Sweet sweat

Sincere apologies

2008-11-30T14:47:00.003+09:30

In the unlikely event there is anyone still out there who might be reading this long-neglected blog, I need to tell you that one of my links to favourite blogs had been corrupted and had been leading to a particularly nasty pornographic site - for quite a long period of time. I was only made aware of this today and am deeply distressed in case anyone followed that link. I couldn't get into the blogrolling site to delete the particular link, so had to go into my template and delete all links. I am not easily offended but there was no way I would knowingly leave a link to this depraved filth on my blog for another day.

Anyway, that's the story. If any of my old friends are out there, you'll need to post a comment so I can add you as a link again. You never know, I might start writing again one day.

In the news

2007-05-18T22:27:00.000+09:30

In the news in NT this week:

First an "only in Darwin" moment - I love these!
ABC radio news:
"A demonstration is going on outside the building where an international conference on uranium mining is being held today in Darwin," ..... reports from the site... " About 8 protesters have gathered outside..." etc. Eight! Eight protesters is a newsworthy event here.

Next - the dark side of Territory news
A 25 year old Aboriginal man bashed and raped his grandmother who was in a wheelchair. Oh yes, she had only one leg, having lost the other after an accident. Actually he did it twice. The first time he was supposed to be wheeling her home when he took a detour into bushland. When she asked where he was going, he said "to get a root". She did not report the incident as she was too ashamed. The second time he did it in a more public place and when he bashed her she screamed. This alerted bystanders who dragged the man from on top of her.

In his defence his solicitor said the man was sexually frustrated after his wife left him.

Well now, isn't that a good excuse!

He received a gaol sentence of 10 years for his crimes and will be eligible for parole in 5.

Hmm, I reckon I could have thought of a much more appropriate sentence... something requiring an amputation without benefit of anaesthetic perhaps?

...and the nice side of Territory living

Government House was open to the public today. I went along after work on a warm dry- season evening and walked up the red carpet to receive a kiss of welcome from the Governor's wife. The gardens are filled with garish, clashing tropical blooms - red, purple, orange and yellow, glowing against the deep greens of a rain forest background of palms, ferns and raintrees.

It's a modest, tropical design home dating from the 19th century, made of local stone and timber. With only four main rooms, surrounded by wide stone verandas, it's somewhere you could almost imagine living; not imposing or stand-offish in any way, just beautiful, comfortable and relaxed.

Afterwards I had a seafood dinner on Stokes Hill Wharf (a Darwin institution) among crowds of locals: families, groups of friends, couples, and a few tourists, all soaking up the peace of the tropical evening.

Although I guess I must have felt more tranquil than some, for amongst the lone diners, I appeared to be the only one who didn't feel the need to resort to a conversation with an absent friend via mobile phone!

Finally a unique work moment:
A report this week at work, written by one of our Aboriginal liaison officers, contained the sentence "we was as happy as a mob of galahs in a gum tree when we got that motor going again."

Ahh, the Northern Territory - you gotta love it!

Holiday snapshots

2007-05-13T22:35:00.000+09:30

I'm standing on a 3rd floor balcony overlooking the traffic on Parramatta Road with the Sydney skyline etched in the mid distance, when, right in front of my face, a huge maple leaf dances by on an air current. It eddies and swirls, twirls, lifts and drops and eventually settles on a balcony two doors away from me. Suddenly the air space above the street is filled with drifting, dancing leaves. They come singly and by twos and threes, nature's ballet, three floors above the noise and fumes of man's invention.
.......................................................................................................................................................................
An old woman, proud of her last shreds of fierce independence, little vision or hearing left, every step a slow agony, waits fearfully for the day when she must admit defeat and accept the ignominy of allowing others to provide for her most intimate needs. Every day survived to lay at last on her bed and sleep, for a few hours free from pain and confusion, is a hard won and hollow victory.
.......................................................................................................................................................................

A tiny fireball of energy, small, hard, tough, fast and inexhaustible throws his arms around me and says 'cuddle' as he head-butts my glasses from my face; while his sister, his antithesis, soft, tiny and delicate crawls quietly into my bed at night to snuggle down and sleep without moving till morning and the big sister, the responsible one, the carer and nurturer waits her turn to gain the attention she too wants but is too shy to demand.
.....................................................................................................................................................................

Nature's glory

2007-04-20T22:55:00.000+09:30

Today was a perfect day.

In the morning, the tide was full and the sea a crisp, dark blue dotted with tiny wind-blown peaks. It appeared to swell and sway against the golden strip of sand and red cliffs opposite.

Tonight a bright, new moon rode high with Venus, huge in counterpoint, set together into a sky of shadowed blue taffeta.

#8

2007-04-18T21:12:00.000+09:30

The Darwin lifestyle was epitomised by the unique transport methods glimpsed outside the primary school at 'going home time' today. One mother rode a tandem made up of a child's bike welded behind adult one - only mum was pedalling, but they both looked happy.

A second mother had a standard toddler seat on the rear of her bike, which was towing a small ,enclosed trailer containing the two other children .

The photographic observation is of a very small and skinny kitten, taken in a Balinese village.

#7

2007-04-15T13:58:00.000+09:30

She had just finished reading a trashy novel in which the thoughts and emotions of one of the most dislikeable characters bore a disquietingly close resemblance to her own.

#6

2007-04-12T23:42:00.000+09:30

Living alone meant there was no-one else to blame when the empty toilet roll hadn't been replaced

Sanur Beach

2007-04-12T23:21:00.000+09:30

I loved the quality of the light in this one

#5ish (lost track already)

2007-04-12T23:18:00.000+09:30

That half-sleep waking where you drag leaden limbs upright only to stumble into the door frame on the way to the loo

"I've been to Bali too"

2007-04-11T17:43:00.000+09:30

Why, when they showed such daily devotion to their gods, was their survival dependent on callous tourist dollars?

It seemed unfair, as if all that effort and goodness of spirit should bring greater prosperity.

#4

2007-04-01T16:31:00.000+09:30

She had a notion if she had remembered all the outstanding lines from all the books she'd read in her life, she'd be able to turn them into a marketable novel . Not having collected them, she contented herself with figuring how many novels that might have been and came up with around 8,000.

Indigo sky

2007-03-31T18:15:00.000+09:30

The photo can speak for me today

#3

2007-03-30T07:45:00.000+09:30

Anticipating a week's holiday had her pondering the nature of time - how this time next week she'd be anticipating its end. Sometimes she wondered whether it was worthwhile doing anything, because of time's ephemeral nature.

discovering new blogs and a line for today

2007-03-28T13:03:00.000+09:30

So, having decided to update my blog more regularly, I thought I should look for a few new links - many of my favourite bloggers having become quite inactive. I'm happy to say on my first search I found OMel and I reckon it's a cracker - light-hearted, funny and diverse. Then I followed one of her links and found Steph and it is if anything even more hilarious. My readers who were fans of Mellipop before she virtually gave up blogging will love them. Give them a try! I've blogrolled them, so you can click into them from my sidebar you non-bloggers. You have to go to the bottom blog roll because I forgot my account name and lost access to the original list - which is why I also can't delete the inactive blogs from the top list (sigh!)... mind you there are still some fine ones on that list too.

I'm so happy with these two - and am sure they link to others in the same vein - that I don't have to search for any more now.

My one-liner for today is:
2. She looked up and drew the perfect morning inside to sustain her

Something doable

2007-03-27T21:45:00.000+09:30

There are a number of bloggers I admire. I admire them for their succinct choice of words, for pulling a thought or emotion out of the air we share, expanding on it and making it live for all of us, for their sense of humour, for their plain diligence in keeping on blogging year after year. Some I admire for their astute political comment, some for their obvious love of hearth and home, some for their rabid rants and acidic commentary, some for their poetry - all for their desire to communicate with the world at large and their readership in particular. Most of them I could never hope to emulate.

But there is one that I really admire and who gives me something to aspire to that is almost doable One million footnotes compresses his philosophy into not much more than a line a day. They are thoughts that create mind pictures, small everyday passing threads that appear to us for an instant and then are gone. This guy captures them and blogs them and he's been doing it for years. The latest entry on his blog is number 1334 - now that's dedication!

So here's to you Geoff Hurd, I've tried to do it before, but I might give it another run - at least on the nights when my computer is working and I open it up. It does seem to be doable.

1. Sometimes her belly sat in her lap like an over-inflated football

the good, the bad and the plain bloody ridiculous!

2007-03-25T22:52:00.000+09:30

The good and the bad: Last night I went to see the movie "The Last King of Scotland". It was pretty damn good. The guy who played Idi Amin deserved all the awards he won and the other principal actors were good as well. It was good enough that it made me come home and look up the life and times of Idi on the net; of course I'd lived through those years (though from the safety of the Sydney suburbs) and remembered that he was a real bad bloke who committed atrocities on his own people and murdered thousands, but reading the details again and seeing the times fairly faithfully portrayed on the big screen was quite arresting.

I'd never realised what a charismatic character he was and what a good sense of humour he had - pity about his dark side! I mean a guy that could think up these titles for himself had to have a sense of humour right?
'conferred on himself the decoration of CBE which, he said, stood for "Conqueror of the British Empire". Radio Uganda then solemnly read out the whole of his title: "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE".' As usual Wikipedia gives an interesting overview.

I think those of us who live in a peaceful and prosperous country and have never put ourselves into the middle of someone else's civil war or dictator-ruled land just can't comprehend (on an emotional level) what it is like for the people who live there. You can read the words and look at the pictures and intellectually you are horrified and have sympathy for the people - but to really live it - well I at least can't comprehend living with that sort of fear.

The totally bloody ridiculous: Tonight I watched "Miss Marple" on TV. This silly old biddy and her complex detective stories set in England (I think between the two great wars). It has to be satire - I want to either sneer or laugh all the way through except when it's putting me to sleep with boredom, but I know people who actually seem to enjoy the "mystery". The hour felt like a year in prison. Sorry Miss Marple, I'm never going to waste another hour of my life watching you, even to be polite. If I'm at someone else's place and they turn you on - I'm outa there!

In other news - the workshop finally found a fault with my computer after looking at it for 3 weeks. They say it was the video card getting hot. This is the third time the video card has been replaced in three years. I'd say that is the problem, but gee, maybe there is something causing the problem? Still, they assure me this is a better video card and it will fix the problem permanently. Yeah, yeah!

The downstairs neighbours advised me the ceiling is still dripping below my bathroom. The first plumber never came back and after waiting a month we called in a second. The second reckoned he'd found the problem after about 20 minutes and fixed it. Not so it seems! Third time luck perhaps?

Rainy Wednesday

2007-03-11T22:27:00.000+09:30

Sitting sipping coffee in the Nightcliff Groove Cafe. The monsoon's pattering softly on the canvas overhead, while surrounding banyan trees drip greenly.

At ten-ish on a Wednesday, the patrons scattered thinly - there's me with my novel, two women at separate tables, each scanning today's NT News - for jobs perhaps or just what passes for the daily news.

One man, solid, casual, damp, dark hair, chats on his mobile phone, while in front of him, his leg juts straight, encased in plaster from toe to knee.

A sharply alternative woman with laptop and a slew of paperwork, hair skinned to the bone and a jaunty cap like an overgrown skull cap - what does it signify?

Two workmen in hi-viz vests, in animated conversation about fishing spots, favourite pubs or the bloody boss, smoke their way through the gentle morning drizzle.

Cups clatter sharply, a counterpoint to that plosive tock of raindrops overhead.

And peace softly reigns with the rain, at the Nightcliff Groove Cafe, on a Wednesday in March.

TODAY

2007-02-06T23:51:00.000+09:30

The plumber's verdict is that the leak is coming from my bathroom. Better still, he can't find it, so we will need to get in the leak diagnostic team - 2 to 6 weeks wait and about $500 for the service. "When we find out where the leak is," he cheerfully imparts, "we will have to basically destroy your bathroom to fix it." KABOOM!

... and my watch stopped today as well.

The fridge however seems a shade cooler than it was and the TV started working again.

I think many of these problems are caused by high humidity (90%+) and well, the other one seems to be water-based as well.

Don't think I'll be taking any sea journeys in the near future.

By the way, those big photos further down the blog are stopping my links from displaying, if you want to see them, just click on comments and they'll display.

A funny story

2007-02-05T22:42:00.000+09:30

Hello blogger friends,

Here's a true story that I thought was quite funny. Hope it amuses you.

I was feeling pretty shit after a bad week at work and the weekend not much of an improvement, so decided to do a little chore I'd been putting off. It involved walking around my unit building to check whether the painters had finished off the last bits and pieces.

At the top of the second set of stairs I encountered a little family coming out their door - mum, dad and daughter about 4 - 5 years old.

"What are you doing" says the child.

"I'm checking to see whether the painters have finished all the doors," I say.

"They've done ours," says dad.

"Have they done yours?" Says the child.

"Yes"

"This lady has to check all the doors," says dad.

"Why, are you the boss?"

"Yes," I say, "don't I look like the boss?"

Assessing look followed by: "Nup, you look like a grandma"

"Well I am a grandma," I say," so you are right."

"Know how I know that?" She says. "Because grandmas have wrinkles."

Dad looks embarrassed and tries to get her moving along.

To make him feel better, I say: "There's another way you can tell grandmas, they often have grey hair."

"Why? Does their hair get old?"

"Hmm, well I, um, yes."

We get to the bottom of the stairs and are standing there when the observant little miss says: "what's wrong with your foot?" (I have a bunion on one foot)

"Oh well that's just something else you get when you get older," I say.

" Have you been walking a lot?" she says.

Me thinking yes, 60 years of walking says: "well yes".

"Don't you have a car?" she says.

At which point, mortally embarrassed dad says: "We do and you're getting in it right now!"

Oh well, I was feeling a bit past my use by and this little episode only managed to confirm my thinking, but it did give me a laugh.

Just to compound my week, when I got home tonight the downstairs tenant told me her bathroom ceiling had caved in and had water dripping from it (obviously from somewhere upstairs - maybe my unit?), the fridge seems to be getting steadily warmer and the tv won't turn on. Hmm - wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Hope your week's been better than mine.

blogslack

2007-01-01T19:17:00.000+09:30

Yes, I'm still alive, just a terribly slack blogger at the moment. Can't believe I haven't posted any Christmas or New Year greetings - but for anyone still checking this blog, I do hope your Christmas was merry and bright and 2007 fulfills at least some of your most heartfelt dreams.
I'm on my annual pilgrimage to visit family in Sydney. It's been nice - peaceful, pleasant, no dramas so far, lots of good food, a wine or two... I guess at 60 it's better than one has a right to expect.
When I stop to think about it, I feel blessed: by my good health, by my healthy sons and grandchildren, by the love and care of family and friends, by having a really nice place to stay and others that I can visit, for having an embarrassing plenty of excellent food, for living in a country where peace and plenty are the norm. Yes, all in all, I have so many things to be grateful for that I really feel I have no entitlement to wanting anything more.
OK, I'm human. I'd like excitement, travel, a great new job that brings me fame and fortune for minimal effort, a fabulous love affair ... oh and to look and feel 20 years younger... but I think these might have been the same things I hoped for last year and the year has been far from intolerable without any of them, so, on the whole, I guess I'll be happy to reach Christmas 2007 in the same condition as I've made it to January.

and...having found nothing in the least interesting to say, I'll just quietly go away now and talk to you again later in the year.

stupid quizzes

2006-11-14T23:31:00.000+09:30

I always get sucked in by those pop quizzes on other people's blogs, it's so easy to just click the link and there you are, with numerous time-wasting but irresistable quizzes to answer. Somehow it feels like reading your stars in the newspaper, or consulting a clairvoyant - you know it's total crap, but you think you'll just check it out anyway in case you learn something interesting about your favourite topic - yourself!

Anyway the particular link I followed took me to the "What kind of meat are you quiz" - now I ask you, what kind of person would waste time doing a quiz like that and even more, put it on their blog to tempt others - well as I was saying, I'm quite lacking in self control when it comes to these temptations, so I did it - and I came out fish, which had quite a nice description attached. So far so good.

