There's a roo in the roses

I thought the noise of the possums and wallabies would quiet down as the winter went on and feed was easier to find. But they still seem to be lurking around in the suburban gardens when I take the dog out for a late-night walk.

Even on a dark night you can tell the difference. If it’s a possum, they wait till you’ve crossed to the other side of the road, then they start making bad-tempered coughing sounds at you. But if you go past somebody’s garden and you hear that characteristic boing-boing sound retreating into the darkness, it’ll be a wallaby.

Sometimes they even come out in the daylight -- the picture was taken just across the road from my sister's front door.

They first started moving into the suburbs last summer when the drought caused a shortage of feed. I knew that wallabies liked flowers -- a friend of a friend has special permission to keep a wallaby in his backyard and it loves a rose as a special treat. But I hadn’t expected them to move into the gardens in my sister’s street.

One of her neighbours showed me the whitewashed front wall of his garden and you could plainly see the marks of the wallabies’ feet where they’d tried to scale the wall. He’s given up trying to grow anything in his backyard because they sneak down the hill at night and eat everything in sight.

And yet my sister, who would love to have a few wallabies going through her paddock, never sees them on her side of the road. Either they don’t like crossing the road or they won’t go through the poultry and horses that populate the property.

What will happen in the Spring? We’ll just have to wait and see.

M R I and me

We want to study your brain. That's what the official looking letter from the Menzies Research Institute said. A study to contrast the brains of diabetics and non-diabetics.

OK, I thought, I'm willing to go along with it. An MRI scan, a blood test and a questionnaire. I could do that.

Saturday afternoon I present at Calvary Hospital. I'm not certain how much I have to do before the scan, but it turns out to be not much.

Since they're only interested in my head, I don't need to get undressed or even remove my belt. So long as I removed my watch, keys and coins it's fine.

They slide me into a long tube and give me ear plugs. Half an hour can be a long time flat on your back listening to a blacksmith in the next room.

They started off with a repeated bang-click-click, then after a few zing-zing sounds it settled into a steady clunk-clunk clunk-clunk.

I had a panic button in case I became claustrophobic. There was a little window so I could see out, but since they'd taken my glasses that was just a blur.

Thirty minutes isn't long usually, but I had no way of telling time so I tried to pace myself. I thought of some normal calming things for a while, then I sort of drifted off with the rhythmic pounding coming from all around me.

The next thing I knew I heard a muffled voice and I began sliding out of the tube. The technician looked down at me and said something but I couldn't understand her. Then I remembered the ear-plugs.

When I got my watch back, it was just half an hour.

If you're in a similar situation, I suggest you do what I did and don't look up the MRI page on Wikipedia until afterwards. I know if I had researched it in advance I would have found it hard not to think about all those atoms bouncing around in my skull !

world of winter

When we pass the shortest day, the days begin to lengthen but the cold begins to strengthen. The truth of that old saying is certainly proved by this winter. Some of the mornings have been breath-takingly cold and chilly.

Doses of gingko biloba keep chilblains at bay, but the skin on my fingers is beginning to crack. My remedy for this is to apply a cream for dry skin before retiring and put on a pair of white cotton gloves.

This seemed a bit strange at first, but you get used to it. In fact it's an advantage, helping to keep your hands warm on these near-zero nights.


There has been snow on the mountain for about a month now. Every year this sparks a debate about the merits of the mountain road. Whenever it snows, lots of people want to drive up Mount Wellington to see it, but they can't get there because.... well, because the mountain road is covered in snow and ice.

It seems to me that this is something to do with the modern attitude that everything should be accessible and user-friendly. What good is it having snow on the mountaintop if you can't get to it? Some have written to the local paper expressing the opinion that we should simply tell people to walk to the summit, the way they would have done a century ago.

That idea would be unacceptable to many, and the debates weigh up the merits of improving the road, putting in a cable-car or building a light rail service.

I don't know. I enjoy seeing the massive bulk of the mountain looming through the clouds, speckled with white streaks. It's a part of life in Hobart and personally I don't think we need to make it into a 24/7 tourist trap.

It's a new car! (Well, newer...)

"Now into its tenth generation, it's the world's biggest selling badge, with 32 million owners to its credit in its 40 year history. And, somewhere in the world, in one of the 140 countries where it's sold, someone buys a Toyota Corolla every 23 seconds."

When I started looking around for a new car, I thought I'd end up with something cheap and boring. I am still a little surprised that I ended up with a flame-red Corolla with mag wheels. Hardly the sort of car most of my friends would expect me to turn up in.

I saw Robin Johnson at the theatre the other night and I mentioned I was getting a new car. "I'm not surprised," he said drily. Cheek!


When you've driven the same car for decades, it becomes almost part of you. You know without thinking how much pressure to apply to the controls or how close you can come to another car. Then you get a new car and suddenly everything is different!

It's actually quite scary. The first few times you go out, you're concentrating fiercely. If you can avoid stalling when you start off from a red light, you're doing well. And going round a corner is enough to make you break out in a cold sweat.

After a while it gets better, but I don't know how long it will take before I can just get in and drive off without consciously thinking about what to do.

Where to now?

It was like an allegory. Those winds that blew in the bad weather felt like a reflection of the currents that seemed to be stirring up the stagnant pond that my life had become.

Remember those bio-rhythm tables we used to consult back in the 1970s? All the different areas of my life seemed to be moving to a crisis point simultaneously. The car had deteriorated till it can only drive on flat roads. My sister's dog died. Problems at the office made me consider my job might have a limited life span.

I was chronically short of sleep and the cat keeps waking me up at dawn to feed him.

My diabetes flared up, just as it had last winter. The house needed repairs but my bank account was sinking fast.

I couldn't even change the light bulbs in my house as they burned out, due to my vertigo that kept me from climbing ladders. I was slowly being consigned to the dark. Symbolism anyone?

Was I approaching some sort of turning point, I wondered. Since my mother died, maybe I'd just been marking time. Maybe I needed some sort of shock to galvanise me into action.

Like they say, "Sometimes bad things happen because God needs to get your attention." Could be.

Wheels (or not)

What would you say counts as an "old car"? Some people who trade in theirs every two years may think that five years is old. Until about a decade ago, I was still driving a 1963 Toyota Tiara -- I only stopped using it because it began refusing to turn left.

Since then I've been driving a 1980 Toyota T-18 and it's been pretty reliable. But this year it's been developing a few problems and I've been meaning to get it looked at. This week I finally took it in.

The mechanic phoned me up a couple of hours later and said "Well, it's not good news." He gave me a run-down of all the things that were wrong and said it would cost $1200 to fix... and that this was more than the car was worth in his opinion.

So it looks like I won't be driving myself into the city again until I can find another car. I can get around the northern suburbs all right because it's mostly flat, but it can't handle the hills going in and out of Hobart.

In fact that's why I was finally motivated to get the car checked -- driving uphill in peak-hour traffic in the city centre was a nightmare.

Ideally I'd like to pick up something cheap and boring like a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic. My man at the garage said he gets them sometimes and he'll keep an eye out for me.

But if you're coming to town and you want me to drive out and pick you up at the airport.... sorry, no can do.

Fuel prices

It's always difficult to work out the prices of fuel in other countries - by the time you convert the currency and then convert gallons to metric, your head is spinning. So it was nice to see this piece on ABC radio this morning:


AM - Wednesday, 11 June , 2008 08:05:00
Reporter: David Mark
TONY EASTLEY: Americans are complaining because their fuel has reached around one dollar a litre.

