Rene's having a snooze. I'm listening to Radio Decibel, Eindhove
n, on my computer (93.2 FM). [Late edit - after three hours of listening, I just love Radio Decibel!]. Nobody's been in the pool today, but I may just have a swim before we go out to the Alexander Headlands Surf Club tonight for dinner and a few drinks. The pool is heated, so no matter what the air temperature, the pool is very nice and refreshing without being cold.
We had to meet the builder, electrician and plumber on site yesterday morning at 7:30am, so it meant a 6am departure, and we only just made it in time. There are a few last minute changes to what was decided last November, but essentially everything is goi
ng to order. The air conditioning ducting goes in next week. Walls and ceilings the following week. The house is looking fantastic - I'm getting seriously excited about it. Rene meets with the security people on Thursday to confirm where sensors, circuitry etc goes.We took our Dutch neighbour on the trip to Brisbane yesterday. Gina enjoyed the day out, although she woke at 4am for the 6am departure to ensure she was not going to miss the time, plus she said it takes ages to make a 74yo look OK to be seen outside the home at that hour. She sure scrubs up well. We visited our friends in a neighbouring suburb for morning tea, had a City Cat trip from New Farm Park to South Bank for lunch at a Lebanese restaurant, then back to the Sunshine Coast thro
ugh heavy Friday afternoon traffic PLUS rain. Not a nice trip home, but a delightful day all the same. I love showing off Brisbane. I was listening to Capital Radio from London earlier today, now Eindhoven, and I really miss the Europe of care free travelling, but for everyday real living, give me Brisbane any day.Rene's ear is slowly (very slowly) getting better, but this week on his third visit to the doctor he found out he had a small hole in his ear drum. It is getting better and will heal in time, but it has taken SO very long.
Snow in
Holland, England and northern Europe didn't make any headlines here, other than the 60 car pile up in Austria. A Dutch friend emailed me Wednesday saying they had the second longest traffic jams (fils) in history on Tuesday - 880 km. Rene's sister sent beautiful pictures of her garden covered in a very healthy blanket of snow. At least it was something else to talk about other than the controversial Dutch film about the Koran that has totally dominated Dutch news for weeks now. It was released on the net today in the hope of stunting negative reaction. Time will tell. [Edit - film deleted from site as at 5:28pm AEST]
British Airways (BA) and the British Airports Authority (BAA) have launched their much lauded A$9.4 billion Terminal 5 at Heathrow as a p
remier example of how not to do a grand opening. Today, here in Australia, there are still reports on its third day of operation of 20% cancellation of flights by BA. 'Terminal' would best describe the last couple of days. To be fair, every new airport opening has its issues, but on the German radio news in the car coming back from the beach, it stated that many terminal employees felt under trained and ill prepared for the launch. I think Denver airport was the last great baggage handling/opening disaster, but really - did it have to be that tragic for passengers and staff alike? 5b euros of egg on the face is alot for BA and BAA to wipe off. There's always Manchester and Amsterdam for European entry points. 'ABH' is often quoted at travel agents - 'anything but Heathrow'.
[Balloon promoting Earth Hour above Brisbane] Speakin
g of airlines, Virgin Blue, the incredibly successful Brisbane-based airline launched in Australia by Sir Richard Branson, hosts a charity ball tonight attend by Sir Dick himself. We are all being asked to turn off our lights for 60 minutes between 8-9 tonight: (from the Brisbane Times 29/3) Earth Hour will be celebrated with a mammoth candle-lit feast at Virgin Blue's inaugural Charity Hangar Ball. From 8pm, hosts Sir Richard Branson, Premier Anna Bligh and Virgin Blue co-founder and CEO Brett Godfrey will join millions of people in some of the world's major capital cities, including Copenhagen, Toronto, Chicago, Melbourne, Sydney and Tel Aviv, in switching off the lights to help save the planet.
More than 3500 guests, staff, musicians, dancers and performers, including Marcia Hines and her band, Evermore, Maske and Rogue Traders will take part in what m
ay be Australia's largest candlelight dinner.
Guests at the Hangar Ball will also have the chance to bid on incredible items and "money can't usually buy" experiences, including a week's stay at Sir Richard Branson's private game park in Africa.
The beneficiary charities of the event, which will be revealed on the night, were nominated by Virgin Blue staff around the theme "Indigenous Peoples, Natural Environment".
Tibet haunts the Chinese as they prepare for the launch of the Beijing Olympics. The Air China torch carrying plane looked very smart this week in Beijing.
I personally think it's far too late to boycott the event. Why should athletes be penalised when corporate bosses are not asked to withdraw from trade with China? I realise it's easy to attack a soft target and heap criticism on the sporting movement for participating, but this should have been decided 10 years ago.
The Democrat Primaries continue with this and that revealed about the character of both aspirants. I'm currently reading Gore Vidal's "Point to Point Navigation" and I was alerted to a blog with this quote from Mr Vidal: "We have one party: we have the party of essentially corporate America. It has two right wings, one called Democratic, one called Republican." I said outloud in this very bedroom I currently use as an office "my bloody oath!" - which is Australian speak for 'never a truer word'.
Enough for now. Many thanks to all who have communicated with me regarding the blog and life in general. I notice that the counter is heading towards 2000 hits - not bad since the first 1000 took 11 months from January to November last year.
No comments:
Post a Comment