The next quiz promoted by the referring blog was "Which wife of Henry VIII are you?" Hmmm, well after the meat one... I glanced to the sidebar of the quiz-master and lo and behold there were all sorts of far more fascinating quizzes there. I did the "Are you right or left brained" one - because, unlike my cynical fellow blogger, I really wanted to know something interesting about me. I'll enter the code here and see whether it comes out, but if I have to enter it on the template it isn't going to happen. In that case, I'll just let you know that I am almost perfectly adjusted between the left and right...ahem! Then I did the "What age will you die" one... and I'm not sharing that with you, it's just too personal.

For a bit of fun follow the link.

You Are 45% Left Brained, 55% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.
Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.
If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.
Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet.

The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.
Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.
If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.
Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

Photo three

2006-11-11T16:03:00.000+09:30

The second photo

2006-11-11T16:00:00.000+09:30

Here's the second photo. Sorry all my links have temporarily disappeared because of the size of the photos but I don't know how to alter that. I think this is the smallest size offered on photobucket. Glad to see you are still checking my blog TECH and sorry I've been a very slack reader and even more slack commenter lately. Unfortunately I don't have TECH's prodigious capacity for getting through my daily lists!

Managed to get photobucket to help

2006-11-11T15:59:00.000+09:30

So here is the first of three photos I have ready to post. In a hurry now, so will do the others soon. This is a picture of either: mangoes, my sculpture or Katherine Gorge. You'll be able to tell which but I can't by reading the html! The ones I'll post later are, surprisingly, the other two of the above. Keep smiling (especially you smiley, whoever you are - thanks for the comment!)

...and the computer crashed again!

2006-11-09T23:38:00.000+09:30

Part of my post below that disappeared, also told you that my computer crashed again, was in the workshop for nearly 2 weeks and came back minus all my programs, my internet connection and everything saved on my email program. They did manage to save my word documents this time, so guess I should be thankful for small mercies.

While my friend was here we did a Paverpol workshop (look it up on google). Here is my creation. Plus I'm going to try posting some more photos with photobucket and see if that is any quicker than google.

Can't believe it's been so long!

2006-11-09T23:17:00.000+09:30

Swimming in Mataranka warm springs
Hello to any loyal readers still bothering to check this sadly neglected blog.

In my last post, I believe I was bemoaning a series of unhappy coincidences that had fallen in my sphere. Well so it went on...

Did I mention that my car battery went flat? Well it did, but appeared to be caused by leaving the boot open overnight. After driving around for an hour or so, the battery was fine, the car started every day for three days, then, when my visitor arrived, we set off about 80 kilometres down the track to visit The Territory Wildlife Park. It was a hot and humid day, but I figured after we'd sweated around the park for a few hours, we'd drive 5 minutes down the road to the beautiful Berry Springs for a long cool swim.

After a couple of hours, we staggered back to the car, hungry, dehydrated and well ready to enjoy a spot of lunch and a swim. But then disaster struck. You guessed it, the battery had gone flat again. We are now a long way from the roadside assistance option, so, begging help from some park rangers, we get a jump start. This of course put paid to any thoughts of stopping down the road for a swim. An hour later, we are back in Darwin, still hot and even more thirsty and hungry.

The first place we stopped for a battery assured us he had the right type of battery and could change it for us. Turned out he could provide the battery but didn't have a licence allowing him to actually put it in the car. "It's easy," he says to me, standing in the blazing sun, I'll give you the tools and you just undo these two nuts and put the new one in place!" "Do I look like a person who can change batteries?" I say. "Where is the closest place I can get someone to do the job." Genius car parts man reluctantly points me across the road. Fortunately the car starts again.

Second car parts place appears to have a fully operational workshop. "You really need to get some other things checked before we replace WHAT @#$%$^&^% ... the rest of this post just disappeared when I posted it. It was really long! Anyway, short version: Third garage fixes the battery but rips me off on the price by about 1/3 extra.

Apart from that I had a great time with my friend. One picture posted above and more to follow if I can manage to get blogger to work anytime before I turn 100!

Life's good here and I hope yours is too.

Is Jupiter aligned with Mars?

2006-10-16T21:52:00.000+09:30

I've had a kind of freaky week. Are the planets in some sort of strange alignment? Do we have a sun spot shower or something?

This week:

Flew to Canberra (3500ks)for three days. Left at 2.20am, got there 9.20am. Ascertained that hotel had a dining room. Got back Sunday evening to find the dining room did not open on Sundays. The hotel was in an industrial area with not a shop nor restaurant in sight. Had a bag of potato crisps and a snickers bar for dinner.

Tuesday - Flew back to Darwin, arriving at 11.45pm.

Thursday - Friend tells me her husband has been diagnosed with artery problems and is in hospital having a triple bypass. She also says she's been feeling a little unwell and has had some tests.

Friday - dear family member goes into hospital for planned bowel operation. Problems worse than expected. Looking towards 10 days in hospital and a fairly protracted convalescence.

Sunday - Same friend (see Thursday) rings me. She's in hospital. She's had a heart attack and is awaiting possible transfer to same hospital as her husband for possible bypass surgery. She tells me another friend is in there with her. He was brought in by ambulance after suffering severe chest pains.

Monday - Get to work and our computers have undergone a 'migration' - needless to say no-one's computer works anymore. Takes till 2pm to fix the problem

Monday - Friend I haven't heard from for about 10 months text messages me and asks if I can get my stored belongings out of her garage in the next two weeks - yeah sure, I'm 3000 kilometres away and every time I've tried to do it when I've been in town she hasn't wanted to know... (huh!)

Monday - Arrive home to devastating sight. There is a very large tree in the neighbours' yard that shades the westerly windows of my bedroom - remember this is Darwin and daily temperatures range between 30 and 34 C all year. The tree has been cut down. Not trimmed; not lopped - no, all that remains is a 30 cm stump, a pile of sawdust and the sun reflected blindingly from my bedroom windows. I loved that tree. It gave me shade and privacy and a moving panoply of green to watch. Now all I can see is the next door building, the carpark and the bloody sun!

Tonight my best friend arrives for a two week holiday. Her plane gets in around 1am - please God... no more nasty surprises eh?

The mother of all barbecues

2006-10-01T22:11:00.000+09:30

Yesterday I bought the mother of all barbecues. It's one of those stainless steel, 4 burner plus wok burner with hood for roasting models. Man I've been lusting after one of these for years. Kept looking at my old charred and rusted one with the wobbly wooden trolley with one and a half wheels and three out of four burners still working and thinking: "gee those really nice ones are coming down in price all the time, I should replace the old one". Yesterday the local Bunnings hardware store was closing down (to make way for the biggest hardware store in the Pacific that's almost complete near the airport). Anyway they were having a 20% off everything sale and I just couldn't pass up the last super barbecue on the floor. Pretty good deal actually, I ended up getting it for $350. Bringing it home in 4000 pieces, lugging it piece by piece up the stairs and spending the rest of the day as the apprentice barbecue builder had me wondering whether I was in my right mind. As did the thought of this monster overtaking my medium size balcony.

But tonight it was all worth the effort. There sits my shining, stainless steel space ship - looking like Dr Who's Dalek has landed on the balcony - but man, the steak and eggs for breakfast were superbly cooked and tonight's roast chicken, vegies and stir fried vegetables - succulent, juicy and absolutely delicious.

I can see there will be no need to replace my dodgy hotplates and oven - they'll probably never be used again.

Go the Dalek!

PS - somewhere during the course of the day I remembered that I bought the old barbecue in 1987 - at that rate, the new one will outlast me or at least my ability to cook - so it's official folks, this is my last barbecue!

Steve Irwin farewell

2006-09-20T10:43:00.000+09:30

Okay, call me soppy, misguided, what you will, but I just cried all the way through Steve's memorial service.

When he died, I thought it was sad that a man so successful, so able to make a name for himself doing what he loved should be cut off in his prime. I felt sorry for his family, who seemed to share such devotion to each other. But to tell the truth, I wondered why there was such a fuss. Why politicians from our Prime Minister down were vying to express their condolences - why he'd been offered a State funeral - after all, wasn't he just another celebrity? How serious were his environmental credentials? Didn't he, to a great extent, just use them to bolster his own image and make lots of money?

Perhaps it's simply the ability of great theatre linked with patriotism to touch the heart-strings that made his memorial so moving; or perhaps the re-telling of his life in pictures and personal tributes gave me a more realistic perspective on what he'd done for wildlife conservation but in the end, I mourned Steve as I never thought I would.

The decision to have not a stuffy, State funeral, but a celebration at the "Crocoseum" at Australia Zoo - the 5,000 seat theatre Steve built to provide a window on wildlife to the world - was a brilliant piece of marketing of the Steve Irwin brand that will undoubtedly live on. But more than that, it was a window on the emotions and love inspired by this rambunctious ratbag.

Watching him live on the big screen, it wasn't difficult to see that he was never going to make old bones. He lived life on the edge and courted danger at every turn. But it wasn't just his mad escapades that made Steve Irwin unique, it was his childlike enthusiasm, his very "Australianism", the fact that he really didn't care whether we thought he was a lunatic or a showoff, he was happy to put himself out there with all his faults on the world stage. He was a man, confident in himself and prepared to share that self with us all. Most of all he was a family man - Steve did nothing without the family around him and his love for them and for his extended family of Australia Zoo staff and colleagues shone through everything.

Goodbye Steve. You projected the image of the quintessential Australian to the world - a mad bugger, out in the wilds playing with dangerous animals - not what we really are, but what we wish we were. My heart breaks for your wife - for who could ever follow in the wake of Steve - and for your children, who have lost a great mate, the most fun dad and a wonderful role-model, and for your father because what parent should ever have to outlive the son.

Steve Irwin, you did indeed make the world a better place. You shone a spotlight on family values and lived every day to the fullest, you were a fair dinkum bloke and a good friend to people and animals.

I reckon Steve's memorial was a fitting tribute to a good bloke and he would have wanted to share it with the fans all around the world who had grown to love him. Whatever it was about him, he was able to capture the hearts of millions and that in itself is probably the best memorial to the Croc hunter.

Steve Irwin's death proved the old adage - "It's not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years."

sweet sixtee...

2006-08-16T22:00:00.000+09:30

Course I'll probably have to show my driver's licence or they won't believe that senior's card!

Night-rider and the seniors

2006-08-15T20:43:00.000+09:30

A faded blue cardboard cover. Crammed within, 60 pages of information for the over 60s - probably, you imagine, those same gross individuals sketched on the cover and loosely filled with lolly pink, ghostly green and faded taupe fresh from the paint can option on your favourite graphics program; each displaying a strange arrangement of short lines and dots that look like a bad case of acne. The whole package is stapled carelessly together with two huge and misaligned staples on the left hand side.

Inside, some of the more intriguing headlines read:

Prostate Cancer Group (whose unlikely acronym appears to be PROSPER)- hnnh???;

Alexandra Day Club (whose intro spiel promises: "a small fee covers morning tea and lunch with various activities such as carpet bowls, games, guest speakers, singing and some light exercises). Hmmm - I'm guessing we don't mention religion, politics or sex in any of these activities what with the threat of imminent heart attacks and strokes!

Other enticing gems include - the movies, featuring special hearing aid "loops" and wheelchair access and the busy bee club with outings, bingo and raffles.

But to be fair the NT is an inclusive community and the government goes all out to try to retain as many over 60s as possible. To this end we are also offered Chess, Bridge, University (both mainstream and 3rd Age!), country fibre craft guild, the film society, patchworkers and quilters, the Greek coffee club, ballroom dancing, life be in it and even bellydancing.

Having recently embarked on my 7th decade, I've decided to embrace the age so to speak. So this week I received my "Seniors Card" which entitles me to discounts at lots of stores, a 50cent concession fare on the buses, up to 50% off spectacle frames and even 10% off all bread loaves at Brumby's.

But there's more!

The NT is a super-generous place to live. Not only do I qualify for the Seniors Card, in the NT I also qualify for a "Pensioners and Carers" card - even though I'm working and neither a pensioner, nor a carer, but just because I am female, have turned 60 and live in the NT (sorry guys if you are male you have to wait till you're 65).

With this card I get all sorts of great things, including: substantial discounts on rates, electricity, water, garbage rates, telephone rental, drivers licence, car rego and even 50% rebate on the price of one airfare a year to any other capital in Australia!

So, do I mind turning 60? Not on your nelly. I reckon I'm about $1000 a year better off this year than last and if I ever do need to look up "Prosper" ...well at least I'll know where to find them.

Sulphur-crested cockatoo at Douglas Daly

2006-07-30T21:42:00.000+09:30

This bold fellow came down to drink at the river, then flew into the tree directly above my head to party on seeds.

Birthday weekend photos

2006-07-30T21:37:00.000+09:30

I like to go camping on the weekend of my birthday. The weather is perfect at this time of year - nights cool enough to enjoy the campfire and days hot enough to enjoy a swim in the river, which is after all partially fed by hot springs. If the morning is a little chilly, well then you can always loll in the really hot springs. This year we had a 'big wet'. Thanks to late cyclones there's still much more water around than usual. I took this photo of the river where I camped.

More photos

2006-07-26T19:55:00.000+09:30

Here are few more photos taken during Mikey's visit (one of the ballet crowd for you HR Mommy). The ballet was an evening event, so I only got pics while they were warming up, before it got dark.

Holiday snaps and apology to Optus

2006-07-24T22:51:00.000+09:30

First the apology. I just received a REFUND CHEQUE from Optus for the overpaid amount on my closed mobile account. Couldn't believe my eyes. They must be more principled than I thought! Woo hoo - $23.05 to spend!

I'm trying blogger image upload here. It seems very slow, but I'm not sure whether I've ever tried it before, so thought I'd give it a go as it saves going to another website.

Mikey and I had a great time. These photos are only a sample. Requests for others will be honoured - snakes, crocodiles, markets, more waterfalls, outdoor ballet, more Mindil Beach sunsets, wetlands with birds, rodeo ...

waiting for mikey

2006-07-14T22:35:00.000+09:30

I'm waiting to pick up mikey from the airport. I've just looked at the arrivals on the website and it tells me his plane is going to get in at 12.15am instead of 11.40pm; just a little more waiting.

I'm very excited - just looking forward to bringing him home with me.

Mikey is eleven years younger than I and while he's a perfectly grown up man now, maybe there will always be something of the mother-son in our relationship. You see I got married very young, when Mikey was only 6. Our mum worked, so, while I was home looking after my baby, it was me who went to all Mikey's school open days and had him over during school holidays. Even further back, my girlfriends and I used to dress him up when he was a baby and take him for walks - he was like our own live doll.

As the years went on, every house I lived in and every important person in my life got to know Mikey. It's been very strange that Mikey has never, until tonight, set foot in my home of 6 years. Hopefully, while he's here he'll get to meet the new people in my life, see where I work and catch up on the life I live now. It will be a validation in a way.

Even last year when I lived in Canberra for 3 months, Mikey was one of my first visitors, met my Canberra friends, caught up with a Sydney friend of mine and just made himself part of it. That's Mikey.

Often we don't speak for months on end. He lives a very busy life and doesn't have a lot of time for chatting to me on the phone but somehow I always know he's there -know that if I ever needed him he'd drop everything and fly to me.

And it's not just me. He looks after our aged mother as well; visiting her every week, taking care of her shopping and banking and a myriad of other small and thankless chores. He does it all with gusto and enjoyment and makes people around him feel good.

Michael was a late addition to our family but I always think of him as a gift from God - what would we do without Mikey.

On another note it was my other brother's birthday today. Ken is 2 years younger than me and is a bit of a lost soul - drinks too much, doesn't keep in touch with his lovely children or grandchildren, is alone now after ending relationships with two nice women and we never even hear from him - even mum. It's so sad. Two brothers, the antithesis of each other. Why?

Names and diminutives

2006-07-13T22:15:00.000+09:30

I remarked today to a girl called Libby that I really liked her name, which set us to discussing the dimutives of Elizabeth (her given name). As well as Libby, we came up with Liz, Lizzie, Eliza, Liza, Liss or Lissa, Beth, Bess most of which we agreed were good names. We also agreed that she was lucky she wasn't born to an earlier generation where she might easily have been called Bette or Betty. It's interesting to think how many diminutives there are for people's names and I wonder, does a person grow into their name or does the name influence the person. Would thoughtful and gentle Libby be the same person if she'd insisted on Elizabeth into adulthood or adopted the much harsher Liz?