Australian motorists believe they're doing it tough at $1.50 a litre or thereabouts but petrol pain is acute in Europe where the prices are much higher. There, people have taken to the streets and highways in protest.

David Mark reports.

DAVID MARK: Around the world petrol prices are rising. Motorists and truck drivers on the street are on the street.

In Spain where the price of fuel is the equivalent of $AU 1.89 a litre, around 90,000 truck drivers have blocked the country's motorways with their lorries in protest.

VOX POP (translated): This is like a tug-of-war we mustn't give up at the beginning. This is the last bullet in our gun, if this doesn't work, we're lost.

DAVID MARK: Spanish petrol prices are in fact among Europe's cheapest. In Portugal where truck drivers are also protesting, fuel costs around $AU 2.40 per litre. It's about the same price in the UK and Italy.

The price in France and Germany is only marginally cheaper at around $AU 2.30 per litre.

Europe's most expensive countries for fuel are Norway at $AU 2.67 per litre and Turkey at $AU 2.68.

(Sound of people protesting)

The protests aren't confined to Europe. Motorists in many Asian companies are also up in arms about the petrol price hikes.

In Nepal, protesters are on the streets of Kathmandu after petrol rose 25 per cent. The price there is the Australian equivalent of a $1.58 per litre

Protesters are also on the street in Hong Kong where petrol costs around $1.99. It costs a $1.06 in Pakistan and in India it's a $1.24.

In South Korea, where the Government has offered to resign in part because of fuel prices, petrol costs $AU 1.96.

But while most motorists are doing paying ever more, in some countries fuel is virtually free. It costs just 12 cents per litre in Saudi Arabia and just five cents a litre in Venezuela.

Most motorists can only dream of paying so little for the fuel, but they can take some heart in a forecast by the International Energy Association which is predicting oil prices will fall over the next two years to below $US 100 a barrel.

Quizzers of Oz

The monthly pub quiz run by the Irish Association was Monday night. Five of us formed a team under the usual name of The Amnesiacs but we failed to triumph this time round. We came second in our category (of course there were only three teams in that section!).

The categories this time were "Who am I?", Australian trivia, movies, music, books, "Yesterday's News" and a table quiz where we had to identify celebrities whose faces had been morphed onto other bodies (surprisingly difficult).

Sometimes you find that even things you thought you knew refuse to come to mind. Quick, what year did Roy Orbison die? [It was 1988.]

And at times the entire audience disagrees with the quizmaster. Only 16 countries in the Commonwealth? We all said 52. But what the question actually wanted to know was how many Commonwealth countries have the Queen as their Head of State. Like Elizabeth, confusion reigned.

We always have a meal while we're waiting for the quiz to start. Usually I have the Caesar salad, but this time on a whim I tried the Venison Sausage Pasta; not bad, but a bit spicy at times.

PETROL PATROL:

Fuel at my local station has reached 159.7 -- that's A$1.59 a litre. Forecast is it will only go higher. *Sigh*

ON THE RADIO:

You'll invariably find me at home on Friday afternoons listening to the Community Radio station to hear Alan Rider's show Theatre Organ Showcase. Always lots of great old tunes played on the Wurlitzer or the Hammond organ. This week's selection was particularly enjoyable.

http://www.mediafire.com/?wxrcm3fzmix

Autumns dawns

Cold and dark these mornings as we get deeper into Autumn. My vision is not the best under dimly-lit conditions and one morning I found that I'd left my bedroom wearing not odd socks but odd shoes.

I thought my gait was a bit funny.


Very tired again. I've been so weary lately that I haven't updated this page for almost a month. Will do better next month.



ON THE TUBE:

Sally Lockhart Mysteries #1: The Ruby in the Smoke

Billie Piper stars as Sally Lockhart in this adaptation of award-winning author Philip Pullman's (His Dark Materials trilogy) The Ruby In The Smoke. That gave me pause - Pullman's reputation as an atheist is a bit off-putting.

In this story an orphaned teenager seeks the truth about her father's death in the dark and dangerous world of Victorian London.

If you nodded off and woke up after the opening credits, you might think you were in an episode of Charles Dickens' "Bleak House" that you'd somehow missed. The evocation of 19th century London is very well done and the cast fit into their parts well. Julie Walters in particular is so submerged in her role it's almost impossible to recognise her.

Some plot elements seem a little implausible - the freedom enjoyed by young women and black people doesn't ring quite true.

What's a bit startling is the fact this is based on a novel for children. There are several fatal stabbings, drug use, brutal beatings and the implied threat of under-age sex. Children's books have obviously changed since I was a boy.





This month's wine list:

Heritage Road Moonstone 2005 Semillon Chardonnay
Pleasant white from southeastern Australia with the apple-citrus of the semillon comlpemented by the peach-fig in the chardonnay. Goes down well with most meals.

Blue Tongue Sauvignon Blanc 2005
Nice drop that claims to blend passionfruit, gooseberry and kiwi fruit. I can't taste any of those but it's an agreeable white wine (even if it is named after a lizard!).

Yallum Ridge 2004 Verdelho semillon
Once again, a passable white from a vineyard I've never heard of before this.

Crittenden & Co 2007 Late Harvest Riesling
From Mulgrave Victoria comes this nice white with "hints of tropical fruits, citrus and lime".

Lennard's Crossing 2005 Chardonnay
This wine, that promises to be "full and soft on the palate" when served chilled with your favourite fish or meat, comes from Pokolbin in New South Wales.

Anzac Day

Anzac Day, my 58th birthday and the day that celebrates Australia's history at war.

It made for a thoughtful morning. Not only did I reflect on what I had and hadn't accomplished over the last twelve months, but it brought to mind thoughts of all the members of my family who'd served in the armed forces.

My cousin who went to Vietnam. My uncles who were in North Africa. Even my mother served in an anti-aircraft unit when Radar was a deep dark secret.

I took down from the shelf a battered little notebook that had been handed down to us from previous generations. It tells the story of my father's oldest brother, from the day he left home with his unit in 1915 till he sent it home from England a year later just before he left for France.

He never returned. In one of the many Australian graveyards in France, he lies to this day. We often think of him at this time of the year. My father's family mourned him for many years and among the bric-a-brac from the old family home are several framed memorials to the fighting men who were lost in a far country.

Rest in peace, 4385.

Garage Sale

Darkness. That's all I saw when I opened my eyes, but I couldn't go back to sleep. Today was Garage Sale Day in my street.

One of the women in the street had rounded up half a dozen households to participate in a joint Garage Sale (what they call a yard sale in some places). We split the cost of the advertising and benefited from being able to avoid the sunrise wolf-pack.

If you've ever had a garage sale, you'll know that there's usually someone banging on your door at 5 a.m. wanting to get a preview of what you're selling. This way, we just announced that there would be a garage sale in my street commencing at 8 o'clock. Right on that time, everyone who was participating opened their doors and put out balloons on their front fence.

That didn't stop a couple of cars driving up and down the street early looking for any signs of life. Dealers and bargain hunters hoping for a chance to get in early.

I felt like a vampire who'd been dragged out of the crypt by Dr Van Helsing, but as the sun came up I gradually got it together.

Originally I'd planned to spread everything out on the front lawn so that the passing trade could see everything, and I wouldn't have to depend on people wandering down my driveway.

Then at dawn there was a shower of rain and I thought to myself "Oh no, I'll have to change my plans and put everything under cover in the carport." So I did, and of course that was the only rain all day!

