown floor like a neon sign. When I got closer I could actually hear him whistling.

Pizzicato abuse

Desperate Housewives - have you seen it? Elf watches it occasionally and I love to hate it. Even being in the same room with it, I find it offensive. Since our living area is just one big room, I sometimes resort to headphones to get away from it.

The synopsis is: affluent neighbourhood full of people stealing each other's money, adulterising and plotting to murder each other. Pretty standard really, pretty Melrose Place. Except - every time someone is up to no good, looking in someone else's rubbish bin or slipping off their wedding ring on their way into a bar, there is a little 8 bar vamp of pizzicato strings. Someone has asked themselves "what is the sneakiest music there is?" and that's what they came up with.

I put myself in the shoes of the session violinists. Granted, some of them may believe that the end justifies the means. Some of them may be proud of having slept their way to the top in the incidental strings world. Some of them may believe everything is relative, you've got to look out for number one, and there's no free lunch.

But what about that one straight-edge, clean living, upright citizen, who turns up at the office with his viola every day, plays the sheet music he is handed, with care, energy and brio - perhaps he's a pizzicato specialist, flown in to LA from the East Coast for a big job lot of pizzicato work. Calls his wife and kids every day while he's away. Dedicated. Caring. A moral beacon in this increasingly Paris Hiltonised world.

How is he going to feel when he sits down to watch Housewives and realises that his dedicated plucking is the soundtrack to ugly suburban depravity?

Fun Fact: In Vietnam the show is just called Những bà nội trợ kiểu Mỹ - American Housewives.

Blog burst

I have been blogging rarely of late, but don't worry, I have been saving up some burning issues. Should I put them all in one bumper post, or give them each their own little headline, and moment in the sun? I think the latter.

As this little post is not itself about anything, this is where I'll put these drawings I have been doing recently. One of them looks like a laughing alien that has disguised itself as a hill. One of them looks like those mega expensive Coogi jumpers that used to be for sale only in airports.

The Great Italian Drought

Despite the title, this is actually a (fairly accurate) description of the eruption of Vesuvius and destruction of Pompeii, in 79 AD. I borrowed this from Michael's desk at school.


PS - I asked him about the title and he said it was a mistake. It was meant to be the Great Italian Flood of Lava.

Does education kill creativity?

Very interesting. About 10:00 he starts talking about an education system that produces as its highest achievement, university professors.

"There's something curious about professors … typically, they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, in a literal way. They look upon their body as a kind of transport for their heads. It's a way of getting their head to meetings".

Les Jackson: not an actual monarch, as such

North west Tasmania, slightly before I was born. If I had a time machine, that's where I would be heading first.

New constellations

Michael says "I made some new constellations." I interviewed him but that is all he wants to say. They each have a scientific name and a common name.

1. Saturrisesines, "the Spear"
2. Portus, "the Crocodile"
3. Proximi, "the Box"
4. Cezaninas, "the Dartboard".

A person named Person

A selected list of New Hampshire Governors, featuring my favourite, Person Colby Cheney. As I have always said, you don't need money or family connections to run for Governor of a United State - just a really strange name.

Governor Person C. Cheney

• Robert O. Blood
• Styles Bridges
• Person Colby Cheney
• Moody Currier
• Lane Dwinell
• Samuel D. Felker
• Ichabod Goodwin
• Henry B. Quinby
• Vesta M. Roy
• Onslow Stearns
• Ezekiel A. Straw
• Meldrim Thomson, Jr.
• Hiram A. Tuttle
• Meshech Weare

The classies

Our newspaper is fairly small, and on weekdays the classifieds are not very full, so they kind of all run together. The classifications into which they have been classified probably need to be made a bit more prominent to keep them apart a little. Here is a sampling from today.

IN MEMORIAM

BLANK, Barry 28.1.72 - 5.4.2008
Beautiful memories of a precious nephew.
Forever in our hearts,
Wayne, Leanne and family.

GENERAL

GENUINE Cougar, brunette,
looking for that something on the side.
Txt Barbara to 0418 ΘΘΘ ΘΘΘ

♥ CHANNEL AREA ♥
lovely Asian, busty, sz 7,
0418 ΘΘΘ ΘΘΘ

PETS AND LIVESTOCK

JAP QUAIL
10 for $20 Pullets 12 wks $10ea
62ΘΘ ΘΘΘΘ

POODLES, MINI, brown females,
ready to go. Vet checked.
62ΘΘ ΘΘΘΘ

CAREERS

MASSAGE, casual spots avail,
topless non-sexual studio.
Training provided.
62ΘΘ ΘΘΘΘ

Work move on the cards [sigh]

I heard last week that Roar Film will be moving out of South Hobart when the lease runs out in June. We are going down to Salamanca Place apparently - the artsy craftsy touristy strip down by the water. We will be in a heritage-listed sandstone ex-warehouse somewhere in the Arts Centre.