A book I've just read talked about names and quoted someone who'd said "if you want to ensure your son is strong caring and gentle with people, call him John." - hmmm, maybe there is something in this name business.

Years ago I read a theory that names choose people. That a spirit is wandering around waiting for a body to be born into and it suggests its name somehow to the prospective parents. I know the name of one of my sons came to me out of the blue. It was not a name under consideration, but one morning I woke up thinking that name and remarkably it was agreeable too to the child's father - when we'd been unable to agree on any other name - and so, without real discussion or forethought, that's what he became from that moment on.

A friend was pregnant (this is back in the dark ages when we couldn't choose to find out whether we were having a boy or a girl). She went to the markets and came home with a plaque bearing the name Joshua - and that was that - Joshua he was.

Most recently, a colleague had a baby about 2 months ago. When she was 7 months pregnant she was in a vehicle rollover and from the moment she and the baby walked away intact, we all started calling him "Lucky". Oh she's given him a flash first Christian name, but he's still got "Lucky" as his second name and we are all still calling him Lucky. Wonder what kind of a person Lucky will grow up to be?

Comment on Cranky post

2006-07-12T23:00:00.000+09:30

Back in April, I had a big spit on the blog about Optus mobile and their inept book-keeping and customer service . Well I meant to tell you the postscript.

In May I received another bill from them which I screwed into a ball, chewed into small pieces and spat down the toilet - after jumping on it. I can't remember now how much this account was for but suspect it might have been for $21.94, because in June I received another account. This one told me I had a previous account of $21.94, had paid $8.99, had a $40 'goodwill credit' leaving me a total account of $23.05 CREDIT!

If you and I kept demanding money from people and refunding it so capriciously, we'd probably be in jail!

Guess now I've closed the account there's not much chance of me ever getting my credit back in cold hard cash is there?

Apology

2006-07-12T22:42:00.000+09:30

In an excess of emotion last night when I wrote the previous post, I somehow managed to forget that I have had one other member of my family come to visit. About 2 years ago my favourite - well ok only and favourite - nephew came to Darwin and stayed with his gorgeous wife and baby for a couple of days. I was over the moon at their visit as well and we had a great time. Why did I forget this? Well it seems the older you get, the more easily you remember things that happened at a further remove - my other friends visited 6 and 4 years ago but Tristo mate, I guess 2 years ago must fall into the short-term memory - well almost, I did remember this morning and feel very bad about it. Not that I think Tristo actually reads my blog, but well, I really enjoyed their visit and I just felt bad to think I'd been raving on and had temporarily forgotten about it.

My short-term memory is in fact increasingly awful. It's never been great, especially for things I read (and surprisingly I read all the time!). I'm sure it was at least 8 years ago that book-shop son told me he could see an advantage to my condition - "Soon mum, you'll be able to just have one book that you really love and read it over and over again." I've always remembered this comment at least and find it both amusing and comforting but you know what... I've got a horrible feeling I might have told you about it some time quite recently. Now the thought of writing the same thing over and over... that's really scary!

Florence Falls, Litchfield Park

2006-07-11T23:20:00.000+09:30

We'll swim in this pool!

my brother is coming!

2006-07-11T22:34:00.000+09:30

MY BROTHER IS COMING TO VISIT! I can't tell you how excited I am. In the 6 1/2 years I've lived in Darwin not one of my immediate family has visited me. I trail the 3,000 kilometres to see them three times a year, regular as clockwork, but not once has one of them visited me. My dearest, oldest friend came for a month a few years ago. My former sister-in-law and her new partner came for about 6 weeks, in 2000. Apart from that, my only visitors have been a few work colleagues.

But on Friday night, Mikey and Marty are coming to visit - only for 6 days, but I'm so looking forward to it.

It's kind of weird living in a place for so long and having none of your family know anything about where you live or how you live.

So, when Mikey and Marty come I'm going to immerse them in my life - share with them the day to day pleasures that make me love this place. We won't do anything flash, just go to the markets and eat the delicious range of Asian foods on offer, take a day trip to the waterfalls of Litchfield, eat dinner under a palm tree at the Trailer Boat Club, visit the Museum and Art Gallery to take in the fabulous array of Aboriginal art, the cyclone Tracey exhibition and the maritime display featuring the tiny wooden craft from Indonesia (to wonder at the bravery, desperation or foolishness that would make people undertake such a voyage in such flimsy craft). On Wednesday night we'll go to the free performance of the Australian Ballet in the Botanic Gardens and see Giselle under the tropical stars and somewhere in there we might fit in a swim in the warm Berry Springs, where you can swim along a creek from one deep pool to another in water so clear you can see fish darting around your feet, watching rainbow bee eaters dive from a clear blue sky and a 5 foot goanna rustle through the underbrush to disappear under water chasing a tasty morsel for dinner.

Man are we gonna have fun!

...and when they go home, I'll know, that at least one member of my family can picture my home and my life, and somehow I'll find that comforting.

Hulks Darwin Harbour

2006-07-04T23:02:00.000+09:30

I loved the contrast of the rust-orange boats and the glorious blues of the sky and sea, and the way the colours melded in the shadows.

flying things

2006-06-29T00:06:00.000+09:30

A hundred small, furry moths beat against the screen in a halo of light and moth-dust.
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Six wood swallows perched shoulder to shoulder on a thin branch, swinging in the breeze.
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She watched Under the Tuscan Sun on DVD and longed to see such things before she died.
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footnotes

2006-06-27T23:31:00.000+09:30

Dressed for work in an orange jumpsuit, she was not sure whether she felt like a Guantanamo Bay detainee, an astronaut or Rocketman!
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When the motor repairer installed a new weather seal to the boot of her car he was secure in the knowledge that she would not know whether or not it was fixed until the following wet season
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A brilliant star appeared just above the treetops and hovered in the one position for minutes until it became an aeroplane
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Thinking and watching

2006-06-26T21:47:00.000+09:30

She wondered whether she could build muscles in her arms simply by lifting them above her head at intervals; without use of weights.
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The Gathering Storm (Churchill between the wars)was such an inspiring and riveting movie that she had to forgo her planned snooze in front of the DVD.
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Reprise the reprisal

2006-06-20T22:19:00.000+09:30

The other day at work I submitted an article for the departmental online daily news bulletin. Okay, I dashed it off in a bit of a hurry, otherwise I probably wouldn't have used a word like "reprise" - as "in a reprise of the role they played". Yes, it's a trifle archaic, so shoot me!

Lowly public servant and wordsmith that I am, my humble submission was edited by the clearly superior, more highly placed and paid web editors in Canberra (seat of all government knowledge and power)and appeared online the next day altered to read "in a reprisal of their role."

"That doesn't look right to me," thinks your humble servant..."shit, I must have used the wrong word (after all highly paid editors must know better than I, I think, in my usual excess of self-doubt)."

So I consult my trusty dictionary. Lo and behold, "reprise" appears to mean: "repeat action: to repeat an action or performance", while "reprisal" on the other hand has quite a different meaning: "Retaliation for an injury with the intent of inflicting at least as much injury in return. The practice of using political or military force without actually resorting to war".

Well done, you oh so superior, highly paid editors who constantly crop, chop and change my work then publish it with my byline - this was a particularly entertaining blooper in view of the fact that the "role" under discussion was facilitating aid to a combat zone!!!

Whoops...didn't like the way they treated us last time we tried to help get food to them when they were having a war - let's make sure we effect a reprisal this time - what? poisoned porridge maybe?

Hmmm... now "effect" I'm not at all sure about - should it be "affect" oh editors from hell?

Cyclone shelter

2006-06-19T21:59:00.000+09:30

Apart from yawn over the weekend, I did complete this painting inspired by a fearful wait for the force 5 cyclone that (thankfully) just missed us back in April.

Yawn!

2006-06-18T23:53:00.000+09:30

Y.a.w.n....yawn...oh (stretch)... I'm so tired!

That's how I've felt all weekend. What a pity to waste a precious weekend falling asleep all the time.

Yesterday I met some people for lunch at the markets, ran into some other friends, met some new people...it was nice but by the time I got home at 2pm I felt I could hardly keep my eyes open. Then a friend called in with some takeaways for dinner and by the time we'd sat down to watch a DVD - you got it...I slept through most of seven years in Tibet (well the movie anyway if not the entire 7 years!). Such a great entertainer I am!

Today I went to the vegie markets, bought a couple of necessities from the grocery store and met my friend for the Darwin Seafood festival. After about 1k each way walk in the sun there and back, a bottle of beer and some seafood, I promptly fell asleep on his lounge for the next two hours before dragging myself home.

Anyone interested in a few hours of scintillating conversation and lively company apply here do!

From the NT News

2006-06-12T21:55:00.000+09:30

This bloke wins my vote for living life to the full...

Long life ends in fast lane
FROM our friends in London: A young-at-heart pensioner who whizzed around a supermarket on a trolley shouting "wheeeee" died after losing control and crashing in the car park outside. Widower Dennis Wiltshire, 80 of Neath, south Wales, was hit on the head by his speeding trolley when he was thrown to the ground as it overturned.
An inquest in Swansea recorded a verdict of accidental death after the pensioner died.

Way to go Dennis!

Three unrelated happenings or miscellaneous woo-woo!

2006-06-09T18:42:00.000+09:30

1. Tonight when I arrived home from work I found a dead dove lying peacefully in my favourite balcony chair - thankfully I noticed it before I sat on it!

2. In the mailbox was a letter from the "NT society". This letter went on for six tightly typed pages telling me how I'd been "specially selected" by a "secret society" of the world's most powerful and successful people to receive absolutely free (of course!)the "shockingly powerful secrets" that have made them "the world's most famous and powerful people."

Apparently I've been selected because these people, whose identities can never be revealed, have identified some "rare traits" I possess, which have made them decide to offer me membership in their "exclusive society and to share their secrets, too, absolutely free!"

If I mail or fax back this exclusive invitation form by Friday they will share with me their secrets, "totally free", and before long I'll be - choosing all the right lotto numbers and the winning horses, making a fortune by working from home and setting up a multi-million dollar company, attract love and desire from, well almost anyone in the world, look 10 years younger and more... all obviously "absolutely free"!

I'm told the "two times winner of Binion's World Champion of Poker" (whatever that is) and a Fortune 500 company both offered tens of thousands of dollars for these secrets. But no, the secret NT Society is only prepared to divulge them to a few select people who have been identified as having "rare talents"... and of course to us select few its all "absolutely free"!.

Spare me do!!!!

3. Just when I'd finished reading the above pile of horse-shit, my phone rang. Lo and behold, it was a computerised voice telling me I had won a "6 day, 5 night holiday in sunny Orlando Florida".

Somehow I managed to keep my excitement in check long enough to hang up the phone and get back to my novel, my glass of wine and watching the sun set over the Timor Sea.

God my scepticism cuts me out of all kinds of fabulous possibilities!

Home is where the heart is!

2006-06-07T20:49:00.000+09:30

The stench of the dead flying fox placed in our communal
garbage bin this week gave new meaning to the smell of decaying flesh!
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On the nightly news: scientists have cloned a human heart from a patients' stem cells and it's beating in the body cavity of some animal. From a selfish point of view all this says to me is that the technology may be available in ten years' time to keep me alive indefinitely as a very old person! Why couldn't they have discovered it when I was 30?
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How old are Maggie Smith and Judi Dench anyway? I feel personal sadness in identifying more with them than I do with Angelina Jolie.
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Every new wrinkle is uglier than the previous one. Laugh lines are one thing...but this is getting ridiculous!
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What was that 50 year old bloke doing on Mount Everest anyway? Trying to make the rest of us feel slack?

The Proposition

2006-05-26T23:41:00.000+09:30

I watched The Proposition on DVD the other day; an Australian movie that got good reviews. The only negative reviews I came across were the ones that said it was shockingly violent. I kept checking it in the video store till it came on 7 night hire (because if I hire a one nighter something else always seems to come up and I can't get it back in time). I was quite interested to see it but found it terribly disappointing. The scenery was nice but I've seen it all in real life, so it didn't excite me unduly. The acting was okay in the main - nothing out of the ordinary. The story should have been interesting and exciting and moving but in the end it was just another example of how Australian films seem to wind around and around the point without ever making it and I was left feeling like I'd expected a meal and got a bag of fairy floss. Oh well.

While on the nightly news: East Timor falls into civil conflict, the little people suffer and all the world's assistance and the gains of the past 7 years are undone in a few days of violence and bloodshed - and here in Australia, warring gangs in the NT's largest Aboriginal community attack each other with spears and trash houses and politicians play to the gallery while the innocent know no peace.

cyclic thoughts

2006-05-23T23:47:00.000+09:30

Okay, I won't bore you with the whole sad story of my computer melt-down and the hours spent carting it backwards and forwards to my favourite computer fellas - but sad to say I have lost everything I have written or received for the past 2.5 years.

On the plus side, there wasn't anything all that valuable in there - or at least if there was I can't immediately think of it - just my musings and ramblings, things I wanted to look back on in years to come, emails from friends, oh, and all their email addresses! Wasn't like the great Australian novel was lurking in the background. The blog is still on the web, so I've still got that, and I had put most of the photos on disc.

Of course I think I've now learned to back up my documents... well for today I have anyway.

I really miss my scrabble game, purchased you may recall with much difficulty from GameHouse. I resent paying that US$20 for something I only got to use for about 6 months. Don't suppose they'd send me another copy for free?

The worst part for me is that I'm easily brought down. When I lose stuff I value I don't feel angry, I have no idea how to remedy the situation, I just feel like: what's the use of caring about anything or anyone when it can all be taken away so randomly, with no input or action on my part having any effect on the outcome - fire or cyclone could destroy my keepsakes and memories, people walk away when they feel like it and the more you care, the more you hurt. I could slip over tomorrow and end up in a wheelchair... you get the drift... and in the end, what can you do but shrug off your losses and keep going with whatever is left.

So why care about anything? Why not block emotions that cling to things or people?
Why do we CARE so much, when the inevitable result of caring is loss and pain?

Well I'm glad I got all that out. Perhaps now I'll put my "loss" into perspective and give thanks that it was only a few pages of useless blather I lost and not something I really care about!

Giving thanks for dear family and friends who have not walked away and who remain healthy and happy, the pen and paper scribbles (mine and others) that have followed me around for ever, the years of photo albums and discs, happy memories, good food, wine, a comfortable home, a decent job, financial independence (if far from riches)... hey, I feel better already. Guess if I didn't care about anything I wouldn't feel good either.

And after all, my computer is now a blank page just waiting to be filled with new good stuff.

Comment on cranky!

2006-04-13T18:29:00.000+09:30

I received this comment today from a friend via email and thought it very funny.

Your blog entry (may have been thought by some to be extreme) but I thought it was a clear and precise commentary on customer service – I had an extra mobile phone number that was costing me 10 bucks a month but I did not have the heart to call Telstra and go through the agonies of waiting and hoping. In the end, I did not pay me bill which resulted in a call from a cso and I organised for her to remove the unwanted service at the time of paying up.

You need to remember a couple of things:

Invariably those organisations that have the greatest ‘emphasis’ on customer service and spend the most on ‘training’ their staff in customer service – banks, telcos, insurers, Qantas – are the worst in actually giving it.
As I have probably mentioned to you before, you need to think of the telcos as criminal organisations – Telstra is the Italian mafia – crooked but you are used to it in the neighbourhood; Optus I like to think of as the Chinese Tongs – on the scene for a while but still bloody; Vodaphone are the Cubans, and there are lots of little street gangs around. I am still waiting in terror for the telco equivalent of the Russians.

The old faithfuls of customer service – DJs, the Law Book Co, NRMA have gone to Gowings so far as customer service is concerned – being run by ‘mamagers’.

I can still promise quality customer service at (name of his shop) – but only if I, or (a couple of trusted employees) are there.

At least they think highly enough of you at work to pay for your mobile.