It made for a fairly long day. I took up my position at 8 o'clock and watched the clock slowly progress round to 1 p.m. People came and went. Families with kids. Old couples. Young adults. A few people who were obviously dealers.

One man was as transparent as could be. He glanced at a cardboard box of comics and said off-handedly "Those are a bit modern" in a dismissive tone.

"Depends on what you mean by modern," I said, well aware of what he was doing.

"Bit of silverfish damage on a couple of them," he added. I shrugged and said nothing.

"Will you take ten dollars for the lot?" he said finally and I nodded.

It was so obvious what he was doing. He had seen a few comics in there that he thought he could sell at a profit, so he began by denigrating their rarity and quality before making an offer to buy the lot cheaply.

I could see what he was up to, but that box of comics had been in my For Sale section for the last ten years so I took the ten dollars and let him do with them whatever he wanted.

That was the biggest sale I made. There were a lot of browsers but few buyers. Several people asked if I had any old records or old furniture. I could have sold the bird cage by the back door a couple of times.

By 12:45 the neighbours began wandering about making noises about packing up. The family on the other side were pleased that they'd finally been able to sell that three-piece suite that had been taking up room in their garage all year. "Now the kids can play table tennis again."

I checked the takings. $19, less $5 for the newspaper advertising. A total of fourteen dollars for five hours sitting there browsing through old magazines while strangers rummaged through your cast-offs.

Not a way I'd choose to make my living.

is your stuff "shot from guns" ?

How much stuff have you got? That's the question being asked by a new Australian television series titled simply Stuff.

Its creator Wendy Harmer says in the show's outline:

[quote]This series looks at the human life-long love affair with material objects. It is a deeply personal and psychological portrait of our connection with our own “stuff”.


Stuff examines – from the cradle to the grave – the abiding passion all of us have for stuff – the stuff we buy, the stuff we treasure, the stuff we desire and the stuff that’s most important to us.

“In making this series I wanted to present a view about consumption that was beyond basic academic theory. I wanted to present a human view of consumption.

I found myself increasingly dissatisfied with the many books, newspaper columns and documentaries that finger-wag about the way we consume. We consume, they say, because we’re “greedy”, “unthinking”, to “show off” to “have power over others.”

We are told that consuming is a habit we have to quickly unlearn, as if, somehow, we had only recently learned it.

In fact, we humans have been consuming forever. The desire to acquire goods is as much a part of our lives as is the desire to work.

In researching this topic, I was much inspired by a wonderful book: “The World of Goods – towards an anthropology of consumption” written by Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood ( Basic Books New York, 1979).

In this book, the authors make the point that consumption cannot be discussed without looking at our social system. In fact, we humans consume for many different reasons - to keep our selves warm and fed, certainly, but we also consume books, poetry and beautiful objects that inspire; we use goods to celebrate; as gifts; to honour our spiritual life; to express our identity and encode memory.

Therefore stuff is both the hardware and software of human existence.

I am very proud to have made a documentary about consumption that does not contain the usual footage of factory smokestacks, landfill tips and bulging supermarket trolleys.

Instead, it features many happy human faces and all their wonderful stuff! It’s a study of a love affair as much as anything else.

The message of this programme is to be mindful when you consume and above all, love your stuff. It is as unique as you are. Hopefully, this series will have people thinking about over-consumption, but in a gentle and humorous way.[unquote]

The only problem, perhaps, is that Wendy is not a neutral observer - she is a self-confessed "chucker" who is visibly restraining herself from telling the interviewees they should just throw out all that junk.

This series is for those who get the horrors whenever they watch Collectors on Friday night!

#

I've been listening to some old radio serials recently and have been intrigued by one of the sponsors, a breakfast cereal that is "shot from guns."

I didn't think I would get very far asking about it at my local supermarket, but it took me quite a while to bring up a straightforward explanation of what this meant (even with help from Mr Google).

The best explanation was from a website where they were discussing breakfast cereals (!) and somebody spelled it out as follows:

"The 'shot from guns' slogan refers to the normal method of making puffed wheat kernels: a metal cylinder is rapidly injected with hot compressed air, causing the wheat kernels to expand, and then opened to release the puffed kernels. A similar process is performed with other grains. When the cylinder is opened, it creates a loud noise; the cylinders are generally referred to as guns, since this works very much like a shotgun shell and the process is most efficient when performed with long and slender tubes that resemble large rifle barrels."
So now we know.

#

New tablets mean a new leaflet about side-effects and all that. All about biguanides and metformin hydrochloride.

The paragraph about low blood glucose is a bit concerning. If not treated promptly, the leaflet warns, this can lead to
loss of co-ordination
slurred speech
confusion
fits or loss of consciousness.

They've certainly got my number -- most days I suffer from the first three anyway!

how bout dem shift keys??

I didn't write this, but I think you'll find it amusing....

The Shift Key FAQ - Version 0.001

by Alan Meiss, ameiss@indiana.edu

Unleash the Power of Shift!

Q. What happens if I press both shift keys?

A. Even bigger letters may show up on your screen. You should not use this feature, however, because these letters are also brighter, and may cause Screen Burn-In, which would be particularly embarrassing if you were typing something naughty at the time. You might consider obtaining the author's Shift Key Burn-In Protector program for only $139.95. Or you might not, it's your computer, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Q. My shift keys have little arrows on them. Does that mean the *real* shift keys are located above them, and these keys are just little signs to point them out?

A. Nope, they're the Real McCoy. The little arrows mean "up", as in "look up at the screen". Your keyboard is telling you to learn to touch type and quit staring at your fingers.

q. my religion prohibits the use of shift keys. how can i type capital letters and punctuation

A. Discuss alternatives to the shift key with your spiritual advisor. Perhaps your deity would not be angered by repeated use of the Caps Lock key, or maybe you can retain a consultant to depress the shift for you. You might also consider replacing punctuation marks that require the use of shift keys with lower case expressions; replace ? with "huh" and ! with "zowie".

Q> I PRESSED SHIFT AND IT"S STUCK DOWN NOW>

A. Do small children with a fondness for peanut butter use your keyboard frequently? If so, you may want to clean it off for more reliable operation. First, disconnect your keyboard by gripping each of its ends firmly and pulling as hard as you can. Next, immerse the keyboard in warm water and scrub thoroughly with your favorite lemon-scented detergent and lots of steel wool. Finally, you need to dry the keyboard. Either dry it to touch with a handheld blowdryer, or place it in the dryer for not less than 60 minutes. Be sure to clean the lint screen when you are finished.

Q. Why are there are no "shift" keys on my keyboard, but there are two keys labelled "hif"?

A. Again, you may want to consider cleaning your keyboard, and washing your hands more frequently for that matter.


Q. Are there shift keys on my Macintosh?

A. Yes, although instead of the notation "shift", the key may be labelled with an excited Mac face, something like :O . Press this key to use shift, and be thankful you're using a friendly Mac instead of a mean old PC with all them confusin' words 'n stuff on it.

Q. I'm sick of pushing the shift key every single time I want big letters. Is there any other way to do this?

A. This is the Modern Age of Convenience, and you may be able to activate the shift key merely with the power of your voice! Check to see whether your computer is equippped with speech-recognition equipment by saying the word "shift" very clearly and slowly into its speaker. Then watch the keyboard closely to see if the Shift key moves down. Note that you may have to repeat this action several times to "train" the computer to recognize your voice before the feature works reliably.