My boss is in his late fifties, and had a heart scare last year. Our current office is smack bang in the middle of a giant home for the aged, and I think that's the main reason he wants out. I will be sad to go - the school is just five minutes up the road, and home another ten-fifteen minutes after that. I have jokingly said I will have to get another job to stay in South Hobart, at the newsagents or post office. Possibly I can flog spangly harem pants at Bizarre Bazaar, or I might become a loam specialist at Males Sand. As long as I never have to leave South Hobart, I'll be happy.

Wiki work

I have been putting in quite a bit of time drawing maps for Wikipedia. It started when I wrote a couple of articles, and felt they needed maps to make sense. One of the articles was about Arnold Potts, one of the heroes of the Kokoda Campaign in World War II. One of the old hands in Wikipedia insisted I write about Potts' time at the end of the war in Bougainville. It's very much a minor part of his story, but he was quite adamant. Turns out he is an authority on the Bougainville Campaign in 1945, whic is generally seen as a sideshow to the main action of Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, the reconquest of the Philippines and and so on. So now I have drawn a bunch of maps of Bougainville, and I am starting to get general requests from further afield in Wikipedia.


I really love being able to draw a simple map, that just locates half a dozen places in relation to a major landmark and provides a scale. It can make an article suddenly so much more comprehensible. The latest map I have done is for the Battle of Bita Paka in World War I, when Australian troops invaded German New Guinea and captured a couple of radio transmitters. I had never heard of it until I was asked to do it.

Fred builds a doorbell

I haven't been blogging very regularly of late, so I will try to recall what we have been up to that bears retelling.

Fred arrived the day before Good Friday, and we have been noodling around with him all Easter. He is extremely scientific, interested in the world around to him to an astonishing degree. If something is broken he is compelled to fix it, whereas I am compelled to lie down. When Fred is in town we have an amazing burst of experiments. He made us a beautiful doorbell yesterday from wire, meccano and an alarm clock. Or perhaps it was a bomb. He said it was a doorbell.


Today he made a radio transmitter, out of the doorbell. And so on. Marcus loves the end result, but is too busy out climbing trees or reading to sit in for the process. Michael loyally sits through the process talking nonstop and making ingenious but impractical suggestions. Fred has the patience of a saint, and listens to all this without putting Michael in a sleeper hold (which is what I want to do when I am busy and he won't shut up).


Today we drove to Snug and went for a walk to the falls there. Snug of course is a funny name for a place, and it has certainly not gone to waste. There is the Snug River, Snug Falls, Snug Beach, Snug Primary School, Snug Tavern and of course the Snug Butchery. The walk in was mostly downhill, through fragrant bush - quite peppery. We are not sure what "mountain pepper" is but possibly this is it. There were a few parked toddler strollers on the way in - the track was much too rocky and rooty for them. We passed the family carrying their littlies out. There was not a lot of water in the falls but it was a very pretty spot. Popular too - we had to wait a few minutes for a parking spot to open up. Marcus and Fred went off to explore the lower reaches of the river with strict warnings and threats of direness if Marcus got his feet wet. When they returned he had fallen in a puddle but heroically got only his shirt, hair and the top of his pants wet. On the way out we passed the family with the toddlers again, still struggling upwards.


Yesterday we also went for a walk, around the Risdon Brook Dam. We went over that way to check the puppy situation at the Dogs Home - once again, no suitable pups in residence. We are always promised that there is a puppy tsunami just around the corner. Sigh. So we went for a nice long walk around the dam - it's about and hour and a half I think. Very pleasant when you have nothing particular else to do. By the end I was very hungry and wished I was the resourceful type who had packed sandwiches.

I have been nibbling away at the front deck railing, sanding a bit and painting a bit each day. We suspect the builders used an interior wood finish, as the more exposed parts have weathered down to a cracked and blistered mess in two years. When I started the job I was listening to cricket while I worked; now it is football. I hope to finish it before we are back to cricket again.

Bedtime reading

Elf reads to the boys at bedtime, nearly every night. She reads, and reads, and reads. I usually use this time to get on the computer and blog, or fix my Supercoach football team, or work on Wikipedia stuff.

Once in a while Elf has to work or is away, and I get the reading job. Whatever she is reading to the boys nearly always turns my stomach. She has simply run out of good boys-y books to read, so at present she is reading the Anne of Green Gables series (that title was followed by Anne of Avonlea, Anne Sits On A Tuffet and Anne's Bonnet Gets Eaten By A Pony.


I decided to go for a similar historical period, but different subject matter: Basic Physics Volume 3.


Here is a typical extract from our respective books.

1. Gilbert drew her close to him and kissed her. Then they walked home in the dusk, crowned king and queen in the bridal realm of love, along winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew.

2. Musical notes are heard whenever a sufficiently regular and rapid succession of impulses reaches our ears. If, for example, a tapping key is operated at regular intervals, say four times per second, the noise resulting from each tap is heard as a separate sound. When, however, the rate of tapping is increased to twenty or more times per second, a continuous humming sound of definite pitch is heard and the greater the rate of tapping the higher the pitch of the hum.

The funny thing is the boys enjoy them both just as much.