Note from me:
*I still have to pay for any personal calls on it but at least I've got the computer unfouled from its influence for now!
*Brackets replace some sections to protect the innocent

Cranky

2006-04-12T21:56:00.000+09:30

I've suspected for some time that I've become a cranky old woman. I think it's a recognised syndrome these days and so it should be. But perhaps someone should ask why are all us old goats cranky. Maybe it's something to do with the modern world, with things being just too darn complicated; with having too many choices and not having the memory any more to sort through them...or maybe it's just that the organisations and dare I say the people we have to deal with are so damn inefficient. Maybe if 'customer service' started being real customer service again rather than an attempt to con the customer so they end up paying more for less, that might be a novel start. Maybe if people started taking responsibility for their jobs -great or small - and started caring about their customers; well that might move things in the right direction too.

Telecommunications companies. Do I need to go any further for all of you to recognise that I probably have a justifiable complaint - not just an old person's whine?

Four times I have rung my Telco of choice (Optus) to try to change the 'plan' on my mobile phone. The first time I was told they couldn't accept a direction to change the plan over at the end of its current period, no, I would have to change it today and suffer the penalties in call cost charges from the end of the previous billing period. But there was a way out of this, I could keep the current plan for the rest of the month, ring 2 or 3 days after the end of this billing period and ask for the change to be backdated to the start of the new billing period. So I did. And being a suspicious and cranky old person, I belaboured the point with the hapless 'customer service representative'. You're sure this has been backdated to the start of this billing period (2 days previous as advised). "Yes, your request has been noted and your next month will be billed at the reduced fee. "I have paid one month in advance," say I, "so you will credit me that amount." "Yes, all you have to do is not pay your last bill at the higher amount and it will all work out even." Next month you will be charged just the lower rate. I wait one month.

My next account shows me owing two months at the higher rate. Rather than being an account showing $50 credit paid against $50 debt and a bill for $9 in advance for the next month ... oh no, I now owe them $100 and my account is overdue! So I ring again. This time I get a callow youth who takes the attitude that I am either deaf or stupid - but at least I have the wits left to get his name this time. After an hour trying to get him to understand what I'm on about, he finally decides he'll credit me with $40 (because he claimed I still owed $9 for the previous month) and I will need to pay $18 for this month and last month. Now I still think this is wrong but just get worn down by his attitude. "If I pay you $18 now do you guarantee me that my account will be cleared?" "Yes," says Mr young and supercilious."If you pay $18 you will not get another account till mid April." Fine I say and give him my credit card details. Once again making him assure me that he has fixed everything up on the screeen, in front of him, and that my account is now in order and no moneys owing till mid April.

Then my work decides to give me a work phone and I want to keep my number. So they "port" it to their Telco. Today I ring Optus again to ensure that my account has been closed off. Mind you my phone stopped working on their network on Monday when the number was "ported", however... just because I'm old and cranky and untrusting of these people's efficiency, I ring to ensure I'm not going to get yet more incorrect bills.

Guess what - my account still shows $48 owing and, by the way they will also charge me $8 for "taking my optus number to Telstra". No, I say, it's not an Optus number, it's a Telstra number that I originally "ported" to Optus. But of course I'm told I've misunderstood what the "customer service person" was saying...she didn't really mean it was an Optus number, what she meant was that I was being penalised $8 for having the hide to transfer the number I had brought to Optus back with me to Telstra. I did manage to get her to credit the $48 after an hour of explanations - remember this is the third time I've tried to sort this out - but no, I still had to pay the extra $8. So I paid it. Only time will tell whether I once again get the bill for the $48 next month.

While all this was going on, at one stage I was asked if I would like to speak to a supervisor to which I answer a resounding yes! After keeping me on hold for a full 10 minutes, my 'customer service representative' came back and told me the supervisor said it was no use talking to her because she would only tell me the same thing. Which thing was that I wonder... that my bill was squared away on 15 February, or perhaps that my bill was squared away by paying $9 more than I believed I owed on 12 March, or maybe that yes, I did have to pay the extra $8 for taking their number to another company, or maybe that even though it wasn't 'their number' I still had to pay!!!!!

1. If the company had decent rules and efficient billing practices, none of this would have been necessary
2. If they trained their customer service representatives to be able to understand and use their online systems, none of this would have been necessary
3. Or maybe if their bloody systems and rules were not totally designed to confuse the customers and allow the company to rip them off for extra fees and charges... I would have been spared the waste of 3 hours of my time and a great deal of angst!
4. Or perhaps, if the 'customer service' people really tried to service the customers rather than just the company and when someone asked them to ensure that the details had gone through on their screens and that the account was squared away that they would actually perform the action necessary, check it and ensure that the advice they had given was correct... ah, perhaps that would be called taking responsibility for one's job or taking pride in one's work - obviously too much to expect these days.

Then I went to the grocery store where there were very few customers but absolutely no trollies - they were all out languishing in the car park. I traverse the endless aisles with a plastic basket that's eventually the approximate weight of a pair of lead boots and overflowing. When I reach the checkout and ask for cigarettes, another "cranky old woman" grunts and sighs and drags the packets in and out. Finally casting her eyes to heaven she says: " We do the same things every day here, over and over, it's not difficult... but every day they just put the packets back all over the place, not where they are supposed to be. It's so wearing always having to re-stack and tidy up after them." Hallelujah! A kindred spirit. Just take some responsibility people!

This reminds me of the garbage tins in the block of units where I live. There are four bins for "waste" and three for "recyclables" - recyclable items are clearly described on the lids of the recycle bins. But every day I go down there and oversize items are shoved into already overfilled bins, causing the lids to be propped open and supporting huge colonies of flies and ants, while the next bin is - you guessed it - completely darn empty, pristine. And since when could anybody in their right mind consider a length of hose or a used and greasy pizza container as "recyclable"! Must just be me eh? A cranky old woman. A cranky old woman who moves their garbage from one bin to another to cut down on the smell and the flies.

Then tonight, the final indignity. Suddenly my computer, which was working perfectly earlier today, won't turn on. When it eventually does, the screen is all wavy lines. Half an hour of fiddling later I manage to get everything back virtually to normal, except when I move down a page on the internet I now get whole pages leafing like a book instead of a steady scroll. I don't know how to fix this. I don't even know if I will get the black screen again next time and have to spend another hour battling with this technology that's become so essential to me. And I'm wondering if my new bloody mobile (which has some sort of infrared technology connected) has maybe done something to my computer while I was trying to learn to use it and entering names today in the same room as the computer. Maybe it's just gremlins taking their revenge on the old and the useless and the cranky.

I may talk to you again; or maybe I'll just go away somewhere and dribble quietly in a corner for the rest of my old, cranky and useless life!

The Last Tango - Kaya Sulc

2006-03-27T23:22:00.000+09:30

Staying up late

2006-03-27T22:35:00.000+09:30

Well here I am, matchsticks propping open both eyes while I await my 1:30am flight out of Darwin. I've been at work all day and went to my last art class tonight, I've packed and am just waiting and hoping I don't doze off and miss the plane.

One of the instalments to make on the price of living in paradise is the fact that virtually all the planes go in the middle of the night - between midnight and 1:30am. The rest of Australia has a curfew and nothing flies in or out between about midnight and 5am - even Perth our other distant capital city has its last flight out at midnight but not Darwin - no, to live here you have to be prepared for a little inconvenience if you ever want to escape the place. Oh, and because it's so darn far from everywhere else in Australia you don't even have the option of driving out unless you have way more holidays owing than I do. I should really take all my holidays in Bali which is only a short flight instead of Sydney, Brisbane or Canberra.

So, providing I don't fall asleep in the next couple of hours, I'll head off to the airport at about 12:30 and arrive (relaxed and refreshed!) in Brisbane just before 6am. After that the two hour train ride to the Gold Coast is a doddle. I must be mad.

The main reason for my short break is to attend the opening of an art exhibition. The artist and his wife are old and dear friends and I haven't seeen them for seven years. It's his first major exhibition for ten years and well, none of is getting any younger. I'll try to post a picture of one of his sculptures if any of my picture-posting programs still work.

Better go and finish organising myself or I will miss the wretched plane. Keep your fingers crossed cyclone Wati doesn't choose tonight to hit Brisbane and none of his mates decide to head for Darwin while I'm away.

catching up

2006-03-16T23:12:00.000+09:30

I've gotta say I feel pretty 'over' blogging and I've noticed a few other blogs I liked seem to have slackened off too - or stopped altogether. It was cathartic for a while, writing my thoughts and observations to the world at large. Then for a while it became a duty - something I felt an obligation to keep up and it started to take a fair bit of time; not so much the writing as the reading and commenting on other blogs. Then I went away from my computer for 1/3 of a year and somehow it just all didn't seem very important any more and I didn't want to share my thoughts with the anonymous internet... Well tonight I was encouraged, by discovering that my two favourite Australian bloggers who appeared to have almost or completely given up the sport had both written a couple of recent posts, to check out my other couple of favourite blogs. Having scanned through them, well I thought it wouldn't hurt to just say hi again. So Hi!
............................................

So what have I been doing while I haven't been blogging. Well... I've seen three new release movies at the actual movie theatre rather than waiting for the DVD and I've loved all of them...1.Walk the Line, 2.Brokeback Mountain and 3.Mrs Henderson Presents -all come with my thorough recommendation but ONLY 1.If you want a toe-tapping good time, one of the great love stories of all time and wonderful acting and can handle a touch of adultery; 2. Wonderful scenery, true-to-life excrutiatingly sensitive characters - but the gay sex scenes are quite confronting, so if the very thought of that makes you uncomfortable it's a definite DON'T go there; 3. Hilarious, 'laugh-out-loud and damn the embarrassment' funny but tinged with some pathos and made all the more rewarding because it's based on a true story. Only a little nudity to offend in this one. Why is it you can always find something that would probably offend someone in any movie these days? I hadn't even thought about these things until I started recommending!

Been renting lots of DVDs too, the latest of which, 'Hotel Rawanda' was inspirational and agonisingly, painfully tragic - also based on a true story.
.................................

Most uplifting thing that's happened to me lately: Well I found out a poem I wrote a couple of years ago about Darwin was published in a book put out by the ABC. The book is called "Why I live Where I Live" and it's a selection of the letters written in to the radio program "Australia All Over" over the past 20 years. I knew my poem had been read on air at the time (only because someone heard it and told me) but didn't have any idea it was in the book until I received a call from a friend who'd been flicking through it in a bookstore while looking for a gift for an overseas friend and who wanted to know why I'd never told them I'd had a poem published in a book! I was thrilled as you can imagine. It's not really a very good 'poem' because I don't know the first thing about the rules of poetry - just some words from the heart. From memory I think I published it on the blog at the time - sometime around August 2004 - but what the hell, if the ABC sees fit to publish it, I might as well give it another run on the blog. Here it is, my 15 minutes of fame.

Why I live where I live

A large-bladed knife
scabby with rust - or blood
on one side
dull steel gleam
on the other

Poised on the sharp edge of the blade
balanced between civilization
and the raw power of the natural world

You shiver at 24 degrees celsius
and wear sox to bed

And read in the morning paper
about the 4 metre crocodile
on the beach
opposite your front door

Where once in five years
you turn off the fans

Where yellow fig birds
pure white torres strait pigeons
bronze shouldered doves
rainbow lorikeets
white and black cockatoos
bush curlews and several kinds of kite
are daily visitors to your suburban home

And frill-necked lizards
posture and dance
and dodge road-trains
on the highway

Darwin
where you soon believe
it's unreasonable to travel more than 20 minutes
to get anywhere within the city limits

and if you can't park within 20 metres of the door
you might as well turn around
and go home

Where one day you're being eaten by mozzies
and tormented by sandflies
sitting cross-legged
sweating and steaming
on the dusty red earth
of Arnhem Land

And eight hours later
enjoying a glass of champagne
and an Eric Bogle concert
at the air-conditioned
entertainment centre

.................................

Most heart-warming thing that's happened to me lately: My 8 year old grand-daughter sent me something she'd written on the computer entitled 'My Family', which said in part: "I have a great family. It is loyal, helpful, willing to help, loving and funny. We are the most happiest family in the world!"... now how cool is that!
..................................

That's it for tonight - I gotta go and feed my addiction for computer scrabble!

Let's be calm!

2006-01-21T22:18:00.000+09:30

Okay, I'm calm, I'm rested, I've been away for months, I am not going to let a few little hitches get me down. So, instead of my usual rant, I'll just give you a list of the things that have 'needed attention' since my return.

1. My car air conditioner doesn't work. The first available appointment was Friday. I take it in and am told we'll ring you and tell you what we find. All day I wait. No call. I go in just on closing time. " You know we are waiting for parts, don't you," says the customer service guy. "No," say I,"How would I know, you never rang me"...etc. The rest of this interchange led to the conclusion that the mysterious 'parts' (sounds like most of the components of the air conditioner) have been placed on Friday's order, which should be sent off Saturday, or maybe Monday, and would I like to leave the car there or take it away and bring it back? The parts shouldn't be 'too long' as they 'think they are in Australia'. THANK YOU Darwin Mitsubishi but I will take the car home with me if you don't mind rather than leave it sitting in your yard for an open-ended period of time which doesn't look like being anything less than a week while myself using shanks's pony or catching a bus!

2. My microwave has died, necessitating disposal of the old clunker and purchase of a sleek and tiny new white plastic model for the very reasonable price of $68.

3. The door seal on the dishwasher has disintegrated requiring difficult and time consuming replacement.

4. The loungeroom air conditioner's remote control has died. New batteries didn't fix the problem. This means I have to climb on a chair and lift the cover to use the emergency button to turn it on and there's no possible adjustment of temperature or air flow.

5. Only the freezer section of my fridge is working - yet another repair person needed.

6. At work, I spent a week moving about 100 heavy boxes of brochures and promotional material into my new air-conditioned storeroom, sorting and stacking them onto shelves. It seemed kind of warm in there. When I thought to mention to the building supervisor that he might need to get the air conditioning in there looked at I was informed that this is the only storeroom out of three that is not air conditioned and if it was a problem I could move everything back to another storeroom - no fair, I was promised it would be air conditioned and just assumed the promise had been honoured. There's no way I'm lugging all that stuff back again. I told him he'd better organise for it to get air conditioned in a hurry before all the promotional gear grew mould.... grrr!

Ah the joys of tropical living! If I ever leave Darwin again for a protracted period I will not be coming back!

Goodnight.

riding the monsoon

2006-01-18T22:12:00.000+09:30

Hydee hodee everbody... as a famous Australian game show host used to say... I've arrived back in the green land of torrential rain and dancing frill-necked lizards. Yes friends I'm back in beautiful Darwin and the monsoons are in full spate. Everything is lush and every shade of green imaginable.

My brother took me to the airport and being the nice guy he is, insisted on dragging my largest suitcase to the check-in and depositing it on the baggage conveyor - whereupon he declared it was officially the heaviest bag ever in the history of the world - but that's only because he didn't carry it to the airport when I took it from Sydney to Canberra - when it weighed 45 kilos - this time is was only 32 kilos.

I had two other bags as well and, although one was small enough to carry onto the plane, I needed to pay excess baggage charges for the other. The girl who booked me in was a real sourpuss but the excess baggage man was much nicer. "Oh I'll give you a better seat," he says. "You are way down the back of the plane, there's a spare window seat in the first couple of rows you can have." He proceeds to change my seat allocation. "How nice," I think, until I get on the plane and see my seating companion, a man well over 6ft in height and at least twice the width of the seat. This meant my 4.5 hour flight was spent trying to bend myself around his arms and legs which were taking up about 1/3 of my seating space. At least he was pleasant and didn't smell. Once before I got sat next to a man of similar proportions. You have to picture that I'm only 5 ft 4 inches tall and my head therefore is on the level of these guys' armpits, which can be really bad news when they are not close friends with a deodorant.

Fortunately a kind friend met me at the airport and carried my bags up to my first floor unit, otherwise I'd have been unpacking at the bottom of the stairs and relaying the contents up by the armfull! Sigh... one of my goals in life is to learn how to pack light!

Checked out both my local markets at the weekend to reacquaint myself with the delights of Darwin and pretty much spent the rest of the weekend cleaning and unpacking, then off to work on Monday.

It's been great to have a break and a change and I hope I'm invigorated for the challenges of the year ahead.

My new year's resolution last year was to be less serious about life and learn to laugh more - this year's is to become enigmatic. I'm still working on last year's and don't expect this year's to be any more successful - guess you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse in just 12 months!