Q. There are two shift keys, which should I use?

A. Avoid unnecessary wear on either shift key by alternating between the two. Keep track of your usage of each key so that you press them in equal amounts. Your keyboard may be equipped with a small notepad; you should use this to make little tally marks in two columns for each time you shift. Remember, it's better to go to a little trouble than wind up with a broken shift key.

Q. Why are the shift keys bigger than the other keys?

A. They aren't. This is simply an optical illusion. Just as the moon appears much larger when it is close to the horizon, your shift keys look larger because of their proximity to other keys. To verify this, go out in a large field at night with your keyboard, place it in an upright position, and view it from a distance of 200 yards. Sure enough, the keys all look the same size!

Q. If I press the shift key at the wrong time, or too many times, will my computer explode?

A. No. Well, generally no. Not unless you are using a NEC laptop. Or vt100 terminal emulation. But even then, hardly ever. Really, don't worry about it. Forget I mentioned it. Just type softly. Move along, next question.

Q. No matter what I do, the shift key just doesn't seem to work. What's wrong?

A. Have you ever considered that the problem may not be your keyboard, the problem may be YOU? Perhaps God Himself has suspended the operation of these keys to send you a Message that you have strayed from the path of righteousness. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your life. Before rushing blindly ahead with a lot of shifting, consult the spiritual advisor of your choice for help in dealing with any unresolved issues in your relationship with the Almighty.

"Present Laughter"

Name a Noel Coward play. Chances are you wouldn't say "Present Laughter" but that was Hobart Rep's opening production for 2008.

First staged in 1942, this comedy has been revived around the world many times with varying degrees of faithfulness. Here we have Nick Falk in the demanding role of theatrical superstar Garry Essendine -- Garry is seldom off-stage and never stops talking when he is on stage. His dialogue is like a Gatling gun, firing witty remarks, sarcasm and barbed comments at maximum speed.

The story takes place in Garry's London flat, where he is plagued by a never-ending series of visitors including his manager, his ex-wife, a star-struck admirer and even (a modern touch) a creepy stalker, all played by veteran members of Hobart Rep.

The Playhouse was full of enthusiastic theatregoers for this farce. It bodes well for Rep's 2008 season, though I notice they're only doing five plays this year. Most years they've been doing six.

There's a list here
http://www.playhouse.org.au/content/showlistintro..html>

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red hot Friday

I don't know about global warming, but local warming is certainly a fact. When I opened the back door this morning, there was a blast of hot air hit me in the face like I was standing at the door of a boiler room.




It stayed above 30 degrees from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. tonight -- that's 86 degrees in the old Fahrenheit scale.

At midday it hit 37 degrees, which is 98.6 in the old scale, meaning that the temperature was the same inside and outside your body. Not a pleasant feeling at all.

The hens in the backyard had found sheltered spots to escape the sun, and the goose sensibly decided to settle in under the table in the garden. No eggs today but I could understand that. I don't know where the cat ended up but he stayed there for most of the day so it must have been comfortable enough.

After I'd been to my sister's house to help feed the livestock, I suggested we call in at Subway in Moonah. It's air-conditioned and we could get something to eat that wasn't hot.

I'm glad don't live in South Australia. Their record-breaking run of hot weather must be unbearable for the people of Adelaide.

It's a shame I wasn't at work in the office this afternoon. Those old stone walls can withstand the most withering blast of heat for at least a day or two.

Not that it's always comfortable. I spent most of one day this week installing a new multi-function printer (a Brother DCP) and at one stage I was wriggling about on the floor checking the USB connections under the desk -- a real spaghetti dinner under there.

At least I was able to get a good deal at Officeworks. Originally $199, marked down to $129. They only had two left when I was there. There were some el-cheapo ones for about $95 but I tend to be wary of them.

farewell to the queen

The queen of the seas. That's how I'll always think of her. The QE2 made her final visit to Tasmania this year and I drove down to the waterfront to take a last look at her.

Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) was named after the earlier Cunard liner RMS Queen Elizabeth. She was the flagship of the line until 2004. When she was built in Clydebank, Scotland, in 1969 it looked as though she would be the last of the great transatlantic ocean liners.

Who could have guessed that liners would not only survive but would become bigger and bigger until they now look like floating cities.

But the QE2 still has the old-world styling of the traditional ocean liner, a little like a wedding cake in appearance. And the discreetly lettered name Cunard on the side of the vessel still has gives one a little thrill.

On her many visits to my home town, the ship brought back a welcome whiff of the old days of ocean travel. Two of my uncles travelled on the original Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary during the war, when their phenomenal speed made them the only troopships that could out-run German submarines and surface raiders.

We shall not see her like again. Modern liners look like office buildings turned on their side, and lack the prestige of "the Queens." She will be retired from active service in late 2008, to become a floating hotel in Dubai.

It was just a pity that modern security requirements meant that the townspeople of Hobart could not get close to the ship for a last look. I remember on previous visits one could stroll down the dockside and look right into the ship through open doorways and hatches.

To get a good photograph of the ship we needed to drive to the top of a hill in South Hobart and look back at the Derwent river.

boing boing in the brush

Wallabies and possums. Mosquitos and ants. The hot summer weather seems to bring them all out. The mozzies in particular made straight for my sister Julie at the Australia Day barbecue; she had marks all over her legs for weeks.

When I take Julie's dogs out in the evening, the bushes and the trees are full of sound and movement. The irascible possums glare at us from the branches of the trees, coughing noisily at us when we're at a safe distance.

In this weather there's often a wallaby lurking about in the back yards of the homes. They come down from the hills and feast on the flowers in the gardens. I hear some of them are very partial to roses.

It was odd at first to walk down the street and hear a rustle in the bushes, followed by the unmistakable boing-boing-boing noise as it hopped away. One of them got so used to us going past that it would stand there and wait for us to leave -- as long as we stayed on our own side of the road.




A sad day in Australian publishing this month with the country's oldest magazine folding. When The Bulletin's death was announced at a 10am meeting in Sydney, it ended a tradition that began 128 years ago with the likes of Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson and Miles Franklin, and survived into the time of Donald Horne, Les Carlyon and Laurie Oakes.

I never knew the magazine in its pre-war heyday. By the time I came along, Sir Frank Packer had taken it over and turned it into a modern news weekly. I doubt the magazine would have been axed if his son Kerry Packer was still alive, but today it's owned by a soulless international media corporation.

One of the galling things is that the magazine's end was announced between editions. The editors didn't even have the opportunity to write a farewell note to the readers.

The same thing happened with Australasian Post, which was scuttled at a moment's notice despite its equally long history.

They say Australians are among the world's biggest consumers of magazines. But sentiment counts for little among the bean-counters of the modern business world, and a long history is no guarantee of survival in the marketplace.

Just today I heard a report that Reed Elsevier are selling off their magazine business, which includes titles ranging from Variety to New Scientist. Apparently the company is unhappy with "the cyclical nature" of magazine publishing....

American comics Down Under

I read a lot of American comics as a child. But they weren't exactly the same comics that Americans were reading.

Australian access to original US comics was limited until the 1980s, resulting in a relatively strong local comic industry.

Back in 1939, Australian Senator D Cameron railed against US periodicals being dumped in Australia, affecting local writers and artists. The problem was soon solved with the start of the Second World War: the Australian Government enforced the Import Licensing Regulation to control the spending of US dollars and from June 1940, the import of US comics was banned.