Hope I still have a reader or two left. If I get back into this blogging, I might have to have a membership drive - any ideas out there?

Wishing you all a 2006 that sees at least one of your dearest wishes come true.

Beach culture

2005-12-27T17:47:00.000+09:30

What is it with beach tents?

In living memory we've been able to take whole families to the beach for whole days without the aid of a beach tent. Today, I walked to the local beach and was confronted with the peculiar view of sand massed with beach tents. Once upon a time we may have owned a beach umbrella - in fact I'm not sure we ever did - but it was quite common to see families camped under these minimalist shade structures for their day at the beach. In fact the amount of shade shed by umbrellas meant that it was the 'Esky' (cooler box) that benefited most from the shade, while mere humans suffered the full blast of the sun. Not so today. The beach was full of families from the western suburbs - you can tell them by their pallor and their shape; not the streamlined design of beachside locals - and these 'westies' each had their own beach tent. 'My' sand was covered by groups of tents, rows of tents, pairs of tents - very few occupied their own isolated spot. Even larger tents, shade and fly-proof structures occupied the grass verge between the road and the sand. It looked alien. If you can't stand the heat; stay out of the kitchen guys!

Huh! Fooled you - you thought I was going to get into a heavy discussion of the recent 'race riots' on Sydney beaches didn't you. Well, more astute and more rabid social commentators than I have already said it all and I'm sure you know that I found the whole thing disgusting and a most regrettable incident in Australia's history. Totally un-Australian actually, despite the protesters wrapping themselves in Australian flags and shouting OZI-OZI- OZI.

Australia's richest man died last night. He was a larger than life character and not a bad bloke by all accounts. Even money can't buy off fate.

Update from the south

2005-10-15T17:56:00.000+09:30

Hello friends. Thanks to those who've commented in my absence. I'm going to be offline for quite a bit longer but am taking this opportunity while visiting in Sydney for a brief update.

The Canberra experience has turned out well. I'm busy at work and leading a much more hectic social life than I do in Darwin. It's a nice change. Highlights have been lots of cafes, catching up with friends and family and one sensational concert - Michelle Shocked (how lucky was I to catch that one!).

Here's a little word portrait I wrote the other day. It's in need of a good edit, but what the hell, I'll give you the raw version and you still get the picture.

Canberra
There's snow on the Brindabellas in September, when I arrive.

I walk to work through sleety flurries, beneath roiling clouds, every shade of grey. And the lattice of thin, black branches on these tree-lined streets point accusingly, their cloaks of gold and russet shed weeks ago.

The wind is cutting, vicious. Even my thick black coat of heavy wool, my bundling scarf and a hat pulled low fail to exclude it entirely.

But still, the air is fresh and a sunny day, along with some rain, brings forth the promise of spring.

The first pale lime shoots appear on that tracery of branches. Floriade is in full swing with its excess of brilliant, bursting life and colour. Thousands upon thousands of tulips fill the park with shades of yellow, orange, red and pinks; and thousands of tourists flock to enjoy the sunny weather and the spectacle.

Another week or two and each day I watch as tree after tree first shoots, then fills out. All those black, questing fingers covered in a thick new coat of green.

Magpies carol in the clear, cold dawn. A fleet of balloons sails majestically over the silver spire of Parliament House. Twice I leave home without my overcoat and return without falling victim to hypothermia.

Spring has arrived at last in our nation's capital.

Too good to keep to myself

2005-08-30T22:56:00.000+09:30

Apparently this top spot on Google has been held since 2003 - if you Google miserable failure it takes you to this website. What a hoot. It's worth looking up the history too on the second Google choice at the urban legends site, always worth a visit for a laugh on any topic. And apparently it was all down to a few determined bloggers manipulating the Google ratings with blog entries such as this one...just thought I'd add my couple of months' worth!

Wonder what I'd get if I googled dangerous sycophant. Well okay I set that one up!

more photos

2005-08-28T23:40:00.000+09:30

This photo thing is soooooo sloooooow. I think this will have to be the last one. I tried posting 4 at once and it didn't seem to be happening, so changed to posting one at a time, then thought if I posted larger ones without the layout option it might be faster... still, you get (something of) the picture!

darwin festival

2005-08-28T22:54:00.000+09:30

I haven't said a lot about the Darwin Festival. For the final two weeks of August, after the Fringe Festival (mentioned previously) we get two whole weeks of the Darwin Festival. Concerts, plays, art exhibitions, comedians. The Festival Club and the Star Shell are set up each year in the Botanic Gardens. Here are a few photos taken tonight around the Star Shell. It's magic. The palm tree gallery features artwork from Arnhemland and local restaurants set up stalls where you can buy a fantastic curry, a great coffee or a wood-fired pizza for a few dollars. Tonight we saw a free circus performance from the local youth theatre.

Life's changes and society's ills

2005-08-28T09:25:00.000+09:30

I've been thinking about my Dad a bit lately. He died when he was the age I am now. At the time, I thought he was old and wasn't surprised to hear he'd died. That fact strikes me as unbelievable now that I am the same age. I'm not old - in fact I'm so not old that I worry about the future, about how I'm going to live in my 'old age' for maybe the next 20 - 30 years.

My Dad was a very witty man. He was gentle, easygoing, lovable and loved by many people, not only his family and close friends but people he met in business or in the street, people he went out of his way to help. He had a whole store of old Australian 'sayings'and someone who read my recent blog entry where I said I'd been 'flat out like a lizard drinking' reminded me of a few of them. Well I've just remembered another one 'crook as Rookwood' which is how I feel today. Rookwood being a famous Sydney cemetery. I don't think I'm for the cemetery yet, I just have a virus that's making me feel like death and has been since last Tuesday. Although, as an aside, I must mention that I think Dad's epithet was a little more complex than that, I think when he said 'crook as Rookwood' he often meant a person who was 'a crook' (a dishonest person or criminal), rather than 'crook' (sick). I think my virus reached its peak yesterday, at least I hope so. I want to be well for next Friday when I go on holidays to visit my family. That's a problem with living so far away, you have to book plane fares a long way in advance to get a reasonable price, then, if you happen to be 'crook' or if something else intervenes, it's not easy to change the dates. Anyway I'm looking forward to my holiday and seeing my beautiful grandchildren again.

I'm not sure how much you'll hear from me for a while. I'm going on from Sydney to Canberra to work on a project for 6 weeks, and my work server won't allow access to blogsites, so if I get a chance I'll update, if not, then you might all have to do without me for a while.

and now, sliding seemlessly from the personal to the political I've got a few other things on my mind...

Our Prime Minister, John Howard (who has just won some American award for being a great and good friend of the United States - for that read George Bush's acolyte) has managed (through the total idiocy of the Australian voting public)to get himself a virtual monopoly on our Government by obtaining a majority in both houses is busy pushing through a raft of 'labour reforms' that will see average workers' rights and entitlements whittled away and everyone in Australia forced to negotiate 'individual contracts' rather than being entitled to 'award wages' - you can imagine how fair that will be to all us cannon-fodder workers out here - fine for the the overpaid heads of corporations and their minions. At the same time he's talking about new tax reforms - not as you may expect to assist low-paid workers or young families who are in what is now called the 'middle income' bracket (way more than I earn) at $70,000 to $125,000 (I could wear this one because many of them have 3 or 4 young children and the cost of bringing up kids and building for the future in this country now with schooling, mortgage and health costs is astronomical) - oh no, Johnny is talking about cutting the top tax rate the one that kicks in after $125,000- talk about blatant self-interest. Who is this going to benefit? Why Johnny and his cronies and the top managers of corporations who contribute to his political party. And while I'm on my political hobbyhorse, I saw a play last week about David Hicks's (he's an Aussie accused of being an 'unlawful combatant' in Afghanistan)incarceration in Guantanamo Bay. Whatever the rights and wrongs of what David Hicks has done the attitude of the American Government in keeping him locked up in a cage for 3 years awaiting a military trial (he wasn't even charged with anything for God knows how long - like years)is disgusting and not worthy of a 'freedom-loving people' but even worse is the Australian Government's reaction to this injustice. Have they been protesting to their great and good friend Mr Bush and asking for fair treatment for their citizen? Have they made any attempt to have him repatriated to Australia? No and No! And apparently there are nationals of 19 countries being held this way by the management of the 'land of the brave and the home of the free'... and of those countries, 18 have complained/made representations/ attempted to get fair treatment for their citizens. Guess which country is the only one that has not?... you got it...Australia!

Then there's our Government's 'anti terrorist campaign' or as GWB calls it 'the war on terr...'. We are being warned to 'report anything suspicious' to 'be alert AND ALARMED'. What does that mean 'report anything suspicious'? That kind of thinking makes people nervous and causes racial divide. What happened to the country that welcomed migrants from every land and where they all became "OZtrailian". That kind of thinking caused me to look sideways at the young man of middle eastern appearance, carrying a backpack and reading the Koran who sat next to me on a recent plane flight...and that's not right and not fair...it's not right to make us feel scared of shadows and it's not right to place ethnic parameters on what we should be alert for...

Just 20-30 years ago in this country you could see a doctor for free - all the charges came out of a thing called the Medibank Levy - a percentage charge taken from your income, a form of tax. Now you have to pay $50 out of your pocket and then take the receipt to the Medicare office and get back about $25 - that's ok if you are working and single but imagine you're the mother of 4 kids and they all get bronchitis or asthma (God forbid anything worse or long-running), the doctor doesn't get them all in and dose the lot of them for one fee any more, oh no, it costs you $50 for each one, plus medicines which used to cost $2 on the subsidised medicine list and now cost about $12 or $15 or something - so far we are looking at abour $300 and a whole morning off work for mum who has to sit with her sick children for anything up to an hour waiting for the Doctor to deign to keep his 'appointment' with her. Oh yes and a 'standard' appointment is no longer than 10 minutes. How the hell can doctors diagnose and write out a treatment in 10 minutes - it's just not realistic - but that's what our system of payments to doctors dictates.

I suspect we still live in the 'lucky country', that it's still easier to make ends meet and have a reasonable quality of life here than anywhere else in the world, but bloody hell, it's going to hell in a handbasket pretty damn quickly and I can't understand why this has happened... how did it all change and please, can we have our caring, inclusive, nurturing society back again... PLEASE?

nothing

2005-08-18T21:00:00.000+09:30

Big fat nothing. Every time I think about blogging my mind dissolves into an oily black puddle. All that's got me started tonight is that I don't want to lose my one remaining reader - thanks HR mommy! Do I piss people off even on the internet? For a while there I thought I had real friends in blogland but one by one they've dropped away, presumably for their own reasons, but maybe they just got bored with me or I annoyed them in some way. I hate thinking these thoughts but they've gotta be thunk, otherwise how will I improve myself?

Anyway I've been flat out like a lizard drinking. Croc Festival in Hall's Creek all last week. Beautiful drive through semi-desert scenery - nice hotel, shocking, dusty, spiritually and economically impoverished town and sad people. But the kids make it all worthwhile. This week is a big thing in their deprived lives; they get to have fun, meet other kids, get up and dance on a real stage and hopefully realise that there's a whole other world out there they can explore if they only make the right choices. Those choices are a lot slimmer than most of us have and it will take a big effort and a strong will to make it, but hopefully some of them will and some of them will have been inspired by their week at the Croc Festival.

So I flew happily back to the promised land, into the frenzy of the Darwin Festival. Wonderful balmy star-filled nights listening to a free concert on the Esplanade on Saturday night featuring the best Aboriginal bands in the country and tasty, cheap Asian food from the vendors, then Sunday night the army band played in the Botanic Gardens to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII in the Pacific. In a burst of political correctness, this day is now known in Australia as VP day (victory in the pacific) whereas, until recent years and certainly contemporaneously it was known as VJ day - victory over Japan!

The concert featured Marina Pryor, often billed as Australia's first lady of the musical theatre. She was sensational. Ever the sucker for a romantic song, I had tears running down my cheeks when she sang "I dream a dream" from Les Miserables ... and was on my feet to the rousing strains of "We are Australian" which should by rights be our national anthem.

Since then it's been work, work and more work - yet another event- this time a science fair attracting 2500 children over three days. There's a lot of stuff going on at work and I may be making some big changes soon but I'll tell you about that another day.

I've got tomorrow and the whole weekend off, a play to see tomorrow night, maybe a fiddlers concert on Sunday night and I really think I need to do some of the three-week pile of ironing on Saturday instead of catching the ferry across the harbour on a work social outing... but we'll see. Then there's the 4 out of 5 DVDs hired last week that I have to watch by Saturday... don't like my chances of achieving that particular goal.

I'm glad I decided to pay my respects to blogland! Goodnight friend.

Dry season delights

2005-08-07T21:14:00.000+09:30

It's a regular smorgasbord of delights every weekend in Darwin at the moment as we put on our best face for the tourist season. Silly thing is that most of them come up here for the horse racing season or the V8 Supercars (or even the cricket in a years when we get a cricket test). They stay on for a few days or a week to cover the regular tourist trail: barramundi fishing, Kakadu, Litchfield, Katherine Gorge, maybe check out the Mindil sunset markets, then rush off back to their rat-race, gerbil on a treadmill existences. Up in the dark (and/or home in the dark) to a cold house after battling traffic and fumes to get to an air-conditioned, neon-lit office - they rarely see daylight for 6 months of the year- while we bask in an even 32 degrees, day in day out, with never a sign of rain and evening falls at around 7 o'clock summer and winter. Anyway, I digress - most of them don't attend any of these events, sponsored at great expense by our civic authorities. At this time of year the NT Government and the local councils and the arts societies and the theatrical types all battle it out for prime spots on the festival programs, and for us who actually live here, it's fantastic.

This weekend I took in an Oz Blues show on Friday evening. Held at my local outdoor cafe (about 5 minutes from home), it featured two of the members of the Blues band 'Chain'.Billed as the founders of the 'Oz Blues' movement, the pair played solo and as a duo. Matt Taylor has a powerful voice and some good original music but it was Phil Manning who shone with some of the most exciting guitar playing I've ever experienced. Under the tropical stars, eating a wood-fired pizza washed down with a bottle of red - it doesn't get much better than this.

Saturday I ventured to the Roma Bar again for a big breakfast after a visit to the library, an art exhibition and the video store. Then out of town friends popped in for a drink before we headed out to dinner at local seafood smorgasbord place on Cullen Bay. Beloved of tourists and always packed out, there's plenty of variety and plenty of volume -although it's not my favourite seafood smorgasbord in town, the visitors seemed happy and I couldn't believe the amount of food those 4 people can pack away. Guess it becomes very good value at $27 a head if you can eat 5 platefuls of prawns, bugs, oysters, mussels, battered fish, grilled fish, calamari, chips, salads, pork ribs, chicken wings, curried chicken, curried beef, chili crab...each! Oh, I forgot the soup, sweets and coffee.

Today I took it easy and just hung out at home, markets, bit of a walk etc.

Three excellent DVD's watched over the weekend. My favourite was "Finding Forrester" with Sean Connery and a gorgeous young black guy called Rob Brown. If they could only clone Sean Connery at every age and give one to each unattached woman in the world I reckon life would be almost perfect! Great 'feel-good' story and fantastic acting from the whole cast. A must see if you have missed it. I've missed heaps of movies, so I can always find a good oldie. The others I also loved: Jodie Foster as 'Nell' I'd seen before but enjoyed even more the second time around and 'What Women Want'- laugh out loud, comedy with the glorious Mel Gibson. A 'must see' for women and one every man should see (they'd even enjoy it if you can get them past the title)!

My family has all abandoned me as scrabble partners so I play the artificial intelligence on the GameHouse version and have now found a random internet partner from the USA. She's a cool lady called Char - I picked her because her name reminded me of someone else I like a lot. We seem to be pretty evenly matched and it's nice to get something interesting in the inbox each day.

I'm going. Have a great week. Hope life shines for you all week. Think of me sitting in the sun playing games with the wild Aboriginal children of the Kimberley while you're battling sleet and storm, won't you... :)

Burdekin ducks at Douglas Daly

2005-08-03T00:14:00.000+09:30

I've never seen these ducks in a tree before. Perhaps they were afraid of crocodiles!

Birthday girl

2005-08-03T00:07:00.000+09:30

reading and viewing

2005-08-02T21:19:00.000+09:30

ok I've been very neglectful of my blog. I've been doing and thinking and playing scrabble on the computer and somehow didn't really feel like writing.

A week ago it was my birthday -too many years to want to share- and I went camping. It was glorious. For a full description you could turn back to July last year when I went to the same place. I love it. Douglas Hot springs and the Douglas Daly Park. It's not on the most favoured tourist map of the Territory but if you ever come here, put it on yours. It's the most beautiful place. Peaceful, lots of wildlife, hot springs, rapids, campfires and this year I enjoyed it all for 4 whole days. I'll post a picture or two after I finish this post.

We've had two long weekends in a row... how lucky are we. This weekend I did all sorts of nice little things like having a big bacon and egg breakfast in a nice, low-key, alternative style cafe with the best coffee, wandering around the shops and buying an outrageously colourful skirt for the ridiculous price of $14, chatted to a beauty therapist about how to spend my birthday voucher before swinging by the markets for a big fresh fruit cocktail and some laksa and green paw-paw salad to take home for dinner. Got 5 good old movies out of the video store and went for a couple of walks across the sand flats while the tide was out. Sunday I gave 'out of town friends' the grand tour of Darwin and had lunch under the palm trees at the Trailer Boat Club and saw Kris Kristoffersen in concert under the stars. Monday was recovery, housework and catching up with the shopping and email day.

Movies watched so far: The Virgin Suicides - I'd seen it before but had another look in view of the fact it's a favourite of one of my sons. I can't say I see it as outstanding but I'm a long way past my school years and maybe I've just forgotten the drama of teenage experience. Monster's Ball- I enjoyed quite a lot but if it's a fair representation, I'm real glad I don't live in a red neck town in USA. Iris - enjoyable, well-acted but sad to the point of depressing.

Books read and phrases that appealed: Finished "Tricks of the Light" by Alison Fell.
"So she could bear to be hated. Hate was a grown-up sort of verb. Active. But there was no verb that conveyed what the abandoned felt towars the abandoner, only a few nouns nudging impotently around in the void. Despair. Panic. Betrayal. Words that were as afraid of finding their object as of losing it."

"Queenmaker" - India Edghill
"All David's women had loved him, and he had tossed their love aside. Just as once, long ago, he had tossed aside mine, as if love were no more than a pretty toy that he might scoop up to play with again whenever he wished. But women's hearts are not trivial playthings, and it is never wise to throw love away- if only because its warmth may be needed in the cold future."

"An Imperfect Marriage" - Tim Waterstone quoted a poem by R.S. Thomas:
"I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you."

...and so goodnight!

useful household items

2005-07-28T03:38:00.000+09:30

Something I read on another blog started me thinking about useful household items. I'm not big on gadgets and probably have less than half the appliances deemed necessary by my contemporaries but it's the small, useful bits 'n' pieces that give me real and lasting pleasure and those that don't work or become unused clutter cause me everyday angst.

Good stuff:
A wine opener that gets the cork out first time
A can opener that goes all the way around the can without catching and slipping

I've just spent 4 days camping so these invaluable camping tools come to mind-
The black metal hook with handle that is so useful around a campfire
The cheap, portable gas cooker with disposable gas bottle - so light and easy to transport
The fold-up camp grill plate with legs
Those zip-lock plastic bags in three convenient sizes

The cheap plastic toilet brush in a holder that allowed it to fall out every time the floor was mopped and drove me insane for 5 years that I've just replaced with a $4 version in a holder that... well holds it!

What household gadgets can you not live without?

the world's shortest personalilty test

2005-07-28T03:28:00.000+09:30

Unable to sleep, and with nothing much to say, I followed a link to the world's shortest personality test. Does this sound like me? Good grief, I must be the world's most boring and judgmental prig!

You are pure, moral, and adaptable.
You tend to blend into your surroundings.
Shy on the outside, you're outspoken to your friends.

You believe that you live a virtuous life...
And you tend to judge others with a harsh eye.
As a result, people tend to crave your approval.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

GameHouse Finale

2005-07-17T09:43:00.000+09:30

A quick update for those who have been following the great GameHouse fiasco, it has finally been successfully resolved, but not without a parting shot from the beautiful Keith in effect telling me I am an idiot, he's right, I'm wrong and I better realise it!

Hello,

I have sent a second copy of your original receipt to your email.
It will have a link to download and your registration information. (emphasis added)

--Keith--
GameHouse Customer Support

Now my idea of good customer service at this stage would have been:

Hello, Obviously there's been some glitch between our shipping and your email address. I'm sending the receipt again. Please let me know if it's not in your inbox at the same time as this email. I do hope there are no problems this time and that you enjoy your game.

See Keith, that would have been customer service. a WIN/WIN as they used to say in the 90s. Nobody loses face, everybody goes away happy.

What is it with these people who have to be 'right' all the time at the expense of insulting other people's intelligence and hurting their feelings? I struck another in a work situation the other day. She'd sent me something, asked that I check the details and confirm they were correct. Only thing was, she was leaving the job at the end of the week and could I please reply to the new incumbent.

I checked the names and occupation details and confirmed they were correct. There were descriptions of events attached to the names that were supposed to be a summary of information I'd previously sent to her. These were very badly put together. There were grammatical and punctuation errors and one paragraph had been repeated. I corrected these errors in edit mode and sent the whole thing back to her successor, as requested. Trouble was, I did it on the Friday and she wasn't leaving till the Monday.

Back from her comes a reply - the new guy had obviously forwarded my reply back to her. "Those details were only to assist the judging committee. They will not be used for any other purpose. I cut and pasted them from your submission."

In other words - "they were YOUR mistakes, not MINE". And to this I say bulls**t!
Hello everyone out there - I AM NOT AN IDIOT!!! I could clearly see that she had cut and pasted my words. Only thing was that in doing so she would have had to change some of the grammar and punctuation in the new context and SHE DIDN'T! Also, I didn't have the same paragraph repeated next to itself...I checked!

I didn't bother to respond to her; she was leaving and I'd made the point that the words needed to be fixed if it was going to be used in advertising or something (which was a possibility). I've struck this woman before over the years and every time it's been the same attitude - aggressive self-justification.

Why bother? If there's a mistake, just go ahead and fix it is my theory. It's really not necessary to point the finger at anyone else to justify your own weaknesses and mistakes.

Update on the great gamehouse fiasco

2005-07-15T18:42:00.000+09:30

Yes, a week after I first tried to order scrabble online, GameHouse is still stuffing me around. Here's the latest.

=========Customer Comments=====================
Thu Jul 14 03:34:26 PDT 2005
Hi Keith, I thought I might have heard back from either you or your fraud department or perhaps been told my purchase had gone through. Can you tell me when I might get a positive reply please?
========== End Comments ==========================

====== Support Response ======
Thu Jul 14 10:10:41 PDT 2005
Hello,

Your order was accepted and sent to you. Your order just needed a manual review (like the email stated)

--Keith--
GameHouse Customer Support

So now I've written yet again to the beautiful Keith letting him know I haven't received any receipt, confirmation or licence code and perphaps I'm just stupid, but could he please explain how I am supposed to activate the game!!!!

"A manual review (like the email stated)" eh? I thought the email clearly stated that my order was being sent to their fraud department. I was told in no uncertain terms not to try to order again before the problem was resolved. And lo and behold, I get this terse response but still no receipt or details to enable me to activate the game.

So, who cares, this jousting match is becoming much more entertaining than scrabble!

Book meme

2005-07-13T10:50:00.000+09:30

I've been tagged by TECH to do the ubiquitous book meme that's doing the rounds. While I'm pleased someone tagged me with something; I kinda wish it hadn't been this one. The reasons will become obvious when you read my self-revealing reply that I just know will turn into some sort of philosophical rant rather than a simple answer to this meme.

1. How many books do you own?
"Where do you keep your books, Aunty, I need something to read," said my nephew when he visited last year. He'd been a constant visitor to every home I'd previously had and just knew I must have heaps of books somewhere. The answer was, "they are in your room". 33! Yep, that's right, not 1,033 or even 133 but 33 -I just counted them. See that's one of the benefits of not owning a library, you can keep an accurate record of how many you own. The other is not continually running out of bookshelves!

It's to do with the stage of life you've reached, I believe. Once I owned hundreds of books, maybe close to 1000 and my partner at that time was continually hammering and sawing and building new bookshelves. Not only for my books, but bookshop son (read his answer to this meme here) recalls shelving 540 at that house -partner had a few of his own and even tv viewer son had about 3 shelves-worth (at 30 per shelf, even that's 90 books and he hated reading). But the thing is, you get to a stage of life most of you can't even imagine yet, where you don't want all those THINGS any more. They become just more objects to dust and house. You stop aspiring to possessions and acquiring more junk to clutter up your life. You start divesting yourself of THINGS.

I moved from that 4 bedroom, 2 living room, 2 bathroom house into a tiny camper trailer, dimensions roughly 14 ft by 5ft. Careful choices had to be made and they included a book of maps, a bird identification book, a mammal identification book and whatever we were currently reading, with maybe a couple of spares - you see I can't bear to have nothing to read. While travelling, we solved the problem by buying second hand in each new town and 'trading in' whatever we'd just finished, so my personal tally of books I owned was always around 6 or 8 - plus the reference books.

Now I borrow from the local libraries - 10 books at a time and I change them at least twice a month. You see, it's an economic decision as well as a philosophical one - I guess I read between $300 and $400 a month worth of books but I get them free.

2. Last book read?
Okay here comes the shameful part of the revelation. I can't remember. No, no, I don't mean it's been so long since I read a book that I can't remember, I mean I don't remember anything I read (so you can see why it's not worth spending money on books). I probably average 3 or 4 novels a week. I love reading but I'd have trouble most times telling you the name of the book I'm currently reading without looking at the cover - I just did and it's called Tricks of the Light by Alison Fell (I'd remembered that as The Quality of Light). I've always had the problem - can't remember anything much about the books I read, the movies or tv shows I watch or the names of singers I like or songs. I don't know why- it's bizarre, very embarrassing and severely limiting on conversation. But there you have it - and it gets worse with every year older I get. In fact someone dear to me once made the remark that it wasn't such a bad disability to have, since soon I'd be able to own only one book I really loved and read it over and over again... I'm almost there mate! The only linking factor I can find with these things is that they are all things I do for pleasure. I remember a little more about work or business things. Perhaps there's a psychologist or a neurosurgeon out there who can explain all this - I can't.

3. Last book purchased?
Oh God, yet more shame!!!Hollywood Divorces -Jackie Collins. I was catching a train and was terribly upset by an altercation with a loved one and bought it at one of those tables of cheap books you find in shopping malls and railway stations. I needed something crappy and shallow that I could sink into and take my mind off things - and it only cost $5. It's not my usual fare, promise!

I borrowed a new lot from the library this week, they are:
* Manhattan Is My Beat - Jeffery Deaver - I enjoy psychological thrillers and serial killer novels.
*Names for Nothingness - Georgia Blain - billed as a story of mothers and daughters- what happens when the life you choose involves denying everyone you love (introspective, gut wrenching relationship stories get me every time).
* The Mythology of Self Worth - Richard L Franklin -no comment needed
* A Seahorse Year -Stacey D'Erasmo -another 'family/relationships book.
* Queenmaker - India Edghill - a novel of King David's Queen in the tradition of 'The Red Tent' - I remember I really enjoyed The Red Tent, can't tell you what it was about but if the name has stuck in my memory it must have been exceptional, so...
* An Imperfect Marriage - Tim Waterstone - more family/relationships stuff
* A Woman's Place - Edwina Currie - not sure whether I've read this one before or another of hers that I liked. That's the good thing about library books, you don't need to be selective. If you don't like it, you've lost nothing.

4. Name five fiction books that mean a lot to you.
Since almost everyone will have stopped reading long ago, I'm not going to rave on about these. I could give you a brief, potted history beginning with The Billabong books, a children's series about outback Australia that threaded strongly through my childhood and taught me that the place I lived and the things I knew were just as valid as moles and toads and tea in the nursery featured in all those English children's books, Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' that illuminated my right-wing twenties, the books I read to my children such as 'The night before Christmas'. So many, hundreds? thousands? that have shaped and informed my life, but instead, I'm only going to tell you about one; the book that means the most to me of any.

Suburban Aliens is not a well-known book. Published by Lothian in 2003, it's billed as "a report from the front line of teenage life in the suburbs in the early years of the twenty-first century. Honest and relevant, it describes a world that young people will recognise and adults won't want to believe." It's beautifully crafted, a spare, truthful vision of teenage life through the eyes of a participant. It's a damn good book that anyone could relate to. But it has an added edge that makes it THE BOOK THAT MEANS THE MOST TO ME. It fills me with pride and gratitude. The author is my son - Nicholas Carvan.

5. Tag five more people.
Sorry, I can only think of one who might be interested; all the rest have already been tagged by someone else, don't blog, or have given up blogging (you know who you are!). I tag Mellipop

The great gamehouse fiasco

2005-07-13T10:26:00.000+09:30

I'm a bit nervous about purchasing over the internet. Being of the 'older' generation and knowing I don't understand much about how it works or how fraud might be enabled, I tend to shy away from it. But occasionally, when needs or desires dictate, I do pluck up my courage and do it - give my credit card details to some anonymous website with a little gold lock symbol and hope for the best.

The response I've received to my latest foray into cyberspace has not filled me with confidence. I thought Gamehouse was a pretty big show- I thought I'd probably be safe- I thought I'd be enjoying a game of scrabble instantly! Instead, here's the official summary of my Gamehouse experience... and I still don't have the game!

Thanks Gamehouse. Thanks Keith. Thanks bloody internet, bloody shopping, bloody credit card...

Date Opened: Jul 11, 2005
Original Description:

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

Me: I've had three tries to order scrabble at your website and each time get the
answer unable to complete order. Can you tell me why. I do have a valid
credit card. Cheers

Bug History:

====== Support Note ======Mon Jul 11 07:25:27 PDT 2005 - Keith: Assigned To Keith====== End Support Note ======
====== Support Response ======
Mon Jul 11 07:25:27 PDT 2005
Hello,

Recently we have implemented new security features on our store to help prevent credit card fraud. Unfortunately, this is stopping some valid orders from coming through. Since you have contacted us and do appear to have a valid credit card, please let me know the last 8 digits (no spaces) of your card number and your address and I can then unban your card from our store and you can then place a new order.

Keith
-GameHouse Support

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

=========Customer Comments=====================
Mon Jul 11 15:38:10 PDT 2005
number supplied
address supplied
NT
Australia ========== End Comments ==========================

====== Support Response ======
Tue Jul 12 09:09:19 PDT 2005

Hello,

Your card has been granted access to our store. Please place a new order.

--Keith--
GameHouse Customer Support

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

=========Customer Comments=====================
Tue Jul 12 17:48:54 PDT 2005
Hi Keith, Far from resolved, I'm now being 'referred to your fraud department'. Here's the response I got to placing my order - I'm not happy! "Thank you for your order. Your payment information is being verified.
Your financial institution was unable to verify your personal information.
For your protection, your order has been forwarded to our Fraud Detection Department.

Please do not attempt to place this order again.
You will not be allowed to place another order until your pending order has been resolved.

Upon verification of your payment information, an email receipt will be sent to your email address.
Your receipt will include all the information you need to download and register your games"

========== End Comments ==========================

Darwin awards

2005-07-10T09:47:00.000+09:30

I don't know why the Darwin awards always seem of particular interest to people living in Darwin -perhaps they simply associate with the name, perhaps there are so many potential winners living here that they don't know the awards are not named after the town... but they are always a good laugh. See, you are not as stupid as you feared you might be if you didn't do any of these things this year. :)

Yes, it's that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us. Here then, are the glorious winners:

1. When his 38-calibre revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked

..... And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat-cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger.

The chef's claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer... $15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinderblock through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinderblock and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinderblock bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store.

The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away. A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER!

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

In the interest of bettering human kind, please share these with your friends and family... unless of course one of these 10 individuals by chance is a distant relative or long lost friend. In that case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.