From 1947 until 1983, DC comics were reprinted in Australia by KG Murray Publishing Company/Murray Publishers Pty Ltd under a range of imprints— Colour Comics, Planet Comics and finally Murray Comics. Between 1983 and 1986, the Federal Publishing Company Pty Ltd released reprints as Federal Comics and finally Australian Edition DC.

K.G. Murray had some long-running black-and-white publications whose titles reflected their 100-page size. Century, Hundred, Five Score - you get the idea. But the size of these comic books meant that just reprinting one DC title wasn't enough. Instead the editors ranged over the decades and assembled a real smorgasbord of various dates, titles and genres.

For example FIVE SCORE COMIC MONTHLY #76 in 1964 featured as its cover story "The Terrible Secret of Negative Man" which had appeared earlier that year in DOOM PATROL #87. Another story "The King of Nightmare Jungle" had appeared a few months earlier in TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED #83.

So far so good, but the rest of the stories were from a wild and wonderful range of sources. "Out of Nowhere" came from a 1962 issue of UNKNOWN WORLDS. There were two Captain Compass stories from 1952 issues of STAR SPANGLED COMICS and a Hopalong Cassidy story "Buffalo Riders of the Mesa" from a 1950 issue of ALL AMERICAN WESTERN! A range of 14 years from oldest to newest and a bewildering potpourri of art styles from artists as diverse as Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino and Ogden Whitney.

Of course these things never bothered us as children. We just accepted the variety of themes and styles.

What did worry me was when they started trying to fiddle around with the details of the stories. There were attempts to de-emphasize the American origins -- references to Washington DC were relettered to read "our nation's capital" and in the TOMAHAWK stories set in the Revolutionary War the captions talking about the British army were relettered to read "the Redcoats".

Not to mention the frequent censorship where knives or arrows were removed from dead bodies to reduce the amount of violence depicted.

The strangest incident was an ATOMIC KNIGHTS story in which the hero pointed to a map of the United States on the wall. Local artists clumsily replaced it with a map of Australia. The problem was that they didn't change the dialogue which referred to the mountains on the west coast. In Australia, of course, the mountains are on the east coast!

I must have read that page half a dozen times trying to make sense of it.

A for ant-agony

Hollywood tried to warn us. Films like The Naked Jungle, Them! and Phase IV.

Even Joan Collins tried to sound the alarm in Empire of the Ants.

The ants are on the march. The last couple of summers they've been an increasing problem and this January has been the driest since they started keeping records around 1882. The result is that they are literally everywhere.

Some nights they've been so bad in the kitchen that when we're making dinner one of us stands there holding the plates in mid-air while the other dishes out the food.; then we take off for the dining room and eat before the ants can follow us.

I know from watching movies what to do in a case like this. You dig a trench and fill it with kerosine, then when the ants start to cross it you throw in a flaming firebrand.

That may be all right out in the jungle but I'm a bit reluctant to try it in a suburban kitchen.

My sister hasn't been well this week, but she was up bright and early after the neighbours called her in to consult on a poultry problem. Their hen has only hatched one chick, so Julie offered to help out. She caught two chicks at her place and brought them over to be put under the hen.

They plan to tell their children that the hen hatched two more chicks while they were away.

Let's hope they all get on together. I know Julie will be on tenterhooks waiting for news of their progress.

I had a routine day at the office yesterday but I felt downcast by the time I arrived home. I felt like dark clouds were gathering over my head, plunging me into increasing darkness as time went on.

Sitting out in the garden alone before dinner, I came to the conclusion that the obvious explanation was probably correct. Next week is Valentine's Day, which is also my mother's birthday. She would have been 86 this year.

It's unfortunate that her birthday falls on Valentine's Day and she died on Grand Final Day. Thus the media never let me forget when either day is approaching. The rest of the year I'm all right, but those two days of the year always get me down.

go to the light

I need something. Maybe this is it.

This is from the Zazz website:

Full Spectrum Light with Ioniser -- Enhance your overall feeling of wellbeing -- $54

You know the slightly grey-tinged guy in the corner cubicle. You'd probably hardly notice him except for that incessant dry cough and the fact that although he never seems to take a sick day, he's always sick and complaining of chronic migraines!That man suffers from a bad case of SOS and SAD! (If you're not au fait with your acronyms - Sick Office Syndrome and Seasonal Affective Disorder.) Two sadly prevalent disorders in our oh so modern world caused largely by our artificial internal environments.

Introducing the "innovative" Full Spectrum Light with Ioniser that aims to undo the twin evils of SOS and SAD. The lamp produces glare and flicker-free light that emulates the natural effects of daylight. Normal lighting has an imperceptible but damaging flicker which is known to cause fatigue and stress. The Ionmax lamp however will bathe your world in a much kinder, gentler and natural light.

Its other function is designed to counteract the high amounts of damaging positive ions emitted into the air by our appliances. With an inbuilt air ioniser the lamp will spread negative ions into the air cleaning and refreshing your stale, recycled, coughed and sneezed in, indoor air. And in so doing reduce your sense of fatigue and disenchantment with your boring job... well at least the first part is true.

The combined effects of this device will leave you feeling like you've been frolicking in a meadow soaking up the sun and breathing in pure, freshly oxegenated air with little bluebirds and rabbits gamboling happily around you

OK, I suffered from SAD during last winter -- more than I ever have in the past. So I'm willing to be persuaded. I sent off for one yesterday.

I'll let you know how it goes.

paltry day

Friday morning I enjoyed a rare hour of peace and quiet. There's a little window between when I finish feeding the chickens in the back yard and when I have to try and get my sister moving. I had breakfast, checked my e-mail and read the comic strips.

Later in the day I went in to the pet-food shop to get meat for my sister's cats and took it over to her house. It was so warm and humid over there that I suggested we go into Subway for coffee and a snack -- their coffee is all right and their air conditioning was definitely a plus in this weather.

At dusk we sat out in my garden with a glass of wine and watched the poultry as they paraded by. I don't mind having them there, but I look forward to the day when Julie finishes extending her hen house and takes some or most of them home.

In the mail today, received an e-book CD containing all 181 Doc Savage novels in PDF format. We all know that you aren't allowed to post these on the Internet, but they don't seem to stop them being sold on E-Bay. Remind me to tell you about the South Pole Terror sometime.

A fascinating interview tonight on Rod Quinn's radio show with David Ansen, the NEWSWEEK movie critic: "On January 26, 1958 (the date is written in pencil), I began keeping a list of all the movies I'd seen, using lined notebook paper that I further divided in half so that I could get upwards of 50 movies per page. I was 12 years old. I've kept up the list my entire life. It now fills 146 handwritten pages—close to 8,000 movies, though the number would be higher had I added all the movies I saw on TV."

Rod was especially interested because he keeps a similar list. I used to do the same thing.

Of course there was a very practical reason for this in the 1950s and 1960s. There was no Internet, no IMDB, not even any of those movies-on-TV paperbacks that you see in every bookstore.

It's hard for anybody under 40 to understand those days. In my young days I loved science-fiction movies but there was no way to have a list of all the SF films that had been made unless you imported an expensive specialist publication from the United States. (There was a copy in the reference section at the State Library but I could never have afforded a copy for my own use.)

I used to go through the magazines like TV WEEK and TV TIMES and make a note of any movies on the late-show that I hadn't heard of before.

I thought it quite wonderful the publication of "Science Fiction in the Cinema" by John Baxter (London: A. Zwemmer, 1970; New York: A. S. Barnes, 1970) which I was actually able to purchase.