Scum of the earth

2005-07-07T22:46:00.000+09:30

She's a tall woman, almost 6ft, and once she was strong. She always worked hard and expected little. She's never owned a house; or a car. Life hasn't been generous to Eve. Now she's old. Her thick, dark hair has turned steely. She doesn't see or hear as well as she did and ten years ago, she lost a leg to a rare bone cancer.

Eve doesn't have much in the way of family, just one son -who neglects her shamefully- and his four children, growing up now. When they were small and she was strong, she looked after them all. Oh yes, she always earned her way did Eve. She cleaned for 20 years at the local hospital before she retired and after work, well she went home and cooked and ironed and cleaned for her son and his children.

She's never been an easy woman to get along with - a bit of a rebel and too outspoken for her own good most of the time - but her heart has always been in the right place.

Now she lies in bed in her sparsely furnished but spotlessly clean public housing unit and for the first time in her life, Eve is afraid.

She's known a few criminals in her time, lived through the war years and earned extra dollars taking bets for an illegal bookmaker. She married late and her husband died before too many years. She's always relied on herself; never been afraid to stand up for herself.

But last week something happened to Eve. She was asleep in her little unit when thieves broke in through the back door. Probably just as well Eve doesn't hear too well these days because she didn't hear them break the door down. She slept through them ransacking her cupboards and rifling her handbags and didn't wake when they threw her bottles of medicine on the floor and crushed the tablets she needs to keep the pain at bay.

She didn't see them when they left with what remained of the fortnightly pension cheque she'd cashed that day. She didn't know anything about it till after she struggled out of bed in the morning and swung herself clumsily into the kitchen on the crutches she uses these days.

Now her one sanctuary has been denied her. The little unit she loved. The nicest, newest place she'd ever had just doesn't feel safe anymore.

And sleep won't come as she lies awake every night listening for the sounds of someone else coming to do her over.

Inspiration

2005-07-06T23:28:00.000+09:30

Lacking inspiration for a blog post, I started turning the pages of a couple of little books I bought ages ago. I guess I bought them for just that reason, that I thought they might give me inspiration. Not so much inspiration for a blog post - I have to admit that never occurred to me- but for life, maybe to get through that particular day or that particular problem. I don't look at them much and many people I know would deride me for ever looking at them. However, sometimes, when friends fail, when truth is hard to find; well a little flick through one of these books can't hurt.

Here are a few I liked today:

From the book of Hope:

Every exit is an entrance somewhere else - Tom Stoppard

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional - Unknown

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta be willing to put up with the rain. - Dolly Parton

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on. - Robert Frost

Why is it so?

2005-07-05T23:24:00.000+09:30

I read an interesting letter to the editor in my local paper today. I can't share it verbatim, because I didn't bring the paper home, but the sentiments went something like this:

Why is it that the law treats rape victims so differently from the victims of any other crime?

Can you imagine this scenario. A man is walking down the street. He is physically attacked and has his wallet and watch stolen. The perpetrator is caught and the case goes to court. The victim is questioned by the defence lawyer.

Lawyer: Where were you when the alleged offence occurred?
Victim: Walking down the street
L: What time of day was this?
V: About 11pm
L: Had you been drinking?
V: I'd called in to the pub and had one drink after working late
L: Was the street well-lit? Were there many other people around?
V: No, it was quite dark and deserted
L: So you had chosen to walk along a dark and deserted street, affected by alcohol, in the middle of the night. What were you wearing at the time.
V: A business suit
L: So you deliberately put yourself in the position of walking alone along a deserted, dark street in the middle of the night, somewhat the worse for drink, dressed in clothes that would advertise your affluence. Don't you think this might have been unduly provocative towards a person who wanted what you so obviously had? Had you ever walked along this street before?
V: Yes, often, it is on my way home
L: So you made a habit of getting tiddly, walking the streets in the middle of the night tempting those less fortunate by your manner and dress?
L: Have you ever given money away?
V: Of course I have
L: So you put yourself in a vulnerable position, one designed to tempt a certain behaviour by my client and you are now complaining of being robbed of the very thing you have at other times given away for free.

Moral: No matter how a woman dresses or how many beers she's had, or how many times she's had sex, she should be free to walk wherever she chooses without fear of being raped.

Obvious really, isn't it, but it seems not everyone is equal before the law!

Territory Day

2005-07-01T22:10:00.000+09:30

Territory Day celebrates the declaration of the Northern Territory as a separate entity (I think) but to Territorians, what it means is crackers; fireworks, lots and lots of fireworks!

They're a mad bunch up here in the far north of Australia.

If I had sound attached to this post, you'd hear a deafening bombardment of whistles, cracks, bangs, pops and downright blasts.

But this year it's relatively quiet around my place.

The first year I lived here, the government put on the official fireworks display from the Casuarina cliffs, just across the water from me. The park opposite my unit was jam packed with people. Family groups, friends and mobs of hoons, each with their own bag of crackers. To amuse themselves while they watched the big starbursts zooming across the bay, they all let off their own fireworks. Having so many people in one place, all letting off fireworks, is a sight to behold, especially when one group decides they are being attacked by a neighbouring group, because then they start deliberately pointing the skyrockets and throwing the biggest bungers at each other.

I can only liken the level of noise and brilliance of the explosions to living in a war zone. It was funny for a while - but when the booms were still echoing off the buildings at 2am, my sense of humour just about deserted me.

The next year the government put on the big display at Mindil Beach but people still came to the park opposite my place and the noise and light show was almost as big as the first year.

Since then the crowds have gradually dwindled and tonight when I got home there appeared to be only a dozen groups in my park.

That was 7.30pm. It's now 10.30pm and still the bangs and shouts, crashes, crackles, whistles and booms are resounding around the unit. Those people sure must have spent a lot of money on fireworks.

The later it gets, the closer and louder the bangs get. I think the stalwarts decide it's even more fun to throw the crackers under the buildings or into the carparks - and these tall unit buildings echo. You can listen to the one cracker six or seven times.

Still, it's quiet here tonight; relatively speaking.

I was in Darwin at 6pm when the fun began and there are more units in taller buildings there. The noise was physically painful.

I saw the giant starbursts of the official display lingering above the palm trees while nearby children scared hundreds of bats out of their feeding grounds with lesser but louder crackers; and they rose in screeching black clouds across the reds, greens and silvers pulsing through the night.

Ah, the first fire engine; probably not the last...and for another week, the shock of a huge bunger thrown into the front garden when you least expect it!

Territory Day! The only place in Australia where people can still burn up thousands of dollars in one night of mayhem while dogs cringe in terror and small children wail with exhaustion, rocked by the rhythm of flashes and crumps and bomb blasts!

the man who has everything

2005-06-27T22:52:00.000+09:30

He'll be two soon and the imperative is there, he's my grandson, I have to (indeed want to) buy him a birthday gift.

Unfortunately, in common with most of the privileged children I know, he is already 'the man who has everything' and if he doesn't have it personally, then either of his two sisters undoubtedly does.

My kids were pretty 'spoiled' for toys too. It's kind of difficult not to 'spoil' them in our society. Even if you start out with clear convictions not to encourage them to become mindless consumers, somewhere between their grandparents, aunts and uncles, hand-me-downs from older family members and all those birthdays and Christmases, they end up with too damn many toys.

My grandson's home is so full of toys there's often not room to sit down and you know whatever you buy it's likely to be the second, third or even sixth of its kind languishing in a corner of one of the packed toy boxes. So I ask mum, I mean he's two, how many more toys can he use, and she suggests a collapsible arrangement of tent/tunnel/cube things- he likes to play hidings. Okay I think, at least it's not branded Barby or Power Ranger and it encourages creative play - I can live with that (unnecessary addition though it is to the stockpile).

In fairly short time I find something on the K-Mart website from their current catalogue - which must be where mum saw it because it answers the description exactly - tent linked to cube by a tunnel...ahha! that was easy. Of course the one store in Darwin has sold out. I try the store nearest to where they live - they've sold out as well. I attempt to find a customer service phone number -nowhere to be found on the website. I ring another store in NSW and ask if there is a central office I can ring. I finally get a 1800 number, only to be told customer service closes at 4pm and can I ring tomorrow. It's looking horribly like I'm not gonna be able to find that fantastic adventure play cubby.

In the meantime, a like-minded friend has berated me with the waste and political incorrectness of buying excess toys for children and told me about a book they had when they were kids that suggested one thousand and one things to do when you're bored.

Hmmm....perhaps if I got him the book and a blanket to throw over the table - do you think that would work in today's world?

Starting things

2005-06-25T00:25:00.000+09:30

I really hate starting things.

I hate getting up in the morning and will go to any lengths to delay. This has resulted in many instances of discord and even more instances of lateness causing inconvenience, stress and embarrassment. The nice ex-husband (the one I still talk to) will remember how, early in our relationship, we missed a plane because I wouldn't get up even one minute earlier than I deemed necessary. A former boss was almost driven to a nervous breakdown (being a stickler himself for punctuality)until he lit upon a novel solution to the problem of my tardiness - he made a decision, he told me years later, that I started at 9.05 - then I wasn't late!

Going to bed at night is another daily problem for me. That's why I'm called night-rider - I'm always riding the computer until the early hours of the morning. By 11pm I'm quite tired; by midnight I'm exhausted to the point of feeling ill; by 12.30am I'm trying to drag myself away from reading other people's blogs or playing a last game of Super Collapse. Then, by the time I have a shower and get to bed I'm not tired any more and end up tossing for an hour before I finally drift off around 2am.

I hate getting in the shower. I love the shower once I'm in there but it seems such an effort when I contemplate the mechanics involved that I delay.

I absolutely hate starting the house cleaning or the ironing... sometimes I've been known to quite enjoy doing it, once I get started, but I often have to trick myself into starting. I say to myself - I'll only vacuum today and wash the floors tomorrow or next week... then once I've started, I quite often clean the whole place. Another ploy I use to trick my mind is to talk on the telephone while I iron. It plays hell with the neck muscles but it makes the ironing go so much quicker. But hell... quite often I have trouble making myself start a telephone call.

I think about my family all the time. In the morning I think I'll ring J tonight. Tonight comes and I convince myself they wouldn't welcome the call, they are probably tired, busy etc... I'll ring them tomorrow... this has been known to go on for weeks. I think there is a bit of fear of rejection and fear of interfering in their busy lives in this that compounds the fear of picking up the phone (avoidance of starting a call) because funnily enough I have no problems initiating a phone call at work. Nope, even the most feared of phone calls - cold calling sales is not much of a problem for me...but you see to my mind, this is work and the hard thing about work is starting the effort to get ready to go there.

And I have the same attitude to coming home from work. Do I look forward to knock off time, down tools and flash out the door? Of course not... I dilly, dally around, make one more phone call, write one more email and never, ever leave on time.

Yep if I could learn to like starting things my life would run a whole lot smoother I reckon.

Snippets

2005-06-23T21:50:00.000+09:30

Mommycool is a new blogger who left me a message. Check her elegant blog. Interesting short posts set out in a well organised and crisp design, it promises lots of interest, particularly to young mums who can do with a bit of an escape hatch or some good advice.
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One after another: a moving van, a furniture delivery van and a motorhome passed my door yesterday. It seemed significant in some way.
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We had State elections here last week and the old conservative party was decimated by the young labor party - looks as though the conservatives will hold only 4 seats in the new parliament and even their leader lost his seat. An Aboriginal friend noted that we now have more indigenous people in our parliament than the conservatives have seats! An amazing turnaround when you realise that up till 4 years ago, the conservatives had held government in the Northern Territory for over 20 years without any serious challenge.

The Northern Territory has a reputation in Australia for being a 'red-neck' place but it's interesting to note that we also now have 9 women in Government and a female Chief Minister...maybe the times they are a changing.
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I thought I had lots of little snippets to share, but can't think of any more now, let me leave you with this thought for the day:

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not

Hey a new State!

2005-06-22T13:06:00.000+09:30

Thanks to Garza who signed my guestmap, I've gained a reader in a new State in the USA. I'd recently printed out a map of the US so I could get some mental picture of where my blog friend were writing from and, if I'm reading it correctly, it looks as though Garza, who worked in Australia for 2 years, is living now in Alabama.

Isn't it amazing how much of a kick you get out of seeing a new pin on your map? I love knowing I'm talking to people in the USA, a culture so like and yet so unlike my own... so thanks Garza - hope you visit more often and comment sometimes as well.

new experiences

2005-06-21T23:46:00.000+09:30

Maybe I'm coming to some sort of water-shed in my life. I seem to have come to a decision - not consciously but through some sort of osmosis- that it's time to get out of my rut - work, wine, cigarettes, sleep, tv, computer treadmill. So at the weekend I did the Wordstorm thing. Then I saw an ad in the paper for a free information seminar promoting a weekend intensive workshop coming up soon.

"The Journey. Deep inside you a huge potential beckons, waiting to set your free... Real tools. Real answers. Real healing... Real Freedom!" So I went along. Hell, what did I have to lose; it was free, right?

I'm still processing what I heard. My mind tells me this is garbage. Someone is making a lot of money out of giving hope to desperate people. My heart says:'what if it's true?'. It's a feeling akin to the urge to buy a Lotto ticket -just in case it's your lucky day.

Now I very rarely succumb to the Lotto ticket syndrome, and I can't buy the 'making the lame walk and the blind see' claims of this program, and the format and the speakers were really over the top...but- what if even part of it's true?

I talked to people who were not part of the establishment but had dabbled to a greater or lesser extent. Without exception they praised what they'd learnt - 'changed my life', 'so valuable'. In the end I compromised and bought the book. I think it will be garbage - but I should try it. Watch this space for any revelations. I don't think I'm going to go all out for the intensive weekend.

The program is called The Journey and it's promoted by an American woman called Brandon Bays (can that possibly be a real name?). If any of you have heard of it, make a comment please. If it can deliver even a smidgeon of what it promises it will bring joy to every aspect of my life, spiritual healing and forgiveness for past wrongs (done by and to),and unlock the full potential of my life...oh and incidentally heal any arthritis or tumours I happen to be harbouring!

Sounds more like a religion than a self-help program doesn't it?
Which leads me to repeat this news item heard on radio yesterday>

"The IKEA catalogue has surpassed the bible as the most read publication in the world. " I forget the numbers printed in the USA but in Australia last year 213,000 copies of The Bible were published and 4 million IKEA catalogues. Bizarre!

nt writers festival

2005-06-19T21:14:00.000+09:30

This weekend was the NT Writers' Festival "Wordstorm 2005". There were over 70 different events and workshops offered and for a town the size of Darwin, that's a pretty good effort.

Wordstorm's only in its second year but I reckon it's the most professionally-run event I've encountered in Darwin. Congratulations to the hard-working members of the NT Writers Centre who put it all together.

I dipped my toe in rather than going all out to attend every possible event of interest - I mean one does have other responsibilities on the weekend such as washing, ironing, shopping and all that other dreary but necessary stuff- but I thoroughly enjoyed it all and would certainly have liked to do more. Next year I might organise myself a bit better in advance and take Thursday and Friday off so I can fit more in.

On Friday evening, "Dismantle" visual art exhibition offered artworks by well known local artists around the theme of the short story "Who can blame us for that" - winner of the 2004 NT Literary Award. Hearing the author and friends read this story added interest to viewing the artistic interpretation. We followed this with an "Off the Page" event featuring Samuel Wagan Watson, Martin Harrison, Nick Earls, Sue Woolfe and Linda Christanty set in the tropical gardens of Mirambeena Resort and with musical interludes by Jillaine Jones. The atmosphere was great and it was pretty good value for the $15 entry fee - although I have to say,philistine that I am, that listening to a very long story based in legend in both the original Bahasa Indonesia and English translation did get a bit tedious.

A 3 hour Saturday morning workshop "Creating Characters" with Nick Earls was the highlight for me - he talks as funny as he writes!. He managed to lead even the most talentless of us into creating original and interesting characters. Gotta say there were some pretty talented people in the workshop though.

Foregoing the Saturday evening performance of three award-winning Aboriginal short films out of pure exhaustion, I managed to rouse myself to attend a free poetry-reading/open mike session at a local bookstore down by the marina this afternoon. Free wine and food, lots of talented readers and the bonus of hearing from Robert Dessaix and Dorothy Porter.