It's a very different world today, where (to use a metaphor from the early days of the Internet), we are swimming in a sea of information.



Called in at the shop/post-office around the corner from my sister's house to pick up a registered letter for her. While I was there, I bought a comic book and the girl behind the counter looked at it, looked at me and said "Are you one of those people who are interested in old Phantom comic books?"

I reeled back in horror. "Is it that obvious?" I said tremulously.

"We just got in the end-of-year special issue this morning if you want one."

"Oh. Yes, I'll take one while I'm here."

Selling an average 30,000 copies an issue, The Phantom remains this country's favourite comic book. There is simply nobody else who comes close to the wide readership that the Frew Publications title has.

That's close to a million copies a year in Australia. Total Frew sales since 1948 are estimated at a breath-taking 35 million copies.

a hot time this morning

Hell. That's what it was like this morning.

I thought I was having a hypoglycemic attack,sweating and feeling like I was going to pass out. The expected cold change didn't come in and as it got closer to midday it just got hotter and hotter.

For about three hours it stayed up around 30 degrees (that's around 86 in the old Fahrenheit scale) and I think the humidity was about 55%.

One of Julie's friends Merv had come by to collect some rubbish that we'd cleared out of the driveway yesterday and I tried to help but I had to keep retreating inside to sit down and drink iced soda water. I just couldn't cope with it.

Thankfully the cold change did finally move in late in the afternoon and the temperature started to drop after 3 o'clock.

Fire crews and helicopters were out fighting brush fires that had sprung up during the hot and windy afternoon. More news here: http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/mysite/Show?pageId=colPublicNews

Roll on the autumn is all I can say.

---

Meanwhile we attended the Irish Association's usual monthly quiz night at the New Sydney Hotel. We had a team of five, with a wide span of general knowledge. In spite of that, we had a couple of disastrous rounds in the middle of the night and I feared the worst.

We chose the "television" round to joker for bonus points, but it was a debacle. All the questions were about obscure details from sitcoms that I never watched. I thought we'd sustained a mortal wound when we only scored two out of a possible eleven points, but when the scores went up I found that was not unusual. One table even scored zero.

The other categories - People & Places, Literature, Movies, Ireland, Music, Sport and History - were kinder to us and in the end we won in the Silver category. Of course it helped that most of the other teams went for Gold and there was actually only one other team up against us.

The prize is just a few vouchers for free drinks, but at least we could share those around the team. One of the other tables won a movie ticket -- how do you share that between six people?

---

From the news desk -- a sign of the times. The new Federal Government says all schools will be able to apply for help to assess their security needs.

The Government will spend $20 million on the program, which will see ASIO and the AFP (Australian Federal Police) assess the security risk at applicable schools.

Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard says while the scheme will specifically target some schools, all are welcome to apply.

"It would be of no surprise to people for example that many Jewish schools have had cause for concern about security arrangements," she said. "The program is there to assist schools who feel themselves to be at risk and who are at risk."

Times have certainly changed since my school days.

The only time you saw the police outside my old school was when they were directing traffic at the pedestrian crossing.

Doctor Who and me on the air

When my local radio station announced a Doctor Who contest, with prizes include a book of DW scripts and five DVDs, I was naturally interested. Write a plot for a Doctor Who episode in 500 words or less? Hey, I can do that.

I sent in my e-mail, and a couple of days later I was listening to the afternoon show and Joel Rheinberger announced they'd be reading one of the entries in the contest.

To say I was happy with it would be an understatement -- the reading with music and sound effects just bowled me over. I almost thought I was listening to the BBC.

http://www.mediafire.com/?1krmsmddnen

So if nothing else goes well this pre-Christmas week, I at least have the consolation of having heard my own words come back to me over the wireless.

They'll soon be calling me the Orson Welles of North Hobart -- though they might have my build rather than my intellect in mind....

Twelve Days of Turkey

This isn't original, but it seemed to go over quite well when I performed it at our church's Christmas lunch:

On the first day of Christmas my true love said to me

"I'm glad we bought a fresh turkey and a proper Christmas tree".

On the second day of Christmas much laughter could be heard

As we tucked into our turkey - a most delicious bird.

On the third day we entertained the people from next door

The turkey tasted just as good as it did the day before.

Day four. Relations came to stay; poor gran is looking old.

We finished up the Christmas pud and ate the turkey - cold.

On the fifth day of Christmas, outside the snowflakes flurried,

But we were nice and warm inside, for we had our turkey curried.

On the sixth day I must admit, the Christmas spirit died,

The children fought and bickered; we ate turkey rissoles, fried.

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love he did wince,

He sat down at the table and was offered turkey mince.

Day eight and nerves were getting frayed. The dog had run for shelter.

I served up turkey pancakes - with a glass of Alka-Seltzer.

On day nine our cat left home - by lunchtime dad was blotto,

He said he had to have a drink to face turkey risotto.

By the tenth day the booze was gone (except our home made brew).

As if that wasn't bad enough, we suffered turkey stew.

On the eleventh day of Christmas the Christmas tree was moulting,

The mince pies were hard as rocks - the turkey was revolting.

On the twelfth day my true love had a smile upon his lips -

The guests had gone, the turkey too, we dined on fish and chips!

I was sitting next to the wife of one of our ministers and she asked how I'd gone with the Nanowrimo novel this year. "I got through it with a day to spare," I said, "though it took me a couple of hours every night."

"How much did you have to write each day?"

"1700 words is the minimum."

She nearly choked on her cranberry jelly. "You can write 1700 words in two hours??"

I admitted that some days were easier than others....

final day

Thank goodness for that.

You Won!

So it's official.
Our word-counting robots have analyzed your November novel, and they've delivered their final, binding assessment: Winner.

You did it! You did it! You did it!

This was, without a doubt, one of the hardest years on record for NaNoWriMo participants. At some point in the literary marathon, most of your fellow writers fell by the wayside. They lost their books to work, to family, to school, and to the hundreds of other distractions and interruptions that tend to shutter creative undertakings like NaNoWriMo.

But not you. Not this year.

This November, you set out with the ridiculously ambitious goal of bringing an entire world into existence in just 30 days. When the going got tough, you got writing. Now you're one of the few souls who can look back on 2007 as the year you were brave enough to enter the world's largest writing contest, and disciplined enough to emerge a winner.

We salute your imagination and perseverance. The question we ask you now is this: If you were able to write a not-horrible novel in 30 days, what else can you do? The book you wrote this month is just the beginning.

From here on out, the sky's the limit.

-- from the NaNoWriMo website

The eyes have it

Saturday was E-Day. In fact it was doubly so. It was Election Day, but it was also eye-test day.


Five years is a long time between visits to the optometrist for anyone, but for a diabetic that's definitely too long.


My problem is that I don't like my eyes being touched, and for a diabetic exam it's usual to put in eye drops to make the eyes easier to inspect. I have never been able to use eye drops; embarrassingly I often struggle if somebody is trying to use them on me.

After a couple of attempts, we manage to work around my problem by photographing the inside of my eyes, then inspecting close-up the parts that didn't show up well in the picture.
The verdict was no sign of diabetic retinopathy and my macular seemed to be OK. However I was overdue for new bi-focals.


Under the Australian health system, the eye test is free. However the spectacles are definitely not.

Have you ever noticed that in this sort of situation if you try and guess how much it will cost, you're always about 30% below the actual figure.

The girl behind the counter showed me a couple of different styles.
"This pair is lighter and would cost about $1100, while these aren't so lightweight but cost about $900."

"I'll take the latter," I said. This month I have to pay the rates, the phone bill and the power bill before I even start thinking about Christmas. $900 is a lot of money at the moment.



Meanwhile, back at the ballot box, the pollsters' predictions turned out to have been right on the mark. The entrenched conservative government led by John Howard was crushed by the swing to Kevin Rudd's ALP.

Both men made speeches on late-night television. Howard was gracious in defeat, while Rudd gave a long speech overflowing with platitudes and cliches.

My main source of disquiet with Kevin Rudd sounds a bit superficial. It's the way he looks; sometimes he feels like an android who's been programmed to play the part of a politician. If they ever do another live-action 'Thunderbirds' movie, I've go the man to play Brains.

eclipsed

You remember the old comic-book villain Eclipso? Nasty fellow with one half of his face painted black, the other half white. That's how I felt when I woke up Wednesday morning.

The left hand of my head felt perfectly normal, but on the right side my eye was watering, my nose was running and my ear was hot and itchy. I've seldom had a head cold that was so compartmentalised.

For the next four days I felt miserable. I wandered around the house scavenging any medication that looked useful.
Paracetemol.
Vitamin C.
Antihistamines.
Ibuprofen.
The symptoms went away but they always came back.

I was plunged into despondency. I felt there was no way I could summon up enough energy to get through each day.

The worrying part was that I was halfway through the annual Novel Writing Month and had undertaken to write 1700 words a day -- every day. Up till then I'd been right on schedule, but now I went 36 hours without typing a word.

There may be things you can still do with a heavy head cold, but writing fiction doesn't seem to be one of them.

And as students of Murphy's Law would know, this happened on the least convenient day of the week. I had to get up early because my sister Julie was driving our older sister Pauline to the eye clinic for a cataract operation. And I had an appointment that afternoon with my endocrinologist.

My doctor wasn't terribly happy that I hadn't improved at all, but he did listen to my complaints about being in constant ill-health. He wrote a couple of extra squiggles on the form for my blood test and said to make an appointment with the Diabetes Association for a consultation. He is planning to change my medication so I need to be tutored about the warning signs of the hypo.

*Sigh* I could have done without all this, but that's the way it happens sometimes.

It could have been worse. By Saturday night I had just about shaken off the symptoms without picking up any new ones. I'd even managed to just about catch up with my NaNoWriMo writing project, though it wasn't easy.

My sister's cataract operation went off without a hitch. That was good.

It was just a shame that in the middle of my ill-health I had to go to the office on Thursday afternoon. I felt so dreadful that I had to exert all my willpower to just get through my work.

My boss discovered after about an hour that he had his jumper on backwards. He asked if I'd noticed it and I was at a loss for what to say. It was difficult to explain that if I had noticed it, it was so low down on my list of priorities that my mind (running on emergency power) never got round to processing the information.

Surely the rest of November must be better!

my november novel

Nothing to do with Halloween, but the last day of October is a worrying moment. For November is Nanowrimo month!

"NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a creative writing project originating in the United States in which each participant attempts to write a 50,000 word novel in a single month. Despite the name, the project is now international in scope" states their Wikipedia entry.

If you've ever done a Creative Writing course, you'll find the idea of National Novel Writing Month a bit startling. For here the emphasis is on quantity not quality. Can you write a 50,000 word short novel in four weeks? That's about the length of a slim paperback novel. (Not one of those thick blockbusters you buy at the airport.)

The term "winner" is a bit misleading here - this isn't a contest and there aren't actually any prizes. Chris Baty of San Francisco started the whole thing in 1999 with 21 participants. From there, it's gone from strength to strength - nearly 80,000 participants registered in 2006, with almost 13,000 completing their novels (word total for all participants in 2006 was 982,564,701!)

Participants need to write an average of 1,667 words per day, which is about two and a half pages, single-spaced, in a 12 pt font. Now I am a trained touch typist and I could type that standing on my head. But actually creating a story as you type at that speed? That brings some of us out in a cold sweat.

I've taken part in it the last two years with mixed results. The first year I actually made it with a day to spare, which was just as well. I hadn't realised that different word-processors count words differently; my science fiction novel "Scorched by Darkness" was just under the 50,000 mark and I had to add a few more pages.

It was tiring but a satisfying experience.

The following year I ran into problems. I started off writing what I thought was a horror novel in the Stephen King mode and bogged down at the end of the first week because I was trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.

Eventually I decided what I was actually writing was a psychological thriller set in the television industry and it flowed along fairly well from there. Unfortunately I never made up the time I lost and in the end I missed the deadline by about two hours.

Nevertheless, I have a certain fondness for the resulting story "Carlton Marsden is dead"

So tomorrow I have to begin on my novel for this year. Two weeks ago I was worried about this, firstly because I didn't know if I was physically strong enough to do it, and secondly I didn't know what I was going to write about yet!

But the human mind is an amazing thing. Slowly the germ of a plot began to form and some characters came forward to volunteer. While I was shaving one morning I came up with the title - "Bernie Thompson's Unicorn is Missing" - and when I was walking the dog last night I thought of the whole first page.

And no, it's not a real unicorn. But it does play a vital part in the plot.

Wish me luck as I sit down at the keyboard at midnight tonight.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

gone north

Last Saturday I got back from Bagdad in the late afternoon. Not Baghdad in Iraq. Bagdad the small town in central Tasmania.

My sister Julie had an invitation to go to the races up north that weekend, and she could get a lift with a friend of a friend if she could get to Bagdad.

It was a nice Spring day, so I didn't mind the drive. I wasn't quite so happy about my car -- the clutch is slipping and it doesn't like going uphill.

Usually we would have taken Julie's car and had mine repaired, but hers was already in dock. She was driving home one evening when the motor suddenly died and clouds of white smoke began billowing from the rear of the car.

Fortunately years of living in the modern world have given her the training to remedy this: she went on-line and bought a new engine.

But getting back to the trip north, I had to have a refresher course in looking after the animals. I ran through the mechanics of feeding the horse and the poultry morning and night, giving the dogs their dinner and keeping the cats happy.

"Every night, walk around the horse to check he doesn't have any injuries on his legs or flanks. Have a look at his eyes to make sure they're OK," she said. "And if one of the dogs dies, don't bury him till I get home."

I looked at her patiently. "How long are you going to be away? 36 hours? I'm sure everything will be all right."

Yin and Yang

Presented for your inspection, two aspects of the modern persona.

Part the first. My older sister Pauline had an unexpected visitor. A tradesman doing some work on the hotel she had owned years ago turned up on her doorstep. He had found some old photographs of her husband that had slipped down behind a wall and recognized him. So he brought them round to her.

Part the second. Driving home from Pauline's the night she told me about this, I saw a car coming towards me on the main road. He started to turn to the left and I assumed he was turning into a side road. Then he turned right. Then left again. Faster than it takes to describe, he shot past me zig-zagging along the white line in the middle of the street. He was either an expert driver or stoned out of his brain.

Part the third. What do those two people mentioned above have in common. One did something good for no reason except that he thought he should. Another did something reckless with no regard for anybody else. It would be easy to say that one was "good" and the other was not.

But maybe it would be more accurate to say that both were human. We have in us the capacity to help or to hurt others. All of us, like a Yin/Yang symbol, contain elements of both dark and light.

The difference between us, perhaps, is that some of us are trying to move from the dark towards the light.

And some of us aren't.

Thoughts from a late-night laptop.