I'm just now getting to read the full program and kicking myself for all I missed... ah life in Darwin in the dry season is just so full of good things to do.

Hydration and health

2005-06-16T21:52:00.000+09:30

I've been feeling a little tired lately. A friend recommended a naturopath/herbalist to me and I decided to give her a try.

I may have told you that I have a morbid fear of the medical profession, so don't keep any kind of an eye on my health, for me that's the best way to stay healthy - just ignore any imagined ailment to see whether it goes away of its own accord and so far I've been lucky.

What I got for my money was an hour and a half of her time which included a detailed history-taking - including such things as my exposure to chemicals, use of antibiotics, allergies, what I normally ate for each meal and lots of medical, semi-medical and lifestyle questions. This was followed by an iridology assessment, a 10 minute deep breathing and meditation exercise and a neck massage. I was told what vitamins and minerals I was most probably lacking, how to modify my diet in a fairly minimal way to give me more energy, given a herbal tonic and most importantly, some information on hydration.

Now I always knew most people don't drink enough water. You hear about it all the time and most of us pretty much ignore it, but this time I was given an information sheet that astounded me. Even if half of it is medically proven, it's enough to prove to me that I should make a real effort to drink lots more water.

John Toomey is apparently one of Australia's leading health educationalists and you can read his article on hydration and health here. It may be the best 10 minutes you ever spent

Here are some highlights: You lose 1.5 litres of water a day via normal circulation -without exercising. Excess water is stored in the bowel, if there's none there, water volume in the blood drops. Your body lacks oxygen, you yawn and crave sweet foods, the pituitary gland releases a hormone called anti diuretic hormone - this causes the body to store fluid.

The pamphlet quite convincingly links the following diseases to dehydration: heartburn, arthritis, back pain, angina, migraines, colitis, asthma, high blood pressure, adult-onset diabetes, high blood cholesterol, depression, loss of libido, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy.

Apparently a 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory and difficulty focussing on the printed page or computer screen. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45% and breast cancer by 79% and halves the risk of bladder cancer.

Sending you this information in such an abbreviated form does not pack the punch of the actual article -I just wanted to sound the warning for you - I'm sure you can all do your own research but for instance, here's what it had to say about

Colitis: colitis pain is a signal of water shortgage in the large gut. It is associated with constipation because the large intestine constricts to squeeze too much water from the excrements- thus the lack of water lubrication. Not recognizing colitis pain as a sign of dehydrtion will cause persistent constipation, which can result in fecal impacting, verticulitis, hemorrhoids, polyps and increase the possibility of developing cancers of the colon and rectum.

Weight loss: some female patients lost 5 kilos in the first week by increasing their water intake.

The recommendation is to drink a litre of water per 25 kilograms of bodyweight per day -more if exercising- and to be patient: it will take up to six weeks for a chronically dehydrated body to re-hydrate and during this time you have to put up with frequent urination which will settle down once optimum hydration has been achieved. One suggestion is to try drinking 50% of the daily water requirement for the first week, then raise it by 10% per week over five weeks.

I'm convinced it's worth a try. Today I've drunk 2.7 litres (my recommended dose) and it hasn't been that difficult - more a matter of always having a glass of water near at hand.

Oh, I found a new idea for exercise too. An article in the paper said that recent research has found that 30 seconds of hard exercise (pedalling an exercise bike flat out), repeated 4 times with a 4 minute rest between each time, 3 days a week gives equal health benefits to 6 hours of moderate exercise a week. Well, I'm not sure about this one but I'm going to add it to my gentle exercise schedule and see how I feel after a few weeks.

Must be my week for new beginnings!

Gunlom Falls camping

2005-06-14T22:45:00.000+09:30

Sweet sweat

Gunlom Falls is about 3 hours drive south of Darwin, in Kakadu National Park. I spent the long weekend camping there, swimming in the natural pools.

The camping area is located at the bottom of the falls where a sheer rock face edges a large pool about 14 metres deep. At this time of year, the falls are a mere trickle and a steep half hour walk up a track around the falls leads you to a series of pools at the top of the escarpment. Here you can enjoy magnificent views over the flood plain or a walk along the sandy creek leading into the top pools.

How lucky are we to have this wonderful place almost in our backyard.

reflections in one of the top pools

2005-06-14T22:37:00.000+09:30

pool above the falls

2005-06-14T22:35:00.000+09:30

Campfire at Gunlom Falls

2005-06-14T22:33:00.000+09:30

Friends, acquaintances and bloggers

2005-06-14T21:01:00.000+09:30

It occurred to me today that blogging relationships are a lot like real life.

You put your opinions, your thoughts, your feelings, your activities and your photos 'out there' and proceed within the reaction you get. Depending on how 'out there' you are, you find readers (= acquaintances), you get 'comments' (acknowledgement that you exist, your ideas/thoughts have some value or strike a chord with that person), some acquaintances keep hanging around and make more comments (overtures towards friendship), some nod hello (make one comment) then disappear back into their own lives, some make more effort and continue to comment. You visit their blogs in return. Some of them seem nice people but you don't think you have much in common with them so you visit infrequently. Some of them seem interesting, so you visit fairly often - occasionally your interest is reciprocated and they keep visiting you. Sooner or later you end up with one or two people you enjoy reading daily, keeping up with their lives becomes part of your own and you have made a blog friend - just as you might make a 'real' friend.

But, beware, there are a few anomalies that make 'blog friends' not quite like 'real friends'.

First, they are pretty much anonymous. Oh they might use their real name. If you are clever with the internet you might even be able to track down their address or where they work - they might even tell you these things. But essentially, unless you are some kind of psychopath, you probably don't want to intrude on them if they wish to terminate the 'friendship' - so if they stop blogging, you've essentially lost a friend. This kind of loss can be almost as devastating as losing a 'real' friend.

Now I'm a bit of a trusting sucker. I got hooked on blogging and it suited me. A way to talk to people and be part of the 'real' world without having to leave the security of my own space. Didn't have to dress up. Didn't have to lay off the wine in order to drive home. Didn't have to put up with boring conversations with people that didn't interest me. No... none of that for me - I'd found blogging.

My first "blog friend" was a woman from the USA. I can't quite remember how we found each other but she was a lovely friend. She blogged every day. She even joined an online group I suggested and we shared long emails. As well as me, she began emailing another member of the group who coincidentally was a correspondent of mine. I even asked for her address and sent her a parcel in the mail.

As well as blogging every day, the thing this woman did was a kind of blog-touting. She commented every day, not just on my site but on many of the hundreds of links she quickly built up, and guess what, her friendly manner and caring commenting scored her hundreds of followers. I reckon in less than 6 months she was consistently achieving 20 comments a day on her blog.

Then she basically stopped blogging. Within a period of a month, her posts had dried to a trickle and then pretty much stopped altogether. Her life changed I know, she got a job, she got pregnant...but it amazed me, how she could go from deliberately building up a whole community of friends, to total neglect of and disinterest in them.

I was in awe at the effort and time she used to put into blogging; and terribly disappointed when she just disappeared. That's the thing with blog friends, they don't have to explain or complain, they can just disappear.

Then I found another good blog friend. We commented back and forth, we got to know each other -I thought. She didn't have a large community of acquaintances, she seemed to develop a few close blog friends. But her posts didn't just dry to a trickle - one day they just stopped and her blog disappeared completely - wiped from the memory of the www. I managed to re-find her and we started emailing each other. There was a lot of important stuff about this blog friend I never learned from her blog but we became even better friends - I thought. Then she stopped answering my emails. She never commented any more on my blog. She disappeared a second time.

Now I have another good blog friend but his posts are drying up. He doesn't write as often as he did. Maybe he's just going through a bad patch, or maybe it's something inherent in blogging. Maybe blogging is just a place for people who can't or don't want to expose themselves to friendships in the real world. Maybe it's a community of lost souls, people with real life problems they neither want to examine nor share and who simply reach out to a community where you can be anyone you want to be and make friends or acquaintances right across the world and never have to talk to anyone when you don't feel like talking or make dinner for another person, or give up your precious free time when you don't feel like it. Maybe you can't make real friends in blogland.

A different type of blogger is the one who essentially blogs for the friends they already have. There's a community of 6 or 8 friends going on here. They chat, they speak the same language, they know the same people, they have the same interests. These bloggers often have links headlines such as 'people I spy on'. I wish I was this sort of blogger. I'd love to be anonymously catching up on the thoughts and doings of people I know but unfortunately, I don't know many bloggers personally.

Mind you knowing that people you know in the 'real world' are reading your blog is quite inhibiting as well. You have to be careful that your words don't offend them. Sometimes they can even be put out by the relationship you have with other bloggers.

It's a whole new community and the rules seem to be pretty fluid - no etiquette books here - but for all its limitations, I'll still take the intimacy of blogging and the sheer selfish pleasure of it over making 'real' friends most of the time.

Guess by my reasoning here that must make me a selfish social misfit.

Oh well; I just wanted to explore these thoughts and you dear blog acquaintance/friend are the perfect person to spill them to.

Nightcliff Foreshore

2005-06-08T21:20:00.000+09:30

The three photos below were taken on a sunset stroll along the foreshore where I live. Life in the slow lane, as my blog promises. It's almost like a religion here, you hardly see anybody in the heat of the day, then, when sunset beckons, hundreds of people wander along the foreshore to say goodbye to the sun. Groups of family and friends gather with their picnic chairs and anything from elaborate home-cooked meals to a couple of beers and a paper-wrapped package of hot chips. Lovers take a cooling dip laced with the excitement of a possible crocodile sighting or an encounter with the deadly sting of a box jellyfish. Some just sit alone and contemplate life as the sun sinks into the Timor Sea.

Random thoughts: I am truly over Chardonnay. The last couple of bottles I've had, despite going for the specials on the better quality such as Andrew Garrett with a $5 discount down to around $10 have just tasted horrible -bitter and dead. Has everyone else switched to Semillon Sauvignon Blanc too?

Gourmet tip: The most delicious nibbles in the world. South Cape Cheese Twists - Parmesan and Garlic. They're thick and crunchy and unbelievably tasty. They are displayed near the deli in Woolworths stores. Only they're a bit pricey, $4 a packet and you only get 12 or 13 in a packet. Mmmmm! I mightn't be buying them often because I've already polished off 7 tonight... er make that 8!...9... warning -there's 1730 kj in a pack...goodnight!

wandering along the foreshore in the sunset

2005-06-08T21:18:00.000+09:30

Games people play

2005-06-07T22:58:00.000+09:30

Found this fun little game tonight. Try to work out what Google keyword would return these images at Guess the Google . Thanks to the New York girl for the link.

Actually, I don't know how I could stand to play this game tonight because I've had it up to here with images today. We have ordered some new display panels at work and I've been working with another staff member on the graphics and text. Trouble is, she's 3,000 kilometres away and we are trying to do it via email which entails this kind of exchange:

Colleague, chained to a workstation somewhere in the bowels of an anonymous government building in chilly Canberra: Here are PDF files of the revised display panels. These should only require some tweaking of the captions now to finalise.

Me, Drowning under a mountain of cardboard boxes filled with promotional merchandise in a demountable building on a farm in tropical Darwin: Delete the picture of Tony from panel 1A, fill that place with the picture of the mosquito from second row right on panel 2B, John pic - third row 2A -has to be moved onto 1B because it doesn't fit with the text in the header. Captions: change the caption under Angus - bottom row 2C to......, delete the word vet from caption under right hand pic, row 2, panel 2B(there is no vet in the picture) etc... 2 hours I spent on checking one set of displays today because of trying to communicate complicated instructions via email that could have been done in 15 minutes with a bit of paper shuffling and a pair of scissors. Tempers are becoming frayed, friends are being lost!

I took some nice dry season sunset photos on my walk the other day and might post some tomorrow, it's too late now and I'm heading towards bed.

Bloglines

2005-06-04T19:32:00.000+09:30

My more thoughful readers will enjoy following this link to something that explains in graphic detail why some of the reactions of Australians to the SC fiasco are such embarrassing nonsense. I found it via Mellipop's link to Blondie etc... ain't the internet a wonderful place for just driftin' around? And if you're interested in another thoughtful view on SC why not pop in here.

I've been socializing and enjoying the delights the small town of Darwin has to offer in the dry season. I say small town because, even thought it's allegedly one of Australia's capital cities, it's small enough that you never go out without meeting someone you know... and it even has erudite residents such as our most famous blogger.

Last Friday evening I went to see three short plays put on by the local theatre company in a gorgeous little historic stone building called Brown's Mart (presumably one of the early markets in this town was held there). It is all very low-key and 'alternative'. The plays were excellent; all built around the linking theme of 'caravan'. One was from the perspective of a 12 year old girl who goes for a beachside holiday in a caravan with her parents. It examined the family dynamics and sexual undertones of the parents and the girl. The second was very dark, about an older couple travelling around Australia in a caravan and his gradual decline in Alzheimers - too close for comfort this one, I could identify with far too many of his symptoms! The third examined the relationships and expectations of people who run stalls at our local markets and posed the question: are people looking to find something or running away from something at these places built on illusion. We had dinner beforehand on the Darwin wharf - sensational fresh barramundi, calamari and prawns - overlooking a harbour that looked like the skin of a blue pearl in the dusk. A million dollar meal for a total of $14 each including the beer- and for US readers, our dollar is only worth about 70 cents US.

Saturday night was another spectacular tropical night under the stars watching the Darwin Symphony Orchestra perform in the Botanic Gardens. A highlight was the appearance of two principal dancers from The Australian Ballet who performed the pas de deux from The Nutcracker. Everyone was there from Ted Eagan, The Administrator (=Governor) and Clare Martin, Chief Minister (=Premier) to thousands of family groups just lolling around on their deck chairs enjoying a picnic and a few drinks.

Last night I went to a charity fund-raiser, fashion parade - once more outdoors- at the Darwin Sailing Club. For $25 entry fee and the cost of a few raffle tickets (with great prizes including an $1800 black pearl necklace and a basket of Clarins beauty products), you got substantial 'nibblies' passed around throughout the evening and as much wine, beer or other mixers as you could drink. Excellent value, and spent the evening chatting to a very amusing and down to earth woman who turned out to be the donor of the black pearl (which I unfortunately did not win). We both became a lot more amusing as the evening wore on and the drinks went down. The fashion parade was quite good too!

And if you don't want to know about SC, or about the social life of Darwin, you could visit Adam for some pretty pure relaxation in one of the most beautiful places in Australia; Broome.

don't speak that name!

2005-06-02T22:55:00.000+09:30

Schapelle Corby - there, I've said it, and that's all I have to say. Never in the history of modern media has such a shameful and cynical display of rampant capitalism and egocentric posturings led to such mass hysteria. It's all been said...and said...and said, so all I have to say is that I heard a media monitoring report on Monday that said that 'that name' had been spoken or written about in Australia 80,000 times since this whole thing started and that was just the mass, monitored media.

Do the dolts who sent the parcel of 'biological material' to the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra not realise they have become terrorists?

sudoku

2005-06-01T23:01:00.000+09:30

OK, so I'm hooked on that game craze that's sweeping the world. They've been printing it in our daily paper and despite initial reservations, they are after all numbers in the squares and I am generally allergic to anything pertaining to numbers, I had a go. It's great. Reminds me of a game we used to play where someone would put 4 coloured pegs behind a visual barrier and the opponent had to guess what they were by trial and error with the first player giving clues by placing black and white pegs in the scoring section - white meant right colour in the wrong space and black meant right colour in the right space - I think it might have been called Mastermind. Anyway, Sudoku is a game of logic, not numbers. If you don't know it, you can see a demo and download a free 28 day trial version .

Also just finished reading a good book. It's only 243 pages so doesn't require a great commitment. Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller. It's about a female schoolteacher who has an affair with a male student and as if the subject matter wasn't kinda creepy enough, the narrator is an older female teacher who befriends the young one and the book turns out to be as much about her and her perceptions and feelings as it does the younger one - and she's REALLY creepy! Tell me what you think if you give it a go. It's quite addictive too in its way. You end up so repulsed by the narrator that you feel sorry for the perpetrator.

That's about it. Is anyone still reading this blog?