====================================================


If you like Red Skelton and/or black-and-white comedy thrillers this will suit you down to the ground. I first saw Whistling in the Dark 40 years ago and have finally located it on DVD. It was just as much fun this time. Directed by S. Sylvan Simon in 1941 with a screenplay written in part by Albert Mannheimer (producer Simon and screenwriter Mannheimer would later receive Oscar nominations for Born Yesterday in 1950).

The play it was based on opened on Broadway starring Edward Arnold and Claire Trevor on 19 January 1932 and had 265 performances.

Skelton plays Wally Benton, a radio broadcaster whose program 'The Fox' features himself in the title role as a crime solver. Conrad Veidt and some nefarious characters decide that ‘The Fox’ is just who they need to invent a perfect crime: a murder which will assist them in obtaining a one million dollar legacy. Ann Rutherford, Virginia Grey, and Rags Ragland play significant roles; Henry O'Neill and Eve Arden also appear.

To ensure The Fox's co-operation they also abduct his girlfriend Carol (Ann Rutherford) and his sponsor's daughter Fran (Virginia Grey).

One of the gang is sent to poison their target on an airliner while the dim-witted ex-boxer (Rags Ragland)is left to guard the trio. Wally, who actually is quite intelligent, works out that a severed phone line can be used in conjunction with a radio set to call for help.

With the help of his two lady friends, he calls in to his radio station and begins broadcasting the details of the crime in progress, including their kidnapping.
Rags is curious as to what they're doing but they convince him they're just pretending to broadcast as they do at that time every week and he good-naturedly goes along with it.

But, having been fooled by Orson Welles's "War of the Worlds" broadcast three years earlier, the local police chief thinks Wally's rantings are just another hoax!
Some of the early scenes also show how radio programmes were made in the early days: actors had to go on air live - twice, once for the East coast, and three hours later for the West coast. They performed, standing up, in front of a live audience. Sound effects men behind them watched for their cues, while the actors read from scripts.

This is all vastly entertaining -- the only way it could be improved is for Eve Arden to be given more screen time as Wally's agent instead of only appearing in the first reel.

Film expert William K. Everson commented "So many comedies of the '40s tend to date today, being so locked in to their period, but 'Whistling in the Dark' escapes that fate and remains an excellent comedy." From his notes for a 1989 Halloween double-feature for film fans
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wke/notes.ht

The fire of 2007

"Word gets around when it affects our memories."

The Myer department store has been an institution in the main street of Hobart since 1959. Two days ago, Saturday afternoon shoppers noticed a wisp of smoke coming from between the first and second floors.

Within hours, 15 fire trucks were battling to try and stop a fire that had engulfed the building. The column of smoke could be seen from both sides of the Derwent River. By the time night fell, the 19th century building was in ruins -- the worst fire in the history of central Hobart.

There were no casualties but I found this news very disturbing. Back in the 1960s I had grown up on the next block from Myer and had been past it or through the shop almost every day. The record rack in their basement supermarket had been my introduction to buying music (mono LPs for only $1-99).

Most people in the city would have similar feelings. It was like having a stake driven through the heart of the central business district.

The quote on the first line is from a text message my sister received from Madeleine on the mainland. We even received a similar SMS from Libby in France.

I haven't been in to see it for myself. I guess I have this silly feeling that as long as I don't see it with my own eyes, it's not real. If only....

{Interestingly, I read this wasn’t the first fire on that site - the building was first damaged by fire in 1858. It’s not even the first major department store fire on the block!. Fitzgeralds (now Harris Scarfe) in Collins Street was burned in 1911. And the Green Gate cafe burnt down on the same day in 1984 in the same street. Eerie.}

The scent of Spring

You wouldn't think you could lose one of your five senses without noticing it, but that's what happened to me this winter.

One Saturday recently I emerged from the bathroom after a refreshing shower and noticed something was different. I took a deep breath and the air was full of unfamiliar scents -- not that there was anything unusual about them, it was just that I hadn't smelled them for some time.

It was quite distracting in fact. I walked around the house and the garden, constantly surprised by the aromas that surrounded me. I knew that I had been sneezing and snuffling all through the winter, but I hadn't been aware of the extent to which my olfactory senses had been dulled.
I suppose it must have happened so gradually that I just hadn't noticed it.

But now suddenly my sense of smell had been restored. Perhaps the steam from the shower had been the catalyst.

In any event, I was back to normal. Now all I had to do was get used to the barrage of scents and smells again. I felt like a colour-blind man who has suddenly been given the gift of normal vision -- it's nice, but it takes a while to absorb.

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It's not often you get a message from someone saying they're being held prisoner, but there's always a first time.

I'll let my sister explain...

An acquaintance, Jenny, had been discussing with me what to do with a broody chicken she had at her place. I said she could always pass her on to me. So the other day I got a message from her on my mobile phone to say she was ready to bring her over.
I sent back a text message to say that was fine -- I was at my brother's house in New Town whenever she wanted to come over. She sent back a message to say she was on her way.

So far so good, but Jenny forgot I'd said I was at my brother's house and drove straight to my place in Lenah Valley.

She got out of the car and walked out into the paddock, carrying the hen in a box with some straw. I wasn't in sight, so she kept walking.

Now my horse has a lot of admirers and he's used to visitors coming round with little treats for him. When he scented the straw in the box, he assumed Jenny had brought him a snack and started following her across the field.

She was a bit startled by this, and kept trying to move away, but he followed her till she reached the middle of the paddock, near the creek.

Unfortunately this was where the geese had made their nests. September is the season for laying eggs and they are very protective, goose and gander alike. Jenny got this far and couldn't go any further without a full-scale confrontation with the geese.

So she was trapped, not between "the devil and the dark blue sea", but between an inquisitive horse and the aggressive geese. She sent me a frantic text message; I realised what had happened and drove straight over there.

I arrived in minutes and looked out across the fields. "Jenny?" I called out, and a distant answer came back from the other side of the trees.

"Help ... !"

When I hurried down to rescue her, I saw she couldn't have ended up in a worse location. She had five laying geese around her in a semi-circle with her only exit blocked by a hungry horse. She really was trapped.

In the middle of all this my brother sent me a message asking where I was. I phoned him back, but it was difficult to keep a straight face while I described the situation.

I told Jenny I'd just let the dog out while I was there. "How are you with dogs?" I asked cautiously.

"Is he a big dog?" she said warily.

"Yessss, fairly big" I said (he's a Mastiff with maybe a bit of Great Dane).

"I'll stay here," she replied.

But it worked out all right. I took her over to my brother's house and made her a hot drink while we watched the chickens wandering about on his back lawn.

She seemed much calmer by the time she left.

into Spring?

It's going to be an early Spring based on the readings available to me: the goose-o-meter, the wattle-o-graph and the Horse Hair Index.

The goose in my backyard started laying eggs early instead of waiting till September, and the Wattle tree in my garden was in bloom for Wattle Day for the first time in twenty years.

(Wattle Day began in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1838; in 1988 Acacia pycnantha was officially proclaimed the Australian floral emblem and four years later the first of September was proclaimed as Wattle Day.)

As for the Horse Hair Index - it's obvious to my sister whenever she puts the horse-rug on or off that he's losing his winter coat.

Personally I'm hoping that the end of winter will see the end of this persistent low-level infection that's kept me coughing and sneezing and has meant my Blood Glucose readings have consistently been around 12.5 instead of last summer's 6.8

I'm wondering what my endocrinologist will say when I see him next week.